share your garden this year!

[tabitha]

i'll admit i am excited for our first year in our new garden. last year we shared a garden with family- a fine thing, but you know, i am just excited this year! so i thought i would make a thread all about sharing your this-year plans in the garden.

what sort of gardening are you doing (flower, market, home use, veggies, fodder for livestock)
what are you planting and why?
where are you ordering from?
any really exciting ideas you are incorporating?

just a thread where you can go on and on about your passion!

i'll reply later with mine, i dont have the time right now- two small babies and one husband call...

tabitha

[mrschiefmac]

What a great idea Tabitha!

This is my 3rd year gardening. I am excited because I have learned so much over the last 2 years about why things weren't working. I feel like I have a fighting chance to grow something we can actually eat. I already ordered and received my seeds. I live in so. California so I will begin the seeds by the end of this month and all thru February.

I am trying 7 different heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, Tom Thumb Peas, Charantais Melon, Blue Jade corn, Everygreen Corn, Ground cherries, Blackberries, Strawberries, Romanesco, Agate Soybeans, Tequila Sunrise Peppers, Blacktail Watermelon and golden beets. I am especially excited about my first attempt at potatoes. I am trying to hunt down tires to grow them in. I think it's warm enough now to get started but I am having trouble finding seed potatoes this early.

This is really good idea because someone may post something that another person has experience with or you may hear of something new that you may want to try. I'll be checking this thread often for ideas :rolleyes:

[Lamb Abbey Orchards]

I've got kind of a motley collection of things going into the vegetable garden this coming year. I'm not planting many of the basics that I normally do (tomatoes, peppers, lettuce) but have decided instead to experiment with potatoes, sweet corn, and a number of heirlooms. The melons, watermelons & pumpkins will all be from seeds I just got from Baker Creek. I've got a 100' x 160' plot set aside that will contain the following varieties:

Onions: Rossa di Milano
Potatoes: Caribe, Carola, Red Cloud & La Ratte
Melons: Ananas d'Amerique a Chair Verte, Old Time Tennessee &
Petit Gris de Rennes
Watermelons: Ali Baba & Orangeglo
Pumpkins: Winter Luxury Pie
Sweet Corn: Sugar Buns Hybrid (SE) & Sugar Pearl Hybrid (SE)

An addition, I'm putting in large beds of both Statice (Turbo Hybrids series) and Wild Strawberries (Mara Des Bois)

That should be enough to keep me (and the deer and raccoons) busy.

John

[tabitha]

ok perhaps i have a moment to share.

we have a small garden- hoping with careful planning we can grow everything we need for the year.

most of our seed is from Baker Creek, but i also made a small order from Johnny's. (johnnyseeds.com) - many flowers and herbs to numerous to list.

i, too, am growing the Winter Luxury pumpkin this year. also the Chilean Seeded watermelon, the Charentais, that Amish cantaloupe too. basic summer squash varieties, country gentleman sweet corn, missouri wonder pole beans. oxheart carrots. the things we are growing most of are beets (detroit dark red & bulls blood) and red onions. these are a huge staple for us.

i am excited about the Tongue of Fire beans i am growing, the All-red potatoes i loved so much when we got them from our CSA in california. the shiso for sushi and salad, and tatsoi. we're trying our hand at bulb fennel and celery root for the first time this year.

and the tomatoes! we hope to find success growing from seed- if not we'll have to buy some at the spring festival. the Debarao, German Striped and Brandywine. (from johnny's).

this spring we're making an asparagus bed from crowns. (jersey king, johnny's) it will be a big deal, and a big treat each spring.

as you can see we have a lot on our plate. our jersey heifer is calving in march or so, we're building a strawbale barn for the milking shed. also raising about 25 meat chickens this spring.

i have a geeky little garden layout going. it isnt much, but it is fun. the one you see here was the first draft, i havent uploaded since. more later! i love hearing about everyone's plans.

http://www.omelay.com/gardengrid2by2.gif

[kabuti]

