EnviroLink Forum

Ok, so I am happier than a pig in poop because I got part of my garden planted this weekend. This year I've gotten completely obsessive-compulsive with it and am tracking every vegetable I have planted with photos/descriptions, etc. I should explain that I have 16 varieties of tomatoes (14 are heirlooms), 7 different types of peppers (I think 6 are heirlooms), and 3 eggplants (all 3 are heirlooms). I'm also planning on putting beans, cucumbers and maybe a melon or pumpkin vine in this upcoming weekend. I don't have a huge yard to plant, especially when it comes to exposure to sun, but I've attempted to pack in as many plants as I can.

Here's a photo of it from last year, I'm using the same basic layout as last year again. If you click on the photo you can see a listing/photos/descriptions of what I've planted so far:



So... who else grows stuff and what do you grow?

-josh

Weeds.. do they count?

Back in San Diego we had a good sized garden with roses and a variety of flowers. We also planted tomatoes (usually two kinds beefsteak and cherry), peppers (bell peppers and another variety.. don't remember off the top of my head), and a few others things. We had our apple tree that literally bloomed year round, a cherry tree that gave us a few cherries, a pear tree that gave us 2-6 pears a year (depending), and there was another fruit tree.. I forget what it was though.

We've been planting mostly trees here. We have a key lime tree, a mixed apple tree, and a few other fruit bearing trees. We did plant rhubarb in the garden. We're working on the strawberries (yuck), tomatoes, and peppers in the house until they're big enough to plant. We're trying potatoes and onions this year as well. We've got a ton of flowers that we've planted.. yesterday we planted a couple dozen bulbs. We have a bunch more trees and flowers to plant still.

I like your garden. I'm jealous of how green it is.

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I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much. - Mother Theresa

That's a really nice garden. I enjoy growing things myself. I've got several plants on my desk that I try to take good care of. I've had gardens in the past....tomatoes, peppers, corn, watermelon. Watermelons are my favorite. I like to watch them grow, and I especially like to eat them. I'll start it up again when I've got the property and the time.

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"Yes like I said it all boils down to morals. What you think is right doesn't make a person wrong because they think different " X-Black

Everything my mom touches dies. I haven't seen her keep one plant alive for more then a week.

Have you tried to grow anything? I find it rather rewarding myself.

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"Yes like I said it all boils down to morals. What you think is right doesn't make a person wrong because they think different " X-Black

The beauty of living a bit farther south ... our lettuce has been keeping us and friends in salads for a few weeks now. Sunflowers, peppers, tomatoes, leeks, cabbage, lettuce and several varieties of herbs got us off to a good start. Some varieties are heirloom and some are not. My grandmother planted "Mortgage lifter" tomato plants and you could cut one slice in half and still cover a piece of bread.

Speaking of which, I was just served a sandwich with fresh lettuce so I had better go eat it ...

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Josh that is one beautiful garden and backyard. Is that a stone wall I see? Love the bench too. I have a green thumb with plants. We have about 60+ plants/trees in pots outside (some inside). Lots of fun during hurricane prep. We grew a coconut tree from a coconut we found floating in a canal on one of our little 'tidy bowl' cruises (my pet name for our 12' inflatable we've since sold). That tree is about 8' tall now in a huge clay pot. My candelabra cactus and ming aralia came down with us from NJ in 93. Both were about 12-14" tall. The cactus now is well over 7' tall and the ming about the same. I had a large container herb garden but the snails ravished it, so now I have basil, thyme and rosemary inside the house. They're thriving and seem to like the cool air vs. the heat/humidity. I'd love to grow tomatoes. The ones in the supermarket taste nothing like the real thing.

I hate to say it, but I don't garden like I used to.

My mom always plants more tomato plants then needed, so I get my tomatos there. I make deer sausage and give some to a guy, who gives me all the cucumbers I need. I have a recipe for 24 hour pickles I want to try this year.

We used to plant a lot of sweet corn. Actually had a guy come in with a corn planter and plant it for us. We had all we needed and gave away quite a bit too. Now we get sweet corn from someone who grows it locally, and in the fall they come down and get apples from my sisters trees.

