Got my onions in the ground early January. The rain has me running behind on my potatos. Shoud have them in them planted week. Then in afew weeks roll with the green beans, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, oakra, and some peppers. Anyone else plant a garden? If so what are you growing?
this will be my 4th year of gardening. the first two years i actually did it in 10 gallon pots. last year i did a 4x4 bed and had good results, despite the drought/heat all summer - i built a 2nd 4x4 raised bed this weekend and going to start some seeds this week. one 4x4 bed will have tomatoes, jalapeno, a couple varieties of bells, onions, radish and herbs. the other will have the big stuff like squash, zucchini, green beans and i think im going to give cantaloupe a try. ive attempted strawberries 3 years in a row and the best i got was these little marble size ones that were actually kind of tasty, but so small it wasnt even worth it. giving up on those, but i think im going to plant a couple blackberry bushes. been composting all "winter" - got a really nice batch to start with! here is a pic of the new bed - cost me less than $15 to build.
I had a huge deck built in my backyard over what used to be my veggie garden, so for the first time in 10 years I won't be planting one. It got to be too much work after a while. The best tomatos I grew were celebrities and beefsteaks. The hardest part is keeping the birds and squirrels from ruining all the hard work you've done.
not as fun as shooting them, but pantyhose is actually pretty effective. as the fruit starts to turn red slip a sock-size piece of hose around it and leave it on till you are ready to pick. the nylon camouflages the ripening tomato from birds - at worst they might peck at it, but they wont break the skin. it looks kind of goofy, but its actually pretty effective.
We've got potatoes, kale, carrots, onion, iceberg, swiss chard, and cilantro. The swiss chard is ready. You can't kill that stuff. It was planted last spring and grew through the drought and all through the winter. We have 2 raised gardens similar to jo mama's. Had tomatoes and green peppers last year but the drought, bugs and our dogs kept us from getting any. Actually have a couple of pumpkins growing by accident. I think the seeds were in the compost bin and now they're growing.
believe it or not i fertilized 2 weeks ago - i didnt use the kind that kills weeds though (obviously).
We also have a raised 4X4 bed, which currently includes Rainbow Chard, spinach, broccoli, carrots and used to have radishes we already took out. We separately have two tubs (large circular metal bins) full of herbs - mint, oregano, etc. No cilantro as my wife is one of them cilantro haters! Finally, we are growing a variety of things from seed, which was recently planted - tomatoes chief among them. I don't know where we're going to put them when they are ready to be transported out of the seed starter trays?? Oh, and we have a blackberry bush planted last fall. We previously had one in Houston that yielded a ton of fruit in its second year. This one hasn't done much growing since planting, though it is starting to take off with the warmer weather. We also have a loquat tree that happened to be on the property, but I'm not anticipating much from it.
im going to do most of my plants from seed this year. i always bought the small plants, but seeds are so much cheaper. over fall-winter i grew a bunch of stuff like lettuce, arugula and radish from seed and it was much easier than i thought. ill still buy plants if i can find some cool varieties that i cant get in seed form. great outdoors in south austin has some i dont see at the big-box places. snow white cherry tomatoes - these beautiful green/white marble colored ones that tasted like grapes. chocolate bell pepper, chocolate mint, hungarian hot-wax peppers.
Have you guys had any experiences with trees? I want to grow like an avocado tree and and orange tree. I don't know if it would be possible I live in the Kingwood area if that makes any difference.
this will be our first year doing a lot of seed as well. fingers crossed. we pretty much do most of our garden shopping at Natural Gardener also in south Austin. It's a great place, and our son loves the goats, chickens and donkey's. though not the cheapest.
If you want an avocado tree get one that is already aged, it can take around 10 years after its planted to start bearing fruit.
