Garden testing

[robin]

We started a new garden this year in a different place in the yard the old place just didn't get enough sun.
Things are just starting to come alive now and the new place is great so a couple more boxes next year.

[dreamaker]

Nice looking fruit! Wish mine look that good.

[Patrick]

Nice looking stuff.

[Crackerborn]

Looks good! My garden will be turned under this year before first frost with no produce. No apples, tomatoes, peppers or melons. It is not all the weathers fault since I have been a bit distracted this year and plead guilty to garden neglect.   

[Jersey mike]

that's why NJ is the garden state. our soil and summer sun is exceptional.

that a nice assortment of produce, those fryer peppers look delicious. makes me miss my grandfather and his garden.

enjoy

[csj]

How do you keep the local critters from eating it all?

Out where we are, skunks, rabbits, deer, birds, and bugs
would rip it apart.

[cookiedough]

that is what a .22 is for or a high powered pellet gun.

I had rabbit issues, and boiled a mixture of nasty smelling water with onions and other cajun/pepper/cumin spices (look it up on the internet) and sprayed it all over the ground around the garden.  If kept the rabbits from eating the leaves and other produce as well. 

This year not so good, we had a VERY high 70 mph wind when my green beans were first coming up 6" high or so and flattened them out pretty well injuring most plants.  Re-planting did not do so well so not very many this year first year EVER in over 20 years of gardening.  Oh well,  not a bumper crop for sure since so hot and dry out and haven't been watering as well. 

One thing we do well is cucumbers and zucchini and enough tomatoes as well.  Biggest and easiest to grow is beets.  I use to hate boiled beets, but if you just clean them up  (leave skin on, but no dirt on them washing them off) the size of a golf ball or slightly bigger and wrap each one in aluminum foil and bake in oven 2 hours or so.  Then, after cooked, unwrap, skin peels of very easily, then slice thin, put some butter and salt on them and darn near tastes like sweet corn.  VERY yummy, just don't over-do it all at once eating too many for the red color comes out your other end when going poddy.     Good way to flush the old system out.   

[Rams]

Robin,
I see one major problem with your garden, I'm pretty sure you haven't recognized the issue or would have already done something about it.

You do realize that your garden is in the wrong location.   

 It should be in my yard!      Nice, very nice.   

[baldo]

We've had a pretty nice garden for the last 5 or 6 years. This year however, we have a serious pest problem. RATS! Those GD little vermin are ruining the garden. Whenever a tomato starts to turn red, the little f*&^()ers take ONE BITE out of it and leave it alone after that.

I should have mentioned that we have a chicken coop right next to the garden, but it's been there for 4 years now. Never a problem before now. I really don't know what to do. They're almost impossible to get rid of. I don't want to put out any snap traps. There are a couple of 'feral' cats that we've been feeding for several years now. I'd really be heartbroken if one of them got hurt by a trap.

I think we'll just salvage what we can this year, then strip the garden and really go after them. As a kid on my grandfather's farm, he'd use smoke bombs in the groundhog burrows ( we have one of those, too) and plink them when they come out the other side. Are those bombs still available? I don't know if they were poison gas or just smoke.

[hubcapsc]

that's why NJ is the garden state. our soil and summer sun is exceptional.

I'd feel better about our garden if I believed that was all there was to it  ...

I bet they worked hard to make it turn out like that...

-Mike 

[Jess Tolbirt]

them red things look HHHHHHHHOTT!

[spud]

 My thoughts on your garden. Looks like you have a fine crop.
Someone mentioned beets. Try sowing them very close and when
they are getting crowded thin them and cook the beet and the tops.
My favourite way of eating beets from the garden.
  spud.   

[Oss]

Robin those are terrific tomato and peppers !

