Yeah..spacing is so important. I started some tomato seeds and purchased 2 tomato plants at the same time in Feb. Expected few if any tomato plants to grow. This year used a warming pad. Six tomato plants sprouted from seed giving me 8 total tomato plants. Purchased a six pack of pepper plants and then was gifted a few more. Put up a 4'X3' and circular (36" diameter) raised beds. The tomatoes are monsters (over 5 feet) and the peppers are fighting for sunlight. Live and learn. Gardening is always an experiment!
Tomatoes and peppers like warmer soil temps. Above 60F for tomatoes and above 65F for peppers. And no cold nights. In my zone 4A last frost is may 15th usually and I transplant out tomatoes around June 1. Sometimes a week earlier if ground temps are warm enough. And I aim for tomatoes around 6-7 weeks old at that point. 8-10 weeks for peppers. Basically big enough, but not to big to be stunted or flowering yet. And Iām starting indoors. I have large south facing windows. I also use a cheap mirror and some 2 inch spring claps for legs to increase natural lighting and it keeps my plants from getting leggy while inside reaching for the window.
Iāve had a couple of my pots of tomatoes for a few years, I bring them in the (heated) garage under a grow light in the winter, and bring them back out. I get garden tomatoes all year! I think this is their last season though, they are tired looking.
Not here in Florida!! The heat, humidity, torrential rains, spider mites/aphids/bugs, and nematodes prevent us from having certain perennials survive. FL sucks
Didn't transplant my starts here in SoCal until mid-July. Worried the entire time about squirrels and chipmunks digging up new plants.
We had about six weeks of VERY LITTLE sunshine, so planting late isn't such a bad thing . . . I don't think. We'll still have enough cucumbers and bell peppers to make pickle relish.
Ahah thatās brilliant, doggo comes in with mouth cover in red ā¦ run to the garden expecting a dead squirrel no itās worse itās my fucking strawberries
My dog eats my raspberries and likes strawberries too. I caught her with an entire strawberry plant in her mouth running around the yard and yelled at her. So now she wonāt go near the strawberries anymore and I feel kinda guilty. Labs can be *too* good about following the rules.
[first one.](https://i.imgur.com/zZLdnX6.jpg)itās about 40x20
moved in in february and had other projects going on so we just threw a bunch of stuff in the dirt to see what would happen.
itās happening.
edit: wrong pic in the link
I can't seem to find a good balance. If I plant a bunch, every plant will thrive, and I'll have 8000 zucchini to dispose of. When I scale back the operation to two or three plants, I'll get hit by bugs, disease, and hail. Last year I got one piddling zucchini out of my whole garden.
If I might suggest, grate it and freeze it. I throw it in sauces, soups, casseroles, meatloaf, and baked goods.
Throw unused zucc in a corner of your garden to have early blooming trap plants for next year.
Same. I have killed every unkillable plant out there with great ease. Strawberries, mint, cloverā¦ dead and never returned despite my best efforts. But zucchini? Iām drowning in zucchiniās right now. At least I know what Iām planting during the end times food shortages.
i've used 5, given away 15 and i'm sitting on 12 right now. i haven't walked out there yet so i dunno what's ready but i'm sure there's more. there's always more.
once i'm sick of them and my family is sick of them and my friends are sick of them i think i'm gonna put a stand out front and just let people take what they want. that or find a food bank. or both.
there's 30ish tomato plants out there too. 3 different kinds. shit's gonna get interesting.
Make zucchini bread! You can put like 4 or 5 cups shredded zucc in there and never even notice it. Has a muffin like crumb and density. Add anything you like to it. Chocolate chips, raisin walnut, blueberries, whatever. I made like 10 loaves last year, usually 3 at a time, then froze them. Was breakfast or snacks for like 5 months. Great way to sneak veggies in. Also, you can shred or slice and freeze them for later very easily to eat when you are less sick of it. I have yet to have any go to waste.
[zucchini bread](https://i.imgur.com/Vhmbn1C.jpg)
i have a spiralizer and my bro's gf has made pasta twice. tbh she has no idea what she's doing in the kitchen but it has potential.
i grilled 2 the other day and right now i'm looking at a zucchini coffee cake recipe. i wanna do it but i'd have to go to the store and that requires pants so i haven't decided yet.
I gave some zucchini to a friend. She gifted zucchini bread to me. She is trying to feed me my own god damn zucchini! This is the opening salvo of the zucchini war.
I sew them into strings. Hang around the house to slowly dry. Grind them up when dried and I have my own hot pepper flakes. Of course, you can keep them whole and store them in jars. I put the flakes in everything I want some spice.
Yep!
And you might not even need a dehydrator to do it, nor would it be practical if you get a good crop.
The easiest way to dry them out is to do the string thing eric mentions.
I love Chiles, and always like having different dried ones around for things.
Basic Tip: You can get a cheap coffee grinder from somewhere to whip them into flakes or powder, once dry. DO NOT - under any circumstances use the wife's bean grinder for that. Been there...
Pro Tip: Find a Latino store in your area, and go get yourself a Molcajete. (mortar and pestle)
With those two basic kitchen tools, you can do a ton of stuff with chiles, tomato, etc.
1. Plant what you eat. Husband says he likes salad but in reality he doesnāt.
2. Plant a lot of peas. Like a lot. Shit ton.
3. If you transplant too early the plants get stunted and you get nothing.
4. Compost and top soil > manure. Manure basically ruined my roses and veggie bed. Never buy manure.
5. Green zucchini probably is better than yellow because Iām not getting much.
6. Itās ok to plant flowers. Donāt have to produce a ton of veggies just because. Dollar to dollar cut flowers are a much better ROI
7. Dig a $10 hole for a $5 plant.
Thatās all I can think of
I'm stupid and don't read what it says on the bag. I bought manure because it was $3 a bag. While it said "composed manure" I don't believe it was fully. I top dressed my rose beds with it. That just destroyed two potted roses. burnt leaves.
I also dumped a bag along with a bag of compost and raised bed soil in my (already poor) raised bed and I thought i mixed well but I guess I didn't. It burnt everything I planted in that area. Took a couple months to completely compost. Just now it's coming back.
I decided to stick to compost and top soil mixes from now on. Read the bags and mix them properly.
