I looked but didn’t see a gardening thread, so here’s one. We had previously talked about things like growing berries in other threads, but it really deserves it’s own place to talk about.
So, when i bought my house, it had all kinds of flowers and stuff, most of which i didn’t know anything about. They kind of continue to do their own thing, but my focus in terms of actually planting things, it almost entirely food crops.
Today I picked the first batch of black raspberries. The patch is probably going to produce about this many berries every day for a few weeks now.
I’ve also got some hearty kiwis growing, and they have fried for the first time ever, after planting these years ago. It’s totally converted with fruit.
Nice thread. I tend to be the gardener in my family. Kids have interest when I get them involved, wife would rather look at the garden or cook the food than try to grow it.
I had a good strawberry harvest, got about 10.5 lbs this year. I bought 4 plants from my aunt’s gardening club about 3 years ago, and now they have taken over my original 4x8 garden. Had to build another garden last year, it’s now a C-shape, which makes harvesting tomatoes easier. I intend to have a tomatopocolypse come end of July/early August.
We have zucchini’s going already, so far harvesting 7 with more to come. Unfortunately, I was on business travel this week and 2 of them were allowed to grow for too long and were gigantic when I harvested them yesterday. Also have been regularly harvesting kale and various lettuce, as well as herbs (basics only: basil, parsly, and cilantro).
All the rain we had late spring seems to have kicked things off quite well this year, though it’s supposed to be nasty hot this week and early next week in central PA, so we’ll see.
My wife wanted a raised garden bed, so after some sawing and screwing, ta da! I think my wife may have over planted with beans, peas, kohlrabi, eggplant, peppers and tomatoes.
What are those curved PVC pipe looking things? Do they come in really long lengths cause maybe I could do something similar to net over my frop bog canal for fall leaves. Also that netting - is it made of plastic, nylon, or cloth weave?
The piping is 1/2" PEX pipe. I picked up four 10 ft segments and sawed each in half so the hoops in the picture are 5 ft segments over a 3 ft span. Plants like beans grow fast so my wife asked for taller hoops. They come in coils of varying lengths. I got mine at Lowes.
What I discovered is flexible plastic piping becomes too flexible at longer lengths and don’t stand up properly. The netting is just cheap dollar store plastic netting.
I’ve used chicken wire framed in ceder strips to keep out the rabbits, and plastic over the top to keep out birds. I’ll post pics in the morning when I go out to water, but your solution looks quite good and I’m definitely going to download your picks for insperation for next spring.
We try to do some veggies every year, and as the years go on, I keep adding more capacity. Due to the way I am, we are probably overdoing it at this point :)
Original garden is below, it has now been completely taken over by strawberries. Sideguards to keep out bunnies, with the chickenwire on top to keep out birds. They are no longer producing so I’ll take off the top soon.
Second, smaller raised garden that gets less sun. This year, I have 2 zucchini’s and 2 eggplants. Last year, the eggplants “bleached” in the sun in the big garden, so I’m trying them over here.
Big garden below. I took 2 or 3 of those kits from home depot, stained/protected them, and made a big “C”. This year, it has 3 Juliet tomato plants, 2 red/2yellow peppers, some mellons, 2 zucchini’s, 3 kale, various other leaf lettuces, 4 cucumbers, and 2 sunflowers. I put some maragolds in there to help with pests. I like this setup as it gives us a lot of space but still have access without always having to step into it.
Last, I have an herb planter next to the sliding glass door, which makes it easier to grab herbs right before cooking.
Well nice garden. I love the look of it. I have a brown thumb but my neighbors are eager for me to try since i have so much space. I told them we’ll be lucky if my fig tree does well.
Those panels look ideal for another part of our yard where wee need to protect seedling sunflowers from rabbits. That looks a lot nicer than the wire mesh stapled to random wooden stakes
I’m envious of the yards and planters most of you have. I live in a townhome with limited yard and options. What that leaves me is one corner in back where I have 4 larger planters for tomatoes, peppers and other items:
And though all of that looks small, they REALLY take off in the NC climate by mid summer. These pics were right after we got things home and were trying to get all them spaced around what little area I have that has either full or partial sun. The watering is somewhat of a pain. The bottom of those larger tomato and pepper planters has a 3 gallon well and they will go through that almost daily in this heat. Bleh.
You guys have given me ideas though. I have a neighbor with a raised garden right behind her back porch that I really like, it would simplify things a lot, get them off the ground and look 100% better. But convincing my GF to give up a little of our back area will be the hard part.
Things are starting to come in already. The spring lettuce mixes are gone but now peppers and tomatoes are ramping up. Here’s Sunday’s pull: 3 Roma tomatoes, a somewhat stunted poblano and some jalapenos.
Recommend checking out migardener on YouTube. He shows how to make really low cost raised garden beds using 2x10’s, plus has other really good general tips.
Also, your note about deck planters producing is 100% correct. When we were renting an apartment in MD, our neighbors had 3 tomatoes on thier small deck and they grew really tall, producing a ton of fruit, more than they could eat (luckily for us).
