Gardening thread of 2021

[Kgp]

We moved last month and new home only has flower beds. Decided to make some raised beds. Found plans on YouTube and built two of them, 4x8 ft. 18 inches tall. Had my nursery guy mix up some garden soil, 1/3 top soil,, 1/3 horse manure, 1/3 peat moss. Weather has kept me from planting but finally looks safe from frost. Just doing tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, and cucumbers.

 

[Twigg]

My garden is in and I will share pics soon. In the mean time, here are some peonies and others to gaze upon.

 

[dafox]

It snowed in northern Colorado last year the last week of May and was 27 degrees, I'm planning to wait until June 1st to plant my garden with nursery starts this year.

 

[Bodine]

Zucchini's have been producing for a month now, cucumbers are taking off, canned 8 pints of pickles today. Tomatoes are full of fruit, should start ripening soon.
Blueberries are getting ripe, so I will be picking them for the next month, until I get 10 gallons, then I turn the neighbors loose on them.
By July it is too dang hot to mess with anything outside, I will be done until Nov in the garden.
Forgot my peppers, jalapeno, habenero, and moles are doing fine, they will produce in the hot months and will hit the smoker and be dehydrated, except the occasional batch of jalapeno poppers that hit the oven.

 

[dafox]

Wow, very different than Colorado.

 

[Bert2368]

I've been running around in circles, a stitch here and a dash there on the gardens, working around the rain and the stuff that pays the bills, + various stuff that picked NOW to s**tcan and MUST be fixed ASAP.

The fruit trees were all pruned, some I missed last year needed it quite severely. Then TENT CATERPILLARS showed up while many of the fruit tree blossoms are still open & being visited by bees, so no spraying allowed- Hand to caterpiggle combat! I may have won.

Increased my squash/pumpkin hills in the wildlife garden by 50%, squash a-plenty for man and beast this fall, I hope. Also put an old low area mega garden I abandoned 3 years back as too large to maintain back into cultivation in order to plant 5 kinds of melons, which wouldn't fit in the "kitchen garden".

 

[chefwp]

My peach trees have unusual fruit this year. This is a clutch of 4 baby American robins.

 

[chefwp]

I am happy my J-maple has rebounded very nicely this year. Last year a large percentage of the leaves were damaged by a late freeze and it looked pretty rough for the rest of the season. Knock on my wooden head, it is still May after all... I hope we don't see another freeze this spring!

 

[chefwp]

My peach trees have unusual fruit this year. This is a clutch of 4 baby American robins.

They are growing up fast!

 

[damiano]

Northern Europe. Moved my lemon plant outside two weeks ago, when there were enough signs there was no more chance of freezing at night.

However what I didn’t expect was heavy rainfall and storms! So my lemon plant has now lost most of its leaves, though the fruits are still developing nicely. Can’t wait until the leaves come back (or at least I hope they do!).

 

[Bodine]

Squash are done, cucumbers keep on producing, first tomatoes of the year have been picked and pepper plants are loaded, waiting for them to ripen so I can make ancho powder
There will be BLT sandwiches tonight for sure

 

[Lars]

I'm growing courgettes for the second year. These will be turned into risotto shortly..

 

[WiriWiri]

I'm growing courgettes for the second year. These will be turned into risotto shortly..
View attachment 130437

The courgette onslaught won’t stop if you have more than a few plants. Before long you’ll be giving courgettes to any willing relative, friend or local food bank.

Eventually I was reduced to leaving courgettes on the doorsteps of virtual strangers in the hope of reducing my veg waste. This may be just me admittedly - I have self control issues with knives similarly - but why just have one type of courgette plant when there are so many varieties available?

 

[WiriWiri]

Things are behind here, but finally beginning to get the allotment plot In order. Roottrainers aplenty are ready to go in the other beds

 

[damiano]

I'm growing courgettes for the second year. These will be turned into risotto shortly..
View attachment 130437

Don't forget to use the flowers! Deep friend Italian style is wonderful..

 

[Bodine]

courgettes are what we call squash, those are zuchini's. Great in soups, salads, my wife uses them instead of spaghetti noodles. A million ways to cook them, you can even make relish out of them.

 

[Lars]

courgettes are what we call squash, those are zuchini's. Great in soups, salads, my wife uses them instead of spaghetti noodles. A million ways to cook them, you can even make relish out of them.

I thought it was geografical ie in Italy they are zucchini and in France they are courgette

I learned my lesson last year, so this year I'm going to harvest them while they are young and small..

 

[BillHanna]

everyone is correct. zucchini are squash.

 

[WiriWiri]

Been eating the first (homegrown) strawberries of the year here. Gariguettes first (lovely, soft, impossible to get home safely), but I should have another month or two of harvesting different varieties

 

[jacko9]

I'm in Northern California and have three 3' x 8' x 24" high raised beds, two 2' x 8' x 23" raised beds and two 2' x 4' elevated bed planters. In addition I have four self Watering inner grow bag planters.

 

[Slim278]

Second flush of oyster.

 

[Bodine]

Tomatoes are really doing well right now, I have to pick cucumbers when they’re small because the heat will turn them bitter very quickly
I have good fruit sets on all my citrus trees and bananas here are blooming out, who would’ve thought you could grow bananas in North Florida, I have successfully for years

 

[Pie]

Can’t eat em, but they’re kinda cool. First flower of the season.

