View Full Version : 2017 gardens
We've had so much rain, I haven't even thought about planting in the ground yet. Fortunately, I have those 9 raised stock tank beds and I've been able to get started in those. I've planted broccoli, spinach, swiss chard and a few other lettuces. I've also planted Rutger and roma tomatoes, and several cherry tomatoes. I've also planted about 6 assorted peppers. I still have a stocktank open for bush romano beans. The ground stuff will be pole beans, winter squash and cucumbers. Only 2 of the snow peas grew......but then I remembered that I have to pre-sprout them or the mice eat them. My memory is getting so bad!
Everything was so close together last year, so DH and I added on to our fenced-in garden area and moved 2 of the stock tanks and one of the pole bean trellises around. Unfortunately, I think the moles made tunnels under the 2 stocktanks on that end and they are leaning pretty badly. So we have to figure out how to set them right. It will involve a jack/wood/large cement pavers. But dang.....those 70 gallon stock tanks full of soil are heavy puppies!! I hope it works. I had a terrible time last year with blight on my tomatoes. I haven't planted things so close this year, so hopefully they'll have been ventilation.
I've also planted a few clematis and salvia. I want to plant some cleome, since the butterfly moths like them so much.
My water lilies from last year aren't growing yet. This is hard to believe, but I lost a couple of them in storage in the back yard. I can't remember where I dug them into. hahaha Maybe some day they'll show up again.
I have green frogs in my little water gardens..........but today I heard a bull frog!! Yahooo! I love hearing them croak. But.......I could see they were, uh........having some afternoon delight.........and I don't want too many bullfrogs.
Did you know they eat birds??!
So be careful what you wish for. haha
So glad to finally have some sun and warmer temps. We had about 10" of rain this spring in about 2-3 weeks. Thankfully, I have those raised stock tanks.
Oh.....one really neat thing is that we found a jack-in-the-pulpit growing in the back yard! Those plants are so cool!
What is happening in your garden?
Our garden is down at my mother's house - it's a nice spot, lots of raised beds built from stone, fruit trees, and a good sized greenhouse. My mother and daughter are the green thumbs in the family, and they usually produce an incredible amount of food from the spot.
However, my daughter has been away at college for several years, and my mother has had some distractions in her life, so the garden hasn't been used much for ~3 years now.
Until this year - I have some nice new neighbors from Serbia, who are really really insane gardeners, and when they mentioned they were sad that they couldn't garden at their home (we have almost no soil up here, but several thousand feet of granite), I offered them the use of Mom's spot. They jumped at it, and have being going crazy bringing it back to life.
That's really cool, bae! I'm sure they really appreciate it.........and I imagine they will do some sharing of the produce with you!
Our garden is down at my mother's house - it's a nice spot, lots of raised beds built from stone, fruit trees, and a good sized greenhouse. My mother and daughter are the green thumbs in the family, and they usually produce an incredible amount of food from the spot.
However, my daughter has been away at college for several years, and my mother has had some distractions in her life, so the garden hasn't been used much for ~3 years now.
Until this year - I have some nice new neighbors from Serbia, who are really really insane gardeners, and when they mentioned they were sad that they couldn't garden at their home (we have almost no soil up here, but several thousand feet of granite), I offered them the use of Mom's spot. They jumped at it, and have being going crazy bringing it back to life.
What a great win-win situation!
This week I have a lull in workflow so I'm buying seedlings tomorrow at the annual Rutgers Mothers Day plant sale, and then DH is going to set up the ScareCrow and we'll finally get around to planting our raised beds. We're a bit skittish about doing it without building a fence, but hoping the ScareCrow will do its job.
Crazy rain here, too. Record rainfall. I marked on my calendar that my shelling peas were to be ready by Mother's Day, tomorrow. They are about 6 inches tall.
Tomatoes still in greenhouse. Garlic is waist high. All my herbs survived winter and I have already dried some. Nothing else yet.
Chicken lady
5-23-17, 6:08am
I haven't wanted to read this thread because I am struggling so much with my garden this year.
i got overwhelmed and let it go completely fallow last year, which means I now have to reclaim it, not just from grass and creeping Charley and dandelions, but also from poison ivy and blackberry canes. I hope to have half of it back in shape by fall.
it sounds like a lot of us are not having our best year though.
i have been eating lettuce from it all week, my spinach is ready, and I had my first radish last night.
today I am going to pick strawberries at the u-pick. I can't even see my strawberry beds.
iris lilies
5-23-17, 8:48am
I had the worst iris season ever, due to weedy beds last year, torrents of rain ths year, and a heavy dividing of cumps last year. But that is ok, next year will be better.
