[QUOTE=TomNJ;684728]I've got 570 garlic plants in the ground, and some basil seed started indoors. I'll be starting peppers and oregano next week, but a bit early here for eggplant and tomatoes. I start eggplant and cauliflower indoors in mid March, onion plants outside on April 1st, and tomatoes indoors around April 10th. Frost sensitive seedlings go out around May 20th provided the 10 day forecast does not call for any frost risk.

Tom[/QUOTE]

Tom, did you just plant your garlic or did you plant in fall? I'm learning new planting dates for my new area, so I'm not sure, I may be early. I figure this year is like one big experiment.

[QUOTE=shelleybean;684756]I've got parsley, peppers and basil seeds going. I'll start tomatoes in about a week. A couple of weeks after that, I'll start zinnias.

Last weekend I saw a few daffodils and now the trees and shrubs are blooming too--redbuds, tulip trees, forsythia, and I see small leaves on some trees. After the January we had, we deserve to get spring a little early!! :D[/QUOTE]

My fruit trees have buds now. Hoping another frost won't damage the crop.

I'm about a week later than usual, but I have tomato, eggplant and pepper seeds hopefully germinating on the heating map now.

Any special instructions for starting basil and oregano? Need heat or light?

Jeff

Basil is always pretty easy for me. I just throw seed on the ground and it grows well. Transplants are easy too. Now oregano... someone else will have to chime in. Never once could grow from seed ��

I have about 300 garlic already going, mostly planted Oct and Nov last year. Many are up 4-5 inches now, surely due to the friendly weather lately.

Will probably start some tomatoes inside today & tomorrow -- Red Penna, Omar's, Wes, Cherokee Chocolate, Glacier, etc.

I should put some radishes out there right now, just for the halibut.

[QUOTE=linzelu100;684771]Tom, did you just plant your garlic or did you plant in fall? I'm learning new planting dates for my new area, so I'm not sure, I may be early. I figure this year is like one big experiment.[/QUOTE]

I planted it on Oct 25th, about a week earlier than I usually do. I am at 2,600 feet, so I am a few degrees cooler than the Roanoke valley. Here is how the garlic looks this morning, six rows of 95 each. Varieties from left to right are Music (285), Russian Red (95), Estonian Red (95), and Appalachian Red (95).

Tom

Those are beautiful! Do you eat a lot of garlic or do you sell at market?

It's mostly for eating, canned tomato sauce, soup, & salsa, garlic powder, roasted garlic, and frozen garlic. I do grow 100 bulbs for a disabled friend, and give some to other friends. I know I am growing too much, but it is so easy to plant, and addicting! I still have 75 bulbs of Music left - maybe I'll pickle some!

[QUOTE=TomNJ;685074]I planted it on Oct 25th, about a week earlier than I usually do. I am at 2,600 feet, so I am a few degrees cooler than the Roanoke valley. Here is how the garlic looks this morning, six rows of 95 each. Varieties from left to right are Music (285), Russian Red (95), Estonian Red (95), and Appalachian Red (95).

Tom[/QUOTE]

I think I need to fertilize mine more. Pretty heavy feeders?

Jeff

Just fed mine today. Bloodmeal and dehydrated chicken manure. They need nitrogen at this stage - grow the green and the green will grow the bulb.

Garlic looks great Tom. Looks like you did a pretty good Fall garden cleanup as well. Wanna swing up this way and do mine? And Yes, I know, it's not Fall anymore lol.

I rototill the entire garden at the end of the season, which keeps it looking pretty over winter. Then each bed gets rototilled again before planting to turn under the spring weeds and amendments, and then covered with a thick layer of grass clipping mulch after planting. It looks fabulous by early July, but then falls apart as the harvest progresses. :)

Tom, I am jealous of all your garlic! It looks fantastic. How do you make your garlic powder? Using all that hardneck, does it come out more potent than what we buy in stores?

For garlic powder, I cut off the basal plate and peel the cloves, about 50 at a time, by shaking in a large metal bowl with another inverted over it. I then chop the garlic very fine in a food processor and spread it out on a dehydrator tray and dehydrate at 115°F for 24-36 hours until dry. If you don't have a food dehydrator it can be spread on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil and dried in an oven at the lowest possible setting, preferable using just the pilot flame to keep the temperature down.

Once dry I grind it in a spice grinder and then pass it through a fine strainer. What goes through is a fine powder, and what does not is granular dried garlic. I keep a jar of each, but if you just want the fine powder, just regrind the granules and strain again.

I have not compared it to store bought garlic powder since I haven't bought any for many years, but it certainly is strong and tasty!

Tom

Thanks for those detailed instructions! I would love to try it sometime. I bet yours is wonderful!

Are you guys wondering what I'm wondering? WHERE IS SPRING??? The flowers and trees say spring is here but the temperatures don't!

I have a few tomato plants that have grown so tall they need to come out from under my grow light because I can't set it any higher. I think (pray) I can begin hardening my plants off on Tuesday. My own forecast looks promising with lows of at least 50 degrees starting on Wednesday, I think.

I didn't start a spring garden this year, meaning my usual lettuce, spinach, beets, peas, radishes. All I have to put out is tomatoes, peppers, parsley and basil. After that, I'll start on beans, cucumbers and squash.

My sister and I have started a farmers market in Norfolk with about 20 vendors and last week was our first week. The forecast made us nervous but the storms stayed away, though it was windy and our honey person lost her tent. But it went very well and we had a good turnout of new customers. Great responses on FB.

