What's Going on in your Veggie Garden-Part 5

My first planting of tomatoes is just about worn out although it was a good year. I pruned off all the young foliage to help keep them contained a few couple of weeks ago, so when the what's hanging on the plant ripens, that's its.

The second batch is blooming and healthy, but I don't know if they will produce before fall. We'll see.

Today's harvest.

Hubby picking the okra. It's tall!!

Pulling out the pole beans in preparation for fall planting.

Our second sowing of "Royal Burgundy" bush beans are doing well. There should be enough to share with the neighbors soon.

The "Ace" sweet pepper plants are loaded with fruit. I picked a few red ones this morning.

Had some much needed rain the past couple of days. Everything is looking nice and green again.

Bee,
Could you post a pic of your bells? Mine are loaded, too, but all my bells are miniatures. I want LARGE bells, aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhh!

Linda

Honey, I'd love to see a pic of the bush beans! I purchased some seeds to plant this fall.

Today, my okra plants are taking a beating from the wind! Not sure what's going on out there, but they are swaying big time!

Steph,
Roughly how many okra plants do you have going? I have 7. Four are in eBuckets, and 3 are planted in RB #1.

My eBucket okras dry out really fast compared to those in the bed. And, those in the bed started cranking out okras almost as soon as I put them in. The eBucket ones took a lot longer to kick in.

We have 2 different varieties. I think we have 8 Hill Country Red and 4 or 6 Emerald Green Velvet. The Emeralds took forever to get going this year, but that's probably because the seed was old. They're going great now. The Hill Country Red is VERY prolific, though. No matter what size pods I pick, when cooked up they are very tender. We have left a couple of pods out there right now for seeds.

Thanks!

I picked lots of tomatoes this morning, which I didn't get pictures of. I had these two really big BEEFMASTERS which I have been watching ripen for a few days now. . Don't know why I didn't take pictures of those as I ment too and they were so nice too. Can't take pictures of them now because I took all the tomatoes I picked along with some of my cucumbers over to my car mechanics shop. I know all the mechanic there and the boss there really takes care of my car and loves tomatoes. So they have plenty to divy up amoung themselves.

But really this is why I need to grow so many tomato plants. I need plenty for me and plenty so I can give them away to friends and neighbors.

Rita, don't you just love sharing your bounty? I work with several students who I know don't eat properly and enjoy having fresh veggies. They really enjoy it!

I tried to cut back on my veggie growing so for the past two years grew very little. It just did NOT work for me. I didn't have enough to share and I was not happy. Around here no ones grows their own veggies so they are really easy to give away. Everyone really loves to get home grown tomatoes and cucumbers. So this year put in new veggie bed areas and have plans to expand even more for next year.

I really love to be able to give all these home grown tomatoes and cucumbers away. I am sure that I feel even better about it than the people getting them do. It makes me truely happy to be able to share.

Here, here!

I'm TRYING to get to the point of having enough excess to give away!

Today's harvest

Okree anyone??

Those okree are wonderful! What variety are you growing? Mine don't ever get that fat.

The fat ones are Hill Country Red. They have a very mild okra flavor, but are very tender when cooked, pretty much no matter the size.

Emerald Velvet takes forever, even when the seed are fresh. Once they get going, they are good producers though.

About four quarts of Juliet tomatoes here in the bag out of the 6 quarts of Juliets I picked today.

My neightbors 2 kids just love these and eat all I can give them. They got this bag.

Bunches of cucumbers picked. There are Burpless, Marketmore, Straight Eight, Palace King and one China Long Cucumbers here.

Here is an area of my yard I used to have a few roses. This spring dug up and moved the roses and planted tomatoes and some cantalops.

Wanted to add that is my house in tha backround but those back veggies are out 45 inches from the wall so away from the drip line of my old house. I am worried that I planted my melons too late as they have small ones but need lots more time to grow.

This message was edited Aug 9, 2012 2:20 PM

My Better Bush tomato plant is the healthest looking thing. Just in back you can get a glimpse of the Patio tomato in back of it which looks like it is on its last legs. They are both growing in containlers.

some fall peas are in these pots

I am glad I picked lots of tomatoes Thursday and Friday as It rained hard today. Plants need the rain but if the tomatoes are too near ripe they suck up too much water and split. I used to loose a lot of what would have been good tomatoes that way past years. This year I learned to pick them earlier when they are not as ripe and to always pick if they are predicting strong rains.

Tomatoes have been fabulous this year. I keep saying that but I just can't say it enough. Great year for tomatoes here in my garden.

I hear that from a few people here and there ,and it is good to have nice or good garden crops,You are the lucky one this year,!!! That is not meant to taake anything away from your patience or skill as a gardener,it is only so many have had difficulty this year.
A few places even being allowed to water did not help enough.
All the farms and gardens around here look pretty good this year.

