Mine is doing ok. I plant tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and Japalenos.

Nope, our plant date is 5/10, had heavy frost yesterday and low in the 20's tomorrow night.

No, it’s supposed to frost and freeze this weekend

I'll get a pic in a bit. Been eating baby squash, cukes and peppers for a week now. Birds got the first cherry toms though. Okra is up, but might have gone in too early.

We've been eating our own lettuce and spinach for two weeks. Tomatoes went in yesterday. Cuke and cants in about 3 weeks.

Just taters, sweet corn and pea’s, after this weekends cold blast everything else will start going in.

I have stuff in the greenhouse that hasn't emerged yet. Outside planting is after Mem day. Too much chance of frost earlier. It's 33 now.

Just potatoes right now. The rest will go in around June 1st. Still have some heavy frosts forecast.

Mine is in the ground. But I may have to replant. Threatening to frost tonight.

Going like gangbusters. Picking green beans like crazy! Already sharing with daughter and the neighbor. Yeller squach getting eatin’ too. Baby cucs, peppers of all kinds, and tomatoes on the plants. Picked cherry tomatoes already and still loaded.



Okra only about 6"-8" tall.

I'm with ya here. I do have some taters in the ground. We have a small greenhouse, have a bunch of greens going, been eating salads.

50 Tomatoes and 40 peppers are in from a couple weeks ago. Would like to get my yellow squash, zuchini, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, and okra in, but it keeps raining anytime I have a chance to go get it worked up to plant. Supposed to get down to 36 tonight, so likely wouldn't do much if they were in the ground anyway...

Got some hardy plants going but too early here for anything frost sensitive.

We had a freeze again last night, cold north wind really blowing today too!

31 degrees here this morning, so, no. I did get it tilled up a couple of days ago, though. That about kicked my ass, because I hadn't tilled it in about 3 years and the field grass and weeds had created quite a mat of roots. Took 3-4 passes with the old front tire roto-tiller.

Usually closer to Memorial Day here. Predicting 25 degrees tonight, not looking good for our apples this year.

Madden getting some tiller work in-


AK getting the watering in on her freshly planted peppers and tomatoes. Notice the curve where she is watering. She kinda missed the point of the stringline to keep the row straight. Free labor.....

My wife waited for a flush of weeds before tiling a second time. I spread some turkey litter, and need to spread some lime.

Will probably plant seeds this week, The plants in a couple weeks. The tomatoes will have to be covered off and on until the middle of June--not always, but often enough to be ready to cover. We had a real heavy frost this morning----26 degrees.
I will have to cover again in the Fall if I want to eat everything I planted.
It is worth the trouble . Store bought tomatoes and cucumbers suck!

Too cold here until the long weekend. Got some seeds and taters in last week but the started plants won’t go in for another week, at least.

Cheesy, great pictures, nice looking kids. Looks like summer there. Most of our trees don't have leaves yet.

By the way, it looks like you will have a lot of work ahead-----and worth it too!

I like that

Thanks-this is the 4th summer we have lived at this place, I finally quit being lazy and busted up a garden. Wife always gets upset because I plant so much tomatos and peppers and squash "we never use all that". Well, when i want the perfect tomato for a BLT, I get to choose the perfect tomato. Plus all our friends, neighbors, family and coworkers will enjoy the overabundance of produce.

In Misery there is a small bit of frost possible yet for about 1.5 weeks. But my greens and peas are up in a small plot by the house. My actual garden is wet enough it is like Playdough. Every time I'm a couple of days away from tilling it up, we get rain. So it goes. I failed to get it tilled up last fall.
But I break it up 1 row at a time with a shovel and it will get there one day. I have a small row of tomatoes in a border instead of flowers and some more seed started. To every gardener here good luck. Be Well, Rustyzipper.

First year putting in a garden. Late start. 10 days in on starting the plants below. ~80% germination. Beans, peas, cants, cukes, broccoli. More seed packets arrived in past couple days. Will have the grand daughter assist with seeding/starting the new additions over the weekend.

Still too cool and wet here to have the tractor powered rototiller come in and turn up the garden. Been raining every second or third day for past few weeks. And a frost/freeze warning again tonight. Supposed to warm up by end of week, next week. But still calling for rain every day or every other day. Might prove challenging...

