Nevadans?

[americanvalkyrie]

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It's pretty much my baby here as well. My daughter loves to garden with me, but her motivation wears thin pretty fast. And everyone here realizes how much hard work goes into it, so they jump in and help when I ask for it, because we have a "don't work, don't eat" policy for all this nice produce. But as far as the excitement... yeah, it's mostlty me. We always plant way too many tomato plants... does a family of 4 really need 12 plants? But the weird weather for the past couple of years has kept us from drowning in tomatoes. We've moved more toward cheaper, guaranteed food and are not depending so much on tomatoes as the main staple crop. One zucchini plant per person will keep us in zucchini until frost. And this year we discovered why so many people plant swiss chard! If you like it, it's about the most guaranteed crop you can get. And if it gets away from you... chickens love it.

 

[americanvalkyrie]

Aubrey, my daughter loves looking at your chicken pics. A few days ago, she asked me if I was going to order any cocktail waitresses. Uh... showgirls? She's Nevada-raised, for sure.

 

[aubreynoramarie]

Thats soooo cute!!! If youre interested i am going to try and get some hatching eggs this spring

 

[Peep_Show]

Hopping in kinda late on this, but my favorite catalog is from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.... (website is www.rareseeds.com) The book is just a work of art and full of all sorts of European seeds, exotics and heirlooms. They've got their main outlet in Mansfield, MO, but DH and I stumbled into their CA branch in Petaluma. They took over the big ol' marble bank building on the main drag and renamed it "The Seed Bank." Nice folks inside, too, that gave out freebie seed packets to us.

Someday when I move someplace that's more conducive to gardening I'd like todo a theme, like try a garden of nothing but French varietals. But for now I struggle with the peppers and broccoli in pots. Plant them and wish them good luck because they've got a less than 50% chance of living. The herbs, though, do great here....basil, sage, rosemary, bay, thyme, mint....as do some edible flowers, but for the life of me I cannot get a tomato to survive the summer's blast furnace.

I am G-R-E-E-N with envy those of you with gardens!

(At the ranch we had lots of volunteers a la the compost pile which one year we spread in the corral and pasture... OMG. A zillion little yellow pear tomatoes that were insidious and tough as weeds to get rid off and some strange mutant cross between a spaghetti squash and a pumpkin that looked like an orange football.)

 

[SunnyDawn]

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Hahaha! I always think of tomatoes as loving the heat. I used to do well with tomatoes even in Stockton and Manteca but temps stay under 110 most of the time. Not so in Vegas!

Funny I was just surfing and came across that Baker's Creek seed site. I was wondering if anyone had tried them. That mutant Pumquash sounds cool!

 

[sherylreno]

I need a lot more pictures of the garden this year. I just didn't take all that many because I was always in it, picking & weeding. John planted 100 beans last year and they all came up and they all produced so many that I had to stop and let them dry on the wire instead. I still have over 50 pounds of fresh green beans in the freezer waiting to be eaten. Plus we were eating our fill of them too. Left over beans ended up in the salads every time so we had a different taste of them.

I've made several pots of beans this winter as well. I want a lot more carrots this year so I ordered tons of them. Carrots are one of the vegetables that can actually survive the winter here in the ground so you don't need to harvest all of them. Put straw over them in the winter and you can pick them right where you left them in the spring.

I'm looking forward to the Cardone going to seed this year. I planted them last year and they were the best I've ever had. They beat the stores by far. You can't buy Cardone seeds anymore from Italy so you must have the plant to get your seeds from. My plants will grow the seed pod this year for the first time and I'm so excited to see it happen. I just can't let the pod burst or they'll become a weed in the yard and you won't be able to get rid of them.

We're are planting corn for the first time too. We grew corn in California when we lived there but it got that dumb spore fungus in it and we didn't get any corn from the stalks. I'm hoping that doesn't happen here. I since found out the fungus was already in the seeds when we bought them. Lesson learned, get good seeds.

 

[NevadaRon]

Wow Missy the garden is very impressive! I really want to build a hoop house 'cause, like Sunny, I have back problems and there is no way I would be able to lug that many buckets in and out every morning and evening! But without it things like tomatoes and a few others just don't seem to grow.

Zucchini isn't one of those plants! They grow amazingly well here. If you're not out picking them every day you end up with ones that are as big as your arm in just two days! Those one's are great for grilling though.

Sunny I don't see how Steve can't taste the difference. I had 6 zucchini plants and had so many I would take them to work and to church to give away. Everyone commented on how much better they tasted than the store-bought!

I planted Northern Xtra Sweet Bicolor from Gurney's for a few years (never got my garden going last year after all the work of moving to a new place and all). It grows really well - even got volunteers starting with the second year. And it is sooo good! It comes in an all yellow variety, too, and comes up quick (67 days). Gurney's has some good stuff just not a huge variety of some plants.

Aubrey those "cocktail waitresses"

sure are cute! They look really happy in their new digs, too.

 

[SunnyDawn]

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Thanks for the link Ron! I'll go and order some tonight.

I really can't understand how he can't tell the difference either. To me it's like a completely different food when it's homegrown. I mean some things aren't vastly different but tomatoes?!!!

OK folks. Those of you who don't garden don't know this but corn likes to be planted in a large grouping or it doesn't pollinate as well. It will grow just fine, it just won't pollinate and give you huge ears if you don't plant quite a bit of it. Soooo since Steve and I are empty nesters now, meaning no teenagers and their hordes of ravenous friends to clean us out of house and home, who is gonna help me eat all this corn once I plant it? I'd be willing to swap crops with anyone wanting to as well. I was gonna take Missy up on her offer of a swap but since she is planting corn as well...

Missy I will post what I've ordered as soon as I get it done. I would love to swap some seeds.

Do you know now what you will have extra seeds for?

 

[NevadaRon]

Here's some pictures of my corn (and other stuff) from season before last.

These cantaloupe were awesome, too! Gurney's calls them "personal" size.

Check out this Zuke!

 

[SunnyDawn]

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COOL!!!

I had cantaloupe on my order too but haven't submitted it yet. I think I will change it to the small ones you mentioned. They should require a shorter season right? I figured it would be a joke to try anyway but these little ones might have a chance! How do they taste?