Fruit and vegetable gardens 2024

[Fiddler's Green]

Dug out this unknown grape variety that was planted by the previous owner and put it in a pot to see if it survives. The past few years it's been nibbled down to nothing so I haven't been able to taste the fruit. It's hardy and the rodents like it so they gotta be good right?


I need to sprinkle some lentils on top to keep the riff-raff out and provide some structure to keep the grapes in place and hold the stakes up.

 

[H.A.F.]

I keep geting rain in the afternoon, sometimes not enough that it really waters anything, except keeping the yard damp so I can't mow it. And the taller it gets the more moisture it retains LOL

When I get to it I'll snap pics but I have some clover gone to seed that is about a foot tall. Right next to it is a patch that's half that heignt and fluffy white with bees of all types and other stuff at it all day. I am still using cardboard to mulch the pathways but clover works as well or better, and puts more nutes back in the soil. And I don't feel bad getting it closer to the vegetable plants.

I have a few bush beans that vined, or pole beans that got mixed in, but they are shading he tomatoes so that's priority one when it cools off. No sacrificing tomatoes for beans. That's a fig tree in the cement pot upper right bu he stump, and the [probable] birdhouse gourd to the left on what was my compost pile. Alone the fence between the inner and ouer rows of peppers is the volunteer tomato [which are always cherry tomatoes] and it is first out of the gate as expected.

I snipped about 2lbs of future compost off the new limbs sprouting everywhere. I keep leaves and fruit. and lots of LST.


I need to give all the tomatoes another wrap or two around he paracord and prune away the lower leaves and some but not all shoots. My beefsteak types are gonna stay shorter and can have all the limbs they want, and I'll drop a new string where needed. But the cherries will end up making a canopy on top of the racks so I keep no extra limbs on them unless they are looking pretty sparse. Then I'll wrap them around the same string until it gets to the top.

The other thing I like about pruning away the lower stuff is keeping the ground pests uninterested. Once you have the old dying leaves they all get as the plant ages the pest pressure spikes. In general I would prune all the stuff below the fruit growth. Old leaves and flower sets where the tomatoes were. This also un-shades the lower stuff and you can start another crop.

 

[H.A.F.]

In most of those areas that are really "weedy" it's clover I am keeping, even in the walkways if it wants to stay. I pulled up a mess of clover to plant a tomato and there were nitrogen nodules up to the size of rice grains on the roots. If I eventually have to just mow the walkways that's fine.

 

[treefarmercharlie]

Slugs are fucking up my cabbages hard this year. Little cock suckers! I also see shit from cabbage worms but I think the oil spray I used on the cabbage got rid of those. I think I’m going to pull these out and just start new ones. I need to get some BT concentrate to make sure the new ones don’t go through this.

 

[H.A.F.]

The only leafy green anything I grow outside for edible leaves is mizuna. Japanese mustard greens. I tried several varieties and one went craz all summer. Bugs and slugs never touched it. At the end of the season I let it go to seed and saved all I could - because my dumb ass couldn't find the tag saying which one it was. It'll likely come back. It would grow the tall flowering things but after they did their thing and fell over they would keep growing and it was like LST-ing a weed plant sideways and lots of limbs started growing off it. Made beautifu new salad greens mid summer then weent to seed again.

I am watching my cover crops closely and seeing a lot of stuff I recognise. I have a clover/not-clover that has the three leaf thing, but it's tall and sometimes viny and will lay down and root runners. It's a local thing and not some baker creek re-seeding. But it never makes clover flowers so I have no clue what it is. Balsam flower trees are popping up on the edges and lemon balm everywhere. I have just enough volunteer catnip at one corner of the house to renew my cat's headstash. I plucked one our of the garden growing in the lemon balm. The crimson clover I planted gets tall so it gets cut down mostly. The white clover that is local gets to flower. I have a few other short leafy clover-ish things in the yard that are taking over so as I mulch with that stuff I'll get some seeding.

