How is your garden doing so far?

[karanleaf]

Beth great site thanks I bookmarked it.

Purple I got the sweet potato starts in pots right now as I am waiting for the tin to be removed then do a few mounds to plant them there, Maybe next weekend. Thanks again

I Went out this morning and took a few new photos.

Here you can see the scarecrows buckets are just about full of water. And that is just from Friday. You can also see how the Chard and lettuce have almost doubled.

And here is our fence garden and behind it are DH's bucket potatoes Each of these have increased in size as well.

We took some of the salad mix and a few spinach leaves and had them on our sandwiches at lunch soo yummy

I have more lettuce seed to start more so I will sow some tomorrow.

I planted 3 Basil in between the tomato plants and some oregano too. :watering I moved 3 of the Tomato plants about 6 inches back as DH was complaining the the tomato would shade the basil out. i didn't tell him I moved the tomatos as he planted them over a week ago. But the soil is nice that I was able to move them with no trouble.

:happy_flower Karan

 

[digitS']

Companion planting - that Attra site is a good one, for all sorts of thing - but I'm not too worried about plant likes and dislikes. I mean, nothing in an annual vegetable garden could be like a hateful black walnut tree and actually KILL its plant neighbors. Right?

Vines like to "decide" for themselves where to grow and their neighbors probably don't like their "pushy" ways. Leaving aside the vining plants - my veggie beds have assortments of plant species usually co-existing on the basis of height and space requirements.

I'm not sure if carrots really have the emotional wherewithal to "love" tomatoes (wasn't that the title of the book?) Perhaps, they can both "tolerate" the others presence enuf not to have their growth inhibited.

Tomatoes and potatoes are related so they are vulnerable to the same diseases and insect pests. Would 3 spud plants and 3 maters growing together be more vulnerable to problems than 6 maters growing together? Doubt it. Six in one, half dozen . . .

I read not all that long ago that sweet fennel isn't a good neighbor. Of course, that was after I'd planted some along side some anise hyssop. The fennel got the "jump" on their neighbors. After reaching about 4', the wind pushed them over on top of the anise hyssop. Both seemed to be doing fine together up until this crisis. I had to wonder if this might be why fennel isn't a good neighbor . . . I mean, if there isn't a reasonable explanation for the rule-of-thumb - I may as well make up my own.

Steve's digits (including thumbs )

 

[vfem]

Lovely Karen!

Its so nice to see all that color and its not soaking wet. Everything here is rain and mud.

 

[jlmann]

Rain and mud here too vfem.

Karanleaf and purple strawberry : Looks like your gardens are doing great! Love your little scarecrow karan!

Hattie : Glad your getting some rain and warm weather! Keep us posted!

About companion planting: I always assumed it had a lot to do with root depth and competition for water/nutrients since a lot of "good" companions are shallow and deep rooted plants.

In my opinion though, it is just not practical in smaller gardens because I always end up with something planted where it shouldn't be. My veggies never seem to suffer for it. I guess in a way it would be kind of like crop rotation , which isn't very practical for small gardens either. I "try" not to plant the same thing in the same place year after year , but sometimes there isn't another option. I think it matters more if you face any adverse conditions like drought or persistent blight , clubroot , harmful nematodes or whatever.

Anyway, glad everyone is starting to make some progress towards a bountiful harvest! It may be awhile before I'm on again because I have to send the computer in for some warranty work so HAPPY GARDENING GUYS!

 

[vfem]

Rain and mud here too vfem.

Karanleaf and purple strawberry : Looks like your gardens are doing great! Love your little scarecrow karan!

Hattie : Glad your getting some rain and warm weather! Keep us posted!

About companion planting: I always assumed it had a lot to do with root depth and competition for water/nutrients since a lot of "good" companions are shallow and deep rooted plants.

In my opinion though, it is just not practical in smaller gardens because I always end up with something planted where it shouldn't be. My veggies never seem to suffer for it. I guess in a way it would be kind of like crop rotation , which isn't very practical for small gardens either. I "try" not to plant the same thing in the same place year after year , but sometimes there isn't another option. I think it matters more if you face any adverse conditions like drought or persistent blight , clubroot , harmful nematodes or whatever.

Anyway, glad everyone is starting to make some progress towards a bountiful harvest! It may be awhile before I'm on again because I have to send the computer in for some warranty work so HAPPY GARDENING GUYS!

