Hey fellow gardeners... : Around the Coffee Table - Page 2

Marinea wrote:I same here Michael, potatoes planted. Finally!

A light covering of snow overnight here and the high today won't even get to freezing. A couple more inches of snow and lots of snow showers in the forecast--no highs above 30's. We haven't planted anything outside yet and don't know when we will. We plant potatoes when the dandelions start to bloom. Usually plant peas before that, as soon as the soil can be worked. Now I'm wondering when we'll get these young chicks outside--they're 2 weeks old now and had hoped to get them out at 3 weeks but it doesn't look promising right now.

Ouch!

But of course, now that we have our taters and some other things planted, what's in our forecast this weekend? Snow. We have everything under hoops for now, and the tomatoes and peppers still safely in the greenhouse.

I think I have the opposite problem of most people here... for us it's trying to plant early enough, before the weather gets too hot for things to germinate and grow appropriately. It's already in the 80's some days here!

We didn't have much set up for the garden this year, still being new to the house, but we've got a couple small fruit trees, herbs, and tomato plants to keep an eye on. If we don't get things planted by February we've pretty much missed the best planting season here.

Good luck to everyone still battling the cold!

I am about to plant my garlic crop. Its needs 8 months growing time. We plant it just under the surface.

Catherine99 wrote:I am about to plant my garlic crop. Its needs 8 months growing time. We plant it just under the surface.

Ours went in the end of October and is wintered over. I plant ours about 1-1/2 inches deep and does well in our cold months that deep. It's about 8 inches tall now and growing well. Harvest here is the last week in June-first week of July. Love our fresh and dehydrated garlic!

I'm just hanging out waiting for it to get warm enough to put in my sensitive plants. Usually they would be in the ground by now but they are forecasting 32F for this comming weekend. I have some volunteer tomato and cucumber plants I was hoping to keep.

alforddm wrote:I'm just hanging out waiting for it to get warm enough to put in my sensitive plants. Usually they would be in the ground by now but they are forecasting 32F for this comming weekend. I have some volunteer tomato and cucumber plants I was hoping to keep.

That kind of gardening boggles my mind. I remember as a kid there being snow on the garden till june, and if I even wanted to contemplate tomatos/peppers I had to stack 2 tires to warm the soil and a wall-o-water to protect the tops.

Hopefully you'll be able to get your garden going soon enough to get it harvested before it gets cold again?

Our problem is just the opposite, we don't have enough cold to grow a lot of crops. We lack the proper amount of 'chilling hours' so no garlic anywhere and finding onions that will actually make a bulb is tough. Green onions do okay, though, so we substitute chopped onion tops for chopped onion root.

The garden was planted several weeks ago and nothing inside the garden has sprouted, although the seeds outside the garden have sprouted so there may be something in there eating the new sprouts. Cutworms of some sort? Birds? Transplanted things do okay, though, and the garden is very small so it's easy enough to start and transplant for the amount of plants we want.

It's a raised bed garden of three layers of concrete 'masonry units' aka 'CMUs'. Then there's a layer of weed mat to keep out weeds and it's just filled with topsoil amended with bunny berries, crushed oyster shell and bio-char. This is year #3 for the garden and the first time there's been difficulty with sprouting seeds. Well, I'll plant more and see what happens.

Shea wrote:

alforddm wrote:I'm just hanging out waiting for it to get warm enough to put in my sensitive plants. Usually they would be in the ground by now but they are forecasting 32F for this comming weekend. I have some volunteer tomato and cucumber plants I was hoping to keep.

That kind of gardening boggles my mind. I remember as a kid there being snow on the garden till june, and if I even wanted to contemplate tomatos/peppers I had to stack 2 tires to warm the soil and a wall-o-water to protect the tops.

I'm very thankful I don't live in the north. I'm sensitive to cold so don't think I could take it. It got down to 9F this year. First time we've gotten that cold in maybe 6 years. I'm fine with that.

Our summers do tend to be rather brutal though, hot, humid, and dry. I'm not sure exactly how things manage to be dry and humid at the same time...but it happens almost every year at least for a bit.

hotzcatz wrote:
Our problem is just the opposite, we don't have enough cold to grow a lot of crops. We lack the proper amount of 'chilling hours' so no garlic anywhere and finding onions that will actually make a bulb is tough. Green onions do okay, though, so we substitute chopped onion tops for chopped onion root.

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I have a penpal in the Philippines that raised garlic-- I wonder what kind they raise..

Hmm, I'll ask my neighbors if they know, although it was their grandparents and not parents who were from Manila. The Philippines are further south than Hawaii so it should be hotter there. I don't think they get enough elevation to cool it off enough for garlic?

I think something happened to my saved seeds. The garden was seeded twice with no results and the seeds that were started in pots didn't come up, either. Except for the purple kale, some of those seeds sprouted, although only about 15% of the ones planted. Don't think the seeds overheated, although it could be mildew? Does that destroy germination? A friend of mine thinks it got too humid so the seeds started germinating and then dried out and died. That could have happened, considering how humid it gets around here sometimes. Although it's never happened before and the seeds are still just sitting on the shelf where they usually do. Oh well, new seeds arrived in today's mail, I'll reseed with those and see what happens.

hotzcatz wrote:Hmm, I'll ask my neighbors if they know, although it was their grandparents and not parents who were from Manila. The Philippines are further south than Hawaii so it should be hotter there. I don't think they get enough elevation to cool it off enough for garlic?

I think something happened to my saved seeds. The garden was seeded twice with no results and the seeds that were started in pots didn't come up, either. Except for the purple kale, some of those seeds sprouted, although only about 15% of the ones planted. Don't think the seeds overheated, although it could be mildew? Does that destroy germination? A friend of mine thinks it got too humid so the seeds started germinating and then dried out and died. That could have happened, considering how humid it gets around here sometimes. Although it's never happened before and the seeds are still just sitting on the shelf where they usually do. Oh well, new seeds arrived in today's mail, I'll reseed with those and see what happens.

when I lived in Florida, all my seed was stored in the freezer...