Hi We're in CA. this fall preparing a little over 3,000sf plot for a small veggie stand garden. I want to see if I can do it. I know quite a few people who will buy from me. I began double-digging the beds in late fall & got about 6- 20x3ft beds constructed then realized it will be too much work to do the 20-30 beds this way, I'd be dead before planing time & only half done anyhow. Its o.k. to make 1 or 2 beds that way but I need to loosen the soil as it is packed hard about 6-8 inch down. Now I'm am smart & remove the topsoil to the side then break up the hard layer w fork. Next I till in 1-2 wheelbarrows of compost (in subsoil) then return topsoil & shape. I can do about 1 bed in 3-4 hrs now instead of a week or more the 'hand tool' nut-case way. The plants dont know any difference. The most recent digging has been very difficult, topsoil is deeper here but under is rock-hard, NO forking thru it. As we recently purchased a motorized post-hole digger I used it in the hardpan & hit rocks, chunks of blacktop & concrete, also churned up a 3ft long piece of 3/4 in. rebar. This had all been dumped here appearently when a bridge was built adjoining the property. The post-hole digger worked well but I hope that was the only patch of 'bad dirt'. I don't know how the nice layer of topsoil formed in this area? I have been growing veggies there & have applied compost in the past. Cheers!

[redbrick]

So ya want to know our new plans, huh? Well, here goes:

I finally broke down and got the supplies to make a hoophouse style cover for my strawberry bed, so the catbirds will just have to share with me! I'm also putting in another bed of berries, I think maybe Sparkle but I'm not sure yet.

I'm also setting up a small knock-together cold frame "greenhouse" from salvaged window sash. It'll be about 30" by 60" and about 25" tall, just right to give eggplants a boost. The only thing I need for it besides the sash themselves are the "rafters", which I made at work out of scrap steel. It'll look just like a miniature greenhouse if you can picture that. The really nice thing is it SHOULD be completely free standing, collapsible, and somewhat portable.

Now, new veggies. I want to try Chinese yardlong beans, Piel de Sapo melons, Bull's Blood beets, Mortgage Lifter tomatoes.... I'm also eager to try Poorman gooseberries for the first time ever...if the bush bears. I'm also in the second year of training a two pear espalier on the side of my one outbuilding. Hmm, would that be a pair of pears, or just two pear?

Finally, I'm hoping to complete the garden's bed framing at last. I have one 38 foot stretch of bed wood to install and I'm done. Gee, and it only took me 4 years! Can you say "procrastinate"?

My seed suppliers of choice are Baker Creek and Rohrer's (they're local).

[BlackbearryGardens]

This will be my first year planting an heirloom garden. I had such success with last years heirloom varieties in my garden that I decided to try much more. I'm really excited to try the "Three Sisters" this year and was pleased to see that I'm not the only one giving it a whirl this year. I'm planting half in raised beds and the other half in newly tilled ground. Growing family - growing garden area:) All these heirlooms will be new to me except the purple beauty. Last year I planted Amish paste and it did real well. I just personally don't care for paste tomatoes. I also planted Mississippi Silver cowpeas - they do great but wanted to try something new in that department as I've been planting these for the last 5 years.

Peppers - Purple Beauty (planted last year), Quadrato d'asti rosso and giallo, purple jalapeno
Tomatoes - Mortgage lifter, Tappy's heritage, reisentraube, Dr. Wyche's yellow, german red strawberry, cherokee purple, green zebra
Corn - hopi blue and painted mountain
Winter squash - acorn, delicata, spaghetti
Pumpkins - Winter Luxury and Youngs Beauty
Lettuce - rocky top, little gem, petite rouge
Red zipper cowpea
Green beans - Blue lake bush (best production in my experience) and Kentucky Wonder pole
Watermelon - Moon and Stars (red) and Orange glo
Beets - Bulls blood and chioggia
Carrots - Little finger and atomic red
Spanish black radish & purple plum
Japanese long cucumber

We plan to market any extra that our family doesn't need.