Baldo We have a fenced in garden with 10  raised beds and still get animals burying under the fence from time to time

For varmint control I have 2 havahart (sp?) traps

The larger one I caught 3 rabbits last year and it can also take a squirrel or rat

the smaller one is for little varmints since you may not use a firearm in Westchester county but you can kill them any other way  

(all mine got lost in that boating accident anyway)

For rats I use the greenish blue colored bait with some peanut butter on top for good luck

Just make sure your dog doesnt eat the dead animal if you use poison  You can also put the poison in the trap with your bait (cantalope and cut tomatoes work real well)

I hang bird /deer netting over the tomato cages cause the birds peck at our tomatos
Bonnie said yesterday something got into the Kale so I put the trap out this morning  SHould get something tonite I hope

Back in April



The green beans grow across the trellises on 3 conduit frames 2x30
with tomato and strawberry in the same frames
Cukes, zucchini and squash in front of them
we had about 150 garlic harvested a month ago in one of the 4x8 beds and the scipes were good too
They are drying and hanging in the house now

Kale still hanging in there, lettuce cabbage and broccoli will go back in September when it cools some

Her herb gardens are mostly on the left, sunflowers behind me on the right
We use drip irrigation on a am.pm timer



you can see the trap between the rows

[Bonzo]

Very nice Robin! I screwed up and had knee surgery in June and didn't get into the garden for a month and it went to weeds with the barriers down.

I have a 4 foot deer fence with a chicken wire barrier buried 4 inches around with  6 inch boards against that.   Cayenne pepper dissuades most animals off the plants, I buy the big jug from Shoprite (Barilla?) and sprinkle it on my sunflowers, around my garden, grapes and apple trees.
 

[cookiedough]

My thoughts on your garden. Looks like you have a fine crop.
Someone mentioned beets. Try sowing them very close and when
they are getting crowded thin them and cook the beet and the tops.
My favourite way of eating beets from the garden.
  spud.   

Explain cook them and the tops for beets?  How cook?  boiled or baked in oven?

I take the tops off so just a round ball and clean them up real good washing them off is all and wrap in aluminum foil and bake in oven for a couple of hours or so depending on size of the beet.  Smaller ones 1 hour or so, but bigger ones 2 hours or so.  Doubt you can overcook them even if 2 1/2 hours if real big beets.  I find boiling any vegetable to some degree robs the veggie of some of the nutrients and sweetness.  Baking them keeps the juices and sweetness inside them, especially beets.  I hate boiled beets, but baked beets are pretty good. 

Maybe we should start a garden forum on here?   

[da prez]

 OSS and others. One way to keep animals from burrowing or digging under a fence is to get old (usually cheaper) chain link or cyclone fence and rake or dig back a little dirt and lay the fence on the ground and allow it to extend inside the fence line at least 6 inches. Cut the fence where you put the post or drive the pipes thru the openings. Cover with a little dirt and let the grass grow.
 You can then mow over it and no one knows and the critters will be dis-appointed.               

                                   da prez

[MP]

How do you keep the local critters from eating it all?

Out where we are, skunks, rabbits, deer, birds, and bugs
would rip it apart.

12 gauge does a much better job, than the lowly .22.  And, you do not have to be quite as accurate.  Of course, you have to be careful not to ventilate the tomatoes!

MP

[Patrick]

We've had a pretty nice garden for the last 5 or 6 years. This year however, we have a serious pest problem. RATS! Those GD little vermin are ruining the garden. Whenever a tomato starts to turn red, the little f*&^()ers take ONE BITE out of it and leave it alone after that.

I should have mentioned that we have a chicken coop right next to the garden, but it's been there for 4 years now. Never a problem before now. I really don't know what to do. They're almost impossible to get rid of. I don't want to put out any snap traps. There are a couple of 'feral' cats that we've been feeding for several years now. I'd really be heartbroken if one of them got hurt by a trap.

I think we'll just salvage what we can this year, then strip the garden and really go after them. As a kid on my grandfather's farm, he'd use smoke bombs in the groundhog burrows ( we have one of those, too) and plink them when they come out the other side. Are those bombs still available? I don't know if they were poison gas or just smoke.

Woodchuck bombs are still available. I use a few every year.

Rats and not hurt the cats ? How about live/box traps ? Release the cats and shoot the rats. Aren't the rats living under the chicken coup ? The bombs may work on their dens.

When I converted the chicken coup to a dog kennel I got rid of the chickens and then used the old left over stale gasoline in the holes and touched it off. Good thing I was standing on a piece of plywood, blew me several feet in the air but got rid of the rats. Had to pour some new concrete too.

