@marlingrace,it's my first garden and has taken forever to sprout...so I don't feel i have such a good green thumb
You have to walk before you can run, no one is born an expert. Everything is a learning experience some just learn faster than others and want to work harder at learning. Just keep up the good work, and don't forget to understand astrology and it's relationship to harvesting and planting. You are doing great keep up the good work.
atf1886, don't fret! It takes time to learn the right conditions for plants, I'm still figuring that out. My parents were farmers, I lived on a farm planting crops & milking cows until I was 5. My parents retained their farmer knowledge & tried to pass it on -- you'd think a food garden would be innate for me, but it's not.
speaking of my gardening venture here, I'm down to 2 in-ground spinach plants due to a freeze, and have lost 2 more pea plants and a cucumber plant to high winds the past few days. I'm germinating beefsteak tomatoes right now, and here shortly will get zucchini, winter squash & pumpkins going.
Nyiah, thanks I'm experimenting small then I'll turn the whole damn backyard into my farm, now I see how long it takes to sprout and grow I might be buying a house in these neck of the woods soon I'll make sure it has plenty of room for my Garden!!
atf1886, just keep in mind that unless the ground has already been augmented (in other words, has a layer of topsoil already added to it before you were there) you're probably going to have to add that in either on a per-plant basis, or perhaps just next year if the plants can deal with it. Tomatoes do exceptionally well in FL sandy soil, and I think watermelon does, too, but I'm not sure about your berries or anything else. Just make sure you do a quick google search if you're ever in doubt, it's my fall-back for my own garden doubts :)
I've been augmenting my clay soil on a per-plant basis. I read that cukes & peas do well in clay, so long as it drains well -- their roots can handle the density. All I added to their patches was manure. The beets, carrots & spinach in ground needed a looser soil for their roots, so I turned topsoil in to those patches with manure also. It was either this way, or work the entire patch, and like hell was i doing that. It's good fertile ground, but takes a lot of energy to work larger amounts of it. I may next year after spring thaw, I'll have to rotate plots anyway.
On another note, I've started germinating the pumpkin seeds, so with any luck, I'll have 3 vines going for us to use for Halloween. That will hopefully end up yielding between 10 & 20 pumpkins (Howden variety, for our more experiences gardeners) I THINK I need to have a lighter soil composition for them, I'll have to double-check that. They are food-voracious plants though, so I know I'll have to up how much manure I use.
I'm going to be keeping the tomatoes & habaneros in pots so I can chase the sun with them, the garden plot is a bit shadier than it is sunny & I don't think they'd like that. I don't think I can make the clay light enough for them anyway & I'd rather not ruin the good run I have on a dozen habs & half a dozen tomatoes that are alive & well right now.
Quick Edit: And it's windy again today, so I'm holding my breath again, waiting to see how many peas & cucumbers Mother Nature decides to kill off today. I thought that spot would be ok, that the other plants around it & the trees & garage would act like a windbreak, but it ain't happening.
Nyiah, thanks for the advice I'm tired of the crappy quality in the stores even farmers markets are not lookin so good it's been a rough farming year I'm so happy with seeing my veggies and fruit trees and shrubs grow it's amazing thanks for the vote of confidence from you and others I doubted my abilities I'm a city boy turned some what urban... I wish I lived on a farm that's my dream!!!
atf1886, the farmer's markets in the region have pretty much all slowly turned over to "artisan's markets" in the past 15 years or so. You're more likely to find someone selling handmade soaps or locally roasted coffee beans than fresh produce anymore. The last good one between Tampa & Ft Myers was at the Red Barn flea market in Bradenton up north of you, though it's in a real shitty area that makes it a coin toss as to whether or not it's worth going to. We didn't go down there too often, but when we did, it was a good place to get locally grown food for a good price. Rumor has it there's a nice one in either Arcadia or near Lake Mary inland, but we've never been, so I'm not sure if it's still going or not.
There used to be one on the 41 split to Englewood at the flea market ages ago, but I think that ceased setting up shop there years ago. Spyder & I tried to hit it up once about a decade ago, and found they hadn't had one for several years. It kind of burst my nostalgic bubble at the time, we used to go to it for local produce when I was a kid.
Aside from going straight to the farms for pick-it-yourself season, there's not much in the way of fresh options if you want to skip a grocer aside from a DIY garden. Where we are, there's at least 5 different farmer's markets within driving distance we could take advantage of, but there's just something victorious about doing it in your own yard. It's not going to amount to too much when everything's ready for harvest, but the fact that we did do it, and the kids had the opportunity to see everything grow from seed to plate firsthand instead of picking off a pile somewhere, that makes it worthwhile. While we wait for everything to grow, though, we should at least check one of them out. We keep saying we will, but never get around to it.
Speaking of victorious, Mother Nature is winning today. We're down 2 more snapped cucumber plants from the wind (thankfully the peas look unharmed) and the damn rabbits decided to have a go at my beets. I put the old bird cage top back over them, so they don't finish off the greens. How the peas are not shredded from wind gusts as high as 40 MPH is beyond me, but they're holding up.
