2020 gardening thread

We got our stuff in the ground April 7-8. Some seeds and some plants. Covered the plants 3 nights since then when there was frost warning (and I did have frost on my truck the next morning).
Plants are doing good.
Checked last night, and some of the seeds are coming up. I could see a few squash and zucchini, okra, and lettuce.
The kids wanted to plant a bunch of random stuff this year, so we’ll see how it goes. First time we’ve had a garden that they are old enough to remember. Last was prob 10 years ago.
It is about 20x40 and I had to fence it to keep our goats/chickens/dogs out.
If they and my wife stay interested in it, we could expand it some, plant fall/winter stuff, start earlier next spring with prepping the soil, starting seedlings like y’all have pictured in this thread. We’ll see how it goes!
And special thanks to @thrillhill and his wife for advice and motivation.
Pic from early April when we had to cover plants - my younger daughter displaying the cover method she and my wife developed. :) (that one was when the wind was so bad, which is why they had cinderblocks on top of stuff)
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Before and after some work today. Tilled a little then mulched with straw around the tomatoes. Ran out of cages so gotta get some more concrete wire.
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Go ahead and make plans to buy peppers, or have really late peppers. They are the one part of my garden I just buy the plants for. They really are a pain because they want very warm soil to grow at all.

Put a fan on those tomatoes. They are getting a bit leggy. You need to strengthen the stems up. indoors a fan on low that oscillates will work. Or you can move them outside to let the breeze toughen them up. Otherwise not looking bad.

been keeping a fan on everything for a week now. Couple hours a day. Everything of ours is gonna be late. I did buy first planting plants and will get them in the ground this week. Feed mill down the road had a bunch of plants in yesterday that looked good and were too cheap not to buy. I’m gonna end up with more tomato plants than I know what to do with. Always heard tomatoes were hard to grow from seed. So I’m each larger cup I sewed 2 seeds in each of four holes hoping SOME of them would sprout. They all sprouted.
 
Built my raised beds and got the topsoil delivered yesterday. Also have a bunch of planters for my maters on the way. Will be our first attempt at a garden up here.
 
been keeping a fan on everything for a week now. Couple hours a day. Everything of ours is gonna be late. I did buy first planting plants and will get them in the ground this week. Feed mill down the road had a bunch of plants in yesterday that looked good and were too cheap not to buy. I’m gonna end up with more tomato plants than I know what to do with. Always heard tomatoes were hard to grow from seed. So I’m each larger cup I sewed 2 seeds in each of four holes hoping SOME of them would sprout. They all sprouted.


Depends on what you plant too. We have trouble planting Cherokee Purples from seed. They get leggy, fall over, and die. We switched to all Black Krim this year and didn’t have any problems. We’ve given some away and kept a few as spares. Now we need to give them away or find a place to plant them. Everything in the beds took up well.

Matter of fact, most of what we weeded out of 2 beds were tomatoes from what rotted last fall. The BKs are sturdy!


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We planted potatoes, carrots, turnips, and cabbage about 7-10 days ago.
My kids and I planted sweet corn, green beans, field peas, Lima beans, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers this week.
Still have cucumber, watermelon, and okra seeds that need setting out.
 
Still waiting on sweet tater slips from the mill. Said it will be another couple of weeks.

Unless this storm tonight tears up what I've got in the ground now I should finish up with okra and peppers this weekend. Been too cold to plant them so far.
 
Depends on what you plant too. We have trouble planting Cherokee Purples from seed. They get leggy, fall over, and die. We switched to all Black Krim this year and didn’t have any problems. We’ve given some away and kept a few as spares. Now we need to give them away or find a place to plant them. Everything in the beds took up well.
Matter of fact, most of what we weeded out of 2 beds were tomatoes from what rotted last fall. The BKs are sturdy!
I grew from seed Cherokee and Black Krims last year, the Krims initially grew much faster and sturdier, once they were all over 1', there wasn't a difference. My Cherokee's went into the ground yesterday. I ordered from https://www.rareseeds.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=tomato
 
Chief, me likes your irrigation pipe. Have any details?
 
I grew from seed Cherokee and Black Krims last year, the Krims initially grew much faster and sturdier, once they were all over 1', there wasn't a difference. My Cherokee's went into the ground yesterday. I ordered from https://www.rareseeds.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=tomato

Yeah, if you get them to the size of mine there is no difference. But we had to re plant the Purples a lot more than the Krims. Some years we would loose the entire first round and part of the second before they would take off. I honestly think they would be easier to raise from seed, in the ground, rather than seeding them inside. And at that point we lost track of what we had. So we decided to save ourselves some trouble. And the both taste about the same anyway.


