Garden thread

[cluckmecoop7]

I have clay in my yard, but luckily none in my garden!!

 

[Melodychick]

Have any of you ever grown tomatillos? I haven’t tried them before, but when I saw this selection I thought I might this year
https://www.burpee.com/vegetables/tomatillos/tomatillo-purple-organic-68545A.html

 

[rosemarythyme]

Have any of you ever grown tomatillos?

Never tried growing them (I eat so few tomatillos that I just buy them if needed) but I believe they're grown similarly to tomatoes.

 

[cluckmecoop7]

I never tried them. Maybe I will this year!

 

[TooCheep]

Have any of you ever grown tomatillos? I haven’t tried them before, but when I saw this selection I thought I might this year
https://www.burpee.com/vegetables/tomatillos/tomatillo-purple-organic-68545A.html

I grew some for the first (and only) time last year. They are easy to grow without blight problems that tomatoes commonly have. They grow tall like indeterminant tomatoes. You need more than one within about 6-8ft for fertilization. Purple produces less than green.

Although they produced well, they are of limited value compared to tomatoes. (At least for me) You can't eat them raw or in salads.

 

[WaterGoat]

Right now my garden looks half dead. I've got four 4x8' raised beds and a ~3x20' berm that I plant on and only two and a half beds have anything in them. I've got radishes starting, leeks, onions, lettuce, beets, celery, and kale growing out there right now. Soon I'll need to start more leeks and lettuce. Most things I just direct seed starting in February-April since I've had very little luck transplanting pretty much anything else.

I've started saving seeds from my beans and squash too, which I know does weird hybrid things, but so far the results have been tasty. My cherry tomatoes this last year were all volunteers that grew from fallen fruit the year before (which I know also does weird hybrid things) so I'm hoping that'll work in my favor again! It's been really fun to see what happens! I've only had my garden going for about 4 years so it's still an evolving experiment.

This last year I grew cherry tomatoes, romaine lettuce, kale, 2 varieties of bush bean, scarlet runner beans, 3 varieties of beets, radishes, celery, corn (failed experiment), snap peas, leeks, cucumbers, yellow summer squash, zucchini, delicata squash (semi-failed experiment), and sweet meat pumpkins. We also have an herb garden in pots, a few small blueberry bushes, an ancient apple tree, and a baby lemon tree that looks more like a bush and hasn't made any lemons yet.

 

[cluckmecoop7]

Hey everyone! I'm growing alfalfa for the chickens! You can grow it inside and then give it to the chickens through out the winter! Anyone else doing this?

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Are you doing it fodder style? My experience with that has always been mold. Mold everywhere.

Today I was picking out melons to grow. D wants melons in the garden this year so we looked at OP varieties. We ended up going with PMR delicious 51 which is described as "a strain of Benders Surprise" and "Lightly ribbed. With an enticing aroma... And lush texture".

Oh my.

It also happens to be a prolific plant that ripens early and is open pollinated - great for seed saving and our short seasons.

 

[cluckmecoop7]

Well, I didn't say that I didn't start them yet. I'm still figuring things out. What's "fodder style"?

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Fodder is where you grow some seeds with no soil in flat trays and then feed out the whole plant, greens seeds and roots, to the chickens after a few days to a week.