Forums >Off the Beaten Path>2012 Gardening Thread
I've grown Mr. Stripey and Mortgage Lifter. Mr stripey was cute and nice to look at, but the taste wasn't that great. Mortgage Lifter had a high yield of nice, big, good tasting tomatoes.
The great things about Heirlooms is you can save the seeds from your best and have great plants next year from seed!
Prince of Fatness
Many of my potatoes are flowering. I'll have to try to get a picture this weekend. I figure that in a couple of weeks I should be able to dig a plant or two up to have with dinner.
The vegetable garden is on autopilot right now because I am too busy with other outdoor projects. Last weekend I edged all of my flower beds and put down 7 yards of mulch. The good news is that most of the big projects are finished so now I should be able to devote some time to the vegetables. I did manage to get a few tomato plants in a couple of weeks ago.
Not at it at all.
I accidentaly weedeated some of my potato plants...um, oops? There are little stubs sticking up. Is this very bad? Will they grow back?
How far along were they? If they had already flowered then I would take my chances and dig them up. There may be a few smallish potatoes in there. If they haven't been in the ground long I'd leave them alone and see if you get some new growth. Not sure where you are, but warm temperatures won't help matters.
Feeling the growl again
Many of my potatoes are flowering. I'll have to try to get a picture this weekend. I figure that in a couple of weeks I should be able to dig a plant or two up to have with dinner. The vegetable garden is on autopilot right now because I am too busy with other outdoor projects. Last weekend I edged all of my flower beds and put down 7 yards of mulch. The good news is that most of the big projects are finished so now I should be able to devote some time to the vegetables. I did manage to get a few tomato plants in a couple of weeks ago.
Dude, really? Wow. After a 5-day work trip my fingerlings are FINALLY above ground. The Red Pontiacts are maybe 8" tall.
The grass is starting to come in hard. By the weekend I need to rototill everything, hill the taters, and try to get caught up.
My kitchen garden is going to be a waste this year. The flowers I planted from seed did not come up for some reason. Too bad, the girls really wanted snapdragons. The sunflowers that did come up, the dog jumped the fence and stepped on most of them. Err..
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
When did you plant. Mine have been in the ground roughly 60 days so I am not surprised by the flowers. Some plants are close to 2 feet high. As I recall you can harvest early varieties in about 80 days.
I do not recall, maybe 3 weeks? Part of the problem is it was really dry here for awhile. Stuff was not germinating. I finally watered the snot out of everything last week before I left, which is why it now took off. Typically the taters break ground in under a week. Not this year.
Yeah we had a dry winter here but since late April / early May we have been getting rain regularly. I haven't had to water anything in at least a month. Usually my potatoes take at least two weeks to come up but I plant pretty early and the ground is still a bit cold.
Thanks for the info. I better dig them up, they were already flowering. Dang it! I sort of just threw them in the ground because I had some from the grocery store that started to grow. They weren't really marked and I just forgot about them when I was weed eating. I will see what I come up with
Good news. The grape vines seem to have recovered somewhat. I see A LOT of fruit setting. The four that "died" will not need to be replaced, they are coming up from the root again...just set 2-3 years behind.
Bad news. I can't see a single fruit setting in the entire orchard. I think the frost nuked the fruit buds.
Worse news. Still no rain. Into Year 3 of the drought. My pond is already a foot low.
The garden is going pretty good, but my potatoes (remember, my first time), now about 1 foot high, I went to water this morning, and the spray from the hose actually pushed one of the plants over today. Is the root system that shallow? I'm afraid to stake them because I don't want to kill any roots or early taters that are already "in production".
What say the RA Gardiners?
Jeff
The garden is going pretty good, but my potatoes (remember, my first time), now about 1 foot high, I went to water this morning, and the spray from the hose actually pushed one of the plants over today. Is the root system that shallow? I'm afraid to stake them because I don't want to kill any roots or early taters that are already "in production". What say the RA Gardiners?
I'd say it depends if you planted them deep enough and the soil was soft enough. In my experience spuds don't like packed soil and will be a lot closer to the surface. That's why I will mine (that was fun last night), a nice soft mile of dirt around the young plant and the taters grow happy in the hill...and are easier to dig, to boot.
I guess I could put a mound around them. As long as that doesn't kill the plant.
It won't. No need to go nuts with the dirt. 6 inches would be plenty. I don't do this, but I do mulch with shredded leaves. You want to do one or the other otherwise some potatoes will be exposed to sunlight and turn green (an inedible). I like to mulch with leaves because the soil doesn't dry out so fast and I don't need to water as much.
Not the best picture but here you go. Lots of flowers but hard to see the color with this crappy phone picture. You can see Mr Potato Head on guard to the right. Heh.