What have you planted in your garden?

[PaulMel]

Holly smokes RSKY. You must hire folks to weed that huge garden. We used to plant a large(80 x 120) garden but my weeding with my stand alone rototiller was pretty hazardous to it, so we quit. Now I have two large brick planter boxes that are planted to squash - butternut and acorn. Nothing can dig into the planter boxes and soon the big squash leaves prevent weed growth. My kind of garden.
What got our garden mostly was pocket gophers - any below ground crop was a goner. It took them three years to find the garden plot - then they had a field day. I will usually get 75-80 squash and they are stored downstairs where its cool.

If you store the squash in your basement, how do you keep them from molding or going bad? I'm thinking they'd go bad? But don't know much yet on this stuff. Last year my pumpkin grew like 10 feet long and had beautiful flowers, but never polinated (sp?) I guess. So, I'm hoping this year it'll come back. Otherwise, only zuchini and peppers as my blackberries won't be ready this year yet.

 

[PaulMel]

It's a little earlier than I normally start but after I looked at the long range forecasts, I went ahead and put out 150 cabbage and right at 140 tomatoes (Rutger, Roma, Better Boy and Super Saucer) Got finished up Sunday afternoon, then the rain hit early Monday morning.

Our soil temps are still a little low for seed planting, hopefully we'll get enough drying weather so I can get the beans, cucumbers, etc planted about mid-May.

I split most of mine up this year, one garden down in the bottoms, by the creek, one up by the barn, just to cover my bases. If we have a wet year, the upper garden will do well, if we have another drought, then I can water the lower garden from the creek.

Gunny - Do you cook up the cabbage and store throughout the winter? I would like to know how to grow it! We love it and have changed our diet since last year to primarily veges' and the cabbage can be made so many different ways! Looking forward to growing up a bunch this year.

 

[RSKY]

Last year I planted some pumpkin and cantaloupe but got nothing off them. Had some good ones but some critter ate them all or they rotted.

Got a lady saving me pickle buckets at a local elementary school and I'm gonna try bucket gardening for some of my plants. Will probably plant carrots, cantaloupe, some tomatoes, and peppers in them.

I am also going to use the garden netting for my pole beans. I ordered it from Memphis Net one day at 2PM and it was delivered the next day at 2PM.

This year is going to be to see how much of each veggie we use. Everything being recorded. Next year I will have a better idea what to plant to have just enough to make it until the 2015 garden comes in.

Right now I have a 10' table full of small plants I started over a month ago. Gotta get them out soon.

RSKY

 

[Gunny]

Gunny - Do you cook up the cabbage and store throughout the winter? I would like to know how to grow it! We love it and have changed our diet since last year to primarily veges' and the cabbage can be made so many different ways! Looking forward to growing up a bunch this year.

Most of what I raise goes into sauerkraut for the wife, MIL, some other relatives and friends, then I take some to the local senior citizens center. I do cook some up and can it for the winter, just not as much as I want to, but I feel like I'm raising enough as it is.

Easy to grow, it's a cold weather crop, so you can have a spring and fall harvest. I usually give mine a fertilizer side dress 2-3 weeks after planting, then a nitrogen side dress 4 weeks after that. Raise them in a double staggered row and they do a pretty good job of shading out most of the weeds.