Garden 2021

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Today I had to switch back to city water... Barrels empty. While watering I looked over the work yet to be done and realized that I am going to be short on 1/2" line..... Because each zone has a line running all the way to the manifold (which is in the center of the garden) there are 5 zones that are going to need new line, with each about 25' that is about 125' of new line.

If I want to water the trees in the front I need to add 150' just to get all the way around the house (does not include the lines to each tree).

While I am at it, there is 1 down spout that I am not collecting from, if I add a rain barrel under that one and have it feed the main storage barrels that would increase my collection capacity by 25%. But I would need to add another 100' of 1/2" line and I think I would need to increase my storage capacity by at least another 250 gallons.

After writing it down and looking at the prices of rain barrels and lines. I think I will hold off adding the front trees and additional collection till next spring...

I did order enough drip irrigation supplies to finish the main garden project, just enough to get free shipping.....
 
My garden is way behind some of yours and I have to keep reminding myself I am further north and start later lol
But things are starting to look good. The potatoes seem really happy, and for the first time so do the corn. My garlic looks like it will be ready to come out in a week or so.
The tomatoes and peppers are covered in little green fruit so they are on the way.
On the down side the unexpected heat a while back made the broccoli bolt straight to flower. And all but one peanut plant died.
The red currents are all picked and the blueberries have just started ripening fast. Not sure if more have been eaten..by me lol..straight off the bush or made it to the kitchen. The blackberries are still a way off from being ready.
But probably the happiest plants this year are the herbs. I planted them all in pots this year...so there are pots everywhere lol. And they seem very pleased. Lots of dehydrating to do there.
 
Been meaning to post up some pics, just haven't gotten around to it before tonight. Here are a few.
I harvested one bed of my onions last Saturday. Filled a good sized wash tub with I'd estimate 40lbs. Also a pic of my biggest onion in that bed.
40lb harvest.jpg
Biggest onion so far.jpg


Just random pics after that.
Maters getting close.jpg
late onions.jpg
Kidney and great Northern Beans.jpg

Ambrosia Corn.jpg
 
Today I got to test drive the new watering system and there is good news and bad news. Good news, I can water all of my zones at 1 time and water everything in just under 5 minutes..... Bad news, I found 1 bed that is not getting water (it is on an old buried line that I will have to bypass) and 1 of my filters had a cracked housing (not properly winterized, had a spare so it has been repaired)..

The rain never came yesterday and my barrels were empty, so I connected my rain barrels to house water and let that run for 30 minutes, just to fill them enough to fully test the system. FYI, the system flow rate appears to be about 10 gallons per minute
 
Need to practice self-discipline in watering my plants at the right time.

Neighbor gave us a pineapple, I got the top and I'm prepping it for planting. In the coming weeks, I need to get a large container for it.
 
I have been watching my tomato plants wither like never before, at first I though it was the heat, but they are getting water. Then I started reading and it appears that I am dealing with Blight..... spent most of the morning trimming out the sick growth, applied a copper spray to what was left, added some of the copper solution to the irrigation filter that feeds the tomatoes, hope I can save the crop. As I was trimming out the bad growth it became clear that when a sick leaf is touching a healthy one the disease spreads very quickly plant to plant. I told my wife that this seems to be the year for me being taught lessons on what can go wrong, I hope they aren't lessons that are going to be important in the future.
 
If grand daughter Estelle doesn't quit picking small cucumbers I won't have enough to make pickles.
That's the down side.
But the upside is that my grand daughter likes to garden.
We are going to plant another big flower pot of carrots just for my oldest grand daughter Estelle.
Tomatoes plants are loaded with blossoms.
Few green tomatoes, but they are increasing everyday.
 
I got my fertilizer today. And traded with the farmer next door. He got me the chicken poop and I started making my own compost with it and I gave him a few spinach and cucumber seeds that I just got this morning.

I got the rest of my hooks, so all the trays are on the trellis. Now I'll be on the hunt for large old paint buckets. Hopefully for free.
 
UrbanHunter said:
I have been watching my tomato plants wither like never before, at first I though it was the heat, but they are getting water. Then I started reading and it appears that I am dealing with Blight..... spent most of the morning trimming out the sick growth, applied a copper spray to what was left, added some of the copper solution to the irrigation filter that feeds the tomatoes, hope I can save the crop. As I was trimming out the bad growth it became clear that when a sick leaf is touching a healthy one the disease spreads very quickly plant to plant. I told my wife that this seems to be the year for me being taught lessons on what can go wrong, I hope they aren't lessons that are going to be important in the future.
Click to expand...
I had issues with blight when I didn't thin out the tomato plants.

Can you toss every other one to minimize the losses?

Ben
 
Neb said:
I had issues with blight when I didn't thin out the tomato plants.

Can you toss every other one to minimize the losses?

Ben
Click to expand...
By the time I realized what I was dealing with most of the plants were infected. I trimmed out any growth that appeared to be impacted including any vines that were browning, often cutting them off very near the ground, it was a long painful day. I have piles of dead leaves all over the place. The beds are all cleaned out and the blue spray from the watering system appears to be hitting the soil around the plants. I did see some new shoots starting on some of the plants, I am hoping that they can rebound before the summer is over.... It even got 1 of my cucumber plants. Yep, as the scope of the problem became clear and as I realized I was actually doing contact tracing to find who was spreading the disease from plant to plant... Just sicking. If I had realized what I was seeing a couple weeks ago I think I could have nipped it in the bud, but it really spreads fast and is totally devastating. I can only imagine how the Irish felt during the potato famine, at least today we can apply fungicides and fight it. Anyway, I have learned something that I will remember going forward...

