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  • alex

    Nov. 13, 2011 5:14 p.m. alex SuperDork

    Rough year here. It was super wet early in the season, then it got really hot and stayed that way for a long time. Our tomatoes hated it - the plants grew well, but they were so late to produce fruit after the heat wave broke that, like Afladriver's crop, was too little too late. We haven't had a frost yet, so we're letting the fruit hang out on the vine for a while.

    Cukes did really well - I got at lest a dozen over the course of the season that were literally the size of my forearm and still delicious. It was also a banner year for okra. We planted cherokee(?) red, and the plants are till about 8' tall, and only just petering out now.Way too much okra this year - not a bad thing. The chard is still producing beautifully, and we put in a fall crop of arugula and spinach.

    Weird year here. Only our second year, so we're still learning.

    Anybody have good tips for overwintering our boxes? Should I worry about planting cover crops?

  • Streetwiseguy

    Nov. 13, 2011 6:51 p.m. Streetwiseguy Dork

    Excellent tomato crop out here this year. Wet spring, warm but not hot summer, decent rain... I went out early September and picked all one evening where we had a frost warning, then completely forgot about them. Turns out it didn't freeze between the houses, so at the end of September I was shocked to find another 25 decent tomatoes. No blight, no bugs.

    Last year we had something eat most everything- peas came up and then disappeared, cucumbers set flowers, never produced a single cuc- or so I thought. One cucumber, the biggest one I've ever seen, tucked in under the hedge. I guess all the plants energy went into that one. I made about 3 days worth of Greek salads out of it.

  • mrwillie

    Nov. 13, 2011 6:54 p.m. mrwillie Reader

    Is there a cheaper way to get soil for raised beds( approx. 3' wide x 5' long x 1' high ) than buying bags from the local store? What do you guys w/ raised beds normally do? I'm also considering a crimson clover cover for my planting areas this year.

    I only got about .5 cubic yards of compost from my pile this season. I used alot of coffee grounds to bulk up my green content, and it seemed to cook pretty well. Does this sound right from a 3x3x3 pile of mixed hard wood leaves( oak mostly ), starbucks coffee grounds and the misc random kitchen waste? I just used a pile on the ground, and I think some got washed away and re-absorbed.

  • alex

    Nov. 13, 2011 7:22 p.m. alex SuperDork

    mrwillie wrote:

    Is there a cheaper way to get soil for raised beds( approx. 3' wide x 5' long x 1' high ) than buying bags from the local store? What do you guys w/ raised beds normally do?

    There's probably a landscape supply place somewhere close to you where you can buy in bulk. I think our mixture runs about $30/yd - which will about half-fill a full size truck bed, to give you an idea of volume.

  • SyntheticBlinkerFluid

    Nov. 13, 2011 9:33 p.m. SyntheticBlinkerFluid Dork

    My plants were horrible this year. The wind at the beginning of the season destroyed half my plants and then I couldnt keep up with the weeds, they were the worst they've been the last couple years. I didn't even pick a lot of the veggies I had.

    I need to rethink what I plant next year.

  • 1988RedT2

    Nov. 14, 2011 6:45 a.m. 1988RedT2 SuperDork

    I planted carrots back in late August. I am now pulling and eating the most delectable, sweet carrots any man has ever tasted. I even learned that carrots will take a heavy frost and keep on growing. It's been down to 26 deg. F. here and the tops are still green. Broccoli is also looking good.

    So many people think of gardening in the Spring and through the Summer, but Fall is a fantastic season for cool-weather crops.

  • Brett_Murphy

    Nov. 14, 2011 8:25 a.m. Brett_Murphy HalfDork

    This thread is helping my wife and I do our gardening.

    I just pulled up the tomato plants. We got a lot of tomatoes, but lost a lot due to bugs and having them explode while they were still green.

    I'm going to pull up the bricks we have lining the bed and expand it out a bit this winter, too.

  • 1988RedT2

    Nov. 14, 2011 8:41 a.m. 1988RedT2 SuperDork

    In reply to Brett_Murphy:

    What kind of bugs are eating your tomatoes? I have a little trouble with aphids, but they generally don't do much damage to larger plants. You can hose them down with Safer's soap or a similar mild insecticide.

    Tomato hornworms, on the other hand, can destroy a jumbo plant in a matter of days. Once they get a couple inches long, their destructive powers are rivaled only by the atomic bomb. I keep an eye out for damage and track them down and squash them.

    The only other thing I've had eat tomato plants is blister beetles--elongated green and black striped beetles which usually appear late in the season. This year I didn't see any.

  • Hasbro

    Nov. 14, 2011 4:01 p.m. Hasbro Dork

    Those hornworms can be devastating. Last week I saw a cabbage looper just tooling along my sidewalk. About four inches long. Those things are ravenous! The weird thing is that it was in the desert area. Where the heck did he come from?

    Do any of you use beneficial bacteria and michorizae (fungus)? Most soils are deficient due to ferts and other chemicals. If you have a small garden it's pretty easy to replenish the soil and can make a huge difference in plant health and production.

  • alfadriver

    April 30, 2012 9:29 a.m. alfadriver UberDork

    Bump- I know we have a 2012 gardening thread, but there's some seriously good info on this one- earthtainer, worm bin, etc.

    Need to have ready access to this data.

    For fun, this past weekend, I planted a dwarf peach and plum tree in my back yard. Blueberries going well, stawberries doing well, fresh raised beds doing ok (peas and lettuce going). This is quite fun to do, and delicious to eat.

  • mrwillie

    May 1, 2012 8:06 a.m. mrwillie HalfDork

    Not sure if we're gonna have a garden this season. Kinda sucks. Between work and business, its still dark most days recently when I get home. And weekends are out right now.

  • Twin_Cam

    May 1, 2012 9:42 a.m. Twin_Cam UltraDork

    Ok, the GRM braintrust knows everything, so I have a question. There is a black walnut tree nearby my garden. I've read that they acidify the soil. I can confirm this in that most of the stuff I eat out of the garden is sharply bitter, still edible, but for instance, I can't just eat the lettuce leaves, they NEED dressing and usually something sweet, like small pieces of fruit added to make the salad tasty.

    At work, we add calcium carbonate, which is effectively the same thing as gardening lime, to some of our beer mashes to make them less acidic. I'm going to buy one of those soil test kits to be sure, but I'm fairly certain I'm on to something. The only thing is, everywhere online says to neutralize your soil before planting. Can I do it now, with stuff already growing?

  • DaveEstey

    May 1, 2012 9:48 a.m. DaveEstey Dork

    It takes time to adjust the PH of your soil, so this year is likely a wash. I spread 200 lbs of lime on my front lawn and it won't have a real effect until the fall and next year.

  • alfadriver

    May 1, 2012 10:00 a.m. alfadriver UberDork

    In reply to Twin_Cam:

    Or grow stuff that likes acid there. Blueberries, rasberries, etc.

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