re: 2019 Garden Thread

I gotta say that the Carmen peppers are the most versatile peppers I’ve ever eaten. They’re great for stuffing because they’ve got decently thick walls. They taste almost as sweet as the Jimmy Nardellos. It’s likr a bell pepper, just longer. The plants also produce a lot of peppers per plant. I didn’t top them FWIW.

I’ve heard that Marconi peppers are similar but the walls are a bit thicker. I suppose I’ll find out this spring.

Pillage, it isn't necessary to plant your okra in early spring if you have room to plant other things. Okra grows well in the middle of the summer even in LA heat.

I grew a lot of different heirlooms this fall and the plants are just about done, but I'm getting quite a few tomatoes off each plant. I put all of them in 5 gallon buckets. Some did better than others. My kale is almost all eaten up. My cauliflower is filling out nicely and I should be harvesting them in a couple weeks. Carrots are doing well, but my soil may have been a little hard for some of the carrots because they are growing deformed and not long like traditional carrots, but they still taste sweet. I have a couple romas and better boys in the above ground beds that aren't really doing anything. They have a good bit of fruit, but they aren't growing. I may just pick the fruit and let them ripen on the window sill and pull the plants. I had some hard neck and soft neck garlic growing that I planted at the beginning of December. It's doing well. I also have about 60 onion sets that are growing slowly, but are healthy.

I really haven't decided what I'm going to grow this spring. I'm definitely going to grow a few cucumber plants, I'm deciding on either growing a carolina reaper or ghost pepper plant this spring. A buddy grew ghost peppers and his hot sauce came out awesome believe it or not. I'll plant a few bell pepper plants, mixed variety of herbs again. I'll probably grow some more romas, celebrity, creoles, as well as the heirlooms that did well.

Black zebra tomato

Kale

Garlic

Young cauliflower

I have a Carmen plant in the garden now that is still producing. It has frozen here probably 5 times. I just threw some visqueen over it and it's still making yummy peppers.

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Would April be considered too early?

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I usually plant okra in April, but I have a good size garden. Okra will grow well into September/October in S.E. Louisiana and produces very well when it is nasty hot. So you can plant it later if you want.

Another great thing about okra is it is heat and drought tolerant. When most other things are fading fast in my garden in July/August, okra is thriving. You really can't abuse it enough to kill it and the only way they stop growing in my garden is when I pull the plants.

Oh, and speaking of pulling them, be prepared for some pretty serious work when you go to remove them. My okra plants often have 3" or more round stalks at ground level.

I did a raised garden this past year and was amazed at the amount of produce we got.

We cleaned out the chicken coup and put all those shaving and crap in there.
The garden was a U shape with the long side 10ft and 4ft wide on the legs.

On one leg we had okra another we had 4 tomato plants.
Back side was squash.

I’ll try to find a pic

Like gumbo said, good advice. When I do plant okra, it’s usually in May. Another tip is when your okra is growing, it will literally double in size overnight and be too tough so when they are eating size, go ahead and pull them. Wait till the next day and it may be too big

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Winter garden is just starting to come in

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My banana peppers are still producing from this summer. Hasn’t gotten below 30 degrees yet here.

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I want to try corn this spring. Does it pollinate well if I do it myself or will I be wasting my time? I know it's a wind pollinator and I don't have a large garden but I was going to try and pollinate them myself.

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You’ll be fine. The amount of pollen produced versus the kernel count is plenty... Usually, the biggest obstacle in corn pollination can’t be controlled. If it sets in and rains for a week and is funky during pollination, you’ll have a few blanks, but probably still won’t be too bad.

Also, be careful with your spacing and planting depth. Plant it deep for stalk and root strength and don’t plant it too close. You’ll have them competing for nutrients and might run into lodging problems.

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So I'm working on plans for my summer garden now. If it would stop raining,

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Rain this year has been a bitch for gardeners. Every time it starts to dry out a bit and I can start pulling rows, it rains again.

I was in my garden today picking several varieties of salad greens and I was up to my ankles in mud. My cabbages are huge, cauliflower are a good 10 inches across, broccoli heads are forming nicely, collards are producing all the leaves I need for smothered greens and my habanero pepper plants are still producing good numbers.

I've only got a bit more than 1/2 of my garden planted but it's been so wet I can't get out to plant the rest.

As for a good size garden, just plant the size you can maintain easily. I'm retired, so I can actually have a much larger one than I have, but I don't have the room in my back yard for much more than what's already there.

Start your seeds in January for the spring/summer stuff like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants. I find a lot of stuff does better directly sown in the garden like cucumbers, beans, salad greens, okra, soybeans for edamame, etc.

If you want some salad greens, plant them now if you have room and they will produce all winter long and into the spring but do bolt when it heats up to about 85 during the day. If you like spinach, try Swiss chard as an alternative since it grown much larger, can tolerate heat and makes a great spinach substitute.

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Clemson Spineless, can’t beat it.

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That's my go-to for okra. Heavy producers, fast growers----once they pass 3 feet or so that is, and heat and drought tolerant to the point of being ridiculous.