I am a good gardener but really the tomatoes are just extra good this year. Haven't done anything different really from other years.

My neighbor told me she had read in the newspaper that this was a great year for tomato production on Long Island. Well I sure do agree on that!

Today I picked and also ate some of the VIVIA ITALIAS that are just really getting into production now. They taste really good even to eat fresh. Bet these will make fabulous sauce and salsa. Have to get some pictures soon. I never wanted to eat Romas fresh but the Vivia Italias taste so much better than those old Romas used to.

Cucumbers I picked today. The odd looking one at the bottom is one of my chinese cucumbers.

The three BEEFMASTER tomatoes I picked today. The largest one weighs 1 pound 13 ounces.

Ha, I remembered to weigh it this time before I gave those three tomatoes away. I kept two cucumbers for myself and gave all the rest away. Cucumbers to a neighbor and I gave Vinnie, my friend that sits accross the street in the parking lot booth the rest and the tomatoes. I park one of my two cars there in the beach parking lot so talk to him often. Didn't use to be my friend but now I give him stuff from the garden so he sure is glad to see me coming.

Giving veggies away earns you LOTS of friends! LOL!!

Honestly, all the neighbors around here know I grow tomatoes. No one seems to grow their own. Not unto gardening. Not like me. My yard is full of shrubs and flowers and my veggies that I grow.

Rita,
Are you making homemade compost? I did a lot of reading over the weekend, and inch for inch, it seems that compost is worth its weight in gold as a growing medium.

Please comment, as I'm about to start making all the homemade compost and leaf mold I can, as an amendment to fill all my raised beds and grow my veggies in. In a nutshell, compost was described as simply, "food for plants." And, it seems that the compost is a "complete" food, providing almost everything a veggie might need to grow successfully.

If I can create this type of beneficial "soil" for free, it's a no-brainer that I should move forward.

Linda

Compost is most wonderful. I can only manage to make small amounts and have to buy it. Either bagged or by the truckload. Go ahead with your compost program!

What I do though is heavily mulch my gardens with either fall leaves (free) or if I don't have enough, straw that I buy in bales. The worms come in and eventually break it down. Fabulous for the garden.

Compost is awesome and it's garden gold, but compost does not equal soil; you need both. Soil is mostly made out of rocks; compost out of carbon materials. Most compost we buy/use is not fully decomposed to the point where plants can utilize it optimally. Compost alone usually doesn't drain well enough and causes root problems. Not all compost is created equal. And compost doesn't provide the minerals and trace elements that we and the plants need. You can improve the mineral content of your compost by adding wood ash and leaves and some weeds with deep tap roots, but that's just recycling the minerals in the soil already. (Conversely, the presence of compost in the soil helps it hold on to minerals which are easily leached away.)

I would still ahead and compost all you can... I call it the incredibly shrinking compost pile. You'd be very hard pressed to compost enough to fill all your gardening needs. I compost everything and haul in truckloads and it slowly vanishes, taken down into the soil by worms and such and also just decomposing into nothing. But the soil gets better and better each year, a little bit farther down each time. Of course my plant's roots go way down below the part I've tried to optimize for them; they know what they need.

BTW, I've tried the compost-only thing in pots, where the roots couldn't get down to soil. Same thought process, too. But the plants didn't do quite as well and didn't taste as flavorable, IMO.

This message was edited Aug 13, 2012 1:51 PM

Thanks for that thorough input NicoleC!

So, in terms of "soil" for my raised beds, I've been making my own based on Tapla's suggested formula for my specific raised beds:
5 parts pine bark fines
2 parts builders sand
1-2 parts Turface Pro League (or save the fines screened from MVP if you use the gritty mix)
1-2 parts vermiculite
1 part compost or reed/sedge peat

Here's the actual "soil" mix I've been making:
5 parts pine bark fines
2 Parts sharp builder's sand
0 parts Turface Pro League (cost prohibitive for me...)
2 Parts Vermiculite
1 part composted cow manure
2 parts sphagnum Peat

So far, the plants have been real happy. The mix is very loose, very fast draining, and very well aerated. Only issue I'm having is watering a bit more frequently, which I don't mind in the fall/wtr., but this heat is getting to me. I don't mind being up close and personal with the plants either, it's just this heat seems to have the RB drying out faster than usual. It could also just be my imagination or me suffering from heat mirages!.

In any case, I'm installing a drip irrigation system soon, so that will take care of that.

I'd be adding the homemade compost to the formula above.

What's the best way to add it? Right on top as the final layer? Mix it in to the top 4-6"? Layer it on first in a new raised bed? Where do I put the compost?