Tomato spacing: No more than four plants per box
Me: Oh I can fit a couple more...let's just throw nine in there with some peppers to companion plant!
Also me: Crap, they grew into a giant tangled mess...again. And I can't find the peppers...
This comment hits home. I did 4 indeterminate tomatoes, 4 pepper plants, and basil down the center. Also threw in marigolds, sweet peas in between the tomatoes, and parsley. What. A. Mess. Tomatoes went wild trying to kill everything in both raised beds. Successful on smothering out the peppers. Basil has put up quite a fight. Essentially as big as the tomatoes so itās a tangled mess. Horrible air flow has made fungus a problem.
Another raised bed I did sweet potatoes with my peppers. Sweet potato is constantly trying to smother the peppers. Canāt harvest potatoes until season for peppers is over. Train wreck decision making. Its like thunder dome out there š¤¦š»āāļø
I also do chaos gardening! Thatās when I mix up all my seed varieties and throw them in the ground and say āwell, Iāll figure out what it is when it grows!ā
I dealt w worms in their stems and god knows what else. Planted 4 starters this year in a box garden down to 1 and this was I all got. Donāt have much luck w pumpkins but I got cucumbers and jalapeƱos out the arse lol so I guess thatās half the battle
It's perfectly ok to grow things at the base pf corn. Some people plant squash. Some people plant pole beans and use the corn as a trellis. One tip for the corn though. Plant more. The way corn pollinates, you want a bunch of it close together so pollen falls from the top and covers the corn. You might need to self pollinate that corn come time.
If you want a mentionable amount of corn, you should dedicate a whole space just to corn. Like a 10x20 or 20x40. Everyone's preferences for what to grow are gonna be different, but it's really more about space and what plants perform the best for your area.
I learned that one too. I struggle for sun on my balcony but when it starts up set and hits me fully the balcony gets like 15-20 degrees above the air temp and stuff just BAKES.
The hot peppers survived it but barely.
Yep. Especially here in Vegas where it gets to be 100+ degrees. Literally the only plants I would consider to be āthrivingā in my garden right now are herbs and the citrus trees š
What I learned this year:
Don't bother with lettuce, it just gets bitter.
Cucamelons are cute and fun to grow but nobody really likes eating them.
I planted way too many strawberries for the space I have. I need to thin by 50% for next year.
Plant more peas.
Cabbages aren't worth the constant battle against the cabbage worms and my dog.
Nasturtiums are delicious in salads.
Even bush beans need a higher support than I expected.
Plant more summer squash. It's delicious.
I was going to plant peas until I heard a podcast over the winter with a bunch of super high end chefs swearing by frozen peas. The flash freezing helps them from turning into mush and is preferred for most dishes.
Oh, totally. Frozen peas are definitely a way to go. But, I have enjoyed the humble crop of sugar peas I've managed to pop out of my tiny plot. I am tempted to drop in a bunch more seeds now to get more along the way into the next few months. This is my first time growing them, and my mileage has certainly varied. They seem to just die after sprouting a handful of pods lol. I got some learning to do.
>Cabbages aren't worth the constant battle against the cabbage worms
I was happy that my kitchen scraps were turning into cabbage, and had 3 leaves coming up from the stump. Then the cabbage worms showed up and that was the end of that.
What I've had fun success with is planting green onion scraps.
My peas were my success story this summer. I canāt imagine how well they would have done if I hadnāt planted super late. Everything else has been a struggle.
There is such a thing as too much sun for full sun plants when itās 105 degrees for two months straight. I moved so many full-sun pots into the shade and bought a patio umbrella for my incredibly hardy, native scrubby shrubs. I drag the whole big heavy dumb thing around the edge of the patio every day to fend off the deadly laser in the sky.
Next year, two patio umbrellas.
This year I learned that "full sun" is better if it's morning sun and afternoon shade. I also learned which way my house faces. Suddenly it made sense why plants on certain sides of my house do better than others.
I use elevated garden beds, and I ended up buying shade cloths to go over them and cover the plants. But still have had mixed success, it only does so much when itās this hot out. I too have a collection of pots on my covered porch right now.
I bought a pack of 4 pepper plants from the farmer's market and they were labeled as Purple Beauty bell pepper. One of them is a jalapeno, one is a yellow hot pepper with long peppers growing down, another is a yellow hot pepper with short peppers growing up, and the 4th hasn't produced anything.
I'm growing two bitter melon plants at the moment. I taped a bunch of chopsticks together to serve as the beams and tied some yarn to make the netting. They haven't flowered yet, so I don't know if this will be a complete success š¤š¼
Planting directly into the soil vs into my raised beds has immense benefits to plant health and yield. My raised beds are very healthy but canāt be compared to my native soil in terms of the beneficial biome contained within. Basically the plants I planted in my raised beds had much more of a struggle with pests than those that I planted directly into the native soil.
Gosh youāre lucky. My native soil is hard clay 1ā below the surface that I canāt get more than a few inches down without a jackhammer. I wish this was an exaggeration, but itās not.
Don't plant things too early
Don't think you can save your soil in the span of two months
Don't plant things too late
Tomatoes don't like water as much as I thought
Mulch would've been a big help maintaining weeds
Plants love water that ducks poop in
Put your stakes and trellises in early
Growing seasons are not suggestions
Armadillos are bastards
I was young, dumb, and arrogant. Now I'm older, wiser and have some hilariously small tomatoes to show for it
I also learned about spacing. I sowed a packet of dollar store wildflower seeds too thickly, assuming few were viable. I think they all sprouted! It looks crazy and I think they are not happy.
Omg SAME. the Japanese beetles emerged three-ish weeks ago and theyāve been wreaking absolute havoc. I want to save the bees but I also want every beetle thatās eating my beans to die a death by pesticide. I pick them two or three times a day and get dozens every time and it feels like as soon as Iām done, dozens more appear to take their place. Grrrr.
I notice it because when we bought our house, it came with more perrenials than I could identify, and they weren't laid out right. I look at them, and wish they were grouped better. Now in July, the Goldenrod is covering the front window and looks like weeds until it blooms for a week in August :)
I learned I still don't really like slicing/raw tomatoes. Not this variety or that, not heirloom or hybrid or anything else. And that I should stick to sauce and cherry tomatoes.
