re: The 2021 Garden Thread

quote:

---

Current bed gets sun from 8AM till about 12:30PM. Another location would be full sun from 11:45 till about 5PM. Anything i should aim for one bed or the other?

---

Morning sun is better I'm sure, especially in summer. 4 hours is probably the min amount of direct sun needed.

Here is a link I used to for companion planting . LINK

quote:

---

Here is a link I used to for companion planting

---

That’s a great link. Added to the OP.

I’ll have to add one of those to my arsenal. Netting and pepper have little of no effect. They’ve destroyed my carrots. Hickory nuts all over yard, little bastards insist on carrying them to raised beds to bury. I’ll be happy when trees start budding.

You ordered them online? It doesn’t matter how many I kill. They just keep coming, they must frick like wild hogs.

Buddy in TX was using propane to kill the gophers. Looked like it would be entertaining to do.

quote:

---

Here is a link I used to for companion planting .

---

There was a great book published late last year on this subject-- Plant Partners: Science-based Companion Planting for the Vegetable Gardener by Jessica Walliser.

Really gets into all of the benefits of "companion planting", which is just one of many terms used to describe the concept of pairing different plants together to accomplish one or multiple objectives. Cover cropping is one such concept, but it goes further than just planting one when ground is "idle". I've planted cover crops right along side "cash crops" with good results.

The book is also great because it discusses the science behind specific pairings, like hairy vetch and tomatoes.

You made dumplings yet?

Yeah, I know it’s going to be an ongoing battle. They’re making my back yard look like the surface of the moon. I miss having outdoor cats.

My tomato seedlings are outgrowing their 3" pots already. I need to get them in the ground. I started these varieties from seed:

New big dwarf
Large barred boar
Pink Berkeley tie dye (didn't really like these last year so may replace with large barred boar)
Fred's tie dye
I also started Brad's atomic grape but for the second year in a row the seedlings just didn't really do well.

I'll add cherokee purple, big beef, and sungold/sweet million plants from the feed store.


I started the following peppers from seed, all of which are doing well:

Islander
Nikita
Big red
Carmen
Escamillo
Big jalapeno
Hot wax
Jimmy Nardello

I topped some of my peppers yesterday. I normally don't top the bell varieties.

I also started zucchini, squash, and cucumbers a week ago. Nearly 100% germination on all of those so that's cool.

This spring, I'm going with the Tiger zucchini variety that I've grown the past couple of springs. The vegetables look really cool and the plants do well for me. Instead of my normal yellow squash, I bought seeds for Zephyr squash, so we'll see how they do. Again, they just looked cool. I saw a mention of plant spacing on the other page. FYI, growing squash/zucchini in a tomato cage really helps with their footprint. I loosely follow the square foot method and I plant one plant per 4 sqft. Cage keeps them ruly and by the time they outgrow the cage, I'm over them anyway.

I'm going with sweet success cucumbers for my bigger variety cucumber and little leaf for my pickling variety. I normally have the Ukranian self-pollinating pickling cucumbers but my seeds got all mixed up so I'm going to give these a shot as an alternative.