2016 Garden Photos

[jhp]

We're only 5 days into 2016 and I'm months away from digging in the dirt. I wanted to start this thread so I have a place to put my garden photos as they happen.

Technically, these are from the 2015 garden, but were just harvested yesterday. This is my first time harvesting into January. 2015 was my best carrot year ever! We eat a lot of carrots all year round, so I planted more this past summer. These will not go to waste.

I've finally figured out the best way to grow carrots in my garden. I have raised beds. I grow 25 to 50 tomato plants per year in raised beds(sometimes maybe more if you count containers and earth boxes). I use soaker hoses to water my tomato plants. So I put carrot seeds along the soaker hoses on the outer edges of the tomato plants. Tried to sow thinly, and watered in, but did not bother to thin or do anything else the rest of the season.

Happy New Year!
Jen




Is that eatable?

[KarenO]

That is awesome and looks like your kitty thinks so too
KarenO

[Worth1]

I want another kitten.

Worth

[BigVanVader]

Very nice pics and what a cute kitten!

[jhp]

Oh thank you! The kitten is Jasper. I adopted him from the local shelter. He's about 3.5 months old now (we don't really know his birthday). He is the center of our universe right now. He's into everything and has all of that kitten energy.

We also have a pure bred Siberian cat, Bella. She'll be 3 end of March. Jasper and Bella are buddies and play and run around the house together. It's adorable and a joy to see.

Kind of a long story how we got Bella. Siberians are supposed to be almost hypoallergenic (almost because some people are still allergic to them), which seems antithetical to what you would think, what with all the fur. I developed cat allergies about 10 years ago after having had cats my entire life. After I got her (while still having a regular old cat in the house) I figured out how to get rid of my allergies.

I'll add this as it might help someone else reading this. At the time when I got Bella, I had another cat, my dear Clarence. He was about 12 at the time and I had him since he was a kitten. I started to be allergic to Clarence at some point, took allergy medicine which made me horribly drowsy and just feel terrible. It was either that or runny nose and sneezing. Clarence was my snuggle buddy and constant companion. The breeder who we got Bella from deals with a lot of people with allergies, who still want the joy of having a pet. She suggested changing Clarence's food. Didn't say to what, just try something else. So I researched what is the best food to feed cats and read grain free was the best. So I changed his food to grain free. Over months I started sneezing less and my cat allergies were much, much better. So I thought, if him not eating grains somehow helped me, maybe I should try it for myself. So around Thanksgiving 2013 I stopped eating all grains and paying special attention to eliminating anything with wheat especially from my diet. All of my allergies went away, and I lost weight. When we got Jasper, they had been feeding him friskies at the shelter. We brought him home and I was allergic to him! So put him on the grain free food and after a couple of weeks, allergies went away.

This is Bella

[kunosoura]

GREAT photos. Love the kitty especially

[Salsacharley]

Great info on the allergy situation. Thanks for sharing. The kitten looks pretty impressed with what you dug up! I am too!

[jillian]

Great pics of kitty's and carrots!! I have a very ordinary very fat orange tabby that I love dearly. He is king he rules the house.
Those carrots are incredible. I cannot grow root veggies to save my life, except for radishes. Tried growing kohlrabi and turnips last year and nary a root formed, only plants?!? The carrots were very tiny but the tops were lush. Everything else flourished. There must be a secret I am not in on lol.

[jhp]

Originally Posted by jillian

Great pics of kitty's and carrots!! I have a very ordinary very fat orange tabby that I love dearly. He is king he rules the house.
Those carrots are incredible. I cannot grow root veggies to save my life, except for radishes. Tried growing kohlrabi and turnips last year and nary a root formed, only plants?!? The carrots were very tiny but the tops were lush. Everything else flourished. There must be a secret I am not in on lol.

I felt that way for years too, Jillian. I tried growing them in a block like my garden books said and even added more height to the sides of that raised bed so they would have deeper soil to grow in. They never produced very good carrots. I mean, I would get something, but not nice fat ones like I got in 2015. And actually, I grew some in a similar manner in 2014 and that made me want to do much, much more this way in 2015 because we eat a lot of carrots. Perhaps carrots do like tomatoes like that companion planting book title. As I said, I didn't do much with the carrots, just let them be. I think growing them along the soaker hose helped. The tomatoes get compost and mulch, but I don't think much of that made it's way over to the carrots, but who knows. There is the old adage that lots of green = too much nitrogen. Could that be the case with your carrots?

[Ricky Shaw]

A warm and wonderful glimpse, thank you for taking the time.

[Gardenboy]

Nice pics. Hope you saved your carrot tops for soup and salads!!

[wildcat62]

Great crop. They look delicious.

[jmsieglaff]

I've never tried it, but I've heard of people making carrot top pesto, just substitute carrot tops for basil.

[kath]

Happy New Year, Jen! Your kitties are so beautiful and those carrots are amazing! I've tried leaving them in the ground into the fall but have had trouble with them splitting/being nibbled by critters. Do you have a secret to keeping them safe?

Also, great idea ~ cat allergies. I'm allergic to most animals, not to mention pollen, etc. and have missed not getting more pets after ours had passed years ago. As of Jan. 1 I have quit all grains and sugars, so I'm very excited about the possibilies! Thanks for sharing this.

kath

P. S. Our carrot tops go to the neighborhood chickens- too many bitter alkaloids for me.

[jhp]

Originally Posted by kath

Happy New Year, Jen! Your kitties are so beautiful and those carrots are amazing! I've tried leaving them in the ground into the fall but have had trouble with them splitting/being nibbled by critters. Do you have a secret to keeping them safe?

Also, great idea ~ cat allergies. I'm allergic to most animals, not to mention pollen, etc. and have missed not getting more pets after ours had passed years ago. As of Jan. 1 I have quit all grains and sugars, so I'm very excited about the possibilies! Thanks for sharing this.

kath

P. S. Our carrot tops go to the neighborhood chickens- too many bitter alkaloids for me.

Thank you so much for your kind words. Happy Belated New Year! I have a 6 foot fence and also an electric fence around my garden. By the fall the electric fence is turned off once there isn't much in there to bother. We have a ton of deer here. I had a herd of 8 in my side yard this morning and that is typical. So if it doesn't have a fence, it gets eaten by the walking stomachs, I mean, deer. I do get some carrots that get too big and split. Yes, I do. I tried throwing them over the fence for the forest creatures to eat, and oddly, the deer don't like carrots. I also get some carrots that split just as I pull them out of the ground. I think it's a water pressure thing, like tomatoes splitting after a heavy rain. This doesn't bother me much as I tend to just harvest as I want to eat them. I go out in my apron grab some carrots and cook them up for dinner.

I think Bella was a dog in a former life, she chases the deer while out for her leash walks. This is a video from my iPhone from her first meeting with a young deer (link below)

Jen

https://vimeo.com/105696526