Anyone doing a garden?

The pepper plants are doing great, but. I had my belly set on stuffed peppers, but the rats found them first. Luckily, a second flowering is happening and the store has plenty of rat eliminator.

Such is life in Zone 10b.
sounds like you need a cat. There's a neighborhood cat that wonders around killing every critter in sight. She works 24/7 around a 5-6 block radius. She's a killing machine! I don't make eye contact when she's in my backyard. I used to chase her away, but after she started bringing her kills to my door, I learned my lesson.
 
Yesterday I got my main garden ready, laid out, and some planting.
Planted a section of Scallions, 2 rows of Lettuce - Romain and Black Seeded Simpson, 1 row of Swiss Chard - White, Red, and Neon Mixed Hybrid, and a row of 200 Peas.

In the secondary gardens, the 100 mixed Onion plants are all about 8" tall from sets.
The 100 heads of Garlic have grown right thru the winter and will need an early harvest for sure. Already dropping the first browned leaf.
The row of Potatoes are all growing nicely but I need to get them netted so the Deer don't munch them all up.

Today I hope to get the soaker hose laid out in the main garden and then start planting Peppers and Tomatoes.
 
Here in SW MO we got slammed by massive amounts of rain. My raised be is 9'x36' and I decided this year to make 2 raised rows the length of the garden and to plant my tomatoes in those raised rows and it looks like the plants survived the deluge well. I was worried for a while.
 
My wife & daughter wanted a garden to grow vegetables this year.
Looked online but found the cost to be rather high so made a trip to Home depot and bought the materials. A few hours later a raised bed for the girls. Simple sturdy bed.
Everything was off the top of my head and without taking into account TRUE wood size my math came up short. Example being this is a 2' x 4' raised bed I calculated that 12 2x4's would be sufficient. Not. Needed 13 + an extra 2" to fill the gap towards the very end. Lol.
Also when cutting the 4x4 into "perfect" 2' lengths I failed to account for the 1/8" for each cut leaving me a wee short for the last leg. Haha. Not a problem as I went and recut everything to the short stub size which actually worked in my favor as it dropped the height a little to the benefit of my daughter. An extra 5 minutes.
The bed will be filled with gravel and a mixture of compost and fine fertilizer.
These will be the most expensive tomatoes EVER. :D
 

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That's a nice looking grow box. Have you grown many tomatoes before?
In the ground on autopilot. Nothing fancy but the results were scrumptious! Love the flavor of the tomatoes. Good grief they were absolutely yummy. Maybe strawberries and who knows what next. I DO want to grow simple jalapeño peppers. Nothing nuclear.
 
If anybody has problems with squirrels, chipmunks or rabbits, I highly recommend fox urine

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005VZYCQM/

I can relate with the person above who said this would be the most expensive tomatoes ever. I've been plagued with problems from squirrels where they would wait for the fruit to ripen then take 2-3 bites out of each one. Two years ago I bought 7 heirloom tomato plants and got a total of one tomato... I guessed that one tomato cost me over 30 bucks.

I discovered this product too late for that year, but I've been using it with success ever since. Apply once a week and after it rains.

I tried the human hair trick that's supposed to keep them away but it didn't seem to help.
 
Got a small (8' x 12' or so) ex-grass spot of an otherwise pool/patio/fake grass putting green back "yard" that I decided to make a garden of. That putting green almost became garden this year. Maybe next year. Couldn't keep grass growing in this Ca. climate in that spot so mad it a garden. Now I can't keep the grass out of it. Figures. Got 2 heirloom tomato plants (one yellow, one purple/black) and two Better Boys), a row of green peppers and two rows of green beans. Trying to figure out how to keep them watered when we go in vacation for 10 days in July. Any ideas?
 
I noticed a couple of days ago that I have several little tomatoes on couple of container plants. I planted these 2 weeks earlier than the raised bed tomatoes since I could move them if the weather warranted.
 
I almost forgot about this thread! :confused: Here's a little up-to-date info about what's going on with my tomato plants...

Well, I planted more seeds for this year's garden. I didn't get the Marizol Gold or Maylor Roth's Orange Brandywine varieties I mentioned above (maybe next year), but I planted five varieties: Ashleigh, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Carbon, Crnkovic Yugoslavian, and Estler's Mortgage Lifter. All but the Carbon variety grows in the 1-3 pound range, and are all supposed to be very tasty tomatoes. Particularly the carbon which is a brownish color and is supposed to be one of the best-tasting tomatoes you can grow. I am also looking forward to the Aunt Ruby's German Green because it's said to have a sweet, tangy, and spicy flavor! o_O
Anyway, I started my seeds on the 22th of March and they broke out of the soil on the 26th - 3 1/2 days later! They've been growing quickly ever since, and just this past Thursday I repotted them into larger containers once their "true leaves" started to form. Here's some pics:

Those look really good. We have a tomato festival nearby in Fairfield, Ca. where I first tasted some of the heirloom tomatoes. They are what tomatoes are supposed to taste like! I also live in an area of the central valley called the "tomato capital of the world," but what you find in the grocery store does not compare to these. I have never seen or tasted the green ones like you planted. Let us know how they do. I'll be looking for them now. ;) I found that the purple/black ones were the tastiest ones. They have that earthy tomato taste more than others. Good luck!
 
Yep i garden 7 days a week ,lots of work but i get rewarded for my products, Thats why i have gotten into VA on AK time in between i can play with audio stuff.Full disclosure as some here will take offence i have a licence to cultivate in the state of Arizona and own a legitimate business
 

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I'll trade you some tomatoes if you have any extra ... I have WAY too many tomatoes ... <G>

tomatoes-may.jpg


Up here in the Great White, it's usually not safe to plant outdoors until after Memorial Day, but I may have to get these out of the greenhouse a bit earlier. What's amazing is I planted from seed a couple weeks later than usual as well. Ol' Ma Nature is just chock full of surprises this year.
 
One of the benefits of Sacramento is that tomatoes have no issue getting ripe. Our house used to be owned by a Master Gardener. He put in some great beds and a drip system along with a potting shed with heat and a/c for starting seeds. He was a lot more serious than I am. We amend the beds, cover them with landscape fabric and mulch.

This year we put in a lot of tomatoes, early girls, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, Brandywine, San Marzanos and three different cherry tomatoes. Also Some eggplants and cucumbers.

Last year was a bumper crop...hoping for the same this year.
Hey neighbor! I am 64 and live in Elk Grove. I planted two heirloom tomatoes this year, too... along with 2 better boys. They didn't do too well in a back planter thing the original owner built along the back fence. Now I have these damn palm trees shading my new spot! Can't win. I hope they do better there. They will definitely get more sun. One thing I did learn is that you can water them too much. I had them on an automatic watering system the original owner installed in that same planter box all along the back fence for flowers and the tomatoes would get big and ripen then split. Almost every one of them split some way. Disappointing. Now I have them in concrete! Never prepared the soil at all. Just said I'm planting some tomatoes and DID! Had no idea it was going to be clay that gets concrete hard when dry. I planted some green beans there, too, and had to help them out as they cracked the clay above them. NO WONDER THE GRASS HAD A HARD TIME GROWING THERE! We'll do it right next year. ;)
 
Michigan is still in the tempermental phase ... 85F yesterday, and we'll be lucky to break 55F tomorrow.
 
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