What are your most successful homegrown vegetables/fruits?

Why haven't you eaten it? It's DELICIOUS!

 

Yeah, I was going to ask the same thing. I've never had one, but if I had one growing in my backyard, I'd at least try it.

 

Yeah, I have a couple small Loquat trees in my yard. Great fruit.

 

Why are trying to grow some veggies for the first time this year. We have some tomatoes, squash and bell peppers in the backyard. Only the squash have produced thus far (though the tomatoes plants are getting tall) and we have one bell pepper growing.

Uprising, my wife is trying that pineapple thing. I'd never heard of it before and thought it was a waste of time. Good to see you got it to grow. I'd love to be wrong.

 

We usually keep a rotating lettuce patch. We'll plant additional every few weeks, so we're up to our elbows in salads all summer.

I usually don't plant tomatoes from seed, but we'll buy seedlings. I've had the best luck with cherry tomatoes (sweet million, blondekopchen, sungold, green grape), but I've also had success with sauce tomatoes (hungarian, juan flamme). I love brandywine and purple tomatoes (purple cherokee, black prince), but I just can never get more than a few to grow per plant.

We plant basil from seed in our tomato patch, and have tons of basil by the end of summer. We'll make huge batches of pesto and freeze it in ice cube size pieces so we can bust it out through the following spring.

We planted sage, rosemary, thyme, lemon verbena, oregano, marjoram, chives, tarragon, and a bay plant from seedlings. It's really nice having a good selection of fresh herbs that you can pick from your garden, especially when your wife is a cook.

I've had good luck with zucchini and pumpkins as well. Peppers are hard to grow here in Seattle because it's just not hot enough.

I've also got a 2 year old raspberry bush that should produce well this summer. Of course, we get our fill of blackberries from all of the wild plants in our neighborhood.

Summertime is definitely salad, heirloom tomato, and berry time.

 

I've grown bananas, plantains, breadfruit and papaya with consistent success.

 

needs some suggestions for winter vegies to grow

 

Bumping for some tips.

We've got some tomato plants that are growing...but no tomatoes. They have grown pretty large, and we get the flower/buds, but that's it. No tomatoes. Any ideas?

Also, some of the other plants are getting one of two problems; small round holes in the leaves, or a 'burnt' look to the edges of the leaves. Any ideas on what is causing this and how to avoid it?

So far, we've had good luck with the squash and the bell peppers! Hope it continues...

 

It will be a little while till the pineapple begins to take. It'll look kind of fuzzy at the bottom then suddenly little roots will sprout from the bottom of it. She left some of the fruit attached to the top right? Like not just the green part. I cut mine with like a quarter of an inch of fruit still.

I'm curious how mine is doing, it's planted in my grandparents backyard in Memorial. I haven't visited in a year or so.

They do grow that way, as crazy as it seems. Count me in being completely surprised when it worked.




My potato plants are getting BIG.....and I know my pot they are in now is not big enough considering the little potatoes will form under the dirt.

 

I think I almost killed my bhut jolokias ... not sure they'll make it. I knew this would happen. I'm about to transplant my thai sun and charleston peppers into a larger pot tomorrow... weeee....

 

Small round holes typically mean you have something eating them, like worms or caterpillars. I had these grub like caterpillars that were layed by moths or butterflies and they lived in the leafs under the wax coating that's supposed to protect them (grapefruit trees).

As for your tomatoes, if the bees aren't doing their jobs you can always use a cuetip (sp?) and very delicately so you don't break the flower stems, and touch each flower of the plants. Doing this you can cause the cross pollination, which is what bees would otherwise do.

 

What's the best way to handle the worm/grub problem? And I'm not sure I get the tomato issue...are you saying no cross pollination is why they aren't growing? Interesting.

 

That's my guess. I haven't grown tomatoes in a long time, but I'm pretty sure if you are just getting flowers and they shrivel up and fall off with no fruit it's because no cross pollination is taking place.

You can play the role of the bee.

As for the pests....unless you are trying to grow them organically some sort of home garden pesticide from lowes or homedepot, they have safe ones too. Some are environmentally safe, for certain plants etc.

 

Sugar cane.

 

Didn't see this question posted in the thread but when planting fruits and vegetables, don't you have to worry about rats and possums getting back there? Just having something to attract them to the backyard worries me..

 

Score 1 for finalsbound. Homegrown tomatoes are by far better than any crap you can find at a grocery store. Next year, I'll be planting me some tomato plants but right now I get them from my dad and my girl's dad.

 

bump, great thread

Cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes (big this year!), carrots, peas, spinach, okra even the mustard and collard greens are going crazy. The garden is poppin' this year.

Wanted to know if any of the board botanists have any suggestions about pomegranate trees. We planted one about 4 years ago. Grows well but hasn't yielded any fruit. For the first time this year it is flowering. Is that a sign that fruit are on the way?

 

I bought a tomato plant yesterday and planted it. How long till I can eat something?

 

Enjoying the last of the asparagus. I pretty much have been eating it with everything the last month or so.

That said, can't wait for tomatoes.

 

Herbs...2 lemon thyme, silver thyme, french thyme, pineapple sage, purple sage, variegated sage, bronze fennel, rosemary, flat leaf parsley, pinnapple mint, spearment, thai basil, sweet lemon basil, cilantro, lemon balm, oregano and a bay tree.

veggies and fruits...7 heirloom tomato varieties, asparagus, various zucchinis, thumb carrots, reg carrots, red onion, walla walla sweet onions, garlic, various salad greens, collards, various radishes, rhubarb, cucumbers, enlich peas, bush beans, anaheim peppers, jalepenos, yukon potatoes, lots of strawberries and blackberries.

just got some more compost. should do some work today...