re: 2024 Spring Garden Thread

I hope everyone fared well today with the bad weather this morning. We had a tornado pass through the northern portion of my neighborhood. Luckily property damage was minimal. I was at work and my wife and kids were at home. I lost contact with them for over an hour and was a nervous wreck. They were hunkered down in the bathtub in my kids bathroom. We were without power for almost 12 hours. But praise be to God they are ok!

I made sure to tie up as much as I could in the garden yesterday. Had some branches break off of some of the tomato plants. But everything survived except for one sunflower.

Sorry to hear that buddy. That makes for a stressful day. We got absolutely dumped on here in Covington, but thankfully no tornadoes. I heard Slidell got it pretty bad but honestly I was so busy at work today I didn’t really have time to read about what went on over there.

My garden made it out fine. Cilantro plant blew over a little, but it looks like everything else did okay. My cucumbers are starting to climb. Will try to take some updated photos this weekend.

Here are some update photos of my situation:

Tomatoes on the Florida weave. L-R, sungold, sweet million, big beef>



Little big beefs:



Opposite side Florida weave. R-L, chocolate sprinkles, cherokee purple, big beef:



Dwarfs. R-L Fred's tie dye, wild fred, arctic rose (I think).



Peppers. Cucumbers on the front right. Cantaloupes on the back right:



Little Gypsy pepper:



Tromboncino squash in the front left, watermelons in back left. Tiger zucchini and Zephyr squash over on the right in the cages:



Here's a good comparison of a topped pepper plant v. a non-topped pepper plant. These plants are both Carmens. The plant on the left was topped when it had 6 true leaves as a seedling. The plant on the right was not topped. The plant on the left probably has 10-12 flowers on it. The one on the right has 4. I expect the one on the right will make bigger peppers, but the one on the left will make a lot more. Carmens are about as big of a fruiting plant that I like to top. I find if you top bell peppers or the larger bull horn varieties, the fruit size suffers too much. I top all of my smaller fruiting varieties.



Topped:



Not topped:

Blue when did you plant out? Everything is huge and beautiful!

About the same here, I was a week later probably. Mine just aren’t as full and big yet. Started fertilizing yet? I put out calcium nitrate last weekend, first fertilizer after planting.

anyone hear of or use the "back to eden" gardening method? basically its no till, but instead of using hay you use wood chips. i just came across it from a FB gardening group and it makes sense, but not sure if it would work in south La with the amount of moisture we get. the mulch in my garden bed tends to mold over, but i guess technically if i was out there tending to it daily like my veggie garden i could turn the top layer of wood chips so it doesnt do that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rPPUmStKQ4

i was thinking of getting pine straw, where do you get it? i never see it at the box stores. i only really need enough to cover an 8' X 4' area so i guess it wouldnt be that much.

I sort of do that. Pretty much no-till with chopped leaves and/or grass clippings. I use stuff that breaks down slowly like oak leaves in the pathways. I also use thin cardboard or brown paper on the bed to stop weeds, with chopped leaves or clippings on top. Idea is to build soil health. I broadfork to help with compaction.

The Brussels Sprouts I planted last year are actually starting to show the sprouts. I'll let them keep going and see what happens.