Tennessee 2023 Garden

[Gary350]

Today I inspected the onions. It was 62° this morning, 9:30 am 68°. 3 pm 80°. NO clouds.
About 20 of the largest 2½" to 3" are in the kitchen pantry.
There are about 68 onions 2" to 2½" on workshop counter top.
There are about 70 onions 1½" to 2" on workshop counter too.
There are about 80 onions 1¼" to 1½" workshop counter also.
About 200 smaller 1" onions are in a pile in the yard.
Onions did not do as well this year as last yard.

[hendi_alex]

I planted seeds this spring and will plant more this fall to see which grows the best onions. I never attempted bulb onions until this past year. I cut the bottom off of store bought sweets, Granex I think, and put them into the garden from about June through September. Each heel grew about four onion starts which were separated and planted individually. Those freebees produced about a dozen really good sweet onions in this test planting. I'll use the method for a couple dozen this year in addition to the trial from seed.

[Gary350]

I decided to pick strawberries more often and fertilize more often. Berries that are not 100% ripe will be ripe in 12 more hours and over ripe in 24 hours. I am also fertilizing with 6-12-12 every 3 days instead every 7 days. Berries are blood red and much sweeter. It pays to experiment to see what works best. I am using an empty pork & bean food can as a fertilizer measure each time. 1 can of 6-12-12 does not seem like much for a 32 ft long row 32" wide. We are still getting 1 quart of ripe berries very day. I have lost track of how many strawberries I have picked, about 7 gallons. Plants are growing lots of runners now but there is nothing I can do about that yet. I appears we will have about 8+ runners from 100 plants.

[Gary350]

Wife needs celery for dinner so I picked her some. Zinnia flowers started to blossom 3 days ago yellow finch birds are already investigating. I see 1 butterfly already and several honey bees. We have 2 ripe tomatoes for dinner this evening. Wife said, this is really cool to have celery in the garden.

[applestar]

Corn grows 2nd and 3rd circles of roots up the stem so I think they’ll happily send out support roots.

Loki g at that photo — you wouldn’t know they had fallen over after the way you packed them to stand back up.

All the work you did/are doing with the strawberries are paying off! Are preserving them yet or are you eating them all?

I’m only getting enough for everybody to snack on, but we do end up with a few left each day, so they go in the freezer and get thrown into smoothies.

[Gary350]

Corn grows 2nd and 3rd circles of roots up the stem so I think they’ll happily send out support roots.

Loki g at that photo — you wouldn’t know they had fallen over after the way you packed them to stand back up.

All the work you did/are doing with the strawberries are paying off! Are preserving them yet or are you eating them all?

I’m only getting enough for everybody to snack on, but we do end up with a few left each day, so they go in the freezer and get thrown into smoothies.

So far we have saved no strawberries. We eat them all. Wife leaves berries on kitchen counter top 24 hours to ripen then cut off green tops & bad places. Then sliced berries go into refrigerator 24 hours before eating them. They are sweet & juicy after being in the frig.

That is good to know about corn I was wondering how am I going to get fertilizer on the roots.

[Gary350]

6 pm I was almost finished picking strawberries when it started to rain. 82° rain feels good, I kept picking until finished. I am hot, wet clothes feel good. We have 1/2 gallon plus 1 cup of strawberries.

We made chicken salad and potato salad for lunch with our celery & onions. I picked 3 ripe tomatoes today and 2 ripe tomatoes 3 days ago.

[imafan26]

Those strawberries look good. It makes me hungry for strawberry pie.

[Gary350]

6 am I was in the garden before birds see there is no net covering up ripe berries. I cut about 50 wooden steaks .312" x .312" square about 2 ft long to hold net in place 20 minute job. This will make it much easier to see and to pick ripe strawberries. It will be a nightmare to make all the new runners go east 3 ft. Several runners already grew roots on the west side so I dug then up, they are still attached to the mother plants. I have a lot of runners turned around going east but can't pull them very far it might kink or break the runners. I will give runners 1 day to get use to being bent then maybe I pull them farther east. 2' long stakes will be easier on my back than short stakes but long stakes will probably give me trouble trying to pick ripe berries. Wait and see maybe I will need to cut stakes shorter.

