2016 Garden

[Triple Creek Reaper]

I quite growing them for that very reason. Would have a really nice plant going and then overnight, destroyed.

[hunter1005]

My tomatoes kicked butt this year. The coffee grounds as fertilizer was unbelieveable. Ended up with 70 tomatoes from 6 plants. 4 are still going, which I have using a double bucket method.

I had a few horn worms but caught them early on the ones in the buckets. The 2 in the ground not so lucky. But they did not have too much damage and still produced some nice tomatoes. Just not as many as the ones in the buckets.

Zucchini got hit with tubers, so getting ready to solarize the soil.

Sweet corn, harvested, 25 ears from 32 plants. Not too bad.

This system is similar to the earthbox system.
Just in case your wondering, using double buckets, 2 - 5 gallong buckets, inner bucket drill a center hole about 3 inches, on the outer rim another hole to fit 1 1/2 inch pipe (pvc) this is to refill the reservoir in the bottom of the outer bucket. The outer bucket drill a 3/8 inch hole about 6 inches from the bottom. this is the over flow line so your tomatoes do not drown in water. Drill some extra 9 - 15 holes (3/8 diamter) around the bottom of the inner bucket. To put this together, either use a pvc coupling (drill holes in the sides of it (1/16 in size so water can penetrate but will still hold soil) a little larger than the center hole in the bucket or like I use a piece of drain field pipe about 4 inches in length (It already contains holes).

Attach this using plastic zip ties to the outside bottom center of the inner bucket. Go ahead and insert your tomato cage and hook the wires so it will not move around. Take your piece of 1 1/2 inch pipe (pvc) 2 foot look and put that through the other hole. Set the assembly in the outer bucket.

Fill the inner buck with soil, make sure enough gets down into the coupling on the bottom. this acts as the sponge to move water and nutrients up. Bury your tomatoes and your good to go.

this will work on other vegatables also.

good luck gardeining

[hunter1005]

Here are some tips I learned this year about tomatoe plants besides using buckets and coffee grounds.

Pull the first blooms off so that plants get stronger.
As soon as the plant is loaded with tomatoes, pull the extra blooms off so the energy goes to the tomatoes
Once tomatoes show color like pale yellow (start of ripening) pull them off and let them ripen indoors on a window seal.

I watered the plants every other day except when we had heavy rain down pours. than I waited a couple of days.

[9dawgs]

This system is similar to the earthbox system.
Just in case your wondering, using double buckets, 2 - 5 gallong buckets, inner bucket drill a center hole about 3 inches, on the outer rim another hole to fit 1 1/2 inch pipe (pvc) this is to refill the reservoir in the bottom of the outer bucket. The outer bucket drill a 3/8 inch hole about 6 inches from the bottom. this is the over flow line so your tomatoes do not drown in water. Drill some extra 9 - 15 holes (3/8 diamter) around the bottom of the inner bucket. To put this together, either use a pvc coupling (drill holes in the sides of it (1/16 in size so water can penetrate but will still hold soil) a little larger than the center hole in the bucket or like I use a piece of drain field pipe about 4 inches in length (It already contains holes).

Attach this using plastic zip ties to the outside bottom center of the inner bucket. Go ahead and insert your tomato cage and hook the wires so it will not move around. Take your piece of 1 1/2 inch pipe (pvc) 2 foot look and put that through the other hole. Set the assembly in the outer bucket.

Fill the inner buck with soil, make sure enough gets down into the coupling on the bottom. this acts as the sponge to move water and nutrients up. Bury your tomatoes and your good to go.

Hey hunter1005, do you have some photos of this system? Sounds interesting :>)

[hunter1005]

No I do not have pictures.

But these webpages are similar in the design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7epwvwVtghM

http://greenroofgrowers.blogspot.com/20 ... gated.html

http://www.globalbuckets.org/

[9dawgs]

No I do not have pictures.

But these webpages are similar in the design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7epwvwVtghM

http://greenroofgrowers.blogspot.com/20 ... gated.html

http://www.globalbuckets.org/

Thanks man, I'll check it out. I haven't had much luck with my tomatoes. I tried to save the three I had planted and I did get about 12 tomatoes off the vines before they really got bad and didn't produce anymore. I started over with a different breed. This one, "celebrity", is supposed to be resistant to disease. We'll see.

I also pulled all my wormy zucchini and low and behold there were a couple of healthy young plants under them. I cleaned up everything and got them all set up and they're actually looking good and strong. I sprayed with the Sevin spray and will see what they'll do. In the meantime I discovered worms in my cantaloupes and my watermelons are rotting on the vine (may be because of all the rain we had). Ugh. Sevin is my friend right now. The watermelon plants still look good and healthy so we'll see if they recover.

I've been eating a lot of egg plant and okra though. Plus some good peppers so I'm still happy :>)

[hunter1005]

I tried planting 4 jubilee watermelon seeds and 5 sugar baby melons seeds. The Jubilees busted open when they were growing from too much water. The melons were just getting going too. I did not get any of them. The sugar baby melons I got to eat 3. Was a bad year for melons.
Will try again next year.

Beans were a loss. Crows kept finding the seeds. They are some smart birds.

I grew some egg plant. found I was not fond of it. Not growing that again. I gave 90% of it away.

Sweetcorn did alright. 32 seeds and ended of with apx 25 ears of corns. Getting better at this. This year I planted them 1 ft apart by 2ft row.
Starting in august / sept going to plant again 1ft by 1ft to see how it does.

[9dawgs]

I tried planting 4 jubilee watermelon seeds and 5 sugar baby melons seeds. The Jubilees busted open when they were growing from too much water. The melons were just getting going too. I did not get any of them. The sugar baby melons I got to eat 3. Was a bad year for melons.
Will try again next year.

