Baymule’s 2020 Garden

[baymule]

Eighty five jalapenos from 6 plants! WOW. That is crazy, how did you do it? Any tips?

Mary

Sheep poop compost.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Hi Bay. I know that you're in northern Texas but on the east side. Will you be in any way impacted by Laura?
Just checking in on you and hubs and the animals.

 

[baymule]

Hi Bay. I know that you're in northern Texas but on the east side. Will you be in any way impacted by Laura?
Just checking in on you and hubs and the animals.

We will be fine. It is raining right now, we may get 1 to 5 inches of rain, who knows? We may get winds up to 50 or 75 MPH, low by hurricane standards. Dogs are sprawled out in the floor right now, they have a tough life. LOL Thanks for checking on us and God Bless you.

 

[baymule]

We are fine. Hurricane Laura skirted the east side of the county. This morning is clear and sunny, a soft breeze. You'd never know that a hurricane is raging to the east of us.

 

[baymule]

I am still picking Purple Hull peas! We are giving them away to neighbors, who are delighted. The vines have hit their second "lull" in production. They bloom, set peas, I pick for several weeks, then they hit a lull of no production before the vines program kicks in and they start blooming again. As long as I water them, they keep in production. Water bill we just got was $87. Whew! That's over twice what it normally is, sure glad for the rains we got recently. The Thai #3 long green beans are still producing like crazy, I am in my yearly If-I-Eat-Another-Green-Bean-I'm-Gonna-Puke. Blech. They will make until a hard frost. I will continue to pick and give them away. Tomatoes are winding down. I am tired of canning! Eggplant is still making, I have all I want in the freezer, giving them away. Zucchini and yellow squash were total failures this year. Lettuce earlier in the spring was a bitter total failure. I need to pull weeds again and plant some mustard and turnips. WEEDS!!!!!! AARRGH!!!! I bet I've got 2 or 3 weeks of weed pulling to do! At least they aren't the lambs quarters and giant ragweed that gets over my head-because I have diligently pulled them all summer.

 

[digitS']

Perhaps a spading fork would help with the weeds, Bay'.

I became very anti-hoe as a kid. As a young guy in my own garden, a flat shovel for paths was my weeding tool of choice. That choice went out the window when I began to have real back problems.

A spading fork requires some room ... and reasonably stout gardening shoes. Worn soles become quickly apparent. I don't go for the d-handle spading fork, maybe just because it's too short for me.

Often the process is two-prong .. so to speak. One time through with the fork. A return trip with the 4-prong cultivator. Long-handles on both tools

Steve

 

[ninnymary]

Bay, I am going to change where I plant my tomatoes.

The new bed is about 3.5 ft wide by 7 ft long and I would like to have 2 rows. I'm thinking plants would be about 20 inches apart and there would be 4 plants in each row.

I plan to pinch out side shoots to force them to grow vertically.

I am thinking of doing the Florida weave. I would put 6 or 8' metal T posts at each end of the row and use nylon twine.

Question, how far apart do my rows have to be? I was thinking because the bed is narrow that they would be about 18" between each row. What do you think about this spacing?

I am trying to plant as many as I can in a very small space. If you have any ideas of what would work better let me know.

Mary

 

[Ridgerunner]

Mary, how much room do you have around that bed? They can take up a lot of the open space around it. By pruning and tying them back you can kind of keep them under control but an indeterminate will want to climb and spread. Are you planting determinate or indeterminate?

On the length, if you plant your first plant 6" from the end, the next one 2'-6", the next 4'-6", and the fourth 6'-6" you can get 24" spacing that direction. If you plant them 9" in from each side, you have two rows of 4 plants, each plant 2' away from the others in all directions. That's not bad spacing. If I remember right that's pretty much the spacing that Bay uses. A sketch can help you visualize this.

I think it's doable but expect them to take a lot more room outside your bed than you might expect even with vicious pruning. As sweet, nice, and gentle as you are I think you can be vicious enough when it's required.

 

[baymule]

I have 2 cow panels that make a double row. They are 20” apart. I plant tomato plants one foot apart down each row. When they stick a branch out of the cow panels I weave it back in. Invariably I get busy and stop doing that and the growth spills out and goes wild. LOL

 

[ninnymary]

Mary, how much room do you have around that bed? They can take up a lot of the open space around it. By pruning and tying them back you can kind of keep them under control but an indeterminate will want to climb and spread. Are you planting determinate or indeterminate?

On the length, if you plant your first plant 6" from the end, the next one 2'-6", the next 4'-6", and the fourth 6'-6" you can get 24" spacing that direction. If you plant them 9" in from each side, you have two rows of 4 plants, each plant 2' away from the others in all directions. That's not bad spacing. If I remember right that's pretty much the spacing that Bay uses. A sketch can help you visualize this.

I think it's doable but expect them to take a lot more room outside your bed than you might expect even with vicious pruning. As sweet, nice, and gentle as you are I think you can be vicious enough when it's required.

Ridge, you bet this sweet thing can be vicious when I have to be! haha

I had one of those rebar concrete panels 18 inches away from the fence. I would space the plants about 24" apart and weave the branches back and forth on the trellis. The width of them never seemed that much. That's why I thought I could have 2 rows that close together.

They will be indeterminate tomatoes. That's all I plant. But I do like to pinch the side shoots to keep the plants looking neater and to take up less space. You know me. I like neatness and no weeds! haha

Mary