I ordered everything from Baker Creek except for my green beans.

[lucky1]

:eek: WoW!
You guys grow all sorts of veggies. I'm still limited to containers until I can save enough money to buy a house in the country. I just got into Heirloom and Open Polinated tomatoes last year and plan on growing several new varieties this year. I have selected the "best of the best" regarding taste, and yeild.

I will be using the plastic 55 gaoln drums cut in half. These make great tomato pots if you drill plenty of drainage holes in the bottom. I mix my own growing medium by combining peatmoss, vermiculite, compost, epsom salts, bone meal, perlite, and lots of dry cow manure. I also plan on adding worms to the mix this year as a test. (I know worm castings are a good soil additive, so why not the whole worm :rolleyes: )

Any way, here is my list o' maters:


Brandywine (Sudduth strain)
Neves Azorian Red
Earl's Faux
Germaid Red
Lucky Cross
Cherokee Purple
Faux Box Car Willie
Cousrtalee
Polish C
Pink Climber
Aunt Gertie's Gold
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Kellog's Breakfast
Delicious
Kosovo
Wes
Silvery Fir Tree
Kimberly
Black Cherry
Rose Quartz Multifloral
Paquebot Roma
Knuckle Head
&
Stick (A very unique variety, which grows like bamboo with ruffled rosset foliage)

[Sherry Berry]

Well, here at our house our concern is quantity. We have six kids and my husband's sister's family of four living with us, so that makes 12 people living on one paycheck. So if we all want to eat, that means I have to grow food for us. We were okay before my inlaws moved in, but we soon found that the four of them eat more than double what the eight of us eat. Honestly it's unreal. We went from spending $100 per week at the grocery store to $1200 per month or more, charging on the credit card, to support them. They are all grossly obese, sorry to say, they sleep all day, they do not work, and I'm about at my wits end, really. So to adjust to the discrepency of how much we eat vs. how they eat, we no longer buy meat, premade baked goods, boxed meals, ready to go frozen dinners etc... I bake all the bread, often using 16 cups or more of flour per day, and everything is made from scratch. I even found a grain mill so hopefully I'll be able to make my own cornmeal this coming fall. The inlaws say they have a buyer for their house now so hopefully soon they will support themselves, we can stop paying their bills and they can repay us. Phew, that'll be a relief, but I'm not crossing my fingers just yet...

I bought the medium homesteader package and I just ordered more squash and melon seeds. We can easily use two winter squash in a meal. For example, today I stuffed an acorn squash and a butternut with sage stuffing. They were very good. I figure the more I grow the better and I do not realistically have to worry about anything going to waste. I also like to grow ingrediants for making chile; peppers, tomato, zuccinni, herbs, beans, onion, garlic etc. I usually make a large stock pot of chile with about eight cups of beans, and then I put the chile in loaf pans, freeze it and then pot it out of the tins and vacum seal it.

I have a very large vegetable plot, all in raised beds, with a sprinkler system. Each raised bed is 4' wide and I have 4' between rows to allow for the wheelbarrow. The garden is about 48' x 48' and we live on a 40 acre parcel, so I can expand if needed. My biggest woes are wind, hail, frost, rabbits and antelope. This year my biggest project is to get enough wind fencing up to protect the garden, because I often lose transplants, not from cold but the shock of the wind, which is often 60 mph. It's still very cold here, but I'm already working hard, putting up trelises for cukes, beans, peas or whatever needs support.

Sherry in WY

[tashak]

Sherry, what is wind fencing? What is it made of, look like, cost, where to get it? How long does it last?

Hope some of the nonproducing live-ins are helping you enlarge your garden plots!

[trudyjean]

My plans:

Finish cutting and putting together and install the rubber lumber around my raised beds. Total of 14 beds of various sizes. Adding compost of course. In no particular order yet heres the list of things I plan on planting.

