MOVING INTO OUR SUMMER VEGGIE GARDENS, PART 1

happygirl - I counted seven deer on my neighbor's lawn a few nights ago.

Vegetables out front would be a smorgasbord for deer. I'm thankful they don't leap the fence in the backyard.

We live in an enclave called Heritage Woods. All kinds of wildlife abound here - which I must admit, is one of the reasons I live here.

I live way out in the boonies. 5 miles to the highway. So it's 5 miles just to get on a road that goes somewhere else. Lol. I have to get fuel before I get home bc I hate making a trip just to get fuel. I have to fence everything too bc of the deer but I luv it out here. There are 5 houses on my road and 800 open acres across the road.

Deer won't jump if they can't see where they are going to land, thus the moats at zoos. Your back yard is safe, if your husband doesn't eat the tomatoes you left out to be volunteers. Lol

I have seen deer-excluding fences made of split rails which slant outwards. They don't have to be very high; the deer apparently know that if they try to leap them they'll get caught in the horizontal rails on the other side.

We have a four-foot fence around the two sides of our garden that offer access by deer. On one of those sides is an old orchard, and on the other is a pasture. Both of those areas back up onto the woods where deer like to wander and we see them in the pasture and orchard sometimes. DH put up an electric strand at a height of 22” and two feet out from both of those fences, where the deer would have to set up to jump. When he first turned the current on, that night we heard a deer hit the electric wire and fall back with a thump. There was a lot of huffing and snorting, but they never tried it again. That was many years ago.

Lisa - thanks for the giggle - it's a perfect way to start the day ^^_^^

This is my latest harvest. After two days of rain some of my largest tomato cracked.
I am having the best year for eggplants.
From left: Ping Tung (this eggplant is green inside), Bonica, Japanes, Casper, Prosperosa

I did a lot of grilling yesterday.
I discover that CASPER, the white eggplant, doesn't store well in the fridge. After 2 days it starts to develop brown spots. So I have to harvest and cooked really fast.

1lisac - it's hard to get a photo of, but it looks a lot like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nidulariaceae

I have these all over the garden space that gets a lot of roof runoff from my neighbors, and I don't know that this space has ever been a garden before. Our neighborhood took on 11+ feet of water during Katrina, so gosh knows what's under there.

My tomatoes ate growing really well, even if I think they slowed down recently.
This year I'd like to try something new and I am interested to find out if somebody has done this before.

As you can see in the first picture, the tomato vines are growing horizontally and they are still producing fruits on the top.
June 24th (=fruit day) I'd like to direct seed some LONG BEANS under the tomato plants. The beans will grow and attach to the tomato trunks. The tomato canopy will shade the younger bean seedlings and by the time the beans are to the top, the tomato plants will be done and I could trim them away.

Those long beans really love our climate. In the picture #4 you can see the beans growing on the wood fence.

Have you ever done this?

With the storms the past couple of days, the tomatoes didn't fare too well. Almost all of them were knocked over due to the high winds. I swear I live in a wind tunnel! LOL Then the neighborhood possum found some of my ripening tomatoes. :( I'd like to trap that thing and dispatch it somewhere. All the plants are still healthy and hubby is working to upright them all this morning. We might have to stake them and tie the plants up to the stake. Next year, we'll have to do something different. I think hubby is looking into using a string trellis or something like that.

My tomato vines pulled my cages over so I went up to Lowe's and bought those steel T-posts used for fencing. I purchased the 6 1/2 foot ones, drove them down into the ground and used the packet of fence ties I purchased to attach the cages to the T-posts just like you would a fence. Just used a three lb. small sledge hammer to drive them in, that should hold them up even in a heavy wind. I finally was successful in trapping my demon Armadillo last night, I permanently relocated him.

This message was edited Jun 19, 2013 11:22 AM

Mittleider T-Frame instructions...

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://sustainable-gardening.subto.us/TFrames.pdf&chrome=true

That's very interesting, Linda. I'll have to save that and show it to hubby.

Steph,
Check it out in action! Go to YouTube/ldsprepper or ldsprepper channel and watch his videos. Search for the Mittleider T-Frames video, then his garden update from this month.

This guy is growing all this in Houston, in sawdust and sand!


I think this is the link. OUr company has blocked all YouTube...wonder why, LOL?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CLWdctgzOA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

This message was edited Jun 19, 2013 12:50 PM

Stephanie/Seedfork

I don't have a picture right now, but I use concrete wire cages for my tomatoes. I secure them with a 7' t-post at the end of each row, and a stretch of electric fence wire across the top of the cages from each post, over the row of cages. I use plastic zip-ties on the top edges of the cages where the wire crosses. Each cage is secured to the wire on both edges. Between the bottom six-inches of the cage and the wires between the posts the cages resist a pretty good wind. It is much less work than a post at every cage and seems to be enough, even for the occasional storm wind.