With this new market and getting deliveries from Seasonal Roots to my house on Thursdays, I decided not to grow a spring or fall garden this year. I'll just support my local farmers and buy from them!:)

It's been cold and snowy here in the mountains of SW VA, and the last snow in the forecast is for tomorrow morning. So my onion planting has been delayed from the usual April 1st to the 10th! I put out onion plants, not seeds or sets, so I didn't want to give them the mid 20s temperature we had last night. Should be smooth sailing starting on Tuesday.

TomNJ,

I spent Fourth of July in Gatlinburg and drove past the Floyd exit on the way home. Thought of you. Hope your garden is doing well.

I'm having a good cucumber and bean season. Tomatoes are late and I've just begun picking those. Mostly cherries. All my squash died while I was in TN. I replanted yesterday.

My sister and I were so focused on the getting our farmers market off the ground, I didn't even have time for a spring garden this year. I have ordered seeds to grow a few things this fall when the summer stuff winds down.

Anyone else feeling the effects of a cold, wet spring?

Definitely a cold wet spring here in Williamsburg too. My dwarf tomato plants have a lead in early production over my full size. Looks like heat and dry are returning soon too.

Hi Shelly,

You must have come home via Rt 81, so you passed just 20 minutes from my house. Would have loved to have you stop by and see the garden! It always looks so good this time of year (see photos).

As I posted earlier, my onions were affected by the early wet weather and got some kind of fungal disease, but recovered nicely with only a 10% loss. Then two weeks ago they got a foliage blight - not sure if it was related to the original infection or not, but fortunately the bulbs were full size when it struck, so I started harvesting this past week. My Candy onions are pulled and mostly 3-4"; the Copra will come in today and are not far behind, so I have enough to get me through the year (about 400).

Garlic in the next bed over was not affected and are looking good. I have about 200 pulled and another 350 to go. I dig them individually as they hit my criteria of four mostly green leaves. And the rest of the garden is also on target, except for the cauliflower which refused to head, and the corn which got attacked by critters. I had to plant the corn three times and still have only about half that made it.

The tomatoes are looking good and full of green fruit. Looking forward to canning salsa, sauce, and soup later this month. Today I will harvest beans, beets and cucumbers and make some borscht and pickles.

Everything looks great! So healthy and neat! Wish mine looked that good but I'm working on it. Been so busy with work and then the heat and humidity are miserable.

We sure had a wet Spring here in the northern Shenandoah Valley. For a six-week period, starting around May 1st, we received almost 20 inches of rain. River came out of its banks twice in 10 days, which is over 18'. Usually trickles by at a foot or two. Rained every day, or every other day. Couldn't work the garden at all until 3rd week in June. So, I'm a good 4-6 weeks behind on everything. I'll be lucky to get much of a harvest before frost, but fingers crossed.

On a brighter note, your garden looks fantastic Tom! lol

Yeah, because we had that cold, wet weather, and then went straight to HOT here, I didn't have many tomatoes set at all. And now I am seeing the first signs of Fusarium in my main raised bed that's being used for tomatoes this season. I had Fusarium bad at my old house but have enjoyed being without it the last few years here. We had just talked about adding four more raised beds and I think we'll do that so we can go to a five year rotation instead of a three year. Maybe that will help. And cleaning all the cages and tools really well from season to season to keep it from spreading.

With all the rain and humidity, I had a big mildew problem in my summer garden. So I yanked out most of the zinnias, the squash and all the older beans. That leaves two new rows of beans, some nice peppers and some cucumbers and tomatoes limping along that will probably have to be pulled soon. This weekend I planted Danvers carrots and Golden beets, Premier kale, Yellow Cabbage collards and Broadleaf Batavian escarole. When the cucumbers and tomatoes are done, I'll put in a few kinds of lettuce.

Anybody else start their fall garden yet?

[QUOTE=shelleybean;708588]Yeah, because we had that cold, wet weather, and then went straight to HOT here, I didn't have many tomatoes set at all. And now I am seeing the first signs of Fusarium in my main raised bed that's being used for tomatoes this season. I had Fusarium bad at my old house but have enjoyed being without it the last few years here. We had just talked about adding four more raised beds and I think we'll do that so we can go to a five year rotation instead of a three year. Maybe that will help. And cleaning all the cages and tools really well from season to season to keep it from spreading.[/QUOTE]




Same here as far as tomatoes go. Horrible tomato weather especially for the larger tomatoes. Danko, Eva Purple Ball and Arkansas Traveler are nice to have in a season like this. Last year had ripe tomatoes on everything at the end of June. This year I still haven't had a ripe Earl's Faux, at least not one that hasn't split, but plenty on the vine. Coastal Virginia Bay Side


Everything else has done fine although everything was few weeks later

It's been a pretty good year in Williamsburg:

Garlic - matured & harvested before the unusual "rainy season" started, thank God

Squash - rolling in in by the bucket loads - just starting to see some disease (I did not use the bleach spray like I normally do).

Tomatoes - I grow most of them as grafted, trellised single stems on hugelculture raised beds (tiring to type - but even more tiring to dig!) These weathered the mini monsoons and mini draught really well. Less disease than last year. Better than average harvest.

Eggplants - a lot like the tomatoes - good harvest and great taste

Peppers - I just grew two varieties - cheese and elephant ears. Both did and are doing great.

The only thing that was a HUGE failure were ungrafted tomatoes planted where I usually grow tomatoes. Almost 100% died from bacterial wilt. I was surprised that even my hybrids couldn't handle it. (Just about all my ungrafted tomatoes survived on the virgin land I prepped this year.)

Jeff