Peas/Beans-Cream 40 Peas, Blue Lake beans, Kentucky Wonder Pole beans, Yard Long Beans, Burgandy Peas-new this year, Butterbeans

Melons-Banana Melon, Moon & Stars, Rattlesnake, Santa Clause, Unk. white flesh, Unk yellow flesh, Atlantic Giant Pumpkin

Cukes-Amenian Cukes, Straight 8, Long White, Lemon Cukes, Giant Marrow

Okra-Cowhorn, Burgandy, Climbing

Squash-Yellow Crookneck, Fordhook Zuchinni

Collards-Georgia

Peppers-California Chilli, Jalapeno, Thai Dragon, Chile de Arbol, Habenro, Serrano, Marconi, Peter, Bell, Hot Banana

Tomatoes- Earls Faux, Polish, Picandy, Black Krim, Black from Tula, Red and Yellow Brandywine, Jubilee, Sausage, Yellow and Red Pear, Black Cherry, Tiny Tim, Sungold, Polish Linquisa, Big Rainbow, Mariannes Peace, Hawaiian Pineapple, German Johnson, Bulls Heart, Green Zebra, Amillia, Great White, Black Prince, Snowball

Eggplant-Chinese

Radish-French Breakfast

Potatoes-Red, and hopefully Purple

I think thats it, other than a few herbs. Trudyjean

[Pharmerphil]

sounds like a good organized plan Trudyjean!

[trudyjean]

Thanks, just hope it work out in the ground like I have it worked out in my head. Trudyjean

[Sherry Berry]

Wind Fencing is usually that ugly orange or green plastic mesh that you sometimes see around construction sites. It slows down the wind, but still lets some air through. A lot of my friends put it around newly planted trees in a sort of V shape to encourage the snow to swirl around it, pile up and insulate their trees during the cold of winter (they usually use heavy mulch too). Actually someone gave us about a 50' roll of used chain link, so we're going to put up a row of that along the side of the garden most hit by the wind, and we're going to put plastic or wood slats between the wire. This will serve as a more permanent wind barrier than the ugly orange that is so popular in our area. In our climate you have to use every trick you can think of to outsmart the environment, which can be really nasty. I also put in a Rosa rugosa hedge along the front side of the garden, but it's only a couple of years old and still very sparse. Eventually that too will prevent the garden from being hit so hard. I've seen plants stripped of leaves in this wind. It can be really upsetting. Hopefully I can create a successful microclimate this year.

Sherry

[aunthoney]

Hi Sherry - I just read your post where you mentioned having your in-laws living with you. You said you stuffed an acorn squash and a butternut with sage stuffing. That sounds delicious - do you mind giving me your recipe? I'd love to make it for my family. Thanks - Helen

[Laughingpanther]

I have limited space for a garden. This year I will plant herbs, Broccoli Raab, Straightneck Squash, Callellero Onion, Chrantais Cantaloupe, Thai Yellow egg eggplant, Alabama Red Okra, several varieties of tomatoes, I plan to grow my own mushrooims and maybe plant some seedless grapes. If I get at least access to more garden space, I'll plant more things, but at this point, I'm not sure.

[scakya]

Hi Sherry Berry,
Know what you're talking about with the wind, rabbits and antelope. I'm like you and using wind breaks everywhere I can. My garden is 1/2 +acre this year, not counting the many raised beds next to my dogs where I grow the "warm" crops in creative enclosures. The orchard I'm planting will be accompanied by fence such as you spoke about as will another between the garden and orchard until the siberain pea shrubs get going. Many, many windbreaks and edible forest, all to break the wind. Do have to fence out the wildlife as they will do a number on the young trees and garden. Rabbits love young apple trees and will happily gird them if they are unprotected.
My list is rather too big to put here, as we will also be planting in our greenhouses. We sell to our local farmer's markets and keeping diverse and year round supply of fresh produce is a must as far as I am concerned.
Will be buying from Baker Creek, Harvest Moon, Amishseeds, Johnnys, Nichols, and another 1/2 dozen or so for the year of growing.
Lots of work and we are starting to plant this week, and look foward to an interesting year of growing due to weather. We also have heavy wind with hail, rain heavy enough to strip leaves(if wind and hail haven't done it) and drought-all challenges to any gardener.
scakya
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earthwalkerfarm

