2023 Gardening Thread

[JFFB]

Yep

I pick my tomatoes as soon as they start to change color, I let them ripen on a towel on the table.

That's what I do also before the birds peck holes in them.

[scotty]

I pick my tomatoes as soon as they start to change color, I let them ripen on a towel on the table.

[txtimetravler]

2023 Gardening Thread

Put out some red Christmas tree ornaments. Kept the mockingbirds from pecking my maters. And pick the tomatoes when they just start to blush.


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[Muskles]

I've heard that the birds are after the moisture in the veggies and fruits. Putting a bird bath near your garden is supposed to help. That's just hear say, so I'm not sure.

[SaltwaterSlick]

Well, haven't done an update in a while, but things are coming along nicely... Had to put my foot down a bit on my bride. She just kept adding bags and adding bags to the bag portion of the garden... I broke her up a small patch to plant melons. Put 4 yards of compost in it just before we got 2 1/2 inches of rain... Still too wet to get in it and work it. She plans to plant several hills of cantaloupes and maybe a couple rows of in-ground maters and peppers, seein' as we have well over 200 extras after she got done planting the bags!!
When we got to 240 bags, I told her "that's it!!" No more... Final count now stands at 243 bags.











Have the early brasacas going strong. Never grew broccoli, cauliflower or cabbage, but all are doing great. Don't know how many actual fruits we'll get, but have beautiful plants.

Probably have 12-15 broccoli heads of various sizes.
A couple cauliflower heads, but only one so far that is really big.
Lots of cabbage heads. Couple of them are probably ready to pick. They're bigger than the heads you get at the grocery store.















Just got all the squash and zucchini plants caged with the wire cages yesterday. Few blooms but no fruits.



Have pole beans and "English peas" trellised. First time in several years they've gotten this far along without getting drowned from too much rain and I think we were close on the pole beans. They're yellowing some on the bottoms but new growth coming out. English peas have lots of blooms.



8 rows of Top Pick purple hull peas all coming along nicely, and 3 rows of okra that we transplanted after starting the seeds in trays. They got hit by that big rain so they stalled a bit. They seem to be starting to put on a growth spurt now though.






Corn is almost big enough for me to take off the bird netting and get in there and thin it and pick out the little bit of grass that has sprouted. Probably do that next week. That netting 100% kept the crows at bay, though a couple got too close and fell victim to my trusty PCP 25 cal. They're on display on top of T-posts and that has kept their buddies well away from the garden.



First attempt at beets seems to be doing OK too. Started with seeds, then transplanted from trays to in-ground garden... They survived the last frost AND the big rain...



Have planted cukes twice and they are WAY behind, but they finally seem to be coming up... They got hammered by the rain and were just peeping thru the ground and drowned first time around. If they come on up and get going, I'll trellis them...



Finally got the tomatoes in the bags, but I'm not too hopeful for them. They were in the starting trays about 2 weeks too long... That big rain came at the worst possible time for us to get the tomatoes planted. I'm hoping we produce enough to can some this year. Haven't had any to can in 2 years... gettin' pretty low.


Oh and we have a few smallish red strawberries!! Our first attempt at growing them too and so far, so good. Bare root plants planted in raised beds in straw and they are thriving!!



Of course the blackberries are loaded down with berries. Lot of red ones now, but the dang sparrows are givin' me fits in the plot that is close to the chicken pen... They jumped from stealing hen scratch from the hens over to pecking every berry they can get to soon as it starts to turn black... I can handle the sparrows and it's even kind'a fun to watch them explode when the 25 cal. PCP center-punches them, but ain't a whole lot I can do about the dang mocking birds... First time we've been inundated with them. I fear I'll be battling them over the tomatoes too here in a few weeks... May try the netting for the maters, but that's gonna be a PITA to have to work under since it's not high enough for me to stand up under it.






Anyway, if anyone has any tricks to keep the mocking birds at bay, please post up!


After that first cup of coffee in the morning after the sun is up good we take a walk around and soak in our early morning blessings...





This has been a fun project thus far... Now that every day is Saturday for both of us except Sunday's...