We have been eating spinach, greens, radishes, green onions for weeks/months. This week the snow peas starting coming into the house.
Spent last two weeks traveling to family in Indiana, Virginia, and Maine, so we went from spring to super-spring and then back to spring in Maine and now back to early early spring here, too early to plant, really. I took my seedling tomatoes and planted them at Mom's house, along with some flowers for her.
Temps in New England ranged from 38 to 96. I am not kidding. 96 in the mountains of Vermont in May. What the heck.
Back to cold Michigan, where things slowly coming up--we must have had a hard frost here which damaged some of my rosebushes and new growth to perennials. Oh well.
Plan to start a bunch of seeds in the coldframe my husband built last year. Am putting jarrahdale pumpkins with love lies bleeding, zinnias, and dill, because it will look pretty--am going to start the seeds now, fingers crossed.
DH and our friend Sue made this bee house this morning:
1760
That's cool, IL. Is that a mason bee house, with tubes in it?
We finally got some rain yesterday............3/4". Everything was getting horribly dried out. I had to water about every other day. We planted several new Black Hills Spruce trees and I've had to water them a lot. I drive out to the field in my cart and carry water-filled jugs to water them. I'm sure it's not enough to really, really help, but it might give them a little hope. I was so glad they got some "real" water yesterday. We're supposed to get more this week. Hopefully, it will know when to stop. The weather has become very bi-polar! It's amazing........I can keep my garden alive with ground water, but the plants definitely know the difference between that and rain water!
My raised stock-tank gardens are doing well. I planted way too much lettuce and it's coming out my wazoo. Wait......that doesn't sound right.......even though, it does eventually come out my wazoo. :~)
It grew so fast and it got so hot that I had to cover it with shade cloth, but it was still bitter. I read up on it and one place said to wash it and keep it in the fridge a couple days........and sure enough.......it wasn't as bitter after that time.
My spinach bolted very quickly (went to seed), so I really didn't get any of that. It will do better in the Fall.
Everything else is doing fine. I learned my lesson to not plant the tomatoes too closely in the stocktanks, so hopefully they won't get blight as easily......since it was horrible last year. Planting too close decreased ventilation, which promotes the blight.
I planted pole beans, cucs and winter squash in the ground and they're finally starting to grow.
My snow peas .......well, I guess I should refer to it as my 'snow pea', since only one plant grew and is making 1 snow pea. DH and I are looking forward to sharing it. haha I had totally forgotten that I needed to presprout the snow peas, or the mice eat the seeds. I ran out of steam and didn't replant them.
I love having these raised stock tanks, but I still have to lean over in a funky position, so I need to get a stool or a small, portable bench.
Can't wait to have marinated cucumber and tomato salads again!
As far as my water-gardens........I actually had a couple bull frogs for awhile, in addition to various green frogs. I was excited. I love hearing them croak on hot summer nights. But alas......they left for greener waters....... Actually, I was a little nervous having them since I've heard they eat birds and small children. The tree frogs aren't as active so far. I love those little guys. My 10 year old water lily croaked for some reason. I think it had just lived all the life it had and went to that great pond in the sky. So I bought another one. I've bought marginal and floating plants to fill up my various small ponds. My lotus bog is slow. I think the trees are shading it too much. Last year I bought a miniature lotus and it's doing great.
Here's a pic of a little tree frog. It can change color from gray to green. They make quite a ruckus, singing at night, but I love it and consider it a lullaby, putting me to sleep. This tree frog is in a PVC pipe that I use to put big fertilizer spikes into the lotus bog. I've learned to look down in them, before I use them.
1761
iris lilies
6-14-17, 11:59am
The beehouse is all "permaculture" as our friend insists onl to e, that is just recycling, but whatever.
The "tubes" are bamboo from a neighbor.
cute frog! Wish I,had a bog, I have bog loving iris that survice but do not thrive, they would like to be in the water.
cathy please Please comsider a Japanese iris, they are so lovely and they like their wet feet.
I had a mason bee house for a couple years, but it fell apart. The female bees tend to lay the female eggs in the back of the tubes (don't ask me how they know which are which), and the males in the front, so when woodpeckers come and peck out the larva, it's the males who get eaten. Sounds right to me. hahaha I think I have plenty of natural places for mason bees to drill. In fact.....I think they mud-packed some eggs in 2 holes I have in the plastic plate over my golf cart steering wheel!
I think I have some Japanese irises. I had several kinds around the lotus bog, (Caesar's brother??) but the weeds took them over. I also have some Louisiana iris......black gamecock and yellow flag. Not sure exactly what their correct names are.