[Gary350]

I dug up 3 potato plants and got 3 lbs 3 oz new potatoes.

We started getting ripe tomatoes June 13.

[Gary350]

I have been beating myself up for 45 year for not being able to grow a good crop of TN new potatoes like we grew in Illinois. About 30 people on the TN garden forum claim I have an excellent new potato crop. Grow 1 lb of seed potatoes and get 8 lbs of new potatoes is excellent. We had no scales 60 years ago but I remember hauling 7 wheel barrels full of new potatoes to the root cellar. Potato bed about 3 ft by 40 ft grew enough potatoes to feed 26 people.

Seed potatoes should weigh 2 oz each. If 2 oz is up or down a little then harvest will be up or down also but will average out to 8:1 ratio = l lb will grow 8 lbs.

Pictures show a 2 oz seed potato and a 1 lb harvest. This is suppose to be good but it still seems terrible from my 60 year old memory.

I found a YouTube video of a man that grows lots of potatoes. He says, you can not plant a 1 lb potato and grow 8 lbs of new potatoes unless you cut the 1 lb potato into several pieces to grow several plants.

[pepperhead212]

Don't you cut the seed potatoes into pieces, making sure each piece includes an "eye"? That was always what I was told to do. But then, I don't grow them anymore, since they attracted some bugs that decimated some of my other crops, while they were hardly bothered - they just kept attracting more beetles!

Sorry to hear about that disease your potatoes got. Have you come up with something that got it under control, and does it seem that any variety is more prone?

[Gary350]

Don't you cut the seed potatoes into pieces, making sure each piece includes an "eye"? That was always what I was told to do. But then, I don't grow them anymore, since they attracted some bugs that decimated some of my other crops, while they were hardly bothered - they just kept attracting more beetles!

Sorry to hear about that disease your potatoes got. Have you come up with something that got it under control, and does it seem that any variety is more prone?

I use some of these years new potatoes as seed potatoes for next year. I like golf ball size potatoes with 1 eye. Ping pong ball and 1" potatoes with 1 eye grow good crop of potatoes too. When I buy grocery store potatoes 5 lb bags have smaller potatoes than 10 lb bags. I want the smaller potatoes for seed potatoes. I cut seed potatoes to get 1 eye on each cutting. 1 eye will fork several times to make, 6, 7, 8, stems. It looks like several plants growing up from each seed potato.

No Blight. Potato crop only has 3 more weeks until harvest time. Leaves are slowly dying. Stems still look good.

[Gary350]

Warm weather thunder storms are fun, lightning flash boom, flash boom, flash boom, flash boom, flash boom, and the house shakes each time, one thunder storm after the other all day every day. We already have more rain today than yesterday. Red Norland potatoes are a 120 day crop about 10 more days they will be finished growing. All this rain might be perfect timing to grow larger potatoes. I have never seen storms like this sometimes 15 minutes apart and sometimes 2 hours apart. Weather radar shows 100s of storms spinning in a circle 300 miles across. I think maybe I won't pick strawberries today.

[Gary350]

I picked a very fast quart of strawberries in the rain. If I could have crawled in the mud and searched the plants I probably could have found more berries. Some of the berries are very large.

Blackberries are starting to get ripe. Let birds and deer eat them for now. Once plants start producing 1 quart every day then I will pick them.

[imafan26]

Your weather changes so drastically. It must have rained a lot to make all the puddles in the garden.

[Gary350]

Your weather changes so drastically. It must have rained a lot to make all the puddles in the garden.