Today, at lunch I harvested bush beans from one of my 3'X3' patches, got 3 gallons of beans. The wife had me pick up a ham steak the other day, I think we will be having beans and ham in a day of so.

The irrigation system has just enough pressure to fully meet the needs of 3 of my 4 zones. Today, I took a new approach using a rotation with each zone off for the count of 10 for 1 round (all 4 zones). In less than 5 minutes all the beds looked evenly watered and I had used about 30 gallons from the barrels.
 
Haven't lost any tomato plants yet, but sure I will. I have lost a few squash plants, and a few big pumpkins already. The pumpkins got too wet and mildewed, and the squash plants get attacked by squash bugs. I walk through every plant each morning. They all got food grade DE at the ground level this morning, and that helps. I overplanted every single thing this year, so not very worried. Picked a bucket of patty pan again this morning, and a bucket of cucumbers and zucchini. A few jalapenos. Time to pull the snap peas, maybe throw more squash in it's place since I have pots of it still in the greenhouse. I did save some snap peas for seed for next time. We're eating so many vegetables you'd think we were vegetarians. Ha.
 
Mostly been picking produce. 10 gallons of maters since Saturday. Almost 3 gallons of cukes. Close to a gallon of japalenos. Quart of okra and better than a pint of green beans every other day. And between a pint and a gallon every 2-3 day of blueberries.
Corn silks are just starting to turn brown. And I've got another bed of onions ready to pick.
GOD IS GOOD
 
Green beans here aren't happening too well. It's humid and the leaves like to rust. I'm waiting for about a week for the butternut squash harvest. Almost ready. There's a ton of them. All I'm getting so far is cherry toms. The early girls got beat this year by the heirloom cherry toms. I thought that was weird. But lots of green ones out there.
Would love to get blueberries, but just planted a new bush a few months ago. My onions were sad. I need to brush up on my onion growing next year.
 
I'm shocked at out green beans. I planted maybe 10' of row. Shes been picking them for over a month and still has a few blooms. Then I added about 25' of row about a month later. They are doing just as well. I also just got an order from Baker Creek that has a bush green bean I want to try and grow to seed for the future. Got green peas snow peas, and some Mullien seed. They sent a free pack of a little radish size carrot. I'm about ready to start some fall crops
 
This may sound strange because I've lost so much of my tomatoes, I have to dig out the canning steamer because we have enough ripe tomatoes to do our first batch of sauce. :)

The irrigation system has really taken a time load off, cut my time watering by about a half hour per day... :) I am having to walk around and verify that the emitters are not clogged (I have the type that can be cleaned out), reusing them saves money but if they are clogged it does me no good.

The first planting of squash are still producing slowly, but the second planting now are all in bloom. The cucumbers are still producing well, not as well as in June but good enough.

I have a number of fall crops planted and up, so I am feeling pretty good over all. My Okra are not doing great, they are most removed from the main garden area and are not on the irrigation system yet (supplies are on the way), they get full sun all day and we have been under a heat advisory for the last 3 days, the sunflowers next to them even wilted....

With all the work that I have been able to do on the garden this year (I admit I got most of it done 2 months late) and the lessons that I have learned I am hoping that next year will be off the charts good.
 
I'm having to water everything every 2-3 days because of the heat and the humidity.
We'll have a cool front move through today. It'll be in the 80's and not the 90's. :rolleyes: some cool front lol
Everything is just moving along.
Its now time for me to start seeds for a fall crop so they'll be ready in Sept to go out in the containers


The strangest thing happened. I have two large pots of parsley growing. And in each one there is a single strawberry plant growing. I have no idea how they got there.
Also in my old onion chive plant there is a volunteer tomato plant that has come up. Have no idea how that happened.

I plan on carefully removing the volunteers and repotting them and growing them in the greenhouse this fall. Maybe the strawberry plants will over winter in there for me

I noticed that my 3 strawberry plants are producing fruit again. Nice little treat to just pop one in the mouth when out on the back deck watering or harvesting
 
@Terri9630 Did you start them inside? That's what I finally had to do in order to get them going (your beans).
@WVDragonlady Our garden is poking along also. Are your pots someplace birds fly over? My joke is I plant, God laughs and says, "Wait 'til ya see this."
@UrbanHunter That is my hope every year for the following also. You are leaps and bounds beyond me, but I just figure I will be grateful for whatever I get from our garden. Our toms are loaded but green. Glad you get some though and especially enough to can.
Finally this past week since the temps have been below 95, our garden appears to be growing again. 3-4 weeks of 95-120 degree weather, it was in survival mode.
 
LadyLocust said:
@Terri9630 Did you start them inside? That's what I finally had to do in order to get them going (your beans).
@WVDragonlady Our garden is poking along also. Are your pots someplace birds fly over? My joke is I plant, God laughs and says, "Wait 'til ya see this."
@UrbanHunter That is my hope every year for the following also. You are leaps and bounds beyond me, but I just figure I will be grateful for whatever I get from our garden. Our toms are loaded but green. Glad you get some though and especially enough to can.
Finally this past week since the temps have been below 95, our garden appears to be growing again. 3-4 weeks of 95-120 degree weather, it was in survival mode.
Click to expand...
They're on the back deck. We have birds everywhere here. A carolina wren made a nest in my small bucket of worm castings I had sitting on a table. I have jenny wrens making a nest in the beam of the front porch roof and in the lights in the carport. They've also made a nest in the support post of the satillite dish. Crazy birds.
So some of them might have dropped the seeds. Who knows. I just hope they survive transplanting when I do it
 
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