New pics of my garden

Here are the latest pics on my garden thus far:

I still have to finish the staking system and then hook up the watering system, half my buckets have red mulch covers the rest won't have them, wanna see if they make any difference or not. All my EBs are planted up along with all my ebuckets all have tomatoes in them except 3 which have eggplants in them. I have 6 GPs left which I want to put my brandywines and peppers in and will plant up some in grow bags also as I have 12 of each brandywines and peppers to plant up and am only putting 4 peppers per box, I am going to try a cherry tomato and a pepper plant in the topsy's this year, only I'm going to be using coconut coir and vermulicite instead of perlite, see if that doesn't help keep them moist enough and I'm using 1/4 cup per month of Espoma Garden Tone in the grow bags and turvys this year. Here are my taters:

My onions you can smell already so think they are close to harvesting???

This is my portable greenhouse, falling apart and I'm trying to get it apart, got ideas for the leftover parts.

A different view of my e-bucket garden, some of the maters are already starting to flower, I did manage to get two 18 gallon totes of okra planted also today.

Wow, Joy...your setup looks great!

Thank you.
joy

What a beautiful garden! Everything so colorful and cheery. A true area to sit and find serenity.

Looks great! It's going to be jungle.

Wow, Joy--that is impressive! You should have a great growing season if the weather cooperates. I could benefit from some of your organizational skills.

A friend of mine asked what I'm going to do when the grass starts to grow in between the buckets and in the aisles (yikes), I hadn't thought about that one. LOL
joy

You can use a weed killer but don't spray on a windy day or use weed cloth before the weeds start to grow. No big deal. Even use the pine bark mulch at $2.00 for 2cu ft. It goes along way but no matter what you still may have to use a weed killer. No wind -- No fear!

TPlant, actually I think my little mower will go right down the aisles and in between the buckets I can just dig them out I think. LOL Bark mulch does sound like a great idea though too.
joy

Either way will do. No problem!

I'm, so excited, I received both manifolds and the Y connectors today, my guy, just about did the complete staking system and I was thrilled to see I didn't need as much wood as I thought, so will have some left over for another project, hmmmm, now wonder what that will be hey? LOL I am so tempted to buy a key lime and Meyer lemon tree, saw them at Walmart and the Crestview Nursery.
joy

You could get a little electric weed eater.

Molamola: That is true too. My watering stuff comes today!
joy

I measured the aisles in between the bucket rows (see first pic above) and I came up with 3 1/2 ft wide by 15 ft long times 3. I received my poly hose and poly tubing, from Bob yesterday! And I'm anxious to get started. I bought two 100 ft lengths of poly hose and 2 boxes of 100 ft poly tubing. I think I might be able to get away with using one 100 ft length of poly hose and 1 - 1 1/2 boxes of poly tubing to get the whole back yard connected up. Sweet. Now, I was thinking maybe weed cloth, topped off with bark mulch down the rows before doing the watering thing? But approximately how much weed cloth do I need and approximately how many bags of bark mulch will I need? And will that work?
joy

The weed cloth comes in 3 & 6' sections and 50' long but buy only Dupont at Lowes as the other cloth rips easily. Mulch is about $2 for 2 cu ft so buy it as you need it. I'd buy the 6' wide roll and double it over and don't forget the lawn staples to hold down the cloth.

I agree with Tplant about the dupont weedcloth. It lasts much longer than some of the others I have used and is strong enough to stand lots of foot traffic. Putting pine bark nuggets on top of good quality weedcloth is not necessary unless you just like the looks of it. Walking on top of the bark nuggets will press them down and damage the weed cloth and shortens its life. Also, grass and weed and (vegetable/flower) seeds will sprout and grow in as little as 1/4 inch of dirt or bark fines on top of the weed cloth. The weedcloth causes the ground underneath it to stay moist. The grass/weeds etc can suck the moisture up thru the weed cloth and spread their roots through a thin layer of dirt or bark mix on top of the cloth. Last year, I had some nice little nicotina plants growing on top of weed cloth. I could just lift them right up off the weed cloth and they had a mass of tiny roots gripping a thin layer of dirt.

TPlant and Jaywhacker: I kind of followed ya'lls advice, I got the weed cloth, doubled it and staked it down, then bought and used around 22 bags of 2 cubic ft cypress mulch on top of it and around the 5 gallon buckets, I piled it pretty high, at least 2-3 inches, I hope that works, I understand that cypress mulch repels bugs? It doesn't seem to be working though. I sprayed with permethrin and spinosad about 4 days ago and I'm seeing white moths around my smart pots that contain my taters, I'm also seeing flies that have this metallic green color in the same spot. Around my maters I'm seeing what looks to be swarms of itsy bitsy flying black specks and a long skinny black bodied bug that has long slender wings. We just got done with a thunderstorm and will have them through Tuesday, three days of clear weather after that so will spray again Wednesday.
I did see 2 baby mater balls and have eaten some strawberries, my onions are all done now and I dug all them up.
joy

Sigourney Beaver: Yeah, I do know what you mean. I was hoping someday to load my yard down with ladybugs, beneficial nematoads, some lacewigs and possibly one of those bee home dealies you see where you can encourage mason bees to come in and make a home for their little ones. I didn't have a problem with horned catepillars last year as I had lots of birds and think they were scooping them up as snacks; but, man have I got problems with the aphids.
joy

I'm not familiar with the Self-contained box garden method. What are the pros and cons of this method? Don't you use a lot of potting mix in those buckets, more so than you would in milk jugs? Do you drill holes in those buckets for drainage? How do you water them all? The plants in black bags or planters sure look healthy and happy. Do you have to transplant them elsewhere after they get a certain size?

The plants in the black bags are smart pots, they are my taters, and hopefully will be done in a few more weeks, my maters are getting huge and will post updates this weekend on my garden. I have an drip irrigation system for my earthboxes and one for my 5 gallon containers and also just put down soaker hoses in the flower beds out front, I'm ready for the hot weather now. LOL
joy

Joy I have to ask..if you have all the room in your yard why not just do a regular in the ground garden? I would kill for a sunny space like that.

Juanita

Juantia: I'm new to gardening and love the containers as they are pretty much care free as far as bugs, watering etc go. I am planning on having a few above ground beds next year, both with soaker hoses and hoops for different cloths. I will then probably plant watermelons, lettuce and asparagus in them.
joy

Here are eleven new pics of my updated garden and irrigation system:

my chocolate peppers:

my taters with flowers on them:

another one of the potatoes:

tomato forest:

more maters:

strawberries in strawberry turvys and bloommasters and peppers in upsy downsys (those are the "I fooled you peppers") and one grape tomato in the topsy turvy knockoff, the rest of the topsy turvy's have bonnie green bells in them.

more:

another pic:'

notice in the above pic the water poly tubing? These topsy's and bloommaster and upsy downsy are being watered with poly tubing attatched to aqua turrets, they are doing well too, amazing isn't it?

now for another pic of the upsy downsy with the peppers in it:

And of course, black beauty eggplants along with the other two EBs of lavender touch and FL highbush, the black beauties have purple flowers already.

Holy smokes! That is indeed a forest. Just wait until they all get above head.....should be fun walking down the paths surrounded by tomato plants.

Ray: Yep, it will be; but, just now getting around to trimming them up some and think some will get a little crazy, I did put more twine around the stakes though to purposely keep them up off the ground, some have tomatoes on them; but they are green ones yet.
joy