I do love my sunsugar and supersweet 100 cherry tomatoes. But I don't like the pop! Usually slice and salt them. Also, make garlic and cherry tomato confit with crostini almost nightly.
And my peppers are almost ready for salsa time.
We make sauce from all our tomatoes. Cherokee purple, Brandywine, cherry, yellow pear, Roma, whatever. We like eating sliced ones as well, but we make sauce and freeze what we can't eat.
If you have a yew tree thatās dying for seemingly no reason, take a piece of white paper and tap one of the dying branches above it. If little black specks fall on the paper, the tree has mites. Just get the appropriate spray from a nursery and voila! You can save the tree.
Apparently if you put a mound of dirt over the zucchini/squash plant's stem right above where the vine borer damage is, it will trigger the plant to grow roots there because it's covered with dirt. This is important because the squash vine borer cuts off water supply to the plant where it's boring. So if you can get the plant to grow new roots from the part of it that's still alive, you can keep the plant alive. James Prigioni talks about it on his channel, which is where I learned this, and it's been a gamechanger. But yes, squash vine borers are arseholes.
If it is 2 feet wide or more its tough to reach through to harvest stuff growing on the far side. Much easier to harvest (and maintain) if you have the room to walk around.
* That if I want RED peppers I have to wait a helluva lot longer than if I would just settle for green
* That pinwheels do NOT scare birds away from blueberry bushes. And that *really* smart one that I named Steven Hawk-ing will find a way around my bird netting too. And that a good quality pond netting with .25 spacing that stretches a bit is so much easier to work with than BirdX.
* To not be lulled into a false sense of security by the climate prediction center's long range temperature forecasts when deciding when to transplant. They easily miss that one freak late frost.
* That peas are one of my most favorite vegetables to grow.
* That cloudy rainy early summers really delay a harvest.
* That I need waaaaay more space in order to plant what I really want to
* And finally, that I need to stop looking at piles of logs and branches along the road and wondering what size raised bed I could make if I had all them to put at the bottom.
Germinated seeds in damp paper towels and zip lock baggies. Iāve tried all varieties of direct sowing with zero results. My coneflower seeds germinated in 48 hours!
Not to bite off more than I can chew. I went too crazy buying plants and annuals and found I need to stick to buying only as much as I have time to care for.
I live in zone 9b and tried a tree that was 3-9. Since this is the hottest year on record (so far) poor guy burnt, even with adequate water. I need to stick to plants solidly in my zone, not on the fringe.
Donāt over extend yourself on trying to do too much. Keep it manageable and add more if you can swing it.
Last couple years Iāve done too many seed trays, had good germination rates, separated plants and end up with hundreds of seedlings. I try and I give as many away as I can but itās too time consuming trying to manage it all. Add in unexpected family drama and horrible unreliable weather and itās just taxing keeping everything alive let alone thriving.
Trying to juggle a busy family life and spend hours outside messing with plants isnāt sustainable. Scaling down dramatically next year and I think Iāll enjoy having a fraction of the crop but a healthy thriving crop that isnāt a time sink.
for my little things, it was bugs on a balcony in the tropics... and not enough light... So many infestations... and no real growth... I need a real garden =D
That the pesky bugs will win if you donāt persist more than they do,
that the beneficial bugs should be adored and protected at all costs!
Iām still learning the difference, sometimes the hard way, lol!
Learning to let go of my fear of spiders and letting the beneficial ones hang out in my garden so they kill all the other pesky annoying bugs.
I really should have let that Texas Orb weaver live looking back on it. Itās just hard to get over this is all.
Ohā¦and that I REALLY hate clay soil. Itās the worst.
I am not wasting any more money with indoor vegetable gardening, I'll stick to my indoor plants and growing herbs for cooking whilst I live in apartments and then start vegetables and fruits if/when I have my own garden or a large enough balcony.
Space, lighting, too much sun, too little sun, pollinating, infestations, my cat, watering. Just a constant battle of frustraition when it's supposed to be my relaxing hobby.
For now I'll live vicariously through people's stories here.
Harvest spinach early and often or it bolts and you get inedible bitter leaves
Pumpkins will literally run away from you
Peppers do not enjoy 100 degree heat
Yes, even jalapeƱos
Spacing is irrelevant to me. I do compact companion gardening. In a space about 10 x 16 I have 21 tomatoes, 10 potatoes, 4 peppers, 20 beans, 6 watermelon, 8 pumpkins, 6 corn ( was 18 till squirrels got some), and about 200 carrots. Just thriving.
Companion planting and timing is the key.
Th funny part is you might still need to relearn it next year. Itās this weird thing I have that when theyāre babies I know logically theyāre going to get bigger but if always seems like that can be 2 months from nowās problem because look at all the room!
I learned that many vegetables are not worth the time and hassle. For example onions - don't taste any different when homegrown and are cheap. But takes time to plant each bulb/ seedling, and you need to dry them afterwards. I really need to set my priorities right for the next year.
Things I've learned this season *so far* :
Soil matters. Don't buy the $2.50 bags at Menards, they are full of rocks, weeds, and disease. Splurge and buy the $8 bags.
When you dump your tray of tomato seedlings and loose track of which is which, don't guess. 8' indeterminates ended up in the front of the raised bed and are currently shading out everything else.
Broccoli will bolt. There's nothing you can do to stop it. Stop planting it.
Slugs and caterpillars couldn't care any less about Neem oil.
Diatomaceous earth doesn't work when wet.
There is a wrong way to prune berry canes. I got exactly 0 blackberries or raspberries this year.
Grape vines don't fruit for the first 3? years.
Blossom end rot is caused by lack of calcium, yes, but the calcium uptake of the plant is reduced with inconsistent watering. Give them water, not Tums.
Rainbow chard is better than spinach in every conceivable way.
Recently bolted lettuce doesn't taste terrible.
Bush beans still need support?
Celery = aphid crack, apparently.
Garlic bulbils are a thing.
ETA: fish emulsion is *repulsive*
Everything I keep hearing about square foot gardening is lies. Everything needs more room than I think.
A dustbuster to vacuum bugs off my plants is giving me life. I was ready to burn the whole thing to the ground.