[tashak]

Sherry and Scakya, thanks for the information about wind. Will keep my eyes out for ugly orange in case any turns up at garage sale or thriftstore.
I've been moving more and more toward basin planting with very low stone border walls.
How do the rosa rugosa do in the wind? The three little ones I have barely have grown a foot taller in the last three years--probably I shouldn't complain, at least they are still alive!
How tall do those Siberian peas get? Are they nitrogen fixers? If you plant one, do babies pop up everywhere if pods aren't totally picked up?
Rabbits (resident family for years in neighbor's shed) here love anything better than the sagebrush across from me....
You two make me grateful that my climate is mild--or maybe I'm just getting used to it and accepting wind, drought, flood, winter and spring prolonged freezes, etc. as normal yearly events!Knock wood, so far we've escaped major damaging hail this year.

[Lamb Abbey Orchards]

Tashak:

I live in on island about 16 miles off the Maine coast that's literally covered with Rosa rugosa. I've got a 60 foot long hedge of the plants running along the full length of the front of my house as a privacy fence. These are some of the most resilient plants I have ever seen. High winds, rain, ice, snow, sleet . . . nothing seems to bother them. I cut them back to about eight inches tall every couple of years and within a few months, they're three feet tall again and covered with blooms. I'm looking out my front window right now and there are hundreds of red rose hips still clinging to these plants as the snow's coming down.

Bottomline, don't worry about your Rosa rugosa.

John

[zebraman]

I have been gardening for over twenty years.My Undergraduate Degree is in Ethnobotony;I have only used the Biodynamic/French Intensive methods and won't be doing anything else.I have never had any aphids on any of my plants and everything else in my neighborhood has aphids.If something works, Why fix it?This is not my entire list of scources that I am ordering from this year,but Baker Creek,SSE,Amishland Seeds,Heirloom Acres,Harvest Moon,Redwood City,East Coast Native Seed Exchange,Native Seed /Search,Seeds of Change,Tomatofest,Tomatobob,Chuck Wyatts,Heirloom Tomatoes,Seedman.com,Seeds for the South,Seeds of Italy,Diggers-Australia,Kokopeilli-France,Sand Hill Preserv.and also a lot of small,esoteric seed houses that only carry one or two types that I cant find anywhere else.I am also ordering from beanbag.net which also carries an extensive collection of Dry Beans.There are alot more places that I have ordered from in the past but this is what I am concentrating on this year.The Tomatoes that I am growing are-Russian rose-Riesentraube-Federly-Black from Tula-Striped Cavern-Dutchman-Big Rainbow-Pink accordion-Purple Calabash-Red Calabash-Chianti Rose-Ugly-Aussie-Richardson-Coustralee-Tidwell German-Zogola-Green Bell Pepper-Henderson's Winsall-Goliath-Costaluto Genovese-Principe Bourgese-Brandywine(Red)Rg.Leaf-Stump of the World which I will be growing at the front of the house because it is a potato leaf.And probably 8-10 more depending on what comes in and what I decide.I also grow 20-30 varieties of lettuce,arugula,Bell peppers,hot peppers,Okra,and Alot of exotics.I also have several seeds for the foul smelling Durrian.It will only work if you are in zone 9 or 10.

[Sherry Berry]

Hi Tashak,
The Rosa Rugosa can take up to four years to reach a mature size of 6' (I've been told), and it can withstand wind, so I'm hoping it will be a good windbreak for my vegetable garden... eventually. The real problem for me is I have alkaline soil, so I think I'll have to suplement the soil yearly with manure or peat moss, to make it more acid over time.

And everyone,
I feel kind of bad & want to apoligize, because when I wrote in about desiring quantity from my garden I whined about my inlaws. They're not that bad, just on a different schedule and used to different ways. Amazing how you can look forward to seeing someone and then you feel sorry for yourself, because you think you see them too much. So I'll try to stick to the topic, and quit the bellyaching.

