Gardening

[Shadows]

Why you got your kid playin in rocks and not sand

[Ride Delaware ?]

Looks great enjoralas. If I ate a lot of fresh veggies I would love to have a garden like that. I'm definitely more a fruit guy. Do you can for winter?

 

My blueberry season is coming to an end. I've got 14 healthy plants and 1 plant that will likely die by next year. I'll replace it when the time comes.

 

I was able to bring in about 6 pints of berries this year. It's not a lot considering some of the plants are nearly 6 years old, but considering I only got around a pint last year, it was a considerable step up. I have maybe a handful of berries left to pick on two bushes.

 

Growth season precedes and follows the fruiting season, so I have spread more Holly Tone to facilitate growth. I am also considering trimming out some of the older growth so that the plant can concentrate on newer more vibrant growth. I'm quite encouraged by this years haul, so I'm expecting twice that next year.

 

I have 4 or 5 large berry plants and then some small/medium berry plants. These are what I picked this past week. You can see the difference.

 

[enjoralas]

Why you got your kid playin in rocks and not sand

Rocks don't get tracked into the house, and stay cleaner in the box.

[enjoralas]

Looks great enjoralas. If I ate a lot of fresh veggies I would love to have a garden like that. I'm definitely more a fruit guy. Do you can for winter?

 

My blueberry season is coming to an end. I've got 14 healthy plants and 1 plant that will likely die by next year. I'll replace it when the time comes.

 

I was able to bring in about 6 pints of berries this year. It's not a lot considering some of the plants are nearly 6 years old, but considering I only got around a pint last year, it was a considerable step up. I have maybe a handful of berries left to pick on two bushes.

 

Good looking berries. I need to get into some fruit. I love veggies, the wife not so much. We both love fruit though. I share with my mom and dad, my dad helps a ton in the garden. I do can some, mostly pickles and relishes, and various tomato stuffs, tomatoes, sauce, salsa. I tried beans two years ago but wasn't happy with them when I opened them, so j mostly blanch and freeze them, after vacuum sealing. If I get as many beans as I think I will this year, I'm going to make some silly beans, basically dill pickle recipe but use green beans. I use a lot of peppers when I have people over, especially jalapeños, for Atomic Buffalo Turds. I give a bunch of zucchini to a couple neighbors who like to make zucchini bread

[Ride Delaware ?]

Blueberries are easy bushes to maintain. Basically fix the PH in the ground, mulch the bushes, water the bushes, fertilize 2-3 times a year, and trim each fall after the 3rd year.

[enjoralas]

First of the sunflowers bloomed today

 

 

 

Have gotten a bunch of cucumbers, bunch of zucchini, several peppers of different varieties. Spaghetti squash vine is out of control, but no real squash yet. Watermelon is also running all over the place, and has many little melons on it.

 

Looks like it will be a good growing season overall.

[toast21602]

 

Cantaloupe coming in nicely.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ride Delaware ?]

 

Cantaloupe coming in nicely.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Did you plant them on purpose? I've never had luck with the ones that grew from the random seeds I threw out...

[momskeeztoo]

2nd batch of beets and decided to grow corn this year. Surprised the corn is delicious

[enjoralas]

2nd batch of beets and decided to grow corn this year. Surprised the corn is delicious

 

 

I used to grow corn, but stopped a couple  years ago. For all the room it took up, it just wasn't worth it when you can get pretty fresh Lancaster corn for $2 for 10 ears most of the time.

 

But when I did grow it, I did love picking it and eating it minutes later

[toast21602]

Did you plant them on purpose? I've never had luck with the ones that grew from the random seeds I threw out...

Started from seed, now we here.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[toast21602]

 

 

Good day for potatoes.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

You guys are hardcore.

[momskeeztoo]

The potatoes look great. How long do they keep and do have anywhere special to store them?

[momskeeztoo]

Overall view of the garden from just inside the gate:

 

 

IMG_2045.JPG

 

 

8 foot bed of cucumbers, hoping they do really well this year so that I can make some pickles.

