What Did You Do In The Garden?

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

my garden had been on hold till i got my pond completed & just yesterday i ran to a couple of my favorite stops & got some 1/2 priced plants! spent $10.50 for about 20 tomato & pepper plants from one local organic grower. i may run & get some more heirlooms from them next weekend depending on the space left. ran to Leap Frog Farms intending to get some pond plants but instead spent about 1 1/2 hr just enjoying looking at all the stuff she has & talking/helping a few of the other people look for the plants they wanted. (not organized but i love going to Freya's just to see the interesting stuff she sells, always find good stuff) spent about $60 & got lots of freebies for plants while getting 1 plant for the pond-Marshmallow.

then on to the big greenhouse to see if they had pond plants left-not much. did get a nice pot of Taro that i have to re-pot for pond use. buy one get one free on annuals & veggie packs so bought a couple snap dragons pack & got some nice habanero peppers that are in bloom in those tiny packs! also grabbed an oxheart tomato. don't know why no one around here seems to grow oxhearts except me. their loss....my gain!

i have some volunteer tomatoes, potatoes, a few onions & garlic i had started from seed last year that came back for this year so i am not without a few of my own started plants. i had started some melons, cukes & some other plants but they never got moved out to the ground till this weekend. boy am i really behind the 8 ball this year.

 

[Jared77]

I went out and cussed at the bush beans. I've tried being nice, I've begged, pleaded, sweet talked, and even threatened them to germinate. Nope. 50' row of Blue Lake bush beans from a very reputable seed company who I regularly use and I've got 4 plants in that row. It wasn't like they started and failed they just failed to germinate. Soaked them like I do my poles followed planting guidelines and just fell flat on its face.

My Kentucky Wonder poles as well as purple poles from the same seed company are doing great. Next year I'll do Kentucky Wonder bush beans and Kentucky Wonder pole so I'll have a row of both a bush & pole like I had planned this year. I did Blue Lake bush because that's what the seed company had and wanted to just place one order.

Since this happened I'm going to try fall peas in their place. Never tried them before so we'll give it a shot. Otherwise I've got a 50' row of bare dirt.

 

[majorcatfish]

sorry to hear about your bush beans @Jared77 so you know my first planting was a flop as well, second planting was dismal think we got enough for a canner.
the third planting has been good, planted them on a sunday before going to conover instructed the dw that they need to be watered every day she did good..
usually plant blue lake pole beans this year trying out fortex pole beans so far happy with them. the blue lake will grow 7-9' tall so i always get a knotted mess on top with poor pollination , the fortex beans grow to around 7' so far no top mess... but jp beetles have been munching away the tops..

 

[seedcorn]

@Jared77 I had to plant my green beans 3X but we are now eating them.

My favorite is Roma II. Love flavor, stringless and huge beans so you don't have to pick many for a mess. Plus strong germinaters.

I weeded all day long. Between being gone and rain, rain, and rain, weeds got a strong hold. But I won, weeds pulled....

 

[Jared77]

Thanks for the info. I've never had an issue with beans before I've always gotten strong germination in the past.

This was my first go round with bush beans since I'd always been concerned about critters eating the blossoms off. Besides we normally were not trying to can a lot of them anyway so poles only was enough to keep us in them.

Poles always pop up and take off for me. Live and learn I guess

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I also had to add bush beans in rows where hardly anything came up. They seem to be find now, but was disappointed and shocked since I usually have no trouble with beans.

 

[ducks4you]

So far today I went to DD's house and got the rest of the shade/partial shade annuals in the south bed. It's about 20' x 20', more or less. Almost all of the potatoes that I planted as filler are up and one foot tall. ALL of the hostas that were shipped to me are doing great along with two bleeding hearts. The columbines I was shipped are also looking great! The salvia are sending up extra shoots and the begonias and impatiens are starting to spread out. The polka dot plants look excellent, but I don't think they are gonna get very big. Never grew them before.
I put one of my Mortgage Lifter tomatoes that I started in a big, tree pot and I added two basil in the same pot. I had a couple of metal weave pieces for climbers as support. I buried two tomatoes to the bottom of the pots. UNfortunately, one of the tree pots doesn't drain and I lost a tomato. So...I planted the spare one, which had been growing roots in a painter's bucket with water into that pot to replace it, BUT I only planted it 4 inches deep, with the roots trailing but also 4 inches deep. HOPEFULLY, the rain will stop soon and nobody will have to water THAT one the rest of the summer.
After a break I will be weeding heavy in MY yard. We had that perfect drenching rain all day yesterday, and this afternoon we had one hour of light drizzle. That would be great, if we hadn't gotten about 6 inches more rain in the last 30 days that we really need.
BUT, when it's wet many weeds come right out of the ground. Hope springs eternal.

 

[majorcatfish]

@Jared77 think my failure on my early planting of beans was that i was jumping the gun on the soil temperature. just looked at the package it states to sow when soil temperature reaches 60* and thats all it says, when i go to my books it says the same thing.. but when i read further it clearly says germination soil temperature 75-80*. would guess that if you plant at "60*" and it stays cool for an extend amount of time the beans will not sprout or sprout poorly as we have learned this year.
so next year i will wait out the cooler weather before planting my beans..

 

[Beekissed]

Suckered maters and fed epsom salts.

 

[digitS']

I did something today I don't remember having ever done with the bush beans. I gave them a second dose of fertilizer ...

They were mostly emerging when we had the early-June records, in the 90's. When that cold weather hit in mid-June, some of them died! I've got bean plants that are flowering and some that look like they just came up a week ago. Even those flowering are small plants.

It's just an organic 5-5-5 fertilizer. I also got more of it on the melons. I'll post a picture of what that cold weather did to my Yellow Dolls on the what looks best thread ... to contrast that plant with everything else .

Steve