re: 2022 Spring Garden Thread

Pillage, what varieties of tomatoes are you planting? your raised beds are very nice!

I finally got around to transplanting my blueberry bush. It was in a smaller pot so I wanted to move it up a size. The pot was covered in ants though so I’ll be battling those for a bit.

I had a 2nd blueberry bush but it died after a drought and me not paying attention. I thought I had grabbed a tifblue at the store the other day to replace it but it ended up being a grape vine I grabbed by mistake. I planted it anyways just to see what will happen since my other blueberry doesn’t need an additional pollinator.

I got some strawberries planted as well and moved the one strawberry I already had up to the next sized pot. Lots of buds and flowers on it so they boys will be excited for that.

Since my compost pile won’t be ready to mix into the garden until summer or fall the next project will be getting just a couple bags of compost or soil conditioner to mix into the dirt to help break up that crappy arse fill dirt I put in last year. Lesson learned to get “top soil” from someone reputable. Haha

I laid 100ft of 3/4" sched 40 PVC with a line split off to each bed attached to a loop of soaker hose in each bed. I added a hose bib about 3/4s of the way down to add a garden hose for no specific reason. I buried the last third across the yard, into the beds. I plan on installing a timer to hose bib that connects to the WiFi to help keep track of how much and when on the watering. I had to figure out a way to stick a silicon chip into gardening somewhere. Lol

I'm most proud of getting everything watertight on the first attempt. Lol

I have a question for those with experience growing melons. I've only ever tried growing watermelon one time. And while I got a few decent melons out of it, I just remember it taking up a lot of valuable real estate that I didn't really have much of. So I never grew them again.

Enter present day where I specifically built big raised beds in order to grow stuff like this. I noticed on the planting instructions for the cantaloupe and watermelon seeds it says to sow 6-8 seeds per hill and thin down to 3 plants when they get a certain size. I've looked up the hill planting method and get a couple of different descriptions. One says that you should mound up the dirt and literally make a hill, another says not to do that because melons need lots of water and this could cause it to dry out too fast. Basically, sow seeds in a circle about a foot in diameter and thin to 3 plants "per hill". Is this what most of you do? Or do y'all do something different?

My boxes are 4' X 10', so that's 40 sq ft. I've read for most varieties you should give them about 60 sq ft to spread out. If they spill outside the boxes and run on the ground below, that's fine by me. I kind of expected that. I'm used to trellising vining plants, so this territory is not as familiar to me.

quote:

---

But know that raised beds are kind of like potted plants when it gets sunny and hot-----they dry out much quicker and will need more watering.

---

Good to note. I will be running drip irrigation to them soon and also plan to mulch.

quote:

---

The plants WILL spill out of that area and can make mowing more difficult around the raised beds.

---

That shouldn’t be too big of an issue. I will have to watch my step though.

quote:

---

For fewer, but larger melons, pinch off some of the early melons so more energy goes to making fewer melons per plant, but larger ones. You may also want to put something under the fruit as it grows to keep them from potential rot due to direct ground contact---straw, cardboard, etc. work well.

---

Also good info. Thanks. Appreciate the insight.

quote:

---

Have you ever grown summer squash before, as in zucchini and yellow crook neck varieties, and if so, how well did they do?

---

I have not. I’m not really a big fan of squash.

I did read about the potential vine borer problems. I’ll try to be vigilant and cross my fingers that I don’t have a problem with them. I don’t know how common it is, but I read that they sometimes lay their eggs on cucumber plants as well. I can tell you I’ve grown cucumbers for a long time and have never seen this.

I have successfully kept the vine borers at bay the last couple of years, but it's taken effort and comfort with using Sevin Dust. I put the dust in a turkey baster and I keep the vines of the plant consistently dusted. This typically requires me to dust about once per week depending on rain. This has gotten me through the entirety of the last two growing seasons with no borer casualties.

Have y'all ever tried one of these traps? Squash vine borer traps
Video

Seems like it could help.