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2021 veggie/food growing thread

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,827
13,063
Wife and I did our seed planting over the weekend, they'll stay indoors to germinate for the next 6 or so weeks as we can't put anything outside until late May.
  • A lot of cherry tomatoes
  • Spinach
  • Kale
  • Swiss Chard
  • Peas
Wife optimistically bought a few strawberry plants we put into a large pot too.

What have you all got this year?
 

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
85,573
24,191
media blackout
we've had stuff germinating for a few weeks now

cucumbers
kale
bibb lettuce
orange/red/green belle peppers
hot cherry peppers
jalapenos
poblano peppers
pasilla peppers

several variety of tomatoes:
black krim
pink caspian
rainbow
cherokee purple
san marzano

some flowers
few varieties of sunflower
butterfly bushes
 

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,192
19,158
Canaderp
I'm skipping doing it from seed and just going to pickup ready to go plants. They are cheap and available at the dozens and dozens of garden centers here. Seeds also seem to be expensive round these parts.

But hoping to get some going soon...

Tomatoes
Peppers
Various herbs
Garlic chives
 

iRider

Turbo Monkey
Apr 5, 2008
5,648
3,089
Once I get rid of the moles and voles I can think of using the garden for planting things again. This winter was a nightmare, they are everywhere and do not go into the traps. :confused: :banghead:
 

stoney

Part of the unwashed, middle-American horde
Jul 26, 2006
21,520
7,069
Colorado
My motivation is low, especially after hail destruction the last few years and my "I'm done working on the house" status right now.
 

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,192
19,158
Canaderp
Went to a local shop and found they are LOADED with different kinds of peppers.

Got some Piri Piri, Jalapeños, Poblano and some random sweet long peppers. As well as lots of garlic chives, spring onion and other random herbs.

They had all sorts of stuff. I like hot stuff, but opted out of these:


 

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,192
19,158
Canaderp
Yah! Summer is really hot and so ya gotta use a lot of water. Miss a watering and your shit gets torched.
It's like that here growing in pots, so yah can't even imagine that down there in the summer.

Pot must grow well, right? Asking for a friend of course.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,241
20,021
Sleazattle
It's like that here growing in pots, so yah can't even imagine that down there in the summer.

Pot must grow well, right? Asking for a friend of course.
I think pot does better up north in the summer when you can get looooong days of sunlight.

Assuming pot likes similar conditions to turnips, which of course is my only source of knowledge on such things.
 

junkyard

You might feel a little prick.
Sep 1, 2015
2,601
2,303
San Diego
It's like that here growing in pots, so yah can't even imagine that down there in the summer.

Pot must grow well, right? Asking for a friend of course.
71AC5A8B-3B63-401B-AB01-15374FA87B58.jpeg

it does ok
 

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scrublover

Turbo Monkey
Sep 1, 2004
2,886
6,191
two 12x5 beds with: zucchini, yellow squash, cucumber, carrot, radish, and beet

one 2x10 bed with: kale, rainbow swiss chard, some lettuce mix, arugula

sugar snap peas in a strip with a trellis setup.

(the above put in as seed the last few days)

thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary, cilantro spread around the beds in the front of the house - with the exception of the rosemary, they are perennial - haven't had to put in new for a while now. basil bought in pots gets plugged in here and there blank spots when a bit warmer.

strawberries around the deck as ground cover - put in years ago and let spread. some got choked out by a creeping plant last year. will add in some more.

in small spots here and there around the deck and in random spots are some jalapeno pants, some plum, cherry, and better boy tomatoes.

will likely add some more zukes and cukes from the local agway to help offset the inevitable loss from the fucking vine borer beetles that seem to get mine mid-summer. maybe some more pepper varieties as things get warmer.

i have a 10' circle without any grass in the back yard (from taking out a tree) tilled in some fertilizer and fresh garden soil, mixed together and spread the leftover seeds about just to see how they do all mixed up. it gets shaded out when our leaves come fully in, but figured why not.
 

