My backyard harvest

[JC-jetro]

Howdy all,

I told the boys, I'll go to backyard to pick up a couple of cucumbers and peppers for a little salad for supper. I picked up a few and the more I looked the more I saw. Below is what I picked up after I took couple of grocery sacks of them to my neighbors. I have grown them in a 4'x8' and 2'x10' raise bed, a whopping 52 sq.feet garden.. of course I don't have darn deer running like a plague in my backyard. My garden on the land is at least 50 time bigger but I have had a such a hard time with the critters I'm seriously thinking to kiss this farming business good bye

I'm forcing all to eat as much and as often they could so my harvest would not go to waste.


JC,

 

[WayneB]

looks great! Guess it proves "not always big, but how you take care of it" that counts.

 

[jinman]

Nice harvest, JC. For a backyard garden, you are doing great.

I squinted and looked really hard to see where your okra plants are. Is that them on the far end of the bed in the last picture? Yesterday morning, my wife picked about 10 lb of okra and announced to me that we were going to quit giving it away so she could freeze it and make gumbo and fried okra for us all winter long. Who could argue with superb logic like that?

It may be a little late for your country garden, but I've had good luck with the deer netting sold at TSC for protection of plants. My problem with my tomatoes right now is that I have huge lush plants covered in blooms, but setting very few tomatoes because of the excessive heat. I'm hoping my plants last until the temperature drops some and they go back into high production. I counted 40 ripe and ripening baseball size tomatoes sitting near windows yesterday. So, I'm not really suffering from "tomato withdrawal" yet.

 

[JC-jetro]

Nice harvest, JC. For a backyard garden, you are doing great.

I squinted and looked really hard to see where your okra plants are. Is that them on the far end of the bed in the last picture? Yesterday morning, my wife picked about 10 lb of okra and announced to me that we were going to quit giving it away so she could freeze it and make gumbo and fried okra for us all winter long. Who could argue with superb logic like that?

It may be a little late for your country garden, but I've had good luck with the deer netting sold at TSC for protection of plants. My problem with my tomatoes right now is that I have huge lush plants covered in blooms, but setting very few tomatoes because of the excessive heat. I'm hoping my plants last until the temperature drops some and they go back into high production. I counted 40 ripe and ripening baseball size tomatoes sitting near windows yesterday. So, I'm not really suffering from "tomato withdrawal" yet.

Thanks, WayneB and Jim,

Jim,

This is the way I have it. On second pic, I have a 12'x4' raised bed. I cut two cattle panels to the length or 12', I have 3 t-post on on either end and one in the middle, I leaned two panels against the t-post. The base of this triangle is about 3feet so I have a bout a foot empty in front of it facing west (relatively good sun). I have 4 okra plants there, totally covered with cucumber bushes but they still produce. I use rebar for stakes material and in order not to hurt myself if I stumble and fall, I put short pieces of garden hose to blunt the edge. Hate to get Shish-K-Billy bobbed in my own garden

On the 3rd pic, I have cucumbers along the edge of raised bed and have 4' pieces of cattle panel just leaning against the deck. In front of it I have peppers and egg plants. What you saw was eggplants and they are doing very well. All the grass clipping just go in between the plants so I hardly ever weed, I use no chemical fertilizer as most of the soil is composted kitchen stuff, grass and fall leaves. On the other side of the yard I have other raised bed as well. I think I have about 400 Sq.ft of raised bed. I used to do really well several years ago but my neighbor's trees along with mine shade my back yard so bad that tomato planting is absolutely futile. Even what I have in the pics don't get solid sun as my house shade them partially. I used to do really well with herbs on the other side of the deck. That area was very hard to mow and always wet. I built the deck big enough to lessen my mowing. I'll post some pic of the my good ole suburban farming when I had good sun exposure. I have those pics at home. We can never have tomato withdrawal in my home, I can put slices of tomato on a piece of cardboard, salt peeper and a bit of olio and my boys would eat it. In my "tomato Haydays" I would routinely catch my boys where they would get a plate , get a few tomatoes, quartered them, salt pepper, a little olio and balsamic and they would snack on it like fruits all day in summer but no more. We love okras as well but don't have enough of them this year.

JC,

 

[scott_vt]

I would routinely catch my boys where they would get a plate , get a few tomatoes, quartered them, salt pepper, a little olio and balsamic and they would snack on it like fruits all day in summer but no more. We love okras as well but don't have enough of them this year.

JC,

Good Mornin JC,
When my youngest boy was still home, he would just go out to the garden, salt shaker in hand, and have himself a ball !

I have a little better chance these days !

 

[JC-jetro]

Good Mornin JC,
When my youngest boy was still home, he would just go out to the garden, salt shaker in hand, and have himself a ball !

I have a little better chance these days !

Good morning Scotty,

My boys have done the same as your young lad. That olio is near and dear to our heart and I hate for them to spill the good oil on the garden What is interesting they are right on the ball when it comes to eating and they don't take much interest in what it takes to get to harvest time.

JC,

 

[JC-jetro]

Few pics when I had adequate sun. Any more and at best I can duplicate 30% of what I used to.

My cucumber patch, before and after.

after, I can still do this. You can see on the right side facing west (sun) it looks much better and on the east side rather anamic.

North of the yard. I grow much foliage there but a little fruit.

West side between our deck and neighbor's fence. I had so much sun there but no more
parsley, cilantro, basil and other herbs.

I used to have bushels of cucumber from and area 8" wide and 16' long doing a little vertical farming

JC,

 

[jimmyj]

Nice pics, thanks for sharing. Our season is later than yours so we're just about to start harvesting. I hope we get a good harvest like yours!

Jim