That looks better than my ditch patch dank🤣😂

We are under a frost advisory, next county over is in a freeze watch.

Our last ‘expected’ frosts occurs about April 20

So we always wait till about May 1st to move anything out of the greenhouse.

Elijah told that womern: Kings 2, verse somethin-somethin
Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few.

We scrambled yesterday to round up every bucket or pot to cover all our plants. Got 80ft of cucumber vines tarped. Mehhh, it is what is it is.....

Fred Sanford would blush

Those big, broad leafed plants in your garden Bob, is that Tobacco?

Been eating asparagus, spinach, pak choi, radishes and a bit of lettuce. Tomato and pepper plants are still under the lights. Daikons and turnips are getting close. Cukes and squash have yet to hatch. Beans are about 2" tall.

Strawberries and blueberries aren't far off, then sour cherries. Blackberries and peaches July/August.

I don't start anything but peppers and tomatoes inside anymore. Everything else goes right in the ground. Prevents transplant shock, and the direct-sown stuff always catches up with the seedlings, or even outruns them anyway. Saves me a bunch of trouble. We do use mesh tunnels for the early crops. Makes a big difference. I need to buy more.

Ours is doing pretty good. We did three 4x8' raised beds last year and decided to upsize a little this year. At the last second in February we carved out a 25x40' area and started doing ground work. Started putting plants in the ground second week of March. Just sowed okra last week which rounds out the plans for the spring garden. Here's the list of what is going on currently:

1 row of yellow sweet potatoes
1 row of yellow sweet onions
1 row of tromboncino squash
1 row with 8ft of pinkeye purple hull peas, 8ft of limas and 8ft of rattlesnake pole beans
1 row with 4 green bell pepper plants and 4 sweet banana pepper plants
1 row of various tomato plants (8 plants total)
1 row of yukon gold potatoes
1 row of okra
1 row of patty pan squash

We ended up with a few "freebies" that carried over and germinated from the transplanted dirt. Got several unknown varieties of tomato plants coming up...and two types of squash that have started as well.

Each row is 25ft long.

Obligatory pics


Shot of the cucumbers, peas / beans and the tromboncino trellises. This pic is about two weeks old and the squash foliage has filled out a lot more since. I will have to do a larger and sturdier trellis next year. This was the first time I have tried tromboncino squash so this was a learning experience for me.



Our cucumber trellis...if you zoom in you can see several pick-ready cucumbers hanging and we have already picked over them once. The wife has made over a dozen pints of pickles already so we are going to be swimming in cucumbers this year. Tons of blooms still coming on.



A shot of my 6'4" gorilla self standing next to my tomato plants. They are all covered in green tomatoes...just waiting on them to start turning so we can start eating.



One of my "freebies." Turns out this one was a spaghetti squash from last year.



These are some of the prettiest bell peppers I have ever grown. Already picked several. Some went in the salads and stir fries...a few have gotten chopped and put in the freezer.



Some of our banana peppers.



This was an an afternoon garden haul from Tuesday. A shopping bag full of cucumbers, a healthy load of tromboncino squash and a few patty pan squash.



We are picking at least 6 or 8 squash every day or two and it doesn't show any signs of slowing down. We've started canning and freezing these already just because we can't keep up with eating them.

I put my tomatoes and peppers in last week. Now I’m scrounging to find every 5 gallon bucket I can to cover them up for tonight’s cold weather.

Couple of good looking kids, there. Looks like you should have some deer in the area. How do you keep them out of the garden? I couldn't see any fence.

It was 23-degrees yesterday morning in SE Idaho and 25 today!

Garden got composted manure till in last week and all the starts are in a greenhouse. The wife will put out quite a few in a gizmo called a wall of water, which makes a miniature greenhouse over each plant. These have protected new tomato starts down to 19-degrees.

We have peas planted, salad greens, and radishes planted outdoors.

Dang, don't I wish

Last frost of the season last year was June 9. Hoping it's better this year.

Picked up +/- $70 of starts and some blueberry bushes the other day. Put out 16 cabbages and broccoli in the beds as it has been warming up and I figured they might take a bit of cold. Two nights later.......27F. Pretty sure the broccoli plants are all gone, the cabbages might make it. They've been getting covered at night..

