Well, I'm super excited about my little veggie patch! In the past, everything has died except my tomatoes...so, I am full of optimism this year (planting at the right time of year and all that!).

I have grown all my veggies from seeds this year...a new experiment for me. I've always just bought the plants somewhere. It is more exciting starting from seed.

My four Better Boy tomatoe seedlings have also been transplanted to new pots from their small seed starter pot. I think this weekend I will transplant into the giant container and final home to avoid moving them alot and disturbing their roots.

My four cucumber plants are growing with gusto! I have to build a new trellis for them because the one I had in mind is too small. Loads of flowers and so far no spider-mite/white fly infestation (which is usually what happens...).

My cillantro (also from seed) is doing great! It is almost big enough to cut for garnishing my plate.

I am super excited about my bell pepper plant. Lots of blooms and baby bells are growing and look healthy. I'm already dreaming about my first salad.

I transplanted my zuchini and summer squash into the garden as well to keep my beans company.

I have just seeded sweet peas, green onions and planted a sprouting onion from the fridge into the garden (we shall see what happens.) and I purchased an eggplant from Lowes. I will be building a small 'trough' for a raised bed just for lettuce as I have run out of space in my little yard.

This is the fun, optimistic period of gardening, also known as, the "honeymoon phase".

Let's see if that fickle, mean-spirited, Mother Nature, crushes my dreams of growing my own salad again this year....I say, "Bring it on, Sista!" I have my mushroom compost, my cow-manure, my misting system and a big batch of newly made Castille Soap. I am ready for battle!!!

I WILL grow my own veggies this year!!!!! This is MY year!

I have not even started yet :-( I'm still burying containers to do the in-ground pot-in-pot model...thirty five down, twenty two to go. I'll finish that this weekend, make my mix next weekend and start setting plants and sowing seeds. All the mater seedlings I started are about a foot tall now and I'm only going to set fifteen to twenty of them, which leaves another thirty to give away.....

Tom

saintpfla---If you are serious about growing onions, look for little mesh bags of onion sets at places like WalMart. This is the time to plant onions but they need to be a variety type for "short-day" growing. This type will grow with the days getting shorter instead of longer.

Since you are in zone 10 the onion sets may not be in the stores yet but they will be soon.

Christine

Thanks, Christine. I will do that. I've never grown onionns before, so any tips are welcome.

I thought I wouldn't waste a sprouting yellow onion in my fridge so just stuck it into the ground. It perked up immediately, but, now the top has some brown leaves. Not sure if it will make it or not.

If you want those onions to make bulbs then buy only the Vidalia (granex) sets or plants. The generic yellow/white/red onion sets will make pretty plants, but won't make good bulbs because they're not short day onions.

I've got most of my cool season garden planted, at least the stuff that I'm going to plant this early. The squash are up and doing well, and the tomatos, cabbage, and peppers are establishing themselves. The carrots, chard, and turnips is too soon to tell if I'm going to get a good stand or not. The carrots appear to be filling in so they may be alright. They're so small when they first break ground that it's hard to tell sometimes. The turnips are definitely spotty though I've got enough out there that I don't feel like I have to replant. This is the first time I've direct seeded chard and I've read it can be slow to come up so I'll give it a bit longer. This is the earliest I've ever planted cool-season veggies and next year I think I'll wait until the beginnning of October like I usually do.

I've still got some sugar snap peas I want to plant and want to put in some broccoli. Bedding plant availability this year seems to be rather sparse.

.....Alan.

So...what exactly are 'short day' onions?

Why will a yellow store bought onion not grow well for eating here? I always thought onions were a cool season crop?

Zucchini just coming into flower now, same with snap beans and eggplant, but not broccoli. Asparagus growing well, third planting of corn now about 14 inches. Doing pretty well I think.

Saintpafl,

Someone else probably understands the whys and wherefores of this better than I, but basically, there are two types of onions: those that make big fat bulbs (onions) when the days are short - the winter - and those that do that when the days are long. They're guided in their dirty little underground onion minds by the length of the days. So we can only grow onions that are short-day because it's too hot and humid and buggy here during the summer for onions.
They're kind of like some flowers, I think "Christmas cactus" is one, that take their cues from the hours a day of sun they receive more than from the temperature or water. That's why you can force Christmas cactus with some sort of covering.

The onion you got at the store that sprouted was probably a long day and it will make leaves, but won't make a nice big onion because it's confused. Onions are easily confused, but in the end, they figure it out.

Susannah

Well shoot, you guys are all way ahead of me.

All I have accomplished so far is cleaning the side yard where the garden goes and buying five tomato plants.

I'm thinking about building a pipe frame to hang bird net this year. We have a pet yard mockingbird "mocky" that likes to peck one hole in each tomato.

Corrie

Corrie,

We have the same problem with the mocking birds, we've just been picking the maters when they first start to turn and taking them inside to ripen. Cindee just wraps the bird netting directly around the plants as states good success with that method so I might try that this year. I'm trying Yellow Pear, Black Cherry and Dr. Carolyn this year so it will be interesting to see if the mocking birds leave them alone due to the different color...I suspect not.

Tom

Susannah...loved your response...'onion minds'...LOL..

CFLDoc: all I can say is "WOW!"; your garden looks extremely happy and enticing.

Your bean leaves have zero slug bites...how do you deter the slugs? Nothing has been working for me except hand-picking them off the plant (with the help of bark and sticks...I am NOT touching them with my hand!).

Morning Tom, Cindee, and everyone!

