Thanks Holly, I'll check it out.
I don't have many veggie photos to post
here is a Rhubarb bloom ~ they are blooming now
Veggie garden friends of Mid-Atlantic.
Hey Wind I just post on the NE forum and forgot about this one...
My neighbor is looking for 2 rhubarb plants and can't find any around here, any ideas? Do you have any spares?
Hi Jen, I got ours from Jersey Asparagus http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/253/ just this season, so they are young yet. Harry stepped directly on the crown of the last Rhubarb we had and it died! This time we have 5 or 6 -- safety in numbers. They have good prices. I purchased our Goji berry's from them too. We don't really have any "extras" per say. If you know how to propagate them, I can try. I think they are Victoria Rhubarb.
Wind, I have always cut the bloom stalk off the rhubarb as soon as possible. When I was a kid my dad never let it go into bloom. The old timers said it zapped the life out of the plant.
Chris
Ok, talk to me about rumex. Taste, how to prepare ???
Holly, I had a real nice post for Ric, when I hit send I lost it and didn't have time to do it again, had to go to work. The gist of it was, I agree with him on house work and don't blame him for wanting to work in the outside dirt.
Thanks for the info Wind.
I've nibbled a few new leaves of the dock (Rumex), but haven't really cooked with it. I just like the looks. It comes back nicely every year for me (so far), too.
I need to get a rhubarb patch started here... closest thing I have is some weed with humongous leaves, kids think it looks like dinosaur salad LOL.
I've been spending every spare moment for the last few weeks setting up my new vegetable garden - 2-3 hours after work, and 8-10 hours on the weekends. Boy, am I physically tired, but it feels so satisfying!!!
I put up a deer fence, tilled and amended the soil, built 9 rectangular beds out of composite lumber, filled them with more soil, mulched between the rows, and last but not least got the plants in. A friend who does groundwork for plumbing companies brought in his drilling equipment and crew on Monday and ran a water line from the well to the garden so that I don't have to run a couple hundred feet of hose from the house. I think I went overboard and put the plants too close together. I'm trying different kinds of tomatoes, peppers, onions, and herbs to make spaghetti sauce and salsa. I'm also trying a few cucumbers to make pickles, and strawberries and watermelon. I wanted to try corn and potatoes but started running out of room. This first year will be a learning experiment :-) The garden is more like a kitchen potager than a traditional vegetable garden - I'll try to take pictures when I get home from work this evening... terri
Nice. Terri, hope all your hard work pays off with lots of goodies for ya.
Yep, what Jen said times 2.
Terri, That sounds great and I can't wait to see pics. I don't know about too close, a friend of ours has all raised beds and he crams his plants together in them. Says it works really well.
One advantage of cramming plants close together is that it doesn't leave much room for the weeds. A lot of the potagers I've seen tend to be jam-packed and it doesn't seem to hurt their productivity. I can't wait to see photos, Terri, but you must be exhausted!
I have some pictures of my new vegetable garden. This first shot is the layout before I put the plants in.
Plant Layout:
Row 1 / Box 1 - 32 strawberry plants (3 varieties; 2 everbearing, 1 junebearing)
Row 1 / Box 2 - 28 sweet pepper plants (green, red, yellow, banana)
Row 1 / Box 3 - 8 tomato plants (4 roma, 1 ea of 4 beefsteak varieties)
Row 2 / Box 1 - 3 watermelon plants
Row 2 / Box 2 - herbs
Row 2 / Box 3 - 6 cucumber plants (2 pickling varieties, 4 regular varieties)
Row 3 / Box 1 - 12 tomato plants (4 ea of 3 different heirloom types, grown from critter's seeds)
Row 3 / Box 2 - 24 hot pepper plants (garden salsa, habenero, jalapeno, hungarian hot wax, hot lemon)
Row 3 / Box 3 - 12 tomato plants (4 ea of 3 different heirloom types, grown from critter's seeds)
Some of the vegetables ready to be planted.
Sweet little Jordan, always by my side every step of every project.
I see you have one of those Kneelers too, they are wonderful I can't garden without mine.
Here is one of my Tomato Sucess boxes I put in some mixed salad green seeds this year too.
Newly planted vegetables. I'll post more pictures when they start to grow and produce :-)
Yes, that kneeler comes in handy - I think I spend as much time turning it upside down to sit on it for work breaks as I do kneeling on it LOL. That Tomato Success Box looks promising - did you get it at Gardener's Supply? I see the Tomato Cage - I'd love to get those for each of my tomato plants, but it is pretty costly... I think I'll come up with some kind of cheap staking method first (rebar or metal fence post and old panty hose???), and order a few of those cages each year until I have enough :-) Terri
That is one awesome veggie garden!
