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Growing a garden

AikenGameFan

AikenGameFan

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Any of you guys have gardens?
When I was a teenager, my dad always made me help in the garden. I hated it. He had spent 35 years in the army and he treated my brother and I like recruits.
His garden was almost 2 acres and it took a lot of work.
About 35 years later, 10 years ago, long after my dad passed, I decided to try a garden.
My first couple years some things grew great, some didn't. I have never had luck with corn or watermelons, but I can grow tomatoes, squash, and zucchini like crazy.
About 4 years ago I guit the garden. Last year I decided I would try again but the weeds ate me up. My green beans did not work out so well. I think trying to pull up the weeds hurt them.
This year I tilled a whole lot more. I got 4 rows, 200 seeds, of green beans planted and I have been staying on top of the weeds. It has been 10 days. Hopefully in the next couple days I will see green beans growing. Everything else I just got a couple plants of each. Zucchini, squash, tomatoes, bell peppers, spaghetti squash, and cucumbers I went with 2 of each. I even planted 2 watermelon plants just to see.
If any of you are gardeners, I would love some one to chat with.
 
AikenGameFan said:
Good dark soil. View attachment 4209
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We have a small one. Mostly planters with tomatoes, bell pepper, tyme, basil and oregano. Just finished up with some broccoli that turned out pretty good.

We also have 3 blueberry bushes and 4 plum trees. We're currently trying to get a lemon tree to grow but it may be a little too cold here for that.
 
Blitzkrieg said:
We have a small one. Mostly planters with tomatoes, bell pepper, tyme, basil and oregano. Just finished up with some broccoli that turned out pretty good.

We also have 3 blueberry bushes and 4 plum trees. We're currently trying to get a lemon tree to grow but it may be a little too cold here for that.
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I have my tomatoes and bell peppers in big pots that are about 30" wide and 20" deep. Used them for that last year and they did good.
And I have 2 old bathtubs that I filled with soil to plant 2 squash in one and 2 zucchini in the other. Not sure if that is going to work out or not. Last year I used them for carrots. Before that my wife had flowers in them.
Out in my Garden I have the spaghetti squash and watermelons because they both take a lot of space when they grow.

I did one other thing my wife suggested last year. I planted a bunch of Marigold's out there. She said they attract bees.
 
AikenGameFan said:
I have my tomatoes and bell peppers in big pots that are about 30" wide and 20" deep. Used them for that last year and they did good.
And I have 2 old bathtubs that I filled with soil to plant 2 squash in one and 2 zucchini in the other. Not sure if that is going to work out or not. Last year I used them for carrots. Before that my wife had flowers in them.
Out in my Garden I have the spaghetti squash and watermelons because they both take a lot of space when they grow.

I did one other thing my wife suggested last year. I planted a bunch of Marigold's out there. She said they attract bees.
Click to expand...
We planted some watermelons last year after we finally got a decent tasting one. We planted five and 3 of them turned out good and sweet, 2 didn't make it.

We went into one of those Wal-Mart grocery store only places yesterday and they had watermelons for 9 bucks. We didn't want to pay that much for one especially if it wasn't good. I hate buying a watermelon, getting it home and cutting it and it sucks.
 
$9.00 for a watermelon, wtf? What happened to the $1.69 watermelons? Now I haven't bought a whole watermelon in a couple of years -- usually just buying some small, chunked (overpriced) sections from the produce prep areas, but somehow I missed that price jump on 'melons.
 
FurmanCock said:
$9.00 for a watermelon, wtf? What happened to the $1.69 watermelons? Now I haven't bought a whole watermelon in a couple of years -- usually just buying some small, chunked (overpriced) sections from the produce prep areas, but somehow I missed that price jump on 'melons.
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I wanna say we were paying 7 bucks last year. Watermelon is Mrs B's favorite fruit and it's painful to pay that much for one and it sucks. A lot of them just don't seem to have much taste any more.
 
I tried many years ago but had too much shade to grow much. I switches to help the community garden at our neighborhood pool several years ago. Had all kinds of stuff growing there. tomatoes, peppers, squash, pumpkins, beans, potatoes, etc.

Last year the neighbors to the south of us cut most of their trees, so we get way more sunlight now. I am going to plant a few things this weekend to see if they do any better. And then I'll expand next year if successful.
 
Blitzkrieg said:
I wanna say we were paying 7 bucks last year. Watermelon is Mrs B's favorite fruit and it's painful to pay that much for one and it sucks. A lot of them just don't seem to have much taste any more.
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I feel like the politician who doesn't have any idea what the price of a gallon of milk is. $9.00 still blows my mind.
 
FurmanCock said:
I feel like the politician who doesn't have any idea what the price of a gallon of milk is. $9.00 still blows my mind.
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It’s not watermelon season yet. Fruit is always more expensive when has to be trucked in from far away. I’m sure watermelon prices will go down in the heat of summer.
 
My neighbor has a fence because of all the deer out here. We're at the edge of the city limits and a bunch come out of the woods at night every week, hot or cold season, it matters not.
 
Spur's Addiction said:
It’s not watermelon season yet. Fruit is always more expensive when has to be trucked in from far away. I’m sure watermelon prices will go down in the heat of summer.
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Yep, good point.

I guess it's finally time for some watermelon revenge...after all those years of getting thumped to determine ripeness, I guess watermelons have finally decided to thump back.
 
Well we've already gotten 6 nice green peppers off of our pepper plant and the tomatoes are going to be ready in about a week. Our blueberry bush (the older one) is absolutely loaded with blueberries after having a mediocre crop last year.

The 2 smaller blueberry bushes (we planted in the spring of '23) are starting to produce some berries, just a few dozen on each bush but the bushes are still pretty small. Our 4 plum trees are also loaded with plums this year. We've already eaten a dozen or so and there's literally several hundred in varying stages on development.
 
You should set up a little road side stand and sale the blueberries for $2/berry. Tell them it's a bargain compared to the watermelon.
 
FurmanCock said:
You should set up a little road side stand and sale the blueberries for $2/berry. Tell them it's a bargain compared to the watermelon.
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Not a chance, we freeze what we don't eat. Just finished last years crop a few weeks ago. They should start being ready to eat in about 3 weeks.
 
Garden update: For whatever reason this is one of the best gardens we've had in years. We have been eating tomatoes like crazy. Today we picked 178 of them, 2 days ago 128, we've given away plenty and have made 2 large batches of spaghetti sauce and put them in the freezer as well as making a batch of sauce that we used.

These are mostly grape and cherry tomatoes with a few romas thrown in the mix. We've also picked about 2 dozen green peppers with at least another 2 dozen in various stages of growth. We also continue to harvest basil, tyme, rosemary and greek oregano as needed.

Our plum trees had their best crop as well this year and our blueberry bushes are producing literally hundreds of blueberries every day. We're eating them on cereal, in salads, in muffins and just as a snack by themselves. We've also put up a gallon bag of them in the freezer.
 
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