2015 Garden- Our Garden Plan

Garden 5-30-15

Our garden is off to a pretty good start this year.  Our last freeze was in mid March, so we probably could have planted a few weeks earlier but it's ok.  We've got a long growing season ahead of us. 

We always have questions about our garden set up, so here's a quick rundown of our strategy and a few tips.

1.  Ground cover- our weed situation is horrible.  We tried weeding and mowing, but we just didn't have time to keep up with it.  We are now in our 3rd year of using this ground cover.  We cut small holes where we put plants or seeds, but we leave the flap of fabric attached so we can close the holes we don't use if we the same layout from year to year.  It is awesome at keeping weeds out!  We actually leave it out all winter to keep weeds down.  Then we take it up in the spring, till the ground, and lay it back down.  We do have 1 strip of fabric that is starting to break down a bit, but even if it only lasts ~5 years, it will be worth it.  This is similar to what we use- 20 year weed barrier.

2.  Water!- This has been trial and error for us for sure.  We started with sprinklers.  Bad idea.  Since we water with well water, the salts in the water did major damage to all the leaves on our plants.  Next we tried soaker hoses at the base of the plants.  Well, the salts clogged up all the hoses really quick.  Now we use drip tape under our ground cover.  We like this system a lot.  If they get clogged up, we just poke new holes.  The material is relatively cheap and so far works really well.  We use our well pump to fill up 6 rain barrels.  Then the water seeps out the drip tape throughout the day.  We run 2 rows of tape in areas that use more water.  This is what we use- drip tape.  Here are some pics of our setup.

3.  Plants or seeds?- both!  Things we grow from seeds- corn, beans, okra, all squash family plants (zucchini, cucumbers, watermelon, honey dew, cantaloupe, all squash varieties.)  We have bought seeds from Lowe's, Walmart, and farm stores.  We like the prices of bulk seeds at our farm store :)  Plants we buy- tomatoes and peppers.  We have never been able to grow these from seed very well.  We buy heat resistant varieties of tomatoes since it's so hot here.  Think about your weather and length of growing season for tomatoes and buy accordingly.  We put potatoes in the ground to grow potatoes- ha!  We just save some from the previous year, store them in our refrigerator over the winter in a brown bag, and plant them in early spring.  We haven't done a cool season garden here, but hopefully we'll grow some broccoli and cauliflower from seed at some point.

4.  Bugs- Yep, we struggle.  Squash bugs and grasshoppers are pretty bad.  If you have a great solution, let us know!  We use insecticide for squash bugs before the plants put out fruit and try to get all their eggs when we see them.  We haven't yet decided to take the plunge on chickens or guineas for the grasshoppers, but that may be our best bet.

5.  Tomato support- Our plants get too big for most cages, so we use t-posts set at an angle to create a V shape.  We do several sets of Vs down the row of tomatoes.  Then we secure fencing material to the posts and shape it around the plants some in the middle areas using wire.  It's a bit hard to explain, but this system seems to work pretty well.  We put the whole thing together when the plants are pretty big and starting to lean.  If we cage them too early, the wind whips the little plants against the metal and beats up them up too much.  We just set them in place in this picture.  The plants are pretty bushy, starting to fruit, and about 1 1/2 - 2 feet tall.  Maybe you can see it a little better here.

6.  Fertilize- This can be tough.  How much, how often, what kind?  I'm no expert here, sorry!  Josh buys fertilizer granules from the farm store, and I put it in panty hose pouches.  Then we drop 1 in our rain barrel every few days so that it dissolves in the water and gets dispersed to the garden through the drip tape.  We have had issues with over fertilizing when we put granules on each plant, so this seems to work best for us.  When we were in Washington, I don't think we fertilized at all.  Talk to local people who know something about soil type and nutrients for advice. 

7.  Grow what you'll eat!- It may take a few years to figure out what and how much your family will eat.  We have cut out several things that we just weren't using much.  We never have the same garden twice, and I really like that.  Some years we grow okra; then we get sick of it.  Sometimes we experiment with different varieties of plants like squash and peppers.  Sometimes we give stuff away because we have too much of it or too little freezer space (or because people beg us for something).  It's fun to play around with all the options and try new things!

7.  Preserving- We do some water bath canning, but we don't have a pressure cooker that's big enough for pressure canning yet.  We do a lot of freezing, especially squash casserole and peppers, to eat throughout the winter.  We also recently got a food dehydrator, so I'm looking forward to experimenting with that more this year. 

