Let's see those '11 gardens!

[AUguy]

Svillekid, those rutgers are great tomatoes. I grew one 2 years ago and had so many tomatoes I could not give them all away.

If any of you guys are in the north east when do you plan on planting your gardens? I sell veggie and herb plants up here and it has been a terrible year due to weather so far. My sales are down about 55% off of last years sales so far so I would like to know what the die hard gardeners are planing on doing this year. Looks like this weekend is going to be nice so maybe we will have some people getting their hands dirty in the next few days.

Oh yeah, if any of you gardeners are in New Jersey it would be in your best interest to send me a pm

[AUguy]

Jamie, you are planting three great varieties of tomatoes. I wish more people realized how good those celebrities are!

[thebayratt]

Originally Posted by AUguy

I sell veggie and herb plants up here and it has been a terrible year due to weather so far.

Wow, sorry to hear that!

I've gotten 2 gallon jugs slap full of green beans in the last four days and got more to come. We have had great weather, just no rain. I have a sprinkler, soaker system on a timer thats been keeping the plants alive. We had about a 1/2" of rain yesturday; thats been it for a month+.
Ya'll get cold weather issues, we got heat issues in the south... looks like we should meet in the middle to grow.

Once our rainy season ends we get no rain until next one. 6 months with rain, 6 months without. Our biggest problem is late frosts. Later every year lately.
We are growing 8 different tomatoes this year (one is sungold, mmm...). My wife is crazy. Watch her come home with three sixpacks of squash plants.

[wayner123]

Originally Posted by thebayratt

Wow, sorry to hear that!

I've gotten 2 gallon jugs slap full of green beans in the last four days and got more to come. We have had great weather, just no rain. I have a sprinkler, soaker system on a timer thats been keeping the plants alive. We had about a 1/2" of rain yesturday; thats been it for a month+.
Ya'll get cold weather issues, we got heat issues in the south... looks like we should meet in the middle to grow.

What kind of green beans are you growing?

[jjirons69]

Originally Posted by AUguy

Jamie, you are planting three great varieties of tomatoes. I wish more people realized how good those celebrities are!

Went through a period of nothing but heirlooms - most are not disease resistant. That was my biggest issue. I plant in the same areas every year and the heirlooms started suffering. That and I had less time to grow from seed. Been with Celebrity for a few year - good yields, good taste, hardly any (if any) problems with rots or diseases.

[wayner123]

Originally Posted by jjirons69

Heirlooms don't cross-pollinate retaining specific seeds is quite easy. I ran into some really good tomatoes!

Jamie, I have never heard or read the bold text above. I do know that tomatoes are self pollinating, but they can still cross pollinate should a bee, butterfly, etc fly onto one and then another variety.

[shilala]

I just went and bought some trees and shrubs and composted cow poop.
I put in a weeping cherry and some kind of goofy pine tree earlier. Now I got two cultivars of spiraea, a boxwood, and a dwarf pygmy quadruple-split japanese maple of some sort. It's odd. More bushy than tree-sy.
I got a dozen bags of poop to poop up the front flowerbed that's full of bushes. I don't know what you call a flowerbed that has bushes in it. An "architectural element" maybe?
I got some more poop for my strawberries that I haven't planted yet, too. It won't quit raining long enough to improve the soil, so they still live beside the desk here on my floor.
I got a bag of weed and feed to kill these weeds in the lawn. I live in a development now and am actively ensconsed in a grass war with the neighbor. Mine will look way better than his inside another month, cause I'm a turfgrass growing sumb1tch of the first order.
It's nice to have a little yard so I can play these games. It sure is a departure from the farm, though. I'm not sure what I think yet. When I have my garden back, then I'll be happy.

[HK3-]

Well, change of plan for me. Appears that some of last years fallen maters left seeds behind that decided to sprout this year. Counted five plants yesterday that were about 6+ inches tall already.

[jjirons69]

Originally Posted by wayner123

Jamie, I have never heard or read the bold text above. I do know that tomatoes are self pollinating, but they can still cross pollinate should a bee, butterfly, etc fly onto one and then another variety.

That is true, Wayne. Tomatoes are most likely to self-pollinate before cross-pollinating - most blooms will have self-pollinated themselves before they even open. I think the rate is something like 5% or less, with even lower percentages given space between plants and lower numbers of different varieties. Most of us home gardeners don't bag our open-pollination blossoms to prevent crossing. IMHO, I would suspect the rates are less than 5% for most of us. Sorry for the confusion.

[jjirons69]

Originally Posted by HK3-

Well, change of plan for me. Appears that some of last years fallen maters left seeds behind that decided to sprout this year. Counted five plants yesterday that were about 6+ inches tall already.

Gotta love volunteers, Hal! (well some of them)

Word to the wise - cosmos - I planted a $1 packet of orange cosmos two years ago ('09) in the edge of my garden so my daughter would have flowers. I let a few volunteers come back last year for her to enjoy. I pulled up 20 6" high plants this weekend! No more cosmos for me. It'll take 2 or 3 more years to completely eradicate them.

[Ahbroody]

My wife and I are taking our first crack at this. I dropped a little over $100 so far, but that's building a 10ft by 5ft box and filling with garden soil mix. Planted our stuff yesterday. Doing lettuce, squash, zucchini, Greenbeans, some different peppers and broccoli. Setting up tomatoes separately. If it goes well we will do a second box next year.

The boy had fun planting things the girls were bored quickly.

[wayner123]

Originally Posted by Ahbroody

My wife and I are taking our first crack at this. I dropped a little over $100 so far, but that's building a 10ft by 5ft box and filling with garden soil mix. Planted our stuff yesterday. Doing lettuce, squash, zucchini, Greenbeans, some different peppers and broccoli. Setting up tomatoes separately. If it goes well we will do a second box next year.

The boy had fun planting things the girls were bored quickly.

Sounds like a great start. In the future, if you continue to do this, you may want to build the beds less wide. It will make keeping up with things a LOT easier and you won't have to stretch or step on your soil.

[Skywalker]

Originally Posted by Skywalker

Today was a good day in the garden:

We planted...
zucchini,
cherry tomatoes,
yellow bell pepper,
sweet banana peppers,
jalapeno peppers, and
An avocado tree.

Strawberries survived from last years planting!

[Ahbroody]

Originally Posted by wayner123

Sounds like a great start. In the future, if you continue to do this, you may want to build the beds less wide. It will make keeping up with things a LOT easier and you won't have to stretch or step on your soil.

Yeah we thought about that, but where its located you can reach in from all sides so its not bad. We have a corner house so we have a long side run that we don't use much. It already had sprinkled so Just centered the box on the sprinkle.

[thebayratt]

Originally Posted by wayner123

What kind of green beans are you growing?

Snap beans / green beens.

[wayner123]

Originally Posted by thebayratt

Snap beans / green beens.

Do you know the name of them? Blue Lake, Contender, etc?

[AUguy]

Originally Posted by Skywalker

We planted...
zucchini,
cherry tomatoes,
yellow bell pepper,
sweet banana peppers,
jalapeno peppers, and
An avocado tree.

Strawberries survived from last years planting!

Are those Bonnie Plants?

[thebayratt]

Originally Posted by wayner123

Do you know the name of them? Blue Lake, Contender, etc?

I want to say Contendor or Tendergreen from Ferry Morse, but will have to go find the package to make sure tomrrow for ya.

[Average Joe]

First fruit!

Still waiting on the strawberries, squash, cucumbers and peppers. Everything but peppers look like they are getting there.