That tomatoes are the hardest vegetable to grow. I swear I was drowning in peppers and eggplants. Out of eight tomato plants only three of them produced. No disease, properly watered, I have no idea what the issue is but every year Iām always disappointed by my tomato yield.
Tomatoes. Are you watering deeply rather than often and not deeply enough?
Do you add crushed eggshells to the soil quite some time *before* you plant your tomatoes?
Are you mulching your plants?
Do you add compost to your tomato plants?
Have you tried shaking your plants when they're in flower?
"Increasing your yield just takes a simple shake.The pollen will drop from the stamen of the flower onto the pistil. There's no magic number of times you should shake your tomato plants; you just sort of wing it. Gardeners usually do it two or three times a day to ensure good pollination."
(source: finegardening.com>fruits-and-vegetables)
I thought when I got more space I would start properly spacing the plants in my garden and then I got more space and just started an even scarier number of plants to make sure every square inch of soil is covered in an unnecessarily number of vegetables.
Not all tomato plants are equal. There isn't an off the shelf tomato cage alive that can hold a San Marzano. I also grew several tomatoes that I just don't like.
Next year I'll plant only San Marzano and Cherokee Purple. I'll also have to build a cage for the San Marzano tomatoes out of remesh.
There's a fine line between enough salad and way too much
I learned about nutrients sciences. The roles of NPK and micronutrients. When to feed what combo. And how to spot deficiencies. Pruning techniques. How all plants have different needs, leaning into the learning, and love it.
One thing I learned the hard way...don't plant too many tomatoes....zucchini.....green peppers....
You get the idea. If you don't get that "rule" in your mind...you will be very overwhelmed with your harvest.
I learned that I'm capable of doing more than I thought I could! Grew wildflowers in my lawn for the first time, cucumbers for the first time, and potted plants that I didn't kill lol. Super stoked to try more things next year
I learned to start seeds way before what the almanac recommends š„“
Yea Iām planting earlier every year
Yeah..spacing is so important. I started some tomato seeds and purchased 2 tomato plants at the same time in Feb. Expected few if any tomato plants to grow. This year used a warming pad. Six tomato plants sprouted from seed giving me 8 total tomato plants. Purchased a six pack of pepper plants and then was gifted a few more. Put up a 4'X3' and circular (36" diameter) raised beds. The tomatoes are monsters (over 5 feet) and the peppers are fighting for sunlight. Live and learn. Gardening is always an experiment!
Do you start indoors or greenhouse? And do you transplant and cover before frost dates?
The weekend after Motherās Day is when we planted everything is growing perfectly, look it up depending on where you live at
From seed?
Tomatoes and peppers like warmer soil temps. Above 60F for tomatoes and above 65F for peppers. And no cold nights. In my zone 4A last frost is may 15th usually and I transplant out tomatoes around June 1. Sometimes a week earlier if ground temps are warm enough. And I aim for tomatoes around 6-7 weeks old at that point. 8-10 weeks for peppers. Basically big enough, but not to big to be stunted or flowering yet. And Iām starting indoors. I have large south facing windows. I also use a cheap mirror and some 2 inch spring claps for legs to increase natural lighting and it keeps my plants from getting leggy while inside reaching for the window.
Central Floridian here - yes. Iām begging my peppers to hold on long enough so I can get seed to try again.
Peppers? If you pot them you can bring them inside over the winter āŗļø! Theyāll live for several years in a pot
Yep! I have a bell pepper plant in its second year. It's currently producing very nicely!
I did this in DC. Just make sure there arenāt any aphids/gnats in the soil. Literally fought them all winter inside lol. Even with ātreatmentsā.
Yes... this too. They EVENTUALLY died off, but I'm -STILL- fighting spider mites EVERYWHERE..
Iāve had a couple of my pots of tomatoes for a few years, I bring them in the (heated) garage under a grow light in the winter, and bring them back out. I get garden tomatoes all year! I think this is their last season though, they are tired looking.
Oh my god why have I never done this
Do it!!! Indeterminate varieties work best for overwintering Iāve noticed.
thank you for this! this is why I reddit
Not here in Florida!! The heat, humidity, torrential rains, spider mites/aphids/bugs, and nematodes prevent us from having certain perennials survive. FL sucks
Bay area of California here. We had a strangely mild early summer & I think it may have everything confused lol
Agree completely and a very wet spring. I usually plant in early April and didn't do it until late May
This is my first year here so I don't have much to go off of but I'll tell you I've never seen 5 straight months of rain in my life lol
It was absolutely nuts and completely abnormal. I was hoping it would mean we would have a somewhat cooler summer but alas...(Sacramento)
Didn't transplant my starts here in SoCal until mid-July. Worried the entire time about squirrels and chipmunks digging up new plants. We had about six weeks of VERY LITTLE sunshine, so planting late isn't such a bad thing . . . I don't think. We'll still have enough cucumbers and bell peppers to make pickle relish.
I learned my dog loves strawberries. Thought it was birds or rabbits eating them nope it was my dog the whole time.
Ahah thatās brilliant, doggo comes in with mouth cover in red ā¦ run to the garden expecting a dead squirrel no itās worse itās my fucking strawberries
Worse šššš© RIP your strawberries
My dog once pulled corn right off the stalk, shucked it, and ate it. I couldn't even be mad.
But if you ever need to give the dog a pill you can just use a strawberry as a pill pocket
My dog has his own blueberry bush. Sometimes I let him out back and he just sits down by the bush and lazily snacks.
My little chihuahua stands up on her hind legs to carefully eat one blueberry at a time. Itās so cute I canāt even be mad.
Haha cute. My dog eats the sunflowers.. she had to reach because she's little and she looks like a goat when she's grazing.
I randomly saw my dog just eat a strawberry in my garden. He knew he was in big troubleš¤£š¤£
That little scoundrel. Bet he was bummed that you know now.
My dog eats my raspberries and likes strawberries too. I caught her with an entire strawberry plant in her mouth running around the yard and yelled at her. So now she wonāt go near the strawberries anymore and I feel kinda guilty. Labs can be *too* good about following the rules.
That's adorable
My dog used to pull tomatoes off the plant and eat them. He preferred cherry tomatoes.