Kept the warm season stuff in the little greenhouse, that 27F night burned the tops of some of the tomatoes and peppers. They've been coming inside at night since.

But, the garlic I put in last fall is looking great, the Egyptian onions really need thinning, the berry patch is getting leaves, and the strawberries have flowers on them.

And, with a fiber pot covering it every night, the artichoke I overwintered is going great guns too



Although no strawberries yet, I did harvest some rhubarb and with the addition of some commercial berries we had a nice pie last night! (today and tomorrow too!)

Last frost will be in the next 10 days. We can start then.

Friggen Southerners and their gardens producing in early May.............


I hate you folks!

Not really, just jealous War_Eagle. Nice garden there, love the straw mulch. I use it a lot too.

Geno

It’s always amazing what a few degrees of latitude can do. You guys can sure get a head start.

It’s june, mid-June before any of my stuff looks green and lush. Usually 2nd week of July before tomatoes are plentiful. August 1st before I am able to really haul in enough Determinates to fire up the canning kettles and pressure pots.

When we bought this house, the first time we looked at it there was a good 8 point standing right where the garden is...This is the first garden on this property, so maybe they'll mess with it, I don't know yet.

I've always lived in 'deer' country, but have never had trouble with them in the garden. Have never put up any kind of fence to keep them out. Or rabbits or coons (as a kid with a huge sweetcorn patch we'd have to string up electric fence to keep the coons out, or they'd strip the field in a few nights. Even with 3 strands of hotwire, they'd still get in once in a while). Have had a hen turkey several times in the past week in the yard, don't think she'll scratch up too much of the graden though.

I have deer in the yard often, they get ran off quick by the yard labradors. They are here for the persimmon trees in our woodline but they will take a [bleep] out of my bell pepper plants.

Biggest problem I have is raccoons and sweet corn. They show up right about a week before it’s time to pull the ears.

I used to put up low strung electric fence. Now I just set up live traps with little debbie sticky buns and execute the little sombitches.

Well, everything is a compromise. There are a lot of things that we can't grow down here (that y'all can) simply because it is too hot...in fact, once our night temperatures come up to the mid / upper 70's, our tomatoes will stop producing much fruit if at all....which usually happens in late May or June. Then we have to start planning a fall garden for the next chance at tomatoes. This has been an exceptional year though with night tempts in the 60's regularly and even in the 50's when the fronts have come through.

This is my first year with the straw / hay. I have a few layers alternating between hay and oak leaves and I am really digging it. Lot of cottonseed meal too as a slow release fertilizer. The plants seem to be responding well to the combination so I will just keep doing what I am doing and see how it goes through this summer.

Best part of the hay/leaves thing, you're composting and adding organic material as you go. In my case, I don't till either. Just leave it rotting, insulating garlic and other stuff that overwinters, and pull it out of the way to let the soil warm and then plant.

You might find you get a bit better production in the warm months as it also serves to keep the soil cooler.

Try living where it gets to over 120F (no heat index, a REAL 120+). Use shade cloth over your tomatoes and peppers, they'll live through the heat and start producing again come fall.

We were at 50F when I turned in at 11:30 last night..............dropped to 30F by 06:00. Ice in the lawn hose again.

Always fun gardening in new places. Been here going on 4 summers now, I'm starting to get the hang of it.

Enjoy your veggies.

New at this garden thing, only real experience was "child slave labor" for Dad as I grew up! Never knew what/why we were doing things, just did what we were told (who needs a rototiller when you have 4 kids? Funny, Dad has one now! )

Wife and I bought a house and been getting guidance from Dad in MA about when to plant in WY - not ideal.

House we bought has 2 gardens and a green house. So we are in experiment year.

Started tomato, cherry tomato, cukes and squash in the house in April. for some reason transplant to bigger pot killed most tomoto plants.

Around May 1 put things in the ground, as of 2 days ago I had:

In the green house:
- peas started as seed - doing pretty good
- beans started as seed - just came up
- leaf lettuce started as seed - almost big enough to eat now!
- seeded tomato and c tomato directly into ground, starting to come up
- seeded cukes into pot with tomato seeds, starting to come up

In the ground:
- cukes, all dies on a 40mph windy 36 hour period
- tomato and cherry tomato - transplanted 8, 6 died in the wind, last 2 died lsat night with a frost
- seeded peas and beans, starting to emerge
- seeded leaf lettuce - now about 1 inch tall - did fine in frost last night
- seeded romaine about 2 weeks ago, starting to come up


so I started to early, lesson learned!

