Time for the annual gardening thread

[Sleepyskull]

We put our garden in yesterday.  Now I'm going to hope we don't get a really late frost like last year.  Took a bad toll on our tomatoes and peppers.

Peppers:  red bell, blushing beauty
Tomatoes:  lemon boy, sweet cluster, sugar snack, sweet gold
Zuchinni
Yellow Squash
Pole Beans
Cucumbers
Beets
Carrots
Spinach
Romaine Lettuce

Sunflowers (for Jenna).

The kids love planting the garden, especially putting the eggs into the holes for the tomatoes and breaking them.

Do you mean those ceramic eggs with soil and seeds inside them or real eggs?

[Andrew]

Do you mean those ceramic eggs with soil and seeds inside them or real eggs?

Real eggs.  I started doing this years ago after having a problem with blossom end rot.  The main reason for blossom end rot is a calcium deficiency, so having eggshell right under the tomato plant helps avoid that.  Supposedly the rotting contents also benefit the plant.  I haven't had a problem with blossom end rot since I started doing this, and the kids love putting eggs into the holes and breaking them with the trowel.

[Mr. DS]

I'm thinking of going with a few rows of onions this year.  My grandfather inlaw got ahold of a few flats one year which we plopped in the garden.  We had several onions literally the size of softballs. 

By the way, as things progress we should all post pics in this thread.   

[Silverlady]

The bugs and me don't get along. 

One thing I often forget to do every Spring and Summer is to spray myself with insect repellent when I'm going out to play in the dirt going to the beach, to the park, fishing, whatever.

  I was out yesterday afternoon doing a little planting in flower pots in my yard and something bit me on my right ear. It itched a little, but nothing else.  This morning my ear was real itchy and puffy.  Hubby looked at it and said he could see a few tiny bites on the outside ridge. I look like I have a DUMBO ear. Last summer I got a bite on my lower leg and it got infected, swelled up and I could hardly walk. I had gone to the doctor (said it was probably a spider bite) and he had prescribed antibiotics which did clear it up.  I still have some of the pills left (good til Aug 2010), so I started taking them.

Anybody else allergic to insect bites?

[Rev. Powell]

I had direct sowed poppy seeds a few weeks ago and tiny seedlings are "popping" up all over!   

Careful... that may be illegal. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/edible/msg021133426494.html

[Silverlady]

I had direct sowed poppy seeds a few weeks ago and tiny seedlings are "popping" up all over!   

Careful... that may be illegal. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/edible/msg021133426494.html

They are plain old annual poppies called "shirley poppies".  I read the GARDENWEB forum all the time ... learn a lot there.  It's a great site. 

[The Gravekeeper]

I was gonna put my herbs outside the other day, but the weather really isn't co-operating. It's been windstorms and freakin' snow for the past little while (although the snow's just been melting as soon as it hits the ground). Still, this is a pretty arid area (complete with cacti!), so any precipitation helps. I just wish it was rain rather than snow since having tiny snowflakes blown at you at 90 km/h stings.

[Mr. DS]

I planted some radishes today.  They'll probably be ready for picking by mid June.  I'm hoping to get the big garden in by at least  Memorial Day weekend.

[Jack]

I planted 6 jalapeño peppers and a Cayenne pepper plant today.  The spinach, lettuce and peas are all coming along nicely.  Beans are doing so-so.  Just planted the tomatoes last week;  those things don't seem to do anything for several weeks and then all of a sudden they start growing a couple inches a day.  It got below freezing a few days ago, but it doesn't look like anything was killed    A dog or something dug a hole in my garden too. 

[The Gravekeeper]

I just got my key for the community garden on campus. This should be fun since I'll get to play around in a proper garden but I'll still be able to take for a few days whenever I want without having to call someone up to look after my garden while I'm gone (and if I only go for a few days at a time I don't have to worry about my geckos, either).

As for my own private stuff, my chives died in the indoor planter I got but the strawberry seeds I planted in their place have already sprouted.