Anyhow, my friends and I just started a little gardening group and had our first meeting tonight. I think this will be a good way to share seeds and have more varieties. Tonight we mainly shared notes on what we know will grow well here in WY. I passed out plenty of Minn. Midget melon seeds, because some of them just couldn't get their melons to ripen before the first frost. I'm planning on really focusing on fruiting plants this year, even though I've had the most success with legumes,root crops and leaf crops. I'm planning on growing a little of everything, but particularly I'm hopeful of getting tomatoes, peppers, garden berries, melons and squash. We've been in WY for three years and I've never once grown a decent tomato plant. One year my tomatoes were killed by frost, the next year by hail and last year I think they were not hardened off suficently and I had a broken irrigation line, so all the plants were pretty shocked. Maybe this will be the year! I'm thinking I should not plant them all at once in case we get hail again. Maybe I should plant one batch of plants and have some potted plants ready to go in the ground just in case all my plants die from... well I don't know, a tornado or whatever. The thing about WY is you have to expect the unexpected.

Sherry in WY

[tashak]

Sherry Berry, thanks for the composted manure/peat moss advice for the rugosa. It's alkiline soil here too.

[deb65802]

I am hoping to sell lemon bam and a few other herbs at the farmer's market in the center of town this spring and summer. I have tons of echinacea. I wonder if it would sell?

deb

[Ryan]

This is our third year with our porch garden. My wife and I live in an apartment complex with large sunny lawns I'd love to turn into gardens but we can't do that so we're stuck with what we can grow on the porch. It isn't the best location. It gets sun from the east and south but there's a balcony above the porch so it doesn't get good overhead sun. I plant in containers out around the edge of the porch. We've done fairly well with the limited space we have. I grew up on a homestead and can't wait to get a place of our own. In the meantime growing even a few things helps.

[deb65802]

I have friends who have decided to plant an extra row of lettuce beans, corn, and give ti to local nursing homes? anyone else wanting to share their harvest?

[Euangeline]

Hi,
Last year I planted my first heirloom tomato, "Mortgage Lifter" and had fantastic results, everyone raved about how tasty they were! This year I have decided to plant only heirloom vegetables, and just put my first order in to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I'm kind of new to gardening and I'm so excited to see what happens this year! I'm anxious to join the seed saving group, sounds like fun! Please email me information on how to do the seed saving thing, I remember my grandmother used to save seeds and she would lay them out on the kitchen counters on paper towels, I don't remember much else though, I was only 5 years of age at the time.

Thanks!
Evangeline :)

[deb65802]

one of my gd favorite things to do with me year round gardening is what I call feeding the worms.
In my food processer I gather all the organic stuff I can find (egg shell, coffe grounds, tea bags, raw veggie left overs, and chop them up very finely. I puree them until they are very soupy and fine grained. Then I go out to a new part of the flower bed or new garden bed and put down first all the newspapers and papertowels, hair from barber shops, coffee grounds from star bucks, sawdust. I pour the mixture onto the paper and cover with grassclippings or leaves. She loves making little beds for the worms. hehehe I love what the worms do for my garden.

[MichiganderGardener]

I know this thread was started back in Feb. , but seeing as I just joined I wanted to add to this page.
I grew my first heirloom tomato (Brandywine) Back in 1988, started from seed in my house. Ive been hooked on Heirlooms ever since! I've added new varieties of Heirloom varieties almost every year since. Some of them work out and some of them dont. The ones that do well in my climate, that arent finicky, and that taste great....I grow them every year. I never limit myself to just those though. Every year I love to try new varieties of Heirloom tomatoes, melons, watermelons, peppers, corn, winter and summer squash, pumpkins, beans, tomatillos, eggplant....and of course flowers and herbs etc.....Ive been gardening all my life and I always learn something new. It is a thrill to try new varieties of heirlooms from seed and to watch them grow and mature into something so magical. Even if something turns out to be dissapointing for me, I am still happy that I gave it a shot cause "Hey" if you dont try something how are you gonna know how it works for you and you might be missing out on something wonderful!
We have a lot of land to garden and farm on so I am lucky to be able to grow all this.