That's all our tips I can think of right now.  Feel free to ask more questions :)  Maybe Josh will have more to say...

2014 Garden- Problems, Changes, Updates and Progress Pics

I mostly do garden posts so that Josh and I can go back year after year and remember what we've done.  These posts may not interest anyone else :) 

Problems- squash bugs are bad this year, but they haven't done too much damage yet.  We sprayed a couple of times before fruit came out.  Rabbits may eventually be a problem, but they've got plenty of other green stuff to eat right now thanks to all the rain we've had lately.  Grasshoppers are not as bad as last year- yay!

Changes-  This year we cut back quite a bit on our variety in the garden.  No okra, corn, green beans or peppers.  We get tired of okra and we just weren't eating much corn or green beans.  No peppers because we couldn't find any plants cheap enough to buy and it would have been too late to start seeds.  We're going to regret not having peppers since they are one of the fruits we eat year round.  We are almost out of peppers from last year, so if anyone has an abundance they want to share, we would love to trade some goodies! 

New this year- butternut squash and different varieties of sweet melons and tomatoes.  We're also replacing yellow squash with golden zucchini.  The yellow squash have more seeds and seem to fall apart more when cooked.  The zucchini hold up better and don't get as mushy.

Growing this year- zucchini (golden and green), cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, pumpkins, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes

Updates on technique- we are still using the drip tape from last year, filling our rain barrels from the well and letting them drain into the garden during the day.  We have had to poke some new holes in the tape since the old ones clogged up from well water salts, but the hoses are still in good shape. 
We are also happy that our ground cover is still in good shape.  We left it out all winter to keep the weeds down and then took it up to plow this spring.  This stuff is supposed to last 25 years, so we'll see.  Either way, not having to weed is amazing and totally worth the price!
We will continue to fertilize like last year- by placing granules in pantyhose and dropping into our rain barrels to dissolve.
T-posts with fencing material have worked well for tomato cages, so those are back up again this year.

Progress pics- it's amazing how much difference 6 weeks makes!

May 15, 2014

June 3, 2014

June 26, 2014

Our rabbit control specialist

2013 Garden, Part 5- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The good news is that we are now harvesting something other than squash!  We've picked tomatoes, cucumbers, honeydew, green beans, okra and bell pepper now!
The bad news is that the grasshoppers and squash bugs are rapidly multiplying and getting quite healthy off our plants.  Here are some pictures.  We'll start with the good :)

Overall the garden looks pretty good.  7-2-13  Potatoes on the left are falling over.

Honeydew, cucumbers and green beans

Our first bell pepper and okra of the year are in this group.

We've got watermelon coming!

Corn is looking pretty good, but something is nibbling on the ends of the cobs :(

Honeydew and cantaloupe are taking over!

Bell peppers are getting big!

Looks like we'll have some nice pumpkins this fall!  This one is about 1 1/2 times the size of a basketball.

Tomatoes are filling up the cages (along with some wandering cantaloupe vines)!

Now for the bad and really ugly...

Cucumber plants are looking pretty pitiful :(

Spaghetti squash is taking a hit too.

I'm surprised we're getting any green beans at all with our plants looking like this!

Squash bug damage to the pumpkins.  So sad.

Even though things are starting to look bad, this is still our best garden so far in Texas.  A huge part of me wishes we had tried raising guineas this year to combat the grasshoppers.  Oh well.  At least the weeds are under control!

2013 Garden, Part 4- A New Use For Pantyhose

Garden- June 21

Our garden is really doing well!  We are still only harvesting yellow squash and zucchini, but other things are getting really close.
Our latest change is fertilizer.  We've had problems in the past with getting the right amount of fertilizer on the plants.  This year we are trying a new approach.  See, to water our garden, we are turning on the well pump and letting it fill the rain barrels.  Then the water slowly seeps out into the garden throughout the day.  We decided to fill pantyhose with fertilizer granules and put them in the rain barrels.  The fertilizer dissolves in the water and gets to all the plants through the hoses.  So much easier than worrying about getting too much or too little on each individual plant!  It only takes a couple of minutes every other day to fertilize the entire garden.

Here is a picture of our garden from this morning.  Compare it to the picture below from 2 weeks ago.  You can tell the potatoes (on the left) are done growing, but everything else has taken off!