[Mr. DS]

Putting the garden in this weekend.  So far heres the confirmed plants;
12 Broccoli Plants
6 Purple Peppers
6 Hotrod Cherry Peppers
6 Sunbell Peppers
6 Yellow Pear Tomatoes
12 Celebrity Tomatoes
6 Better Boy Tomatoes
(yep...I'll be eating, breathing and sh!tting tomatoes)
Green Beans (from seed)
Radishes (from seed)

Heres what I hope to pick up tomorrow;
4 Yellow Squash
6 Habeneros
6 Cayenne

I need to follow up again on the onion issue.  The weather was 90 degrees today.  If that stays the norm this may be my biggest crop yet.  Once things get going I'll post some pics.  

[Raffine]

yep...I'll be eating, breathing and sh!tting tomatoes

Forget the tomatoes - with all those peppers your gonna be going burning out four pairs of underpants a day!

[CheezeFlixz]

Some of you folks must be in some cold climates...

My corn (Peaches & Cream and Bodacious) is nearly waist high, I've harvested broccoli yesterday, I have peppers (15 different kinds) coming on strong some about the size of golf ball already and the pole beans (McCasslin's a stringless KY Wonder) are to the top of the trellis. I've been harvesting various greens, beets and strawberries for a month or longer and the tomatoes (Roma's and Juliette's mainly) are blooming and already about 3 feet tall they will get to be much, much taller. The peas (Early Spring) are blooming had to replant them due to the flooding, the bush beans (Dragon's Tongue) are getting close to blooming and the squash already has started blooming with a few small summers and zucs on them I'll be planting Fall and Winter squash before long as some of those are 120-150 days to harvest - there is a lot more I have a pretty big garden heavily loaded with farm manure and compost.

I already have giant sunflowers some freak of nature one I found that are already about 6 feet tall last year we had some hit nearly 18 feet  - I swear I think you could watch them grow. Next to those I have these other freaky ones that get huge heads but only grow to about 3 feet. I have hundreds of sunflowers and dozens of types.

Additionally to that I have Gourds (12 kinds), Pumpkins, Watermelon, Spaghetti Squash, Hubbard Squash, Cantaloupe,  Sugar melons, honeydews, etc etc

@Andrew on your tomatoes eggshells work great I till in 1000's of them as we have lots of chicken hatcheries here  easy to get shells and another thing I add is Epson Salt to maters about a small hand-full (1/2 C +/-) in every hole. Helps make them sweeter and juicer.

And compared to my neighbor I have a tiny garden he plants about 20 acres in garden a lot of it you can't buy seeds for so I trade seeds with him - but he's retired and has that kind of time - I don't.

[Andrew]

We had 2 frosts and a couple of cold days since the garden was planted.  That caused some problems.  The worst was that something, I suspect a robin, when through the tomatoes and peppers and nipped them off just above the ground.  At first I thought it was the high winds (we had some 55mph gust days) doing it, until I started finding them on calm days.  My father-in-law has seen the same thing in his garden with robins.

Curse you, bird!  It's not a worm, it's a plant!

I was replacing them with new baby plants from my tray, but the cat managed to get into that and we suffered 100% losses there.  So, I've had to buy plants from the nursery to replace almost all of the tomato and pepper plants I grew from seed.  Next year I've got a plan to start them earlier under growing lights, which should result in bigger plants that are not robin food size when it comes time to transplant them outside.

Had a lot of skips on the pole beans and not one cucumber came up.  I replanted from new packs of seeds and we'll see what happens in a week.

[Jack]

We had a frost a while back too, I don't think the tomatoes liked it much.  They're growing okay and a couple even have some tomatoes on them, even though they're just a foot tall, but the leaves have a yellowish look to them.  Lettuce, peas and spinach are doing fantastic.  My wife's already picking the lettuce and spinach.  Pole beans are doing pretty good, but just like last year, only about 1/10th of my bush beans came up.  I suppose I can try planting some more.  I'm sure the pole beans will provide more than we actually want, so I'm not too concerned.  My Jalapenos are looking kind of yellow too, even though I planted them after that night that it got below freezing.  I don't know what their problem is - too much water?  Too little water?  I want my Jalapeno poppers dammit!