Late Summer Veggie Garden Pt 3 & Fall Veggie Gardens (Pt 2)

My daughter showed me the faithful sprinklin of seeds before I left Texas has netted lettuce babies and fern leaf dill plants playin catch up growin. She did mention I could have been kind enuff to have told her where I planted what, chuckl. OOOOPS. Halloween is in full laughter and screams up here.

Wavin Helllooooo!

Well, I finally made some garden progress this weekend.

►Reinstalled PVC hoops on two raised beds...one more to go...
►Sowed winter veggie seeds outdoors: carrots in & kale in patio containers & SmartPots
►Sowed seeds for broccoli, cabbages, beets, turnips & spinach in Root Riot sponges, indoors...
►Pruned the crepe myrtle trees...
►Dumped container mixes and refreshed them for repotting...
►Cleared everything in eyesight that DOESN'T lend itself to the veggie garden aesthetic!

Still need to:
►Plant a gazillion onion transplants from Dixondale Farms
►Plant mustards, collards, lettuce
►Build a 4th raised bed for my garlic, and a 5th raised bed for my greens...
►Mow one final time and then winterize the lawn...
►Put out a notice for all my neighbors to drop their bagged leaves at my place...!


Yep. That's a good start!

This message was edited Nov 18, 2013 10:40 AM

Linda, You're planting your onions a little earlier this year? If my old memory serves me right, I thought you said last year you plant on 01/15 - your birthday?? Why the change? My DD order is going to be shipped on 01/06, so I'll probably be planting around the 8-10. I know another gardener in New Orleans who's going in with me on the purchase. Together, we're ordering 9 bunches for $39.69 - that's only $4.41 each!!
Jo-Ann

Jo-Ann,
I've always wanted to plant the onions earlier than January, because I've read that the longer they grow, the larger they get.

The first time, I delayed planting because I just couldn't get to them. I was home on my b'day (January 8th) in 2011, so that's when I finally planted them.

The second year (2012), Dixondale wouldn't ship them earlier than December, so I decided to plant my own seeds. It would've been a great haul if my seeds had been fresh. They were older than a year. I followed "The Bayou Gardener" on a YouTube video. He planted seeds in a trough in August, for transplants by November. Wish I had known about the old seeds...

This is the earliest I've ever received my onion transplants, and, I have everything in place to go ahead and plant them out this week. If I procrastinate, they'll start to shrivel up, and I'll lose a good bit of my order.

I'm gonna put a band of Super Phosphate underneath each bulb when I set them, and side dress with some Ammonium Sulfate (high nitrogen) after they take, in about 3 weeks. The faster those leaves develop, the larger the bulbs will be.

I'll post my progress here, so you can see the development. Hope I get a good crop this year. Being from NOLA, you KNOW how many onions we use, LOL!

Hugs!

Linda

Maybe I'll see if I can change my DD order to an earlier delivery date. If that's the case, I'll need to get my beds prepared a little earlier. These are the beds that held field peas last summer & fall. I've been making & hoarding a lot of compost for use with the onions & the corn. I used bone meal & blood meal last year, but I'm going to go with the Super Phosphate & Ammonium Sulfate.

I tried the onion seeds this year, but I tried it in an unused bed. The seeds came up really great - but so did all the weeds & it just got away from me. It was a bed that sort of out of the way, & I just didn't see it enough to take really good care of it. I know: Excuses, excuses, excuses!!

BTW, let me know how your garlic comes out. I tried some for the first time last year, and they looked beautiful, but made one gigantic clove. I was told that it just didn't get cold enough here last year for better bulbing. This year, I stores the garlic & shallots in the fridge for a few weeks before planting. Maybe that will help. My single clove garlic still tasted great and they're supposed to be the latest gourmet item.

I am intrigued by your "one clove" garlic. I grow perhaps a dozen varieties, and have planted around 500 cloves this year and have never seen anything like that. All my garlic are "gourmet-type" garlic. Do you happen to know or can find out what variety of garlic that was?

By the way, there are specific garlic varieties that grow well in the south and specific garlic varieties that do better in the north. Some (supposedly) will grow well regardless of the region. I try to stay away from those varieties that grow best in the north, though I have to admit, I like to experiment and prove that northern varieties can do well in the deep south. I am in Mississippi.

kirkkr, the garlic I planted last year was the warm-winter selection from gourmet garlic that had Applegate, Rogue River Red, Inchelium, Ajo Rojo & Creole Red garlic. They ALL had one clove. We had an especially warm winter last year. I don't think it ever got below 40 degrees.

After talking to other gardeners/farmers in LA, it seems the "single toe" garlic is more weather related than variety related. I've also been told that wood ash/lime will help.
Jo-Ann

I've grown Inchelium and Ajo Rojo and while it didn't do well here, I did have actual cloves in the heads. So I'd agree it's probably a problem with the varieties.