What did you do in the garden today?

[TropicalBabies]

Here is a couple of pictures of last year’s garden. We have a short season June until late September. September being mostly harvesting maturing crop.
Wayne

Very exciting and beautiful!

 

[WthrLady]

I am actually a newbee myself. We bought the starter beehive kit at the local feed store. Then I did some research and found that there is actually a bee supply store not too far from me, so I bought the rest of my stuff there and ordered my bees from there as well.
The store offers bee classes and I found out that the local libraries around our area do too ( although they were all canceled due to covid 19). I also looked for bee clubs on FB and found several there too. They also hold bee keeping classes. I got lucky in that I found 2 people willing to be a mentor for me!! One is a lady that my daughter had worked with and the other is a lady that my niece knows. I bought a used bee suit from her and some other things.
The kit I got also came with a book, Bee Keeping for Dummies. I read it cover to cover and am going to re-read parts of it before Thursday.

BZZZZZZZ 55mph winds here today. All my bees are staying in.

 

[Acre4Me]

I bought Asparagus starts.....little bitty things. All due to the discussion here and the fact that they had starts at the local feed/garden place. So, now I need to find a god asparagus spot. Do they need all-day sun, or will a 7-8 hour stretch work? the best place will be on the south side of the barn...in the spring its all day sun bc the maple tree hasn't leafed out, but in the late spring, summer the maple tree shades that spot from about 2 or 3pm and later.

Strawberries are doing well, with a few flowers on them. I'll cover them for the cold nights. The beets and turnips are sprouting. All the potatoes are doing well with nice bright green leaves coming up!

Need to plant the peas, but haven't gotten there yet.

 

[nao57]

Sorry to bother you guys.

I had a potato growing question that I put in the garden section today. I am hoping for some advise on it, and wanted to invite anyone with potato growing experience to look there. (I did this because the garden section of this forum is REALLY small.)

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Sorry to bother you guys.

I had a potato growing question that I put in the garden section today. I am hoping for some advise on it, and wanted to invite anyone with potato growing experience to look there. (I did this because the garden section of this forum is REALLY small.)

What was your question?

 

[nao57]

I bought Asparagus starts.....little bitty things. All due to the discussion here and the fact that they had starts at the local feed/garden place. So, now I need to find a god asparagus spot. Do they need all-day sun, or will a 7-8 hour stretch work? the best place will be on the south side of the barn...in the spring its all day sun bc the maple tree hasn't leafed out, but in the late spring, summer the maple tree shades that spot from about 2 or 3pm and later.

Strawberries are doing well, with a few flowers on them. I'll cover them for the cold nights. The beets and turnips are sprouting. All the potatoes are doing well with nice bright green leaves coming up!

Need to plant the peas, but haven't gotten there yet.

Regarding your asparagus question, has the plants/seedlings gone through 'seedling hardening' already? To me this is the BIG question you must answer to yourself before proceeding.

I've lost tons of plants every year, from them not having hardened enough for transplanting, going outside, and you name it.

Once you put them through several days of hardening, I think you can put them out there. And typically most garden plants do have an average number of hours of sun they need. It tends to be slightly less for leafy greens, but they still need some. It also depends on what grow zone you are in? Which grow zone are you? And how dry, wet is the area you are in?

 

[nao57]

Is it ever really going to warm up? Four of the ten potatoes I planted are definitely coming up. My summer squash is growing like crazy inside but it would not survive these chill temperatures.

Potatoes actually do pretty well if it gets cold. I don't think you'll have lost the others. They might just be a bit slow. Often gardeners up north will say they sometimes even plant the potatoes when there's still a tiny bit of snow. (I don't do that...but it seems they are pretty hardy.)

Now I hope I don't bother you too much when I say, have you considered increasing the potatoes you plant?

In the past when I planted potatoes I'd get anywhere from 6 to 11 of them harvested from one (often about a pound each). And that often was determined by the soil fertility. They are really great for thriving in all kinds of conditions.

But this means, if you had to depend on your garden for food, the potatoes would be what helped make it worth it. They also are space efficient. And you can easily use what you harvested well.

BTW, I've also tried sweet potato slips and sweet potatoes. They are fun also, but they DO NOT do well up north or in periods of short growing seasons because they need like 120+ days to grow to fruition. So if you are in a short growing season it will look like all is well until end of season you find the plant did well but you didn't get any real meat on the shoots growing.

Potatoes are so wonderful in that they need much less days in the year of growing degree days than these other plants like corn (which also uses a lot). Sweet potatoes also use a lot.

 

[TropicalBabies]

It's raining again today, but I made the first pass with the timer yesterday. I will make another pass tomorrow hopefully. Then I will finally get potatoes in the ground. Once this cold spell breaks, I will transplant the tomatoes and summer squash (zucchini and yellow straight kneck). Trying to get DW to plant more seeds for us too. She got "big Boston bib" lettuce planted the other day in addition to the onions and peppers we planted. We need to get so many more things planted ASAP. Work and the weather keep getting in the way of gardening though.

Poor guy, you have been waiting so long and been pretty darn patient. Well, lets hope good things come to those that wait. I probably would have turned my garage or basement into a hot house with grow lights by now or just given up all together, so bravo to you @BReeder! .

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Potatoes actually do pretty well if it gets cold. I don't think you'll have lost the others. They might just be a bit slow. Often gardeners up north will say they sometimes even plant the potatoes when there's still a tiny bit of snow. (I don't do that...but it seems they are pretty hardy.)

Now I hope I don't bother you too much when I say, have you considered increasing the potatoes you plant?

In the past when I planted potatoes I'd get anywhere from 6 to 11 of them harvested from one (often about a pound each). And that often was determined by the soil fertility. They are really great for thriving in all kinds of conditions.

But this means, if you had to depend on your garden for food, the potatoes would be what helped make it worth it. They also are space efficient. And you can easily use what you harvested well.

BTW, I've also tried sweet potato slips and sweet potatoes. They are fun also, but they DO NOT do well up north or in periods of short growing seasons because they need like 120+ days to grow to fruition. So if you are in a short growing season it will look like all is well until end of season you find the plant did well but you didn't get any real meat on the shoots growing.

Potatoes are so wonderful in that they need much less days in the year of growing degree days than these other plants like corn (which also uses a lot). Sweet potatoes also use a lot.

I’m only growing enough for myself. Btw: I just planted the potatoes recently so not surprising. And I’m well aware of the limitations on the growing season here. But thank you for your kind advice.

 

[karenerwin]

This is the raised bed my hubby built for me. Now to dig out the sod and use it elsewhere. Then to fill the bed. Hubby read about putting logs in the bottom to take up volume, so we plan to do that too.