The yellow flag actually seeded around my other pond and blossomed this spring. That was a nice surprise. The weeds are just unbelievable here and fairly hard to keep up with.
iris lilies
6-14-17, 12:57pm
I forgot to answer the bee house is for Carpenter bees.
Your Caeser's beother is a Siberian iris, they enjoy water too, but will fine without it.
Black Gamecock and other Louisianas love to be wet. The yellow flag is a species iris, Pseudacorous.
But try a Japanese ,they are huge and stunning.
I think those might be the ones that DH gets for me in bouquets because I love the looks so much.
Hmmmm.....carpenter bees? That's what houses are for. haha I think you mean mason. Ask your DH. Carpenter bees love to chew perfectly round holes into wood and create tunnels for their eggs. You should see our fascia board! :(
They are working on my chicken coop and our mail box stand.
iris lilies
6-14-17, 5:36pm
I think those might be the ones that DH gets for me in bouquets because I love the looks so much.
Hmmmm.....carpenter bees? That's what houses are for. haha I think you mean mason. Ask your DH. Carpenter bees love to chew perfectly round holes into wood and create tunnels for their eggs. You should see our fascia board! :(
They are working on my chicken coop and our mail box stand.
Ours are Carpenter bees, and from a quick lookup on the internet, they are different from mason bees. These guys chew holes into wood, too. They are a bit threateneing, they are very territorial, and they are curious. They are always dive bombing us at the commu ity garden when we get near their space.
The iris you husband get for you is likely Dutch iris. They grow from bulbs and are not reliable perennials in our midwestern region.
What is happening in your garden?
Not a whole lot this year - one thing that has changed, though. I've had strawberry plants in an area outside the front of my house for several years, not producing much. But they've been spreading. This year looks like I might get several pounds of strawberries and new runners are growing all over.
Nice news about the strawberries creaker. We just put the net over the blueberry bushes. The mockingbirds will NOT be happy. The berries seem to be ripening about a week early.
We had good luck last year with netting over spinach and lettuce. Then this year, in the space of 24 hours, we had two blue racer snakes die by getting entangled in the netting. So my husband took out all the netting, too disturbing to be killing the snakes.
We've kept chicken wire over our beds to keep the birds and squirrels out. About time to take some of it off as the beet greens and spinach are starting to touch and bend to it. Most of my garden is about 2-3 weeks behind where it was last year (I keep a garden journal). It's been a cold, wet spring.
Yeah, I don't use bird netting anymore since the birds get caught in it. I always thought it would be nice to have a fruit cage........something like 12x12 or bigger.....Maybe buy a dog kennel and then cover it with 1/2" hardware cloth. That way the birds couldn't get in. I hadn't thought about snakes getting caught in the netting too. :(
Tybee.....do your birds eat your spinach and lettuces? I've never had that problem.....yet.
Tybee.....do your birds eat your spinach and lettuces? I've never had that problem.....yet.
They eat it all in seed form.
You mean they peck it out of the ground? I occasionally have that problem. If you didn't want to use birdnetting, you could lay some hardware cloth (wire) or chicken wire above it and I don't think the birds would mess with it.
Maybe I mentioned this above, but the mice would always eat my snow pea seeds and I found if I presprouted them, they wouldn't eat them. I'm not sure that would work with lettuces though. Maybe sprinkle some hot pepper flakes around?
I had some little finches that would bite at my lettuces. Now I keep a chicken wire tunnel over the beds.
Picked my first green beans today. They are Romano and Hericot Verts. Boy, the mosquitoes have always liked hanging around the beans. I had to constantly swat them. Other things are growing rather slowly this year. My cucs haven't even started vining up the trellis yet, nor have my winter squash. All my tomatoes and peppers are in raised stock tanks and we haven't gotten much rain lately, so I have to water them about every 2 days. I used to love sitting in my cart beside the garden and watering everything overhead, but last year it seemed to really cause a lot of blight in the tomatoes, so this year I'm standing right next to them and only watering carefully at the base of the plants. It seems to be helping.
I think the weather is finally warming up more consistently, which will help things grow. But we need rain! It's amazing how much better the plants respond to rain water, than to ground water.
Also, I planted about 8 spruces and hemlock trees.......so I have to take water to them a lot too. I'm doing a rain dance.....
The house wren is back, nesting in the top tube of the swing set I grow the cucumbers up. I want to remove that swingset next year to better position some things. But I'll keep it right outside the garden fence. Wouldn't want to upset the wren. :)
We have dozens of darling quail that visit twice a day. The little buggers eat any young tender plant >:( Last year they ate: eggplant, squash 3 times, peas, green beans. This year they ate my squash plants and stripped my marigolds to the center stem! Le sigh-covering all tenders is a lot of extra work.
