Castanet

This year we are re doing our whole back yard. I will be building raised planters and installing misters and drip lines. We would like to grow peppers, onions, peas, lots of tomatoes, strawberries and raspberry's. I know there will be more but not sure what yet.

gsc, do bring Mrs. gsc over and see what we did right and most definitely what we did wrong. Might save you some pain.

Lady tehMa wrote:What plans do you have for the year?

Next door neighbour is into gardening big time and asked if she could use my 2 raised garden beds plus build a couple more in my yard. She said her backyard doesn't get a lot of sunlight while mine does and she'd love to be able to grow veggies for her & hubby and me.

My response - go for it. I have lots of wood in the shed you can use. Have 2 outside taps both outfitted with hose reels and 100' hoses she can use for watering.

gsc wrote:This year we are re doing our whole back yard. I will be building raised planters and installing misters and drip lines. We would like to grow peppers, onions, peas, lots of tomatoes, strawberries and raspberry's. I know there will be more but not sure what yet.

From my experiences:
1 each of a variety of peppers. They are cheap when in season and take up a lot of room and a lot of sun.
Grow 3-4 different kinds of tomatoes with different sizes and maturity dates. (1 cherry tomato plant can produce up to 100 fruit).
Peas mature early and you will be freezing a lot of them. That's great if you have the freezer space.
Onions take a lot of room and they do winter well under the right storage conditions.
Strawberries and raspberries store great in the freezer or as preserves, but new plants take 6-7 years before they start to produce good, large berries.
All squash plants take a large area to grow and require huge amounts of nutrient rich compost to grow.
The bigger the leaf, the more water and cooler temperatures will produce better, like lettuce do great with an East or West exposure and not up against a wall. I suggest that you plant a new couple of seeds every couple of days, instead of planting everything all at once.
Plant according to cost of purchasing. For example, peppers. Peppers become so cheap to buy at the farm when in season, that they are not worth the cost of the seeds/plants. If you want some special varieties, just plant them.
Corn is another one, corn needs to be planted in large quantities to do well. A single row of corn will not do well on it's own. If you ever look at the farms that mass produce corn closely, the outside rows do not do as well as the inner rows of the field.

Queen K wrote:gsc, do bring Mrs. gsc over and see what we did right and most definitely what we did wrong. Might save you some pain.

I will for sure :). We will have to set something up when it gets a bit warmer :).

[quote="Bman"]I'll be doing my usual nonsense, too much of everything.
This will be the first pressing of the pinot noir this year.
I may put in a batch of one of the jersey varieties of asparagus in a spot that I've determined ideal for it.

And I'll continue to be in my perpetual search of the perfect tomatoe.
I've been searching forever. I'm good at growing them, I just want particular attributes that I just can't find.
Maybe those attributes aren't even in a tomatoe.



High recommend Black Krim tomatoes:

PROS

Indeterminate very large plant, can use it for shade tree
Lots of early, large toms
Dark red, meaty interior
Flavorful
No plant diseases or problems experienced by me
Heirloom variety

CONS

Plants very big, not for container growing
Must stake plant firmly, maybe two or three stakes
Tom hornworm was found in a couple of toms 2017
Must plant in full sun for bestproduction

The 4-6 inch high plants are sold in Vernon where Art Knapp used to be.

There is just no comparison to other varieties which now look pale and taste sour when pitted against Black Krim

Looking out my Kitchen window I see that my crop of white Snow is growing at a rapid pace.
Should have an excellent harvest this year!

Bsuds wrote:Looking out my Kitchen window I see that my crop of white Snow is growing at a rapid pace.
Should have an excellent harvest this year! :biggrin:

Will you be freezing / preserving some for summer use?

I hear it's real tasty if you add yellow food colouring.

Oh and let's not forget ! If you harvest that white snow at it's peak you might even be bestowed with that special gift we have from the neighbours cats. Those extra special chocolate clusters !

Oh Henry!

Gsc, careful about misters and drips if you have a smaller area to water and plants of different requirements are close together. Itll be difficult to employ proper watering practices, band if it's that small an area you may have difficulty planting plants with others with similar soil needs.

My recommend is to mulch heavy. Makes the watering much easier.

I like growing bell peppers. I'm pretty good at it.
I get between 3 and 5 lbs /sq ft.

Interesting to note that birds aren't affected by capsaicin and are responsible for spreading hot pepper seeds around.

We've had rats around our area. all of my tomatoes and peppers had bites taken out of them before they were ready to harvest. A dozen tomatoes and two dozen peppers = 0.

Bman will let you adopt some cats.