We're coming from here:
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/740200/#new
This is the place to let everyone know how all your Edibles are doing - veggies, fruits, nuts - whatever.
Veggies 2 (and other Edibles!)
Raspberries!!! I bought ever bearing bushes and I am getting a couple or three cups every day!! Will produce right up until frost.....never eaten so many raspberry smoothies in my life....
My Raspberries, planted two years ago, are still not producing much at all and are not very big. My Blackberries, on the other hand, planted at the same time, are producing tons of fruit. Yummy!
mmmmmm...blackberries....I remember picking tons of them as a kid so Dad could make blackberry wine....
Sofonisba....yeah...if you Victor or anyone else is in the area and want to check out and eat some tomatoes, drop by. We're half a mile off I-95. For those interested in wine, Chamard vineyards is up the street:
http://www.chamard.com/
Just send a PM. Doing some caregiver stuff this summer (hence the tomato fanaticism, the garden is right off the living room) so I'm here pretty much all the time .
First tomatoes, now wine. You're finding all my weaknesses David!
Yippie! Victor, whaddya say? Shall I pick you up?
What's a PM David?
Well, everyone, this thread has made me so hungry. I've made up my mind. I'm going to build a raised bed and grow a veggie garden next year. I can't wait!!!
Harper
It's well worth it Harper! Nothing like growing your own food.
Any advice or good books for a newbie? I don't want to get in over my head. I'm a terrible cook too...
I picked my first tomato yesterday and I was disappointed with the taste. It's a brandywine and they were good last year. Maybe it was just that one.
Tomatoes, Peppers and greens are the easiest things to grow. Don't need a book.
Jimmy Nardello Sweet Italian Frying pepper in the Earthbox below (8 plants).
Invited my neighbor to help herself from the garden but forget to tell her what was in the Earthbox. She thought they were jalapenos. She carefully seeded and diced up a tiny one thinking it would flavor a dish. It didn't of course. As I'm waiting until they are red, neither one of us knows how they taste yet.
Hey David-Paul, do you use any support for those peppers, I can't see anything, and so you use the plasic cover???
thanks
Pete
TDGarden . . . I should have built a cage around the Earthbox. Lost two pepper plants at the soil line from bending over too much. Now that they are bigger that doesn't seem to be a problem. Put 8 plants in the dirt two weeks after setting the ones in the photo in the Earthbox. Their stems seem hardier. Also not as much foliage but it appears there will be as many peppers.
Victor, any type of 'greens'?
TD...forgot to mention: yes I used the cover which came with the Earthbox. As it is even with the cover, the plants and evaporation are taking up at least 2 gallons of water a day.
Do have make-shift support for those peppers. See the white folding table on the right of the photo? That has to stay there until harvest. On the other side is the wall of the back porch.
Harper, just about all greens are very easy.
I'm still eating my spring Samson elite lettuce. It's not bolted though it is a little more bitter than it was. My second year & I really like it.
Harper, Cukes and summer squashes are real easy too.
Dave...do you sow lettuce again latter on? I have some lettuce/musclun mixes, raddicho, fast growing broccoli rabe etc. from Seeds of Italy I didn't get in this spring. Worth a try?
I do - end of August.
David - I plant my mesculin greens every couple of weeks. This year the chipmunks are taking more than their share. I plant some in a low terra cotta pot with marigolds, and they seem to do well.
Harper - vegetables are soooooooooo easy. If you can do flowers, you can definitely do veggies. I agree that tomatoes, cukes, peppers are super easy. So is broccoli (plant while it is still cool though). I have great luck with bush green beans too. I plant 2 rows every 2 weeks. I like to use the innoculator powder available through Johnny's Seeds, but I didn't use it this year (used malorginite - probably not spelled right) instead. The beans have been really delicious, so I may just stick with that.. The Japanese Beetles haven't been as much of a problem this year as they usually are.
I have the least luck with melons, corn and pumpkins. I have good luck with Walla Walla onions. I order sets from Dixondale Farms in Texas. This year I planted 2 other kinds of onions - Big Daddies and Alisa Craig, I think. The Big Daddies are doing nothing, but the wallas look nice and fat. I think I should just stick with the wallas. Gotta run......thunderstorm and my garden water is on. Yikes!
Never tried onions. Do they taste much better / different than the store ones?
I have always thought onions a waste of space myself........I can get 5 lbs for 99 cents all year......
I can't honestly say they taste a lot better, but it is so much fun to watch them fatten up. I guess I just like the idea of providing my own food when I can get things to grow well, and since we live on a hill a half hour from a grocery store, I really like the convenience of just walking up to my garden when I need an onion or a carrot, etc. I use onions in a lot of cooking, and the wallas are very sweet and mild. Now, celery is a different story. I've planted it, watched it get nice and big and full all summer, and then it tastes terrible. No more! What a waste of garden space. The pine trees have gotten so tall near my garden, I really need to move to a different part of the meadow so I'll have more hours of sunlight next year. Some things, like the green beans and cukes, seem to like a bit less sun, but the tomatoes don't.
