Gardening 2019...

[Leadeye]

How often do you apply it to your tomatoes and at what point do you start?

There's lots of info on the internet, but I use a 2% solution in a Windex bottle and spray the plants and the ground around them after they get about a foot tall. It doesn't take much, but I respray after rains. Grapes, apples, berries and peppers get a direct application, but I start spraying grapes before the leaves or flowers come out as black rot can be in dead areas of the vine.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

There's lots of info on the internet, but I use a 2% solution in a Windex bottle and spray the plants and the ground around them after they get about a foot tall. It doesn't take much, but I respray after rains. Grapes, apples, berries and peppers get a direct application, but I start spraying grapes before the leaves or flowers come out as black rot can be in dead areas of the vine.

I'm going to try that this year.

We finally had to give up on drip irrigation - our water is so bad that it clogs the emitters with calcium and iron and they stop working. Probably have to go to sprinklers now.

That's what happened to mine, when I had them on well water. I'd like to get a pump and hook up my rain water tank to the drip system, but I'm not sure that I have enough capacity in my rain tank.

 

[bwframe]

Wonder if the copper sulfate would fend off whatever sort of blight my pepper plants seem to get nearly every year?

 

[Leadeye]

Copper sulfate worked well on mine, the internet is full of info on various plants. I tried garden store fungicides because my grapes were getting wiped out regularly. I thought this can't be how crops are grown commercially, it would be way to expensive. Some internet work brought up copper sulfate solutions which have been used for centuries. It's not considered fashionable from an ecological viewpoint, but I just want crops without having to spend a fortune on special chemicals to get them.

 

[1DOWN4UP]

Is that just composting straw or did you do something else to the bed?

It is about 10 inches of composted wood chips/topsoil with 4-5 inches of straw on top.I will remove a couple inches of straw in a few weeks.

 

[bwframe]

I just got through mudding in some cole crops and onions. The ground is certainly still cold.

I am reminded why most years I'm late with this process. It's just tough for me to wrap my head around long pants and long sleeves in the garden.

I'm still c-c-c-c-c-c-cold....

 

[bwframe]

May have gotten lucky the day before yesterday.

I picked up some spinach, lettuce and arugula starts at a local greenhouse. Between Saturday's schedule filling unexpectedly and today's rain forecast I quickly mudded the plants in Friday evening.

Of course, I later discovered it was to drop to 26 degrees overnight. My thermometer showed 25, ugh.

Everything still looks green and growing healthy today. We'll see?

 

[JeepHammer]

It's Indiana in the spring, could be 30*, tomorrow it could be 90*...
Crap shoot.

Everyone asked why my hot boxes have styrofoam board sides and tops to cover the windows...
Indiana weather... Parka & freezing tonight, can't run the air conditioning hard enough tomorrow!

I figure with all that styrofoam they might float when Indiana monsoons pass through!

 

[sngehl01]

We are really getting into gardening hard the last few years. Planted ~150 tomato plants last year. Going to scale it back to around 100 this year, but stake/cage them all (well, at least 75% of them), and straw bed the sprawlers.

We bought seeds off of eBay. I was a bit worried about it, but they have germinated well in my grower box. We bought them from a place down south that teaches kids how to grow and cultivate plants. We got ~200/300 seeds for $1.50 or so, bought about 20 different types of tomatoes (so, yeah, we have a lot of seeds for a while).

 

[sngehl01]

Anyone have experience with growing in pots around these parts? Thought about doing it, but no idea how many gallons to go with for a cherry type tomato, a regular slicer tomato, or pepper plants.

We also bought a lot of hot pepper varities (ghost pepper, chocolate ghost, trinidad scorpion, fatali, reapers, etc). Pretty excited to make some hot sauces.

 

[GLOCKMAN23C]

Anyone have experience with growing in pots around these parts? Thought about doing it, but no idea how many gallons to go with for a cherry type tomato, a regular slicer tomato, or pepper plants.

We also bought a lot of hot pepper varities (ghost pepper, chocolate ghost, trinidad scorpion, fatali, reapers, etc). Pretty excited to make some hot sauces.

5 gallon buckets work well for all of the above.

 

[sngehl01]

5 gallon buckets work well for all of the above.

Thanks. Did you use potting soil? I did it last year, mixed straw/compost/soil to do it. We have pretty good soil where I live. They did okayI guess. Nothing crazy. I kind of neglected them, too. I'm assuming you also drilled out some drainage holes at the bottom for em, too.

 

[GLOCKMAN23C]

Thanks. Did you use potting soil? I did it last year, mixed straw/compost/soil to do it. We have pretty good soil where I live. They did okayI guess. Nothing crazy. I kind of neglected them, too. I'm assuming you also drilled out some drainage holes at the bottom for em, too.

I did use a potting mix for vegetables, and a few drainage holes as well.

 

[SarahG]

Figured I would pop in and contribute to this thread. I've been reading it since the beginning, but my mom is far more of a gardener than I am - Master Gardeners is her main activity now that she's retired. This year I picked out some seeds myself and have been monitoring the progress of my little plants and caring for them. I'm most excited about my Pineapple Tomatoes, as they are supposed to be nearly seedless and I love tomatoes, but hate tomato seeds!

 

[LockStocksAndBarrel]

Nice crop you have going there, Sarah. I'm looking forward to your review of the Pineapple tomatoes.

 

[bwframe]

 

[COOPADUP]

That's a great picture of asparagus. I hope my crop comes in soon. This is my 5th year and last year's crop was tender and delicious. I have been told they just get better each year.

 

[mom45]

I raked the asparagus and garlic patches over the weekend...no sign of asparagus sprouting here yet. Garden is tilled with a load of manure added in. Flowers are starting to bloom all over the yard...so far just daffodil and crocus.

 

[bwframe]

Please educate me on asparagus harvesting. This is technically my first year to harvest from my two patches planted in the spring of last year. (I did sneak a few as garden snacks late in the season last year.)

Should I let the first few grow to stalks or can I start cutting and eating right away? Is there a percentage of the stalks I should leave before harvesting?

Right now I have a half dozen or so 3ish inches tall. Just up in the last couple days.

 

[COOPADUP]

I am still learning myself. My experience has been that when you harvest you are actually encouraging growth.
If some stalks mature faster before you can harvest them, let them keep on growing. They end up looking like evergreen bushes and the females will produce berries.
A friend of mine told me he will grab some ham slices, head to the patch, roll up the asparagus in ham and eat it raw.
Gonna try that this year. Good luck with your crop !