It has been raining 4 days. The rain helps me to know where high & low places are in the garden. Next time garden soil is dry I can till then rake dry soil from high places to low places. Buckets under the roof edge keep filling up with water. Soil is so rain soft weeds & nut grass pull up very easy with a blob of soil in the roots. I have been putting weeds & grass in the water buckets to collect the soil from the roots. When garden soil is dry I can pour soil from buckets into the low places. Moles have made volcano soil mounts all over the yard I collect that soil to fill in low places. I took several pictures of water standing in garden so I know the low & high places. This picture shows ripe melons will be setting in water when it rains if I don't do something about it.

[Gary350]

No rain this morning. Wife wants 5 stalks of celery or something = to 5 stalks. I put on my mud shoes it must have rained all night 5 gallon buckets are full. Everything in the garden is covered with splashed mud so I washed celery in rain water buckets. Next wife wants onions so I pulled up several small red onions and washed them in rain water buckets. Wife has her foot up it is hurting her today. I sliced the tear gas onions they burn my eyes. Peppers are getting large and covered in splashed mud. We have mild Mexican chilies for Enchilada sauce & Sweet Carman peppers. Zinnia flowers look good but my saved seeds have no yellow and only 1 orange flowers. I miss yellow and orange colors too late to start over but I can plant more Zinnia where red onions are. Tomato plants are loaded with very large green tomatoes, this mild weather and rain every day seems to be what tomato plants like. I hear thunder it might rain again. There are lots of honey bees on Zinnia flowers today but no butterflies yet.

[Gary350]

Today I am trying something new that I saw on YouTube. Last week I bought 10 lbs of yellow potatoes at the grocery store. I put 47 potatoes in a garden row in full sun all day with the eye end of the potato pointing up. After 1 week in the sun potato eyes are starting to grow green plants. Today I cover up 9 lbs of grocery store potatoes with 2" of soil. I will fertilize later. New potatoes grow out not up, after plants are 8" tall mulch with, straw, dead grass, dry dead tree leaves, pine needles, what ever you have. Today is June 22 clock starts ticking today.

[Gary350]

Todays strawberries & yesterdays strawberries makes a total of 8 gallons of strawberries.

[Gary350]

Severe storms forecast today about 1 pm, I was in the garden at 7:30 am to get a few things done before it rains. Strawberry plants are not hard work, new runners need to go in the correct directions to make them be about 6" from other plants. I use plastic, spoons, forks, knives, to hold runners in place. After it rains a squirt water bottle needs to be used to squirt dirt out of tiny runner plants other wise they die. I crawled on my hands & knees around both strawberries beds. Plants neighbor John gave me are still making ripe berries, the Allstar plants are making runners.

Wife wanted celery and 2 ripe tomatoes. We have been getting ripe tomatoes sense June 13. We can not decide which taste best, Celebrity or Big Beef. 1 day celebrity tastes best, next day Big Beef is best, next day celebrity, next day Big Beef. LOL.

I crawled through the corn rows to give plants nitrogen before rain comes & pulled off the tillers. There are 9 volunteer potato plants in the corn rows. There are volunteer potatoes all over the garden. Channel 2 says 70 mph wind storms and channel 4 says 60 mph wind. I hope corn is not smashed flat like last summer 5 ft tall stalks are not easy to stand up and won't stay up again. Corn makes enough shade there are no weeds.

50% of the beans did not germinate so I replanted seeds in the blank places. Melon vines are growing very fast I rake vines in a clock wide circle. We are not picking ripe green peppers yet we are waiting for them to turn Red. Blackberrys have been ripe for 5 days but I am not excited at all birds can eat them for a while. I pulled up all the red onions they all bolted there were only about 20 golf balls size onions. Zinnias are planted were red onions were.

I hope storms bypass us. We had a week of rain, we don't need more rain yet. When temps are in the 90s soil will be desert in a week.

