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let's see your veggie garden {pics}

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Brown Thumb

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Just got done roasting some butternut squash for some pumpkin pies. Oh ya where is the whipped cream.
That chile pepper is a Brain Strain, freaking Hot. I'm not ready but what the hell.
Rock On.
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Knucklehead

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They were both planted in March of 2011. They began to produce in the third season (2014). As I recall, they were about 12" tall whips, when planted. I bought the cheapies from Burgess: http://www.eburgess.com/detail.asp?pid=6273

They want to grow like a shrub, but with aggressive and regular pruning, they can be trained into a 12' tree. These are wild types, and require two, for cross-pollination.

Bob

That's them! I'm getting together an order for fall planting. I'll add some Hazelnuts.

Just got done roasting some butternut squash for some pumpkin pies. Oh ya where is the whipped cream.

Last week we boiled some butternut squash with onion, then melted cheese on top. It went great with pork loin, cabbage, peas, and corn bread. This thread makes me hungry.
 

Brown Thumb

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That's them! I'm getting together an order for fall planting. I'll add some Hazelnuts.



Last week we boiled some butternut squash with onion, then melted cheese on top. It went great with pork loin, cabbage, peas, and corn bread. This thread makes me hungry.
My wife loves them with honey and butter.
 

ProfessorPangloss

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A couple days ago, my son and I got out the old Juicemaster (which is not old - I bought it two weeks ago) and juiced about four gallon buckets of tomatoes for canning. By that I mean that I did all the work and sometimes he turned the crank, but he loves to watch. Next year, I need to adjust the mix of Italian sauce-type tomatoes (San Marzano and San Remo are my favorites) with the slicer types. We've been buried in Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, and Mortgage Lifter, and we wound up with 9 quarts of juice, which cooked down to about 2.5. The only downside is that you have to juggle it on the stove (in between work etc) until you're ready to finish it and can it, so I guess I know what I'm doing this afternoon.
 

deluxestogie

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Almost Garlic Diggin' Time

My garlic goes into the ground in the fall, after first frost, and grows beneath a deep bed of mulch (actually a giant pile of pine needles) through the winter. During the first week of June, I begin to evaluate the appearance of the garlic, waiting for the bottom few leaves to yellow. Then it's time to dig.

At least, that's what I've always done with my soft-neck garlic. For this past winter, in addition to the soft-neck Czech Broadleaf, I had the opportunity to plant Slovenian Anka garlic (a hard-neck variety). I planted every clove of Anka that Rainmax sent me, then filled in the remaining half of the bed with the Czech.

Garden20160606_2174_GarlicBed_400.jpg


Yesterday, I noticed that the Anka garlics had sprouted a curly-cue scape (flowering head). I cut them all off. (Soft-neck garlic does not normally sprout a scape.) When the Czech Broadleaf is ready to dig in the next few days, I'll peek at one of the Anka bulbs.

Thank you, Rainmax.

Bob
 

Smokin Harley

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20160611_170258.jpgwestern view of the entire garden. Tomatoes ,peppers, eggplant,cucumbers,zucchini squash, cabbage,broccoli, onions,spinach, corn and beans .and a few herbs- dill, cilantro,(2)basil. This has been a water year. I've had years prior that once I put the plants in ,I never watered it once after the initial transplant. I've also had years (like last year) that it rained so much ,it drowned the whole plot.
20160611_170309.jpgthis is my experiment trying straw bale gardening , with potatoes. They seem to be doing well . I read that once you try it this way , you never go back to growing taters any other way. The spuds grow better, are cleaner and easier to harvest, just bust the bale. We'll see. I planted some other stuff in the straw but not much else has taken off. Red Chard seeds came up but kind of at a standstill.
asparagus is on this side of the bale line. lettuce and other shade loving plants are on the opposite end. I tried planting carrots in the bales too but they don't seem to be doing anything.
The "bugout bag" of seed I bought last year from Sustainable Seed Co was supposed to provide upwards of 3000 lbs of food. I haven't seen anything that would keep a mouse alive for a day out of it yet.
 

chekun

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Nice garden !

I try this year mulching straw, a layer of 15cm, without plowing (labours). The result is good, the ground is very airy, lot of earthworms and keep moisture.
Just thier is more slug than last year.
 

