Growing veg

Rob Keeble

Member
Messages
12,633
Location
GTA Ontario Canada
Anyone planning on growing vegetables this season?

Linda and I decided to give it a go and after consulting my agricultural adviser out in Nova Scotia we even going to try staggering them.

According to info I have found our last frost is around May 7 - 12 this year I think that may be true for most years but this year I wonder given our mild winter.

Anyhow I picked up a bunch of seed and small seed trays from LV and those seed starter pucks from HD and Linda did the admin on working out when we plant what and today we got the range of herbs planted and some corn and tomatoes.
What we trying to do is only plant sufficient for our needs so here's to hoping we get a decent bit of luck in germination.
Then I got some woodwork to do making us some standing height beds.

We going to try out planting them in square foot format when time comes to put them outside.

Going to try keep records of it all so we know what worked and what did not to decide end of year if we bother for next year.

Not really doing it for any major savings more just to have a shared activity and our own produce.
Last time I did this was in the army in the bush. But that was in a country where sunshine was abundant all year round. It was water that was in short supply lol.

So anyone else give it a go or am I crazy???
 
Rob, I grow my own tomatoes and peppers every spring and fall. I use raised beds with some top soil I brought in as I am in a very rocky area. My raised beds are made from landscape timbers 4 high. In the beds I mix wood shavings, peat, sand and topsoil. Works good for me. I do the same thing on a big mound that I plant cantaloupes in. I love good sweet juicy cantaloupes. Good luck with your endeavors.
 
I've had my cantaloupe seeds in for a month. Starting to sprout. I won't get any tomatoes or peppers in for a few more days. Think I will wait until this next round of rain is done before I get them in. I missed the onion deadline this year for some reason or the other. Normally grow reds and 1015's. Can't win them all. Sometimes I grow lettuce as well. I need to build another raised bed or two. Grow more goodies that way.
 
I've got kale, collards and lettuce overwintering in low tunnels. Just planted lettuce and radishes today and will get some spinach and swiss chard in the ground tomorrow. I use raised beds and have been building soil with compost and worms for the last ten years. I have 2 three tray light tables, but am just going to buy sets this year.
 
Last edited:
We have a 20 x 40 plot in the yard that we've used as a garden for the last 8 or 9 years... Dianne's back won't allow her to get out there and do anything the garden and I'm not enthused about doing it myself, but I sure like the tomatoes and peppers we get... we tried corn last year, but too much rain and what we did get, the raccoons harvested for us... didn't share a single ear though... may do some squash again this year... last year we had a pretty good crop of yellow crook necks, golden zucchini's and regular zucchinis... we do have a time with the squash bugs here though.. last year Dianne heard about using diatomaceous earth on plants and that worked pretty good.

The plot is divided in half by a row of irises and think one half I'm going to turn into a flower bed and just a few plants in the other half. We do have 4 8x4 raised beds up closer to the house, build from landscape timbers... one bed is all asparagus, another is herbs and the other we put cherry or grape tomatoes in and some dill... need to clean them out next week and get them ready for planting.
 
I've had a little plastic green house in the garage for a couple of years now. Was planning to have the grandson help me get them started this spring, would be a good lesson for him. :thumb:
 
Several years ago we were planting 25x50ft garden then down to 1/2 of that then last year 4x24 ft. This year maybe 3 tomatoes and 2 peppers. We just don't need the produce from larger garden plots. You can only give so much away and canning can get overdone. Besides leaves more shop time or goofing off time. Still enjoy the garden fresh produce.
David
 
I am by nature not a flower person because you generally don't eat them. But, I have learned and found to be correct that if you plant marigold's in with your vegetables, it helps a lot with bugs. Something about marigold's most bugs don't like. So, I will be planting a bunch of them with my toms and peppers seeing the bugs are going to be horrible this year. I was surprised yesterday. Was going to go take care of business on a tree and got run off by a bumblebee! That situation might have turned out disastrous!!!
 
Oh man. Just when you think winter won't end, it's spring and you're behind schedule. Nothing like a fresh tomato from the garden. Nothing, unless you add a little bacon, mayo and bread :). We have a short growing season and I would think you do too, Rob. Gotta get cold weather seeds in this weekend and we'll probably buy the rest as starters.

Last year was a bust. Out west, all of my friends complained that we got "nothing". So I don't think it was just us. Hopefully this year will be better. I will say, Brent made tomato soup out of one of our quarts of canned home tomatoes and it was awesome.
 
We have used the square foot gardening method a book written by Mel Bartholomew in raised beds.

This method is a great way to garden & also helps to plant only what you need. It also helps with weed control.

Also you won't be planting a whole bunch just to turn around & thin out to make room for the plants kept to grow.

I have purchased seed which I used from the packets at least 3 if not 4 years in a row. I just folded the seed

packet top over & placed all packets in a peanut butter jar with rubber sealed lid in the refrigerator to keep.

Yes planting flowers with the garden works great & is discussed in Mel's book.

I grew up with row planting & will never go back to that method. I think we used less than 1/3 the space for out

SQ. FT. gardening. Also Mel talks about the PH balance of your soil as well as other things.


http://www.container-gardening-for-you.com/mel-bartholomew.html
 
Just planted some tomatoe seeds last weekend.
I also bought some salpiglosses seeds in memory of my mother and grandmother, hoping to get them planted this weekend.
Just looked at the Veseys bulb catalog and noticed about 6 different kinds of hibiscus.
Noticed that the bulbs are now coming up since I raked the leaves off of the flower beds.
Spring is on the way.
 
Well the corn has sprouted and is about 3 inches long, most of the herbs have spouted, we got one tomato plant so far sprouting but this is day 7 so we waiting to see if any of the others that were supposed to sprout do. Its a good test when you plant only a few seeds in each pod to see how many germinate.

Today we planted peppers and Linda decided to try her hand at flowers, i think she is getting excited by the shoots of the herbs. So now she wants to make up some hanging flower pots of her own.
 
Our back yard is on two levels, with a lawn and desert landscape on the upper level and a small orchard on the lower level. In addition to the 6 or 7 fruit trees in the orchard, there's a sizeable raised garden bed area (probably 400+ sf). I planted three tomato plants and a few peppers last year as a trial run. This year I hope to expand on it a little bit. Neither one of us eat a lot of veggies, but I know LOML wants some giant sunflowers for the birds to eat, and I may add carrots and green beans to the tomatoes and peppers this year.

I've never done tomatoes from seed. Is there any advantage (other than cost) to starting from seed?
 
The only tomatoes we grow from seed are some yellow cherry's that sprout every hear in one of the raised beds... we planted one plant there about 3 years ago and it was so prolific we couldn't get all the tomatoes before they dropped and didn't get all of them picked up, so now every year we get volunteers and more tomatoes than we can eat... so they drop off and reseed for next year.
 
Top