Garden Update: Sucession garden growing fast.

Wanted to show the difference in two weeks that the 4x4 garden has experienced.  The left picture is from 5 April, the right picturer from 17 April.

 



5 April

17 April

 

You can see from the photo below, the vine is begining the end of late flowering.  Should have fruit soon.

 

 

 

The canopy really came in well with the major prunning I did.

 

 

I moved the tomato's over to the fence by the blueberries to regulate the sun a little bit.  As it gets hotter here in south Texas this will help with the afternoon strong heat.  One thing with the grow bags, I have to water every morning.  Really healthy plants, one Roma's has 26 tomato's growing now.

 

Blackberries are flowering now.

 

Garden Update....So far so good.

It's been a little while but I've been a bit busy lately!  The garden is doing well and I have a lot to update.

Some new developments:  I have two blueberry bushes to go in near a fence and some strawberry's to replenish my strawberry patch.

EDIT:  Just to note about the corn, I have two stalks coming up already.  Normal germination is 4-12 days.  I soaked the seeds for a day and a 1/2 and planted 7 days ago.

First, all the corn was planted on Feb 24.  Should be in good shape, no frost or overly good weather in the future.  Do have an 80+ predicted for tomorrow though.  The corn all went into the three sisters 5x5 garden.  Had some seeds left over and didn't want to waste them so I planted about 25 in each of the grow bags behind the bed.

To the right of the corn, you can see the Topsy turvey I mentioned in an earlier post.  I ended up planting 10 jalapeno seedlings into it.  Again, it shouldn't be too cold for them.

The potato's are growing well.  It is interesting that some are growing so much better than the others and the red potato's are growing the best.  I did have a little cold weather damage but the plants have pushed through and created new leaves.

The tomato's are doing pretty well.  I have lost a few, but those were the hot weather variety that I probably should have waited to put in.  The okra, on the bottom right, could have probably waited as well.  It's pretty sickly looking compared the the okra directly to the left that I just transplanted today.

The buds on all the cuttings look like they are going to produce leaves so I'm excited about the 42 that I planted in the quart containers.  There are buds on the vine that look about ready to say hi as well.  It was about this time last year the first growth appeared.

On the bottom left of the picture I planted four horseradish roots.  They were pretty well developed so they should do well.

So, on to the 4x4 garden.  As they say, a plan is not a plan until you run out of time for changes!  The asparagus roots just didn't seem to make it through the winter.  Might have been too wet as the roots were decomposing.  Had to change the plan.  So now there's celery, peas, lettuce, greens, beets, and radishes.  I am succession planting here.

In the grow bag is the cucumber and below that two other tomato plants.  

Succession planting can be very powerful.  I can't count how many times we had garden food rot because everything matured at the same time.  Decided to get smart this year.

l-------l--------l---------l---------l

  4 Cel   4 Cel    16 Pea

l-------l--------l---------l---------l

  5 Let   5 Let  5 Let   5 Let

l-------l--------l---------l---------l

  5 Grn 5 Grn  5 Grn   5 Grn

l-------l--------l---------l---------l

      32 Radish     16 Beets

l-------l--------l---------l---------l

The back left half will be 8 celery, planted 2 at a time every 10 days.  

The right half of the back is 16 pea's which all went in at once.  

The next row 3 lettuce planted today, then alternating 2/3 every 10 days.

The next row of greens done identical to the lettuce.

The radish is planted 4 at a time every 10 days.

The beets planted 8 a time with 20 days between.

Thanks for visiting.  If you have any tips or advice or questions don't hesitate to post them.

January Harvest of Carrots

Who says you can't have fresh carrots in January?  If you are in south Texas you can, even with some temps dropping into the low 30's.  I planted a 5 foot single row in October.  I covered it with plastic as it got cold, and added a second layer of plastic in a make shift green house.  Still have about 45 onions slowly growing but will have to pull them by late February.

After cleaning and trimming the stems we had 12.3 oz.

If I was looking at having fresh carrots year round (or most of the year), I would figure having to plant 20 5 foot rows two weeks apart starting 10 March for 10 of the plantings.  The other 10 planting starting in late August.

Alternatively, plant them all at once and pressure can the harvest.

Gearing up to prep the grape vine

I had always heard that Texas is great for growing vines.........just not so great at producing quality grapes.  When we moved-in in 2010, we decided to try and grow a vine.  Bought it at Lowe's and put it in.  I knew it wouldn't be until the 3rd growing season until we would see any grapes.

Summer 2012 was the third.  The vine began to shoot leaves in early March and buds appeared.

By April the canopy had come in nicely.

June 4th the grapes began to change color.

The best part about growing them was my son eating them like he was Cesar!  It produced about 12 lbs......after the birds got their initial share and I netted it in!

I never pruned the vine since inception.  I am going to drastically prune it this February.  I learned that grapes won't develop above about 5 feet so all the extra vine was a waste.  I buried a section of vine last year in hopes that it will root and I'll have a second vine.

When I do cut this one back I'm going to replant 30-40 shoots in quart containers and expand the grapes.  I'm going to work three levels on the trellis and see how it goes.