Well I hope your computer gets taken care of QUICK! Hate for you not to be able to be involved in everyone's garden. I think it really helps watching everyone work away on their garden... especially when we're all helping each other... we want to see EVERYONE succeed!!

I'm still sticking by companion planting... I don't think plants will HATE each other... but I think its the plants that LIKE each other that matter. I really try to add plants that attract GOOD insects to battle the unwanted ones for me... its easier and a better shot then spraying pesticides. Its a good first defense

:bun I like the idea of certain plants perhaps increasing flavor of others... and I stay away from things they OVERLY eat up the nutrients from other plants.

Its not a perfect science... but I've seen some GREAT reaction so far... so I'm going to still with some of my favorite combinations.

I am SURE most the combos I read about don't make a big difference, and I can ignore some if that's whats needed to fit everything into my little garden when I have to do a crop rotation next year. :watering


:weight :weight :weight :weight :weight :weight :weight :weight

 

[warmfuzzies]

I picked two radishes today! They were a bit small, but they were crowding.

My tomatoes from seed are doing great, they were only one inch tall with the first set of real leaves when i set them out, and now they are about five inches and growing like weeds!

I have had trouble getting the lettuce up, and i dont know wy. i have always had an easy time with it before. It keeps crusting over, and it is pretty dry. So i started watering it every day, and that has helped. It has also helped get those beets, carrots and chard growing.

 

[digitS']

Some companions in my garden: Green onions take almost no room and get stuck in everywhere. Lettuce often has room to grow on the very outside of a bed. The beds are planted in rows (sometime radish or something is broadcast ) and I'd go crazy trying to plant much variety in a matrix. But, most everything that isn't too high or too broad get mixed together in the beds - all lined up in their nice little rows.

Succession planting is a great idea. Green beans can follow lots of early things. Even in a short-season area, their 60 day requirement to produce a crop is usually enuf. They are also large seeds and so don't suffer too much from drying out while they are getting started in the summer heat. (You folks in places where it really gets hot may want to correct me on this. )

Here's another scheme that I like to use: early cabbage followed by summer squash. Their space requirements are not too much different. I plant squash seed by the 4th of July between every other cabbage. By that time, I'm already harvesting the early cabbage but when the squash begins to need more room, that cabbage is gone.

One reason I like to do this is that mildew can hit the zucchini hard. By late August, what I've planted about this time of year can be a mess. But, what I plant around July 4th will be fresh and healthy. It will start producing about the 1st of September .

Steve

 

[jlmann]

vfem and digitS : I should have made myself clearer yesterday. Sorry. Truth is I think companion planting is fine if you just go by the beneficial side. What I meant by saying it isn't practical in small gardens is when the companion planting things say " you should never plant A close to plant B" Sorry for the confusion. The reason I compared it to crop rotation is because a lot of the diseases and pest that crops need to be rotated to avoid are capable of spreading. So if you have a 40 x 40 ft. garden space and a virus gets in one part of it that affects tomatoes, even if you move your tomatoes to the other side next year they will probably still get it next year from your shoes or the wind or whatever. With my small beds I find that no matter how hard I try I always end up with something that a companion planting guide recomends not to plant next to onions - right next to my onions. Now if I had a commercial farm on hundreds of acres , I would definately rotate my crops and I would NEVER put detrimental plants side by side , but with a small backyard garden I just do the best I can. Hope this makes a little bit of sense and again , sorry for the confusion. Happy gardening guys!

 

[COgirl]

I try to do some companion planting, this year more than other years. But I find myself not remembering what is suppose to go with what then running in the house and looking it up on the computer so I don't get as much done for all my running back and forth and by the time I get back outside I forgot what I was doing in the first place ... Today I did manage to move some Summer Savory over to my beans and onions, I have my Dragon tongue beans starting to come up . My taters and maters are doing well and I have beets and corn up, noticed some of my cukes up and one of my blue hubbard squash came up today . I stole a couple small leaves from my spinach YUMMY. Considering we had a rough start with our weather and major cutworm issues I'm pretty satisfied with where my garden is at the moment, I have maybe a couple more days worth of planting and then finishing up the three sisters garden, but for now I'm off to mix up some BT and cornmeal it really seems to be working on the cutworm issue a huge thank you to Catalina for the suggestion

 

[karanleaf]

I never knew about mixing up some BT and cornmeal it really seems to work on the cutworm issue . Wow good info

I use empty toliet paper roll for a cut worm collar at the ground level of my tomato and pepper plants .

:happy_flower Karan