STARTING OUR SPRING VEGGIE GARDEN PART 3

My cucumbers are growing so fast (only 3 weeks old).
I have seeded Basil to plant between the tomatoes ... all of my seeds came up in just 2 days ... ouch !

Peppers and Eggplants are growing really well.
Peppers are making a lot of flowers, which I will not remove.
I did learn last year that it is ok to keep the flowers on the peppers ... I did more damages trying to remove the flowers every day in the past.
Peppers and Eggplants will be transplanted outside at the beginning of April.
By then they will be strong and ready to produce for me.

Okra is taking its time to grow.
I will transplant outside at the beginning of April too - if the weather will be warm enough.

Tomorrow (FRUIT DAY) I will start indoor Long Beans and some more Zucchini.

and that's it for this spring season ... I hope I am not forgetting some vegetables ...

drthor, Your plants are so lush and healthy looking. Your set up obviously works really well! That is really a pretty watermelon vine.

Thanks
Everything is doing really well this year.
It took me a while to get it all together ... and still a lot to learn.

I love the moon and stars plants, too, drthor. They are tender, though, I found out by moving them. Mine never quite coped and I finally lost them, but they were so beautiful before I moved them out of the hothouse. I do want to grow them again, seeding them where they will grow. I had them in large pots. My parents used to talk all the time about the moon and stars melons they ate as children. We are blessed to still have them around to grow.

Solace thanks for the info.
I will keep indoor Moon and Star until the weather will be nice and warm.

drthor, what varieties of tomatoes are you growing?

Well, my tomatoes are up and running. I planted out sixty cells with three of each variety I wanted and it looks like all have germinated exept two varieties--my Barnes Yellow seeds may be too old as I didn't have any trouble with the seeds last year. And the Super Sauce seeds are not germinating. I've got some extra so I'll try again in a dixie cup w/continuous bottom heat. I usually only give my tom seeds bottom heat if they don't germinate in four days or so.

My seed tray of peppers and eggplants should be planted out tonight or tomorrow night.

My onions are looking pretty good so the next fertilizing will be with this weekend. No more nitrogen, just potassium and phostorus for those guys--they are big boys now!

My soil thermometer is reading at a steady 60-62 degrees so the first planting of pole beens are going into the ground this weekend. I have the bed all set up. I've got a couple of early varieties of sweet corn, so the sweet corn bed is getting tilled and a load of goat stall clean out is going in. I usually wait for a 65 degree reading for the sweet corn, but I just might get that by this weekend. I still need wind protection, but I've got row covers.

Sweet corn, pole beans!?! Can zucchini be far behind!

Took my mater plants on a field trip today to start the hardening off process. They seem very happy out there!

My onions are doing well, though they need to be watered again, the cilantro is going crazy, and the dill seems to have self-sown itself.

stephanietx,
your tomatoes look really nice.
Are these the ones you did start on the roaster oven?
How old are they? and which varieties?
Are you going to transplant using the "trench method"?

Below the varieties I am growing this year. I am trying a lot of new varieties and also some varieties that I have been growing very successful for the past 5 years:

Gold Nugget Tomato
Sweet Million Tomato
Juliet Tomato
Sapho Tomato
Koralik Tomato – new for 2013
Black Cherry Tomato
Dr. Carolyn Tomato – new for 2013
Golden Gem Tomato – new for 2013
Isis Candy Cherry Tomato – new for 2013
Flamme (Jaune Flammee) Heirloom Tomato – new for 2013
Azoychka Tomato – new for 2013
Momotaro (Tough Boy) Tomato
Amy's Sugar Gem Tomato – new for 2013
Golden Jubilee Tomato
Earl of Edgecombe Tomato – new for 2013
Peacevine Cherry-Tomato – new for 2013
Grappoli D’Inverno (a Grappioli d'Inverno) Tomato
Blondkopfchen Tomato
Green Zebra Tomato
Coyote Tomato
Tigerella Tomato – new for 2013
Virginia Sweet Tomato
Black Plum Tomato – new for 2013
Black Zebra Tomato – new for 2013
Marianna's Peace Heirloom Tomato – new for 2013
Red Fig Tomato
Chocolate Cherry – new for 2013

terri_emory
my soil thermometer is almost at 60F.
This will be the second year I am planting LONG BEANS, so I still don't know a lot about them and I will appreciate your expertise.
Isn't too early to transplant right now? or is it ok?