 

[Fiddler's Green]

Slugs are fucking up my cabbages hard this year. Little cock suckers! I also see shit from cabbage worms but I think the oil spray I used on the cabbage got rid of those. I think I’m going to pull these out and just start new ones. I need to get some BT concentrate to make sure the new ones don’t go through this.
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How to reduce slug and snail damage in the garden #growyourgroceries #growyourown #slugsandsnails

youtube.com

Maybe this could help amigo

 

[treefarmercharlie]

I’m a dumbass. I thought the spray got rid of the cabbage worms but you can see 4 of the fuckers in that photo if you zoom in on it

 

[treefarmercharlie]

The only leafy green anything I grow outside for edible leaves is mizuna. Japanese mustard greens. I tried several varieties and one went craz all summer. Bugs and slugs never touched it. At the end of the season I let it go to seed and saved all I could - because my dumb ass couldn't find the tag saying which one it was. It'll likely come back. It would grow the tall flowering things but after they did their thing and fell over they would keep growing and it was like LST-ing a weed plant sideways and lots of limbs started growing off it. Made beautifu new salad greens mid summer then weent to seed again.

I am watching my cover crops closely and seeing a lot of stuff I recognise. I have a clover/not-clover that has the three leaf thing, but it's tall and sometimes viny and will lay down and root runners. It's a local thing and not some baker creek re-seeding. But it never makes clover flowers so I have no clue what it is. Balsam flower trees are popping up on the edges and lemon balm everywhere. I have just enough volunteer catnip at one corner of the house to renew my cat's headstash. I plucked one our of the garden growing in the lemon balm. The crimson clover I planted gets tall so it gets cut down mostly. The white clover that is local gets to flower. I have a few other short leafy clover-ish things in the yard that are taking over so as I mulch with that stuff I'll get some seeding.

Is this what you are talking about? I’m constantly fighting it in the gravel area of my garden. It’s at least easy to pull and the roots just slip out with the plant. I think it is Creeping Woodsorrel

 

[Fiddler's Green]

Is this what you are talking about? I’m constantly fighting it in the gravel area of my garden. It’s at least easy to pull and the roots just slip out with the plant. I think it is Creeping Woodsorrel
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Between that and Johnson Grass is my main battle in my tall beds. I'm trying a thick wood mulch layer this year and it's been working decent so far.

 

[H.A.F.]

Is this what you are talking about? I’m constantly fighting it in the gravel area of my garden. It’s at least easy to pull and the roots just slip out with the plant. I think it is Creeping Woodsorrel
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Nope, I love the wood sorrel a.k.a. sour grass we used to eat the little okra pods off it as kids. This may be crimson clover just getting real big before setting a flower, but I have a few that are pretty long with multiple shoots growing up.

 

[treefarmercharlie]

Nope, I love the wood sorrel a.k.a. sour grass we used to eat the little okra pods off it as kids. This may be crimson clover just getting real big before setting a flower, but I have a few that are pretty long with multiple shoots growing up.
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I don't mind it in the yard, I just don't like it growing in the gravel walkways round my raised beds. I should've just left it as grass in there and weed-whacked it. It stays wet enough under the gravel to promote weed growth and it's an absolute pain in the ass to keep clean.

 

[H.A.F.]

I don't mind it in the yard, I just don't like it growing in the gravel walkways round my raised beds. I should've just left it as grass in there and weed-whacked it. It stays wet enough under the gravel to promote weed growth and it's an absolute pain in the ass to keep clean.

I find that if I clip the tall stuff short a few times it stops coming back. Meanwhile the tomatoes are getting taller. It all works out.

By September last year I only had one little patch of cover crop still going and lots of mulch. I may be doing overkill in the other direction but you can always mow it down. You can't miracle it there when you want it and if it isn't established by then no seeds are starting.

 

[H.A.F.]

I'll get a pic when the garden gets shaded, but I keep finding ways to jam more stuff in. My tomatoes are stretching now and after pruning away lower stuff there's no more competing with the bush beans. In places that they got chipmunked and I had bare patches I reseeded. I got some small ornamental type fence pieces that are actually 1/4" steel rod with sharp spikes. Instead of more wire mesh I am gonna see if those will be a chipmunk barrier enough to get the plants started.