My neighbor grows quite a few potatoes. Each year he comes over and takes away the pile that accumulates each year from horse stall cleaning. Basically it's all manure and sawdust I use for bedding. He says it's made his potato patch the best it's ever been, and he usually brings me a 50 pound feed sack of potatos each fall.

Notice how so far I'm not coming out too bad, and haven't weeded anything, lol.

My sole planting, if you don't count the hay I bale, is my food plots for the birds and animals. I have a 16 foot disk, so my food plots are 32 feet wide. The one on my north fence is about 600 feet long, and the one on my east fence is about 700 feet long. Here I plant milo. Nice part is I don't have to weed it. But because of sunflowers I will have to do some 2 4 D spraying to keep them out.

Oh my hay is grass hay, and I usually put up about 500 bales come July. Always looking for help come hay baling time. I do provide the beer and brats.

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I don't know what your problem is but I bet its hard to pronounce.

Thanks, but no thanks, we used to put up about twice that amount every year for my grandparents cattle and I got my fill of it over the years...

Those of us who had to throw the bales onto the hay wagon (read younger) always tried to knock the catchers down until we knocked a couple completely off the wagon and tempers flared a bit so we had to stop that. It was sooo funny to see the look on their faces as they started off the side of the trailer. The worst was the years we had to paint the barn roof in addition to hay. At least we did the hay barn a year after the main barn so there were not two barns and hay in one year.

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Odd the image function did not work so here are the links

http://s49.photobucket.com/albums/f269/ ... CF0027.jpg

Last year's sunflowers at the bird feeder.

http://s49.photobucket.com/albums/f269/ ... CF0026.jpg

The new garden area is to the far right along the upper stone wall seen through the sunflowers

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

I just harvested enough various peppers and tomatoes for a good batch of salsa. Year around from my Earthship. My outside gardens have cold frames and it froze unseasonably last night (climate fluctuation from GW).
As far as I'm concerned, if you don't build your own self-heated, thermal mass, recycled and indigenous materials greenhouse--you ain't sh*t.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”
― Chief Seattle

The bad part for me is lack of help. I put mine on the ground and then my daughter drives the truck around while I pick them up, We can get about 40 on a load, so it takes a few trips to get them all in the barn.



So now global warming gets blamed for cold weather too.

Since we're doing pictures here's an overhead shot of my place. This is from a few years ago just after moving in so there have been a few changes, buildings added to and food plots. The area above the buildings is the hay field. My food plots now run the length of the field on the right side and the top of the picture.

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I don't know what your problem is but I bet its hard to pronounce.

my daughter for her birthday wanted seed and me to help set up a garden.

i rototilled a big patch.

the seeds are poppin up. morning glorys, delphiniums, 4 o'clocks, grapes, strawberries, watermelons, cucumbers, radishes, eggplants, tomatoes, peas, carrots, broccoli, rhubarb and a few others.


my wife plants tons of flowers, irises, lillies, johnny jump-ups, roses, cascading petunias, fuscias, cockscomb, and a bunch of others i dont know the names of.

i have a massive yard with a treeline on the south with raspberries and blackberries.

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lately i been thinkin' aunt betty stopped her blinkin'....soon she'll be a stinkin'..........my deceased mother in law speaking of her aunt who had died.

At my last job, we would put up several thousand bales during the summer to last through the year. One field put out anywhere from 3500 to 5000 bales a cutting. You know....I don't miss that one bit. That may very well be the hardest work I've done before, especially since my allergies started trying to kill me about 200 bales into the day.

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"Yes like I said it all boils down to morals. What you think is right doesn't make a person wrong because they think different " X-Black

If I could get rid of another horse or two I'd let somebody come in and cut the hay and take it. About half the hay I feed is alfalfa round bales. I have a guy deliver them and they weigh 2000 pounds each. I can flip one over in my barn and just peel off what I need each day so there is no waste. It would be a lot easier just selling off the grass hay and buying the alfalfa round bales I need. If I could get down to 2 or 3 it would work out. When I was boarding horses and had over 20 on the place I needed all the hay I could get.

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I don't know what your problem is but I bet its hard to pronounce.