Quiltingboard Forums

Quiltingboard Forums (https://www.quiltingboard.com/)
-   General Chit-Chat (non-quilting talk) (https://www.quiltingboard.com/general-chit-chat-non-quilting-talk-f7/)
-   -   how is your garden growing???? (https://www.quiltingboard.com/general-chit-chat-non-quilting-talk-f7/how-your-garden-growing-t131805.html)

jaciqltznok 06-20-2011 05:46 AM

I tell you..if we had to actually LIVE off what we grow, we would be starving this year...

first came the late winter(in March/April) and now it is the August heat in May/June...we have been over 100 for most of 3 weeks now..and NOTHING is growing..

I have pepper plants that should be 3' tall and loaded with peppers that are only 6" tall and barren.....
the tomatoes make blooms, that wither and die two days later...NO zuchini, either...I am heart broken..it is a lot of painful work for me to put in the garden each year and when this happens it is twice the pain....

wondering how others are fairing this year with all of the really wacky weather across the country....

willing to trade fabric for a bushel of picking cukes...sigh....

blueangel 06-20-2011 05:48 AM

Same here. Nothing is growing. It got too hot too early. Very disapointing.

kathy 06-20-2011 05:54 AM

well the only reason ours is growing is because we have a water well just for the gardens, still most of it is dying off early because of the heat, we have a green house for tomatoes so they are doing well but the outsides stuff is fizzling fast

jaciqltznok 06-20-2011 05:55 AM

yes, we have a well and we double mulched this year so we are just DIrect watering the plants..but still with winds blowing 45MPH at 106 degrees...they don't stand much of a chance...

leatheflea 06-20-2011 05:59 AM

All is doing well after battling with the critters. Tomatos should start turning ripe in the next week or two. We've got around 15 plants. spinach has run its course, froze most of that. Peas are on there way out, froze those also. Radishes didnt do well at all, not sure what the problem was. Beets! Just boiled up some two nights ago, not gonna have enough to can like I planned. Green beans are finally doing ok. Zukes will be ready to pick in about a week.

We start everything early and watch the weather. Most around here are just starting to get blooms on tomato plants and we are way ahead. I also tried garlic this year, this is a first for me. The tops are starting to die back and should be ready to harvest soon. The bell peppers and hot peppers arent doing so well. Honey is stopping today to get some bonemeal to help them out. We both love to garden and this year has been quite the challenge. Took cukes over a month to start growing and we had a turtle put its nest in our acorn squash. We couldnt figure out what was going on till one day we went down to the back garden and found about a dozen rubbery egg shells everywhere. Of course the baby turtles were gone and there was a big hole in our squash mound. The deer have been a problem this year also. They arent eating anything just walking through and makin a mess. Its all a part of the joy of being a country bumkin! Good luck with your garden!

antiquegirl68 06-20-2011 05:59 AM

My garden is beautiful this year. I have already gotten zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, and brocolli. My cabbage is almost ready and I have lots of tomatoes not quit ripe. We have not had alot of rain and I have watered it couple of times. Good Luck everyone I hope you get rain soon and it makes your garden pretty.

Jennifer22206 06-20-2011 07:16 AM

I have a black thumb. I don't garden.

alikat110 06-20-2011 07:40 AM

I don't have a green thumb, hence, no garden

sunflower126 06-20-2011 07:42 AM

I garden in large pots. Hate crawling on the ground--hard to get up and knees hurt. Have 4 pepper plants loaded with teenie tiny peppers. A hanging basket of cherry tomatoes that are growing like crazy. Had some last night-yummy. Have a pot with a big tomatoe plant that is growing but no signs of tomatoes. It's still a bit early. Tried strawberries but the birds eat them before I can get to them.

Melinda in Tulsa 06-20-2011 07:44 AM

I'm having the same problem. Last year, I only got about 2 dozen tomato's off 13 plants, thanks to the grasshoppers. This year I got control of the grasshoppers but with the nights so warm, nothing is setting blooms. My peppers are like yours. It's gonna be another wasted veggie year for me. I'm ready to give up on gardening!!

ontheriver 06-20-2011 07:44 AM

I know I would starve because I am an all time black thumb, can't grow a thing. My mom is growing some tomatoes, but it seems it is so hot they require constant watering.

chairjogger 06-20-2011 07:48 AM

wow, a wide range of successes/failures.. here..

wet, our tree should be a friend of Moss Man soon.. Tall, and GREEN bark that is soft!!

My back house gutter is now holding water, does it matter in the summer? no.. but we get rain everyday nearly.. and at time it's like the fire department opened the hydrants !

Weeds are hard to control in the mud. I love to hoe.. love the sound.. until the squishing sound, thud of mud and hoe meeting..

wow.. still our crops are not planted in few fields that are ponded and lakes have appeared.

