OT: How did your garden do this year?

[john4psu]

I tried something different this year from just cherry and grape tomatoes without much success. I planted two grape, one Juliet and one Supersweet little tomatoes but between the four plants they yielded less than 70 tomatoes total. I’ve had years with over 400 little tomatoes (one over 500) from four tomato plants in the past. So this was by far the worst year I’ve had growing tomatoes.

I tried some new plants as well and despite much flowering, I only got five yellow squash, one zucchini and three cucumbers. What little that grow did taste incredibly garden fresh. My basil and chives did very well.

I’m thinking next year just to try and plant two rows of corn in addition to tomatoes. So how did your garden do this year?

 

[CF LION]

Mine had silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

 

[john4psu]

Mine had silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

I never thought of you as quite contrary.

 

[heckmans]

I tried something different this year from just cherry and grape tomatoes without much success. I planted two grape, one Juliet and one Supersweet little tomatoes but between the four plants they yielded less than 70 tomatoes total. I’ve had years with over 400 little tomatoes (one over 500) from four tomato plants in the past. So this was by far the worst year I’ve had growing tomatoes.

I tried some new plants as well and despite much flowering, I only got five yellow squash, one zucchini and three cucumbers. What little that grow did taste incredibly garden fresh. My basil and chives did very well.

I’m thinking next year just to try and plant two rows of corn in addition to tomatoes. So how did your garden do this year?

couple thoughts.
For corn, you need a good bit of it or it won't pollinate properly. With just a couple rows, you'll likely need to hand pollinate between plants to get corn.
You can have similar issue with squash, cucumbers, etc.

 

[CF LION]

couple thoughts.
For corn, you need a good bit of it or it won't pollinate properly. With just a couple rows, you'll likely need to hand pollinate between plants to get corn.
You can have similar issue with squash, cucumbers, etc.

hand pollinate?

 

[lionville]

The deer found my garden this year. Ate the leaves off everything. No beans, cucumbers, lettuce, nothing. Even ate the leaves on the corn stalks before there was corn. They are now enjoying what's left of my tomatoes.

My small garden is right outside my kitchen window. They have no fear.

 

[john4psu]

The deer found my garden this year. Ate the leaves off everything. No beans, cucumbers, lettuce, nothing. Even ate the leaves on the corn stalks before there was corn. They are now enjoying what's left of my tomatoes.

Oh

My small garden is right outside my kitchen window. They have no fear.

Oh deer! (Filling in for FairG as he works on his bucket list.)

 

[heckmans]

hand pollinate?

yes

 

[CF LION]

yes

OK...nothing like a good hand pollination.

 

[hereforthebeer]

The deer found my garden this year. Ate the leaves off everything. No beans, cucumbers, lettuce, nothing. Even ate the leaves on the corn stalks before there was corn. They are now enjoying what's left of my tomatoes.

My small garden is right outside my kitchen window. They have no fear.

Nice crop of cucumbers, (regular and pickling), strawberries, tomatoes, jalapenos, carrots, blueberries, raspberries, apples.

A few ghost peppers, yellow and green peppers, corn, sweet potatoes.

Total failure on the snow peas, which usually grow great (that section of garden flooded), lettuce (bunnies ate it, so I ate the bunnies, so it's a wash).

It is presently growing winter rye, which replaces hydrogen in the soil. Also, late season deer enjoy it, so it is likely that I will also harvest a deer from the garden.

Not awesome, but I'm pretty new at it and having fun.

 

[BobPSU92]

It was doing great for the first three months and then wilted in the heat in the final month. A great effort with so much at stake wasted. I fired my gardener because I easily could have done better.

 

[hereforthebeer]

couple thoughts.
For corn, you need a good bit of it or it won't pollinate properly. With just a couple rows, you'll likely need to hand pollinate between plants to get corn.
You can have similar issue with squash, cucumbers, etc.

How about planting corn in a square instead of rows?

 

[Obliviax]

OK...nothing like a good hand pollination.

said harvey weinstein's plants.

 

[PSU Mike]

I’m all potted. Five varieties of peppers - melrose, garden salsa, jalapeño, cayenne, and Thai chilies. Some variety of plum tomatoes. Good year, particularly with the Thai, cayenne, and garden salsas. Had the patience to let them ripen to red in most cases, enjoying higher sweetness. Great accents to oven roasted broccoli, green beans, and potatoes.

 

[Obliviax]

I am not much of a gardener these days but can tell you my lawn and shrubs had the best year I can remember. We had just the right amount of rain, with very little lawn sprinkling. Trees are very, very full right now.

Amazing how much better rain water is than tap water for plants.

 

[MtNittany]

Today's Hab haul. The storms tried to kill them all (only 3 survived). Thought the orange was done for sure (had zero leaves on it the next day). The little white ones are bastards. 3 or 4 of them can do a whole wing sauce batch. They grow like rabbits too.

 

[MtNittany]

BTW, self-pollinating plants is simply rubbing your finger inside the flower. Sort of like....well, sometimes the MSU jokes just write themselves.

 

[CattyGuy51]

This summer was great. Of course I only do flowers.

 

[FJ47]

I tried something different this year from just cherry and grape tomatoes without much success. I planted two grape, one Juliet and one Supersweet little tomatoes but between the four plants they yielded less than 70 tomatoes total. I’ve had years with over 400 little tomatoes (one over 500) from four tomato plants in the past. So this was by far the worst year I’ve had growing tomatoes.

