Your 2026 Garden

[jxp]

I have 5 raised garden beds, 4x4 each. One is for herbs, rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme, chives, parsley do well. The other ones are used for various vegetables with various levels of success. Usually zucchini do very well, the chickens get all the big ones that I overlooked. Beans are always easy, cucumbers do well. Can’t grow carrots, they stay small if they survive. Tomatoes did poorly last year but will try again. Have not seeded or planted anything yet Potatoes will go in big pots and planter bags, so will my garlic. Sweet potatoes will go in the ground behind the chicken run, they do so much better there than in planter bags. Trimmed my 5 fig trees, transplanted 6 blackberry bushes and 6 raspberry bushes, have a gooseberry bush and 4 blueberry bushes left to transplant next week. Planted some small paw paw and persimmon trees, they’re only 2 - 3 feet tall. My elderberry bushes have a few leaves. I have 3 peach trees but it’s hit or miss with frost after they have flowers. Last year I planted a plum tree and some apple trees, I hope they will produce but it’s going to be a while, they’re just about 5-6 feet tall. I’m a bit of a haphazard gardener when it comes to veggies.
Will grow tomatoes from starters I buy at the Amish farm. Have to direct sow some stuff in a week or two and then ‘secure’ the beds from the feathered ‘helpers’……

Wow! I'm exhausted just reading about all that work. Good good, you!

 

[fldiver97]

Most of the herbs are perennials. The herbs are the easiest and I usually just dry and store some late fall. I grow cilantro and basil and mint in pots, from seed (unless the mint survived winter and neglect)
The berry transplants are the hardest but satisfying work to get them moved, mulched and trimmed a bit. This year I will use cattle panel sections for the raised beds to make my life easier .
Three nights of frost in the forecast but then a nice warm up for just a few seeds , the rest is going in as seedlings in a couple of months.

 

[kattabelly]

Has anyone else ever grown tomatoes completely indoors?

(I know this post is from a while ago but 46 pages is a lot to get through and I've been avoiding looking at this thread until now because I don't need even more ways to waste my time )

I grow a dwarf variety most years that's been specifically developed for lower light levels - just a big south-facing window will do. It's originally Russian, I think, but I got the seed from a UK company and now save my own. If you try growing it outdoors, the extra light actually makes it look stunted and deformed!

 

[Debbie292d]

I don't need even more ways to waste my time

Thanks for stopping by though!

A low-light tomato does sound interesting. I've never heard of it. I'll have to look next time. Thanks!

 

[kattabelly]

Thanks for stopping by though!

A low-light tomato does sound interesting. I've never heard of it. I'll have to look next time. Thanks!

I think it's effectively something like one of the micro bush varieties, but grown outdoors in full sun it needs more careful management and lots of pruning to add ventilation because the leaves grow so close together. Grown indoors it's technically etiolated due to "low" light but the leaves are a healthy colour and far enough apart that ventilation or poor ripening aren't issues.