[Oss]

caught this fella

Bonnie made me let him go about a mile away. He will have to cross a lot of highway to get back here

[Willow]

caught this fella

Bonnie made me let him go about a mile away. He will have to cross a lot of highway to get back here

Naw, he'll probably get a free ride back when the owner of the garden about a mile away catches him in his live trap.   

[baldo]

caught this fella

Bonnie made me let him go about a mile away. He will have to cross a lot of highway to get back here

Naw, he'll probably get a free ride back when the owner of the garden about a mile away catches him in his live trap.   

LOL....DOH!

[Oss]

welcome to my nightmare Willow   

[baldo]

caught this fella

Bonnie made me let him go about a mile away. He will have to cross a lot of highway to get back here

That looks just like our guy! You haven't by chance been around these parts, have you?

[baldo]

We've had a pretty nice garden for the last 5 or 6 years. This year however, we have a serious pest problem. RATS! Those GD little vermin are ruining the garden. Whenever a tomato starts to turn red, the little f*&^()ers take ONE BITE out of it and leave it alone after that.

I should have mentioned that we have a chicken coop right next to the garden, but it's been there for 4 years now. Never a problem before now. I really don't know what to do. They're almost impossible to get rid of. I don't want to put out any snap traps. There are a couple of 'feral' cats that we've been feeding for several years now. I'd really be heartbroken if one of them got hurt by a trap.

I think we'll just salvage what we can this year, then strip the garden and really go after them. As a kid on my grandfather's farm, he'd use smoke bombs in the groundhog burrows ( we have one of those, too) and plink them when they come out the other side. Are those bombs still available? I don't know if they were poison gas or just smoke.

Woodchuck bombs are still available. I use a few every year.

Rats and not hurt the cats ? How about live/box traps ? Release the cats and shoot the rats. Aren't the rats living under the chicken coup ? The bombs may work on their dens.

When I converted the chicken coup to a dog kennel I got rid of the chickens and then used the old left over stale gasoline in the holes and touched it off. Good thing I was standing on a piece of plywood, blew me several feet in the air but got rid of the rats. Had to pour some new concrete too.

That there was a youtube moment! Any video? 

[Patrick]

How do you guys keep the garden looking like that !  By this time of year the weeds take over, at least at my house they do. [ I get tired of pulling them and use landscape fabric but it doesn't help much] [ I try to use mustard in place of the weeds, but, that doesn't always work well either.]
I'm really trying to say that I know how much energy you put into it.

[cookiedough]

I lived trapped as well and shot racoons, skunks, and oppossums getting caught in the trap, but no darn rabbits.  Hint:  ONLY shoot a skunk once, not 2-3 times and they stink if hit wrong - pew-eee!

That critter would be gone as well in the live trap, just don't tell the local cops since I still live in the town limits.   

As far as weeding,  yah, it sucks.  Been doing it off and on a little bit of a time, but doesn't help my garden is along the corn/hay/soybean field as well all along my 100' wide backyard lot line.  I feel it takes several days to get it done right and this spring we pulled all the quack grass out of the strawberried taking 4-5 hours looked nice, but 1 month later,  all that quack grass came back up in our strawberries 4x's as tall as the plants and was very hard to get back in there since strawberries were ripe for the picking by then. 

[Patrick]

Wanna shoot a skunk in a trap, just ease up on the critter and watch him get ready to hose you down, stop and stand still until the skunk relaxes, then one well placed shot.  If you get nervous yourself or turn to walk or run, he'll get ya. They're good shots, they don't miss. 
I've been hosed as well as the dogs.

[Oss]

once a week for about 5 minutes or less for each 4x8 area

DoNT miss a week or you will be working more, dont ask how we know !  

Its basically square foot gardening in a 4X8 or 2 x8 frames. Compost/Soil/Vermiculite Mix there is weed fabric underneath

The thing that took longest was setting up the drip irrigation but once done you NEVER have to remember to water anything in the garden or the raised beds outside the garden. In winter just unhook the timer  and bring it inside

funny carl about the guy getting a ride back to my house

He was last seen heading in the direction of the Clinton's house (well one of the 4 mansions anyways)

Odds are he will be voting for Hillary in the primary as Woody C Huck