Anyone growing any veggies?

I've got 80 tomato plants started, California wonder peppers, jalapenos, a bush with red, purple, orange and yellow peppers (forgot the name), carrots, spinach and leeks germinating now. Waiting on my lettuces, bok choys, bunching onions, turnip and radish seeds to come in.

I'm also going to plant lemon cucumbers, purple okra, long green cukes, Kabocha and crimson squash, crookneck squash, pumpkins, Thai yard long beans and Japanese eggplant.

This is going to be super high intensity gardening with much of it in grow bags with potting soil amended with coconut coir (pith) and water soluable fertilizer along with some steer manure and worm casings.

My area is too small for all this, but I will find a place for them. :) Somehow...

It's a jungle out here, rather, it's going to be!

We're growing 3 different tomatoes, 3 kinds of lettuce (we've enjoyed quite a few delicious salads), broccoli, (had some for dinner) collard greens, fava beans, onions, green onions and cilantro. We had a little trouble with our lettuce, something ate most of the red leaf, I don't think it was snails, we put Sluggo down twice but the lettuce continued to get eaten. This is the first time we've grown a winter garden, the veggies fared well through the cold weather and the tomatoes made it through the frost. Can't say the same for the basil. We've also got some strawberries going but they're sure slow in growing.
Have fun out there pug!

I don't have any veggies yet, but I was thinking of buying myself a couple Earthboxes and growing some heirloom tomatoes on my back deck. It'll be my first time attempting veggies so it should be an interesting experiment!

Oh and welcome to Dave's, just saw that you joined recently. Looks like you've found your way around!

Thanks!

The rabbits were eating my spinach and I had to move the pots on top of the wall to stop them. There are no more nibbles now, so I guess it must have been them.

People are saying great things about the Earthboxes, you should have a great crop of tomatoes from it.

weegy12, you have quite a little garden going there, I've just learned when to grow in this zone, but the sun isn't hitting my property in the right places yet, so that is slowing me down and causing things to go into the ground late. I'm itching to get to it, so I just started a bunch of veggies in pots today, hopefully it'll work out with the sun. :)

Too soon here for summer veggies, but I have a nice new raised bed for them. At the moment it's been taken over by chickweed, but I intend to get that under control before too much longer. I had planned to do spinach and lettuce, but it hasn't happened yet. I'm retiring ONE MONTH FROM TODAY, so I'll be working on it soon!!!

Welcome to DG---you'll love it!

Thanks for the welcome, imapigeon. I really do like this place. I've spend so many hours reading on how to grow vegetables and especially learning a lot about tomatoes. I'm probably late with a lot of stuff, but last year, I planted 4 months too late. And I still got enough tomatoes, okra, eggplant and long beans to feed the two of us, to the point where we were sick of eggplant. Maybe by the time the eggplant comes around again, we'll be over our nausea. haha! (But the okra and eggplant do love the heat.)

I'll bet you're looking forward to spending that time in your garden. Congratulations!

Congratulations imapigeon on your retiring. My dh just sold his business after 31 years and now he's busier than when he was working and of course the vegetable garden is keeping him busy.
We do have a nice little garden going and we're looking forward to the summer veggies too. Nothing like going out and picking your own veggies and there is such a difference in taste than the store bought.
Let me know what you all are planting for the summer.

DH has to get the watering system in our raised bed before I plant. The watering contributed to the failure last time I tried veggies. Better get the soil ready, though. Time is moving too fast!

Has anyone ever grown dandelion greens? Our parrots get those daily, so I'd really like to grow some.

Hi KaperC,
Dandelions are usually the bane of people who love their lawns. :)
They usually come up as unwanted volunteers, but I did find some dandelion seeds at several different places when buying some seeds yesterday.

They grow just about anywhere, in ditches, yards etc.

They are very healthy for people, too. Folklore info says that they are a huge cancer fighter, they can be added to salads or cooked and eaten by humans, as well.

I've not eaten them, but I am willing to try just about anything that fights cancer and is a plant.

I think dandelions are very pretty flowers.

Kathleen, you are welcome to all the dandelions growing in my lawn!

I pull them and split the greens between my bunny and my budgies. They all love them!
I think I read somewhere that lettuce is derived from the same plant?

haha! I'm getting old, imapigeon. When I read your post, I skimmed it and somehow I thought you said you put the dandelions on buns. (like bread) Oh, man. I 've got to learn to slow down, I guess I'm just not as sharp as I used to be. Anyway, I thought it was funny so had to share.

