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Gardening chat
#1
I'm new to this forum, and am excited to learn more about gardening.  

I've been gardening for many years, some sucessful and others not too great.  If the birds don't eat everything, the racoons or hornets do their best to have their share.

I haven't taken any pictures of my garden this year yet.  It's really been strugling with ants carrying away the seeds, and birds eating every new shoot that comes up.  I thought I'd try to spray with Jabanero pepper spray I made by blending them and adding water to them to spray my plants to see if the birds will leave them alone.  I have replanted my beans twice.  now with all this rain I'll have to spray again, We'll see if it works.

I've tried for 6 years to grow potatoes. Usually not getting much more harvest than I put into the ground. I get some really funny shaped ones. There's Mickey Mouse, a turkey, and some other friends unamed.  Any advice would be helpful.

[Image: Potatoe-Mickey.jpg] [Image: Potatoe-turkey.jpg] [Image: Potatoe.jpg] [Image: Potatoe-friends.jpg]

I normally use dripper hoses under black plastic to eliminate weeds, but have been plagued with squash bugs killing my pumpkins and squash plants.  Marion Murray at Utah State extension told me that they thrive under the plastic mulch, so I'm truing not to use any this year.  Here are some pictures of my usual set up.

[Image: My-garden-in-2015.jpg]  I would get black plastic 3' X 50' and cut holes 1 foot apart before I unfolded it to plant my corn.  Then I would get a big sheet of plastic and cut holes where I wanted my melons. I'd put hot caps on the tomatoes and plant everything else as normal with pretty good success. 

It will be interesting to see how things go this year having to pull so many weeds If I can get anything to grow.  Not using any black plastic, nor planting any squash or pumpkins I hope the squash bugs will move to someone elses garden.
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#2
Vi, since you're my neighbor maybe we can work together on some things. I have a very large net that was used to keep pheasants in a backyard. It might keep birds out if that would help you. I also am going to try potatoes again this year and we could compare notes. I've had some success in the past and have done a lot of study on the internet so I have some new ideas that might help.

On another note: any chance you would want to sell that round pen? I figure Marion used to use it a lot but don't know if you work with horses now. You could PM me. Thanks.
The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.


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#3
There is a lot of things you can do to help your garden. One of the best things is to till your leaves into your garden in the fall. When I had a big garden, I'd till in 20 of those big leaf bags into my garden each Fall. I'd also put some nitrogen in with the leaves to help with the process. Then I'd leave another 5 bags on top and not till them in until Spring. I also put all my grass clipping around my plants to keep the weeds down, during the Summer. When my plants are little, in the Spring, I sprinkle a little nitrogen around them. It helps them grow faster but I never do it more than once and never after they start to blossom. Having sandy soil really helps too, especially with potatoes. Here are some pics of the sweet potatoes I grew the year before I lost my big garden spot.
[Image: sweetpotatoes2017-001.jpg]

[Image: sweetpotatoes2017-002.jpg]

[Image: sweetpotatoes2017-004.jpg]
This was 2017, if I can find the rest of the pics I have some that are even bigger that I grew in 2018.
There are many variety of Potatoes that are great for growing in poor conditions. I even grew a variety that was purple. I ordered a lot of mine from different seed and potato catalogs.
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#4
(06-08-2020, 07:07 PM)catchinon Wrote: Vi, since you're my neighbor maybe we can work together on some things. I have a very large net that was used to keep pheasants in a backyard. It might keep birds out if that would help you. I also am going to try potatoes again this year and we could compare notes. I've had some success in the past and have done a lot of study on the internet so I have some new ideas that might help.

On another note: any chance you would want to sell that round pen? I figure Marion used to use it a lot but don't know if you work with horses now. You could PM me. Thanks.
Thanks for mentionong the netting.  I have some that I use to cover my raspberries every year.  If I don't cover them I don't get any berries, the birds get them all.  Richard got the net out today and covered my beans with it.  I then sprayed with Malathion because some very hungry creatures are eating them to a nub.


[Image: IMG-20200609-172959.jpg]

(06-09-2020, 11:09 PM)wiperhunter2 Wrote: There is a lot of things you can do to help your garden. One of the best things is to till your leaves into your garden in the fall. When I had a big garden, I'd till in 20 of those big leaf bags into my garden each Fall. I'd also put some nitrogen in with the leaves to help with the process. Then I'd leave another 5 bags on top and not till them in until Spring. I also put all my grass clipping around my plants to keep the weeds down, during the Summer. When my plants are little, in the Spring, I sprinkle a little nitrogen around them. It helps them grow faster but I never do it more than once and never after they start to blossom. Having sandy soil really helps too, especially with potatoes. Here are some pics of the sweet potatoes I grew the year before I lost my big garden spot.
[Image: sweetpotatoes2017-001.jpg]

[Image: sweetpotatoes2017-002.jpg]

[Image: sweetpotatoes2017-004.jpg]
This was 2017, if I can find the rest of the pics I have some that are even bigger that I grew in 2018.
There are many variety of Potatoes that are great for growing in poor conditions. I even grew a variety that was purple. I ordered a lot of mine from different seed and potato catalogs.