[Gary350]

There are 29 green tomatoes on this plant counting tomatoes on the other side. I don't recall ever having more than 20 tomatoes on the same tomato plant. May was 65° to 70° and June has been 70° to 77° most of the time. June is usually desert with about 1" of rain the whole month. Plant food is about 2 teaspoons of 6-12-12 every Sunday evening & about 1 tablespoon of calcium = wood ash every Sunday evening. Water plants every evening about 1 quart for every plant. There are 16 tomato plants loaded with tomatoes 15 to 22 on each plant. I think the unusual cool wet weather made a better crop of tomatoes.

I also have an unusual good crop of sweet bell peppers that I never have in June.

[Gary350]

This is how I keep strawberry runners out of the mud when it rains. If runners don't tough soil it keeps growing longer. I have some runners 22" long, I am trying prevent a group of plants from growing too close to the mother plants. I also need to make all the runners grow east the bed needs to be 38" wide. Soon as runner is long enough I remove fork and start watering the runner they grow roots over night, it takes 3 days for 1" long roots to hold new plants where I want them to grow. Roots grow fast about 3/8" over night.

[applestar]

Great use for plastic forks!

And those green tomatoes! You’re gonna be busy this summer

[Gary350]

I have not tilled any part of garden in a month, grass has slowly been creeping into the the border around the whole garden. I can never remember what this wire grass is called, it grows like vines and grows roots every 2" as it grows longer. I have to till slow and deep to till that vine grass up and it wraps around the tiller blades like a bunch or rope. I tilled a border all the way around the garden then turn around and till all the way back. I am glad to have that done before it gets to hot later day.

Doves in front of the house have an empty nest. Robins on patio have empty nest too. After lunch I am putting on swim suit then set in lawn chair and spray myself with water hose to cool off and pretend I am 7 years old again. LOL. It is going to be hot Thur to Sat.

Severe storms by passed us we got no rain at all. Garden soil gets dry as desert very fast in 90+ heat. I wish it would rain. Soil is still algae green in a few places from a week of rain a week ago. I should have tilled soil between the rows, loose dry surface soil acts like mulch to prevent soil below from drying up.

[Gary350]

6 pm I moved irrigation pipe from potato bed to 4 rows of corn. I gave corn 120 gallons of water, it does not look like much water. Garden needs 2" of rain.

[Gary350]

There are a lot of green tomatoes on these plants. Soon there will be tomato explosion with too many ripe tomatoes. 1 or 2 ripe tomatoes every day is perfect.

[Gary350]

I keep getting ripe deformed tomatoes. What causes that?

Thai Basil have purple flowers it looks nice in garden.

[imafan26]

Catfacing. It is physiological disorder caused by cool temperatures below 50 degrees after transplanting.
https://extension.umd.edu/resource/catfacing-tomatoes

[Gary350]

After lunch before storms arrive I dig up 1 potato plant just to see how much 1 plant produced. 13.7 lbs from a 2 oz cutting. Most people around here compare lbs to lbs. 2 oz produced 13.7 oz, 1 lb to 10 lbs is average. I still think I am comparing apples to watermelons.

Tornado warnings started about 10 am it was still sunny and nice. 1:30 pm storm is here. Garden is flooded good, I could not do this with the water hose in 24 hours. Rain gauge shows about 3" of rain in 45 minutes. No hail. Corn is a mess. I'm not sure I can stand up 5 ft tall corn it will not usually stay up when it gets this tall and heavy. I wish I had taken a picture of how nice corn looked at 12 noon. Garden was very dry it needed this rain.

[Gary350]

I tried to see what I can do to stand corn up. Roots are broken off on 1 side. Mud needs to dry up several days my shoes are stuck in the mud. Weather forecast 7 more days of rain.

[applestar]

What a bummer! I’ve heard that corn starts to pick themselves back up, but if yours is close to silking they need to be up in the air.

I’ve only ever dealt with maybe 1/5 or 1/6 of your row at a time, but in the past, I’ve tied them back up with baling twine — to each other, as well as to bunched together and then tied on the opposite side to ground stakes and fence posts.

Some bent/kinked ones that weren’t completely broken got splinted with bamboo poles and duct tape….