So...it's been HOT this last 14 days while we were away on vacation. My plants shot up like crazy! I think the tomatoes at least quadrupled in size and the eggplants shot up! So exciting to see that. Come on late August! so we can harvest!
Williamsmith
7-6-17, 9:32am
Picked my first green beans today. They are Romano and Hericot Verts. Boy, the mosquitoes have always liked hanging around the beans. I had to constantly swat them. Other things are growing rather slowly this year. My cucs haven't even started vining up the trellis yet, nor have my winter squash. All my tomatoes and peppers are in raised stock tanks and we haven't gotten much rain lately, so I have to water them about every 2 days. I used to love sitting in my cart beside the garden and watering everything overhead, but last year it seemed to really cause a lot of blight in the tomatoes, so this year I'm standing right next to them and only watering carefully at the base of the plants. It seems to be helping.
I think the weather is finally warming up more consistently, which will help things grow. But we need rain! It's amazing how much better the plants respond to rain water, than to ground water.
Also, I planted about 8 spruces and hemlock trees.......so I have to take water to them a lot too. I'm doing a rain dance.....
The house wren is back, nesting in the top tube of the swing set I grow the cucumbers up. I want to remove that swingset next year to better position some things. But I'll keep it right outside the garden fence. Wouldn't want to upset the wren. :)
I don't have many enduring memories with my father interacting with me as a child that are positive in a nurturing way but I do clearly recall building wren houses in the basement with him. He seemed to enjoy making wren houses out of anything and the wrens took to these tiny houses gratefully. It allowed me to see a gentle side of my father that I didn't see only on rare occasions. I do treasure that.
That's interesting Williamsmith. Seems like some men have problems with things that require some types of emotion, or interacting with their children. I'm glad you have that memory, at least.
We have dozens of darling quail that visit twice a day. The little buggers eat any young tender plant >:( Last year they ate: eggplant, squash 3 times, peas, green beans. This year they ate my squash plants and stripped my marigolds to the center stem! Le sigh-covering all tenders is a lot of extra work.
So...it's been HOT this last 14 days while we were away on vacation. My plants shot up like crazy! I think the tomatoes at least quadrupled in size and the eggplants shot up! So exciting to see that. Come on late August! so we can harvest!
Can you put a fence around your garden? Or would the quails fly over it? My garden would be non-existent if we didn't have a good fence (4' high out of utility wire with 2' chicken wire all around the bottom). We put that one up about 6 years ago and haven't had a rabbit since. And I have so many raised containers and trellises, that the deer probably would get hurt badly if they jumped over it. Before this larger fence, I had a 2-3' chicken wire fence....which the rabbits just jumped over....along with the coons. So it was a constant battle. This has worked so far (except for insect problems). But if anything started to climb over it, I would add a strand of electrified wire at the top. It's really depressing to find all your hard work eaten.
Can you put a fence around your garden? Or would the quails fly over it? My garden would be non-existent if we didn't have a good fence (4' high out of utility wire with 2' chicken wire all around the bottom). We put that one up about 6 years ago and haven't had a rabbit since. And I have so many raised containers and trellises, that the deer probably would get hurt badly if they jumped over it. Before this larger fence, I had a 2-3' chicken wire fence....which the rabbits just jumped over....along with the coons. So it was a constant battle. This has worked so far (except for insect problems). But if anything started to climb over it, I would add a strand of electrified wire at the top. It's really depressing to find all your hard work eaten.
Hi Cathy A, Our entire property is garden having removed all lawn. The back is fenced but those little buggers fit under the gate that is in back (required by county). we're hosed and having to cover anything we want to keep to be covered with netting. A pain in the but cuz we have to nail it down on the edges of the garden boxes. Once the plants get larger than tender greens, they leave them alone. When I bought my replacement squash last month, I kept them in my kitchen window until the leaves were getting quite big and then transplanted them. They look fine.
It's hard to be at war with those cute birds. Tonight we have "popcorn quail" running around like crazy. (that's what we call the babies when Mom/Dad let them leave the nest to run and eat grubs/bugs.) So damn cute!
Cukes and zucchini have a ton of blossoms but not a lot of fruit.. there are a couple of baby cucumbers coming along. We are having success with our deer-deterrent system: The ScareCrow linked with the deer net secured over hoops, although we left one end open one night and we had taken the ScareCrow out to mow the lawn, and we had a severe tomato plant casualty as a result. The netting prevented any widespread damage, though.
On the flower front, my perennials are so much fun, but the deer just ate the heads off the phlox!! :(. But my daisies, balloon flowers, and echinacea look great. And the pollinators in the garden are LOVING the bee balm, lavender and gooseneck loosestrife.
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