2011 Gardens

[Christy]

Snows gone! hopefully for good. Haven't been doing much. Got some wintersowing done, but not as much as I hoped. works been putting a halt to that ugh!. Hopefully in the next few weeks ill get all done. I am determind to have a yard full of flowers NOT weeds this year. and a good enough veg garden to can from!

I have a few gardens so Ill try to break them down with names. helps when planing n maping. This is just a layout map not a detailed one, I do detailed ones with a list of what is were and what's going were. Ill post a pic when im done working on them and my lists.


Flower gardens
full sun - part sun. trying to grow beds all around my front yard. and a living fence with flowers around the bottom.

Shade Garden
full shade-part shade. Holds my small Hosta collection. n a small pond in the middle. I have alot to do this year.

Veg garden
full sun, I grow bout the same every year with at least one thing new. last year was potatoes. Ill be growing them again this year. This year the new will be squash n melon. again Im making my veg garden bigger. Ill be making a new bed phor the pumpkins. giving me more room. Ill get a list here soon.

[Christy]

April-7
Planted the white onions, 116 of them. Bb helped, so there not in the stright lines but least there planted,"smiles". got some about 5 that came back from last year started bell pepper, J peppers, and tomato seeds indoors.
Blooming=Daffodils, Ice follies, unknown yellow trumpit.
popin up= daffodils, tulips, iris, sedums, daylilies, magic lilies, hostas, buds on the silvermaple trees.
April-10
Planted 150 yellow onions, all in rows. noticed I dug up a bee. when it gets cold again im gonna dig that spot to find the nest n toss them out! like thats all I need, ground bee's in the garden.
Blooming= VanSoin daffs are starting to bloom. forsythia bush,
Found the first Praying mantis egg by the forsythiabush on a weed rod. wootwoot! Its now in a jar in the kitchen. will have to check all the yard before Rj cuts the first years grass cutting.
April-11
Planted 10 cabbage seeds direct in the garden. lots more to plant. Started to rain so the rest will wait. I used t-papper rolls cut in half with slits cut at the bottoms to plant the seeds in, and pop bottles with the bottoms cut off placed on top of each seeded t-roll to form a mini green house.
Bought a new Hosta at wallyworld. Wolverine. Dont have much luck with store bought plants but 5 bucks cant to no more than try,

[Pharmer Phil]

sounds like your off to a great start Christy!!
sounds like you are going to have a great garden and lotsa produce..GO FOR IT CHRISTY

[Christy]

Thanks Phil ;D yep thats the plan!! gonna be a good year!

[Christy]

April-13
Planted more cabbage seeds. need to dig out more popbottle tops to finish, preped the tomato spot im gonna direct sow, Rj's friend came over with a riding mower so gardening stoped and yard clean up began. found a second praying mantis egg on a weed rod by veg garden. and a couple good branches to use to grow the beans on. tomarrows the back yard, I'll keep a eye out for eggs and bean branches.

[Penny]

Sounds like you'll be busy this summer.....well done Christy

[BestoFour]

Christy, how to you keep the worms out of the cabbage? I vowed last year to never plant cabbage again because I can't fight the green cabbage worms.

[Pharmer Phil]

Apr 16, 2011 18:36:26 GMT -6 BestoFour said:

Christy, how to you keep the worms out of the cabbage? I vowed last year to never plant cabbage again because I can't fight the green cabbage worms.

Sheri, here, we average each about 32 broccoli (spring crop 16-fall planting 16)
and a total of about 30 cabbage...a half dozen Brussels sprouts...

Now, for that amount of cole crops, any amount I figure under 50 plants
We hand pick...every other day, early in the morning...quite tedious, but it gets it done...

However, there comes a time when they get ahead of me...
then it gets tougher...or easier, depending on the time you have to spend in the sun, picking worms



7 days.... after time you first notice the butterflies flitting about around you cabbage..eating nectar and LAYING EGGS..on the bottom side of your plants leaves...

there will be baby worms hatching out..Hungry Baby Worms


Some people tell me they have luck with corn meal, rye flour or a mixture of one part salt to two parts flour.
Supposedly the cabbage worms that eat the coating , bloat and die.
Never have tried this myself..

some cover the heads with floating row covers, or I have heard of pholks covering the heads with nylon stockings...

