User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

KayJay's Garden 2015

I thought I'd start a thread here to keep track of my progress. I regret not keeping better records last year. "I'll remember." :roll: Yeah, right.

So as background, here's the teensy weensy space I have to work with:

Image

That was last week, at 9:00 am. The house faces NE. Closer to summer, the sun hits that fence all day.

A picture from last summer:

Image

Anyway, here's my ghetto seed starting setup! LOL. Origami newspaper pots, whatever blah potting soil from Dollarama, a little 8W T5 shop light, and a CF bulb in a floor lamp with a flexible coil for what most people would use as a reading lamp.

The setup is in our office (a spare bedroom with our computers; we're nerds), which is the only room in the house we actually heat. We both work full time, no kids or pets, and it would cost us a fortune to heat the whole house - no HVAC, just baseboard heaters. So, no. :| We don't even heat our bedroom; we use an electric blanket.

Image

Image

I refuse to put much effort or money into seed starting, at this point with my level of experience (very little). It's easy enough to go buy seedlings if they fail.

Those seeds were sown March 29. CalWonder peps, early Jalapeno, iceberg lettuce, Swiss chard, Rutgers tom, Brandywine tom, Bush Beef tom, basil.

The sweet potato that I started March 30 in a glass of water sprouted roots today.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13962
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

It looks bigger than my first townhouse garden that was about 10 ft x 20 ft. There was always a problem in the corner since you have to find things for the spot that does not need much light or grow vertically. I had a rack built of pipe since I could not attach anything to the fence. I hung hanging baskets about a foot below the top of the fence.

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Thanks for visiting. :) I hear you about the fence, and the corners. I'm focusing on the vertical plants against the fence and shorter ones in front of them. Maybe I'll stick my container veggies in the corners, since they get about a foot or two of height off the ground that way.

I'm torn on the two baskets: I love the purple petunias I had last year, and they probably self-seeded themselves and will come back, but it would be cool to have edible baskets, too. Maybe some herbs, hanging small tomatoes, or something of that ilk. I should look into that.

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

April 12 - It's 4 weeks before our last average frost date.

Planted:
- peas, Little Marvel
- spinach, Bloomsdale
- lettuce, iceberg and Grand Rapids, in a flower box on the ground.

It was a really nice day, not a cloud in the sky. I also took the indoor seedlings and OW peppers out for a sunbath.

I put 2L pop bottle ghetto cloches over everything, hopefully deterring the squirrels and birds.

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Sat Apr 18 - 3 weeks before average last frost

I planted turnips today. Also put out the swiss chard and started a few seeds along side of it for observation's sake. The chard seedlings weren't looking too good, but I had to evict them for space under the lights for my jalapenos. If the chard dies, it dies. Oh well. Maybe I'll try later again in summer.

Swiss chard is supposed to be one of those idiot-proof plants, but I have yet to successfully grow it.

No sign of life out of the peas or spinach, but the Grand Rapids lettuce sprouted. I think it's still too cold.

The healthiest seedlings so far are my Brandywine tomatoes saved from last year.
Attachments
150418-brandywine-seedlings.jpg

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Sat Apr 25 - two weeks before average last frost. Could have fooled me; it SNOWED yesterday and the day before. :evil:

- Swiss chard is alive but not growing (not too surprising, I guess - too cold, not enough sun yet)
- spinach and lettuce germinated big time. Not much growth yet.
- No sign of life yet from peas, turnips or radishes.

Everything outdoors has a pop bottle cloche over it. Ghetto! 8)

Indoors: I started Chicago pickling cucumber and zucchini "dark green" today.

I noticed I'm getting direct sun in my office window for about four hours after sunrise now. My shift changes on Monday to early mornings, so I think I'll put the seedlings in the window and then put them back under lights when I get home from work, around 1:00 pm. Then they'll get their "night time" from about 4:00 am when I get up (yeah, I know :shock: ) until sunrise.

User avatar
vaporizer
Full Member
Posts: 31
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2015 11:06 am
Location: Las Vegas, NV

I like what you have going so far. I am a first year gardener and agree with the philosophy of keeping the costs down the first year and learning big. good luck.

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Thanks! Seeing as my main goal is to obtain free food, I don't really want to spend a fortune on the yard when I could just buy good produce from the store. :/

A cuke seedling poked its head up today.

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Sunday May 10 was our average last frost day. We had warm/hot/humid days, but I saw that temps are dipping back down near freezing again this week, so not much I could do in the garden. I up-potted tomatoes and peppers, and they don't look good. I think my T5 8W shop light is insufficient. It might do for herbs or something, but I think I'll have to upgrade before next year.

