Today's bounty...
15It’s been unseasonably cool here this spring. Normally these crops have all gone to seed by now. My tomatoes, jalapenos, green and yellow peppers, cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelons… Everything is growing extremely well. Lots of blooms and fruit setting on virtually everything. Looks like it could be a good summer.
So my question: do you have a veggie garden? What are your "go to* crops?
Mine would probably be tomatoes and jalapenos.
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Oh, those are gorgeous!
@Kyeh
Thanks. I love having fresh veggies ‘at my doorstep’…
@chienfou You can’t get any fresher than that!
We have a vegetable garden - my wife is the gardener, I am just the manual labor (and consumer of the produce
).
This spring, I put a up a 6ft tall chain link fence around the garden spot in hopes of keeping the deer from eating all the goodies. So far, so good…
Our growing season here in Oregon is a bit later than yours - not much is ready for consuming just yet.
No garden. Don’t have the space and don’t need another hobby I’m bad at.
I planted a garden for the first time this year! Two vego elevated garden beds with lots of herbs, different peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and rock cherries.
@tinamarie1974
So it begins…
@chienfou just hoping I dont kill anything
Several of the herbs I have done for years mixed in my flower beds. I decided to pull them out to focus on flowers and expand the herbs. And sonce I putchased two beds, add veggies. We will see how it goes
@chienfou @tinamarie1974
What are rock cherries?
@chienfou @Kyeh sorry I should have said Ground Cherries. My bad
https://share.google/s8MqrZNDRVD2ZXWRl
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974
I keep meaning to try tomatillos…
@chienfou @Kyeh if I am successful w the ground cherries Ill try tomatillos next year!
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974
sounds like a plan. I think I have seen tomatillo plants at the nursery/home depot etc. Never seen the ground cherries tho… guess I could try to source some seeds.
@chienfou @Kyeh I had never seen them either, tried them for the first time in Germany in Feb and started looking around to grow them
Happened to be at a nursery locally that has hard to find flowers. On a whim went to their herb and veggie section and happened to see them sitting there.
@chienfou @tinamarie1974 My sister grew some ground cherries on her patio last year. They’re nice!
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974
Score!
@chienfou @Kyeh @tinamarie1974
I love both! Ground cherries are so lively in salads and I add them to salsas. Just make sure you have at least two plants/varietals. They’re super prolific even with our growing season.
@chienfou @Kyeh @sillyheathen why two? I did happen to get two, but whats the benefit wise one.
@Kyeh @sillyheathen @tinamarie1974
I’m guessing probably are not good self pollinators…
Hahhahahhahaha
Do I have a vegetable garden??? NO!
I keed. I keed.
Chiles, cucumbers, peas, onions, tomatillos, tomatoes, radish, summer squarshes, some baby Pam pumpkins, chard, broccolini, kale, carrots and eggplant. I need to sow beets.
My husband just started planting all the seedlings we grew in the indoor greenhouse we have. We won’t have any produce for a couple months but hoping to pull 1 ton (literal) off our plot this year.
@mbersiam
WOW
/giphy bowing to your highness
@mbersiam What do you grow?
@Kyeh if it grows in the midwest, we have planted it. thus year we are focusing on beans, corn, tomatoes, cukes, and basil for starters
@mbersiam Wow! Is this just for yourselves, or do you sell it too?
@Kyeh we’ve not sold yet because we’ve taken a few growing seasons to work the land and learn what grows best here, hoping to sell some this year though
@mbersiam Nice! Roadside stand? Or farmer’s market?
@Kyeh @mbersiam
Very cool.
I tend to grow things that I will make into products I use as gifts at Christmas or throughout the year, or things that just taste so much better fresh from the garden (like tomatoes).
When the kids were little we grew virtually anything that would grow in our area of the south. Primarily it was just so they would have a handle on how those things were produced. Corn was one of those things we only did once or twice because I didn’t really want to put corn up in the freezer (due to limited freezer space). When you plant corn it all gets ready at the same time so either you have to eat a crap-ton of corn over a short period of time or process it. The problem with small plots of corn is that once they get tall enough they’re not very stable if you get much of a wind so invariably the 6x6 ft plot would end up all laying down after a storm when it got close to having full ears. I had to resort to either staking it or containing it with fencing so it couldn’t blow over. If you plant larger plots the plants help support each other and that’s less of an issue (you know, the whole “strength in numbers” thing!) It was a bit of a PITA.