Chief, me likes your irrigation pipe. Have any details?

All of my raised beds are wicking worm beds of some variety. That pipe lets you fill up the water basin under the soil and waters it from the bottom of the bed. I've since moved to using smaller PVC pipes as the fill pipe. I use about 4" of rocks and Ag pipe for the basin. You have to have something that will hold up the soil but have enough space to also hold water.
 
Squash are running, and I need to get trellis up. Tomatoes are VERY slow (too cold and wet). Spinach is doing well. Potatoes are doing well. Zuchini (I know, but it ain't yellow so my mind doesn't go "squash") is running wild. Beans are good. Okra is terrible (all yellow and sick... we need some sun). Peppers are "ok."

I drove down the road a bit to an area with a huge stand of bamboo. Free trellis material. Putting a layer of plastic under the end, as I am really paranoid about them rooting out. Odd plants. I put up three poles per table, and then (doh!) it hit me that once the plants start climbing, the middle trellis won't get any sun, so I am going to get a roll of chicken wire or something and attach the middle row "staggered" to the two outside trellises. I may cut a hole and poke the stems thru to the outside. I wasn't real smart about that.

I am trying something new with lettuce and spinach. I have several one gallon buckets (all you need for them, not deep roots) and filled halfway up with compost/topsoil mix. The upper half is potting mix (miracle gro). I brought it up to about 2 inches from the top, patted it down, soaked it good, and then scattered a whole crapload of seeds in a random swirl..., then covered with a light coat of more mix. The guy I learned this from says that after the plants come in, you just top off the bucket when the leaves get over 2 inches high with a pair of scissors, and do this every 4-5 days. He says he uses liquid fertilizer and water... feeds them that way aggressively, and gets TONS of lettuce. I may have waited too late to get going good on that, as the hot weather may be on us faster than we think, but I am keeping these on the porch.

Last thing on the list is some radishes and beets. Not planted yet. I am still learning. Great thing about all this is you can fail and not lose any money and still eat very good.
 

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Got one row of potatoes hilled up today and the strawberries weeded. Blueberries are coming along too. If I could get my help to help I’d be doing a little better though.
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what beautiful girls! you are a blessed man. Mine are grown. Grands are around nowadays. My goal is to leave them with happy memories of a man who loved them, and loved God. Savor the time. It runs away fast.
 
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it’s about 50x65

8 rows of silver queen
2 rows of blue lake
2 half rows of cucumbers, cayennes, Jalapenos,
Onions, squash, okra

2 rows old timey speckled butterbeams

2 rows tomatoes

I can’t remember what else

can’t wait till it starts coming off
 
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@tanstaafl72555

Thank you. They are something else.

I don’t think there’s much more one could strive for than the goal you’ve set for yourself. It would make me a happy man to do the same for mine.

Any chance you’ve got any pointers on getting them to work harder pulling weeds?
 
@tanstaafl72555

Thank you. They are something else.

I don’t think there’s much more one could strive for than the goal you’ve set for yourself. It would make me a happy man to do the same for mine.

Any chance you’ve got any pointers on getting them to work harder pulling weeds?
I was hoping you might educate me on that! My only observation is that their short attention span makes it necessary for me to make their tasks SHORT. Long means "boring" and "whining." They are full of enthusiasm to learn new stuff... for about 3 minutes! lol
 
Busy day...
Prepped the sweet potato bed. Added more drip system, put up another cucumber trellis. Moved a yard of soil. Screened about half a yard dirt. Got beets sown.

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Money makers are coming along.

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Then I went out to the side yard and dig up roots. I’ve got a stump grinder coming in Wednesday.
There’s a huge 200-300 year old stump ( plus a couple others ) I want gone so I can spruce up that part of that yard.

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It was as big as this one across the street.

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Chilly brrr this morning. Will my garden be dead when I go out there later?
Going to have to raid the closets for bed sheets Friday - Sunday...
 
Got hit last night, sigh. Too big of a garden to cover up. I've had to completely replant before and its a pain in the ass. No use in fretting over stuff you cant control. I thought about getting up early each morning and spraying everything down for a couple hours like they do the strawberry fields.
 
Chilly brrr this morning. Will my garden be dead when I go out there later?
Going to have to raid the closets for bed sheets Friday - Sunday...
Got hit last night, sigh. Too big of a garden to cover up. I've had to completely replant before and its a pain in the ass. No use in fretting over stuff you cant control. I thought about getting up early each morning and spraying everything down for a couple hours like they do the strawberry fields.
How cold is it supposed to get where you guys are?
And what is the temp threshold at which we need to cover? Anything 36 or lower because of possibility of frost?
 
