The garden

[wrenchman]

This is my week to get my garden in i have had it in earlyer here but have had to worry about frost but we have had rain for two days and it has slowed me down.
How has every one else been doing with theres.
On a side note i planted my herbs in a raised bed the dog thinks it is a sand box for her to play in.

[Valigator]

Actually I want to start some container gardening for the kids...the fire and the restoration has torn up alot of the yard so I figured I would give them a head start here...the water restrictions we have had is killer ...but if I start them in containers and baby them, they will have a better start over at the house...good luck with yours....Val

[BILLY D.]

GARDEN, GARDEN? Hecks fire two nights ago we had snow flakes here. Walked out about 3 in the morning and white stuff was coming down. The dog about burnt all the pads off his footsies trying to stop before he got outside.

But I put a slipper in his backside cause he was the one that had to go out, otherwise I'd have been sawing logs.

Snow at this time of year don't mean much up here. Day after tomorrow it could be 90°. Fact is they are forcasting 80's.

Have a good holiday everyone, and lets not forget the meaning of the day.

Best wishes, Bill

[Valigator]

You kill me Billy ...I laughed reading that thread...hope you are well my friend...sorry the weather is so squirrley......

[McPat]

My garden is doing well. I put in around 400 onion sets, 6 rows of green beans 8 tomatoes, 4 peppers, two kinds of lettuce (which we are enjoying now), spinach, 3 hills of cucumbers, a cabbage plant that my two year old helped plant, carrots and some assorted herbs. Most everything is doing well. The kids and I put in a couple of Mother's Day flowers on the corner of the garden to color things up a bit. The rain we got yesterday helped perk things up a bit.

McPat

[Rocky Raab]

My spring crops of radishes, lettuce and sugar-pod peas are already eaten.

Didn't do spinach this year, but I have a couple rows of beets in - I'm the only one who'll eat those.

The tomatoes are two feet tall and blossoming. (I put them in on May 15 inside Wall O'Water tubes. Those things REALLY jump-start tomatoes.) Looking for this to be my tenth year in a row without a tomato worm or bug of any kind. My secret? Plant a couple marigolds right next to each tomato plant. Tomato worms won't come NEAR a marigold. Works with peppers and cukes, too.

[skeet]

We too had a little snow the other day. and yesterday morn we had a fairly heavy frost. Luckily I had the stuff pretty well covered and some are in a protected area.
This year we have planted 9 fruit trees..400 strawberries 50 red raspberries and 50 black ones 8 blue berries. 10 tomatoes 10 cabbage(more later) 6 squash 20 peppers2 watermellon 4 rows of beans(2 yellow 2 green) 20 lima beans row and a half of beets(yuk!) for momma..onions okra carrots spinach and some other little things. Corn is in and more going in. 40 Roma tomatoes are going in tomorrow. Traps are ready for the coons and the rabbits(hundreds of the buggers) are being discouraged almost as I write this. And the coyotes are yelping too. Got one yesterday at about 35 yds with my 357 snake gun(Ruger 357 Single action). Either I was lucky or he was really unlucky.

Hope y'all had a nice holiday and hope ya thought about the meaning of the day.

[BILLY D.]

skeet

We didn't have the frost, just heavy wet snow. We needed the moisture. This place is drier than popcorn flatulence. We have had lots of rain the last 2 weeks and could use more.

I bought a new rifle a couple of weeks ago and haven't got out to shoot it yet. I did get throught the barrel break in but thats it. With this monsoon season I don't know when I'll get out.

The rifle I bought is a CZ 527 in 19 caliber Calhoon Badger. The cartridge is built off the 30 carbine case. I did do two strings during the break in and one sting was .546 and the other was .731. Nice econmical shooter. 17.5 grs of powder and a 32 gr bullet, around 3600 fps. I still haven't mastered the trigger yet though. It's a 8 ouncer. I have some parathesis in my hand and it's a little rough learning. But I'll get it.

Hey if you don't like beets make some Borscht. Good healthy stuff. You can serve it as it's own meal or along with a roast beef or pork meal. I like the kind my Mom made. No potatoes in it, they are served as side dish. The only ingredients are the beets, onions, cabbage and beef. Don't forget the dark bread, Pumpernickle, and BUTTER. It it not a complete meal without a frozen shot of vodka. Also serve with HEAVY Cream for the soup, add till it's light pink and garnish with a sprinkle of parsley.

My Mother and Grandmother both hated grease so when it's cooked you can cool it in the refrigerator and get a sifter to remove the grease off the top. Hint, the Borscht tastes better the second day anyway, just like chili or spaghetti sauce. But it's great on the first day also.

Thats quite an array of veggies you got growing there. My wife was the gardener in our family. I could transplant a cactus and it would die. :mad:

Well, hopefully we have seen the last of the bad weather.