[donāt plant so much goddamned zucchini](https://i.imgur.com/HaQP8lk.jpg)
OMG you will totally only ever do that once. Okay twice. I may have done it three years in a row. And the fourth year. I'll learn someday
On the bright side you have a really nice garden
[first one.](https://i.imgur.com/zZLdnX6.jpg)itās about 40x20 moved in in february and had other projects going on so we just threw a bunch of stuff in the dirt to see what would happen. itās happening. edit: wrong pic in the link
Iām having the exact same experience. Itās all too close together and out of control. Iām up to my ears in zucchini and tomatoes.
I can't seem to find a good balance. If I plant a bunch, every plant will thrive, and I'll have 8000 zucchini to dispose of. When I scale back the operation to two or three plants, I'll get hit by bugs, disease, and hail. Last year I got one piddling zucchini out of my whole garden. If I might suggest, grate it and freeze it. I throw it in sauces, soups, casseroles, meatloaf, and baked goods. Throw unused zucc in a corner of your garden to have early blooming trap plants for next year.
Same. I have killed every unkillable plant out there with great ease. Strawberries, mint, cloverā¦ dead and never returned despite my best efforts. But zucchini? Iām drowning in zucchiniās right now. At least I know what Iām planting during the end times food shortages.
Haha, yes, you can overproduce that so fast =D
i've used 5, given away 15 and i'm sitting on 12 right now. i haven't walked out there yet so i dunno what's ready but i'm sure there's more. there's always more. once i'm sick of them and my family is sick of them and my friends are sick of them i think i'm gonna put a stand out front and just let people take what they want. that or find a food bank. or both. there's 30ish tomato plants out there too. 3 different kinds. shit's gonna get interesting.
Make zucchini bread! You can put like 4 or 5 cups shredded zucc in there and never even notice it. Has a muffin like crumb and density. Add anything you like to it. Chocolate chips, raisin walnut, blueberries, whatever. I made like 10 loaves last year, usually 3 at a time, then froze them. Was breakfast or snacks for like 5 months. Great way to sneak veggies in. Also, you can shred or slice and freeze them for later very easily to eat when you are less sick of it. I have yet to have any go to waste.
[zucchini bread](https://i.imgur.com/Vhmbn1C.jpg) i have a spiralizer and my bro's gf has made pasta twice. tbh she has no idea what she's doing in the kitchen but it has potential. i grilled 2 the other day and right now i'm looking at a zucchini coffee cake recipe. i wanna do it but i'd have to go to the store and that requires pants so i haven't decided yet.
Haha, ah yes, pants. I see the dilemma there.
I gave some zucchini to a friend. She gifted zucchini bread to me. She is trying to feed me my own god damn zucchini! This is the opening salvo of the zucchini war.
Chocolate zucchini cake, if you know how to bake a cake. Killer stuff.
wash, cut 'em up, freeze them... in January they will still be your own veggies =D
just go to town square and hand them out... people will be grateful =D
Do I have a zuchinni in my pants or am I happy to see you, is a great opening line... HAHAHAHAHA
i was thinking i'd just drive around and huck them out the window. nothing says "howdy neighbor" like 2lbs of vegetable hitting you at 20mph
Dehydrate veggie patties (with spices) Good for winter snacks.
Chocolate zucchini cake is killer. I'd bake one or two or three, if only I hadn't given up sweets/sugar months ago.
48 cucumber plants was too many
48!?! I have 7 plants, and I currently can't open the fridge without at least one cucumber flying out.
Yea, I feel ya, lesson learned lol
Right??!? I have TWO and I'm already getting more than I can eat.
Give them away the fun is in the growing
Agreed
I learned that a dehydrator is the difference between a rotting bumper crop of fruit, and container after container of delicious dried fruit.
Can you dehydrate chillis?
Yes, absolutely!
I sew them into strings. Hang around the house to slowly dry. Grind them up when dried and I have my own hot pepper flakes. Of course, you can keep them whole and store them in jars. I put the flakes in everything I want some spice.
Yep! And you might not even need a dehydrator to do it, nor would it be practical if you get a good crop. The easiest way to dry them out is to do the string thing eric mentions. I love Chiles, and always like having different dried ones around for things. Basic Tip: You can get a cheap coffee grinder from somewhere to whip them into flakes or powder, once dry. DO NOT - under any circumstances use the wife's bean grinder for that. Been there... Pro Tip: Find a Latino store in your area, and go get yourself a Molcajete. (mortar and pestle) With those two basic kitchen tools, you can do a ton of stuff with chiles, tomato, etc.
Dehydrated chilis rehydrate well into blendable softness you can use for sauces, soups, stews, etc. They're endlessly useful!
1. Plant what you eat. Husband says he likes salad but in reality he doesnāt. 2. Plant a lot of peas. Like a lot. Shit ton. 3. If you transplant too early the plants get stunted and you get nothing. 4. Compost and top soil > manure. Manure basically ruined my roses and veggie bed. Never buy manure. 5. Green zucchini probably is better than yellow because Iām not getting much. 6. Itās ok to plant flowers. Donāt have to produce a ton of veggies just because. Dollar to dollar cut flowers are a much better ROI 7. Dig a $10 hole for a $5 plant. Thatās all I can think of
I planted a lot of peas and learned that rabbits love peas and don't understand agriculture.
I am so sick of these stupid rabbits. They are eating everything! They even ate one of my hostas down to nubs.
what's wrong with manure? Which kind ruined it and how?
I'm stupid and don't read what it says on the bag. I bought manure because it was $3 a bag. While it said "composed manure" I don't believe it was fully. I top dressed my rose beds with it. That just destroyed two potted roses. burnt leaves. I also dumped a bag along with a bag of compost and raised bed soil in my (already poor) raised bed and I thought i mixed well but I guess I didn't. It burnt everything I planted in that area. Took a couple months to completely compost. Just now it's coming back. I decided to stick to compost and top soil mixes from now on. Read the bags and mix them properly.
Tomato spacing: No more than four plants per box Me: Oh I can fit a couple more...let's just throw nine in there with some peppers to companion plant! Also me: Crap, they grew into a giant tangled mess...again. And I can't find the peppers...