David

Steph,
The real beauty of the T-Frames is that the crossbars extend over the pathways between the raised beds, and are framed on all four sides.

He then trains climbing plants on leaders (attached to the square frame). Because the leaders angle out and over the pathways, you're actually growing beyond the width of the beds on the sides. He alternates each plant in a row. Every other plant leader angles "outward" on the frame, and "inward" on the parallel lines above. So, the leader lines make a "vee" on the T-Frames.

There's light, space, air, rainwater, ease of harvesting, monitoring bugs, in the "vee" space.

Look at the video and his latest garden update. A picture explains it better than all my words, LOL!

Linda

David,
That's a great idea, only my tomato rows are only three cages long and three cages wide, nine plants in one location and nine in another.

My husband refuses to use zip ties in the garden because the heat tends to break them down. We will definitely have to do something for next season though.

I have used strips of felt, loosely tied to the plant and stakes. Old t-shirt material would be less rigid, though. I need to get some of those clips for hanging tomatoes, as my vines in the house are getting to be really tall. I tied them up with twine, and now will need to put a cross member from wall to wall to support them. I'm hoping to keep growing them as long as they will continue to grow. Some say years. We'll see. I just weaved the ones outside into sheep's wire that splits the bed in the middle.

I must have thousands of baby elm trees coming up all over the place. Sigh. Maybe I'll transplant some and make circus trees, lol. http://www.arborsmith.com/treecircus.html

I use those pale green velcro strips that come on a spool. They work really well for us. In fact, I often can save and reuse them the next year. They match the color of the tomato stalks and you can readjust them easily.

Stephanie, the zip ties only have to last one season. They are removed when you take the cages out to turn the soil (and plant fall or winter vegetables). They could be tied or wired with other material, though. The key is the overhead wire.

Seed, it would work really well for rows of three, but it would only save driving one post. My cages are in rows of 8, about 30 feet from end to end. That saves me from driving 6 posts for the cages in the row.

DTR

We use strips of pantyhose to tie our things up in the garden.

Wow Stephanie the winds must have been bad. We got some rain yesterday morning but nothing like that. I use different types of wire to make cages, this year it looks like I may be using the sprawling method lol. I pound in a wood post or a metal stake thru the wire and into the ground, I've never had the wind blow one over yet.

Nola-I'll look at the link you posted tomorrow I need to get some sleep.

Ohhh ALERT ALERT I picked my first ripe tomato today. It was a currant with a DTM of 0, as it is still in a nursery pot and had not even made it to the garden yet. Lol. I should have saved seeds from it bc im sure it was pure but my youngest son gets dibs on the first tomato. We really had a good laugh over it tho.

One day behind , I posted this to the other tomato thread but , once again .My first tomato of the season were two Broad Ripple Currants today .. oh good ...

Things are heating up in the garden! My tomatoes are loaded and the beans have started producing. I think I'm going to plant some pepper seeds indoors for the fall. I should be able to do that today since I'm off. I was supposed to go to a wedding, but not sure that's going to happen.

Pantano Romanesco loaded!
Burgundy bush beans
Today's harvest: Homestead 24, the "kissing cousins" Pantano Romanescos, and some beans. The kissing cousins were so close together on the plant that I had to harvest both because they were on the same stem. The green one is now ripening on the windowsill above my kitchen sink.
A nice hefty tomato. Can't buy this at the grocery store!!

Just picked a nice bunch of fava beans. Now to figure out what to do with them!

Looks like everyone is doing great in the garden! Lots of nice pics.

Well, my cucumbers are going gangbusters, plus I have lots of jalapeños as well. I had a decent onion harvest a couple of weeks ago too and a garlic harvest a few weeks before that as well. Now the things that went wrong...didn't properly stake my indeterminate toms, plus they were 7" transplants but for some reason I thought I could grow okra from seed right next to them at the same time. Not smart. Anyway, the bigger problem is that the birds can't stay away from the toms, even when they are green so it was a slaughter. At least the animals ate. Also, my bell peppers are not doing well either.

Well, I have a nice 5'x5' space clear for new plants- any ideas? It is not raised.

Not too bad of a harvest today. I'm dispointed in my large tomatoes cracking on top. I guess I should give up on trying to grow them here except 'Big Beef' haven't done too bad.

Great harvest, hrp! Everything looks great. I don't mind the cracks too much as long as the taste is good. I'm not picky; I just love home-grown tomatoes!

My first cuke came in yesterday -- H-19 Little Leaf wins the speed round -- although I picked them "Muncher" size and I think these will be better if I let them get bigger. Muncher and Boston Pickling are blooming and setting female blossoms now, but not cukes yet.

Costata Romanesco zucchini should be ready in a couple of days. The corn is coming along nicely and I suspect I may have some for 4th of July.

And I picked my first blueberry yesterday, but all the rest are still fully green.

