It’s the middle of the {season} in {your hemisphere}.
How are things growing? Or not growing?
Any successes you’d like to share?
Any challenges that have made you learn?
Have you gotten to eat much of what you’ve grown?
How’s it going fellow gardeners?
Yo yo yo, one two one two, 9a represent
So far I’d say this year has been a modest success! Only my second growing season in this place. Small garden in an urban environment so my sunlight is limited and I have to make the best of it. Also my first year with a sort-of-proper greenhouse:
I have a good mixture of hydro and soil plants. It’s really incredible how much more efficient hydroponics is, really astounding.
I built an unorthodox NFT/dutch bucket combo system with a shared reservoir (mostly due to limited space). I put a bunch of different types of plants in the NFT just to see what grows well, and the dutch bucket are all ghost peppers. This year I learned that leafy greens don’t like the same hydro nutrients that fruiting plants do, which is a drawback of the system I built. Also, I’ve learned to not overcrowd, it makes aphids practically impossible to deal with effectively. Sons of bitches all.
This is my second year growing cape gooseberries in my original dutch bucket system from last year. This greenhouse is called “The Green Diaper”. Much more successful this time around. I’ve got a bunch of fruit growing this year. Fucking ants fucked up my shit last year and raided all my flowers and berries, 1000 curses upon them. Apparently all I had to do was grease the “legs” of my greenhouse with vaseline.
For my soil plants, wine-bottle / terracotta spike irrigation stays winning. I’ve got like two dozen of these things in different grow bags and whatnot and they’re so god damned efficient. I only have to refill them once per week, and they auto slow-release water as-needed to the plants, and almost directly to their root system (so any of you who live in drought-prone areas with dry soil, look no further). 10/10 recommend.
Edit: And, for the second year in a row, I’ve learned that hydroponic tomatoes are just stupidly efficient. They manspread their tentacles everywhere and cover everything around them. Horniest damn plant I’ve ever seen. So, best to keep them on their own and away from other plants.
I’d love to do a ditch bucket system but I’m a lowly renter and I’m scared to invest that much only to find out I need to move again :'(
I had this system set up for continuously monitoring and adjusting VPD in my grow tent and when you do that and have good control on your nutrient solution deep water culture will give you growth you could never dream of in soil. But… It’s time and effort to get it dialed in because of your ph is off for 24 hours… You can destroy everything just as quick lol.
Excellent setup though, it’s impressive!
Heat has completely fucked my garden this year
Are shade cloths or row covers an option? I’ve not had issues with heat myself, but I’ve heard those as a solution.
Yeah probably, in hindsight I was unprepared so i guess it’s on me as well
All you can do is what you can do right?
Best thing is to learn what you can, save what you can, and try to do better next time.
Middle of winter here, so everything is dormant. I planted some garlic in the autumn which seem to be doing their thing. I’m in the process of building some raised beds and a fenced off area from the dogs to turn into a kitchen garden.
No time to improve infrastructure like the off-season!
Hey thanks for making the post.
I think I’m 10a in USDA, I had a pretty good spring from the Broccoli, Garlic, Spinach, Celery, and Potatoes I put in through the winter. I did miss the harvest on my last few Celery due to a rapid entry of summer. I did get about 5 packets of seed from them though and it made the garden smell delightful.
I replanted the smaller potatoes and have gotten blooms on all of them so I’m going to try and get some seeds from the potato berries, I’m expecting the actual tubers to be small though.
I have been trying to do a staggered plant of bush green beans and its been pretty successful so far, the cilantro though I’ve messed up the timing and will likely have a couple weeks without it.
My biggest learning lesson was Tomatoes, I sprouted way too many seeds from the ones I saved last season and ended up with over 100 plants. I planted them way too dense and sadly all the larger tomatoes have gotteen bloom rot from what I suspect to be root damage. The cherry and grape tomatoes are doing great!
The pepper plants I overwintered in large containers are producing already while the ones I sprouted from last year’s seeds will be producing in a couple weeks, I collected all the seeds in a “spicy pepper” sachel so I have no idea what ones have sprouted, this year I will label each pepper so I don’t end up with 20 ghost peppers.
I tried to do some arugula which did not sprout but when i realized it wasn’t going i put some radish and carrot in the space which is doing well. In another area I have placed some pumpkin which is starting to grow but won’t produce until autumn.
I have some fruit and nut trees but they were very unhealthy when i started so i have been trying to get them back to health which i think will get results next year.
A little calmag might help with your blossom end rot, it can be other things, but that is something you can try that may get you some usable fruit.
That all sounds wonderful though! I’m jealous of the growing season you get in 10a!
We got snap peas for days, our editable flowers are blooming, squash and pumpkins are flowering, green beans are coming along. I can’t take any credit for it (except for the raised beds I made a few years ago), my SO has the green thumb!
She plans to do another round of peas in the fall.
Snap peas are so good! Hopefully those squash and pumpkin produce well! I’ve yet to get an appreciable amount of beans past pest pressure. Rabbits seem to love the taste of bean seedlings.
Funny, we have a lot of bunnies in the yard and yet they survive! They are very good AND best of all the kids love them. LOL we were out watering the other day and our 2yo walked up to a snap pea and bit it right off the vine.
My kids absolutely loved when I told them they could just grab snap peas and eat them off the vine. It’s been a few years since then, but I don’t think more than one or two pods ever actually made it into the house.
It’s a pretty magical thing to learn as a child. Food doesn’t just come from the supermarket. You can grow it yourself. I like to sneak in the anti-capitalism wherever I can.
