How Does Your Garden Grow?

[gonelong]

Strawberrys were Deeeeeeelicious this year. Great conditions in our neck of the woods.

GL

[redsmetz]

I love having some fresh herbs in our garden. My wife planted to railing boxes; one with cilantro, the other with basil. Today for lunch, I reheated some black bean flautas I'd made the other night and topped them off with some fresh cilantro. Yum.

[gonelong]

Originally Posted by gonelong

Dad tells me you can shake the tassels of one row and then spread them on the silk of the other and vice versa.

Dad said an envelope is ideal for this.

GL

[redsmetz]

Originally Posted by gonelong

Out of the blue the other day, Dad tells me you can shake the tassels of one row and then spread them on the silk of the other and vice versa. He said this would do the trick when mother nature and sparse plantings would not. Do this when the silk first begins to show.

Thanks pop. He lets me fail with sweet corn 3 years running and hands you the answer on a silver platter. *sigh*

GL

Yeah, but at least he finally has "the talk" out of the way, no?

[Roy Tucker]

Originally Posted by redsmetz

I love having some fresh herbs in our garden. My wife planted to railing boxes; one with cilantro, the other with basil. Today for lunch, I reheated some black bean flautas I'd made the other night and topped them off with some fresh cilantro. Yum.

I've got lots of basil plants growing in the out-gardens plus a lot of parsley, mint, and sage. Nothing like a mojito using mint just minutes out of the garden.

Garlic and shallots over in the south bed that aren't quite there yet.

On the patio, I've got a baker's rack with little pots of rosemary, thyme, tarragon, oregano, and a basil plant.

The herbs off the baker's rack get used almost nightly. Sometimes we need to give them a rest because we strip them quicker that they grow. Grilled a nice tilapia the other night with basil, parsley, and something else that I forget in butter and lemon juice for basting.

Salads get whatever herbs are plentiful. We're back to store-bought lettuce now. It got too hot for our lettuce plants but we had a nice 2 month run of hand-picked lettuce for dinner salads (which was a pain with all this rain, i.e. who goes out in the rain to pick it).

[redsmetz]

Roy, what are "Bakers Racks" - can you post a picture?

[Roy Tucker]

Basically, a tall shelving unit that goes against a wall. Something like this....

[Will M]

My bush beans are producing a lot. More than we can eat right now. Same with my cucumber plants.

The squash have started to produce as well as the tomatoes.

Its quite a lot of fun for me. I haven't had a garden since I was a kid.

Its been a very sunny (and hot) spring here in Cincinnati. It hasn't seemed to rain that much but I have been watering my plants every day it hasn't rained. Add a little miracle grow once a week & viola!

[Roy Tucker]

A garden-related note....

The Newport garden walk is this weekend, today and tomorrow 10-4. A big fave of Mr. and Mrs. Tucker. Great stuff if you like gardens and landscaping in very small city spaces.

http://www.eastrowgardenclub.org/

[VR]

Originally Posted by pedro

It's 50 degrees here.

The cilantro and parsley love it. As do the slugs.

The basil, not so much.

Tomatoes? See you in August.

We just planted our garden this week.

[redsmetz]

Figured I'd bump this up. The tomatoes are going gangbusters, as are the cherry tomatoes (including a volunteer plant that shot up among our green beans!). My wife just did a new planting of green beans too.

Our basil has been plentiful. I made some pesto last week with it and last night made up a recipe I found of ravioli with tomatoes and pesto (mixed with more olive oil & fresh pepper). We used the cherry tomatoes we'd picked. Topped the meal off with the last of the first batch of green beans.

Green & red peppers are getting plentiful too.

[Roy Tucker]

Originally Posted by redsmetz

Figured I'd bump this up. The tomatoes are going gangbusters, as are the cherry tomatoes (including a volunteer plant that shot up among our green beans!). My wife just did a new planting of green beans too.

Our basil has been plentiful. I made some pesto last week with it and last night made up a recipe I found of ravioli with tomatoes and pesto (mixed with more olive oil & fresh pepper). We used the cherry tomatoes we'd picked. Topped the meal off with the last of the first batch of green beans.

Green & red peppers are getting plentiful too.

Yep, that sounds like our garden. We've been using basil like lettuce we've got so much.

We've got a Brandywine tomato plant that I have to save the seeds of. We've been getting 1-2 large beefy really great tomatoes off it per day. Big dark green plant. I need to saves its DNA.

[SunDeck]

Terrible year here. Last year we had no problem with deer, but this year they came in an ravaged my wife's beans. She was crest fallen- I'm building new fences for next year.
On the up side, we had great strawberries, and we put in raspberries and blueberries. The deer didn't touch them. And they don't like basil either, so we've had mounds of pesto.

[OUReds]

Without further delay, I present my 2012 tomato grow list!

Raised Bed #1
2 - Aunt Ruby's German Green
Green when ripe. New to me.
2 - KBX
Orange tomato. Absolutely delicious, but not good production last year. Getting a better spot this time.
1 - Lucky Cross
Red/Yellow striped bi-color. New to me.
1 - J.D.'s Special C-Tex
Newish black tomato that's the new hotness in heirloom circles. Not a huge fan of dark tomatoes but thought I'd give it a trial.

Raised Bed #2
2 - Marianna's Peace
Absolutely the finest tasting tomato on the planet imho. Pink colored.
2 - Daniels
New to me pink colored tomato. Better be good as I bumped another favorite of mine (stump of the world) this year to grow it.
2 - Earl's Faux
New to me pink tomato.

In-Ground
2 - Big Beef
Red, the best hybrid I've grown. Decent taste, good production and disease resistance.
1 - Eva Purple Ball
New to me pink main cropper.
1 - Jaune Flamme
An earlyish orange saladette sized tomato. Some people swear by it.
1 - Azoychka
An earlyish yellow tomato.

I'll have room for a few more, maybe another dark and a cherry. Also have plans for 10 peppers this year, probably 3 Jalapenos, 3 Serranos, 3 Cayennes (hope to make my own hot sauce this year just for fun), and a sweet banana.

Onions and lettuce are planted, beds are turned over and fertilized. Can't wait for another growing season!

[LoganBuck]

My lettuce failed, I didn't water it. Time to start over.