I don't think I'll have corn (the Bantam anyway) by July 4th. And as the smoke from the forest fires get closer, I'm sure it's as hard for the plants to breathe as it is for me. Not sure what that will do to the garden, but I'm more concerned with those in the immediate path, the firefighters, and the wildlife - bears and cubs, birds, deer, elk - that have already died and those that are trying to flee. A whole ecosystem is going up in smoke. 70,000 acres as of this morning.

Taken last night, the smoke turned the moon a rusty red.

The Bantam corn in wheat bales.

Solace,

I've heard that corn should be at least "knee high by the 4th of July". I guess that would differ depending on where you're growing it. My corn is about 5' tall and has tassels. I'm not expecting to harvest any corn again this year as I never got around to building a cage over the raised bed to keep out the squirrels. Last year they took every last cob just as it was ready to harvest. Has anyone had success relocating squirrels by trapping them in those little traps like you can buy at Home Depot or Lowes? That just might be the answer.

Someone once suggested getting a dog but we had one until about a month ago when we had to put down our sweet Becky. She realized that she could never catch a squirrel but she never tired of chasing them back and forth along the top of the fence. We had Becky for thirteen years and I don't think I'll ever have another dog because making the decision and then having her put to sleep was just too difficult and painful.


Becky, the (part) Whippet
2000 - 2013
R.I.P.

What an adorable dog. So sorry for your loss of Becky. I lost my "baby" (9 years old) black lab/german shepherd cross last year. I still miss him so much. He was my guardian angel, I always told him. He followed me everywhere, and when he couldn't go out, he was at the windows. I don't think you ever get over that love, because they give an unconditional love you can get nowhere else. It's special. Someday, I hope you can get another dog, as one is out there needing your love, too. I'll bet it's still hard to write about her. I know it is for me.

Regarding the corn. If it were me, I'd cut some strips of either hardware cloth or chicken wire (you get cut less if you use hardware cloth/welded wire) that will just go around each cob and stem below it. You can reuse them every year. They're not going to bite through metal. OR make a box out of 2x4s and surround your corn crop with chicken wire. I have squirrels in the back yard, mostly in the trees, but they never come into the front yard (knock on wood).

Sorry to hear about your dog, hrp. I went through something similar with our yellow lab Zeno about four years ago and I was sad for days afterwards...

Well, here is my onion harvest from about three weeks ago. I had my 6 year old girl and my 4 year old boy do the digging...it was great. The onions are on the small side, and some of them are like "pearl" onions (lol) but they taste great. The reds had a nice, strong aroma.

This is the short-day sampler from Dixondale Farm. I followed their spacing and planting guide, plus I fertilized during planting. But, I did not fertilize during the growing season so that is most likely why my harvest was small. I used my drip irrigation system to water and I think there is some tweaking to be done there as well so that the onions get the water they need. Once my kids dug them up, we placed them on newspapers in the backyard. I left them out in the sun for two days, then brought them inside. They are in this box now in the kitchen. All in all, I was pleased.

Cucumbers are pretty fool proof, as I can attest. Here are some pickling cucumbers from Johnny's Seeds, Jackson Classic F1. I have 10 plants right now, and they are producing well. I have lots of cucumbers, and I need to get pickling ASAP. My wife and I have also started eating cucumber sandwiches. Yum. Any other ideas?

I bought a packet of pickling seasoning by Mrs Wages, and the pickles turned out great if I do say so myself.

Corn-yellow dent- for us on normal years was a 4th of July treat just north of Carrollton along the red river... we'd grab gunny sacks and dad would whack the top and we'd shuck and silk. Yum. The milk had to have a 5 min set in boiling water, or you'd make yourself sick, not as watery as the sweet corns of today...but better wrapped in foil and grilled, or made into peppercorn...

They look great, John!

I can remember foil wrapping "feed corn" more fun than it usually tasted , if I recall correctly .
great pics , gardeners gallery of greats here, Two tomatoes and a couple of beans is all for me so far .
My melons are growing faster than my cucumbers ,, that's not good for me , as long as it turns out all right though , is really all that matters ..

Here's something my neighbor is growing- any ideas as to what kind of bean it is? I am assuming these are beans, as there are lots of slender bean-looking pods, but wow, they must be a foot long! You can see one of them really well in this pic. That trellis is a good 7' tall, easy.

Are they that , ? yard long beans .. asparagus beans ,, my guess is one or the other ..

John, you can freeze excess cucumbers:

Freezing Cucumbers

Slice them thinly, mix them with salt (about a tablespoon per large cucumber), and put them in the refrigerator for a day.

Then rinse them really well and press them as dry as you can.

Mix them with sugar and vinegar, 50/50, enough to cover them.

Refrigerate for another day, then put them in freezer containers or bags and freeze.

When you thaw and drain them later, they're still crisp and good in salads, gazpacho, etc. They’re also good by themselves as a cucumber salad.

Thanks GG, I'll give that a try!