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
Nyiah,wow memories I went with the wife and kids to red barn it was horrible it was like a third world country within the US I've never felt so tall no pun intended if you know the majority of people there lmao the dome in Venice has a small section in the front but it's a joke it looks like they buy it from win Dixie and put it on their shelves I'll have to look at the Arcadia one when the time is right I had two cucumber plants sprouted high and the wind and heat killed mine... have you tried steaks with chicken wire at four corners of selected crop area I'll have to take a picture and send it to you its a personal rig if I could electrically charge the wire lmao
frakking rabbits couldn't finish off the beet greens, so they ate my carrot greens instead I WAS going to get us a much-needed weed-whacker, but it looks like that additional fencing is a more necessarily priority ATM. Weed-whacker can wait a week or two.
The romaine is still in a pot, but it's taking off, as in totally bushy. I think I'll split the plants up in to 2 or 3 pots, it's actually aesthetically nice to look at like this. Not particularly concerned if they look like romaine heads or not, we're after the leaves in the end. If it stays bushy-leafy instead of compact like a romaine head, it'll be something interesting to look at. I might have to re-transplant the tomatoes here soon, too, they've basically gone *POOF!* on me in growth. I've got 2 big kitty litter jugs prepped, drilled drain holes last week. I might be able to put 3 in each, they're the bigger tall jugs, their roots will be thrilled. 2 at the least will be ok in one.
And the wind in this state, holy crap, how does anything tall or trellised grow here?! How the hell did my parents have acres of stuff survive out in the open in these winds without hardcore supports?? Our poor peas are having the piss beat out of them with high winds, we've had a few gusts today close to 50 MPH, the peas look whipped (literally & figuratively) I know they'll sprout new shoots on the stalks to replace what breaks off, but damn.
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
To briefly update the garden venture first, we lost all the spinach, and nearly all the pea plants thanks to the rabbits & winds. The wind primarily did them in, but the rabbits didn't help any. I think we have 6 or 8 remaining cucumber plants that are flowering, all 3 pumpkin seeds produced vines that are now in ground, the carrots bounced back a little, the beets bounced back some, the leeks finally went in the ground, my habaneros are exploding with flower buds, both varieties of tomatoes are doing extremely well & dripping in buds (Beefsteak & Superba) We picked up 3 lettuce plants for a quarter (total!) at a local store, and they're doing pretty well in the garden in the shade (lanky, but putting out big leaves) I have a mystery pepper plant I also grabbed for a buck that is churning out amazingly long peppers already, and we were gifted god knows how many Champion & Roma tomato plants, along with a few varieties of Brussels Sprouts, and some Eggplants. Our porch is starting to resemble a jungle, lmao
This was taken about a month ago. Top row, left to right: Habaneros in the repurposed milk jug, mystery pepper, habaneros, Little Kid's dwarf sunflowers in the biggie on the right. Middle row,left to right: Some variety of lettuce, leeks, beefsteaks, habaneros in the 2 on the far right Bottom row,leftto right: Redlettuce, spinach runt weallowed to flower to see the flowers on it, red lettuce, Big Kid's blue flax on the far right
This was taken the same day as the above. Superba tomatoes in a huge planter pot, probably around 3 cubic sq ft of dirt in there.
The romaine "bush" that will never get any bigger in leaf size because we keep eating it as-is. Yum.
The Superba tomatoes about 2 and a half - 3 weeks later. They REALLY like where they are O.O
Mystery pepper that I now suspect may be Korean Hot Pepper. The one I already snipped off (but haven't eaten yet) was as a big as a hot dog:
Habanero buds coming in:
Habanero flower & larger buds:
Sweet Jesus, I got me a habanero pepper going!!
First Superba tomato:
First Champion tomato, though judging by the hole there, it may be no good:
First Eggplant flower:
Superbas on the left, 5 Beefsteaks & a Roma in the pot on the right, plus a couple of Champions in smaller pots:
The sad little wind-abused garden. Left row, top to bottom: Beets, pumpkins Middle row, top to bottom: Lettuces, sad remains of the all the peas Right row, top to bottom, carrots, cucumbers, leeks
Leeks up close:
The lone pea pod thus far:
Cucumber flower:
Cucumbers at the bottom, carrots at the top. They're stunted, but if they produce, I won't complain!
It took the beets quite a while to bounce back, but they did. Probably won't have much in the way of beetroot.
Pumpkin vines.
Pumpkins look like they're budding. If they too produce, I won't complain about stunted vine growth, either. Oh, and when you see the spooky eye in this picture, let me know
The porch jungle. So. Many. Freakin'. Tomatoes.
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
Nice to see how some of the results are going. Mine? Not so much however. But that's probably for the best the way this year has been going. Ended up giving all the PVC to a bud who's rental property had it copper plumbing stolen as we we're renovating (Same town where my Jeep was stolen) and what I potted ended up drowning due to my lack of vigilance. I know better, but forgot to drill holes in the bottom of the pails and elevate them so they could drain. Oh well, there is always next year.
Beware the man who has one gun, he probably knows how to use it.