I’m eyeing that chain link fence rail as a possible anchor point for ropes and twines.

The corn stalks will be too heavy to pick up while wet and saturated, but the tops of ones laying down will have turned upwards by morning or within a day or two… so that once picked up, they’ll be pointing sideways.

Hope you figure something out, and the weather will give you a break and let you get it done.

[Gary350]

What a bummer! I’ve heard that corn starts to pick themselves back up, but if yours is close to silking they need to be up in the air.

I’ve only ever dealt with maybe 1/5 or 1/6 of your row at a time, but in the past, I’ve tied them back up with baling twine — to each other, as well as to bunched together and then tied on the opposite side to ground stakes and fence posts.

Some bent/kinked ones that weren’t completely broken got splinted with bamboo poles and duct tape….

I’m eyeing that chain link fence rail as a possible anchor point for ropes and twines.

The corn stalks will be too heavy to pick up while wet and saturated, but the tops of ones laying down will have turned upwards by morning or within a day or two… so that once picked up, they’ll be pointing sideways.

Hope you figure something out, and the weather will give you a break and let you get it done.

I will check mud tomorrow morning. If mud is still sticky I will have to wait. First thing I want to try is to shovel soil up around the stalks to see if they will stay up like I did when plants were small. This morning I see plants are 6' tall and several plants have tassels. 2 more weeks ears will have silks, Aug 1st is harvest day. You mention bamboo that gives me an idea if soil will not hold up the stalks. Chain link fence 32" away gives me another idea. I have a lot of lumber that could be cut to bamboo size 8 ft long.

[Gary350]

I went to the garden about 8:30 am mud is still sticky enough that once I pack a hand full of mud on a corn plant mud is stuck to my hand and will not come off. I decided all this corn is going to stand up again even if I damage them or kill them. I though corn had broken roots but those stubby roots are new roots trying to grow down to the soil. I finally got row 1 to stand up almost straight. Corn stalks laying down all night are now bent banana shape.

About 12 noon I had row 2 standing up almost straight.

About 1 pm I stood up row 3.

About 2 pm I stood up row 4. It is 98° now. I keep spraying myself with water hose to remove mud it feels good.

Corn is up. I hope no more rain today.

[Gary350]

Wow we just had another unreal amazing storm wind & rain. It was dark the entire time it stormed. Tomorrow when sun comes up I get to see if corn was blown down again. We have a whole week of storms in the forecast. This is crazy TN weather it never rains like this in summer.

Look at this farmers field photo.

[Gary350]

I dug up 121 lbs new potatoes. Plants were dead, soil is soft from many days of rain.

I pulled up some dead plants and was very surprised to learn Red new potatoes pull up with the plants. White new potatoes will not pull up with the plants.

Investigation shows white potatoes grow around seed potato like spokes on a wheel. Red potatoes grow in a bundle around the seed potato. With all the Red potatoes in a small bundle there is less soil to lift up. I would have never guessed this with out seeing it.

Both potatoes are a 3 month crop.
68 lbs of Red Norland new potatoes.
53 lbs of white Kennebec new potatoes.
121 lbs total new potatoes.

[imafan26]

90 mph is hurricane force wind speeds.

[Gary350]

Tomatoes R getting ripe 2 fast 2 eat.

[Gary350]

Ripe tomatoes are coming too quick wife is going to start freezing them today. I gave a grocery bag of tomatoes to the neighbor. We cooked General Toi Chicken 5 times to use sweet peppers & onions. Carman Peppers are great they grow much better in TN hot weather than bells peppers and pepper flavor is much better than bell peppers. Yesterday I planted all the seeds from 1 carman pepper to see how many plants grow. I might plant a 30 ft row of carman peppers where potatoes were.

[Gary350]

I got tired of picking strawberries so I stopped. Plants have lots of berries birds can't see too many leaves. So I picked them about 1 quart.

I picked 1/2 gallon of blackberries this morning.

Potato are clean and on the potato table.