Northern Ohio, near lake Erie.. wondering if it is natures way of land and lake meeting again !

Ell

quiltinghere 06-20-2011 08:02 AM

I can see it growing in the distance...

I may need to remove some of the grass clippings so the soil dries up and the plants don't rot from all the rain.

nycquilter 06-20-2011 08:16 AM

our garden went in late this year. the reason, we put in a larger area and the contractor was late in finishing (big surprise, huh?). We use raised beds, like you do Jacqui. So far, so good. The sad part this week is some of our plants are not in the fenced-in area. My strawberries, which had a cover, due to the rain and high winds this week,saw the cover blown off. So my huge crop of berries went to the deer and their friends. ARGH. I am getting so ready to learn to hunt deer and enjoy venison! but otherwise, so far so good on teh gardening front. We also added lots of flowers and trees (9 white birch, one semi-dwarf cherry) this weekend.

lindy-2 06-20-2011 08:34 AM

mine is ok but we need rain soon or it will all burn up my beens had a realy lousy germination, potatoes are doing good tomatoes and pappersz are ok but starting to look stressed.beets are realy tiny and onions are yto smal they dont seem to like sandy soil. cucumbers are looking realy stressed. ive trained my 2 year old to watter them from her swimming pool.

Chasing Hawk 06-20-2011 08:41 AM

We have been to busy putting up fence around our property to even think about a garden.

I did make use of my new greenhouse though. I got some plants from Lowes and set them in there....lol

I still need to fis the front flowerbed I worked on last year. The rabbits (previous owners of our house left behind and they multiplied) ate a bunch of my plants including some evergreen's. Which I later found out they will eat anything when hungry enough including pine shrubs.

Ramona Byrd 06-20-2011 08:46 AM

Seems that the only thing you can do is mulch, mulch and do it some more. Then do as most of us do, curse the weather.

BabyCakes 06-20-2011 10:52 AM

2 Attachment(s)
My tomatoes do not like the cool nites.Spinach/lettuce doing very well.Cool weather crops doing fine.

leatheflea 06-20-2011 11:05 AM

1 Attachment(s)
heres a pic of our tomatos

CoriAmD 06-20-2011 01:51 PM

My garden was doing really good (because I haul water to it every day) but a few nights ago, a deer came and ate all the tops of the tomato plants.... Grrrr! The hubby put fencing around the plants which seems to be working. But, then... Sat. night 10 p.m., the transformer on the electric pole by my garden exploded and spewed oil all over my rubarb, radishes, zuchinni and yellow squash plants.... no power for 2 days, then plants ALL had to be replaced.
I put new ones in today but the plants aren't as big as I had. Radishes were just ready to pick too, reseeded them but have to wait 2 weeks before they are ripe. Could only get 4 rubarb plants to replace the 10 I had, but when the electric company came and dug everything up I don't think they dug deep enough to get all the root, so they might come back.
Luckily as it turns out, the electric company did a soil test and the oil was not harmful, just old mineral oil which would have given a bad taste to the food.
Ah well, gardening is such an adventure... just not sure how many more years I will mess with it myself.

sueisallaboutquilts 06-20-2011 02:05 PM

Ours is pretty good this year. We've had more rain than usual.
My flowers look better than they have in years.

Andii 06-20-2011 02:48 PM


Originally Posted by BabyCakes
My tomatoes do not like the cool nites.Spinach/lettuce doing very well.Cool weather crops doing fine.

BabyCakes, what is the deal with the plants in the bag and what are the trays around the starts? I've never seen either but the trays look they would be really good for bugs.

nycquilter 06-21-2011 04:57 AM

Andii, she is using container gardening, very similar to raised bed gardening. the red trays are made for tomatoes. the red helps the tomatoes turn the energy from the sun into an easier-to-use format for the tomatoes. I know that's a shoddy explanation, but it works. I tend to use red plastic around my tomatoes. the trays also tend to reduce bugs. the benefit of this kind of gardening is that you don't need to dig into rocky soil, the soil is better because you make it, and harvest of rooted veggies is much simpler. Check out the gardengirltv.com or squarefootgardening.com for more info.

Laurie

OmaForFour 06-21-2011 05:47 AM

We are not quite that hot but we have had a late spring after 104 inches of snow this winter. Then we had a lot of rain and now this past week it has finally gotten warm. Everything is growing but slowly.

donnacollierbess 06-21-2011 06:51 AM

Everything here is wilting too. :( We try to water, water, water and that seems to help some. Left town for the weekend and paid someone to come over and water - can't miss a day. Sometimes I even water TWICE in one day. Can't wait to see what DH says when he sees the water bill.

Owllady 06-21-2011 07:22 AM

Even with watering things still burn up. Tomatoes loose most of their blooms from the heat. Dug everything else up and will wait for fall to see if conditions are better.

