My winter garden

Hi everyone!!! It's been a challanging growing season this year to say the least. High heat and rain ruined the early August planting of tomatoes (50) of them, all diseased. The heat stayed with us for two extra months this fall. Delayed all my cool weather crop planting. Then last month we had the longest cold spell in 70 years. Lost all my cuke plants, but everything else survived. Now, everything is thriving and all is forgotten. The chinese cabbage in the pic loved the cold weather. It almost ate me!!!! All the cool weather plants, lettuce, cabbage, chinese cabbage, carrots, and collards loved the prolonged cold snap. Even the 50 pepper and 150 strawberry plants seemed to benefit from the cold. Both are producing great right now. Picking strawberries every day and peppers twice a week. My short day onions (200 plants) are growing very quickly and looking like they are starting to bulb. Picking bibb and romaine lettuce daily.

I have many pictures to post in the next couple of days. Stay tuned.

BocaBob

Good Heavens....that's huge and beautiful! Looking forward to seeing more pics.

Stay tuned I will...i have been wondering where you have been...and some pictures...beautiful chinese cabbage. wow.

it looks so strange to see such great veggies and then oleanders in the background. You would think it would just be so hot.

This message was edited Jan 26, 2010 11:22 AM

Bob,
Show me your short day onions. When did you plant them out? From seeds or transplants?

What kind are you growing?

I wanna learn about growing onions!

Beautiful Bob.

joy

BROWN'S OMAHA Plant Farms,Inc. in Texas is where I orderd my onion plants. The 3 types I bought are Tx 1015, Red Burgandy, and Crystal Wax White Bermuda. I received them in November and planted them in lay flat grow bags containing coconut coir. They are doing great. I planted alot of them in Earthboxes too.

This message was edited Jan 26, 2010 7:25 PM

Sad to hear about the tomatoes. Glad almost everything else is doing great! Keep the pics coming.

Well a couple of days turned into a couple of weeks. I took some shots today to share with you all. Right now the growing conditions are perfect. Day temps in the 70's and nights in the 50's and 60's. I'm currently growing tomatoes (35), peppers (35), onions (150), strawberries (150), cabbage, chinese cabbage, bibb and romaine lettuce, carrots, beets,runner beans, bush beans, cucumbers, Collards, meyer lemons, tangerines, and Red Navel Oranges. Everything is growing great. The 3 fruit trees are all budding flowers right now.

romaine lettuce

collards

strawberries

cabbage

peppers

onions

outside garden

another outside view

eggplant

some Italian peppers

tomatoes inside the pool enclosure

lots of lettuce

Curley and Italian parsley

Bob: Those pics are well worth the wait we have had to see you post them, beautiful job, beautiful garden there bud.
joy

Hi everyone! new member here, I was wondering (since I am very new to container gardening) if the container needs to be prepared with rocks or charcoal or ??for them to have the drainage they need. I live in an apartment with a small balcony which only gets about 4 hrs of partial sun due to a beautiful shade tree nearby. I want to get growlamps for them but don't really know what I am doing. I have gardened vegetable gardens for years but its alittle different in this situation!! I will be growing snow peas, tomatoes,cucumbers and squash for now, the tomatoes are doing well but I know they need more light.

Also I have sprouts from seeds started just 5 days ago for all the rest. If anyone has any advice for me, please feel free (please). I will also be using some of my living room for plants under grow lights. I have looking on ebay and the red and blue led lights are going for about $20 to $25.

Randy: I'm hoping to get T-5 lighting next year. What kind of containers are you using? That will I think determine what medium you are gonna to do best at using. My tomato seeds finally sprouted, just got back from south FL today and they babies were getting leggy already under the dome, so moved them to under the lights I have, that compost tea/chamille that I sat my coconut coir seed starting block in to absorb must have given them quite the boost I think.
joy

Are you growing your unions in the same grow bags you sell? They seem different. did you just cut open the tops differently?

Bob: What are those buckets your stackers are sitting on?
joy

Click on the link to see a slide show of pictures taken today

http://s921.photobucket.com/albums/ad54/leetomkatebob/winter%20garden%20Feb%202010/?albumview=slideshow


Here's the strawberries I picked after the photos were taken

bob: That is an awesome and beautiful garden.
joy

Bob you are killing me. We are getting 5 more inches of snow tonight maybe more to add to the 50 inches we got in the last month. ARGH!!

Juanita

Juanita,

Spring is coming

Bob: Remember me telling you how it's finally warming up a bit? Well, we just got a very cold day today. (sniffles).
joy

Awsome show Bob!
Carol

Very nice Bob! Did you start your onions from sets or seeds? Mine have already flopped over while only making small/medium sized bulbs. Even though we are still getting more rain than we have in a long time and night time temps dipping into the 40's. I have begun planting tomatoes. So far so good.

Hi Bob,

Great garden! Are the green buckets under the white stackable pots providing water to the white pots? If so, how is the water getting up to the pots? I have some of the stackables and am trying to figure out how to make them self-watering.

Thanks for the photos.

Kelly

Ray: I'm too scared to chance putting my mater babies out yet. They just got their first true leaves yesterday. I'm going to be potting them up into one gallon grow bags next week, hoping my flat trays will be here by then. I can put about 8 bags per tray and will have 48 bags and 20 trays, the perforations on the bottom of the 1 gallon grow bags are perfect for bottom watering. Just need to hang more grow lights now.

Bob: Thanks for the one gallon grow bag idea it is going to work great for my 90 or so tomatoes and my burying the stem project.
joy

Ray - I bought onion plants from Brown's of Texas I prefer the plants over seeds or sets. For me, short day varieties produce large onions

Kelly - Those green buckets are just for support and to raise the white pots above the ground.

Hi Bob,

Thanks for letting me know. The green buckets are much nicer looking than the red ones I have. Your garden looks great!

Thanks Bob! I will never grow from sets ever again. My bulbs are pretty small and have a lot of long green tops. I'm gonna keep my eyes peeled for plants if I choose to plant anymore onions.

Ray: I grew from seeds and bulbs, and the ones I grew from seeds wound up looking like bunching onions, still waiting on the bulb ones and I think they have turned out okay. My lone cabbage got plucked yesterday, cleaned and it's coleslaw tomorrow. LOL
joy

BBob - I see you've been busy. Everything looks really good - nice pics! You recovered well from the reaally cold January we had. The coir worked very well for my tomato plants this year and it was looking to be a good year - then the freeze got most of my plants :-(
Two things I'm taking forward: 1. no more tomatos in the 5lb grow bags - they're just too small for the root system of indet heirlooms; and, 2. only one plant per container, including eathboxes. Everytime I plant 2 tomatos in an EB, one does well and the other struggles. The bigger the container the better.
I went by Tplant's house last week and, as he's downsizing due to health reasons, he most kindly gave me 10 EB's that I'll start using soon. Some were even filled with coir! I also saw his watering system and I may also try that next season. I found the large containers of coir need a lot of water, especiall when plants are large.
So, one question for you - what are your favorite vegs to plants in smaller pots and grow bags?
See ya,
Flip