What Did You Do In The Garden?

[Dirtmechanic]

I went for some calcium nitrate and saw a cool wisteria

 

[henless]

Pulled 3 of my onions that had broken over. They were on the small side, about tennis ball size. Fertilized a couple of squash to make sure they developed. My cucumbers, pole beans, tomatoes & watermelons are blooming.

Everything seems to be growing good this year. Looks like I'll have to start watering this week. We ended up with only 1/2" rain out of the 2+ inches expected.

 

[flowerbug]

well, the removal of pathways gravel rinsing off the dirt is done. we were talking about removing pathways and Mom thought i was talking about this one i didn't really plan on removing, but she went out yesterday morning and had half of it removed and the gravel ready for me to rinse off before i found out.

this is not a bad thing. i means about 10 more square feet of useable garden veggie growing space and less work for me in the future to weed it all again.

the yesterday evening weather forecast for today said rain so i didn't think i would get anything done in the gardens, but as it turned out not only did we get that pathway gravel all taken up and rinsed but we also finished the last of the other pathway i really did want to get rid of.

all of these useless pathways with the gravel half full of dirt took me more time to weed and keep up than they were worth. all that extra space will get put to use this season for sure.

now i can get back to the other projects i really need to get done. haha...

 

[Ridgerunner]

Do you plant them thick like your corn?

Thicker than I would if I had an open garden. These raised beds are changing my thinking. In an open garden like I think you use I'd plant two rows of bush beans 12" apart, skip maybe 32", then plant another two rows. The beans plants would be 6" to 8" apart in each row.

In my raised beds I have each row 12" apart. I can reach in from the sides so I don't need to leave room for me. Each bean plant is 6" apart in the row. So 56 plants in 32 square feet. That comes to 1-3/4 plants per square foot. The Square Foot Gardening book I got suggests 9 bush beans per square foot. Basically 4" apart in every direction. I can't even imagine that.

For corn they recommend one corn plant per square foot. I plant 3 per square foot. You can probably tell I don't always do as I'm told.

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

I keep planting beans. Bean beetles always get them but I cant give up. I also planted more winter squash seeds: Waltham butternut, buttercup, pumpkin, Cinderella, delicate and a cheese pumpkin. Transplanted green beans, pumpkin and other squashes. It's supposed to rain today so I'm excited.

 

[seedcorn]

Saturday, I planted the replacement peppers as well as most of the tomatoes. I kept 8 in case some of the frosted ones do die. Planted more sweet corn, as well as parsnips, carrots, radishes, onions, watermelon starts, cabbage starts, pumpkins, zucchini and cucumbers. Green beans are now seeing sunlight but no sign of okra. Will probably have to re plant-no problem as I have a decent amount of saved seed yet.

 

[flowerbug]

Thicker than I would if I had an open garden. These raised beds are changing my thinking. In an open garden like I think you use I'd plant two rows of bush beans 12" apart, skip maybe 32", then plant another two rows. The beans plants would be 6" to 8" apart in each row.

In my raised beds I have each row 12" apart. I can reach in from the sides so I don't need to leave room for me. Each bean plant is 6" apart in the row. So 56 plants in 32 square feet. That comes to 1-3/4 plants per square foot. The Square Foot Gardening book I got suggests 9 bush beans per square foot. Basically 4" apart in every direction. I can't even imagine that.

For corn they recommend one corn plant per square foot. I plant 3 per square foot. You can probably tell I don't always do as I'm told.

with some plants, if you pack them tighter you get about the same end results if you plant them not so tight. with peas and beans it seems to end up that way.

for garlic if i plant them too close together then the bulbs will certainly be smaller but the end result per area is about the same weight as long as they are not crowded so tight that they can hardly grow much at all. but it is much nicer to be able to harvest bigger bulbs and have the bigger cloves of garlic. right now i space my garlic about 8-12 inches apart. i get some cloves as big as my thumb so ... if i were eating more of it as green garlic i could space some of closer together but as of yet i am still cleaning out some other gardens that had garlic wander into them so i don't need to use my main garlic patch as a green garlic supply.

 

[Zeedman]

I went for some calcium nitrate and saw a cool wisteriaView attachment 35575

Wow! I hope you are able to post a photo when blooming starts... it should be spectacular.

 

[Zeedman]

In my raised beds I have each row 12" apart. I can reach in from the sides so I don't need to leave room for me. Each bean plant is 6" apart in the row. So 56 plants in 32 square feet. That comes to 1-3/4 plants per square foot. The Square Foot Gardening book I got suggests 9 bush beans per square foot. Basically 4" apart in every direction. I can't even imagine that.

If I planted bush beans that closely in my climate, I would have serious problems with diseases & rodents. I've never been a big fan of tight spacing... as @flowerbug mentioned, you have more plants per square foot (and use proportionally more seed) but get less per plant. Some of my own experiments with bean spacing seem to indicate that there is a "yield ceiling"; that you can only produce so many beans per square foot of available sunlight, regardless of the number of plants. The energy input remains the same.

Corn is another matter. Closely spaced plants would have better pollination, and probably better ear fill. I'd be curious to see how close spacing affected ear size.

 

[Zeedman]

i get some cloves as big as my thumb so ... if i were eating more of it as green garlic i could space some of closer together but as of yet i am still cleaning out some other gardens that had garlic wander into them
...

I've seen walking onions, but wandering garlic? What's next, triffids???