((Serious Gardening))

[CrazyFowlFreak]

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[Kassaundra]

I am seriously behind in the garden, but here is my planting so far

I have cut the center side walls out giving the plants more room and started filling w/ leaves.

 

[1MrsMagoo]

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Most of my tomatoes are indeterminate and need support and the Florida weave is the support system I am trying this year. I have some concrete wire cages that work pretty well, but since I have 70 plants in the ground right now, that one would have put me in the poor house before I bought enough wire for my cages. I decided to try this since the initial investment is the t-posts (using 6' posts which are 4.25 each at Tractor Supply-would have liked to use 7' but those are over $6 each), which I always end up needing since I also have a horse, cow, goats, chickens, and ducks who need fencing. Plus, if they don't get used elsewhere, the posts are a LOT easier to store during the winter than those cumbersome rusty wire cages.

To do Florida weave, you drive a t-post stake between every 2nd or 3rd tomato plant and wrap a nylon string or rope around the post toward the bottom and then weave it (pass the plants left, right, left) through the plants and around the next post making sure to keep it taught. The next row, coming back the opposite direction you raise up between 2-4" and it goes on the opposite side of the plant as the previous pass. On the recommendations of an old farmer I am using nylon baling twine (30,000 ft for $29) and doing my weave rows 2" apart. You can use any sort of string or twine, just the nylon works better because it doesn't stretch over time like natural fiber.

Here is a website that explains it with pictures. They do a stake every two plants and therefore do not weave the way I did, but it is basically the same thing. I pushed my luck and did every third plant to reduce the number of t-posts needed.
http://www.foogod.com/~torquill/barefoot/weave.html

So far, it is working pretty well.: Some of my plants are approaching 3 feet and staying where I put them. I think I am going to prune some of the Italian culinary tomatoes I planted though...they are getting wildly bushy on their way up. Doing this also allows the guineas and my select few garden chickens to maintain around the base of the plants, whereas they cannot get near the plants in cages.

I really hope this works, since their is nothing worse than having a plant topple over and sprawl on the ground: You end up losing half your tomatoes...

 

[Kassaundra]

mrsmagoo, that is great info, some of my favorite descriptors, cheap, easy, effective.

 

[1MrsMagoo]

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I know I'm kinda nutso, but I LOVE gardening and canning. This is the first year since moving to this house in 2008 that I have had a garden near the size I wanted.

The spot in the photo was occupied by a pile of trees that had been knocked down during hurricane katrina in 05, pushed into a HUGE pile and left there by the previous owners. I really wish I had taken pictures of tree mountain....the pumpkin hill is the last remnants of the trees that took up that entire area: The pile was nearly 8' tall and 30' long when we started.
We cut, burned, moved dirt and repeated for 2 1/2 years to get that spot which is the only clear sunny...non-pasture spot on our 6.5 acres. I really needed this spot because the front 3 acres looks like this ....(mostly mature live oak trees)

I dumped the litter from my chicken house, brooders, and goat pen out there and disked it in all winter and plan on doing that every year from now on. I still have another 45 feet beyond the last row, but need to move more dirt to the area before planting there: It is low and floods a bit. One thing is for sure....thank goodness for a tractor with a front end loader.

I really can't imagine having to do this like my grandparents did....

 

[Kassaundra]

I have a question, I am about to transplant my seedlings from the seed bed to the pots, I know I can plant the tomatoes deeper covering the stem, can I do that w/ squash, melons, and cukes?

 

[CowgirlJules]

No, they really don't like it. I know it will kill watermelons pretty quickly.

 

[1MrsMagoo]

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Kassaundra,

The tomatoes will actually do much better by planting them deep since you are giving them a much larger root area; this is especially helpful in areas that get very hot like here. Make sure to snap off any growth on the part of the stem that will be buried and leave the about 1/3 of the plant above ground (a 10 inch tall plant will only have 3 inches above the soil level). I'm not sure about the squash, melons, and cukes since I always direct seed them, but I do know that you can put peppers a bit deeper, like bury the bottom inch or two above the roots: too much more than that and they will damp off and die.
A general rule for me is this....if I notice a plant that develops roots anywhere it is touching dirt, then I will try planting those deeper.

Also, don't forget to snap the suckers off your tomato plants as they grow. This makes for healthier plants and you can plant the sucker in a small pot of moist soil (keep out of direct sun for a couple days and well watered) and if it takes off....you've just cloned the parent plant. The new plant will bear at a smaller size than the parent since it is genetically the same age as the parent plant.

Speaking of melons: I got a tip this year from a guy that sells them by the semi trailer load off of less than 5 acres. Once the plants start to vine, walk your rows and put the vines back up on the row then side-dress your mounds with 8-24-24 fertilizer. He keeps the vines on his rows as long as possible and keeps the weeds knocked down in between his rows. He gets watermelons so big I can't even lift them and his rows are far closer than recommended: He's been growing them that way for years. I am trying that this year although I only put in one 60' row so far. The best year I had prior only saw a bunch of little melons with a couple 10 pounders grown in the soil scraped off my horse paddock.

I am new to melons though....I lived in NE Ohio my whole life till moving to SE LA in 2006 and never really messed with trying to grow them. I had to relearn so much about gardening due to the climate here, but really love the extended growing season.

 

[feather and mountain man]

Flood waters may just completely ruin my garden and I may be starting over when water finally goes down! I was behind before and now I may be starting over. Just have to see how many plants survive.

 

[1MrsMagoo]

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I hope the water stops with the garden and that a lot more plants survive than you think.

I'll be keeping all our midwest and northern gardeners in my prayers as this new storm wreaks havoc across the country's mid-section. Too much rain and too many tornadoes up that way in the past several weeks: Everyone needs a break and some calm clear....more normal weather for a while.