How Does Your Garden Grow?

[stlcatfan]

Last year on the old Scout board, I started a home gardening thread. Then Mauser started a new one this year. Time to get a new one going here.

So... if you garden, how has your garden been doing? If you are like me, your summer plants are winding down, and you are starting to put in a fall garden. I do still have tomatoes and peppers growing, but not as many as I did in July and August. My eggplant and my vine plants (cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, etc.) did not do well this year, but everything else seemed to do pretty good. I have also been getting a lot of green beans the past week or so.

[Mauser]

Well I'm winding mine down after an unuasally hot dry summer the tomatoes never really thrived. My peppers however have never had a better year. I now have a lifetime supply of dried Reapers that I'm having to find a use for.

[stlcatfan]

Sorry to hear about your tomatoes. Yeah, the hot dry weather does affect them. My tomatoes did pretty well, but I do remember when we had a nasty heat wave earlier this summer, that most of my tomato plants basically shut down until it cooled off. That same heat wave also did in a lot of my vine plants.

I'm glad your hot peppers did so well. I know you were frustrated with the germination rate of some of them in previous years.

[Mauser]

Yea they take forever to germinate and forever to ripen. You almost need to start them 2 monthes early. Not kidding at all.

[Number8son]

2nd best tomato crop ever with the fewest tomato plants I've ever planted...ten minutes of weeding...ten minutes of taking off green worms and 30 minutes of mulching time. Didn't have to water all year.

[stlcatfan]

2nd best tomato crop ever with the fewest tomato plants I've ever planted...ten minutes of weeding...ten minutes of taking off green worms and 30 minutes of mulching time. Didn't have to water all year.

Wow! That is awesome. Which varieties of tomatoes did the best for you?

We are really dry here and I have been watering everyday, especially for those tomatoes and peppers I have growing in containers. I don't give them a lot of water, but enough to keep them from drying out.

[Number8son]

Cupid Cherry Tomatoes and Early Girl. Have some Big Boy...okay. We picked more today. We made a lot of juice in the Vitamix to freeze for chili, etc later.

We have an apple tree that we didn't spray, but we still made 20 quarts of apple sauce. The deer are eating the rest at night.

[Mauser]

Very nice. I'm trying to decide if I want to over winter any pepper plants this year or not. If I do I need to get to spraying them with some epsom salt to green them up.

[stlcatfan]

Very nice. I'm trying to decide if I want to over winter any pepper plants this year or not. If I do I need to get to spraying them with some epsom salt to green them up.

That's interesting you mention using Epsom salt to green up your plants. I've never used it, but a lot of people swear by it. I may have to give it a try myself.

Do you spray the leaves with it? Or does it go into the roots? Or both?

[Mauser]

Very nice. I'm trying to decide if I want to over winter any pepper plants this year or not. If I do I need to get to spraying them with some epsom salt to green them up.

That's interesting you mention using Epsom salt to green up your plants. I've never used it, but a lot of people swear by it. I may have to give it a try myself.

Do you spray the leaves with it? Or does it go into the roots? Or both?

When I transplant nightshades I'll put a teaspoon in the hole along with some triple 10. Then about every week during the growing season I'll spray the leaves with a dissolved solution.