Kappy 06-21-2011 07:37 AM


Originally Posted by jaciqltznok
I tell you..if we had to actually LIVE off what we grow, we would be starving this year...

first came the late winter(in March/April) and now it is the August heat in May/June...we have been over 100 for most of 3 weeks now..and NOTHING is growing..

I have pepper plants that should be 3' tall and loaded with peppers that are only 6" tall and barren.....
the tomatoes make blooms, that wither and die two days later...NO zuchini, either...I am heart broken..it is a lot of painful work for me to put in the garden each year and when this happens it is twice the pain....

wondering how others are fairing this year with all of the really wacky weather across the country....

willing to trade fabric for a bushel of picking cukes...sigh....

It's been an extremely odd year! Couldn't get mine in due to rain until first week of June. We've only had a handful of "nice" days, and never in a row! More rain, corn is looking yellow, garden is looking bedraggled! Hope things take a turn for the better soon, it's already the first day of summer and after this the days start getting shorter! I can almost hear the winter winds!!! LOL

Quilter7x 06-21-2011 07:49 AM

I have one tomato plant that has two flowers on it and I have lots of flowers planted, mostly dahlias, morning glories and moon-flowers.

Everything is doing great this year. We had a ton of snow this past winter and a fairly warm wet spring, but the plants are growing at the normal speed.

Just Me... 06-21-2011 08:58 AM

My weeds are having a prolific year! Plenty of sun and water for them to grow....and grow....and grow! :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Victoria L 06-21-2011 10:17 AM

Everything is growing great. We couldn't plant till the last week of May due to a rain all month. Everything is thriving now. There is nothing better than fresh veggies! :)

annyroony2 06-21-2011 10:58 AM

Ask the deer, they are enjoying it, they are eating peas, snaps and all of our apples are gone from the trees, either the deer or squirrels got them.

Our corn looks good (so far). Would like to have some rain.

Nolee 06-21-2011 12:04 PM

Live in Rochester, NY. It is dry but I keep the plants watered and they are doing beautifully, lots of tiny peppers and tomato fruits. Pray yours will blossom soon too. It IS a lot of work for not being rewarded. :(

CarrieAnne 06-21-2011 12:06 PM

Mines not looking real great either.....it was put in really late this year, because of cold weather.

sylvia77 06-21-2011 12:30 PM

My garden is doing great. I have to water it every day or it would dry up and blow away!

nycquilter 06-21-2011 12:36 PM

we water our garden with a timer so it gets watered each day. We only get to it, face-to-face if you will, on the weekends.

purplefiend 06-21-2011 12:47 PM

pretty much the same are your garden. We have tomatoes, but they are tiny, the peppers seem to like it hot as do the eggplants and melons. The green beans are dead, the squash is producing poorly. We water every other day and it helps some.
I've grown rather tired of the drought.

romanojg 06-21-2011 12:52 PM

And yet the weeds survive; go figure. It's crazy the things that live no matter what mother nature does to it.

Teresa 54 06-21-2011 02:59 PM

happy with my garden,
Reading, PA

Kallen 06-21-2011 03:18 PM

I only garden on a small scale. We planted 9 tomato plants, 3 cucumber, 3 green peppers, 1 zuchinni and 2 straight neck squash. It all went in on May 1st. By June 1st the squash were only as big as a dinner plate, and the cukes, and peppers had chewed up leaves. I wasn't sure if it was bugs or the hail storm. The tomato leaves were spotted with black and drying up. Thought it was maybe a fungus or too much cold and rain. I trimmed all the bad looking leaves, we did spray an insecticide (hate to do that) and put out snail bait. Everything is coming back and the squash grew gigantic in two weeks. We have small squash growing, a few tiny green cherry tomatoes, cucumbers are starting, and a couple of peppers too. Just hoping it continues to grow. It looks nice and healthy so I am keeping my fingers crossed. We also have a grow box full of strawberries, but don't get more than a handful every other day. I think they are overcrowded in the space we put them. I'm learning slowly..... :lol: I forgot to say, to everyone who is discouraged--keep trying. We'll just get better with practice, and we never know when the day will come that we will really need the food that we can grow and the skills we have developed, especially the things we have learned during the bad years.

Maybe1day 06-21-2011 03:22 PM

Jacquie,
I feel your pain garden wise as last year our garden didn’t grow too well either. We coddled and nursed it along with an end result that we did manage to get something from it but it did take nearly all season. Nothing wanted to grow. We have been very dry over this side of the sea so nothing is a surprise really.
Our winter garden is in at the moment and so far so good, some things have powered along while others are slowly slowly so we shall see.
I suspect the Mother Nature hasn’t finished with us yet so more pain to come. I netted my garden beds which I have found made a huge difference as it has provided a lovely micro climate for the veggies seemingly protecting them from strong winds among other nasties’.


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 11:45 PM.