Your 2017 Garden- what are you doing?

Low Light/ Shade Tolerant/ Indoor Growing
Salad Greens, such as leaf lettuce, arugula, endive, and cress.
Broccoli
Carrots
Cauliflower
Peas
Beets
Brussels Sprouts
Radishes
Swiss Chard
Leafy Greens, such as collards, mustard greens, spinach, and kale
Beans
Cold Weather/ Low Light (Shade) Vegetables | Survival Monkey Forums

 

Supposedly we had a low of 34F last night. I mowed the grass today, noticed slight frost of some of the most delicate garden plants but nothing they won't pull out of in a few days. That was the coldest predicted night in a while with no more predicted.

 

Spinach and Kale are on my list, especially kale. It's bloody expensive to buy so best grow it

 

i got the last of my winter tomatoes today. ANd the zucchini is OP. i may put most of them in compost

Corn is about to come off the vine in a couple of weeks and i will be done for the summer, little or no gardening till the fall, just water and weed. (before you get too excited) its AZ so we garden fall and winter mostly. in the summer above 90 degrees everything is just surviving. Except cotton

 

Working hard & we did 12 tree transplants this winter , Just built 8 new grape trellises , and since the auger is loaded on the 3 point , i need to livestock fence raising for the new lambs ..

Sloth

 

Time to wage war on these little blasted vermin! The bug spray my wife bought worked...to wet the leaves...but left the leaf-footed tomato bugs chewing away.
One application (1 tsp to a gallon of water) of malathion seems to have killed the suckers!

 

Tired of buying green onions so I am rooting the ones I just bought. I left enough and only a few days in water and they are taking off. They should be ready for soil by next weekend.

** someone mentioned a lack of bees, anyone seen a lack of bees in their AO?

 

I have three hives of bees now. Only one that I've had long enough to take off any honey. Took off some last summer, enough to get us until this spring. We took off about twice as much this year, so far, as what we got last year. Other two hives are from swarm catches this spring. Will not get any honey from those for at least a year, if they survive and thrive.

Garden is doing well, I set out onions early for green eating, all those are gone now, set out more and those are ready. We had kale from early plantings, ate some tonight, in fact. Got my first red raspberries a couple days ago. Several other garden plants doing real good with all the rain we've had. Strawberries are all done or nearly so, at least those in my little patch. Wife can't eat them and they are not something I will eat a lot of.

 

Rained out again, low garden areas are mud ponds.

 

Keeping it simple this year. Tomatoes, Green beans, Winter squash (butternut) Zucinni, Corn.

 

We have a lot from our own seeds, some of our current food is going to seed now, and we bought some native seeds this year. We seldom harvest a whole plant. Most everything is trimmed as long as we can and then let go to seed.

New this year is strawberry spinach, tepary, native flora, and lots of berries.

Our current focus is to put effort into what can become established. If it's "invasive," I'm interested.

 

Strawberry spinach and tepary. I had never heard of either. I just looked up strawberry spinach and it is an amazing plant. Thank you for introducing. It is beautiful and could be one of those hidden in plain site edibles. Have you ever used the berries for dyes?

 

@Motomom34 No I haven't, but I'm excited to try!

Our growing conditions are tough to grow anything in, so we're hoping we can get more plants to make it outside. I started some strawberry spinach a bit too early, transplanted several times, and it's doing great. They're still small, but we've tried a few leaves and it is very good. Our spinach has started to flower so I'm hoping the SS fills the void during the summer heat. Next is to take some outside and see if it can deal with our weather.

We're growing Devil's claw (Proboscidea louisianica), primarily for food. We put the husks/pod shells in the rocket stove and they burn great! And I've read it was/can be used as a black dye.

 

@Bacawind I really like the way you plant and grow. You research and chose plants that have multiple purposes. I am in CO also, I am beginning to believe if you can grow here, you can grow anywhere. The soil and conditions are very trying. I have had more failures but have to view every plant was a learning experience. There is a thread on here about netting and I believe that is the only way for plants to survive the summer. good luck!

