BYC gardening thread!!

[marktoo]

Nice looking pumpkin!

Many hobbies do nothing but cost money. Veggie gardening saves you money, better product, ya get a little exercise, it's therapeutic & the list goes on & on. How can this be a problem??

 

[Allysha1990]

I know right? We must keep in mind that my In laws version of spaghetti consists of a can of tomatoes, ketchup and bbq suace

I don't understand how something like gardening or preserving has become such an alien concept in less than 50 years!
I think my happiest times this past Summer were spent in my garden

 

[lazy gardener]

Love the pics Allysha and Beulah.

 

[SunnySkies]

I love that pumpkin. What are you going to do with it? I have one sitting on my table, purchased as decor, but I haven't decided what to do with it. Going to save seeds from it though

Trying to convince hubby I need an Earthway seeded for Christmas, lol.

 

[Allysha1990]

So if I don't feel like waiting until June to post my pictures of gardening, so I will post some of my garden that I had this year.
This was at the house we were renting until we bought our farm, so next year will be even better because I can have my garden however I want.
I chose a very hands off approach, plant close together and have companion plants. I basically did 0% weeding all year.

^This was a shot of my Queensland Blue Pumpkin mixed in with a watermelon and cherry tomatoes


^ Behind the pumpkin were carrots and radishes at the end

^There are 2 beds here, the taller plants are my larger beefsteak style tomatoes. You can see just how big my 1 pumpkin plant got lol!

^ A shot to show how close together the cherry tomatoes were

 

[urbanchange90]

How much food did you get from that little patch? Great job maximizing space

 

[Allysha1990]

I got lots! I had enough tomatoes to can around 50 jars of stewed tomatoes, plus I used a bunch for other recipes. I also ended up freezing a bunch too. I also got 4 Queensland blue pumpkins ranging from around 20 pounds to at least 35-40 pounds each. 1 watermelon, a bunch of onions, 3 harvests of radishes, and probably around 10 pounds of carrots. I also had 2 large crab apple trees from which I picked around 400 pounds of apples and ended up leaving the rest on there, easily another 500 pounds. I also planted lots of lettuce, potatoes, peas, herbs and grapes around the peripheries of the garden
I would have had a lot more but a strong wind blew my little green house over and killed all of my seedlings.
I mixed my varieties of tomatoes up between early producers, regular producers and late producers so I had tomatoes at least 1 month before everyone else in my town and had them much later than everyone else too.

My MIL also took a few of my tomato seedlings (which I had to buy at a greenhouse due to all of mine dieing) but she planted them in neat rows, pruned them and fussed over them too much and ended up only getting a handful of tomatoes. I really do think the hands off, companion planting method is the way to go

 

[lazy gardener]

First seed catalog came today!

 

[Allysha1990]

I never order a seed catalog, the place I get my seeds from has all of their plants online so I just go on there to look.

 

[lazy gardener]

Hate doing it on line. I want an actual catalog with pages that I can turn and wear out and drool on.