Ive been a "Natural gardener" all my life, meaning I have never ever used chemicals. My grandparents taught me to put back into the earth what you take out. Meaning composting with leaves, grass clippings, veg. scraps, chicken manure etc.. They took their kitchen scraps and just threw everything back into the garden. This was before composting became popular. They were ahead of their time. Nothing went to waste.

For the past nine years I have almost exclusively grown only Heirloom plants, with all the seeds started in my house. I have more time now for larger gardens now that the kids are grown(only one left in high school).

I always try to grow extra produce to share with family and friends and neighbors. I donate produce to a local church to distribute to family's in need and the elderly who cant grow or get fresh produce. Isnt that why god gave us the earth, to produce food good for our bodies and souls and to share so no one goes hungry! Every little bit helps!

I have been growing flowers alongside my vegetables for many years, and make fresh flower arrangements to take to several nursing homes when I get the chance. This started when my grandfather entered a nursing home many years ago and I took him some flowers from my garden (same kind he grew years ago, some seeds he saved and passed on to me, and some from slips.) When I walked into that nursing home with those beautiful flowers and saw the reaction from the residents it was overwhelming. My grandfather had tears in his eyes. He could no longer Garden , but I could bring a small part of the garden to him. Just the site and smell alone brought back a lot of memories for him.

Weve added blueberry bushes, strawberry's, raspberries, rhubarb and some heirloom fruit trees over the past few years.(moved up the road on the farm after building our log home ourselves from dead standing cedar trees)

Hope to eventually have our own farm stand in a few years to sell fresh produce and brown eggs from our chickens.

Wow I have a feeling this is gonna be too long...Oh well..Had fun sharing with you. Keep posting and sharing your experiences and knowledge with all of us. I love learning something from everyone.

[deb65802]

Sherry keep your head up. I know exactly what you are going through. Try to enlist as much help a possible. Plan your work carefully and try to stay focued on the job not the irritations. Your garden will be bountiful. You certainly have my thoughts and prayers.

[deb65802]

This is what I am planting this year.
2 kinds of onion, 3 kinds of garlic, 22 blackberries starts, 8 grapess, 12 blueberries seedlings, 17 raspberries starts,

HERBS, 3 kinds of yarrow, chives, 4 kinds of basil, 5 kinds of mint to sell at Farmer's market, lemon balm, bee balm,borage, lovage, mugwort, burdock, curly dock, thyme, majoram, fennel, feverfew, 3 kinds of echineacea, sage, rosemary, pennyroyal, tansy, oregano, rue, chamomile, (establishing and old victorain herb bed here in the new location.)

Veggies--7 kinds of potatoes, 2 kinds of green peas, cauliflower, broccoli, 15 kinds of tomatoes(Mortagage lifter, Cherokee purple, Oleans ukranian , Paul Robison, Preacher, Brandywine, Longkeeper, De Pinto, Stupice, Baxters Bush Cherry, Roma, Burgess Stuffing, Jersey Devil, Yellow Peach, Arkansas traveler

2 kinds of corn, 10 kinds of beans (gotta love those beans), 4 kinds of squash, cucumber, 7 kinds of lettuces, greens, small amount of beets, carrots, celery,

small amount of barley and oats(just for fun) and under my fruit trees lots of clover for the friendly pollinators and nitrogen fixing.

[bluelacedredhead]

I've been gardening for more than 30 years; and whenever possible, without chemicals.
The biggest changes to my gardening routine have taken place in the past two years. When our old 5hp tiller retired, I bought myself a small tiller. It's like me...doesn't have the energy to till the entire 1/8th of an acre all at once, but who cares?? I sure don't anymore. I garden cuz I like to. And this really has brought a renewed interest in growing veggies to me..