This has not been a good year for us for blueberries or blackberries, but our concord grapes look pretty good. We make jelly in the fall and enjoy it all winter, so I am hoping we'll have as good a crop as we have the past two years. I miss our blueberries (wild high bush), because they were so good in years past. They are the small, wild kind that make wonderful muffins and pancakes. Now we have a bear who has discovered our stash, and my DH watched him pull down a big branch, lie down on it and eat the berries to his heart's content. Our ethic is to share our stuff with the wild life (Some for you, some for us), but Guy Noir (our bear) doesn't know about that principle.
Certainly agree about growing your own. Sorry Guy found your blueberries. I love them.
David - if you haven't read it yet, a lack of water will make the jalapenos much hotter.
Victor - we loved our onions. They tasted SO MUCH better (more zing) than store bought. The problem comes in with rainy weather and that can ruin a crop.
Harper - talk to Cape Cod Gardener for ideas. This is her first year and it's a great success for her. She'll probably send you cucumbers so hide your address!
DonnieBrook - great name for the bear! Prairie Home Companion fan?
ok... few tomatoes... zuccini... okra.... cucumbers.... and the herbs.... oh it taste so good... next year I am going to dedicate more to food...
It's heavenly, Kassia. We have so many farm stands out here but there's nothing to compare to picking your own vegetables.
I agree - Nothing tastes better than a home grown tomato - what a difference from the store bought ones!
We notice it most in the cucumbers (and no wax!) and the peppers (the skin is so different - so crispy as opposed to requiring a serrated knife) and tomatoes (for the taste!). The broccoli cooks much faster and doesn't have the tough stems of those coming from other climates on their two day trip to get up to the Northeast. The zing of the red onions was so wonderful.
It's so nice to eat what you grow and know there are no poisons or chemicals, too!
Pirl.....If it's 6:00 p.m. on a Saturday, we're there - on our front porch, eating supper from my garden and listening to Garrison on the radio.......We didn't even have a tv here at the farm until last fall, and now we have satellite internet too. (Dial-up was killing me!! and that's the only other option "up here on the hill".........) Whoa Nellie.......what's happenin' to our simple existence??? Still, the radio is the only way to go with PHC!
I also agree with the benefits of eating your own produce. At least you know that it is safe! And there's just such satisfaction to take something from a seed to a side dish!! One of my favorite things is an all veggie supper from the garden. And since I don't do well with corn, we get some from a nearby corn stand that has the best I've ever tasted. Now that's a meal to look forward to!! And no fake butter on the corn! Who cares if you die a couple months earlier when it comes to real butter and salt on good corn!! :)
Harper.......remember....you don't have to be a good cook if you grow fresh veggies.....they do it all for you if you can boil water!
Oh, by the way, has anyone discovered how easy it is to dry curly parsley in the microwave? It comes out nice and bright green. BUT - be careful not to cook it more than a minute at a time....it caught on fire for me. Now I arrange it on a plate...not touching, and micro it one minute/stop & open door/one more minute...etc. until it is like I want it usually no more than 2 or 3 minutes total.
And Victor....I love those blueberries too! My DH makes superb banana & blueberry pancakes. I don't eat sugar very often, but I make an exception once in awhile for those!!
Donnie: nights that I just get out of the shower and can go directly to the garden for tomatoes for our salad are so worth the work involved.
Julia Child and I would agree with you on the butter issue and yes, I do know she's gone but her memory lives on with every pat of butter or splash of cream. If you don't make exceptions for the occasional blueberry pancakes you'd be missing out on pure joy.
We love PHC, too, just not Keillor's politics, but the show is pure fun - hokie but fun.
Pirl - out of the shower and straight into the garden? No stopping to get dressed? Not even the umbrella hat??
Oh foo! Yes, clothes. No umbrella hat though. Someone else is using it.
Poor Herb.
Poor Herb indeed!! Pirl - that's a very cool.scarecrowess......and I believe I spy a cute little potting shed, hmmm????
Love that Swiss Chard!
David, I think you were answered already, but cool season crops are often planted againn later in August. I do it with greens and it works great Donnie Do n't you find greens slow to a halt in the hottest weather? Mine have, but not sure if I tried mesclan greens in summer.
Dave - I have to plant the greens in low/wide terra cotta pots and move them into an area that gets equal hours of sun and shade to keep them going this time of year. When I planted them in the soil in the garden, they would bolt and get very pale, just as you mentioned. I also have to give them water every day. Chipmunks are my biggest problem. I use a mix of several types of greens. I think they were called "gourmet mesculin greens". Some have a nice spicy flavor.....delicious for salads!
When you plant your cool weather crops in August, when are they ready to harvest? I've never done that. It can freeze here by the 15th of October, so I've never tried to do it. Think it would work up here? Interesting!!
Greens are ready in just a few weeks.