Terri, Hope you like to make salsa!!! You will have peppers and tomatoes in great abundance. This will be a learning year, but by no means a lean one. :-) LOL Ric
Terri, I did get the tomato kits from Gardeners Supply back in 2006 and have been growing tomatoes in them ever since. The cages are great but I went to those electrical ties to hold them together. I still use a rebar stake in addition to the cage as the tomato plants get so big I have to tie the main plant to the rebar. The cage keeps the rest of the plant within bounds.
I really like the neatness of your garden. I also have a 9X9 ft. garden in the back yard for all the other vegs. Peas, beans, cukes, squash. Just enough to give some fresh vegs on the table. Peppers I plant in containers along with some flowers or just in the flower garden.
Aspen, your sweet little Jordan reminds me of my late best friend "Aspen" ^_^ Your garden looks great so far. From the photo it looks like, at least, double the size of ours. I like how you have the mulch down to keep the weeds out and the trellis for your cucumbers or whatever you'll have growing on it. I first saw that kind of setup last year at a Master Gardener friends and it worked great. I'm pretty sure she used it for her cucumbers.
We still have to plant our veggies. I was letting the added manure settle in with the rain we've been having before planting.
....oh gosh, I hear a turkey...I have to go check!!! We've had wild turkeys the past few years!
this is our Job's Tears that finally germinated after 60 days!
ric - I do love salsa, think I have enough peppers??? Got any good recipes??? LOL...
wind - Aspen Hill is what I call my place, named after my first wonderful dog companion - she was an American Eskimo named "Aspen". Little Jordan is a mix - American Eskimo/Miniature Black Schnauzer of all things. As great as my dog companions have been, Jordan has been extraordinarily special, and I doubt I'll ever have another one comparable to her again. She is now almost 12 but still in good health, so I'm praying that she'll be around for years to come.
The trellis is for the cucumbers, and I'm thinking about getting another one for the watermelons. As far as size, the garden is 20'x30', 6 boxes are 4'x8', 3 boxes are 4'x6', and mulched paths are 2' wide.
I think with the cold weather and the rain, everyone seems to be getting a later start than usual. I think I was too late for peas and potatoes - the old timers in Lucketts told me that they should have gone in on St Patrick's day. I didn't have the garden setup that early, and now that it is setup, I was running out of room anyway. Maybe next year I'll cut down on the number of peppers and tomatoes to add more vegetable variety. Another guy also told me that the mulch may pull too much nitrogen out of the vegetable beds so I may need to fertilize with something higher in nitrogen than what is usually used on vegetables - anyone know?
I listen to docgipe and I'm pretty sure that mulch-nitrogen think is a myth.
Our morning visitor!
Snapped a quick garden shot while I was out there with the camera
Wow, Wind, that looks like a great setup!
Wind, How great I was working out in the yard a week or so and could hear them in the woods, sounded like they were down behind the neighbors. Your garden looks great. Is that a cold frame? I have been thinking about doing a few cold frames in the garden. I'm not getting very far with our garden lately as these storms just won't give up. Big one last night and the power was out till 10:00am this morning, started raining a bit ago and now I hear thunder again. Holly
Nice, Wind...now I really want to come down and visit!
Does anyone know of anyone selling poblano pepper plants? I feel like I have looked high and low. I have found green, red,yellow bells, red chiles, hungarian, banana, italian roasting, anahiems ect... but not one poblano. I like to make chiles rellenos, chiles poblanos and I also use them when I make chili. The other plant I searched for were tomatillos but no luck there either. I grew some from seed but this year everything I have grown from seed looks pathetic.
I am going to Delaware this weekend to see my family so any Delawareans or eastern shore natives might be able to help me out. I live in Southern Maryland but I am not to far from DC and I am really close to the Northern neck of VA.
I get up to the Frederick area once in awhile too.
Sally, thanks for the info about the nitrogen - I guess I won't worry about it.
Wind, cool shot of that wild turkey. I guess they've become a nuisance in some areas - critter has an article on it LOL (Jill and I get to laughing when it seems like most topics we talk about start out with "hey, I have an article on that"). I see wild turkeys around here once in a while, but not often so it is always a thrill when I do. I echo Holly, what is the framing that you have above that one bed - is it a cold frame, trellis for vining, or what - it looks neat.