I wanted to start adding dandelion greens to my salads, but so far haven't seen any around here. I've mulched my entire yard so I guess they are not coming up anymore. (my yard is really, really tiny)

I buy them at Jimbo's - no lawn here! LOL Found a DG article on them. http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/197/

Well, we do call him "Buns" some of the time, so maybe you were channeling that...LOL!

Hah! I call my resident rabbit Mr Bun-Bun.

Just went to the veggie forum and got details about growing sweet potatoes. Off to start the slips now.

LOL! Maybe I was doing some channeling. :)

KaperC, let me know how your sweet potatoes come out, I'd love to grow some. We enjoy the leaves/tops in our soups, add them last to the top of the pot and let them steam a bit. Really yummy!

oh, my daughter calls her stuffed bunny "bun bun" lol.

Ok, my DH has promised to help me build the raised beds next week - he has a week off, and I have a nice fat envelope of seeds from Territorial. You have all motivated me to start the tomatoes, etc., TODAY inside - I'm afraid I'll be putting some trays in our bathtub where do you put all this stuff


ima - I had no idea you were retiring in a month - WOW , how exciting. What a great spring summer you will have!

Here's a little motivation for ya! I keep all my stuff on an enclosed back porch but it's still not enough room.

These are about 3 weeks old now, since they popped their heads out. Tomatoes.

Yes, toots: it is exciting! Right now I'm looking forward to breathing.....it's much more work to train people to take over my stuff than it would be to stay on the job. But I've been there 15 years, and it's time to move on!

I also have a pile of seed packages that arrived this week, not to mention my backstock from previous years, and also ones I've saved from my own 'maters. I've been trying to pull weeds and mulch every night after work, but this rain interfered with the schedule. My nice new raised veggie bed is an absolute disgrace. The landscaper put all my "garden art" stuff in it while he was working on everything last fall, and I didn't get things put back, or get the area mulched. Now it's completely covered with a foot of weeds! If I can get to it before these bad boys bloom & set seed, they'll make great "greens" for my compost pile---I have plenty of shredded paper for "brown". Since I don't have a lawn, I'm always scrounging for green stuff, but fersher not now!!

oh I bet you are swamped - and I have plenty of foot tall weeds myself. I'll try to attack them after the next storm blows over. Husband is home this week and will help me build those beds, can't wait! Best valentine present EVER!

Love the fuzz on the tomato start! I did start tomatoes, brussel sprouts, peppers and a few flowers yesterday. You are lucky to have an enclosed porch, that would be perfect. I keep the plumerias and some palms in the garage by a big window ( ok, ok ON MY TREADMILL) so they can have light during the winter, but it's too cold out there for the seeds.

Great day to stay inside and read, what's everybody doing?

I'm on a coffee break from weeding and pruning. Weather is perfect for it here---no sun, and 53 degrees.

Just pruned the heck out of my favorite crape myrtle. I had to prune her rather severely last year because she was going to interfere with production on our new solar panels. I knew she'd need more this year, but I just couldn't bear to cut her back too much all at once after spending 10 years shaping her! She's a mutant crape that grows 3-4 feet a year (my others grow 3-4 inches a year) so I needed to get her to a form I could prune back to every spring. Not sure I'm quite there yet, but we'll see how she does this year.

Have your in-laws gone home? How was the wine-tasting?

Wente was more crowded than usual, but still quite fun and delicious! We went from fancy vineyard to the downtown bar for burgers and garlic fries after - I eat too much when we have guests : D

They are off to Vegas today and I have been helping the kids with their valentines (and sneaking a few chocolates on the side) don't think I'll be as productive as you have been. Apparently this is a weekend for gaining a couple of pounds and not getting any work done.

Your crape sounds lovely, how unusual that it's so vigorous. She'll be beautiful I'm sure, they'll be blooming before we know it!

Everyone eats too much when they have guests. I think there's a law. Next time you want to go wine-tasting, you should mosey on down this way and shoot me a d-mail!

