What did you do in the garden today?

[ShrekDawg]

Found a dead rat in the garden… I guess the season’s over…

 

[jerryse]

There are parthenocarpic varieties that can set seedless fruit if not pollinated.

 

[jerryse]

Anyone ever seen a tomato that didn't grow many seeds in it?
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I don't know which variety this is, sorry. I found two of them, and none of the varieties I planted just had two tomatoes ripen. These were an anomaly.

 

[gtaus]

Personally I think there's a fine line between what food should be regulated/inspected and what is overreach. A staggering amount of perfectly good food gets thrown away because it's too small, too big, or fails to meet some other arbitrary or questionable "standard."

It's too bad that communities just don't have lots of backyard chickens that could take all that food deemed not fit for human consumption, eat it all up, and return fresh eggs and compost. I have seen a few videos on YouTube where a person loads up all that trashed restaurant food and feeds it to his chickens. Seems to work for him, he makes all kinds of great compost, and gets some fresh eggs as a bonus.

Dear Wife is the food regulator and inspector at our house. If some food is deemed not fit for our table, it goes into the chicken bucket, guilt free. When you think about it, chickens are even better than dogs in eating up all those kitchen scraps and leftovers. I loved growing up with a dog in the house, but it never gave me a fresh egg for breakfast or compost for the garden!

It's not only food that we waste. A quick trip out to our county landfill and you will see mounds full of grass clippings, leaves, wood chips, etc... all to be buried in a pit. I personally don't let anything organic off my property. If the chickens can eat it, great. If not, it's going to the chicken run compost system to make compost for next year's gardens. That's my new mind set now that I have a backyard flock.

Years ago, however, everything got bagged up, tossed into a trailer, and hauled out to the landfill like all my neighbors. Never gave it a second thought.

 

[gtaus]

Strawberry patch failure...

3 years ago, I bought about 16 strawberry plants to plant in a raised bed. The first year, I got maybe a dozen or two of strawberries, and no more that year. The next year, all my strawberries were eaten up by bees. I asked around, and the problem was that there was not enough rain that year so the insects were eating the berries. This year, I did not even bother to cover the strawberry patch with bird netting. I don't think I ever saw a full strawberry on any of the plants. But it could be that the squirrels and birds just ate the small berries on the plant before they had a chance to grow. All in all, I estimate it cost me about $3.00 per strawberry I actually harvested and ate.

So, that was a big disappointment. I have read that strawberry plants are not productive after the second or third year, so I will be digging them out and be done with them. I don't plan on getting any more.

Another lesson learned on this failure is that I will never again grow multi-year plants in one of my hügelkultur raised beds. Each year, as the wood in the hügelkultur raised bed composts, the level of the soil in the raised bed drops maybe an inch or two. Well, how do you top off the strawberry bed without actually covering the plants in the raised bed? Never thought of that before I planted strawberries. Now, that bed is down about 5 inches from top level. I'll dig out the strawberry plants and backfill everything with fresh compost for the garden next year. But I will only plant one season crops in those raised beds from now on.

I don't blame anyone but myself. Fortunately, my other crops did very well this year and we were very happy with all our other successes. So, that strawberry bed will be turned into something else next year, like maybe kale, onions, and Swiss chard which I did not plant this year. Love those greens but did not grow any this year. Really missed them.

 

[chickengr]

Anyone ever seen a tomato that didn't grow many seeds in it?
View attachment 3640751
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I don't know which variety this is, sorry. I found two of them, and none of the varieties I planted just had two tomatoes ripen. These were an anomaly.

they sell seeds as for tomatoes for stuffing. no name here.

 

[Sally PB]

I have not had good luck with strawberries either, for different reasons. There is some kind of wilt or something in my soil, and nearly all the plants have succumbed to it. There's one plant left, and it put out a lot of runners. I'm going to repopulate the bed with those; maybe it has some kind of resistance...?

 

[Dadanga]

I bought some Strawberries from bunnings to put in the NFT rail and while it shot a lot of flowers, the fruiting isn't going that great. Probably one of the drawbacks of using one NFT to run a multitude of different plants; hard making everyone happy.

Today I bought a 2nd hand mower. 190cc beast that tackled the jungle in my old mans backyard. Also got around to finally blending up the coco block that's been sitting. It'll be used as a seedling mix/fill for the kratkie systems and whatever terracotta pots I find lying around. Going to put an ebony truss seedling in one such pot and blast all the soil off and repot it with coco/perlite.

Also did a lot of weeding underneath my rose bushes and saved some Aloe growing there. They may get the same treatment. And then there's the Africana Kalanchoe.

 

[gtaus]

There's one [strawberry] plant left, and it put out a lot of runners. I'm going to repopulate the bed with those;

If the strawberry plant is considered past its productivity after 2 or 3 years, do the runners from that plant reset that clock?

I am wondering if it is worth my time and effort to keep some of the runners from my plants that I dig out of the raised bed, and then plant the runners into pots for the deck for next year, for example.

 

[Sally PB]

If the strawberry plant is considered past its productivity after 2 or 3 years, do the runners from that plant reset that clock?

I'm not sure. I *think* so? A friend of mine who has great strawberries has never said that she bought new plants.