Wisdom, I think poblano and ancho are the same thing, and you should be able to find ancho pepper plants. Did you get to Dutch Plant Farm the other day? I wish it had worked out Monday for us to get together!
Yeah, it was funny when Terri and I first got together... we went to the flower show, and she'd come up with a question about something, and after the 4th time I said, "I have an article on that" we just started cracking up. I don't have much in the way of true expertise, but I dabble in a lot of different things!
aspenhill love your veggie garden set up and all the varieties you have chose to grow. The deer fence is great. It is like Fort Knox of vegetable gardens. My father in law would like to have one but his HOA doesn't allow it. He comes home and the deer are sipping cocktails and enjoying the buffet. We were visiting and deer were in many yards and didn't move when we were driving by. The deer eat everything even plants he was told were deer resistant.
Wind great idea building a greenhouse frame over one of the beds. My husband wanted to buy me a mini greenhouse for graduation but the money isn't there right now. ( Maybe when I find a job) We are in the process of adding another raised bed and adding a frame for fall planting is an excellent idea. What do you use as cover?
Wind, your garden is lovely!
I've been contemplating one of those little popup greenhouses, but I'm not sure I want to keep track of opening and closing its doors for ventilation on warmer/sunnier winter days. We were at Ollie's last year, and they had a sturdy, inexpensive carport on display... I thought it would make a fabulous greenhouse with a clear cover on it! I'm sure you can imagine the look I got from DH.
critterologist,
We will be up in the area within the next two or three weeks. We didn't get to go to the Dutch Plant Farm but we did go to Lilypons. I did some research on the poblanos and they said anchos are dried poblanos. I can't find the pepper in either name. I got some free plants from a plant exchange around mothers day called spice peppers. Have any idea what they may be?
Hi :)
Jen, stop on by anytime when your down our way
The frame is a cold frame and has a plastic cover. We actually cheated and purchased the raised beds and the cold frame was an optional add on. Many years ago I had saved our old house windows to make a cold frame with, but they sat around for years and we decided to get rid of them. As soon as we put them at the curb they were gone...sigh...I have regretted doing that, I really liked the old windows and wanted to use them somehow.
Wind, back when I worked commercial green houses, raising patented geranium cuttings, we would set the old 12" pot stock plants out in the field about the end of March. We put them in beds contained by RR ties and heeled in with saw dust. The old sash from the greenhouses was tee peed over the beds, and we got 1-2 sets of cutting before summer, at the end we composted the whole mess minus pots. About 2 years later we used the compost in potting mix. The "green" sawdust apparently generated enough heat to ward off the frost and the old sash was still being used after 6-8 years. Ingenious idea, sorry I didn't think of it. LOL Ric
Moral! Old glass is hard to throw away!
Wind I showed my dad and brother the picture of your turkey. It is a great shot. They said it is about a year old. Maybe it will hang around and you can watch it grow up.
Wisdomskr, if you're still in DE and anywhere near the beach, Pepper's Greenhouse in Milton is worth a trip. If anyone in the area would have poblanos, they would, along with a huge selection of rare and unusual tropicals, shrubs and perennials. Also, there's a place near Rehoboth right on Rt 1 South, I think it's called Farmer Girl, that generally has some neat stuff. If you're farther north, there's a huge place on Rt 13 North near Smyrna whose name is escaping me right now (it might be something like Willey Farms) that has a good selection of plants.
I love the veggie garden photos! I'll work on getting some of my garden just as soon as I finish getting it mulched. If I took some right now I think they'd look like nothing but pictures of weeds! At least it is finally warming up enough that things are starting to grow. Critter, the tomatoes I got from you are looking great! Even some of my tiny ones are starting to look like they might actually do something. The cukes are looking great, too. We've already harvested lettuce, mustard greens and green onions. I'm restarting the beans because they're looking rough-- some kind of beetle damage, potato or squash beetle, I can't tell the difference. The flea beetles have also been bad so far this year. I normally don't see them until it gets hot hot but they've already been terrorizing my baby eggplants and pepinos and even my ground cherries.
I've been jumping in & out of this thread... can't believe I missed Aspenhill's new veggie garden! WOW!!! Terry, you are going to have more produce than you can imagine from all those plants. Start picking up canning jars at garage sales! (old ones are fine as long as the rims don't have knicks... old rings are good if not rusted... you'll still need to buy new lids, the part that goes inside the ring and seals to the top of the jar)
I got to see Terri this afternoon and meet her gardening neighbor/friend! We wandered around here and chatted... I've got to get down her way soon and see everything they were telling me about!