YAY! I got my crape pruned (we call her Audrey after the plant in Little Shop of Horrors) and also got my raised bed all ready to plant!!! WOOHOOO! I work from home a lot, which is really nice---but on the other hand, looking out into all the yard work I have to do is really frustrating during the work week!!! This particular mess has been driving me nuts for about a month.

Here's a "halfway" shot of what I was dealing with.....

and here it is now! I'll let it sit till next weekend to make sure none of the little buggers are still lurking, then I'll newspaper-mulch and plant spinach, lettuce and Italian parsley. AFTER I put my gopher-chasers in the ground with fresh batteries in them.

That looks really good! I could sleep there it looks so cozy, I'm sure your veggies will love it.

What are "gopher chasers"? It's cold today here, but sunny so I think we will get started today... I'll take some pics.

Thanks!

What I call "gopher chasers" are those stakes you pound in the ground and they vibrate (there are 3 in the photo, kind of laying on the edge). They're battery-operated. The writeups say they protect a certain number of square feet, which I cut by at least 75%. So if they say one will protect 100 sq. feet, I put in four. They're really more "gopher annoyers". But they do seem to keep my gophers away----I'm putting 3 of them in this little plot that's about 5 X 10. I would have done hardware cloth, but my landscape guy had it all built and done one day when I got home, with my homemade compost and nice soil.....I just didn't have the heart to tell him to take it all out.

Our gophers got used to them. :-( I wonder if moving them around a bit would help? We've had to resort to wire baskets for everything we plant now, with the edges above ground level, because otherwise they go over it.

My gophers weren't bothered at all by the gopher chasers

Maybe all mine will drown, it's been raining for days here.

ecrane, they didn't work for me, either, till I started using more than the recommended number. Since I've planted daffs around most of my beds they seem to have left them alone.

I'll definitely put down the fabric - haven't seen any gophers yet, but I think they are just waiting for me to put something more delicious for them to eat besides this clover !!!

here is the other side that was so full of weeds/clover that I have covered it to kill it out.... probably put one of those aqua pools on top of this for the hot months, and perhaps planting in Fall '09 ?! It's kinda boring now, but better than using 80 gallons of roundup.

Heck, but it sure makes your slope pop! Looks great. We have a slope we would like to cover, too, but it will have to wait for budget reasons. Will sure be glad to get rid of the knee high weeds. After all this rain, there will be twice as many any day... :-(

oh gosh I know KaperC - boring tho it may be, it's still nice to look out and just see the dark mulch. The rest of it to both sides is chaos with weeds right now.

We're waiting for the plumber, the hot water heater is out and the five of us are beginning to STINK ! ha ha ha - last showers were Saturday, some of them cold ..... brrrrrrr. As soon as he's done (he went to get a part) we'll go buy materials.

Oh, dear----just got my Territorial seed catalog....m u s t r e s i s t....

Well, I didn't resist. And Territorial ships SO fast. Not visible yet, but in this bed I have 3 varieties of peas, 3 of spinach and 6 kinds of lettuce planted! Planted tall peas in the pots my grapevines grow in, and also around the base of my porcelanberry vine. I figure by the time the grapes and vine are setting blooms, the peas will be about done. And the peas may add some nitrogen to the soil. That's my theory, anyway. We'll see how it works out.

You're going to have a wonderful harvest, imapigeon, how could you not with such a lovely garden bed?

It's easy to visualize all the greenery once your babies start to grow. Please post more pictures as it progresses.

I wish I had a way to photograph plants with time lapse photography, I love watching it. There are some on youtube that are pretty amazing.

Oh, yeah---I used to love the old Disney nature films where they did time-lapse!

I'm hoping things do well. Put a lot of homemade compost, and also compost from my worm bin into the soil. When it gets too hot for what I've got planted now, my plan is to replace the peas with bush beans, and the spinach & lettuce with basil, etc.

I've decided to try growing tomatoes only in big containers, because I don't have the space and I can't rotate crops like you're supposed to.

I didn't do 'maters the past 2 years (just not enough time) and I missed them terribly!

I've found that common sense has no bearing on how much seed I buy or how many plants I'm putting in my teeny spot. It's going to be wall to wall over here if they grow. I've already got 21 pots of carrots, lettuce, spinach, collards, radishes, bok choy, chives etc. planted and waiting to germinate outside.

Two of the hardest things for me to learn was to thin out the seedlings started in the ground from seed and don't plant too close together when setting out seedlings into the ground.