2018 Garden Thread

[Quillback]

I set out a dozen broccoli plants and planted some snow peas a couple of days ago.  I like stir frying broccoli and snow peas together.  

[tho1mas]

I had to water my little raised garden last week - kinda yearly to be doing that! Onions, spinach & lettuce are up sorta (may have to re-plant some B.S. Simpson). Broccoli is about 2" high on the window sill in the kitchen.

Life is good.

[BilletHead]

1 hour ago, Quillback said:

Hey BH - where did you get those tubs?

          Quill,

    Go for a drive and find a farmer with cattle. They get the tubs filled with a molasses/mineral mix. I am not sure if they turn them back in for a deposit or trash them but guys around here usually have a stack just sitting around. Sometimes they just leave them in the field to blow into fence rows. Easy picking as I have never had one tell me they want to keep them. 

  BilletHead

 

[Quillback]

Thanks - I'll keep an eye out for them.  They look like nice sturdy tubs.  

[Lancer09]

We are ramping up the garden operation this year. We have some kind of pea in the ground right now. some lettuce outside in a planter, and in the raised beds I tried some greens from seed instead. I read a deal about "High Intensity Gardening" basically just planting super thick in rows and only ever taking leaves and not full heads so all the plants have a chance to thrive. I've got a row of Arugula, Black seeded simpson, romaine, butter crunch, and rainbow swiss chard. Then we've got brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower with seedlings in a small staked greenhouse in the back yard, and they seem to be doing quite well in there.

Doing a lot more from seed this year than last, but quite a bit will be plants from a mix of lowes, home depot, and walmart. Walmart carries Burpee plants up here  and they did great for us last year, and the burpee seeds we've got popped up pretty quick compared to some others so far.

From Bakers Creek seeds we picked up:
Tomatoes (Jersey Giants, black krim, ananas noire,  carbon, pantano romanesco's, and a verde tomatillo)
Peppers: Cubanells, habanda's (taste like a habanero without the heat), some purple pepper, a red and a green bell pepper
also got a bunch of shallots started

Rest of the tomatoes are going to be :
some sort of greek paste style tomato, a "bumblebee cherry" tomato (neat little yellow with black shoulders), san marzano's, mexican ruffled tomatoes,  5 or 6 pink brandywines, cherokee purples,  a pineapple striped heirloom, some mexican golden beefsteak tomato (no idea what it actually is) probably another yellow like a golden jubilee. I'll also grab some early girls, better boys, and big boys from our HS ag class that starts them in the town I work for.  I'll throw in a few other small cherry or grape tomatoes as well.

I may do a green one as well like a green giant or the green zebras, I'd like to try making some green ketchup, anyone tried this?

I've got the materials but I'm building a small extra raised bed for the herbs so they aren't in the same beds as everything else.

 

My aunt and uncle have set some space aside for me for most of the tomatoes, since I'm probably going to have in the neighbor hood of 3 to 4 dozen tomato plants this year. SO that's how this garden season is going to go. 

 

[ness]

I’ve heard it referred to as ‘French Intensive’ gardening and other things. Plant dense in very rich soil, leaving little unplanted space at any time and do succession planting. That’s the foundation of square foot gardening, which is basically what I do. 

Family Tree is a good source for plants in JoCo too. Good variety.

Good luck!

[Lancer09]

I ordered seeds from a few different places, unfortunately some of them still haven't shipped so while I'd like to really get more going of the ones I have I fear I'm going to be a little late, just may have to get them in the ground late. Looks like I'll be doing more of the krims, carbons and pantano's.  than I planned but even then I think I'm pushing it.

I am doing a lot of shallots this year so I'm excited to see how those turn out. With how many I use cooking I hope they store ok. The french zebrune variety I bought are supposed to dry well and store for a long time. 

[ness]

I grew shallots 4 years and never got very good size. I did French Red and Zebrune, and had better luck with the former, fwiw. 

[jdmidwest]

Peas, spinach, and lettuce are up, but it took 3 weeks to come up. I should have put the glass on to help warm up.

I saw a bloom on a strawberry.

[Terrierman]

I put in another 16 asparagus crowns before it rained.