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donttread
09-16-2017, 09:22 AM
Well I've only been really gardening since 2011 but even with a hundred or so tomatoes still green I think it's safe to call it my best year ever. The most and best spaghetti squash and by far more zucchini than I have ever grown before. A ton of tomatos, albeit some of them may be of the fried green or green salsa variety, more herbs than ever before. I even grew some zucchini in a big pot! I'll finish with only 5-8 cabbage thanks to my gopher friend , but by taking a few out I think he helped me thin the garden at just the right time. Depite him I also got a decent amount of broccoli and more cauiflower than ever because I took them early before their so called self blanching failed or the gopher destroyed their plant. Most cukes ever as well. Not the best but pretty good. A bunch of radishes and lettuce early on.
All in less than 200 square feet counting the 7 pots.
I'll also have all the Jerusalem Artichokes I'll want a little later, but I grow them outside the garden.

When do those of you in a more southern climate consider harvest time?

JVV
09-16-2017, 09:25 AM
This year was my best garden also ... it being my first garden. :)

Ethereal
09-16-2017, 09:27 AM
More Americans need to return to their agrarian roots.

The land and nature's bounty are the best "safety net" one could hope for.

resister
09-16-2017, 09:56 AM
Harvest time in the south depends on what you plant, several times a year. Citrus comes in late fall but the hurricane wiped out 75% of the crop.

Common
09-16-2017, 10:36 AM
Been a lousy year in florida for homegrown stuff, except for cantaloupes and tomatoes
Ive never been able to figure out why florida cant grow navel oranges.

donttread
09-16-2017, 10:51 AM
This year was my best garden also ... it being my first garden. :)

What did you grow?

donttread
09-16-2017, 10:53 AM
Been a lousy year in florida for homegrown stuff, except for cantaloupes and tomatoes
Ive never been able to figure out why florida cant grow navel oranges.

We have researched what keeps tomatos from turning red and apparently eith too cold a summer ( like we had) or too warm ( like Florida in the summer) and they don't like to turn red. We're having amini heat wave with severl days at or above 75 in a row so my tomatos are grudingly turning red, slowly.

donttread
09-16-2017, 10:54 AM
Harvest time in the south depends on what you plant, several times a year. Citrus comes in late fall but the hurricane wiped out 75% of the crop.

How did your house and your garden fare? I'm guessing the garden plot is still mud but I'm hoping that is the biggest of your storm related worries.

donttread
09-16-2017, 10:58 AM
More Americans need to return to their agrarian roots.

The land and nature's bounty are the best "safety net" one could hope for.


It's amazing what we have given up for mono culture and nationaicm/globalism. There are so many edible plants you can grow and many are much more cold tolerant than Monsanto's wheat and corn food pyramid. Several suited for each region I'm sure.
I'm sitting here curently with some mint and lavender trying to fu=igure out how to make the wife some potporri.

JVV
09-16-2017, 11:16 AM
What did you grow?


Three varieties of tomato (two small and one big), strawberries, cilantro, basil, radishes, squash, carrots, lettuce, onions, kohlrabi, cucumber. Have some watermelon out there which is still trying to decide if it's going to grow. I started late in planting and Fall has started early up here in Wisconsin, so we shall see.

Around 100 square feet ... probably a little more with the containers.


Oh yes, I started some asparagus ... after deciding I probably didn't have room for it ... but I had a seed packet ... I put some in an out of the way, grassy spot, where the internet says it won't grow well ... on the theory that it couldn't hurt ... and sure enough we have some promising looking sprouts. Have to wait a couple of years to see if that comes to anything. THAT puts me over 100 square feet. :thumbsup20:

donttread
09-17-2017, 06:24 AM
Three varieties of tomato (two small and one big), strawberries, cilantro, basil, radishes, squash, carrots, lettuce, onions, kohlrabi, cucumber. Have some watermelon out there which is still trying to decide if it's going to grow. I started late in planting and Fall has started early up here in Wisconsin, so we shall see.

Around 100 square feet ... probably a little more with the containers.


Oh yes, I started some asparagus ... after deciding I probably didn't have room for it ... but I had a seed packet ... I put some in an out of the way, grassy spot, where the internet says it won't grow well ... on the theory that it couldn't hurt ... and sure enough we have some promising looking sprouts. Have to wait a couple of years to see if that comes to anything. THAT puts me over 100 square feet. :thumbsup20:

Sounds prety successful especially for a first try in a small plot. Our soil is so bad I had to build a raised bed garden and "make" my own soil . Never tried Asparagus, does it need to over winter before producing?

JVV
09-17-2017, 01:48 PM
Supposedly asparagus takes two years to start producing. So some people will start their gardens with one-year-old crowns, as they are called. (Supposedly two-year-old crowns aren't as successful.)

Then when they start producing, you harvest them sparingly for the first couple of years. But somewhere around year 5, you can start taking more, and the plants keep producing for about 15 or 20 years.




I transported a lot of compost and some manure into our backyard. Our house used to be beachfront property ... a few thousand years ago. Lake Michigan is now about half a mile away but we still have a lot of sand. We have a nice compost site about a mile away though which we can use for free, so that helped.

donttread
09-18-2017, 05:12 PM
Supposedly asparagus takes two years to start producing. So some people will start their gardens with one-year-old crowns, as they are called. (Supposedly two-year-old crowns aren't as successful.)

Then when they start producing, you harvest them sparingly for the first couple of years. But somewhere around year 5, you can start taking more, and the plants keep producing for about 15 or 20 years.




I transported a lot of compost and some manure into our backyard. Our house used to be beachfront property ... a few thousand years ago. Lake Michigan is now about half a mile away but we still have a lot of sand. We have a nice compost site about a mile away though which we can use for free, so that helped.

Nice job.