I found out that cucumber, zucchini and pepper must be transplanted out at the beginning of April in my garden. They are not as hardy as tomatoes and at the end of March we always have a lot of wet/cold rain.

Are the beans less tender?

The long term forecast says we have more unseasonably cold weather ahead of us. Most everything in the garden has sprouted but is still wearing their cotyledons. The peas are a little further ahead, but not much. The trees are bullying ahead like they always do but everything else is just taking a long snooze instead of getting up when the alarm clock has gone off.

Then, so sez the long term forecast, we're going to have a hotter than normal spring. So I guess it'll be one of *those* years with non-existent spring and straight into hot weather.

I had serious problems with Isis in 2012. It seemed to succumb very quickly to blight. Even the fruit showed damage!
I was very pleasantly surprised by Flamme. It started producing deep orange fruit in a 1 gallon pot I was using to hold it until a planter was available. I'm planting it again this year.
Momotaro did great for me in 2012. Produced right into hot weather, which usually stops anything larger than a cherry here.
I was disappointed with Tigerella when I grew it years ago. Beautiful to look at, not so good to eat. YMMV.
I'm trying the Chocolate Cherry again this year. I tried them some time back and while I was impressed with the flavor, the yield on mine left something to be desired (namely more fruit!). I think they'll have more sun this year.

Are you buying from TomatoFest? I notice quite a few of your varieties are sold there. I'd be interested to hear your impression of the new varieties you are trying when they start producing.

Drthor, yes, these are the tomatoes I started in my roaster oven. I'm not sure how we'll plant them. We've previously used the trench method on some and also just planted them deeply. Guess we'll decide when it comes time to plant which way we'll do it! The varieties we're growing this year are Homestead 24, Rutgers, Beefsteak (for the hubby), Pantano Romanesco, and Large Red Cherry. They've been setting blooms for a week or so, but I've been clipping them off so they don't spend their energy on the blooms. We'll plant them out in two weeks.

Steph,
Those seedlings are beautiful!!! Absolutely successful roaster experiment!!!

rjogden
thanks so much for your info.
I am very excited about the new varieties I am trying this year.
I am doing a file with all my observation on my tomatoes this year. My goal is to find the best varieties for my area.
I did order some seeds from Tomato Fest (how cal you resist their website ...)

Both Isis Candy and Jaune Flammee grew fantastic indoor. Wonderful thick stems !

I narrow down the tomatoes that grew so good in the past 5 years in DFW and I also followed the suggestions of DG members and local farmer market dealers (ex. GOLDEN GEM was highly recommended by the guy selling tons of tomatoes at the Coppell FM - he said that Golden Gem was his best yellow cherry tomato. I did follow his suggestion previously with Juliet and he was right).

A few tomato superstars are missing in my harden this year: the never ending producer YELLOW PEAR and SWEET 100, BLACK KRIM (which I substituted with a lot of other black varieties) and no more CELEBRITY for me (no taste = compared to the other delish tomatoes I have discovered).

The weather now is just fantastic. I hope for some rain ... but the worst has passed.

drthor, Juliet and Jaune Flammee' have been great producers for me. In fact JF which I planted in Sept 2012 is still cranking out tomatoes for me now. I harvested some yesterday. One thiing Ive noticed with me and the JF is that because they are orange tomatoes, at first I tended to let them get over ripe. They taste best for me just before they get completely orange. It took a while for me to adjust to their different color.

drthor, I like to have a good strong 60-62 degree soil temp before I plant my pole beans. I then cover the with row cover to keep the soil temp in and keep the crows out. My dogs also will not step on row cover. I'm thinking if I do plant out this weekend I will only plant a few just to get a start as the weather forecast has changed for this area. We were to have a sunny weekend (so I was really expecting the soil temp to be at a solid 62 degrees) and it now looks like rain.

If by long beans you mean yard long beans, I would wait for at least a good 65 degree reading as I've always heard that they need warmer temps.

I think if I can plant, I'm going to try to plant one variety of sweet corn I bought. The description swears that it can be planted out early (60 degrees). I usually wait until I get a good soil temp of 70 degrees. But if the description is going to brag that way, then I'm wanting to try just to see if I can get good, healthy germination at 60 degrees. All my other sweet corn will have to wait.

steadycam3
thanks for the info. I absolutely love tomatoes of all colors. Now I am very excited about this variety.

terry_emory
thanks. Yes I am growing LONG BEANS. I did start them yesterday indoor and some seem they want to germinate already.
I will wait ... maybe at the beginning of April, like I did last year.
You are right those long beans love the 100 F degrees we have in the summer .... seriously ...