Chicken

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figured id show u my tomatoe crop... i only grow one row per year but that row can have 20 plants in it,

its all about the soil. my soil is fortified with bat poop...chicken,,,cow poop,,,,dolomite...some saw dust,,,,and a ground up oak stump.

my 3 foot yard stick for height comparison,

..IMG_20160612_181506052.jpgIMG_20160612_181455971.jpgIMG_20160612_181519629.jpgIMG_20160612_181622225.jpgIMG_20160612_181659418.jpgIMG_20160612_181702810.jpgIMG_20160612_181528339.jpgIMG_20160612_181551672.jpgIMG_20160612_181600230.jpgIMG_20160612_181702810.jpg

and my corn also heavy fortified soil

...IMG_20160612_181719207.jpg

i been fertilizing it with muriate of potash.... with urea...and magneese sulfate, will it make ??? who knows i suck at growing corn,
 

Smokin Harley

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How are the potatoes planted using straw bales?

Bob
Glad you asked ,Bob. Its very simple . The straw bales are still string bound. Laid out and are positioned so the straw is vertical within the bale. For a period of 10 days the bales are fertilized with high nitrogen fertilizer and kept moist (watered) . The idea is that the bale will heat up with decomposition and in a sense become compost within itself. Once that is done . The bale is seasoned and ready to plant in. Basically its a raised "soil-less" garden . I made holes with a point trowel and seed potatoes/pieces (reds and yukon gold)are shoved into the bale with a little bit of soil pushed over to keep them covered. The potato roots/tubers are supposed to be able to penetrate the bale easier than soil that compacts. The harvest is said to be easy as cutting the strings and simply brushing the straw compost off the spuds.
Its my first try at it. usually the soil here gets heavy and compacted throughout the growing season and I plant 5 lbs and get 10 back. This method is supposed to yield much higher %. we'll see. I still have a few seed potatoes left because I ran out of room in the bales , might shove some in a bucket or big plastic flower pot with peat and see what that does. I also am growing cucumbers on the sunny end of the bales . so far those plants are about 6 inches tall.
 

deluxestogie

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So, the hay bales are serving mostly to hold nutrients that you add to it, and to physically support growth of tubers. I suppose that initially hosing the bales with Miracle-Gro would do the trick. Interesting.

How many seed potatoes do you put into each bale, and how deeply do you insert them?

Bob
 

Jitterbugdude

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For a period of 10 days the bales are fertilized with high nitrogen fertilizer and kept moist (watered) . The idea is that the bale will heat up with decomposition and in a sense become compost within itself.

That explains a lot.
I tried growing potatoes in straw about 20 years ago. I stacked a few tires, packed them with straw then threw in some spuds. They just shriveled up and died. Who knew you needed to add nutrients? Makes much more sense now.
 

Smokin Harley

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So, the hay bales are serving mostly to hold nutrients that you add to it, and to physically support growth of tubers. I suppose that initially hosing the bales with Miracle-Gro would do the trick. Interesting.

How many seed potatoes do you put into each bale, and how deeply do you insert them?

Bob
something high in nitrogen to start the decomposition process. Ever toss an old potato in your compost pile and at the end of summer you find it grew? Same principal .
i just bought 2- 5 lb bags of seed potatoes and planted most of them about 4 inches deep I suppose. As I said , I used a point trowel to make the holes then added some compost to cover them up . each seed potato I gave 8 inches of space ,staggered . Some were small so they went in singly , others were fairly large so I cut those up with an eye or two in each piece.
In a sense ,its just another growing medium, as anything else you'd buy . I've even seen for those with little to no yard space (apartment balcony)entire bales of peat or potting mix laid on side and cross hatches made in the plastic and plants inserted . Instant raised garden, minimal if any weeding and its reusable. And I suppose if one were to buy the potting soil with fertilizer and water holding crystals mixed in , its pretty much a set it and forget it and only other thing necessary is to water. Add an automatic timed drip irrigation and thats done. Sit back and watch it grow and wait for the harvest.
I'm watching it , taking mental notes whether its worth doing it again. 9 full sized bales of straw cost me $72 . I could buy almost a years worth of potatoes at the store for that.
 

deluxestogie

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Karsten's book on Straw Bale Gardening: https://www.amazon.com/Straw-Bale-Gardens-Complete-Karsten/dp/1591869072/

Here in southwest Virginia, straw bales go for about $3-4 each, which makes the cost a little less onerous. The need for drip irrigation, however, jacks the price and complexity up quite a bit. I suppose I could just hose them down periodically.

Bob
 

Chicken

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I store my potatoes..by laying them in a cool dark place..on a breathable mat..and covering them with a lot of hay..

This is the first year ive done it..but a old timer told me thats the way they did it years ago.
 

ChinaVoodoo

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The most interesting thing about it to me is that they're pretty much clean already.

For storage, I hang them in reusable fabric grocery bags. They easily last a year.
 
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