Gardening Thread- Show me your gardens!

Planted this past Sunday
- Tomatoes
- Peppers
- Zucchini
- Cucumber
- Green Onions
- Brussel Sprouts
- Carrots
- Radishes
- Basil
- Rosemary

I think we are past our last freeze? (Famous last words with a cold front headed in this weekend) Colorado growing season is short, so we will see what produces this year. Second year soil should be much better. Here's a picture of the garden mid-season last year. I used wood that came out of our master bathroom remodel as the frame.

 

Pick up some bales of peat moss and mix it in. The dry peat moss will shake up some of the moisture. I’ve done that on parts of my garden when it was too wet to plow, and it worked pretty well. It has the added benefit of improving your soil.

 

My soil is pretty well-balanced at this point, so it's not normally a problem. But we've gotten an abnormal amount of rain this spring and the entire side hill drains onto my property, so this particular bed is much wetter than usual this year. It's got a good amount of peat and vermiculite already tilled into it, and is still saturated, even though it's a raised bed. So I've just got to be patient.

Not really my forte, which is bad for a gardener

 

Got my peppers planted in the greenhouse. There is still a good chance of frost here until the end of May, but they should be safe in the greenhouse. It's not heated, but stays at least 6 degrees warmer in there. If we get a real cold night, I can always put a space heater in there for the night. There is some volunteer lettuce and one kale plant that I have left there for now. They will get picked and eaten before the peppers get too big.


Also planted two tomatoes, one Brandywine, and one Bill Bean. My lettuce and spinach is growing good and needs thinning. Need to eat more salads.


The Punta Banda tomato plants I started three weeks ago are coming along nicely. They should be nice size when I plant them out in the garden the first of June.


Anyone grow rutabagas? Every year I grow something I've never grown before, and it's getting harder and harder to find something I've never grown before. This year I decided to try rutabagas. Heck I've never even eaten them. They germinated good, so I had to do quite a bit of thinning.

 

Plus the greenhouse keeps the frost off of them. I've found that they can withstand lower air temps if they don't get actual frost deposition.

 

Yea a little, but they are still peppers after all and are pretty tender when it comes to cold. I have also found they do better on those chilly nights if they are planted in the ground, than if they are still in pots. I think keeping the roots warm helps. I have tried to grow them out in the garden, but rarely got ripe peppers before the first fall frost killed them. They grow faster in the greenhouse, plus I get at least a month longer with them in the fall before the cold finally kills them.

 

I keep mine in cold frames for the same reason; I get a head start on them in the spring and get a much better yield that way.

 

I didn't know you could bunch spinach that close together. I'm trying that next year

 

Nice cold frames. Are those photos from this year? If so, you are way ahead of me.

 

You can start it that way, but have to thin it as it grows. I'm just not eating it fast enough to keep up with the thinning. I sprinkle the seeds out like you would grass seed. Then sprinkle soil over them to cover them. I do lettuce, and kale that way to. Supper easy.

 

HELL NO! My peppers are about 3 inches tall right now, lol. The only thing I've got actually coming up in the cold frames right now are the sunflowers, because if they get frost killed I don't care; I can just toss some more seeds in and start over. We've still been getting some pretty cold nights, annoyingly, so I haven't wanted to move the peppers outside to harden them off yet.

 

My 14 year old Thomson Seedless grape vine is doing great this year.


It will have more grapes this year than ever.


I also planted two new Flame Seedless grape vines. They are close enough to the grass that the sprinklers water them.


And a Gogi berry plant. I have never tasted one before. It has lots of pretty little purple flowers on it.

 

My grapevines are both Concord-style grapes, but are only 3 years old so are just starting to produce. I was hoping in the next year or two to get enough to try a batch of wine, but had a lot of rodent damage to one of them this winter so I had to prune it back pretty severely. Hopefully it bounces back quickly.

 

Amended my soil in the front bed and planted 2 new azaleas to replace 2 Japanese Yews that bit the dust. The azelea variety is supposed to bloom 3 times a year. Also planted Lantana and sunny impatiens and put a border around one of my Dogwoods and got it mulched.

 

Just got done stringing an extension cord out to my greenhouse. Forecast is calling for upper 30's tonight. Usually gets 5 degrees colder here than forecasted. Probably won't get below freezing inside the greenhouse, but the heater plugged into that extension cord will make sure it doesn't.

 

Dig that stuff.

 

At three years the roots should be getting established well. Since you pruned it in winter it will grow back fast. I have cut mine three times, once a foot from the base and it always grows back larger every year. Now that I have it on the pergola it gets lots of sun and grows like mad.

 

Probably. But I have it next to the garage, where the soil is pretty sandy because it's all fill. I tilled a bunch of manure in when I planted them, but putting them in was more of a 'hmmm...what can go here besides lawn?' sort of decision, lol. I knew grapevines are pretty hardy and probably wouldn't mind subpar soil, but it might affect the bounceback time.

 

All my transplants are doing well, havent lost anything yet. Lots of rain yesterday and today.

 

Got another idea for the papas.







Taters rule :0)

Cooked in butter first over the top, then moved out to the grill for the bake.