How did your Garden Grow ??

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Spent this weekend,digging up the last of the onions,potatoes & harvesting apples.All that is left are carrots,everlasting spinach,more apples,mint,sage,elderberry,beetroot and a few runner beans.The overwintering vegetables such as leeks,sprouts & parsnip are well established.

It was a bumper year for apples & carrots but the potato yield was down by a third due to the dry summer as was the rhubarb.The badgers ate all the broad bean seed drying on the plants & trampled down & destroyed the sweet corn.Many of the apples have hail damage.

We have known better years.The pidgeons & badgers destroyed many plants.

How successful were you ?

-- Chris (griffen@globalnet.co.uk), September 05, 1999

Answers

I don't have a big vegetable garden, don't have much space. Fortunately if things do get bad there is a lot of fertile land nearby which I can cultivate. No one should be complacent about this; growing and preserving most of your own vegetables is a huge job. I've been 29 yrs. in horticulture and the thought makes me nervous.

-- Sand Mueller (smueller@azalea.net), September 05, 1999.

It has been the horror of "The Revenge of the Rodents"

Rabbits, gophers, and squirrels.

-- flora (***@__._), September 05, 1999.


garden flopped! drought in the north east! garden was too big to water with my well. next year! eddy

-- eddy (xxx@xxx.com), September 05, 1999.

High effort, low return. Drought continuees as we enter the two driest months of the year (Sept/Oct)here in Georgia. Still getting peppers, but everything else has fizzled out. Green beans, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes all had low yields. The runner beans didn't even blossom. Strawberries looked great but few berries, and the onions were small. We did plant peanuts for the first time (mostly for fun) and they look great! Nearly ready to harvest.

Chris, can you comment on the report of power outages in London due to a Y2K glitch over the last few days? A report was posted on the discussion forum, and confirmation is sought.

-- Jill D. (jdance@mindspring.com), September 05, 1999.


Great weather and busier work schedule than expected meant too many weeds and too many beans to harvest & can. (Have been able to keep up with everything else.) Still excellent season so far and expect to meet our goal of 500 quarts home canned fruits & veggies and 300 quarts beef & venison.

We have a few hundred store-bought canned goods too, but I keep looking for more sales, but its been months since any good ones. I want to have a source of food for giving / bartering and there's no way we're giving up the home-canned - too much work!

-- Gus (y2kk@usa.net), September 05, 1999.



Here in east Texas, my garden did fairly well. I don't have as much variety as some; just tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, okra, onions, carrots and peppers (bell and hot).

We canned 66 quarts of tomatoes, and have had all the rest that we could eat and give away except for the squash.

This is the second year that my squash has done badly. I believe I have some sort of soil borne disease that affects them (fusarian wilt?). I'll plant them in the opposite corner of the garden next year.

I have a problem with the okra getting so tall that it is hard to harvest the pods. A couple of years ago I had some that got 16 feet tall! So far, it's only about 9' now. I heard somewhere that I am supposed to cut it back. Anybody give me some advice here? Where do you cut? Poor wifely has to bend the stalks over to pick the pods!

We have had but little rain here, but I have watered twice a week faithfully, and have a heavy mulch all over the garden.

Gerald

-- Gerald R. Cox (grcox@internetwork.net), September 05, 1999.


My little garden in N. Ca. Has been doing great. I had a bumper crop of peaches, grapes, tomatoes, peppers, melons, potatoes and squash. The apples tree is loaded and we can hardly wait for them to get ripe. The tomatoes,peppers and squash are still going great. I will have to start getting ready for the cool season stuff. We can garden year round here but I have not tried this before. I am wondering if I can get another crop of potatoes started to yield this winter. Will call Ag. Extention office and ask.

-- Homeschooling Grandma (mlaymon@glenn-co.k12.ca.us), September 06, 1999.

Jill, I'll try & find out about the London situation tonight.Nothing hit the National news over here.

Chris.

-- Chris (griffen@globalnet.co.uk), September 06, 1999.


We've never used poisons on our plants, but we never had to depend soley on our garden for food. We lost a great deal of food to bugs this year. Are there natural, renewable (can I grow them) bug repellents for the garden?

-- helen (sstaten@fullnet.net), September 06, 1999.

I live in North Central Washington State, and our garden has been incredible this year. Everyone keeps asking us what we used to make everything so big and abundant. (manure, manure and more manure. And our compost, too.)

We finally put in our square-foot gardening system this year. We have 12 beds that are 8' by 12'each. My husband put in one of those watering systems that uses small sprinklers, small soaker hoses and drip nozzles. We laid down yard fabric in the walkways and put 3-4 inches of crushed rock on top of that. NO WEEDS! We also covered the strawberry box with the black yard fabric and cut out holes for each individual strawberry plant. Did the same for the cucumbers and squash. Again, no weeds.

Helen, there is a book on companion planting called "Carrots Love Tomatoes" by Louise Riotte. It discusses placing certain plants next to others to help control bugs naturally.

For instance, planting marigolds next to potatoes and strawberries will keep nematodes from attacking these plants. The marigold roots produce a chemical into the soil that kills the nematodes. Last year our tomatoes were covered with billions of white flies and a few hornworms. I read on an internet site that planting basil and sage next to the tomatoes would reduce these critters. This year, I planted both of these herbs between each tomato plant, and we have had no problems with bugs.

There are also many internet sites that discuss companion planting. I don't have any of the site names handy, but you can do a search. Some people say it doesn't work, but we've been doing it for 7 years and have never used chemicals. We could have used chemicals last year on the white flies, but we chose to just live with them instead.

I hope this helps.

-- glinda (glinda@overtherain.bow), September 06, 1999.



Snorting--er--Chris:

Our spring was very wet. In July it turned very hot [>100F] and dry; except that we got 3 in of rain when our nearest city [10 miles away got nothing]. Everything that we couldn't water failed. Trees did well. We will get 2 to 3 tons of pears. Most of these will be eaten by wildlife. We will get what we need. We have elderberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, currents, raspberries, etc. We have beans from our watered areas; along with cukes, etc. We have tomatoes, although our best [brandywine, have been physiologically stressed]. We will be up to our ears in apples. We will have enough to last until next August. What more could you want?...

Best wish

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), September 06, 1999.


My little square foot garden on the Georgia coast taught me that most things needed to be planted earlier than I did - But I learned! Also learned that eggplants grow large (more space than "Square Foot" book recommended!) and that they like HOT weather!!!! I've researched more recipes for eggplant and have shared with neighbors...sort of a preparation for Y2K sharing I hope!

Tomatoes also did well - as long as I got to 'em before the birds!

-- Jen (jenwhite@darientel.net), September 07, 1999.


Drought in the Midwest... however...

Carrots and onions were small. Jalapeno and banana peppers did (and are still doing) great, but bell peppers had VERY low yields (they don't set fruit in extreme heat). Cukes were great until wilt set in, and tomotoes are still going gangbusters. Lost a couple herbs, but the other 17 spiked much earlier than usual. Grapes, on the other hand, are raisins on the vines. Not gonna get a single one.

-- yerfdog (yerfdog@qwestinternet.net), September 08, 1999.


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