All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.
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I've really been enjoying our haskaps (Lonicera caerulea) this week while waiting for the strawberries to ripen. The blackberries and raspberries have just been pollinated so there's still some time before those come into season, and the recent warm-but-not-too-warm weather has kicked our beans and tomatoes into gear.
Also, peonies!
What's growing on with you all?
Finally figured out how remove exif data and add an image, so here's a picture of the garden! I hand pollenated my first butternut squash yesterday, and the cucumber plants are covered in flowers, several of which look like they might actually start turning into cucumbers! I've got some empty space that I want to figure out what to do with, I'm starting some more bell peppers and I think I might plant some more carrots. Overall very happy with how things are growing so far this year!
The raised beds with the arch trellis have cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, squash, basil, some brassicas (not doing too great), radish, and beets. The beds in the foreground have chickpeas and some empty space where I may add carrots. There is another bed off camera where I have more pumpkins and some sunflowers.
Hey that's awesome! And I adore your setup, it's very cozy looking. If only my cucurbits were anywhere near the point of having flowers...
I do not have pictures right now, but my plants are doing better. A few more of my peppers in my larger pots are beginning to fruit with more flowers, and a few tomatoes are beginning as well. I feared that my watermelons were dying, but they are back to life and flourishing right now. With my beds themselves, two of my three tomatoes in the beds are doing alright with one doing better than the other, while the middle tomato plant is dead as dirt for some reason. Similarly my onion bed did not survive the storming we had a week or two ago. Sadly I am going to need to figure out the plan there. My indoor tomatoes and indoor onions though are doing very well!
Well boo to the ones that up and died on you, I'm glad you have backups that are doing well. I'd be interested to know what you're thinking when you dig into (hah!) what should go into the onion bed, if you're so inclined.
I am debating if I wanted to try a second time around with the onions, but maybe try more Egyptian Walking Onions instead of traditional white onions; however, I also have debated if I wanted to just switch to the next in the set for crop rotations. I have decided that next year I am going to attempt crop rotations with my four major sub-sections, being two sets of pots, and two raised beds.
I'm a fan of walking onions, personally. That said, I'd encourage you to weigh the benefit of having practiced some rotation before it is the plan and ironing out the wrinkles you encounter.
Hmm, alright then. How best would you say to go about practicing?
If you've got starts of something ready to go, I'd plant those to get a crop into the bed where the onions were and then work to get that crop's replacements ready. Otherwise I'd pick something that germinates quickly to seed out and then set about prepping for the next plants to go in. Depending on what your season is like, you might still be able to do an early summer / late summer / fall set of plant rotations