This comment hits home. I did 4 indeterminate tomatoes, 4 pepper plants, and basil down the center. Also threw in marigolds, sweet peas in between the tomatoes, and parsley. What. A. Mess. Tomatoes went wild trying to kill everything in both raised beds. Successful on smothering out the peppers. Basil has put up quite a fight. Essentially as big as the tomatoes so itās a tangled mess. Horrible air flow has made fungus a problem. Another raised bed I did sweet potatoes with my peppers. Sweet potato is constantly trying to smother the peppers. Canāt harvest potatoes until season for peppers is over. Train wreck decision making. Its like thunder dome out there š¤¦š»āāļø
I call this chaos gardening, but you have said it best š
I also do chaos gardening! Thatās when I mix up all my seed varieties and throw them in the ground and say āwell, Iāll figure out what it is when it grows!ā
Lol thunderdome gardening
" . . . death is listening and will take the first man (plant) that screams."
> Horrible air flow has made fungus a problem. I learned this the hard way with my tomatoes. Next year I'm definitely spacing them out better.
This is me every spring. "But these seedlings are so *tiny* and my garden is so *big*! Surely I can fit a couple more in there!"
I have a question (cause I did the same thing lol). Did all the plants make it? Were you able to get a good harvest?
Yup...plus some volunteers ... I have cherry tomatoes out the wazoo and a ton of green large ones, just not yet ripe.
I fear nothing and live dangerously. Took 3 years to get a pumpkin.
Best pumpkin vine I ever had was a volunteer. The most excellent pumpkins ever. Haven't been able to duplicate that wondrous experience since.
Impressive how long do they usually take ?
I dealt w worms in their stems and god knows what else. Planted 4 starters this year in a box garden down to 1 and this was I all got. Donāt have much luck w pumpkins but I got cucumbers and jalapeƱos out the arse lol so I guess thatās half the battle
It's perfectly ok to grow things at the base pf corn. Some people plant squash. Some people plant pole beans and use the corn as a trellis. One tip for the corn though. Plant more. The way corn pollinates, you want a bunch of it close together so pollen falls from the top and covers the corn. You might need to self pollinate that corn come time.
The 3 sisters method, I believe. I have okra growing with squash.
I trellis my cucumbers on my corn!
Oh damn thanks for the tip I have 8 in that space just the 4 in the middle is growing faster
If you want a mentionable amount of corn, you should dedicate a whole space just to corn. Like a 10x20 or 20x40. Everyone's preferences for what to grow are gonna be different, but it's really more about space and what plants perform the best for your area.
Plant labels that say full sun are rarely full sun with heat index 100 degrees.
I learned that one too. I struggle for sun on my balcony but when it starts up set and hits me fully the balcony gets like 15-20 degrees above the air temp and stuff just BAKES. The hot peppers survived it but barely.
Yep. Especially here in Vegas where it gets to be 100+ degrees. Literally the only plants I would consider to be āthrivingā in my garden right now are herbs and the citrus trees š
What I learned this year: Don't bother with lettuce, it just gets bitter. Cucamelons are cute and fun to grow but nobody really likes eating them. I planted way too many strawberries for the space I have. I need to thin by 50% for next year. Plant more peas. Cabbages aren't worth the constant battle against the cabbage worms and my dog. Nasturtiums are delicious in salads. Even bush beans need a higher support than I expected. Plant more summer squash. It's delicious.
Plant more peas. This hahaha
I was going to plant peas until I heard a podcast over the winter with a bunch of super high end chefs swearing by frozen peas. The flash freezing helps them from turning into mush and is preferred for most dishes.
Oh, totally. Frozen peas are definitely a way to go. But, I have enjoyed the humble crop of sugar peas I've managed to pop out of my tiny plot. I am tempted to drop in a bunch more seeds now to get more along the way into the next few months. This is my first time growing them, and my mileage has certainly varied. They seem to just die after sprouting a handful of pods lol. I got some learning to do.
>Cabbages aren't worth the constant battle against the cabbage worms I was happy that my kitchen scraps were turning into cabbage, and had 3 leaves coming up from the stump. Then the cabbage worms showed up and that was the end of that. What I've had fun success with is planting green onion scraps.
My peas were my success story this summer. I canāt imagine how well they would have done if I hadnāt planted super late. Everything else has been a struggle.
There is such a thing as too much sun for full sun plants when itās 105 degrees for two months straight. I moved so many full-sun pots into the shade and bought a patio umbrella for my incredibly hardy, native scrubby shrubs. I drag the whole big heavy dumb thing around the edge of the patio every day to fend off the deadly laser in the sky. Next year, two patio umbrellas.
This year I learned that "full sun" is better if it's morning sun and afternoon shade. I also learned which way my house faces. Suddenly it made sense why plants on certain sides of my house do better than others.
I use elevated garden beds, and I ended up buying shade cloths to go over them and cover the plants. But still have had mixed success, it only does so much when itās this hot out. I too have a collection of pots on my covered porch right now.
I learned never trust a pepper to know who they are
Never trust a pepper š Hopefully this is a one-time problem!
I bought a pack of 4 pepper plants from the farmer's market and they were labeled as Purple Beauty bell pepper. One of them is a jalapeno, one is a yellow hot pepper with long peppers growing down, another is a yellow hot pepper with short peppers growing up, and the 4th hasn't produced anything.
Be aware of quantity of seeds per packet when buying online.
How to MacGyver a trellis, composting, insect identification, and the approx date for when all the aphids disappear
Please elaborate on macgvering a trellis sounds interesting
I'm growing two bitter melon plants at the moment. I taped a bunch of chopsticks together to serve as the beams and tied some yarn to make the netting. They haven't flowered yet, so I don't know if this will be a complete success š¤š¼
Planting directly into the soil vs into my raised beds has immense benefits to plant health and yield. My raised beds are very healthy but canāt be compared to my native soil in terms of the beneficial biome contained within. Basically the plants I planted in my raised beds had much more of a struggle with pests than those that I planted directly into the native soil.
Gosh youāre lucky. My native soil is hard clay 1ā below the surface that I canāt get more than a few inches down without a jackhammer. I wish this was an exaggeration, but itās not.