I've been interested in heirlooms for about 20 years now. The concept that I didn't have to spend $140 a yr on veggie seed to feed 3 people (2 adults and a child) spawned the initial change to heirloom. But there are many other reasons as well, such as the incredible taste of an heirloom variety of tomato..or plants that reach for the sky...

Every year for the past 20 or so years, I have made a point of trying a new veggie or at least a new variety. Some experiments failed miserably (Vidalia Onions for one). But I've proven (at least to myself) that cowpeas can thrive in a Zone 5 garden..and so can Tomatillos..

The edible part of the garden will this year include:
Cherokee Purple (my personal fave)
Mortgage Lifter (Husband's fave)
Amish Paste
Old Brook's
Arkansas Traveller
Country Gentleman Corn
Tomatillo Verde
NuMex Pepper
Keystone Giant Pepper
Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage
(Green beans, yellow beans, broccoli, turtle beans, blah blah blah)
And various greens such as Chard and Collards that I grow to feed to my critters..

But my Big experiment this year is Big Veggies...I've joined a local Giant Vegetable growers group, and the part of the garden that used to be for corn to sell, is finding new life as giant veggie land..Pumpkins, Gourds, Cantaloupe, Watermelon and Tall Sunflowers...
Put it this way, Gardening should be Fun, huh?

[SunflowerMeg]

What do you all do with all those tomatoes after they ripen??? :eek:

My garden will be modest. We have just moved and the whole 2 acres needs a rehaul, but we have the compost pile started, so the most important thing is already going.

This year so far, I have dug out the Iris bed and replaced them with blueberry bushes. Some I brought from my other house, and then I went out and purchased more. We have so enjoyed frozen blueberries through the year, so that's the second thing we did.

We just planted some different lettuce varieties, spinach and swiss chard, all heirlooms. I'll explain how I did that in another post; it was just a quick idea to get something started. We are going to be starting tomato seeds indoors in the next day or two...most from the good folks here who sent me seeds.

I also plan on planting a few beans, melons and winter squash, also from seeds sent to me by ya'll. I have plenty of climbing places and plenty of sun here so I'm really excited. I'll also try some cucumbers and a few pepper plants; we aren't big on lots of peppers, but we do enjoy stuffed peppers a few times a year.

If I get all of that done, it will be a miracle! We are still living out of boxes; don't even have a kitchen table up yet (we have an neat old oval pine one being redone), no couches (still in storage on the coast at the other house), etc. But we do have new mattresses and box springs!!! And a good night's sleep is what we enjoy most. Gotta have that energy to garden!

[Helen Wong-Joe]

My garden is not huge like someone of you with acres and acres of land. I live in the suburbs. I grow mostly heirloom seeds purchased from BC and some that are not. I like to grow veggies that I don't see at the Farmer's Markets - white/pink eggplants, heirloom tomatoes/tomatillos (especially the green ones - Aunt Ruby's German Green). I planted the White Wonder and didn't see any yet. Planted the Shishigatani pumpkin, Butternut Rogosa Violina, D'Algiers, Charentais, fish and buran peppers, ground cherry, swiss chards, very long and short beans, Boston Pickling, artichokes, watermelons and herbs. Also sweet corn infested with millions of black aphids. That's about it

[sunmad strawgirl]

How are your ground cherries doing? Mine are trying to take over the garden. Used them in an ice-cream sauce yesterday that was really tasty! This is my first year knowing about their existence let alone growing them. If you've used them in any exciting recipes I'd love to know about it.

[mrtomatoexpres]

i like to give some away to people and mostly the kids they like how sweet the tomatoes are :)

[Helen Wong-Joe]

my ground cherry plants are growing all over the place, but they are getting much bigger and lots of them. So far I put them in my garden salads or I just pick them off of the plants and eat them in my garden. This is also my first year in planting and will be planting them every year. I will probably use them in salsas and sauces to add sweetness.