The Brandywines that I was keeping mainly in the brighter 13 W CFL that were doing really well, don't look so good now. Yellow lower leaves, and they're getting leggy again.

My outdoor direct sows aren't looking too hot, either, unless they might still take off, I dunno. I feel like they're stunted and/or behind, but I could be wrong. The spinach has two sets of true leaves, the peas a tad more. Swiss chard, stunted. The loose-leaf lettuce looks pretty good.

One success so far? Overwintered hot peppers. They're flowering and setting fruits already! Long before peppers can even be outside yet. At least without babysitting and bringing them outside only when the weather is appropriate.

Oh, other success stories: cucumber and zucchini. They're monsters. I'll direct sow once the weather is better, too, but no harm in trying to get a head start. I planted them from store-bought transplants last year, and they did fine.

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

We're a week after the average LFD, and it's a holiday weekend. Victoria Day, which always falls the weekend before Memorial Day. This is typically the weekend stores open their garden centers, and people get going on their gardens. My spring perennials, which live in the shade, are well on their way.

I don't want to put the seedlings in the ground yet. They've been outside, but not in temps as cold as we're going to get this week. It's going to be in the 40s (4C) overnight and highs only in the 50s/60s (13-20C).

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30514
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Patience, Grasshopper :wink:

...just a little while longer... I think the cold weather stuff will be happy in this weather though. The soil temp is probably still cold.

I'll go look at your overwintered pepper thread you started to comment on them there, but I LOVE that peppers respond well to overwintering (as long as I can keep the aphids under control).

Tomato seedlings -- it's possible they need a little boost. Have you fertilized them? Compost or worm casting tea, kelp, fish emulsion diluted to look like weak tea would be my recommendation.

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Thanks for dropping by. :)

Yes, I fertilized once they had two sets of true leaves. I might do it again, since the absolute earliest I'd be planting them out is next weekend.

I'm not anxious to get those warm-weather veggies into the ground except for the fact that my indoor lighting setup is clearly insufficient. My tomatoes are leggy and the peppers are stunted. I might just give up on them, but I'll at least give them until the hot season. Maybe they'll take off.

I had to give up on my stunted Rutgers and bush beefsteak. Everything was doing fine until I had to up-pot and ran out of light-space.

On a positive note, my lettuce looks great. It's in a container on some patio stones. The (in-ground) peas and spinach seem happy enough, though they could probably use more sunlight. I think I'll do a container of spinach beside that lettuce next year. It gets a lot more sun this time of year.

I bought two tomato seedlings and a butternut squash at my grocery store yesterday. Yeah, the grocery stores aren't ideal places to buy plants, but I'm transportationally-challenged and I'd have to take two buses just to get to a Walmart, let alone a real nursery.

They just set up their garden center on Friday, so I figured it was a good plan to grab them yesterday morning before they start suffering from neglect. ;) The tomatoes look really good. Way better than mine. The squash looks good, too, and I'll give myself that much - my cuke and zucchini seedlings look very nice. The store had cuke seedlings that were terribly leggy.

The stunted peppers:

Image

The tomatoes: THEIRS vs mine. :|

Image

Oh - the store-bought ones are a 'Patio' and an 'Italian Gold.' I figured they'd be good for my 5-gallon buckets.

Store-bought butternut, my cuke, zuke:

Image

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

The warm(ish) weather is here. Everything's in its permanent home except a few tomatoes and peppers.

Clockwise: Cayennetta peps, Apache peps, Calwonder, 'Italian Gold' tomato, 'Patio' Tomato, 'Grand Rapids' lettuce and spinach. The spinach bolted prematurely, probably because I let that container get too dry a few times. Oops.

Image

The spinach in the ground, OTOH, looks great:

Image

It's supposed to be cool this week, then next weekend might be when I have to use the spinach. We'll see what the weather's like.

- The swiss chard is starting to take off. I should have done more of it. I'll definitely plant more soon for later in the summer.
- I have either turnip or radish that I neglected to mark, and neglected to thin... so now I just have a pile of leaves. LOL. No problem, I'll just eat them that way. I like cooked greens.
- Cuke, zuke and butternut squash plants are in the ground. They went out May 21, I think. They look okay for now. Maybe a tad of transplant shock, but the weather hasn't been that warm yet. I'm sure they'll take off when it heats up.

Breanna.link
Full Member
Posts: 37
Joined: Fri May 29, 2015 9:22 pm
Location: Hot Springs Arkansas

it doesn't take that long to go from 0 to full gardener I too started with makeshift containers, finally got my first 'greenhouse' seed starter today. I want to move to an area with townhomes, but worry about neighbourhood Associations denying me gardeninship of my own yard.

