What's in Your Garden? (2014 edition)
- Thread starter shyvas
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Tomatoes can do okay in containers. I've got a huge one growing in an upsidedown hanging tomato planter, and I did one in a rubbermaid container last year. My plant book Bountiful Container says that tomatoes need a minimum soil depth of 12 inches, so maybe your containers weren't deep enough.
Then again if it got to the flowering stage then didn't fruit, the soil might be low in potassium. I had that problem last year - tons of flowers, but none of them fruiting. They began to fruit a couple weeks after I added a high potassium fertilizer. This year I added the fertilizer as soon as it flowered, and I've got tons of little grape tomatoes.
In my garden I've got tons of tomatoes, some carrots both orange and purple, beets, and swiss chard. That's in the plot. Also, there are some red onions growing, which the previous plot-renter had planted. I didn't know what they were so I let them grow. Next year I will pull them out to plant something else. Red onions are cheap to buy already so I would rather plant something else there.
I planted a watermelon, late in the season, so it's not going to fruit, but it DID flower!! Maybe I can get an immature fruit from it before the frost comes along to kill it.
Oh and I've got Malabar Spinach on the balcony. Regular spinach doesn't like the heat, so I ordered malabar spinach which is heat loving. It's doing well and starting to climb the trellis I set out for it. I think it's really cool - spinach vines!
I planted a watermelon, late in the season, so it's not going to fruit, but it DID flower!! Maybe I can get an immature fruit from it before the frost comes along to kill it.
Oh and I've got Malabar Spinach on the balcony. Regular spinach doesn't like the heat, so I ordered malabar spinach which is heat loving. It's doing well and starting to climb the trellis I set out for it. I think it's really cool - spinach vines!
I've brought my potted sweet peppers inside.
Last night, I made rice with garlic and a little oil- and with a sweet pepper, some lovage, and blackeyed peas from my garden! I think I know now why nothing bothers blackeyed peas: they don't taste very good. They're okay, but I really like other beans better. I shelled the rest of the ones I had picked while I listened to a Boston Symphony Orchestra broadcast.
Last night, I made rice with garlic and a little oil- and with a sweet pepper, some lovage, and blackeyed peas from my garden! I think I know now why nothing bothers blackeyed peas: they don't taste very good. They're okay, but I really like other beans better. I shelled the rest of the ones I had picked while I listened to a Boston Symphony Orchestra broadcast.
Paul1
Newcomer
Our garden is becoming larger every year, this year we have loads of pickling cucumbers, a few varieties of tomatoes, a couple varieties of beans, zucchini, peas, white and red onions, peppers, beets, garlic, eggplant, cabbage, cauliflower, potatoes, parsley, dill, lovage, lemon thyme, basil and plenty of weeds as well. My wife will let a few vegetables overripen so that she can collect the seeds for next year's garden, which will happen with the pepper below.
My marigolds have been blooming for about a month. I picked the last of the blackeyed peas today. I actually had a small watermelon 3 weeks ago but I stepped on it before I knew it was there... there's one more, no bigger, but the frost will probably get it before it's ripe. It's only baseball size, anyway. I should have started the watermelon plants indoors and set them out, but I did that last year and still had no luck with them.
I started some late mustard greens 3 weeks ago and they're starting to get big.
I started some late mustard greens 3 weeks ago and they're starting to get big.
My sweet peppers in big pots are blooming again, but since I've brought the peppers indoors, to quote Emily Dickinson... "Bees are few". So I pollinated them with an old Q-tip that was laying around (don't ask). Peppers are forming. The tomato cuttings I took are rooting too, but oddly, the cherry tomato cutting is taking the longest time- and that's the variety that grows most vigorously. I can take another cutting of cherry tomato if I have to.
To make a prairie, it takes one clover, and a bee
A clover, and one bee
And reverie.
The reverie alone will do
If bees are few. (I did this from memory- my apologies to Ms Dickinson if it was a bit wrong...)
To make a prairie, it takes one clover, and a bee
A clover, and one bee
And reverie.
The reverie alone will do
If bees are few. (I did this from memory- my apologies to Ms Dickinson if it was a bit wrong...)
ledboots
Peace
I'd think Florida would be a great place to grow things, although some trees that need a winter rest would not make it. I sometimes read through my Organic gardening encyclopedia, and there are so many articles that say Florida or California are the only places in the continental US where something can be grown (outdoors, anyway).
It's a shame that Florida has such a problem with introduced (by humans) species that try to take over.
It's a shame that Florida has such a problem with introduced (by humans) species that try to take over.
ledboots
Peace
And the bugs are huge and hungry! Not to mention the raccoons, bunnies, armadillos, etc! And the weeds will be knee high in 2 days. It is a great place to grow things, but organic is difficult, and I hate insecticides and herbicides. I grew lettuces and tomato in pots outside one year, and the leaves got eaten by these!
"These 4-inch grasshoppers are too large and toxic for most natural predators, so they don’t need to move fast. Lubbers cannot fly far, and travel in short clumsy hops, or walk and crawl slowly through the vegetation. They feed on broadleaf plants and can become a nuisance when swarms invade residential areas and feast on garden plants."
^^^ WHOA. Remember that scene in the TV series, "Kung Fu", where the master asks the young Cain (sp?) why he can't hear the grasshopper at his feet? I don't think he would have had any difficulty hearing that one! I'm kind of partial to grasshoppers though. I didn't know there were toxic ones, but I suppose they don't have to be fast if nobody's trying to catch them.
SuicideBlonde
Adorkable rockstar!
^^^They look like Jalapenos- lots more flavor than a sweet pepper, but they won't practically kill you like Habaneros or Ghost Peppers can.
I picked that small watermelon, but it's only about the size of a softball. I'll eat it (VERY slowly) when I'm sure it's ripe. I'm picking the butternut squash too.
I picked that small watermelon, but it's only about the size of a softball. I'll eat it (VERY slowly) when I'm sure it's ripe. I'm picking the butternut squash too.
I missed this post. I will try again next year.
I've yet to pick the remaining green tomatoes. I kept hoping we would get another day or two of really warm weather and that they would ripen. I'll pick them today.
Look what I just found in my garden... And I did not plant it. Such a nice surprise. I wonder where it came from.
Nice sunflower! As to where it came from... if you have a bird feeder, sometimes a bird drops a sunflower seed and it sprouts. Last summer my neighbors had to throw out some birdseed because it got wet and moldy, and it was like "Day Of The Triffids" with all these tall plants sprouting up.
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