re: 2020 Garden Thread

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Lotta work and definitely not saving money by growing and putting them up but it's a fun and rewarding hobby.

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Idk, man. When you consider how much a single cucumber plant produces, and what seed or even plants cost, it's not too bad. I haven't done the comparison on the pickles I've made, but on other canned goods, for the quality, the cost of doing it isn't bad at all.

Hell, I saw a local store was selling home grown tomatoes for $3/lb. I've picked 67 lbs of tomatoes so far this year from 8 plants; that's $200 worth of tomatoes at their price, and it cost me maybe $15 to grow those tomatoes.

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Initial start up cost is high depending on how big you go then after that you can save.

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Very true, but even then, the cost isn't terrible.

I did my first in-ground garden last year. I spent $110 and produced approximately 110 lbs of vegetables. It cost me $1/lb to grow that garden. No way could I have bought those vegetables at a farmer's market for that amount.

But, I'm going very low tech with it--no tillage, recycling a lot of things, starting my own seed, applying minimal fertilizer and pesticides, and pretty much doing everything by hand. And I can do that because I have about 400 sq ft that I'm growing on right now.

And like you, I just enjoy doing it, so cost doesn't matter too much to me (still have to make it reasonably cost efficient though).

My tomatoes look great

It seems like the hotter it gets, the more my creole tomatoes grow. They are thriving in this heat it seems. I’m past the point of being able to prune them back. I’ve got quite a bit of fresh fruit and blooms on them. I guess I’ll just let them keep going since they weren’t producing as much as they should have earlier.

I’m still waiting on my watermelon to start fruiting. Do they need hand pollination too?

My peppers, okra, and eggplant are all doing well. My Tabasco plants have fully recovered from being ripped apart from wind and have matured peppers and new ones on the fresh growth.

Satsumas are doing the best they ever have done, have a couple of ruby red the first year and my blackberry bush has given me a couple additional fruit. Next year it will be loaded with all the new growth it has thrown out this year.

I tried the pickle mix pillage posted and it is great. I added a couple of jalapeños and mashed a garlic clove in there.

I’m not a big fan of bread and butter pickles though.

Maybe I'm just getting lucky then.

I fertilized again today and noticed a ton of new blooms and zero yellowing. I planted a second variety (can't remember the name) and those are pretty much done at this point.

ACES.edu

Looks like for your area, this is the go to site for gardening, how LSUAg is for us.

I linked their Fall gardening articles but they have a ton of other good articles in the fruit & vegetable section as well.

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Could be seed source, too. Who knows?

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Maybe so, that sure would be nice. Where did you get yours from? Mine were from reimer seeds.

All of my Roma’s and Better Bush tomatoes are done. Pulled them yesterday. Early Girls still have a handful of tomatoes on each plant. But they’re almost done. Already pulled my cucumber plants cause they were done. And my beans are still producing, but they’re so infested with aphids and stink bugs I’m not sure it’s worth trying to keep them around. All of my pepper plants are still chugging along. The Carmen’s are looking a little rough, though.

This weekend I’m going to get some seed starter and sow my fall tomatoes in peat cups. I guess I’ll need to do some cleanup in the garden and start preparing for fall stuff.

St Landry Parish. Zone 9a. And not according to the LSU ag center.

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With fall-planted tomatoes, the strategy is to harvest a good crop before a killing frost takes your plants. Since soils are so warm, seeds can be directly seeded in the garden row. In north Louisiana, sow seeds the end of June or transplant in July. In south Louisiana, sow seeds by mid- July and transplant in August.

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LINK

I believe I started seeds around mid July last year from what I can remember. Was able to get a decent crop, but then we had a freeze in early November.