Thanks!

P.S. I'm in the process of filling in my 2nd RB. So far, I have only half the length filled, so If I need to mix the compost in, lemme know before I get it all filled in.

Also, a local fertilizer store here has leaf mold for $9/bag. I read that is a good additive, too.

Raised beds do dry out a bit quicker and get a bit hotter. The mix is basically a potting soil mix, which will help hold some moisture, but only as deep as the mix goes. What's your native soil like underneath? And how deep are your beds?

Leaf mold for $9 a bag?! Holy cow! I can get it for free -- I think 10 pickup truck loads last year but only one so far this year. I use lots of it, but if you mix it in or plant seeds in it, it does depress germination rates, so I just layer it on top about an inch or two deep. By the time the microcritters and worms have processed it down, it's really good for my soil quality.

Ok. Nix on the $9/bag of leaf mold. I'll just rake up all the yards in my neighborhood in December when the leaves drop. Problem is, my trees on the front are oak, and it takes a long time for that to break down. Only one large tree in the yard, and it give me about 4 large contractor bags of leaves.

Do I need to ask my neighbors what trees they have before I offer to rake up their leaves?

My native soil....hmmmmmm. Tight as a rock underneath the RB, although some areas had baby frogs (underneath the storage shed I tore down) and yardlong worms...

My beds are 11" deep -- the ground underneath was tilled an additional 8".

LEAF MOLD -- "layer it on top" AFTER I've transplanted my seedlings, right?

Linda

Mix your compost into your soil. If you apply it directly to the top, it can burn whatever you plant. Now, you can apply a layer in the fall after you've dug everything up and allow it to work its way down over the winter.

I agree with Stephanie -- mix your compost in. It's fertilizer.

As for leaf collecting, I would avoid the oak leaves for annual vegetable production. If you are going to directly mulch with leaves, I suggest shredding them with a mower first. If you don't shred them, they can form a mat and prevent water from getting to the plants below. Think of it as mulch, just a little layer around your seedlings and be sure to give them some space around the stem. The worms will do the rest.

Many crops will send roots more than 11" deep, so it was probably very smart to till that bottom layer up. Personally, I'd mix a good bit of that soil in, but since you are doing well I wouldn't change unless you feel the need.

THANKS, YOU GUYS!

Two more questions:

►I'm still trying to understand the difference between compost (plant food), and mulch. Is mulch just a layer of material set on the very top to help keep the soil bed cool, and the moisture in? Sort of like a "blanket" on the beds?

Compost = plant food
Mulch = a nice, comfie, blanket?

►Regarding real SOIL in my mix, I don't actually have any soil in it. I went to a presentation last night by a Master Gardener from near here. When I told her my RB mix formula, she said I needed some SOIL, unless my veggies were doing ok. Well, they're doing ok, but, now I'm wondering if they could be doing better if I mixed in some garden soil.

The pine bark fines and sharp sand are chunky enough to create aeration pockets, and the peat, vermiculite, and compost hold in the moisture. The beds are oxygenated, fast draining, yet hold a good bit of moisture (I can go at least 2 days between waterings, and it's still moist about 1" down). My seedlings take off lightening fast in the mix, too. I believe it's all the oxygen the roots get. So far, no problems with anything I've planted to date. (Except a bug here and there....)

I know I'll have shrinkage from the breakdown of the organics in the mix, but a load of the PBFs to refresh both beds next season will only cost me $18. Which is why I switched over to that mix. I imagine I'd have less shrinkage if there was garden soil in there...

??

Linda

Yes, you've got it. Mulch goes on top. It helps moderate soil temperate swings and conserve soil moisture. Mulch turns into compost eventually. You can mulch with compost if it's well finished or the plants are older ("side dressing"), but you wouldn't want to use mulch like compost. (Unless you are doing hegulkulture, which is a strange animal.)

Our climates are very similar in the middle of summer, and I *rarely* water. Only in really dry spells -- say 3 or 4 times a year -- and I go a bare minimum of one week (more likely two) between waterings or a nice rain, depending on the soil moisture levels. The fact you are watering more often is partly a function of the fact you plant your beds very intensively, but it sounds to me like your soil is drying out way too fast, or else you are watering too shallowly and too often, instead of slow and deep.

If you'd got that Houston clay, adding some of that will not only provide some good fertility, but clay also holds water very well.

The more I'm researching and viewing harvest videos (stuff planted mostly in a peaty mix vs. more "soil" component), the more I'm convinced I need to add some plain old DIRT to my mix!

Thanks for the the comeback, NicoleC!
The Houston clay is clumpy, more like thick playdough. I can't even break it up to add it to my mix!