11 replies to this topic

[homeschoolshe]

I told the girls (2 teen dd) that I had had it and I was going to plant the garden again, even if that meant that I had to plant the whole thing to green beans! (plastered on smile)

My potatoes are done and small. My onions, also small, have tipped over. My beets never grew at all. My tomatoes plants just didn't grow and then were eaten off by rabbits. I got one bunch of spinach, and no lettuce. Several things I didn't even plant this year. None of my fruit trees produced (late frost after an exceptionally warm march)
Strawberries were small and hard.

So I went out and replanted beets and lettuce. (My original lettuce might come up in the fall; it's happened that way before.) I added an additional row of green beans and planted the cukes I hadn't gotten in. Found some potatoes sprouting under the counter and figured, "What do I have to lose?" I have a bunch of green bean seeds and stopped at the store and got more for 75% off. I also picked up some onion seeds, hoping to get some green onions to dehydrate.

Some one asked my hubby the other day if something was wrong with my garden. He said, "Um...the drought?" La-de-da. Anyway we have incredibly sandy soil, which is great for getting out their early, because it thaws quicker. And, the melon's love it. Not good for holding in moisture though, and as there was no grass to mow this year, I had nothing to add for ground cover.

Lest I sound like I'm complaining, I have some beautiful turnips and my green beans look good. Cabbage is okay. Peppers good. Zucchini looks good, though I planted it a little later than usual. And...my grape vines are loaded. We covered them for the frost! And, we haven't had to mow the lawn...I guess that can be looked at 2 different ways.

Anyway, that is my plan and I'm sticking too it! Wish me luck!

[Dee]

You go girl! Mind is shriveling up to nothing but I'm canning what little comes along. I DO NOT have the energy, the will or the oomph to start again this year. I hope this time it goes wild for you!!!

[Jori]

I have green beans coming in, peppers, broccoli, and a few tomatoes. Basil is going to seed and I can't manage to get out there to take care of it (never enough hours in the day with 3 little people that are busy ). Lots of weeds coming in. My garlic needs to be pulled and I have some lettuce and things that can be removed at this point. Blackberries are coming in but we lost all of the apples and cherries with the early heat/late frost in March.

I'm with Dee, no energy to start again. I'll plant garlic in the fall and work from there. Maybe I'll try a late garden with a few things.

Good luck homeschoolshe!

[dogmom4]

The difference on my side of the country is that we're having cooler than usual temps. Right now I have a blanket over my legs (in July!). The days are only hitting the 80's and sometimes the nights are cooling down into the 50's. While it may sound nice...for a summer garden it's bad. I have harvested 5 tomatoes...not whole plants but 5 whole tomatoes. By this time I'm usually swimming in them. The ones on my plants are green and just sitting there. Pepper plants are not growing at all. My cantaloupe and watermelon are puny. Eggplant? One so far about 1\2 inch long. The mammoth sunflowers I planted...the tallest is not even 3 feet tall yet. I am overflowing in green beans however. This is perfect weather for cool weather plants...unfortunately I didn't plant any of those!

Edited by dogmom4, 16 July 2012 - 05:18 PM.

[Jeepers]

I used to have trouble with toads in my strawberry patch. At first I thought it was birds pecking at them until I saw two toads munching away. They went bye-bye real fast.

I had plenty of berries and I really wouldn't have minded sharing but they would take a bite out of this one and then that one and the other one. I didn't have time to train them to eat one at a time.


Edited to add:
I forgot to wish you good luck on your re-plant.

Edited by Jeepers, 16 July 2012 - 06:28 PM.

[Amishway Homesteaders]

Know what you mean..................................
Caught 4 woodchucks so far this year in live-trap and then went for a ride out into the country.
They are eating everything this year seeing they can’t find food out in the wild due to no rain.
I have had to replace things like cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, etc. 3 times because they are eating things right down to ground!
Luck that I can catch they fast right after I see the damage in the morning ( I use cantaloupe pieces).
The last one was out there in the middle of the day and after I chased him , put out trap and had him in15 minutes!

[Annarchy]

Good luck with your garden homeschoolshe.

Your garden sounds much like mine. I have been planting potato eyes. We've gotten about a 1/4 gallon of tomatoes (blanched peeled & frozen). If we get more, I will dehydrate them. Saved some of the seeds. My spearmint is looking pale, so I took a clipping and have it in water in the house to see if it does better. Also have a plant of purslane in the house that I use to treat insect bites.

When we get back from the monthly trip to MIL's house, I plan on re-planting all our garden plots again. Seeing what works the best.

[themartianchick]

I still haven't put my extra plants in the ground yet. They are still in sets, living in a recycling bin on my porch. The groundhogs are everywhere, but they aren't bothering my plants. There isn't anything for them to be bothered with really. I've never had them eat tomatoesand that is about all that is left. I could probably plant a crop of beans, but I just don't want to be bothered... There is something in the air and I don't have the energy to plant anything either.

Edited to add...There aren't even any weeds in the garden! They wilted and died awhile back.

Edited by themartianchick, 17 July 2012 - 06:49 PM.