Those are some nice looking sweet potatoes.  I have grown them other years, but not this year.  

I always put all my leaves into the garden in the fall, and would also put chicken straw or horse or cow manuer in with the soil.  I also put all my grass clippings around my plants that don't have plastic under them.  I fertilize with 10-10-10 before planting each year. I fertilize corn and onions with extra nitrogen, and that's all

I read somewhere that potatoes need extra phosphorus and not much nitrogen.  This year I am trying that to see if I get any better yield.  My potatoe plants look pretty good so far.  I spent the day replanting beets, carrots, cucumbers, and cabbage.  I then sprayed my entire garden in hopes the ants don't carry away all the seeds again.  This is my 3rd package of beets, and I have 1 plant after a month.  I hope my efforts today pay off.
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#5
This year I decided to let my garden plot rest, as well as myself, after last years disaster garden.

We bought 2 self watering planters, and planted 2 tomatoes, 2 cucumbers, and 2 peppers.  

The yield was meager, and not worth the money or time to mess with it.

Richard has been putting all our grass clippings on the garden, and we will also add all the leaves from fall, then till it all in for next year. Hopefully we'll have a much better garden than 2020 was.

We have had a bumper crop of Apricots, Plumbs, and Peaches, put up a lot of everything.


[Image: 2021-garden-tubs.jpg]  My tomatoes were DX-5212 and stayed small, but not much yield.
[Image: 13-boxes-plus-4-more-boxes-too-many.jpg]
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#6
Wow, that is a lot of peaches, how do you process them to preserve them? 
That is a good idea on putting your lawn clipping and leaves in your garden, I'm sure that will really help and if you can find a local source for cow manure, that would help as well.
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#7
That is a lot of peaches - how do you preserve yours? 

Have you ever freeze dried any? If so, how well did that work out? 

Nice self watering pots. I see that they are casters, were you able to move them around or is there too much weight on them? 

We are growing growing those DX tomato seeds you gave us. Thought they wouldn't need staking, but ours have taken over the areas we planted them in. And in our  large plant pots we failed to cage them before they got too large to safely put the large cages on. Ripening seems to slowly be getting there - we've only had a few so far. So once again we'll be wintering over the green tomatoes in the basement. Last year our wintered over tomatoes did so well we had a good supply of them until the end of February. We plan to harvest some seeds for our next year's DX crop.
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#8
I don't have a freeze dryer, so I wouldn't know about that.  I did dehydrate lots of Apricots and Plumbs that turned out very nice.

I pack the peaches in the bottles cavity side down, pour in the syrup, and cook in a water bath for 30 minutes, 25 for pints.  I ended up with 85 bottles.  I also made peach nectar for the first time.  It turned out very good, but I had to put it in the blender to get the consistency I wanted.

I made peach pie filling, and lined the pie plate with saran wrap, poured the filling in it and put it in the freezer. after it's frozen I vacuum seal it.  Then when I want to make a pie, I just have to make the crust, set the frozen peaches in it and cook it. I did 3 of those.  I also made 4 pies to eat now, which we have been enjoying.


[Image: 49-Bottles-of-peaches.jpg]   
[Image: Peach-pies.jpg]
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#9
(09-14-2021, 04:28 AM)MrsJ Wrote: I don't have a freeze dryer, so I wouldn't know about that.  I did dehydrate lots of Apricots and Plumbs that turned out very nice.

I pack the peaches in the bottles cavity side down, pour in the syrup, and cook in a water bath for 30 minutes, 25 for pints.  I ended up with 85 bottles.  I also made peach nectar for the first time.  It turned out very good, but I had to put it in the blender to get the consistency I wanted.

I made peach pie filling, and lined the pie plate with saran wrap, poured the filling in it and put it in the freezer. after it's frozen I vacuum seal it.  Then when I want to make a pie, I just have to make the crust, set the frozen peaches in it and cook it. I did 3 of those.  I also made 4 pies to eat now, which we have been enjoying.
Wow, that is a lot of bottled peaches, good idea on freezing the peach pies filling for future use too. By the way, why do you put the open peach halves down?
 We either Freeze dry our, or sprinkle fruit fresh on them, then freeze them. We make smoothies out of our frozen peaches and eat the freeze died ones as snacks during the Winter.
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#10
That is a LOT of peaches! Do you can them that way to fit more in each jar? It looks yummy. 

We managed to harvest enough ripe tomatoes to make 6qts of our tomato soup we really love. I'll attach the recipe for it here. The recipe yields about 1 qt. We made it using  X6 amounts to get our 6qts and we had enough for lunch today and again tomorrow. So we likely could have canned 7qts but who can pass up freshly tomato soup? 

Our brother in law makes fruit leathers in their dehydrator - have you ever given that a try? He cuts and rolls the leather and wraps them with wax paper then he twist the ends - like they are candy and keeps them in fridge - they sure don't last long, everyone loves his fruit leather.


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