How Does Your Garden Grow??????

Awesome garden projects, one & all!

First time in 42 years I'm trying my hand @ gardening.
I dug in a 80"x80" root garden with potatoes, onions, beans and herbs...pallet for the vineing plants.


17 gal tote for a few tomatoes. Hangers are for the cat pot...cat nip...


Black tote is carrots. Purple bucket is my Horseradish. The birdbath and frog will be moved to accommodate 5 totes containing 7 different types of peppers.


Have 36 various starts on a mat in the Veg tent, along with the 50ish plants already in the ground outside.

Looking forward to the next few months

Whatever topped my eggplant weeks back had me freaking out, yeah it stunted for a week but came back hard as fuck out the 5 gallon pot lol, I had to use a plastic trellis/cage from keeping the upper stalks from sagging out, hungry ass plants too.

Not sure why but the last few weeks the bees have been going to town on my cantaloupe, I've had female flowers for weeks already, at least I got fruit.

Been working on my clay yard for 10+ months now, for sure its softening up, about to try out some sweet potatoes in a week or two, need to scrub the algae off my pots.

Hey folks. Hope all is well. I've put a few of my tomato and pepper plants into bigger pots down at the river house and the rest of the pepper into the beds in the garden. Also have sprouts from Armenian cukes and Acorn squash that need transplanting. Raised beds are in the planning stage down at the river house, but the sprouts will have to go in dirt before they are ready, so I guess they will go into the garden. Will try to remember pictures next time.

Also planted okra in the cow trough on the deck at the river house. I need to remember to water it daily. Really dry here right now.

Cherry Tomatoes, beefsteak toms, and green squash transplanted. Gonna work on the corn tomorrow.

All the Toms and corn planted.

We've been having some fantastic weather here in Portland and the plants are loving it. Seeds are sprouting and starts are growing. I've been waiting all winter to get started on the garden and I've been busy. I have seeds of early cool weather crops sprouting everywhere. It's so exciting. It reminds of how I felt when I was a kid and my mother would give me a quarter to buy penny candy.

I've been pulling my trays of starts out of the greenhouse and putting them where they more direct sunlight. I know it defeats the purpose of the greenhouse but they don't get as much direct sunlight where the greenhouse is located. I was planning on moving the greenhouse to a different location but never got around to it and I've already got potatoes planted where I was going to put it. It still serves it's purpose as I'm able to leave them in the greenhouse overnight. It only takes a couple minutes to pull them out so I do it to give them a few more hours of sunlight. The greenhouse is as much a storage place for my gardening stuff as a it is a place for plants.

All the starts are doing great. They're growing in recycled soil I made using the soil from container plants that were finished last fall. I amended it, bagged it, and it sat all winter long. It's some good soil and I even have a couple cannabis plants 5 weeks into flower doing great that are growing in it. I have 42 tomato starts of 4 varieties, 22 peppers of 3 varieties, half a dozen eggplants, and a bunch of flowers and herbs. The lettuce has already been planted in the ground and I just planted a couple more trays of seeds. I'm going to be giving a lot of stuff away.

The onions are going crazy and are starting to bulb. I really like fall planting onions. I'll be able to harvest these and still have time for another crop in their space. I'm not planting tomatoes, peppers, or eggplant into the ground until the end of May when the soil has warmed up. I've found that planting too early will stunt them especially the peppers and they don't really recover. I've also filled every inch of my raised beds with cool weather crops that finish fast like radishes, peas, turnips, greens, and beets. When they are ready to harvest it will be time to plant the tomatoes, peppers, beans and such.

One thing I'm doing this year is the no till method. I covered the beds with leaves last fall and they decomposed so I just sprinkled some 10-10-10 fertilizer on them and mixed it in to the top 6 inches of soil. I also mixed up a bucket full of kelp, alfalfa, azomite, crab meal, bone meal, ground egg shells and broadcast that across the beds before covering them with the leaves. The soil just keeps getting better every year.





Starts go in the greenhouse at night to keep them a little warmer than just sitting outside. Night time temps are getting warmer though which is good. Mid 40's at night is fine for starts this size. Especially since the pots get nice and warm during the day and hold that heat. Yes I know the greenhouse is a mess. That's today's project. I need to get it cleaned up and organized.





It's that time of year.

Happy Gardening!

FresnoFarmer said:

Cherry Tomatoes, beefsteak toms, and green squash transplanted. Gonna work on the corn tomorrow. View attachment 4530788View attachment 4530789

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I trust those are determinate? My non cherries from 6 years ago exceed 8 foot in height. Damn bastards keep popping all over compliments of the chipmunks feeding on them. 5 years no seeds. A half dozen mater plant every year since seeding. Annual in Mi.?

Expanded garden with some fresh soil and a new rock border. Good to have projects! Grow on!

MICHI-CAN said:

I trust those are determinate? My non cherries from 6 years ago exceed 8 foot in height. Damn bastards keep popping all over compliments of the chipmunks feeding on them. 5 years no seeds. A half dozen mater plant every year since seeding. Annual in Mi.?

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At least half of them are cherry tomatoes. The rest are beefsteak.

I think this might be the best gardening tutorial on youtube.

Great post. All I have to add is a warning about how invasive bamboo is. If you can contain it, fantastic, if not, it will spread like a mother

If your going to give bamboo a try make sure you get a clumping and not running variety. I do have some yellow groove running that's by itself and the old old lawn mower keeps it in check. Its usually like the mints. Don't plant it in your garden just give it to your neighbor for theirs.

Rottedroots said:

If your going to give bamboo a try make sure you get a clumping and not running variety. I do have some yellow groove running that's by itself and the old old lawn mower keeps it in check. Its usually like the mints. Don't plant it in your garden just give it to your neighbor for theirs.

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Planting running bamboo is like planting horseradish. You'll find it popping up everywhere. I'm still digging horseradish out of my garden.

xtsho said:

Planting running bamboo is like planting horseradish. You'll find it popping up everywhere. I'm still digging horseradish out of my garden.

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We cut down a stink tree “tree of heaven”. I’ve been pulling up little saplings from runners sent out 25-50 feet away from the stump. The tree was cut almost a year ago. There’s a mini forest of them on one family’s property out here. They use it as a parking garage. I can’t stand the smell. Smells like piss.

HaHa. I pot up a bunch of horseradish for a charity plant sale. I can honestly tell them that they'll have all the horseradish they could ever want. I'm still trying to figure out why i planted it in the first place. Cocktail sauce or a sauce for a roast beef.
I didnt know tree of heaven smelled like piss. For me it's privit that smells like piss but sometimes i find myself enjoying it. It sounds so wrong

Rottedroots said:

HaHa. I pot up a bunch of horseradish for a charity plant sale. I can honestly tell them that they'll have all the horseradish they could ever want. I'm still trying to figure out why i planted it in the first place. Cocktail sauce or a sauce for a roast beef.
I didnt know tree of heaven smelled like piss. For me it's privit that smells like piss but sometimes i find myself enjoying it. It sounds so wrong

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It's still popping up all over my garden. It spreads and when you try and get rid of it every little piece of root you miss will grow back. But before it grows back it spreads out. Horseradish is a beast. Other than bringing a bulldozer in and removing the soil I'll be ripping it up for years. I have a bunch planted way back in the corner of the yard away from the garden. It's thriving. But I don't want it anywhere near my garden.