Cudos on being willing to put in the work involved to produce fresh veggies for yourself and others. I hope it’s successful!
That’s not very nice to post pics of delicious vegetables fresh out of one’s garden, especially this time of year. I love growing this type of bounty, but it’s been so cold up my way that I haven’t even fired up the roto-tiller to scratch the dirt in the garden. PS: We do tomatoes, chili peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant, tomatillos, and various herbs, onions/alliums.
@tohar1
)
Sorry (nahhh, not really
OTOH you can grow things that I can’t, like rhubarb. God I miss being able to grow rhubarb…
But yeah, living in Central Alabama definitely has some food gardening perks. Though to be honest, those three particular vegetables are spring or fall only here. In the summer they go straight to seed.
It does my heart good to know that there are still people that are gardening vegetables (à la Liberty/Victory garden) for their own consumption or for small-scale sale.
@chienfou Yeah, I have a massive rhubarb plant. I don’t even include that in my list of things I grow, just because once it’s established it just keeps on producing…even in the cold. Guessing first harvest might happen this weekend! YUM!!
@tohar1
I’m totally jealous. Rhubarb is one of the few plants that I can’t grow down here that I absolutely love. Put in an asparagus bed last year so hopefully we’ll start getting asparagus that we can actually harvest next year. Right now they are all still getting established, but the greenery is 3 ft tall and the entire plot is covered! Bodes well for next year!!
Blueberries are going great guns and should be ready in the next few weeks as well. Figs were leafing out early then got nailed by our last frost. They seem to have recovered well though so I think I’ll get a good crop again this year. Lots of pears on the pear tree.
But as I mentioned it has been unseasonably cool here which has tremendously extended my spring season. Last night was actually down to 52 locally… Virtually unheard of this time of year! It feels so nice to wake up to cool mornings with dew on the ground. Everything seems so fresh.
Better still our last frost was almost 2 months ago so I was able to plant all the summer crops between mid to late march. They’ve gotten a good jump on the season. I should be pulling peppers and tomatoes off in the next couple of weeks. Early June harvesting for those has not been common the last few years.
Last year I planted early and was out of town when we had an unexpected frost. I wasn’t able to cover my plants so I lost all of them a few weeks later and had to replant. It’s always worth the gamble though. At least to me.
@tohar1
I may have to dig around the interwebs to see if I can find a heat tolerant rhubarb…
@chienfou I’d love to have a fig tree or two, but they don’t really tolerate our extreme Winters. I do have 2 apple trees & a tart cherry tree on my property though, all in full bloom just within the last week! I’d be more than happy to ship you out some rhubarb if you aren’t able to secure any. I have an overabundance. Guessing it could be frozen for transportation purpose, if one were going to use it as soon as you received it. I’m planning an experiment this year creating a “Rhu-Barbeque” sauce just to use up some of our excess…(Shhh, don’t tell anyone
)
@chienfou @tohar1 It looks as though you can grow more heat-tolerant varieties in hotter climes but it sounds pretty complicated. rhubarb
@cf1 @tohar1
I’m in zone 7B. A brief check a little while ago makes it look like there are some heat tolerant varieties that would do well here. I’ll probably dig around the next couple of days and see if I can’t still order some, though they probably should have been planted in April.
Edit should say 8b
@chienfou @tohar1 We have a fig tree - every year it produces quite a few figs, but usually only a dozen or so actually get ripe enough to taste good. I guess the summers here just don’t get hot enough/long enough to ripen them (NW Oregon).
@macromeh @tohar1
Bummer. Mine usually ripen mid to end of July or so. My biggest problem is that I seem to be on extended trips around that time all too frequently. I do love making whole fig preserves and bourbon fig jam though. I’ve also dried a good many of them and I usually eat a shitload fresh.
Rub it in why don’t you LOL. I am hoping to be able to get my plants in the garden so I can at least have some tomatoes peppers lettuce and stuff like that. I know it probably should have already been in the ground but I’ve been dealing with medical issues and hospitalizations.