Drthor,
Once again, your seedlings are outstanding! Congratulations on a successful seed-starting season!

Linda

My lima beans are 4" tall with 4 leaves in the garden. I dont have a soil thermometer. When the volunteers come up from last years been crop, I know it's time.

steadycam3
Thanks. It means I will need to wait 2 more weeks for my beans since you are in a warmer zone than mine.

Report on BLACK PLUM tomato.
This is the first year growing this variety.
Only ONE seed germinated after 12 days ... the slowest germination ever (all the other varieties germinated max 6 days).
Finally it grew and started to catch up with the other tomatoes.
6 days ago I found the tomato bent in half ... the trunk had a big chewed mark ... maybe 1/2".
I tied the plant and made a bandage with tape !!
Look at that ! This is a survivor!

Nice job, Drthor!

Planted out a Creole tomato, and some butter beans are coming up seedlings. Dill is coming along. I have a feeling everything in the garden is about to explode now that the temperatures are starting to truly warm up. Cushaw, peppers, and zucchini all coming up at about 4".

Basil bit the dust last weekend in the cold snap, but everything else seems fine. Waiting to see if the Meyer lemon sets as much fruit as I think it will.

are you planting any interesting Italian vegetables this year?

I need ya'lls help...

Today, I harvested turnips whose tops were infested with aphids. I left a couple plants that weren't bad off. As I took a break, I looked down and saw the top of the bed was teeming with little green aphids moving in on every piece of greenery left on that side of the bed.

I have a stand of beets finishing, and the aphids were making their way over toward my beets. So, I pulled out my new Sprayer and a bottle of Neem Oil, and went to work.

Is there something more I should do at this point, or just be patient and re-apply in 7 days? Or, after the rainstorm we're supposed to have tomorrow...

I need to top this bed off and get it prepped for some spring veggies, but I cant put seedlings in with all those aphids crawling around.

Linda

This message was edited Mar 9, 2013 10:26 PM

This message was edited Mar 9, 2013 10:37 PM

Is that the allowed retreat time? Did you spray the yard and check the trees too? Does soapy water get aphids? it wouldnt hurt anyway...usually its baby ticks i see making the porch crawl. I will check on some more stuff.

Hmmm, aphids dont like garlic and onions, soap an water or water an citrus oil sposed to get em. Darn ants, babysittin em again. Any ornamental trees close? Unless you can add bennies ladybugs and lacewings, neem or soapy water appears to be all that WILL kill them. naturallyish anyway.Seems pesticides dont faze aphids.

Ciao a tutti!

Drthor - every time someone says "lasagna garden", I think they mean planting basil, tomatoes, onions, and maybe a cow wandering about. ;)

Confession: this is the first real garden I've had since I was a little gal, so I've been learning everything I can here on DG, and y'all are all so inspiring. I've gotten every Italian seed/plant I can get my hands on!


**2013 Lasagne Bolognese Garden**

Tomatoes of all kinds to see what'll grow and what'll die, including a Costutolo Genovese (I've attached a terrible photo of one of the tomato seedlings) with my Genovese basil and a bunch of other basil seedlings.

I have the "grumolo biando" chicory lettuce we talked about all started in a container, it's going along quite well. Better than the mâche, for sure.

Friarello de Napoli peppers, which I've eaten but never grown:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/202429/

Zucchini for the blossoms (sweet and savory)

Short-day onions I planted a while back, along with garlic that is coming up great in the front flowerbed.

Louisiana Italian: taters, pigeon and purple hull peas, long beans, tabasco pepper, muscadine. I tried to adopt a fig tree this weekend, but no dice.

And I did have two eggplant seedlings tonight that were FINALLY sprouting after 6 weeks, and my BF just accidentally threw them away...but at least he was doing the dishes. :)

This message was edited Mar 9, 2013 11:52 PM

Nola? Where you are- figs will grow from cuttings- just get abt 8/10" and stick it in ground about 6to 8" deep.

Gymgirl - I had the best results killing aphids by using Nitrozime

http://www.wormsway.com/products_by.aspx?t=prod&brand=Nitrozyme

(My bottle spells it Nitrozime)

I just mixed a small amount in water and sprayed the plants with it. I think Neem will also work, but the smell of that stuff gives me a terrible headache!

Our Carolina Chickadees love aphids. Last year I watched mamma bird teach her babies how to fiind them on the tomatoe plants. She raised her babies in a nest box that I had placed under the eaves of our porch.