 

IMG_2047.JPG

 

 

Some hot peppers and some mild jalapenos:

 

IMG_2049.JPG

 

 

Two rows of bell peppers, and you can see the end of the row of bush beans there on the left:

 

IMG_2051.JPG

 

 

The zucchini plant is doing very well. It's one of the only things that has produced so far, gave me the four zukes here:

 

IMG_2052.JPG

 

IMG_2058.JPG

 

 

Tomato plants are also really putting on growth. Lots of green tomatoes, but only about a half dozen cherries ripe so far. Two year old got them all, lol:

 

IMG_2053.JPG

 

 

A shot of the back end of the garden. Added the rockbox this year for my buddy to play in while I am weeding or otherwise working. A bench to rest on and watch him play. There's a couple rows of mammoth sunflowers back there in various stages of growth, and that low lying green mess on the left side is a watermelon plant:

 

IMG_2055.JPG

 

 

 

Got going so late this year I haven't bothered with re-laying out the drip irrigation system. I guess I should, especially since I'm going away for a week in August and if it doesn't rain I'll come back to a bad scene.

 

You should be ok going away since all your plant are pretty well established. We are definitely getting drip tape next year. We were going to get this past spring, but ran out of cash after ski season and Arizona. We have a well, and I always worry about it when it gets this dry.

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

When you do drip irrigation does it end up costing more to grow the fruits and vegetables than what they are worth??

[Shadows]

How much are your kids worth doug?

Oh nevermind

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

How much are your kids worth doug?

Oh nevermind

My kids are in my jerk rag.

[Ride Delaware ?]

When you do drip irrigation does it end up costing more to grow the fruits and vegetables than what they are worth??

I'm sure it's like everything and depends on the scale of the operation. I definitely put more into my blueberry bushes than I get out. However, if production gets to where it should be, I should be able to equal the cost of buying it.

[enjoralas]

When you do drip irrigation does it end up costing more to grow the fruits and vegetables than what they are worth??

 

It's also about saving time. It takes me a solid 20 minutes to drag the hose out to the garden and water, and I try to do it every day. With the drip system I leave the hose hooked up and have it on timers to run every morning at 8 am. That's better then for the plants than me doing it at 7pm after work too.

 

The water gets right at the roots which means I'm not watering the weeds, saving me even more time because they don't grow as much and I don't have to pull them as often.

 

In the end, I probably spend more than I would just buying the veggies. But I do prefer them fresh, and things like my kid picking and eating cherry tomatoes and my friends raving about the homemade pickles I give them can't really be bought.

[enjoralas]

A few more photos from late last week. Sometimes the growth is just astounding to me:

 

 

An overall shot again. Everything is significantly bigger.

 

 

 

Pickling cucumbers. Since taking this some of these have started to wilt and I'm not sure how much more they have to give.

 

 

 

Some pepper plants. The sweet banana pepper plant has been producing like crazy. The poblano plant next to it is growing like crazy and has a lot of peppers on it, but they'll take a while yet to ripen.

 

 

 

The Roma tomatoes are getting big and have tons of green fruit on them, no red ones yet tho.

 

 

 

Getting a good amount of bell peppers out of these plants here. Made stuffed peppers for dinner the other night with peppers that were on the plant 10 minutes before they were in the oven. Yum!

 

 

 

Zucchini keeps giving, but is getting tapped out. Found a half eaten zuc still on the plant. Think I have a chipmunk living in the garden.

 

 

 

This spaghetti squash plant is just out of control. It's exploded with growth, taking over the entire back half of the garden. It's gone up and over the fence into the lawn, and it's climbing the sunflowers! (So is the watermelon on the other side)

 

 

 

Since I took this, at least a half dozen more sunflowers have opened up, and it's starting to look really cool.

 

[momskeeztoo]

The squirrels are getting some of our sunflowers. They must climb up and take the whole flower. I'm finding half eaten ones all over the yard! Little f@ckers. The yellow finches are all over them too, but they don't destroy the flowers, just eat the seeds.

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Enjorales is hardcore.

[Ride Delaware ?]

The squirrels are getting some of our sunflowers. They must climb up and take the whole flower. I'm finding half eaten ones all over the yard! Little f@ckers. The yellow finches are all over them too, but they don't destroy the flowers, just eat the seeds.

Time to take out your .22 and say hello.

 

Enjoralas, that's impressive. Way to go farm to table. If I ever move out of my development and out to where I have more land, I would like to expand my offerings, but I don't know if it will be as intense as yours.

[momskeeztoo]

Yeah, you're probably right. I just find it really hard to kill something we are not going to eat. I did read recently squirrel meat is really good for you. Very lean. Yuck, like eating a rat.