I tried some new plants as well and despite much flowering, I only got five yellow squash, one zucchini and three cucumbers. What little that grow did taste incredibly garden fresh. My basil and chives did very well.

I’m thinking next year just to try and plant two rows of corn in addition to tomatoes. So how did your garden do this year?

I tried something different this year from just cherry and grape tomatoes without much success. I planted two grape, one Juliet and one Supersweet little tomatoes but between the four plants they yielded less than 70 tomatoes total. I’ve had years with over 400 little tomatoes (one over 500) from four tomato plants in the past. So this was by far the worst year I’ve had growing tomatoes.

I tried some new plants as well and despite much flowering, I only got five yellow squash, one zucchini and three cucumbers. What little that grow did taste incredibly garden fresh. My basil and chives did very well.

I’m thinking next year just to try and plant two rows of corn in addition to tomatoes. So how did your garden do this year?

Terrible. Deer ate everything. I gave up and planted grass seed.

 

[psuro]

OK...nothing like a good hand pollination.

You will go blind.

 

[katchthis]

The wicked garden grew nicely.

 

[MtNittany]

The wicked garden grew nicely.

View embedded media

If you gotta play at garden parties, I wish you a lotta luck
But if memories were all I sang, I'd rather drive a truck

 

[MtNittany]

Garden Party lyrical references:

• A garden party - October 15, 1971's Rock 'n Roll Revival concert at Madison Square Garden, New York City
• My old friends - fellow performers at the concert Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Bobby Rydell
• Yoko - Yoko Ono
• Yoko's walrus - John Lennon
• Mr. Hughes - George Harrison
• (Mr. Hughes) hid in Dylan's shoes - Harrison's planned (but later abandoned) album of Bob Dylan covers
• I said hello to Mary Lou, she belongs to me - Nelson's song "Hello Mary Lou", which he played at the concert; also a reference to "She Belongs to Me", a Bob Dylan song covered by Nelson
• I sang a song about a Honky-Tonk - The Rolling Stones song "Country Honk", the song that allegedly caused the booing
• And it was time to leave - Nelson's subsequent departure
• Out stepped Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry's song "Johnny B. Goode"
• Playing guitar like a-ringing a bell - the line in "Johnny B. Goode", "he could play guitar just like a-ringing a bell"

 

[PSU77sh]

Didn't have a good year. Have a 3 foot fence and deer have grazed outside the fence the past 2 years but hopped it this year and wrecked a lot. They even ate the rhubarb leaves and stems that had grown over the summer. Not a happy camper....

 

[Ct. Lion]

I grow a fairly large garden at an environmental school and designed it as an urban victory garden. The produce is used by the school and for educational purposes.
I have some fenced in areas but mostly I grow the plants inside old tires filled with dirt like a raised bed and inside 5 gallon buckets. These are things you can do in an empty lot. Around the buckets and tires are a round wrap of very high stock fence which acts as a barrier to keep the animals off the plants plus gives the plants support as they grow. Great for pole beans, any other vine plant, cherry tomatoes and other tomato varieties that are very leggy. Smaller plants like peppers do well in the buckets. Drill holes in the bucket to drain water about midway from the top to the bottom. This keeps the roots moist but not water logged and keeps a water reservoir in the bottom half of the bucket for dry periods.
Bush plants are planted inside larger fenced in areas so they can spread out better. Squashes of all kinds, etc. I have a large pumpkin patch in a field that is fenced in and the plants are in raised beds scattered through the impoundment. Had nearly 50 pumpkins this year.
I have another fenced in area with raised beds made by taking two 12' long, 12 inches high, 2 inches wide board and screwing them together length-wise to two end pieces about 18 inches wide. These are filled with topsoil I have delivered and dumped onto my compost pile. I plant lettuce, onion, and herbs here. I also have a flower garden of zinnias, cosmos, flox, bee balm, etc. Basically easy to grow flowers for cutting.
Tons of tomatoes, decent peppers, squashes, pole beans, salad veggies, and pumpkins. Flowers got chewed off by deer and never came back so I need a higher fence. Deer and bunnies get blamed for a lot of garden damage but ground hogs, voles, mice and other small ground animals are the worst. Ground hogs can climb a fence to get into a garden or just sit up on the stock fence and eat beans, tomatoes, etc. Fortunately we have a resident Fisher and some Bobcat that eat the ground hogs for control. Next in line are slugs and snails which eat the fruits, flowers, vines, etc. Other small bugs like striped squash beetles which eat any vine plant, etc. do extensive damage. I would take dealing with deer over all of the other pests if I could.

 

[artsandletters]

I tried something different this year from just cherry and grape tomatoes without much success. I planted two grape, one Juliet and one Supersweet little tomatoes but between the four plants they yielded less than 70 tomatoes total. I’ve had years with over 400 little tomatoes (one over 500) from four tomato plants in the past. So this was by far the worst year I’ve had growing tomatoes.

I tried some new plants as well and despite much flowering, I only got five yellow squash, one zucchini and three cucumbers. What little that grow did taste incredibly garden fresh. My basil and chives did very well.

I’m thinking next year just to try and plant two rows of corn in addition to tomatoes. So how did your garden do this year?

Try grown-up tomatoes.

 

[hereforthebeer]

Today's Hab haul. The storms tried to kill them all (only 3 survived). Thought the orange was done for sure (had zero leaves on it the next day). The little white ones are bastards. 3 or 4 of them can do a whole wing sauce batch. They grow like rabbits too.

I hope you washed your hands before hand-pollinating.