Gardening Gardening

Very nice Hov!

 

Yours too! Love your spacing and concrete wire cages for tomatoes. I do the same.

This year I am trying 5 tomato plants on a single stem and staked. I have never tried it that way.

 

Getting the drip lines laid on the tomatoes and peppers today. Had some nice rains since we planted them but getting close to 90* Wed so I had to get on it.

 

That looks like 12 inch spacing. Some say you can plant peppers close together and it can actually help with the plants supporting each other. I've stuck with 18 inches even though I now employ drip but I haven't graduated to injecting fertilizer so haven't tried growing more densely.


It's rhubarb time here although some of my plants are not looking so good as we had a bit of a dry spell throughout May.


I tried Eazyleaf tango lettuce in my portable raised beds this year. So far so good even with bugs.

 

What's in the rhubarb jars, besides rhubarb? I just cut the ribs to 1 inch lengths and freeze it just like that.

i have 5 good sized clumps. Lots of ribs and thick. I think I need to bust some up and thin the clumps a bit.

 

18"spacing for the peppers and 1 row of tomatoes. The other tomatoes are at 36". Your lettuce looks great Bill.

 

I had some frozen strawberries from last year or the year before. 2+ pounds of rhubarb to about 1 cup of strawberries. Just enough to dye the rhubarb jam so it looks more red than brown.
My rhubarb plants need digging up and dividing, just never find the time in the Spring until boom, they're now up and it's too late now. I have some hostas that badly need the same attention(s).
I bought 20 seeds and now have 20 baby rhubarb plants I need to find spaces for.

 

Fall is even I bust up clumps of all my perennials. For the rhubarb, I just pull back the bark mulch around them, and put down a layer of ,your own compost. Then, put the bark mulch back, taking care to not cover the crown. Other than watering, that's al, the attention they get, aside from harvest and cutting get out seed heads.

20+ plants? Yikes! That's a ton of rhubarb. You must give away an amount. I love the stuff, but need to be careful. It likes to feed kidney stones.

 

Yeah, my mom usually comes and picks a bunch to give to some of her friends. They were all much more productive when I could get chicken manure to spread on them the same way you do. Black Kow is getting kinda pricey and isn't quite as goos as real chicken manure.
The number of plants is tough because they are all starting to grow together but I think there was originally a dozen. I dug up and divided one a few years back to fill some spots that had died off and gave a few of the divided plants away.
I think they were originally planted during the Great Depression, maybe sooner. I do know they pre-date WWII. The oroginal plants are probably long gone. It's an old patch with me being the third or fourth generation tending it.

I have frozen some the same way in the past. Make jam or pie when the strawberries are ready or in the Fall when it cools off and ya don't mind the oven heat in the house.
I was alone and needed somethin to do so made some jam.

 

Anyone using an Earthway Seeder? Do you like it?


I bought mine a year ago. Last year
2 plantings of beans I got one
3 different Plantings of corn. Didn't pick a single ear.
This year on a 2 row planting of beans. Not very many came up and just tilled them under.
6 15' rows of corn. Maybe, if I exaggerate 12 plants total. The planter in the only thing in common between my use to be successful planting and no crop.
I have the garden re-tilled and out to try and beat the rain. Going to do it the old fashion way. Put tape around my walking stick at 1" and pock holes in the ground and put the seeds in. We will see what happens.

 

I like mine. It makes planting corn rows super easy. How is your soil? Is this a new garden?

 

4th year garden Clay soil.
I liked mine for planting quick and easy on the back but if seeds don't come up it doesn't matter how easy it was.
Plant 5 rows of corn and 2 rows of beans the old fashion way yesterday. We will see what comes up.

 

Strawberries coming in now. My wife and I got these from our 2 main beds this evening.
We will be getting 1-2 gallons a day for awhile now.


These black capped raspberries will be ripening as the strawberries are fading.
We have a 10 foot row and there are thousands of them forming.

I cut my red and gold raspberries all the way to the ground this spring to delay harvest until late summer.


Finally a bountiful crop of apples from our six trees for fall. These are honeycrisp.

 

Been using mine for about 25 years. Mostly used for beans and turnips. It plants corn a little thick for my liking but should work for a smaller garden. Seed depth is important for good germination. Make sure you set for the proper depth. About an inch for corn and beans. I did plant a new variety of beans with mine this year with a less than stellar emergence.

 

No good! Keep an eagle eye out for more!

 

Tomato horn worm. Kill it!

 

If you find a HW with little white things on it it,remove it and put it somewhere it won't eat anymore of you tomatoes. The white things are cocoons of a parasitic wasp that kill hornworms. https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu...s/beneficial-04_braconid_wasp_on_hornworm.htm

 

I have found le hornworms on peppers and tomatillos as well.