These were $47 for 28 of the panels. It's 17" high and 30' total so the panels are about a foot wide. As soon as I saw how sturdy they were I ordered another set. I noticed with the bush beans it says they don't need staking but the weight of the beans pulls them over. I used these to prop the existing beans. For the blank spots I just got a row hoed and loosened the soil up then leveled it back out and jammed the fence in the middle, then planted the beans alondside.

So I got the beans and some corn planted, and a section of fence with cucumber in a nice mesh trough if potting soil. I think that may be it for the back garden.

 

[H.A.F.]

I have an ancient boxelder maple in the front yard that has been dying in pieces since before I lived here. Dropping limbs and it has mushrooms growing in a hollow where a limb broke off. It moults leaves 3-4 times a year though and makes killer mulch. I mow and collect the leaves and at a minimum pile them around the base of the tree. Yesterday I mowed about 4" of maple leaf mulch up and laid some new mulch around the tree. The mowed mulch is the dark areas. That lower area is the richest and loosest soil and keeps getting better. I extended the fence back and to the right but I think the garden area is pretty set.I want to use the new areas to keep compost piles going above the garden. Every rain is a feeding.

Upper left you can see the celery blooming from space. I'll be getting seed.

Far right is the ex-compost-pile I planted raspberries next to it with a little temp-fence until they got started, now it's a birdhouse gourd barrier. That plant started out through one of the holes in the compost fence so it had to stay. Hooked it to the raspberry fence and I'm guiding it around. Gonna be biomass for days. The big black compost thing is just chipped wood aging. Any old limbs I chip get used. Any green stuff goes in there. Fig tree in the pot.

The only expansion of growing area was in the back. On both sides I tilled a row and added that fencing for beans, then behind the fence I planted corn. I had planted one pole bean by each leg of the tomato rack, then they started taking over so - temp-fence I unwrapped three that were going well and will just keep them draped on that one fence piece. Thatrow of tomatoes was the last planted that got stunted in thepots and didn't go into the best soil - but they were the extras.

My fun little project is the wild cherry. I took a limb each direction and am snipping every secondary limb, but leavine all the leaves strapping that one limb to the fence, and all the tomatoes are growing up top - pretty cool. There's a bunch at the notch where they plant splits that will be my first harvest of tomato. Not even pink yet...

 

[H.A.F.]

This is the basic set up on the tomato racks. Fence/short beans in the middle. tomatoes about 2 feet apart. I planted the beefsteak all under the lone rack on the left side so they don't get shaded out. The beef's tend to be shorter and stockier, and not very prolific but what grows is massive. just because I am such a swell guy and things go right for me all the time I planted a "purple reign" shorty beefsteak on the front right by the best sun. Even in the cups it was tiny and stout. Then the one I planted on the left side rotted off and I had a spare purple reign going - bookends. THEEEEEN the middle one (Kellogg's Breakfast Beefsteak) that is not short splits perfectly where you can barely tell which is the main and which is the sprout so I added a string.

On the 'black turtle' bush beans I count on one harvest. They don't seem to make a lot of new beans if you pluck the first ones, andthey are good dried beans, so I'll let them ripen completely on the vine before I pluck - but I'll likely pull the plants all a once and stick something else in. By my math they work out to one bean growing into one meal. This is a loner plant left after the chipmunks mowed through the rest. The plants were left perfect and laying on top - just the roots eaten through while the shits were tunnelling around. The dragons tongue are opposite. One row and I'll be plucking all season.

 

[Fiddler's Green]

Rabbit: .....


Me:

 

[H.A.F.]

Rabbit: .....
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Me:

Keep it as a pet and use the poop!

 

[H.A.F.]

a rolling chicken coop type thing and it can mow the lawn for you.

 

[H.A.F.]

FYI - got an email newsletter from Baker Creek saying their seed production area was flooded out. Not sure how their gonna handle it, since their seeds are already more expensive than a lot, but their stock for next year is what will be effected. If it was outside gardens it should be stuff that will seed/fruit now or later on and be for the next Springs planting. like tomatoes and peppers and stuff they would have planted but ain't ready yet.

 

[Fiddler's Green]

Keep it as a pet and use the poop!

Too late, it's making fertilizer a different way.