Montana rider

Turbo Monkey
Mar 14, 2005
1,741
2,164
Some food for thought re: mixing flowers and veggies to improve yields in this NYTimes book review:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/realestate/why-diversity-is-an-advantage-in-a-vegetable-plot.html
Jessica Walliser’s Plant Partners: Science-Based Companion Planting Strategies for the Vegetable Garden

TL;DR -> Plant turnips, nasturtium, sweet alyssum, cosmos, sunflowers, rudbeckia, coreopsis and zinnias in your veggie beds to confuse pests/increase beneficial pedators...

++++

More Flower Power
Besides the nasturtiums and the flowering herbs, there are two familiar annual flowers that Ms. Walliser has come to rely on after consulting the research: sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) and cosmos.

In organic lettuce farms in California, she said, strips of sweet alyssum are alternated with lettuce to enhance biological aphid control.


Cosmos help against aphids, too, particularly around brassicas like broccoli and cauliflower. And so do other aster family members, including sunflowers, Rudbeckia, Coreopsis and zinnias, by attracting beneficial predatory insects.

Setting a Botanical Trap

A particular insect may seek to lay eggs on a vegetable, or use it as food, or both. To disrupt such host-seeking behaviors, Ms. Walliser suggests a scaled-down version of trap cropping, a tactic used for centuries in farming.

Well-placed plants, grown at a distance from insects’ desired ones, become a decoy — a sacrificial offering. That’s how those radishes work if planted among young tomatoes: The flea beetles have at the radish foliage, not the tomato leaves. A radish trap crop can also protect young eggplants and peppers. Pak choi works as a decoy, too, but if you use radishes instead, you can salvage the roots to eat.

Where to plant the trap crop? That depends on which insect you’re trying to lure away. If it’s highly mobile (like the Colorado potato beetle or squash bugs) or it’s the offspring of something highly mobile (like imported cabbage worms, the larvae of the cabbage white butterfly), then plant the trap crop on the perimeter of your garden, several feet from the crop you’re protecting.

But if you’re fighting tiny pests with limited mobility, like aphids, mites, flea beetles and whiteflies, Ms. Walliser recommends planting the trap crop very close, in alternate rows with the crop you want to protect.


Sow or transplant the trap crops a couple of weeks earlier than the crops that need protection, so they get the pests’ attention, at a mass of about 10 to 20 percent of the total area of the vegetable you’re protecting.
 
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jstuhlman

bagpipe wanker
Dec 3, 2009
16,627
12,918
Cackalacka du Nord
not sure what we're doing . . . wife has some lettuces and onions in. i got some jalapenos. fig bush and blackberry bushes will do their things. i'm in the process of cutting down a tree in the side yard to let in some more light, so we probably won't redo that bed until next year and i can find a way to keep the deer that wander our streets out. will probably re-do our raised bed in the back yard over the winter too. will probably put some maters, cukes, and beans in it when we harvest the onions. the dogs tend to like to ruckus through it though. sigh.
 

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,192
19,158
Canaderp
Already down one plant. Friggin squirrels.

This piri piri pepper plant got axed.


And right as I'm about to post the above, THIS guy shows up.


I put some screening down on the dirt, in all my planters, to hopefully deter the squirrels and chipmunks from digging.

I also topped the soil with a bunch of ground Cheyenne and red pepper flakes. That'll show em, I hope! I kind of want to hear a sneezing squirrel....
 

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
85,573
24,191
media blackout
Already down one plant. Friggin squirrels.

This piri piri pepper plant got axed.


And right as I'm about to post the above, THIS guy shows up.


I put some screening down on the dirt, in all my planters, to hopefully deter the squirrels and chipmunks from digging.

I also topped the soil with a bunch of ground Cheyenne and red pepper flakes. That'll show em, I hope! I kind of want to hear a sneezing squirrel....
Pellet gun.