when are you sowing your garden this year?

[rbeau30]

I have been eating zucchini and I love it! So happy I finally put in a garden.. Other than that squash is coming in and tomatoes are still really green but have lots of them.. Broccoli is also almost ready.. The lettuce is huge as well.. Corn is also tasseling! My garden now looks like a jungle... Definitely put too much in but that's how you learn!

I have a great recipe somewhere for "Faux Apple Crisp" using zucchini. You seriously cannot tell there is not an apple in the thing. I am currently adapting the recipe to Apple pie. My first attempt was excellent.

[hollohas]

The hollohas farm is blowing up. Harvesting beans, squash and peas plus a few jalapeños. Had a good pound of green beans last night and will have a pound of small yellow squash/ small zucchini with dinner tonight. Thats just tiny harvests compared to whats coming. Everything else has a bunch of unripe fruit.

Tomatoes are a good 4ft tall at least. The plants closest to the camera are a large paste tomato variety that apparently are susceptible to leaf curl. Doesn't seem to be slowing down their fruit production though.



Cucumbers, carrots, bush beans, starwberries, more tomatoes, peas and zucchini in this picture.



Corn here with some pole beans climbing on them. Pots of herbs and peppers not visible behind the corn.



Pumpkins, watermelon and spaghetti squash. I haven't seen many bees so I've been hand pollinating these every morning. Before I started doing that the tiny fetal fruits were dying and falling off. Now I have lots of them growing and getting big.



Below, the front bed has Jalapeños, green peppers, Thai peppers, okra, yellow and acorn squash, one eggplant and pole beans.

Cucumbers and strawberries in the bed behind. The strawberries are transplants that I dug up and put here to get established for next year so I can get them out of the other bed shown above...they are taking over and I want the bed for something else. I'll let the starwberries takeover the entire back bed in the picture below.



I've setup an automatic watering system this year too. The large beds have standard soaker hose. The pots all have 1/4" tubing with mini sprinkler heads coming off a 5/8" mainline. Both are attached to the faucets with a two zone automatic timer. Beds get watered every other day, pots everyday.

[Irving]

Not including set-up and building of everything, about how much time per day, and per week would you say you spend maintaining a garden of this size?

[hollohas]

Not including set-up and building of everything, about how much time per day, and per week would you say you spend maintaining a garden of this size?

At the stage you see here? 20 mins per day now that I don't have to water the pots by hand. That includes the hand pollinating I mentioned in the morning and looking things over, harvesting stuff in the evening. That will get a bit longer as the garden really starts producing a lot near the end of this month...the harvesting part starts to take more time.

[hunterhawk]

I also live in littleton and my Garden is like a jungle! my neighnors are amazed (its my first time growing a garden) I have collected a few zucchini and everything else is right around the corner. I could be doing the lettuce and other greens but really havent been getting it! I need to asap.

I kept getting tomoatoe cages for a few of my plants and its killing me! I couldnt contain them.. so now they are all over the garden! wont make that mistake again! also a lot that i thought were going to die came back so im overcrowded but didnt want to kill them because I love tomatoes so much! beans and peas are coming but were planted to late. the cucumbers are coming but they had to totally come back from hail.. peppers are close and squash is close.. the corn looks just like yours!

what an awesome first year to have a garden!
yours looks great! much bigger than my garden but I do plan on expanding.. it was more than i thought it would be to start it up!

[Lucky]

For a few years I've done container gardening, each year I add more. I'm considering switching to raised beds and/or fenced rows next year because I keep adding to my wish list... it's all good practice for a massive vegetable garden(s) in the future. Much of what I grow goes to juicing, but pretty soon I'll need to start canning/blanching more to store and share. I want what I've grown in winter instead of just a few months of the year. My grandma had an awesome cellar, anything you can imagine- that's the goal.

Cucumber and beets for pickling, carrot, peas, onion, radish, tomato (I'm attempting catsup this year), sweet pumpkin for pie. Last year I juiced all of my spinach and lettuce, this year is was annihilated by late hail and never bounced back. I also buy organic asparagus and fresh eggs for pickling. Most were planted a week after Mother's Day but I may begin some starts inside next early spring, based on variety. Looking to add corn, raspberry, strawberry, cabbage for kraut, and potato (that 5 gallon bucket idea looks killer!) next time around.

Definitely interested in a seed swap if that's still on the table. My seeds are currently all Botanical Interests brand- fantastic, yet not heirloom. I'd be more than happy to swap pickles and beets for some heirloom seeds, and I'd for sure share any excess seeds down the road. Gardening and storage is so important, nice to see discussions and encouragement here.

[rbeau30]

For a few years I've done container gardening, each year I add more. I'm considering switching to raised beds and/or fenced rows next year because I keep adding to my wish list... it's all good practice for a massive vegetable garden(s) in the future. Much of what I grow goes to juicing, but pretty soon I'll need to start canning/blanching more to store and share. I want what I've grown in winter instead of just a few months of the year. My grandma had an awesome cellar, anything you can imagine- that's the goal.

Cucumber and beets for pickling, carrot, peas, onion, radish, tomato (I'm attempting catsup this year), sweet pumpkin for pie. Last year I juiced all of my spinach and lettuce, this year is was annihilated by late hail and never bounced back. I also buy organic asparagus and fresh eggs for pickling. Most were planted a week after Mother's Day but I may begin some starts inside next early spring, based on variety. Looking to add corn, raspberry, strawberry, cabbage for kraut, and potato (that 5 gallon bucket idea looks killer!) next time around.

Definitely interested in a seed swap if that's still on the table. My seeds are currently all Botanical Interests brand- fantastic, yet not heirloom. I'd be more than happy to swap pickles and beets for some heirloom seeds, and I'd for sure share any excess seeds down the road. Gardening and storage is so important, nice to see discussions and encouragement here.

Welcome to the board Lucky! Looking forward to pics if you got any! It is always nice to hear from folks so we can all learn from our experiences.

[Lucky]

Thanks! I might post a picture or two. I see you and Tim K mentioned asparagus- he's right, pickled is amazing. I follow, and tweak, refrigerator pickling recipes with cider vinegar as I don't currently have a crock. It's a quick process, just 3-7 days to ferment then they're good for 1-3 months, average. If I were to share my asparagus recipe, would it go in that thread or with the other recipes?


Also, for anyone interested, that Ball jar sale is still on at the Costco in Englewood/Riverpoint Plaza as of 7/28. I picked some up but did not see any widemouth.

[rbeau30]

I would say either thread the pickling thread or the Canning, Food Preservation or food sales thread. I know the latter has quite a few recipe in it. Either way I am excited to see it and try it.

I have to make my way to Costco... I am running low on jars. All the stuff I give as gifts to non-canning folks seem to never come back. Wonder what they do with them?

[Brian]

I still have some seed potatoes that are in a box and have some good chitting going on. Any chance if I plant them this weekend that they'll result in something useful? Otherwise I suppose I'd just be throwing out the seed taters.

Anything I can do to make them grow faster?