But for me, after hand picking what comes next is the safest of the available organic controls for worms...
BACILLUS THURINGIENSIS (B.T.)

If they go past the Bt...
I use the top shelf natural insecticide,
ROTENONE/PYRETHRIN CONCENTRATE..
never has failed me


Hope this helps!

[BestoFour]

Thanks.

[Christy]

April-19
Its been raining almost every day, I did get to do a walk around and some weedding and cleaning. dug out Hostas for Rita. White feather hostas are comming up all white. love when they first come up. Lots to do in the shade area.
;D Blooming-Daffodils. Mount hood, Salome, Flore Pleno, Red Devon is budding.
Hyacinth grapes, Quincy bush are blooming

yea was searching daffs and found out I was wrong about one of my daffs names. Always wonderd about that. I dont have a nonsuch I have a Flore Pleno. kinda rare. oldhouse gardens cant/dont sell them every year. No wonder Ive had this one bulb for a few years and still its ONE bulb. I need to measure my unknown daff n see if I can find a match.
Sheri
I dont always have luck with the cabbage but I still try. ;D I hand pick, like Phil says always look under the leaves. on top the leaves. beside the leaves, around the leaves, ;D ;D Im not sure what all kinda bugs larva Im picking off but im picking them off ;D I do that with all my veg plants. also around my yard grows butterfly weed, golden rods, iron weed, joepye weed, milk weed and wild asters, all butterfly favs so that gives them a tastyer place to go than my garden ;D

[BestoFour]

What do you do with all your cabbage? We don't use enough of it to fight the worms.

[Christy]

Sheri, If i have a good year with the cabbage i give it or whatever else that dose good away
April-25
Planted;
35 tomato's Amish past.
25 cabbage.
6 casper pumpkins.
Indoor Tomatoes and peppers are sprouting!
Double dug the hole veg garden, got a sunburn on my butt crack! what the ? musta been the bending over to munch haha. were the heck did my big shovel go ? had to use Bb's kid one. I did notice this year no grubs!
Blooming Delibes, Red devon,Mrs backhouse Daffodils.
May-6
planted cucumber munchers
more tomatoes belgium,
lettuce iceberg
I'm so gonna have to dig the garden out bigger, much bigger, I only planted half of what I want and its over halfway filled.I still have alot to sow!

[Christy]

May-8
Planted
egg plant black beauity
Melon Israeli
May 11
got flower bed1 seeded with flower seeds
Love lies bleeding
zinnia aztec
Daisy jaffa ice
Coreopsis maroon
Cerinthe purplebells
Eyeball plant
Salpigloss
Malva mystic
Daisy gloriuos{commin back from last year}
Straw flowers
On the other side {driveway side} I'll be planting merigolds pinwheel and blanket flowers. Got busy cutting the grass. My cousin brought his mower over for me to use. I bought a battery weedwacker. $50 at wally world. its small and dont hold the charge long but good enough for me to trim around the flower beds. I like it. dont have to worry about weather or not I have gas or enough cords. its so lightweight that Bb can and has used it. she's a big girl with her "googles" on n weedwacking away. Im trying to show her to sweep it from side to side but she would rather put it down in one spot to make circles!
May-12
Went to check the prayingmantis eggs and holy crap! the jar is filled with lil baby's! So lucky the lid was on!! its thunderstorming heavy rains right now, ill wait till till dies down before letting them loose. Looks like just one egg hatched.
Gotta check the weather. hope its nice tomarrow. my off day want to finish seeding the flower beds and dig out the veg garden more.
All my wintersowing markers washed off n I dont know whats what so ill wait till there bigger and find a place to plant them, the only ones I know for shure is the love lies bleeding, cant mistake the lil red stems on them.