 

[Cener509]

Hi guys, I a question / need some help regarding a young Bombay mango tree. I bought it last November and suspect it’s around 1 year old. I have it planted in a mixture of soil, perlite (about 1/3), and worm castings. No other fertilizer.

In the picture I have new-growth leaves that just started in Feb/March. Many of the leaves are wrinkled, curled, and torn. The soil is well-drained and it gets watered 2x per week. Is this something I should be concerned about?

It’s been sitting outside except for when temps get below 40. In these pics I’ve got it inside as flower buds have formed and temps are just below 60.

View attachment 119773
View attachment 119774
View attachment 119776

Its fully outdoor plant, I read on internet,
And need to plant it on land, Their roots are growing long. I think if you put your plant like your images then may be plat goes die.. hope you understand.

 

[RDalman]

Sweden season progress. We have a little bit of everything kindof. 55 tomato plants, and I started a ~50m2 veg-plot this year. If the potato yield is normal to good it should cover a full year.

Here's a relevant variety, "damascus steel" tomato.

Carrots, onion, beans and sugarsnaps and sweet corn.

 

[WiriWiri]

Sweden season progress. We have a little bit of everything kindof. 55 tomato plants, and I started a ~50m2 veg-plot this year. If the potato yield is normal to good it should cover a full year. View attachment 132246
Here's a relevant variety, "damascus steel" tomato. View attachment 132247View attachment 132248
Carrots, onion, beans and sugarsnaps and sweet corn.

Impressive, orderly stuff Mr D - that plot is looking good! Particularly liking the sturdy, handcrafted Swedish support structures

All a bit more haphazard here after a belated start to the growing season, My rudiementary bean rows and wigwams have been thrown down and need further tying, but most of the crops are out of the roottrainers and into the ground, Only a few beds still to fill, but the brassicas, carrots and oriental greens will soon take those up

My approach has gone increasingly informal and mixed bed in approach - a kind of midway SFG/traditional plot approach. Typical example beds below - lots of beans, peas, squashes and various other bits intermingled generally. Spreads the risk and allows me to grow more varieties, but also a milder faff to weed

Need to upgrade the other half of the raised beds next year and finally get around to asparagus planting

 

[Delat]

Its fully outdoor plant, I read on internet,
And need to plant it on land, Their roots are growing long. I think if you put your plant like your images then may be plat goes die.. hope you understand.

I found folks are successfully growing mangoes in containers in Phoenix. It turned out the problem was actually fungus - young mangoes are apparently quite susceptible to fungus particularly a type called anthracnose. It’s recommended to spray them prophylactically 2x per month, alternating between copper and a systemic treatment. It took me a while to find this information and my plant suffered some damage to the new growth meanwhile, but it seems to be recovering and doing well now.

 

[Bert2368]

This is my wildlife garden, it's about 240 yards long, running North-South next to a field we rent to a farmer who grows corn or soybeans- It's beans this summer.

In the garden this year there are 3 apple trees, 23 mounds of winter squash, about 400 yards of 4X rows wide flour corn, 300 yards of pole beans planted to use some of the corn and sunflowers for trellis (drying type of bean suitable for making chili, etc.) and about 40 yards of 3X rows wide sunflowers. What the native Americans called "3 sisters", plus the sunflowers.

Everything planted here is something I like to eat too, it's not ALL for the wildlife.

I grew all the corn and bean seeds, plus seeds for one of the two squash varieties myself last year.

If you look at the garden from my deer stand, it becomes apparent that the layout provides nice, screened in by food crops private walkways for deer which can be used as "fields of fire". Because some venison goes nicely with cornbread, beans and winter squash.

 

[WiriWiri]

View attachment 132326

This is my wildlife garden, it's about 240 yards long, running North-South next to a field we rent to a farmer who grows corn or soybeans- It's beans this summer.

In the garden this year there are 3 apple trees, 23 mounds of winter squash, about 400 yards of 4X rows wide flour corn, 300 yards of pole beans planted to use some of the corn and sunflowers for trellis (drying type of bean suitable for making chili, etc.) and about 40 yards of 3X rows wide sunflowers. What the native Americans called "3 sisters", plus the sunflowers.

View attachment 132327

Envious of all the space you folks have. My halfheartedly underwhelming attempt at ’three sisters‘ a few years ago consisted of two large squashes either side of a 8 x 8 block of corn, surrounding by a few metres of bean fencing each side. I think I had 3 whole sunflowers too!

It wasn’t the greatest success to be honest, basically forming a fairly impenetrable patch of pumpkin tendrils that you had to pick your way through daily on the way to the (French) beans. In mitigation I did grow pole beans (trail of tears) and borlotti in the middle, but everwhere became a living minefield.

Still, you can.certainly produce plenty in a tennis court sized patch, And frankly I’m lucky to have such a patch of land in central(ish) London - the waiting list is over 10 years for a allotment at the same.site now

 

[Kgp]

It amazes me how much you can grow in a small space. Best garden I ever had and I don’t need to bend over far to weed it.