Gymgirl,
you keep killing aphids the beneficial insects will never come to save your garden.
The reason that your crop is being attack is probably because you did plant it at the wrong time of the year. The plants are done and they got weak and then bugs do attack.
My radishes, kales, collards were attacked one month ago by aphids and that told me that they were done ... so I did remove them . I did enjoy them fall and winter.
Right now you should focus your garden with vegetables that love the heat and forget the greens.

Try to start all your roots and kole crops in August next year and enjoy them in the fall and winter.
You will be successfull with your garden when you will learn the exhact planting dates for each crop in your area ... you will know because no bugs will attack your plants and you will not need to spray at all.
If you have a local farmer market ask the local gardener what and when to plant each crops. I did learn a lot from my local farmers market people.

Nola_Nigella buona fortuna for your new garden. This is my 5th year of vegetable garden ... I grew up as a "city girl" but always enjoy visiting my nonna in campagna ... e mangiare panini con il salame ... I wish she saw me now: with my fingers full of dirt and always in the kitchen ... just like her ...

At the very beginning of my vegetable garden I was trying to plant Italian vegetables that were familiar to me ... but they not all worked. Soon I realized that in the climate I live I need to focus more on heat resistant varieties ... more from India and Thailand. It will take some time to learn what will work for you.
Here I cannot grow squash very well ... but I can grow a lot of other crops ... so no complains for me ...

When I have aphid infestations, I spray a concoction of soap and rubbing alcohol on them. Into your spray bottle, put some soap (I have used Dr. Bronners which smells heavenly or Dove) and about a capful of rubbing alcohol. Does the trick every time! Sometimes, I don't have the time or patience to wait for the beneficial bugs to show up.

Oh, the greens are almost all done - collards, spring lettuces, those guys.

I figure I have a lot of learning to do, so I try a little bit of everything.

Nola_Nigella
In my area by the time the tomatoes are ready the lettuce is done !!
I have a dream to eat a salad with tender lettuce and tomatoes ...
Also, I cannot make salsa either - here Cilantro and Tomatoes don't grow at the same time ... so I make my salsa
with Parsley or Basil ...
You must plant some of those LONG BEANS in your garden. They love the heat !! I bet they'll do great in your zone!
http://rareseeds.com/vegetablesa-c/beans/long-beans.html

If south Houston were so lucky as to be ANYTHING like north Dallas Lynda could count on that. Our climate and neighbors the bugs NEVER stop. Like those blasted ants that hide aphid babies away and so they just keep coming. The aphids like everything down here, there is NO plant they will not touch- and there are so many different ones. Do support the neem treats with with soapy water backup

By the way- those Sluggo pellets are spinozad, and tho slo are said to even help with ants - scuse, FIREANTS, control. But do treat the whole area, not just the garden. Usually your neighbors won't be.

I took some pics of the onions I bought at the store and put in water after chopping the tops off to about 1" from the root, and here's a pic of some I transplanted last weekend (you can see where I chopped them off where the white part ends). This is about a week's growth on these. As soon as the roots began to grow out, and the green part was growing out of the white part a quarter inch or so, I transplanted them into soil I had sterilized from the garden. The onions love the soil, apparently, but the lettuce doesn't look as happy as it was in just the water. I think I'll keep the lettuce in the water from now on, or in perlite/vermiculite mix. I can't wait to do carrots and celery! 'Course I have no idea what strains of veggies they are, but I didn't see wasting them if I could regrow them. The chicken wire-surrounded pot is the Hass that froze, in the center, above are the three avocados that I planted from saved seeds from the grocery store avocados, and the cups hold the new starts of Yellow Brandywine I sprouted in the oven, and the medium pot has a couple of Amish Paste tomatoes in it. The Hass doesn't seem to mind all these new friends sharing its space. This pot is setting in the area that will be turned into an indoor greenhouse, just off the radio studio. Hope I can see it all done by next weekend (I'm sure getting tired of stepping over 2x4's stacked down the hall). :) The last pic shows a pineapple (yes, from the grocery store) bouncing back from the freeze (and cat chews) in front of the Cold Hardy avocado tree. I leave the old leaves to provide nourishment for the new stems coming on. Another shot of the indoor greenhouse area. (Bad framing, everything's crooked in that last one. my bad.)

...and by the way, the cups with tomatoes in the oven began to show some mold, so I sprinkled them all with cinnamon to prevent damping off. It looks like it's working.