2017 - How Does Your Garden Grow?

[Watchman]

Seed catalog time.

[Watchman]

Organic soil additive for gardens. Discovered that if we shred toilet paper and paper towel tubes separately they are a good additive to the ground or mulch as they contain no dyes or chemicals and break down fairly quickly.

[Toepopper]

Yesterday it warmed up to 51 so I went out and planted a new variety of red raspberries, Brandywine, which are an ever bearing plant. Supposedly they produce all summer long and into the fall. We shall see. Turned in some maple leaves in several raised beds to loosen up the soil and add organic matter and leaf mold to the soil. Its not much but its a start.

[Watchman]

Just when it was starting to warm up, all the snow and ice was gone from the roads, and we were looking at bare ground and deciding where to plant what this year ----- yesterday it snowed two feet.

[Watchman]

Yesterday was the day I had planned to test the soil in various plots. When I got up (0330) Gravy (Yorkie) wanted to go outside but wouldn't because he couldn't get through the one foot of snow.

[Toepopper]

ha ha ha, upstate New York and Vermont got snow again also. It was 65 here today with all the fruit trees in full bloom with bees buzzing around doing their thing. Snow is still visible up at the 5000 feet elevation's. Had to cut the grass today in the garden and turn over the potato patch to get it ready to plant.

[Watchman]

After the snow melted I noticed that the apricot tree is beginning to bloom, not full bloom (a few) but in buds. It was in the low 40s so I hope it didn't kill the process.

[Watchman]

Finally, all the snow is gone! Ground is warming and I'm going to do some soil testing in our various plots.

[Watchman]

Apricot tree has budded, irises are growing tall, tulips are blooming and snow is on the ground.

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[Watchman]

Growing: Lemon cukes, Armenian cukes, Bush cukes, Zucchini, Potatoes.

Apparently a bust" 5 out of 9 tomato plants.

Our Yorkie babies are telling me, "hurry up with those cucumbers Poppie!" They love cucumbers.

[Watchman]

I spoke too soon. Everything is thriving. The tomato plants look great but I'll have to wait and see after they bear fruit. We are going to have a ton of cukes, Yukon golds, and zucchini. We played it subdued this year.

[Toepopper]

We have harvested broccoli and snow peas which are about done producing and spend about an hour picking red raspberries every day. Two years ago we planted a different variety called Cascade. They are a bigger, juicier and sweeter tasting berry that gets ripe a week before the Heritage type. I have already started placing surplus berries in mason jars and freezing them for use next winter. Picked a few spuds that were poking up out of the ground but the plants are starting to flower so we will wait before digging any more up. Apricots and plums are about half grown. Tomato plants are covered in yellow flowers and beans are starting to bud. There is plenty of water this year so we are not cutting back any watering due to drought.

[Watchman]

Toepopper, a question. Do raspberries really spread?

[Toepopper]

Yes sir, they sure do. I planted some starts 2 years ago, little 6" tall twigs, kept them watered and now I have thicket of new canes that are producing berries. Some red berries like Latham and Heritage have canes that produce for one year and then die but new canes grow from the roots. Others such as Cascade just keep on spreading with no canes dying off , at least so far. The canes have started growing outside the rail road tie wall I built for a raised bed. I have them all tied to wires strung for support. I've already put 12 quarts in the freezer. Red raspberries are a good food for diabetics because they are low in sugar and won't spike the glucose levels.

[Watchman]

I've got fingers crossed! So far no sign of BER (blossom end rot) on tomatoes. Wife said we will have cucumbers, potatoes, and squash coming out our ears. Good output for such a small space.

[Watchman]

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ECLIPSE TOMATOES

Thanks to Toepopper's magic formula this is the first year EVER (in Wyoming) that I was able to grow tomatoes without BER (blossom end Rot).

[Watchman]

Our total garden size this year was about 200 square feet - not much. We planted Armenian cukes, lemon cukes, zucchini, tomatoes, and potatoes. We're going to dig the potatoes today and the rest of the garden was a bumper crop! These lemon cukes are tasty but beware! They bite - they have a spiny surface with stickers which means you can't eat the skin like on other cucumbers. Our favorite is still the Armenian which can grow to 2 or 3 feet if there is a lot of space.

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[Watchman]

Finished pulling out 'spent' squash vegetation from the garden and am getting ready to apply a bag of chicken manure and a bag of dolomite calcium and will till it into the soil and let the rain and snow do it's thing for Spring. All told, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers, we have harvested about 300 pounds of produce from only 200 square feet.

[Watchman]

Our garden is done for the year, although I still have to apply some chicken manure and calcium. Between now and the seed catalogs for 2018 I'll be building and installing 4 additional garden beds. 2017 garden tread will end on 30 Nov 17 and 2018 begins the next day.

[Watchman]

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Not exactly food, but we thinned out our purple irises this past weekend. These all started from 10 bulbs and we gave away about 700 bulbs. Our main reason for planting them is to draw the bees into our 1/4 acre homestead. It works.

[Watchman]

Well, we completed 'Operation Purple Bearded Iris!'. From an initial planting ten years ago of 20 bulbs, we have dug up and given away about 2,000 bulbs, leaving approximately 100 to begin the cycle all over again. We gave about 1000 to a rancher - he wanted to line the fence in one of his pastures. We did this for free, just to share with others our over-abundance. This good old boy could not quite grasp that and brought us two big bags of potatoes and onions.

In about 10 minutes I begin 'Operation Tiger Lilly'. Same modus operandi.