Zone 10b. Got two colorful hybrid tomatoes doing really well, but started a bit late so no blushing on the fruit. One purple Cherokee I’m actually pruning properly instead of these other two bushy guys. Mel’s mix has proven to be a very good container soil mixture, but I really only used chicken manure instead of 4-5 different composts. Hoops I’ve got on my plants are very stupid, should’ve considered better scaffolding at the beginning. It’s going to be a problem later
Cherokee tomatoes go absolutely crazy blessings be upon your tomato patch
That’s the small plant on the right I got started way later when uppotting these other two. Just need to get these through the nutty summer heat here and then hopefully smooth sailing all the way until Dec!
very nice
Cherokee purple made me love fresh tomatoes.
I’ve had the best luck with stakes and ties for my tomatoes in the past as opposed to cages. I hear that a Florida(?) weave (two posts with strings horizontally every foot or so between them) works quite well also.
Yeah I think I’m gonna get some long bamboo and figure something out. Probably leave the hoops and try to give each pot it’s own support, so I can continue to shuffle these around if I want. Luckily I think the heat is gonna be stunting them (besides the fact that they’re real bushy), so no worries about new support for awhile (but I need some gd finished fruit)
I don’t have access to soil or sun out here in 7b but I have been able to have a super successful hydro garden including my very first tomato that I picked off the other day! Was fortunate enough to get a grow bag thats larger than my current needs so I’m excited to expand in the coming months as I get through another harvest cycle. Currently have six 3-gallon totes on DWC growing leafy greens, green wave mustard, sorrell, arugula, and cherry tomatoes. Real excited to make some haam choy from the mustard next week. About to make a salad for dinner and have been e atimg greens every day for the past two weeks.
This is actually the second tomato I pulled off pictured as I quickly gave the first one to my partner (wifeguylyfe)
Very nice
what nutes are you using? Same ones for both leafy greens and tomatoes or different varieties? That lettuce looks healthy af great job.
Ive been using master blend on everything and not really thinking about it. Rather than mix a solution, I just make concentrates of the three bags and mix them when I need to add solution. I picked this method so I could respond with the right nutrients when I noticed deficiencies, but since I switched from dynagro, I haven’t noticed any problems.
Clearly you don’t need sun or soil to grow food!
Hydroponics can be so satisfying so quickly once you figure out the broad strokes. I’ve been considering setting my tent back up for winter.
I am drowning in raspberries.
Color me jealous, our raspberries haven’t given us anything yet this year, I’m hopeful for fall though.
How many years have you had them? I think our bushes are three years old.
It’s our second year, we transplanted them recently. They gave us about a half pound last year only in the fall. I thought they were supposed to fruit in June and September, but they didn’t even flower in late spring.
Tomatoes got ravaged by bugs and my peppers had a tough start to the year but the latter are back in force and I have almost a dozen melons growing in my garden rn it’s flippin sweet
Melons can be difficult to get all the way to harvest, good luck and good work so far.
Any tips on helping get them fat and juicy?
I’ve gotten some really great cantaloupe before, but I lost about half of them to ants. Otherwise I didn’t even do anything special. I suspect that making sure your watering is consistent is going to be the most important thing.
I planted flower seeds and birds came and ate them
but some of them have sprouted!
You might find that they come in even better next year. Last year I covered our septic mound in wildflower seeds, similar story to yours, looked like the birds just destroyed everything, or at least the seeds were duds.
This year we have a veritable wildflower meadow out there.
Around here, I’m reminded why I don’t container garden. For some reason I can’t get anything to produce in containers. The ground is so much easier.
I was very lucky, for fathers day my wife got me a smallish hoop house and another cherry tree. I’ve finally put some things besides raspberries in the ground, so we’ll see how they go. I’m hoping to extend my growing season a bit beyond mid-september with this greenhouse.
It’s the second year with our fruit trees, I got to eat a cherry we grew, North Star, I look forward to actually getting cherries from it. Our little plum tree is trying very hard to give us a handful of fruits. No apples, pears, or peaches this year. I think a big part of it is local deer. They love the taste of fruit trees apparently. I’m glad to share once they get bigger, but right now it’s stunting their growth. We’ve adjusted our fencing around the trees, it seems to be helping.
I’m going to attempt fall peas soon, we’ll see how those go.
On the plus side, brussel sprouts are clipping along at a decent pace. Cherry tomatoes have been fairly productive. I’ve got cabbage going as well now, that seems ok. We’ve been able to harvest various herbs, which is always great. My wife has started preserving them.
I think hydroponics may be my best option for large tomatoes and peppers…
I hope everyone else is doing well!
If you are able to make a small hedge between the deer’s entry point and the fruit trees and put some fast-growing berry forming shrubs that deer can eat as a bait plant that is easier for them to access it might help, I’m looking to put in some cherry trees soon but due to space may try to get a single one that can self-pollinate
We have a game trail that runs along the tree line near our house, presumably from the river across the road to the farms on the other side of us. The best we’ve been able to do is essentially fence each tree in. If I don’t fence them fast enough or don’t adjust them as the trees grow, the deer will trim them for me lol. They crossed the driveway to the other side of the house to give my plum tree a haircut. Completely ignored the green fruit, but stripped almost all the leaves off because I hadn’t fenced it yet.
Both of our cherries are self pollinating, I can’t say how well it will work out yet as we haven’t really had them in long enough to know yet.