2023 Gardening Thread

[SaltwaterSlick]

My onions and garlic look fine. My wife noticed the Prime Ark Freedom are showing new growth, hopefully that’s the start of fruiting!

Yea, our blackberries are good. Back in the big February freeze in 22 they survived too... It got down to 5 degrees and did not get above freezing for 3 days... Those suckers must be pretty hearty!

[bowmansdad]

Just did a quick check and it appears that the beets n onions were unaffected!




Actually have 2 double rows of onions and they both look fine. If it will just not rain for 3 or 4 days, it is time (past time actually) to feed them. I plan to inject the fertilizer through the drip tape but I don’t want to drown them!!

My onions and garlic look fine. My wife noticed the Prime Ark Freedom are showing new growth, hopefully that’s the start of fruiting!

[Texas Grown]

New 2024 thread?

https://www.texasbowhunter.com/discussions/forums/forum/topics/around-the-campfire/26704362-2024-gardening-thread

[SaltwaterSlick]

Just did a quick check and it appears that the beets n onions were unaffected!




Actually have 2 double rows of onions and they both look fine. If it will just not rain for 3 or 4 days, it is time (past time actually) to feed them. I plan to inject the fertilizer through the drip tape but I don’t want to drown them!!

[Man]

Our onions have been in the ground since mid-November. Haven’t checked on them.
Collards got burned pretty bad but they’ll probably come back.

got our fingers crossed for the beets.

Hopefully, it was just inclusive to me and my particular garden, but our beets were one of the few things that did not bounce back after the big freeze unfortunately. The good thing was that you can harvest beets and anytime during the growth process. We were able to dig our baby beets out and still make use of them.

[Killer]

Too cold to think about a garden!
Ready for spring

[SaltwaterSlick]

I lost everthing with green leaves in my garden. (bok choy, Nappa, Saldad, Mustard greens etc etc) The good thing is it should start to come back from the center of the plant and regrow. At least that was my experience during the last heavy freeze. I still have 300 onions I need to get into the ground .....i am waaaaaay behind on that this season but even if I get just tennis ball sized onions I will be happy.

Our onions have been in the ground since mid-November. Haven’t checked on them.
Collards got burned pretty bad but they’ll probably come back.

got our fingers crossed for the beets.

[Man]

I lost everthing with green leaves in my garden. (bok choy, Nappa, Saldad, Mustard greens etc etc) The good thing is it should start to come back from the center of the plant and regrow. At least that was my experience during the last heavy freeze. I still have 300 onions I need to get into the ground .....i am waaaaaay behind on that this season but even if I get just tennis ball sized onions I will be happy.

[SaltwaterSlick]

Heartbreaking…
Only had 1 heater going in the big greenhouse the first night. Guess that wasn’t enough. Everything was wilted yesterday so I watered heavily and added another heater but I guess the damage had already been done.





The small greenhouse is fine. 65 degrees in it when I went out at 7:00 this morning to check on everything.

Lesson learned… put some of each type plant in each greenhouse in case something goes wrong in one.





I have propane heaters but did not use them. Another lesson learned‼️

Tray of the next round of cauliflower and broccoli and lettuce that we started 2 weeks ago in the big greenhouse fared well, so still have our official start for the ‘24 Spring garden under way.

[100%TtId]

That’s amazing Charlie, congrats.

[SaltwaterSlick]

Well gang, final installment in the 2023 Gardening Thread!! It was a fun year!! I think overall we had the best garden we've ever had by using new technologies and new planting techniques...

Final recap of the first ever Fall garden was mixed successes and failures... Biggest disappointment was the sweet corn... I got it in the ground about 2-3 weeks late... We made a valiant effort to protect it, but in the end, the frost finally won... we harvested about 2 dishpans full of partial ears for us and about 5 bushels of immature ears for the chickens! Also the purple hull peas were pretty much a bust... But I don't consider them a total loss... field peas are very good for a Fall ground cover crop as they are very good nitrogen fixer plants. I just plowed them under so they could break down for my Spring corn planting!



Most pleasant successes were probably the Fall cauliflower and broccoli plants (already have another tray of seeds started). Here's a shot of the last 3 cauliflowers we cut this morning. I had moved them into the greenhouse last week before this big cold front hit us because of the great warnings I read about on here!



The other surprising success was our green beans!! We've never been able to successfully grow green beans for whatever reason, but we finally found a variety that just took off for us and were successful in canning about 20 quarts and even a few pints of pickled green beans besides all the fresh meals we had... We will be hopefully repeating that come Spring!



First time I ever tried to keep my peppers going all season long and into the Fall and it was a rousing success! We even have a dozen or so plants in a small greenhouse next to our big greenhouse and they are still producing fruits. We quit picking them so they'd quit blooming! We made pickled peppers, pepper relish, freeze dried peppers, you name it... We had peppers running out our ears... We were also able to prune back another dozen or so of our bigger plants and they are staying fairly dormant in the greenhouse. If they survive the Winter out there, we shouldn't even have to plant pepper this coming year other than transplant those stumps that we have... fingers crossed there!

Here's a shot I took last week of the tomatoes in the greenhouse... Can't really tell it from the pic, but they are literally loaded down with tomatoes and a few are starting to turn red... They got pretty cold last night, but hoping (and praying) they didn't freeze. Had a small heater going in there...



Sure had fun with this project this year! Someone get a 2024 Gardening Thread going again!! We've already started ordering seeds!! February is just around the corner and that's a big seed starting month!

[SaltwaterSlick]

Just went out and snapped a few pics of the garden.
This is the 78 pepper plants that we saved from the Spring planting. Now that Fall has set in, they are gong great gangbusters...