What could I have covered things with last night? laying a tarp would have squised tomato. What do you cover them with?

Oak leaves and cottonseed meal here too. I'm guessing you listen to Bill Finch on Sundays

This used to be a low spot in the yard. Started adding cypress millings from the shop along with oak leaves a few years ago to build it up. Hasn't been tilled in 5 years now.

Got mine planted yesterday and it rained again this morning. Yesterday was the first day, since it got warm enough to plant, that it was dry enough. Planted 2 kinds of peas, 2 kinds of watermelons, squash, cucumbers, snap beans, butter beans, cantaloupe, and set out the tomato plants. Got some of the electric fence up, but not all, and I'm not going to wade in the mud to finish it today.

Bill Finch is the MAN! My wife and I call him the Bob Ross of gardening. Guy has been a huge influence on how I garden and manage my yard in the last few years.

My dad listens to him too...I joke that if cut myself deeply and called Bill Finch for advice on what to do, he would probably suggest I put cottonseed meal on it!


Are you on the Mobile or Baldwin county side?

I have a very tough time with weeds. I put a lot of composted manure on the garden and I think I seeded the weeds! I bought heavy filter cloth and cut it in either 2 foot widths or 3 foot, and lay it down between the rows to keep weeds down. I don't think straw would be dense enough to keep the light out. I would still like to put something in between the plants like tomatoes where the gap is in the cloth, but don't know what that would be.

Wish I had waited till 5/10. I got out the old 249 IH two role planter and tractor and planted about five acres of sunflowers Thursday ahead of the rain for Dove season. We got nearly three inches of rain in a few hours and it overflowed the fescue wash ways and put ruts thru the field like I've never seen before. Probably going to run the tractor and tiller thru it again when it drys up and replant them. Damned if you do and damned if you don't, something to do during quarantine anyway I guess. All good.

I'm in Baldwin Co. and have learned a lot from Bill Finch too. Funniest thing now is Dad bought a tiller after the spill. He was some kinda proud. As the old garden produced less, we tilled more. Then we started listening to Bill. Now the tiller is more of a mixer in the compost pile.

We have to put out extra rows just for the dogs. This yellow dog picks his own tomatoes and cukes.

He can be hell on vines, he hasn’t mastered technique yet

That's awesome....haha. Especially love the last pic.

Yellow squash, bell peppers, jalapenos, green onions, radishes, garlic, tomatoes.

Yeah, he is fervently anti-tiller for sure. My dad and I have both converted to no-till compost gardening at each of our yards. Works great....no weeds to deal with and plenty of organic matter for the plants to feed on.

I got mine in early last week. I'm a bit worried, as temperatures are to get down to around freezing here tonight.

Looks like a Gulag/Slave labor camp to me....
Yawhol Obersturmgruppenfuher!!!!



I got 3 tomatoes in the frig right now.
LOL!!!

No???, it’s forking snowing right now!!!!

I put three tomato plants in the ground on Tuesday and it's going down into the 20's tonight and tomorrow night. Gonna have to cover them up.

What do you cover them with?

So far, she ain’t tatted my wrist yet.


It’s a hard knock life, then you die. Harriet Tubman....help!!

I got okra up and three kinds of squash and three kinds of cucumbers in the ground. Planted some turnips last week that should be up anytime now. Picked up some Cowhorn okra and Armenian yardlong cucumber seeds today to plant this weekend.

Nope. Too cold still.

-Ken

Can’t believe that!!!! Does he think he is a deer😊😊😊😊

No. Frost date around the end of May, frost and snow possible over the weekend. The old retired farts are out mowing their lawns every other day or so though. Neighbor used to do that but passed last summer. Roger's wife wouldn't let him smoke in the house and I expect gave him a hard time about smoking otherwise. Roger would fire up a cigarette and his lawn tractor and smoke while mowing on his yard. He would mow on his yard later in the afternoon or the next day as the nicotine demanded. We all miss Roger.