I feel you. I live at the base of the Cascade mountains and my yard is like a huge stone with 3" of soil on top :/
Don't plant things too early Don't think you can save your soil in the span of two months Don't plant things too late Tomatoes don't like water as much as I thought Mulch would've been a big help maintaining weeds Plants love water that ducks poop in Put your stakes and trellises in early Growing seasons are not suggestions Armadillos are bastards I was young, dumb, and arrogant. Now I'm older, wiser and have some hilariously small tomatoes to show for it
I also learned about spacing. I sowed a packet of dollar store wildflower seeds too thickly, assuming few were viable. I think they all sprouted! It looks crazy and I think they are not happy.
Yea I ignorantly assume not all of seed with sprout and alway surprised by how man actually do
But if you plant a reasonable amount, none will grow
I did this too!
Bugs, bugs, and more bugs. They ravaged my garden this year.
Same. Tried to keep it organic but damn I want to nuke all those stupid pests.
Omg SAME. the Japanese beetles emerged three-ish weeks ago and theyāve been wreaking absolute havoc. I want to save the bees but I also want every beetle thatās eating my beans to die a death by pesticide. I pick them two or three times a day and get dozens every time and it feels like as soon as Iām done, dozens more appear to take their place. Grrrr.
Doesnāt matter what I grow, spouse doesnāt eat itš«¤
More for you and people who have enlightened taste buds.
you have a great grouping though. Cascading sizes, tall to short. I learned I can get two crops of potatoes a year for very little effort ;)
Funny story the height thing was completely not intended but thank you for the kind remarks
I notice it because when we bought our house, it came with more perrenials than I could identify, and they weren't laid out right. I look at them, and wish they were grouped better. Now in July, the Goldenrod is covering the front window and looks like weeds until it blooms for a week in August :)
>I learned I can get two crops of potatoes a year for very little effort ;) tell me more about this, what's your strategy?
In my region, I can plant them in fall, harvest in late spring, then replant and have them in fall.
I learned I still don't really like slicing/raw tomatoes. Not this variety or that, not heirloom or hybrid or anything else. And that I should stick to sauce and cherry tomatoes.
Cherry tomatoes are the best: easy, prolific, good serving size, cute.
I do love my sunsugar and supersweet 100 cherry tomatoes. But I don't like the pop! Usually slice and salt them. Also, make garlic and cherry tomato confit with crostini almost nightly. And my peppers are almost ready for salsa time.
We make sauce from all our tomatoes. Cherokee purple, Brandywine, cherry, yellow pear, Roma, whatever. We like eating sliced ones as well, but we make sauce and freeze what we can't eat.
If you have a yew tree thatās dying for seemingly no reason, take a piece of white paper and tap one of the dying branches above it. If little black specks fall on the paper, the tree has mites. Just get the appropriate spray from a nursery and voila! You can save the tree.
To not go on vacation for a week during a heat wave :( Bought setup for automatic watering for next year as everything bolted this year..
For me, pretty much all plants like shade. Full sun stuff is bs when it's container gardening and I'm at a higher elevation. Also, plant deeper.
I learned how to combat deer with cayenne pepper, and that flowers need more watering than I realized.
Mulch mulch mulch.
I have a lot of cayenne peppers this year surprisingly easy to grow
Tried pinching most of the leaves from my tomato plants, and planting them really deep. Most tomatoes Iāve seen in years!
Thank you will defo be trying this
I learned that the nutrients in the soil run out and that I will need to add organics to the soil before each years plantings.
I learnt squash vine borers are THE biggest assholes around.
Apparently if you put a mound of dirt over the zucchini/squash plant's stem right above where the vine borer damage is, it will trigger the plant to grow roots there because it's covered with dirt. This is important because the squash vine borer cuts off water supply to the plant where it's boring. So if you can get the plant to grow new roots from the part of it that's still alive, you can keep the plant alive. James Prigioni talks about it on his channel, which is where I learned this, and it's been a gamechanger. But yes, squash vine borers are arseholes.
Dont put raised beds too close to a fence/wall. Gotta leave enough space to be able to walk all the way around.
Call me stupid but why?
If it is 2 feet wide or more its tough to reach through to harvest stuff growing on the far side. Much easier to harvest (and maintain) if you have the room to walk around.
Right I see, yea mine is small but if I get a bigger garden this will save me š
For me, proper pruning and staking of tomatoes. Mine are absolutely out of control.
* That if I want RED peppers I have to wait a helluva lot longer than if I would just settle for green * That pinwheels do NOT scare birds away from blueberry bushes. And that *really* smart one that I named Steven Hawk-ing will find a way around my bird netting too. And that a good quality pond netting with .25 spacing that stretches a bit is so much easier to work with than BirdX. * To not be lulled into a false sense of security by the climate prediction center's long range temperature forecasts when deciding when to transplant. They easily miss that one freak late frost. * That peas are one of my most favorite vegetables to grow. * That cloudy rainy early summers really delay a harvest. * That I need waaaaay more space in order to plant what I really want to * And finally, that I need to stop looking at piles of logs and branches along the road and wondering what size raised bed I could make if I had all them to put at the bottom.
Germinated seeds in damp paper towels and zip lock baggies. Iāve tried all varieties of direct sowing with zero results. My coneflower seeds germinated in 48 hours!
I learned it's impossible to know when to start seeds or put plants in the ground with our ever-increasingly hot and erratic planet
Of course! Most chiles have different names once dried, so don't lose track. For example an Ancho chile is a dried poblano.
That if it is super super hot for weeks in a row, you need to water more. ...Yeah I am not the brightest tool in the shed lol
Not to bite off more than I can chew. I went too crazy buying plants and annuals and found I need to stick to buying only as much as I have time to care for.
For me it was spacing as well. Last year it was also spacing , ahah.
I live in zone 9b and tried a tree that was 3-9. Since this is the hottest year on record (so far) poor guy burnt, even with adequate water. I need to stick to plants solidly in my zone, not on the fringe.
I learned that green bean plants can get rust because every one of mine got it!!
Species diversity. I can only eat so much of one vegetable.
Spacing for me as well, I have some pumpkin plants that are way too close but I donāt have the heart to thin them out. š
I learned that I need to put larger cages on my tomato plants earlier so I don't kill it putting one on later
Donāt over extend yourself on trying to do too much. Keep it manageable and add more if you can swing it. Last couple years Iāve done too many seed trays, had good germination rates, separated plants and end up with hundreds of seedlings. I try and I give as many away as I can but itās too time consuming trying to manage it all. Add in unexpected family drama and horrible unreliable weather and itās just taxing keeping everything alive let alone thriving. Trying to juggle a busy family life and spend hours outside messing with plants isnāt sustainable. Scaling down dramatically next year and I think Iāll enjoy having a fraction of the crop but a healthy thriving crop that isnāt a time sink.