Best wishes, Bill

[Lilred]

We had snow on Easter...weird.
Well...Lilred...true to form...bit off way more than she could chew with the garden this year.
Ohhhhh yeah I said in March....I'll plant everything known to man and I'll can everything known to man and I'll have the best garden yet.

Here it is almost June and I dun bout killed myself weedin that dam thing and tillin and plantin....I have burnt 10 times more energy than i'll get out of every plant in there. But by God I got a garden pert near the size of Texas and I can do all my cannin and be set fer winter. :rolleyes:
I was down in Georgia this past week...funeral. (Lord it sucks when a young man is killed..he was 20.) I got back and I had the pertiest rows of weeds you ever saw! The dam things grew inches in 4 days I kid you not.

Bein just a LIL bit hardheaded, I'll be dammed iffin that garden is goin to pot after all the work I dun put in it. I was out there this evenin weedin and lo and behold I ran into a nest of seed ticks. :eek:
They crawled up my leg like Hitler over Europe and I was in a full bore run to the house and let me tell you...they aint easy to come off either.
Oh well, I reckon it's all werth it tho...I just so happen to have grown 30lb cabbage heads fore...I think I might pull it off again this year ;)

[skeeter@ccia.com]

Using marigolds to ward off bugs reminds me of my garden 5 yrs ago when I first heard to plant them around the garden and it will keep the bunnies / bugs etc away. So as phase 2 of my plant security, I installed one of those net type fences around it. Then row after row of marigolds all the way around it. Those flowers took off as well as the other plants and made the place look beautiful.....But the best part of it all was the bunnies liked to live in the big clumps of marigolds (I was told they would keep bunnies away) and when I would walk back to the garden, they would spring out of their hiding place to the other side and hit the fence...stretch it to the breaking point with their little snouts mashed and their eyes squinting and spring back like they were hit with a tennis racket....then do it again...most of the time it would take them maybe 2 or 3 tries at finding their little hole in the fence inside the marigolds....I couldn't wait each morning to flush them out of the bushes..and have a fun game of tennis....lmao

[wrenchman]

I never herd it would ward off bunnys but i have herd to of the tomatoe worms.
I was told by my mother that it will help bring the bees in to help polinate to plants.
I to plant them by my tomatoes.

[DaMadman]

as much as I love my garden I almost tempted to not put one in this year. Just got a late start, my back gives me fits when I work in the garden and the wife complains about the dirt and bugs that get drug in fromt he garden and this is the first year my Grandfather won't be aroung to compete with me about thing like the first red tomato....

Always enjoyed when Pop would come down and tell me what a great garden I have going then tell me how I plowed it all wrong and how I should have planted things differently. Gunna miss that

I wouldn't tell the wife wh I wasn't planning on putting one in and to avoid the situation I went ahead and got some tomato and pepper plants and I have a bunch of seed left over from last year that I guess I'll plant. Some things just won't be the same anymore guess that's all part of life though must move on....

[skeeter@ccia.com]

Hey PETA's #1 fan, YOU have to carry on the garden tradition now. It is time you find someone with a garden you can admire then proceed to tell them about tilling it wrong..This is part of gardening....I had my grandpap and my wife's grandpap both tellin me how to do it and they both were zealous of the rich black soil I had to start with. Oh my wife wouldn't even look at my spot on this earth but sure does brag about how good fresh things are when picked right from the garden. I use to sort of ' let it go' later in the year because I knew I had quite a few neighbors with an eye on certain items in there so I would let the word out.....if anyone sees anything they want....help yourselves.....and the rush was on....I sure am glad to be able to do these things.....is a tradition ya just have to keep on going on....along with those other little things from grandpap.

[TreeDoc]

My garden is about 5000 acres of Class A, Alluvial Ag Soil. Some of the best in the nation. I live in a tiny subdivision that shouldn't have been. It was placed right smack-dab in the middle of this ag land back in the early 60's. Definitely had to be a shifty transaction between developer and some councilman. I'm surrounded on 3 sides by miles of fields and right now about 100 yards from my front door, today's choice is fresh brocolli. In a couple weeks it will be Butter Lettuce interplanted with Red Leaf Lettuce. On the other side we just finished a crop of Bokchoy and they're prepping for another crop right this minute. An old school Japanese family that was here and farming long before WW-II still maintains the farm and they have a big fruit and vegetable stand about 1000 yards from my house where the pick of the crop goes for neighborhood sales while the bulk heads out to your local grocery store via truck and train. It's nice not having to get my fingers dirty! All the other crops that aren't growing around my house (we're allowed to pick from the outside edges), come from the fields down the street and are picked daily for the Fruit Stand so we can get daily pickin's if we wish. ;)