Have a new respect for people who garden.....it's no joke. I built these raised beds and filled them today....I am beat up...

this is my 1st garden, so this will be a work in progess....

have lettuce, carrots, cukes, bush beans, red peppers, green peppers, hot portugal peppers. 2 kinds of tomatoes, and a couple of herb pots....

this was a ton of work for some veges, but I'm hoping to enjoy the rewards...

Looks great. :btu:

keep this in Mind ok.....
is this ......
we need live ENZYMES in our diet (that's a given)
it is very important that we have them
they are the catalysts for good change in our bodies.

there is also some inherent energy within the plants
that you want to take advantage of (or preserve) that you
seldom get when "buying" the same produce
because it generally sat to long on water sprayed store shelves.

so the point is...select easier/lighter " if cooking" methods
like stir fry
lower temps instead of high
eat raw and ten minutes after you cut it.... if possible
like taking a head of broccoli and shaving off just the flowers
into a salad instead of cooking it or use it for dips....

as for your Beds they look great but consider mulching them
with grass clippings you dried first on the driveway to keep
the weeds down and plant spacing to shade out weeds is crucial.
to close: and they get rangey/ elongated.... are forced to bolt to seed
to far apart and they let weeds have room to grow unless you mulch.

Plan on growing replacements (in pots) in several weeks so as you harvest
a square foot, you immediately plant that same square foot.
this keeps your beds productive .

Looks good. I have a small garden that doesn't get full sun. The last few years, I buy extra tom. plants and take them to a friend who has room. Later in the year, I ride by and when no one is home, I help myself to some of the tom.

Nice looking garden...been wanting to do something like that in my yard too....nothing better than garden fresh vegetables

We just rented a 30x30 plot over at the Public Garden for the troop to plant a garden. They worked it last weekend and are growing quite an assortment of vegetables, herbs and plants for their gardening Merit Badge. Also made a compost been in the middle...I'll post some pics in a couple of weeks when stuff is growing

They had to design the layout themselves, originally they included a hot tub and a big Screen TV, ahh the mind of a teenage boy......scary place.

Breakdown of what they planted:

Green Beans
Wax Beans
Summer Squash
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Lettuce
Tomatos
Green Peppers
Potatos
Carrots
Garlic
Basil
Oregano
Parsley
assorted flowers (need flowers for Merit Badge)

Doing a Surfcasting campout in a couple of weeks.....I'm hoping they catch a few so we can freeze a few fillets and do a campout in the fall and have a whole meal that they caught/grew themselves.

Nice looking garden...been wanting to do something like that in my yard too....nothing better than garden fresh vegetables

We just rented a 30x30 plot over at the Public Garden for the troop to plant a garden. They worked it last weekend and are growing quite an assortment of vegetables, herbs and plants for their gardening Merit Badge. Also made a compost been in the middle...I'll post some pics in a couple of weeks when stuff is growing

They had to design the layout themselves, originally they included a hot tub and a big Screen TV, ahh the mind of a teenage boy......scary place.

Breakdown of what they planted:

Green Beans
Wax Beans
Summer Squash
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Lettuce
Tomatos
Green Peppers
Potatos
Carrots
Garlic
Basil
Oregano
Parsley
assorted flowers (need flowers for Merit Badge)

Doing a Surfcasting campout in a couple of weeks.....I'm hoping they catch a few so we can freeze a few fillets and do a campout in the fall and have a whole meal that they caught/grew themselves.

tell them that to do compost right
it should only take 3 to 4 weeks
the pile has to be always slightly " steaming "
they can place a smoke stack (tube) in the center
of perforated pipe to let oxygen for the burn -> "in"

the under side of the pile should allow for draining off
compost tea for "special waterings" of struggling plants
that need a "pick me up"
without compost tea available

my three weapons of choice are these (awesome results too)

1.) superthrive B-1 root stimulant x 100 times (not cheap)
a small bottle goes a long, long way though
excellent for foliar feeding :btu:

2.) maxicrop seaweed fertilizer for minerals|also foliar feeding

3.) organic fish emulsion......... spray soil around plants
then water it in gently

We used Chicken Sh1t...:hee:

Nice.

I was debating refitting mine into a raised bed, but don't think I want to spend the extra money this year.

maybe next.

No garden for us this year. We turned the raised bed into a flower garden. Do have 5 tomato plants though. 3 in pots and 2 in topsy turvy holders.

it's friggan HOT out there....

Have a new respect for people who garden.....it's no joke. I built these raised beds and filled them today....I am beat up...

this is my 1st garden, so this will be a work in progess....

have lettuce, carrots, cukes, bush beans, red peppers, green peppers, hot portugal peppers. 2 kinds of tomatoes, and a couple of herb pots....

this was a ton of work for some veges, but I'm hoping to enjoy the rewards...

One immediate benefit is that you build them once to last for years, so after this the bulk of the work will be weeding, planting and harvesting.

Keep an eye out for animals that might do damage to your crops, and check for any insect damage as well.

Every plant has its own insect marauder.

Tomato = horn worm/catapillar BIG and GREEN and can defoliate entire branches.
Pepper = earwigs and slugs
Squash = squash beetles and borer worms
beans = beetles
Corn = beetles and borer worms
(see a trend here?)

One suggestion that does work is to plant a variety of flowering plants to attract beneficial insects. (Marigolds are good at attracting parasitic wasps and spiders for example.)

You can use beer traps for slugs.
As for earwigs, you need to eliminate their hiding/nesting areas.

I have a concoction I make when the infestation starts to get real bad. I soak one package of chewing tobacco in a quart of water.
Strain the mixture and put the resulting fluid in a spray bottle with a teaspoon of dishwashing detergent. I also add a little epsom salt (as a foliar fertilizer) and spray away. The only warning is that since this is tobacco "juice" you don't want a lot of contact, since it is basically nicotene juice. The upside is that since all bugs preen themselves, when they ingest this fluid, it WILL kill them. Nicotene is indigestable, even to humans, which explains why if you had the misfortune to chew tobacco and accidentally swallowed the "juice" you were in for an automatic regurgitation in less than 30 minutes. (Anyone that has done this knows what I mean, and you NEVER forget that experience!)

With the spring we've had, all the critters are coming early and at around the same time.

My current battle is with the Asian Lily Leaf Beatle trying to defoliate all my tiger lillies. They come EVERT spring and will continue until either I give up or they succeed. They are a pretty looking red beetle that will eat the plant to the ground. The beetles themselve only eat the leaves. It's the young that do the worst. They cover themselves with their own feces, and since they are non-native they have no enemies.
We can thank some a-hole florist/horticulturalist in Cambridge for this scourge.

Is it true peppers should not be planted near tom. plants?