Garden- June 21

Garden- June 5

We've had 2 really good rains in the last week.  The wind from these storms whipped our squash plants around quite a bit, but they seem ok.  We actually have some water in our pond too, so the frogs and toads have been pretty active.  I nearly stepped on this Woodhouse toad this morning.  We have to get used to watching our steps more closely!

Woodhouse Toad- do you see him?  He's about the size of my palm.

Our only problem right now is the grasshoppers.  They are getting pretty bad and snacking on a lot of our garden.  Luckily, most of our plants are big enough that they aren't struggling too much, but we'll have to wait and see if productivity is affected.  For now we're enjoying how well things are growing.

2013 Garden, Part 3- First Harvest!

I hate to brag, but our garden is looking great so far!  We've had to spray for squash bugs and the grasshoppers really like our potatoes, but everything is still in good shape.  It's amazing how fast everything is growing right now.  These first 2 pictures were taken just 4 days apart.

Garden-  June 1

Garden-  June 5

Here's some closer pictures of a few "zones" of our garden.

Squash family rows- (near to far) zucchini, yellow squash, watermelon, spaghetti squash, honeydew, cucumbers, cantaloupe, pumpkin

Corn rows

Tomatoes before support

Tomatoes with support- we're trying a new system this year with t-posts and fencing material.  Last year all of our tomato cages ended up on the ground because our plants got too big.

First harvest!!  Yellow squash, zucchini, yellow potatoes, red potatoes, purple potatoes.  We chopped these up, put them on skewers, and grilled them with some chicken.  So yummy!

I don't show this view of the garden very often.  You can see our rain collection system and our shop in the back.  The garden is about 60'x30' for those of you who have asked.

2013 Garden, Part 2- Surviving the Cold and Making Cute Garden Markers

Well, the new ground cover and watering system seem to be working well so far.  The plants didn't seem to grow much at first, but now they are taking off!  We had one more cold night we had to get through.  We covered some rows with extra ground cloth and tarps, and we covered some individual plants with buckets.  Of course it didn't get as cold as we expected, but better safe than sorry!

Preparing for the cold with tarps and ground cloth

Tomatoes and pumpkins did well under buckets.

I got an idea for garden markers from Pinterest that was cheap and easy.  I used metal punches and lids from canned food to make individual signs that I then nailed to stakes.  They are a little hard to read from a distance, but I like how they turned out.

Garden markers

More garden markers

"Corn"

"Green beans"

"Okra"

Here's a look at the corn marker in place

Garden with markers in place 5/15/13

Our potatoes and tomatoes are leading the way this year.  We have never tried potatoes, so it's nice to see them doing so well.  And look!  Our first tomato!

Rows of potatoes

Our first tomato of the season!

I guess this would be a good time to list all the stuff we're growing this year:
Bell peppers, jalapeno, green chiles, corn, green beans, okra, tomatoes, yellow squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash, cantaloupe, watermelon, pumpkin, honeydew, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cucumbers.  Whew!  I'm looking forward to seeing how successful we are this year!

2013 Garden- Part 1, Still Experimenting

Well, we really procrastinated planting our garden this year, but it turns out we were just really smart!  We had 4 cold fronts come through in April that brought freezing temperatures to our area.  We finally got around to some of our planting last weekend, but wouldn't you know, we may have another freeze or two this week.  *sigh*  This is a little crazy for Texas!

Ready to plant!

We have a couple new experiments going this year.  The first is our watering method.  We water with well water that is full of minerals and salts.  We have had problems in the past with these clogging our soaker hoses by the end of the season.  No good!  This year we are trying drip tape with holes every 6 inches.  We'll see how it goes.

Drip tape all connected and laid out.  Some rows get double water.

 Our second experiment involves ground cover.  Last year, we tried a combination of clear plastic and black plastic to see which was better.  Black won.  We also just covered the rows and not the spaces in between with the plans of mowing between the rows.  Well, our plants got too big and took over all the space and made it impossible to mow.  So this year, we are trying a 20 year ground cover and covering more ground.  Some students came out and planted onions and potatoes several weeks ago, so we had to work around those areas.  Hopefully our weeding will be manageable this year.

Ground cover going down.

Ground cover done.

Time to plant!  Josh cut the holes and I followed with seedlings.

Of course Titus is always nearby supervising our work and protecting the wheelbarrow.

Some of the planting done.  More to come!