I tried wrapping the plants last year, but the plants would grow through the bird net and made a mess. When I'd try to un-wrap and re-wrap, I'd pull all the flowers off! LOL

I found a 7ft X 100ft roll of bird net for only $15, and I have some pipe left over to make a frame. I'm just going to make sort of a walk in greenhouse this year.

What I've been doing is planting two 15gal pots of that wild Florida cherry tomato and growing it on the chain link fence. That gives the birds, squirrels, and iguanas something to do and they leave most of the rest alone. Well, except for Mocky bird!

Guess I better get on it, you guys already have things in pots and in the ground and I've done none of that so far!

Corrie

I've got my tomatoes in my interpretation of earth boxes. One of them had a lot of extra room so I sprinkled some lettuce seeds there. I plan on getting more earth boxes going with Miracle gro soil and put in some broccoli maybe or some other store bought seedlings. I'm going to be sticking to potted veggies this year.

Gee I better get a move on. I am way behind you all!
Kat

Tom-the yellow pear were the first to fruit and the mockers made a beeline for them, puncturing their sides and sucking the juice outta them. That's when I went and bought the netting. I stick tall thin stakes in and around tomato planters and then clothespin the netting to the stakes and tomato cages. I wrap it tighter at first when plants are small. Prob was I was trapping butterflies that got under the net. I opened up all the top netting areas and the butterflies were free and the mockers still stayed away. Will be using it again this year.

CFL-your veggies are awesome! I hope mine stays as bug free as yours seems to be.
Along with my tomato seedlings I have cucumbers, red radishes, birdhouse squash and pumpkins all coming up. On the radishes I had thought the purpose of strips was to space so they don't need thinning out. The baby plants are still coming up on top of each other. Oh I am saving Tom's HOT HOT HOT Icicle radish seeds until October to plant.

I still haven't even planted most of my seeds, but I'm getting onto it this week. Last week, they tore down the derelict house next door to me (YAY!), so I couldn't really get out in the yard much with all that dust and mold flying.

I found some very old cucumber seeds in the freezer and found that they have about a 50% germination rate, so I'll have a couple of kinds, with the ones you sent me.

I'm still working on the raised bed, since planting in the spot I had picked would be fruitless with all the roots in it.

On the upside, my japanese eggplant that I have in a pot has two fruits on it! Can't wait for some yummy eggplant.

I'm still burying containers :-( fifty four down, three to go! Whew, I'm pooped...the other three will have to wait until tomorrow. I sure hope this concept works....

Cindee, sounds like unless I want to continue picking the fruit early I'll have to come up with some sort of netting cage for the maters :-( I have an idea though, similar to the fiberglass rods they use for tent supports, only with the really small water line CPVC pipe....

Tom, my Idea is pretty helter-skelter. Wonder if you could actually run water thru the PVC too! I am going to lay some soaker hoses over my planters this year so all I have to do is screw in the hose when they need a sip. The net is way cheap, Dennis has skinny slat wood pieces left over from all the furniture he has been making me this year. I just push slats into the ground and lope net around. I'll take a pic when I have it up. It ain't nuthin' purty, fer sure. I may just put it up early even just to give the mockers a head's up on Off Limits territories!!

Think I'm going to move up to 1/2" PVC for the cages, lot easier to get the parts I need and certainly sturdier. Regarding the watering, I'll have to do that by hand for a couple of seasons while I'm figuring out just how small a container I can use for the various veggies with the in-ground pot-in-pot model. After that I'll run a sprinkler system....

alan! long time no see...

tomncath--i strongly recommend using electrical conduit instead of pvc for anything and everything in the garden. it's only marginally more expensive than pvc. easily cut with a sharp hacksaw. same sorts of fittings as pvc--the fittings use tap screws, so they can be put together sturdily and taken apart. i've built trellises, temporary greenhouses, used them for stakes for tomatoes, etc etc. one of the great things about them is you can drive them into the ground using just your body weight and strength--i put together a 10 foot trellis in under five minutes.

Thanks Ill, when I'm ready that's what I'll do....

Tom

Just put five tomatoes in the ground. Maybe a bit early, but the weather seems to have broken early this year and the plants were big and ready to go. I wasn't totally prepared for that early break in the weather, so part of the veggie bed needs to cure a little more under the mulch before I plant more.... but I'm excited to get going!

Still need to get another soaker hose - this year I'm going to lay out the irrigation before the plants because the other way around didn't work so well last year.

And then the broccoli, arugula, peppers and lettuce go in. And the mass of nasturtium. Trying onions this year too, though I think I started them too late and I can't imagine I know enough about what I'm doing to make that work. I just know they have dirty little underground onion minds that are out to thwart me. :)

S

Susannah, what other tomato seeds do you have left? I have a mess of them. We have been getting drizzles all day, cloudy, gray and overcast. I wrapped my seedling condo and potting bench in plastic yesterday cause I thought we were gonna get a downpour. The 'Greenhouse' effect and todays dampness really made some of the baby plants shoot up!! the cukes and squashes are really taking off as are the already planted up Big Zac, Early Girl and Better bush tomatoes. I also have a healthy volunteer coming up. It looks like a Husky Cherry, but it is in the area the Yellow Pear and Black Cherries were last year. I sunk it deeper and dusted it and will let it be to see what we get. I am disappointed so far in the seed strips I got. The radishes, like I said, are really crowded together and the depth they suggested is way too shallow, the little seedlings are toppling over. Will have to replant some more deeper. Once we get outta the drizzles(supposedly by mid-week) I'll take some pics of my progress. Looking forward to seeing everyone else's fall/winter gardens too!