Gardening Gardening

Picked up the cabbage, peppers and tomato plants today. Depending if and how much rain we get over the weekend we'll be planting Monday.

 

Looking great I'm going to start hardening off my tomatoes and peppers tomorrow. We have some cloudy/rainy weather rolling in by the middle of next week, which will be a good time to get my plants in the ground. They're quickly becoming root bound indoors.

 

Got my tomato plants in and some cucumber seeds. I'll be surprised if 3 of the tomatoes make it. I started several indoors but they're the weakest looking. I also planted a few in my old straw piles that I added chicken manure to last fall. We'll see how it goes. I like experimenting and trying different methods of gardening. Im very unorthodox. My garden is a kind of controlled chaos.
Last year my father in law was going on and on how I allowed some wild weed like flowers to grow next to my cukes. My plan was to have the cukes use them as a trellis. To his disappointment, my method worked wonderfully. I just wish I had more flat ground. My current garden is terraced and that's what I'll have to do to expand.

 

Greens coming up.

Lot of Honey crisp apples ahead. Depending on how may drop, I will snip many of them to get relatively fewer, but big apples

Rhubarb is taking off. I have snipped the first round of flower stalks.

Garlic is getting big.

Asparagus and volunteer lettuce from plants that I let go to seed last year.

 

Have some radishes ready to pull. Can't remember the variety but they're pretty.




My pepperonci's are ready to flower. I started these indoors in mid February. I think the sweet banana peppers have buds ready to bloom as well.

 

Some of the planting festivities yesterday.
Cabbage
Peppers.
Tomatoes.

 

Mint trying hard to take over.


Plentiful rain is helping the garden get a terrific start.


Sweet potatoes coming around.


Every plant I put in the ground is doing well.

 

Striper Bait?? What is this, looks like an eel??

 

It's got legs and feet.

A salamander, of some type.

 

I’m not sure which but yes, a salamander. I have one pine tree stump and there was a piece of wood laying on it, when I moved said wood it was underneath.

 

You've never seen an eel walk?? LOL

 

No, can you demonstrate?

 

We got most everything in that we planned to put in. Tomatoes got a little leggy inside this year. But there taking off well.

 

Also trying out these upside down tomato bags. So far so good. Half of the strawberries we planted in the vertical planter died, but the rest are doing great.

 

Last year I lost the bulk of my strawberries to all sorts of critters. This is going to be a pain getting in and out of, but at least they’ll be safer. The vines are spreading like crazy outside the enclosure, which will be picked clean I’m sure.

 

I was able to plant the spring 2024 garden a few weeks ago, before the torrential rains hit East Texas, so far so good!

 

Anyone need some mint, lol.

 

My gareden is doing so so thus far. My broccoli plants all bolted, and only about half of my cuke seeds have germinated. Going to replant some more today.
The tomatoes are doing really well and I have a bunch come up from last years seeds. They actually look better than a couple of the plants I started.
Need to get some beans in yet and a couple zucchini plants.

farmer steve I plan on having strawberry plants in most of my greenstalk. I planted some last year and this year. Not doing too bad.

 

Well, it's a start. About half of the garden is planted. 13 different varieties are in with around 14 more to go. Aside from the usuals, I want to up my stir fry game this year so will be planting Swiss chard and Bok Choy (and maybe Pak Choi) for the first time. The garden expands a bit more every year. Last year was mediocre at best, due to records rains, so hoping to have a good harvest this year for canning and dehydrating. Also still have to get seven more fruit trees (which will give me 22) and six blueberry bushes in the ground.

I did the Florida weave trellis with t-posts last year and it worked okay but am going a different route this year. I have 150 6' bamboo stakes on order and will be building my trellis supports out of those (using the string method of support - third picture (not my photo)). After spending four years in places like Japan, Vietnam, South Korea and the Philippines back when I was in the Corps, I appreciate the look and versatility of the bamboo.

For those in the warmer climes, this is actually a couple weeks early. Normally we wait until at least after Memorial Day; however, with the unseasonal warm spell, I figured I would get a jump on things.

 

I like the look of the raised containers. Minimal bending needed!