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Hi, thanks for visiting!

Our townhouses are condos, and we're basically allowed to do whatever we want with the yards, as long as they're kept tidy, ie cleaning up after your dogs, and no junk storage. They don't even seem to care that we hang things on the fencing. Added bonus: our condo fees include landscapers mowing the lawn. :) Good luck to you finding something like this that would work for you.

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Happy June, everyone!

This past weekend:
- I noticed little wee nubbins of flower heads on the spinach, so it's done. I yanked it all and made a huge fritatta that I'll be having for lunch all week. Next year, I'll plant spinach the whole way across, interplanted where the cuke/zuke/etc goes. There's plenty of room.
- Thinned the lettuce for some salad. I should probably finish that off this week; the weather will get too warm any time now.
- Replaced the spinach with bush beans, and one of the pepper seedlings.
- Hacked the lilac tree quite a bit. I should do that earlier next year. You're not supposed to prune until after the blooms are done, but screw it: the shade is killing my veggies, and the condo corp is planning on forcing us to remove all trees at some point in the future, anyway. I do like the lilacs for the little bit of privacy it gives us, but it's way too big.
- I stuck a few more cucumber and zucchini seeds in the ground, in case the transplants die. They still don't look great. Last year, they transplanted fine. Maybe because those were hybrids from the store. I'm thinking next year I won't bother, and just do what several people here recommend and just direct sow them in June.
- The one Brandywine tomato I stuck in the ground looks great. It really took off once over the transplant. I stuck another one in the same size container I had it in last year. It's in a container again because it could use the height boost for the area it's in.
- The peas are growing well... no sign of flowers yet, though.

I think that's it! Phew. I love spending time in my little yard on a warm sunny day.

Verae
Full Member
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 10:00 pm
Location: Vancouver Island, Canada

I enjoyed your posts. I live on Vancouver Island and we are quite a bit ahead of you, this year in particular. I also tried tomato seeds the first time and so far so good. They are chocolate cherry tomatoes. I am not sure though if the original was a hybrid in which case they might not be very good. Time will tell. I wish you good luck and lots of fun with your garden.

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Thanks for the visit! :)

- My cuke and zuke look way better the last few days. The cuke has 3 little male flowers now. I need to put a trellis up ASAP.
- The peas have several flowers.
- Lots of hot peppers, but no ripe ones yet. A few tiny baby tomatoes on the Patio plant.
- I bought a fig tree! Chicago Hearty.

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Quick update.

First li'l tomato: Image

Glut of hot peppers: Image

Peas, turnips, bush beans under pop bottle cloches: Image

Turnips, zuke, cuke, and seedling zuke/cuke: Image

Those turnips are done. They made a delicious fritatta.

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

June 27... where does the time go?

Yes, I know I have to weed, but my job has really aggravated the arthritis in my spine, and I'm loathe to bend down right now. I'm laid off for a few weeks, so by Monday I should feel better.

Butternut squash + Brandywine-in-a-bucket

Image

Zukes + cukes

Image

Peas (one of them is wrapped around a Brandywine tomato), bush beans, failure-to-thrive swiss chard.

Image

Igotworms
Cool Member
Posts: 61
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 1:14 am

looking good! I wanted to get a fig tree but I don't have the space

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Well, it's July already. A few quick notes:
- the first few hot peppers are finally starting to ripen. I think the cool spring slowed them down a bit.
- finally a few flowers on the Brandywine tomatoes. I was worried about them, but they're a vine, and they're notoriously slow, so I'll just let them be.
- the two container tomatoes are looking pretty good. Still only one fruit on the Patio, but quite a few little ones on the Italian Gold.
- the CalWonder peppers don't look very good. I think they were just too stunted. The best looking one was in the container, but it's being eaten by something. It still has a flower, though... we'll see.
- bush beans looking good.
- peas are just about done. I'm not sure I'll bother next year. Such a long time to wait and so much space for maybe a 1/4 cup of peas. LOL. If I had more space, I'd do tons. They were super easy and required almost no care.
- on the peas... I thought they'd be done by now, but our nights have been very cool and day temps just not that hot. Two plants were done and I cut them off at the stem. I'll let the other three finish off.
- The fig tree looks okay, I guess. There's a little bit of new leaf growth at the top and at the bottom. I wonder if/when I should up-pot it. It has to stay in a container small enough that I can lug inside in the fall. Hmm. Unless I want to 'mummify' it and leave it out there. I dunno. I'll decide in the fall, I guess.
- I'll be eating my first cucumber probably tomorrow. :) The plant looks great.
- Butternut squash looks very good. I saw the first little baby squash today. Can't wait to see how it flowers.
- Zucchini - I would have had one already, but I bumped the female flower and it snapped right off!! I was so mad. :( There's another open flower this morning, so I pollinated it and this time I'm not going NEAR the plant until there's a zucchini.

