when are you sowing your garden this year?

[ChunkyMonkey]

Just lost 20 something 3"+ tilapia fingerling today. Family member that shall not be named decided that the tomato plants need more nitrogen and put some nitro sticks in the growing bed. It was real bad for the fish. Fortunately, 48 hours later, the water test is almost back to normal

I also just receive some african tilapia and they are being acclimated. Now, the question is are they strong enough for this water.



So does anyone need fresh bait?

[rbeau30]

That SUCKS!!!

[clodhopper]

Two weeks ago I planted the last of me seedlings outside just before I had to leave town for work. Got home and everything looked different. Wife finally admitted it all died and she went to the garden store and bought new plants hoping I wouldn't notice. Yeah right.

Kinda pissed about it. That was a lot of time wasted getting seeds going. Oh well.

[Vanniek71]

I started seeds too, and planted and they ate that last snow storm. I had to go buy plants......lame IMO after all that work to get indoor seedlings started. I feel your pain!

[hollohas]

Picture heavy post ahead. Update on the Hollohas farm. Harvests of lettuce, peas and herbs continues. The first pictures shows about the amount of peas I get every day. Lettuce is example of a weekly harvest and herbs should be like this every other week or so. Except for the cilantro, it's already starting to bolt. The mint will hit the dehydrator tonight and will become tea. Other plants growing strong. I even have some lemons coming in.











One of my potato boxes.

[TheGrey]

That's amazing! What have you done to convince your lemon tree to fruit? I have a patio Meyer lemon tree, and it's really fussy.

[rbeau30]

Looks awesome hollohas! Hopefully my garden will do better next year! I have learned so much in one season. Do you have any little things that you do to get an edge? Anything that you do every year that us n00bs don't think about?

[hollohas]

That's amazing! What have you done to convince your lemon tree to fruit? I have a patio Meyer lemon tree, and it's really fussy.

That's also a Myer lemon. I got it for my wife for Christmas. It spent the winter inside and this is it's first summer outside. I hand pollinated every single flower. It flowered twice. The first time I got little lemon fruits but I let it get too dry so the fruit all fell off. This is the second time and so far I've avoided the same mistake. The leaves got a little yellow outside and I'm not sure why but it seems to be doing ok so I'm going to see if it gets better.

[hollohas]

Looks awesome hollohas! Hopefully my garden will do better next year! I have learned so much in one season. Do you have any little things that you do to get an edge? Anything that you do every year that us n00bs don't think about?

Honest answer? Too soon to know if my techniques are tricks or if they are luck. This is only my second year with my own real garden. I had two years prior to that with a few big pots with a tomato plant or two and some carrots. My Dad had a large garden when I was little that I followed him around through but I don't know how much I learned from that.

The only real thing I am confident is important is start the plants I previously mentioned inside, give them LOTS of light just inches above their leaves to get then nice and strong. If the light is too dim or too far away the plants grow tall, skinny and weak. When it comes time to move them outside, harden them off. I took two full weeks to harden them off. Start with a hour outside, protected from wind and too much heat and extend that little by little each day for a week or two. My tomatoes got zero sunburn.

Also for the tomatoes and peppers I pinch off all the buds for weeks. I won't start letting them set fruit for another couple weeks. They'll put more energy into growing strong roots and branches that way...a good foundation for better production.

All the other veggies? I don't do anything but sow the seeds, give them water and mulch (straw). And I've learned my lesson about keeping them protected from hail!

A good resource I've found are the videos on www.burpee.com

[TheGrey]

Thanks for the information on gardening and lemons, hollohas!