 

Took these pics this past Sunday, after watering my two 4x8 grow boxes. Admittedly, I know I overcrowded the first box (with corn, beans & squash), but it all seems to be growing at a phenomenal rate....so I'll just let it, and see how everything comes out. So far, so good!

Right side (crowded) box. Black beans/sweet yellow corn/straight neck summer squash on the left; Anasazi beans/Glass Gem (sweet, not "Indian") corn/crook neck summer squash on the right. Various pots around 3 sides of it (that will see any sort of sunlight), with flowers and/or herbs growing in them. Hoping to keep the pollinators interested in coming back, throughout the summer months.

Looking into the "jungle" growth, this week, I was pleased to see a plethora of blossoms on the squash plants. The leaves are bigger than my spread hand now, and doing a great job of shading the dirt below, to help prevent weeds from growing. I did, however, see some mushrooms (likely from spores in the soil I used) growing in the shaded soil! Will leave them be, for now, to see if the heat kills them off, or if I'll need to get rid of them, before they spore, themselves.


And over in the left side box, everything planted is finally starting to peek above the soil (though I was starting to wonder about the carrots, they finally decided to show up...better late, than never!), and everything transplanted seems to have established itself now, with perhaps the only exception being the asparagus. I'll probably start some from seed, indoors, and nurse it along through the winter months, then move it outside next spring, for some natural sunlight.

Oh, and radishes started flourishing, too!

Oh, and my "topsy-turvy" planters, with the smaller tomatoes planted in them, are working out well, too!

 

Looks awesome!

How do you get in to tend things? Can you step over the fence? Or there's a door?

We have some ridiculously overpacked beds. I teeter on the narrow side of a 1/2"-by-something to get to the back. Gardening is good exercise, that's for sure!

 

Yeah, I admit, mine got overpacked....and I hate to cut back, or remove anything, and lose it! I do have some stakes, so if the squash leaves are blocking too much light to something underneath (that would then struggle to grow, like the beans), I can stake it out of the way, to help alleviate that problem.
I typically just lean over the fence, from the front and sides, as it's only ~2 feet high from the wood, which is about a foot high off the ground. Being at 3' off the ground, that's right at waist level, so I can bend over and get to almost anything except what's dead center in the back....and for that, I can reach through the openings in the fence, for the most part.

I do have one tree rat (squirrel) who hangs out in the back yard (where the boxes are), but so far, he only seems inclined to want to dig in the pots outside the fenced area, trying to hide pecans left over from last year. If he starts deciding that my produce looks good enough to eat, I may have to look into getting a pellet rifle, wrist rocket slingshot, or a trap, if I feel nice, and don't want to simply eradicate him. Other than that, my next step, with the boxes, is going to be (belatedly) putting in watering systems, and figuring out:
1. where and how to secure bird netting (as I'll likely need it, eventually)
2. where and how to secure "Mr. Stuffy", my future scarecrow (whose main ensemble of clothing was bought at the local Goodwill store, last weekend, for the grand total of $2! LOL)
3. where and how I'm going to plant any remaining crops I'd like to grow. I have 4 above ground boxes I purchased (2 from Home Depot, 2 from Walmart), each 42" square by 7" tall, and stack-able, if needed. Just need to find out how much depth of soil I'll need to have, for these remaining items, so I can fill the boxes, and get things growing in them. And hopefully the weather will cooperate!

Oh yeah, and forgot to mention, too, that my sunflowers are finally showing themselves above ground, and really taking off now! From nothing but a bed of dirt, to ~3" high, in less than a week's time, and I'm certain that today's rain should give everything a good vertical boost!
Once the sunflowers get up a foot or two, I'm going to see if I can get some "cucamelons" going around them, so they can climb the sunflower stalks, using them as a trellis.
Cucamelons - Growing This Strange and Wonderful Fruit