[homeschoolshe]

Normally I wouldn't put the effort into it. I would have just accepted the lose and not given it a second thought. I just couldn't shake the thought that I needed to plant whatever I could get. One DD and I planted almost all the rest last night. I have one other patch that I might get a couple more zucchini or yellow squash in. I only planted 2 plants this year, because they usually get away from me, but now, well.... I don't know! Not panicy or anything, just feel like I need to do it.

Sounds like I'm not the only one with varmits! One DD caught one of the bunnies last night, and then let it go. We could have taken it to the park or something! That girl just has a way with the animals. She walks right up to birds, rabbits, gophers. She picked a sparrow off the fence one day. When she tried to put it back it flew away, so I guess there was nothing wrong with it..

Wish I had saved some of my extra starts. I know most of them went to good use though.

California is cold, texas is wet, and the cornbelt is dry. Just wow.

[Deb2of9]

I am getting frustrated with my garden this year as well. I have had lots of bad luck, but some of it is my fault as well. I just haven't quite figured out what I am doing yet. I had my first thing that grew out of my garden today, a banana pepper. Tomatos look sickly but I finally see green tomatos there. Everything else I swear seems to be shrinking. First my brothers helped me water by overwatering the plants, now they have stopped watering completely. Work keeps me so busy I am unable to get out and keep the garden watered enough in this heat or weeded enough. i swear the weeds are growing the best. my soil doesn't seem to retain any of the water. I will keep trying, but hadn't thought of trying again this summer. Maybe I can get that raised bed up and try to grow something more, but only if I can get someone to help me when I can't get to it because of work. As it is, I only have a few plants. Thought my melons were dead and went out today and see that the plants have grown some more. Zuchinni is putting forth flowers again but still no zuchinni. Even my berries did bad. they were putting out lots of berries, but then the heat hit and they all dried up before getting ripe. I had a couple of handfuls of the ones that ripened early. My blueberries that would have been producing fruit this year got mowed over when my landlord sent someone to brush hog the field. he didn't see the plants till it was too late. The tops are cut off, we are hoping we can still salvage the plants. My strawberries produced fruit but it had a clear gel like substance all over the berries. Not sure what happened there. I am living by the motto "if at first you don't succeed, try try again". I learn by my mistakes each year. I will get a successful garden and not just a few tomatos. If not this year, next year, but I won't give up.It is just that last year we had too much rain so everything was flooded. This year not enough rain so the plants are still suffering.



Good luck on your second planting.

[Mt_Rider]

With all the hoo-hah that's been going on this spring/summer, DH took over the garden. I'm not gardening off-site at my friend's this year. She's concerned about running out her well with so much to water.

Well, we've done some straw and hay bales and transplanted cuke/zuch/kholrabi seedlings. All are doing fine in those.

Down in the soil garden- The onion sets are our best crop!!! Other years, onions did not do well.

Seeds are a different matter! He's had to replant seeds 3X. Except the reliable ole turnips. [ I sure wish God would have made turnips just a bit more tasty. They're fine occasionally but.... ] DH has finally got some beets coming up. Not full rows tho.

The taters in towers and mounded ground are finally taking off and looking a bit more happy. [we are in a none-too-abundant "monsoon season: here and that always helps turn things around.]

He did get all the spinach seed to sprout in hay bale on the second try. ....So what was wrong with the first try????

DD and I lifted the tub of chipmunk-chewed lettuce up onto a 5 gal bucket. Now I have frustrated chipmunks and growing lettuce!

For the second year in a row, my peas are 6 inches tall. Usually 6 FEET tall. We all LOVE peas. Germination trouble there too...in both bales and ground planting.

Glad I didn't try for broccoli this year. Seemed like it was going to be too hot to work well for them. Kholrabi is in partial shade and seems happy tho.


We've never had a year where things [EXCEPT CARROTS ] wouldn't even sprout. And way up here, we are not THAT hot. Even tho we've been breaking heat records, it's no where near y'all in midwest, TX, AZ.... So what's up?


Now the durned carrots that have to be maintained moist for up to 2 wks until they finally germinate....we've frequently had trouble with them. Anyone have a suggestion for them in an arrid land?


Good luck everyone....yes, we need to keep trying. Have to learn how to bob and weave with variable....REDICULOUSLY VARIABLE....weather conditions. So we can still feed ourselves and our families.


MtRider

[Annarchy]

It seems like we are feeling the need to keep trying to grow as much food as possible. Why the crops failed about the end of spring, I can not even imagine. I am hoping, when we get back home, that everything will be doing well and not fried from the heat and lack of watering every other day. And that young jack rabbit, that has been hanging around the outside of my fence, did not make it into my garden, lol.

One potential resource that is growing like a weed and producing more than I have ever seen, is the mesquite tree beans. DH mentioned he looked up the benefits of purslane and was surprised how nutritious it is. I tried to tell him, but he had to look it up himself. Now he is eyeing the plants in the yard and asked If I wanted to fill the garden with it. "No!" It's a weed and grows just fine in the yard. LOL I need the garden space for other crops.

Yesterday, MIL took us to a restaurant in Los Cruces, DH picked up one of the decretive red chili pods that had fallen off the stringer, handed it to me and asked, "Do you think the seeds will grow?" Wow, I have never seen him so eager to have me garden before. I will plant some of the seeds, Hatch Chili, and save the rest of the seeds for a later planting.