Image

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

The weather's been great. High 70s/low 80s, comfortable cooler nights. Not much rain after the monsoon two weekends ago.

Everything looks pretty good.
- The zucchini are undersized, but I guess they're just getting started.
- No more cukes yet after that one I picked, but again, they'll probably take off any time. I had to buy another trellis for them, since they branched out. The variety I had last year didn't do that; it just grew straight up one stem.
- Butternut squash has 5 little female flowers and 2 male flowers have opened already.
- June here was pretty cool over all, and the nights have been cool enough that I still have lettuce. I think I'll finish it off today. It has some withered leaves on the outside; not looking too great.
- A squirrel, I assume, knocked two figs off the tree and just left them there. :evil: I miss my German Shepherd/squirrel cop. The squirrel was also prancing about in the hanging baskets, so now there's dirt everywhere.
- The failure-to-thrive swiss chard actually looks a lot better. I think I might take some of the outer leaves this week.
- It's time to start my fall cabbage and cauliflower. That makes me sad. I hate winter and I can't wait to retire and become a snowbird.

Image

Image

Image

Image

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Oh boy, it's been that long since I updated my thread? So much for record keeping. :P

- I got a good dozen zucchini from my plant so far, and there are two female flowers right now. It has mild downy mildew that I'm fighting off with milk spray.
- The cukes got stressed and went super, super bitter. Yuck. I decided to dehydrate them anyway, and that was actually a partial success. Most of the bitterness is gone. I eat the cuke chips with hot salsa and then I don't notice it. Heh.
- My spinach self-seeded. Back in spring, I left it a little too long and it bolted, so I just left it to go to seed. Now it's growing again. Heh.
- The tomatoes have been so slow. I got one ripe "patio" at the beginning of August and the rest of them are only ripening now. The "Italian gold" started ripening about two weeks ago. The Brandywines are still unripe. I did ripen one with the paper bag/banana trick when I thought it was blushing, but I realized after the fact that it wasn't. Oops. I guess my eyes were just playing tricks on me. It took about 2 weeks and several bananas to get it going. :P
- Butternut squash decided to wake up and produce three more babies. I hope they ripen, but if they don't, at least I can still do something with them in the immature stage.
- I kibashed the fall cabbage/cauliflower idea because... duh, there's nowhere to put it. Not only are the toms/zuke taking up too much space, but there's not enough sunlight anymore. I'll give it a try in spring.

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30514
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Sounds great! Nice success and bounty from the garden. :D

I wish I could get spinach to grow. I STILL can't figure out why they won't. Do you have alkaline soil? (This is my speculative theory)

Logistics for succession planting is always tricky. Did anything else get harvested and done a little earlier? Or you could PLAN on growing something that would next year. Maybe potatoes or onions, garlic... or bush beans first. THEN fall cabbage/cauliflower.

-- Yep! Time to start planning next year's garden! :-()

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Thanks for stopping by, Applestar! :) I have no idea if my soil is alkaline... that's something I assume I could test easily from some strips from a hardware store or something. I'll have to look into that.

My favorite veggies seem to be the one with the long growing seasons and huge plants: zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, so I see myself sticking with leafy greens for my fall growing. Comes down to not enough sun at soil level. I also have a massive cabbage butterfly problem so I don't even know what I want to do about that yet. >:(

User avatar
kayjay
Green Thumb
Posts: 416
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:14 am
Location: Southern Ontario

I can't believe it's September already. :/ I go back to work on Tuesday.
- The container pepper is looking pretty good considering the slug attack. I have five peppers on it. One of them is pretty big and I'm going to cook it up today with some sausage and zucchini. One of my favorite meals.
- I kind of forgot about some green beans, and they're long dried up on the plant now, so I guess I'll save the seed. They're heirloom (Stringless green pod) so that should work.
- There'll be a few more zucchini in the next week or so.
- I finally got a Brandywine to blush on the plant. Still quite a few nice big ones to go. I'm glad the plant looks healthy. I'm googling every few days to see if there's any report of late blight... so far, so good. None in my area.
- Two out of the three new butternut squash died. I'm not too surprised, the plant doesn't look good. I'm losing the battle of powdery mildew and half of the leaves are dead and gone now. Hopefully, I can salvage the other small fruit.



Return to “Vegetable Garden Progress + Photos & Videos”