How cold is it supposed to get where you guys are?
And what is the temp threshold at which we need to cover? Anything 36 or lower because of possibility of frost?

Frost can happen in the 40's with humidity or wind chill. I saw 37deg. this morning and the App says it will be colder lows Friday- Sunday .
I didnt have any frost today, but the sweet potatoes sure not going to like it. I have extras in a jar of water and may have to replace a few if they dont pull thru this.
I'll be prepping drop cloths , moving blankets and sheets today for coverings.

This springs weather is sure goofy.
 
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Then I went out to the side yard and dig up roots. I’ve got a stump grinder coming in Wednesday.
There’s a huge 200-300 year old stump ( plus a couple others ) I want gone so I can spruce up that part of that yard.

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It was as big as this one across the street.

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I am grinding 8 stumps today. Hope I don't screw up my back (pulled a muscle the other day and am being very tender with it). What did the guy charge you to remove that MONSTER? Good luck with the weather. Just got down in the hi forties here.
 
Frost can happen in the 40's with humidity or wind chill. I saw 37deg. this morning and the App says it will be colder lows Friday- Sunday .
I didnt have any frost today, but the sweet potatoes sure not going to like it. I have extras in a jar of water and may have to replace a few if they dont pull thru this.
I'll be prepping drop cloths , moving blankets and sheets today for coverings.

This springs weather is sure goofy.
also... where is the best place to get sweet potato slips?
 
What did the guy charge you to remove that MONSTER? .

$135 took about 1/2 hour. there were 3 of them. neat tool he used, controlled by wire. just stand back and watch.

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also... where is the best place to get sweet potato slips?

We got ours from Park Seed. Centennial Variety , Looked like hell when I opened the box, but perked right up in 2 days.
 
Covered beds last night and will continue for a few nights. I need to order more AG fabric now that I have more beds.
 
This cold snap is annoying to say the least.

We have vegetables berries and sunflowers, and I also grow bonsai trees as well. Lot of work to deal with.

I didn't cover anything last night though. I have years of experience growing trees, and we have grown vegetables in the past but this will be the first year growing vegetables "seriously." Vegetables are obviously not the same as trees so learning a lot as we go.

Everything so far is doing great except with the tomatoes the lower leaves keep getting white spots that almost turn translucent.

I can't tell if it's blight. When watering we don't splash to keep the dirt off the leaves and none of the leaves are touching the ground. Are plants like this OK to continue growing or not worth it and start new tomatoes?

I'll follow up with pictures shortly
 
I don't think 37-45 degrees for maybe an hour or 2 in May is gonna harm most garden plants but then again mine are mulched on a southern exposure in full sun. We hit 38 this morning at 6am here in Midland. Its cool for May but my plants are a foot tall and doing fine.

The 35 degree forecast on Sunday morning is certainly worth watching. I may put a fire barrel with a fan in front pointed over at the tomatoes since mine are caged and not able to be covered.
 
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This cold snap is annoying to say the least.

We have vegetables berries and sunflowers, and I also grow bonsai trees as well. Lot of work to deal with.

I didn't cover anything last night though. I have years of experience growing trees, and we have grown vegetables in the past but this will be the first year growing vegetables "seriously." Vegetables are obviously not the same as trees so learning a lot as we go.

Everything so far is doing great except with the tomatoes the lower leaves keep getting white spots that almost turn translucent.

I can't tell if it's blight. When watering we don't splash to keep the dirt off the leaves and none of the leaves are touching the ground. Are plants like this OK to continue growing or not worth it and start new tomatoes?

I'll follow up with pictures shortly

I pull funky looking leaves off. unless it would de-nude the plant or be more harmful.
that very well may be blight. A baking soda spray wouldn't hurt them if you can't get rid of the leaves.
 
That cold overnight took me by surprise. I knew I would be covering my garden Friday & Saturday night but not last night. Everything looks ok but I would be pissed if I lost it all. Even thought it’s small I don’t want to start over.
 
Status report !...

Things are sprouting, the peas are doing very well, the arugula is looking solid, the rest... few sprouts. Overall i think I've got about a 50% success rate?

For things that didn't sprout I planted pepper plant seeds in their place. Last year I randomly stuffed some seeds out of store bought peppers I was cleaning into the ground and got a LOT of peppers out of it. Pretty surprised by that.

I'll take pictures tomorrow.
 
Does anyone know if spraying the plants down with water like they do strawberries will work? I've go way too much garden to cover up now.
 
I know they say to water heavily the night before will help. I've never done it.

This is going to suck for a lot of people. Looks like we'll be out of the woods though after this.
 
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