Beans were a loss. Crows kept finding the seeds. They are some smart birds.

I grew some egg plant. found I was not fond of it. Not growing that again. I gave 90% of it .

I'm not a big eggplant fan either but I found the Japanese Ichaban ones are pretty good. They're long and slender kind of like the shape of a cucumber. If you slice them up and bread and fry them they're pretty tasty. We made a dipping sauce out of ranch dressing and creole seasoning.

I'm giving my cantaloupe and watermelon a little more time and if they don't start doing something I'm pulling them up.

Same with my onions. But the good news is that my peppers seem to have recovered from whatever it was that was making them drop leaves.

I learn something new every year!



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[treefarmer]

Sometimes gardening is a terrible waste of time but you never know if you don't try! A farmer either has to be a man with great faith or an awful brave gambler in my estimation. Our little piddley gardens don't compare to a man who plants hundreds of acres, invests thousands of dollars and several months of hard work in a crop. We had to plant our squash twice, no big deal, only 2 rows 100 feet long. 2nd planting did well, everybody in the neighborhood had all they wanted. Consider a man that maybe planted 80 acres of squash for the market and faced replanting. It ain't easy.
We planted 14 rows of the red corn we've been messin' with for several years and then it rained about 15 inches a few days after Easter. Didn't think it would come up, it was either sanded or washed away, but some of it came up, not a good stand but enough to make some more seed if it makes. Surprisingly, a week later some more of it came up, again not a good stand but still enough to give hope for a seed crop. Some was knee high, while some was only 3 or 4 inches, difficult to cultivate. I very carefully side dressed it with some 13-13-13 and left it alone. Quickly some of it got too high to get over with a tractor while some was only knee high, but now it is all extremely tall, still spotty but looks like it will make seed for next year. Weeds and grass were not controlled by cultivation or chemical so the crab grass is very healthy, but still the corn is growing. Too much rain at first, turned dry for a month, now summer showers are allowing it to probably mature. The lifted golf cart roof is a little over 6 feet high, some of the corn has grown another 3 or 4 feet (need to actually measure it). Some have 3 ears per stalk, some 2 and of course more with only 1 ear.
On the other side of the garden next to a row of Market More cukes, we planted 8 rows of Zipper Cream peas, good stand as they germinated, have kept cultivating them and have side dressed them one time with 8-8-8, no fertilizer at planting. They look great and will probably make a good crop of peas if we can get some young person to pick 'em on halves.
Peppers are doing great, Bell, Sweet Bananas, Rooster spur and a bush of Giant Jalapenos, all in raised beds.
Going to try a post a few pictures to support my ramblings.
Treefarmer

[9dawgs]

Haha, yeah I'm learning that. You really can't do much about the weather. I just like seeing what will grow good in this heat and humidity.

I pulled up my cantaloupe and watermelon today. Got tired of feeding the worms and other bugs. I had a few good starts on both but the melons rotted and the cantaloupes were full of worms. Looks like I had some type of mite in the melons causing rot. So I pulled everything.

I'm letting the dirt bake in the sun until it cools enough for a fall crop of something.

But my peppers still look good as well as the sweet potatoes, zucchini, okra and eggplant.



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[hunter1005]

This is the type of irrigation system I am using these days. PVC drip with valves. Low pressure and less water.

https://extension.usu.edu/files/publica ... 8-02pr.pdf

I re-use the pvc and valves. This is the 2nd year doing this. I change the configuration occasionally. The only spot I have glued is the pvc hose adaptor attached to a small length of pipe before it gets attached to a valve or t connector. just snug the pipe ends together and it works fine.

I have found I can water a 3/4 pipe 40 foot long in 10 minutes and then go water the next section. It takes about 40 minutes of turning valves on and off untill the whole garden is watered. I usually have 5 sections.

I have used 1/3 the amount of water I normally used when using a sprinkler.

It definitely cuts down the amount of weeds in the garden.

[9dawgs]

Nice, thanks for the link. It looks easy enough to do on a smaller scale. I may try that next year.

I planted me a loquat I got from a friend at church. That makes 3 fruit trees on the Nelson farmstead :-)




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[treefarmer]

Garden update:
Some of the Zipper Cream peas are finally ready to pick, there are 8 rows, 4 with crab grass and 4 without.
Had to irrigate a few times and have received several good rains in the last week so the peas are making, some mature, some snaps and some blooms still on the vines. They'll continue to produce if we can keep Bambi at bay.
Noticed the deer made a pass through the end of the patch Saturday night or sometime on Sunday, we scattered some Milorganite around the patch yesterday evening before dark. This morning the peas were still there. For those that don't know, a small patch like this can be destroyed overnight by a ramblin' deer herd. The deer seem to be stayin' in the creek bottoms, cooler places but they do now know where the peas are planted.
Here's a few pictures of what's going on at Starvation Plantation in the Panhandle.
Treefarmer

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[9dawgs]

My garden update is that I've been harvesting some sweet potatoes and man are they good. Some are kind of funky shaped so I may add a little sand next year so they can spread out a bit. Still getting plenty of eggplant and peppers. I had to pull the zucchini because even though I had several good flowers with small fruit, the bugs got in them. My okra got too wet I believe with all the afternoon storms we've been having down here. The roots rotted so I pulled them too along with what was left of the onions. So now all I have are eggplant, sweet potatoes and peppers. I do have two more tomato plants I planted that seem to be doing well but aren't producing fruit because of the heat. Oh and now I have 4 banana trees with bunches of bananas on them and a pile of small limes on my lemon/lime tree. All and all it wasn't a bad season and I learned a lot.

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[Cr0ck1]

dam makes me want to go out and disc my land and plant.. but i don't want to die. its hot as hell!!!