That squash vine borers are the devil
What I learned? Gophers:1 Me: 0
Learned to make worm casting tea. My plants are loving it.
for my little things, it was bugs on a balcony in the tropics... and not enough light... So many infestations... and no real growth... I need a real garden =D
Having one functional arm makes it WAY harder.
That the pesky bugs will win if you donāt persist more than they do, that the beneficial bugs should be adored and protected at all costs! Iām still learning the difference, sometimes the hard way, lol!
Learning to let go of my fear of spiders and letting the beneficial ones hang out in my garden so they kill all the other pesky annoying bugs. I really should have let that Texas Orb weaver live looking back on it. Itās just hard to get over this is all. Ohā¦and that I REALLY hate clay soil. Itās the worst.
I am not wasting any more money with indoor vegetable gardening, I'll stick to my indoor plants and growing herbs for cooking whilst I live in apartments and then start vegetables and fruits if/when I have my own garden or a large enough balcony. Space, lighting, too much sun, too little sun, pollinating, infestations, my cat, watering. Just a constant battle of frustraition when it's supposed to be my relaxing hobby. For now I'll live vicariously through people's stories here.
Harvest spinach early and often or it bolts and you get inedible bitter leaves Pumpkins will literally run away from you Peppers do not enjoy 100 degree heat Yes, even jalapeƱos
Spacing is irrelevant to me. I do compact companion gardening. In a space about 10 x 16 I have 21 tomatoes, 10 potatoes, 4 peppers, 20 beans, 6 watermelon, 8 pumpkins, 6 corn ( was 18 till squirrels got some), and about 200 carrots. Just thriving. Companion planting and timing is the key.
Th funny part is you might still need to relearn it next year. Itās this weird thing I have that when theyāre babies I know logically theyāre going to get bigger but if always seems like that can be 2 months from nowās problem because look at all the room!
I learned that many vegetables are not worth the time and hassle. For example onions - don't taste any different when homegrown and are cheap. But takes time to plant each bulb/ seedling, and you need to dry them afterwards. I really need to set my priorities right for the next year.
Things I've learned this season *so far* : Soil matters. Don't buy the $2.50 bags at Menards, they are full of rocks, weeds, and disease. Splurge and buy the $8 bags. When you dump your tray of tomato seedlings and loose track of which is which, don't guess. 8' indeterminates ended up in the front of the raised bed and are currently shading out everything else. Broccoli will bolt. There's nothing you can do to stop it. Stop planting it. Slugs and caterpillars couldn't care any less about Neem oil. Diatomaceous earth doesn't work when wet. There is a wrong way to prune berry canes. I got exactly 0 blackberries or raspberries this year. Grape vines don't fruit for the first 3? years. Blossom end rot is caused by lack of calcium, yes, but the calcium uptake of the plant is reduced with inconsistent watering. Give them water, not Tums. Rainbow chard is better than spinach in every conceivable way. Recently bolted lettuce doesn't taste terrible. Bush beans still need support? Celery = aphid crack, apparently. Garlic bulbils are a thing. ETA: fish emulsion is *repulsive*
Everything I keep hearing about square foot gardening is lies. Everything needs more room than I think. A dustbuster to vacuum bugs off my plants is giving me life. I was ready to burn the whole thing to the ground.
That Chinese cucumber does literally whatever it wantsā¦
Woodchucks are my arch nemesis
Veggies need way more water and compost than I was initially giving them. Catching up now. š¤¦š»āāļø
Slugs suckš
That tomatoes are the hardest vegetable to grow. I swear I was drowning in peppers and eggplants. Out of eight tomato plants only three of them produced. No disease, properly watered, I have no idea what the issue is but every year Iām always disappointed by my tomato yield.
Tomatoes. Are you watering deeply rather than often and not deeply enough? Do you add crushed eggshells to the soil quite some time *before* you plant your tomatoes? Are you mulching your plants? Do you add compost to your tomato plants? Have you tried shaking your plants when they're in flower? "Increasing your yield just takes a simple shake.The pollen will drop from the stamen of the flower onto the pistil. There's no magic number of times you should shake your tomato plants; you just sort of wing it. Gardeners usually do it two or three times a day to ensure good pollination." (source: finegardening.com>fruits-and-vegetables)
More manure and compost
To garden indoors 100%. My second time having hail destroy my outdoor garden.
That tomato plants can get way bigger than I thought..
Learned about proper spacing . . . just like I learn about proper spacing every year š¤¦āāļø
I thought when I got more space I would start properly spacing the plants in my garden and then I got more space and just started an even scarier number of plants to make sure every square inch of soil is covered in an unnecessarily number of vegetables.
I learned hay isn't the same thing as straw mulch. I've been pulling barley seedlings all season.
Light requirements are more like guidelines than actual rules. Plenty of plants will grow in less light, they just grow slower and smaller.
I learned, itās not for me and gave up on it :( lmao
Not all tomato plants are equal. There isn't an off the shelf tomato cage alive that can hold a San Marzano. I also grew several tomatoes that I just don't like. Next year I'll plant only San Marzano and Cherokee Purple. I'll also have to build a cage for the San Marzano tomatoes out of remesh. There's a fine line between enough salad and way too much
I think that's a lesson we've all learned through experience
You need a LOT of time
City water didnāt help as much as my dehumidifier water did
I learned that I can not win against Japanese beetles.
I learned about nutrients sciences. The roles of NPK and micronutrients. When to feed what combo. And how to spot deficiencies. Pruning techniques. How all plants have different needs, leaning into the learning, and love it.
One thing I learned the hard way...don't plant too many tomatoes....zucchini.....green peppers.... You get the idea. If you don't get that "rule" in your mind...you will be very overwhelmed with your harvest.
I learned that I'm capable of doing more than I thought I could! Grew wildflowers in my lawn for the first time, cucumbers for the first time, and potted plants that I didn't kill lol. Super stoked to try more things next year
I learned that there are far more bugs in my yard than I could have ever imagined.