Vegetable Garden

Who's got one ? what are you growing ? and how's it coming along? Mine consists of sweet corn , cabbage , brussel sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli ,cucumbers, zucchini, peas, tomatoes , peppers , acorn squash, pumpkins, and assorted spices. The cold wet weather hasn't been very conducive to good growth so far for me. But with warmer weather in the forecast things should turn out. I hope those of you growing fair better.

From the 1 foot little engine it could.

Has anyone else seen quite a few bumblebees around?    They sure are plentiful around my plants.    I’d estimate seeing around 6-8 / hr in early AM and late evening.  No wasps/ hornets to speak of either     Not many hummingbirds either.

Tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, pepper varieties and potatoes are great.  I already picked and replanted radishes.  Garden sweet corn, 1st green bean round, 1st pea round and sweet corn, not so much.

I was motivated this a.m. and planted 100 pumpkin mounds with numerous varieties, 6 acorn squash mounds and four, sixty foot rows of sweet corn on our field edge. Hoping there is enough time for today's pumpkins and sweet corn.

Been quiet on here for over 24 hours!  Well, I got all of my flowers planted Monday evening surrounding the perimeter of one of my gardens, just like I do every year to make it look prettier and hopefully attract a few bees.  Just about everything is growing now.  Eggplant hasn't taken off yet but I'm sure it will.  All of the garlic scapes have been cut off.  Short Day onions are bulbing nicely but the long day ones aren't yet...that's ok with me.  Planted a few more carrots because they did not germinate well this spring except for in the one grow bag I planted them.  I think the wild cilantro took over too much of where I planted the carrots.  Hopefully I get a few more from what I planted over the weekend and if not, oh well, there's always next year!  Pictures coming soon, once I can remember to have my phone with me when I'm outside looking at my gardens!

Wild onions going wild

Really bad start of the year with all the heavy rains that we have gotten. One week on for vacation in May for a week and the individual in charge of taking care of things watered one time really set us back a lot. We lost a lot of seeds in pods so I had to start over. 80% of the carrot crop either got eaten by bugs or snapped off by heavy rains even with the screens in place. Some of them were watered incorrectly and didn’t make it. We are a little behind but the back ups are coming along OK. Damaged onion plants lotta broken blades reduces the side of the onion , which is OK we need more medium size onions for storage anyway. But too much rain has hurt them quite a bit as well. They did not like it. We lost three cucumber plants for reasons undetermined. I don’t think they liked all the rain either they have good drainage. They just did not like it.  Actually had a hot pepper sport pepper plant died. I have never seen this happen before. I have a back up to replace it but a lot of weird things going on this year. These 50° nights are not helping either. I’ll be off for a couple weeks we’ll see if we come back in June and July. I’ll keep everybody updated. 

So for onions, it would be best in the spring if you PM me or shoot me a text. You can tell me what your plans are what you’re hoping to get. Send me a couple of pics of what you’re planning on and we can go over some details if you would like. Every scenario is different. Always willing to help out a fellow gardener if they wanna listen. 

The little engine that could.

First bounty of the season...

Came back from up north to find a ripe tomato.  

She's an overachiever, the other tomato plants are no where near ready - was quite surprised to find a ripe tomato.

Going to slice it up (along with some fresh oregano) and put it on a pizza we brought home from Vinchis in Sayner.

Pulling some baby pearls and some Romain lettuce today.

Thanks for your suggestions BMR! Looks like a lot of stuff I have to do. I'll give it a shot next year see what happens

I have an entire row of onions that died off quickly last year.  So quick I totally forgota bout them!  This year they grew back and all are going to see.  Those will be the first onions I use this season, and I"ll collect the seeds to start some new seedlings next year.

My onions are looking really good this year, even the short length ones I bought before I knew the difference.  I highly doubt I'll beat BMR for size, but I'm sure going to try!

Finally done planting my gardens! 37 pepper plants, 16 tomato plants, two rows of beans, 1 row of lettuce, 4 egg plants, 2 zuchinni rows, 2 cucumber rows, some carrots, 3 rows of onions, and some cilantro. Will post pictures soon! Two new garden areas this year.  Looking forward to a good year!

If you leave the onions in over winter, they won’t really get any bigger next year. They may a little bit, but they are going to go to seed and they’ll be a lot spicier tasting.

You also need correct soil and pH level. I use a few secret ingredients to kind of make it like a Sandy Lom like they have in Texas. Onions, love that for sucking up nutrients. It is very hard to grow them like I do on a flat surface, if you’re having troubles, I suggest making a 4 to 6 inch hill and put your onions  in this hill. Half of the onions will be exposed at all times. That is the bulb you can place your fertilizer inside that hill. The roots will stretch to get it. A lot of my knowledge comes from we did onion sets  And sold them all over the country, hundreds  and thousands of onion sets but those are no good for really making big bulb onions. You need a first year plant. And if you really want the biggest ones start from seed, make sure you give them all the fertilizer they need early.  Where you buy your onions, I would not buy them from Jungs that is for sure. You want to start out with a very nice plant before it was put into hibernation that had all the nutrients that it needs and is very strong.