This is what's left of the squash and cucumbers... They all produced really well except I battled Squash Vine Borers this Fall... We didn't have any issue with them this Spring... I'd have thought the opposite would have occurred. I was able to salvage all the infected plants by killing the larvae in the infected plants by digging them out, then covering the plants higher up their stems with soil and watering them in real heavily... They recovered and began producing again... Now though, even though we covered them when we got that one frost earlier in the month, it has taken its toll on them. They're about done, but man did we get a lot of squash... We planted all Summer squash varieties like crook-neck, Patty Pan, and 3 varieties of round squash and grenade squash... Even the yellow zucchini did well. I'll be pulling them out here in the next week and recycling the soil in the bags.


The maters are about a pretty as we've ever grown! They are lush, dark green and loaded down with maters. We covered them successfully during the one frost, and have the covers ready JIC we get another one before the maters are big enough to pick. Our plan is to move a few plants into the greenhouse and try to keep them going a while into the Winter...


This is the broccoli, cauliflower and Pak choy. These are all doing very well. The broccoli plants all have nice heads on them, and the cauliflowers have started some pretty serious curling in their centers so I'm hoping small heads are forming there as well.


The in-ground portion of the garden was hit and miss. Below are a few pics of squash and maters that came from the same seedling trays as the bag plants we planted and they were all planted the same day or within a day or two of the bag plantings. The rows were given the same soil amendments we gave the bags and they have drip tape watering systems under them for plenty of water... The bags did remarkably better than the in-ground plants, which actually surprised me, but confirmed our approach of bag gardening for most succulent plants.


This is our peas/beans. They all did the best we've ever grown. For the first time ever we actually were able to grow green beans in a quantity sufficient we were able to can quite a few quart jars and we still have probably one picking left to get. There are also 2 double rows of top pick pink-eye purple hull peas, and a double row each of two other varieties of field peas that I don't recall specifically what they are (that's my wife's department). They are all loaded down with little peas and blooms.


If I can get the corn through about 2 more weeks before we get a freeze, we should have some nice sweet corn. We planted a variety that has a short mature date. It's not very tall and we've tried to keep up with spraying Spinosad for the ear worms, but not sure whether or not we have been successful. That series of pipes/tubes is so we can throw a cover over the whole plot in the event we have a predicted frost... It's left over from the one frost we had and we were successful in saving it really well. It was not damaged at all.


As I posted above, we have carrots and onions in the ground that we expect to over-Winter... never tried that before, so we'll see how it goes and I'll report in the Spring. There are a couple rows of cabbage and beets in the ground too and they are doing well if we can get them up and mature before they get zapped by a frost...


All in all, the Fall garden was a LOT less effort than the Spring garden and I'm pretty sure we will be doing this again next Fall. Here is a panoramic shot of the main garden. Not sure how it will be able to be seen on here, but we'll give it a shot... What is not shown is our main blackberry patch which is around the corner of the fence and I could not see it from the vantage point where I did the pano...




Once we move the plants into the greenhouses we want to keep from freezing to try to prolong their life this Winter, I'll try to do another update on how that goes.

Hope y'all enjoyed following along on this fun project as much as we did doing it!!

[SaltwaterSlick]

Got my Texas legends and Red Creole in the ground this weekend. 2 bunches of each from Dixondale, with about 1/4 bunch total left over. All leftovers were the tiny ones. Gonna give those to the neighbor.

We've never done onions before. We planted 3 varieties, Texas Sweets (1015's) Red Creole, and some kind of "bunching" onions... Have 2 double rows that are 40 feet long... I love those purple onions in salads and certain dishes when cooked... I think that's what my wife uses in her Carne Guisada... Anyway, our plan is to make more salsa this Spring... We made some for the first time this year, and it turned out really good, so she upped the tomato and pepper plant planning... My jalapeno plants are going nuts right now. Will take 5 or 6 of them and put them in the greenhouse to try to over-Winter them... Bell peppers the same way... 2 varieties of Poblanos... greenhouse will be full of peppers and maters... Planted those Fall maters and they're 4 feet tall now and loaded down with maters, much more so than the same varieties in the Spring... Our intent is to try to have maters this winter just enough for eating/cooking... we'll see.
Have 2 greenhouses, one is our old little one we got from Harbor Freight (6' x 8')... it will be all Wintering plants. The other is our main greenhouse (10 x 16). It will be mostly over-Wintering plants, and lettuce and other greens. Both are heated... we have high hopes... but will have to wait and see how "mother nature" treats us... so far, so good... (insert crossed fingers and praying hands emoji's here!)

[locolobo]

Got my Texas legends and Red Creole in the ground this weekend. 2 bunches of each from Dixondale, with about 1/4 bunch total left over. All leftovers were the tiny ones. Gonna give those to the neighbor.

[Pedernal]

I was able to keep some of my Spring pepper plants alive through the heat of Summer. Quit picking so they’d quit trying to bloom/produce. They had lots of peppers but all very small. About 10 days ago, we picked them clean and they’re loaded down with peppers! Have 78 total plants. Going to try to over-Winter a few of the best ones and see how they do.
mice never tried that but from what I read and see videos on line they are supposed to do better the second year than the first.
Eradicator, you ever try that?

Years ago, talking late 80’s my mother kept a jalape?o plant alive over the winter. The results were an amazing plant. It grew to be close to 4 feet tall and looked more like a bush than a pepper plant. In the spring it produced peppers like there was no tomorrow. Back then, most of the jalape?o plants actually produced hot peppers. We had to constantly give peppers away as our salsas were a combination of mostly anaheim peppers with a few jalape?os along with the tomatoes .

i am considering trying to save some of my pepper plants this year. I am going to try and protect a few in place and move some to pots to keep in the garage. Not sure if it will work but going to try it. The plant we save back in the day was right by a cinder block fence which helped keep it alive due to its thermal mass IMHO.