[Christy]

My gardens did not do good this year. either to much rain in spring or no rain this summer
lessons learned, not to put anything out to early next year and get a water hose!
mostly it was the annuals and veg that sufferd this year, perennials did and are doing pretty good.
Started to collect seeds. and starting bieannuals.
Im also redoing the rockway flower beds. weeded it out, double dug it. now need concreat for the blocks, add soil into the beds. then move the daylilies there. ill mix some annuals in with the day lilies next year. ;D

[Penny]

I think alot of people's flowers have suffered this year, i know with all the heat that we had, my beans and peas are pretty much done, and i hardly got any.....so no freezing them this year for me

[mogarden]

I feel extremely lucky to have had tomatoes this year. I only planted 4 plants in containers, plus my GF "saved" one seedling I had thrown out and planted it in a flower bed, lol. Even it has a few green tomatoes. Hot here. Did I say it's HOT here?

[Christy]

Penny have you thought of growing beans in a fall, I never grew a fall garden but im thinking of trying it with veg. bush beans can be planted in fall.
Thats good your GF saved the tomato ;D Ive done the same. hate tossing out seedlings.

BA's I started
[7-??] Foxglove {sprouted 7-25} sooner than that but I can't remember
[7-25] Hollyhock mix {sprouted 7-30}
[8-01] Hollyhocks red
[8-01] Hollyhocks white
[8-01] Hollyhocks black
[8-01] Hollyhocks yellow
[8-01] Honesty
[8-01] Sweet williams red

[Penny]

I was actually thinking of doing that, Christy .......it was disappointing to lose them like that.

What are you going to plant??

[Christy]

Fall gardening I thought bush beans. mabe cabbage n lettuce.
Im looking into veg that takes less than 60 days to mature. If I start them now that will give me till the beginning of october to harvest before my frost date.

Today I decided to weed out the rockway bed. the weeds are growing back already n I havent even finished it, plan to do that Sunday when I get concreat. I was just gonna hoe it till I noticed morning glories growing! ;D I didn't plant seeds this year cause I wanted to redo that bed. So I hand pulled the weeds being careful og the MGs. stuck branches in the ground n transplanted the MGs around the branches. Must be volinteers phrom the yellow MGs. It started to rain so there waterd
We also phound a phrog. He was hiding under a brick that came out its spot. Bb stuck a old bird house beside him n danged ifn he did'nt go in it

[Christy]

Started afew corn seeds, some zuchinni seeds. corn I know wont matre but im hopin to get a few stalks phor fall decor, the zuchinni is sapost to mature in 45-50 days, we'll see. thought i still had bush green beans but there pole beans. thats about it so phar phor my fall garden ;D
Im hoping the zuchinni dose good so we can make lots of zucchinni bread! my fav! ;D

[Christy]

8-13
Veg garden needs weeded. got some weeding done today.
My tomatoes are getting bigger, picked 3 cherry tomaotes.
Pumpkins are still flowering n looking good.
White pumpkins are still flowering,
Squash the yellow crookneck is trying to hang in there. picked a squash about the size of a small plum, had to! the plant it was attached to died.
Onions need dug up.
Cabbage and lettuce didnt head up? there just leafy? did the same thing last year.
Watermelons looking good.
Zucchini's comming up nice.
corn is comming up.
cucumbers are trying to hang in there, let the phirst cucumber over ripe phor seeds. need to pick it soon.
have somthing growing n not sure what it is.. could be a egg plant or isreal squash? never grew either before so its all new to me. its round.
thought i lost all my peppers but I think theres some growing? couldnt tell it was getting to dark outside.

Phlowers.
well hell, I started hollyhocks in peat pots. one flat was a mix. with fox gloves sharing the flat, the other I had in rows of red-white-black-yellow. with honesty,n sweet wills sharing the flat. sumthing knocked the 2nd flat over. all my peat babys were scatterd all over the ground. so now I dont know what hollyhock is what. guess ill plant them in the backyard n start over.