How is your garden doing? - Page 2

Here, it is already freezing, i just miss some of my gardens. :D

Mandarins are almost ripe. So are Meyer lemons. Grapefruits and oranges are not there yet, but it looks like it's a matter of a few weeks. My fig tree is losing its leaves, ready to hibernate; all my berries look like they're dead (they always do in the winter, but they always come back anyway). All the herbs are doing fantastic: thyme, parsley, rosemary, lemongrass, mint, bay leaves.

Zone 5a here, pretty much same as Nicko.

Last year could be summed up in two words, "crop failure". The rain and heat pretty much did the tomatoes in. The flowers on the pole beans would not set until it cooled a bit later in the season, then they produced. Greens and herbs always do well. Potatoes flourished and we ate many meals with sweet potato leaves.

We are fortunate to have a free composted horse manure site. The girl has a 1/2 yard bucket and loads for free too. We put down a newspaper barrier and then top with 2-3 inches of CHM.

What are the best  plants to plant when semi-winter comes? I'm looking forward to it because right now, there's chance of planting it with this kind of weather. :(

Semi-winter doesn't mean much to me, HMC. Could you let us know where you're located? And what sorts of things did you have in mind?

Quote:

Originally Posted by HomeMadeCook 

What are the best  plants to plant when semi-winter comes? I'm looking forward to it because right now, there's chance of planting it with this kind of weather. :(

what KYH said.

You may have time for greens, snap peas, radishes

Moved recently and just started thinking about getting a small garden going on my patio again. I have no yard but my patio gets great morning light! Thank you everyone for the inspiration!

I found the exact same worm on my patio in Arizona - had never seen one before. Now I know what it was... Cool!

Just harvested a bunch of my sunchokes. Looking great! Have alot more then I thought I was going to get. Roasted them last night and served with dal and roast chicken, delicious.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaryB 

No Pictures because it is more weeds than garden but I have harvested beans several times, radishes and lettuce have bolted and never did produce much this year. Tomatoes are loaded with lots of green unripe fruit, cucumbers fizzled again this year and barely grew, and my squash is threatening to take over the entire garden Weeds got ahead of me this year, in between back problems and carpal tunnel pulling them was really low on my list.

Last year I had a tremendous garden. After a rocky start trying to figure out how to build a raised bed garden, I bought organic soil and worm castings in bags to make up for lost time.I did use an organic vegetable fertilizer, but maybe I didn’t use enough… or I used too much.

gupsy2727... Your garden is amazing. That's exactly how I hope our new one (just moved house) turns out.

Mid-March here in brutal Minnesota and we're just starting our seedlings under lights and on heat pads ~ dreaming of spring. I'm living through all of your warm state posts and loving them. All of the pictures have already sent me off to the greenhouses around here to check progress. waiting, waiting, waiting...

Question: help pls!

What should I be planting early autumn?  Limited space although the soil is decent.  Temps get down to about 5 deg C (I think that's about 40 F) at night and about 10 hours of sunshine, day temps average of about 60 F.  Some frosts but not many, no snow, fair amount of rain.

If anyone has a chance to reply that would be great.  We eat pretty much everyting so no fussiness in crops at all :)

DC, fall veggies are typically planted in mid- to late summer, so as to be ready in early and mid-fall. For instance, although it's in the 90sF, I'd be putting much of my fall garden in in August. Further north, fall veggies go in the ground as early as July.

So, what I'm saying is, you're about a month or so late.

The key, for you, is to examine veggies by speed of growth and days-to-maturity. Take both of them with a grain of salt, however, because they will grow slower in the cooler temps of fall. Even so, fast-growing types, such as radishes, leaf lettuces, and greens might still work. I would use row covers, though, to protect them. You might be able to get away with English peas, grown for the shoots and tips. There's nowhere near enough time for them to mature.

Garlic and multiplying onions are typically fall planted, for spring-, early-summer harvest, and you might consider doing that. You can plant them anytime the ground is still workable.

KYH,

Drat - thought I might be a bit late.  Thanks for the info - looks like next year then.  I start getting the ground ready for spring I guess :)  Manure time!  Luckily the ground doesn't normally freeze here so I can still work it.

Tomatoes are well dead, I have a feeling they might have got blight, as the leaves went yellow then brown really fast and they stopped cropping.  Question on that one - just in case it was blight, can I re-use the potting mix (as they were in pots) or should I toss that just to be safe?  Was thinking on taking the pots inside and getting some herbs growing.  I've got a big picture window which gets sun all winter long.

Our frosts in Victoria are not very severe, but is sounds like the tunnels might be a goer.  If I can keep the snails away.  I heard somewhere that if you crush up egg shells and scatter that around the plants all the slimy plant munching things find it awkward to get past.  My son's on a fitness craze and uses heaps of them, so I won't have a shortage.  Plus he may get some veggies too :) if it works.

I would not re-use the potting soil. Blight is mostly soil-borne, and you'll just be carrying it from one place to another. But it doesn't sound quite like blight either. I'd suspect a nutrient difficiency, expecially as they were in pots.

Container gardening is an art form as you try to balance moisture and nutrient levels. Keep in mind that the soil in containers tends to dry out faster than the surrounding ground. So you have to water more frequently. However, every time you water you are leaching nutrients out of the potting mix, and they have to be replaced.

Give you an idea of how much that syndrome can affect the soil. I have a 20-gallon tub that last year grew a single pepper plant. This year it's in specialized onions. I had to add the equivilent amount of 10-20-10 fertilizer as if I were growing a ten foot row of onions. And there is no doubt I will have to side-dress with additional fertilizer later in the season.

On the other hand, if I were planting these same onions in the ground, I wouldn't add anything more than my usual organics---compost, manure, etc.

Eggshells certainly won't hurt anything, and they add calcium to the soil. Whether they actually deter snails and slugs depondent sayeth not. I've heard that for years, but have seen no evidence pro or con. But as I always say, if something might help, and doesn't hurt, you might as well go for it.

If you do go with row covers, choose your material carefully. As a season extender (as opposed to protection from critters), fleece increases the bed temperatures by about 5F. Clear plastic by as much as 15-20F. And, while fleece can be used as a floating row cover, plastic must be supported above the growing plants.

Given your conditions, I would consider putting in row covers consisting of wire hoops supporting plastic. I suspect you could grow greens, lettuces, radishes, etc., plus some herbs, all winter that way. Just monitor them so they don't over-heat on those bright, sunny days.