Anyone do the garden thing yet?

[Runner]

I am holding off until late next week to put the cabbage out. There is still a chance of a freeze over the next few nights which will certainly kill them. I am not worried about the frost on them. As for tomatoes and other plants, here in southern Ohio, its never a smart idea to plant them outside until at least the middle of May. Then THAT is not always safe as lost everything except for my cabbage over Memorial Day weekend with a killing frost a few years ago when I was out of town.

[carbon_dated]

Oh, it's just cabbage in the ground, got some tomatoes growing indoors (when I don't put them outside on picnic table) that are only 3" tall so I'll definitely wait 2 more weeks I'm sure. Radishes and onions are already in ground and growing. And yes, not quite in Guatamala. On the banks of the mighty Ohio River.

[caglewis]

The slow, steady, drizzly rain we got here in Ironton for most of the day Fri was great - maybe not quite enough to make up our moisture deficit, but still a nice little soak-in kind of rain.
Predicted more [needed] rain coming today/tomorrow, but a huge weather system with worrisome potential for strong storms, damaging winds, poss tornadoes.
My garden/yard loved the rain Fri. My grandson planted a newly purchased azalea bush in an empty gap out front for me with minimal effort [2 scoops] - the ground was so soft. My front yard SMELLED so good Fri - light rain falling, azalaeas in bloom, and my grass had just been cut.

[orange-n-brown 365]

I expanded my raised garden this year... can't wait to have more plants!!

[caglewis]

The rain we have received has been perfect! Slow, steady, drizzly rather than hard slashing storms. I don't have a functioning rain gauge at the moment, so I don't know how much we got total; but I think most of it has soaked straight into the ground rather than ran off.
And we absolutely dodged the horrendously high-wind tornadic storms that struck to our south.

P.S. - 4/27-28 - supposed to be a "freezy" night here in Ironton tonight. I have nothing planted in the ground yet, and I covered my 15 tomato and pepper plants sitting in good-sized pots on my covered/screened back porch with protective fabric to be safe. I really intended to plant them out on Friday or Saturday, but maybe I'll give it another week or so.

[caglewis]

And, once again, I planned to put my tomato and pepper plants in the ground tomorrow, but they're predicting a very chilly weekend with nighttime temps in the 30's the next few nights. So, again, I'm going to wait a few more days. My plants are doing so well in their good-sized pots sitting on my porch that I don't think I'm really "losing any time" by delaying putting them in the ground.
They're also predicting another line of strong storms coming our way mid-to-late week next week. We were a little low in the "April showers" dept - I guess May is making up the deficit.

[vids4ckcrash]

'taters are ready to bloom. Don't know how I will keep the bugs off though. John Mara says that the 'tater bugs have developed an immunity and now eat insecticide like ice cream. I know that last year Sevin did not work very well. So far this year, I have been knocking the bugs off into a can of water. But they will soon become too numerous. Potatoes went in the ground about the 20th of March. Missed St Patty because of wetnes but still had to mud them in. Twice during heavy frosts, I just covered them, the corn and the beans with old straw left over from the neighbor's fall decorations. Forgot to cover the grapes and hardy Kiwi and they may recover slightly. The Pawpaws didn't survive the frost very well either.

Corn is about 5 inches tall, blue lake beans are up, and some 'maters are blooming. I raised everything from seed this year and stuff did not germinate as it should have although I planted extra heavy to get some stuff in early. In the garden or in pots. Planted a 16 foot row of half runners 04-20 but they did not come up at all. But ......... I did not plant by the moon. When it dries a little more, I will put a few cucumbers, watermelon and my sweet plants in the garden. Last year, before I could sprinkle Safers or something on my sweet potatoes, the rabbits ate them to the ground. But hopefully this year with the stray cats around, rabbits won't be so plentiful.

Rhubarb has been deflowered and should be ready in a couple of weeks. Guess it will travel 3 doors up. I also have a little of the large garlic and it has also been deflowered. Stinky job, that.

Most of my gardening is for fun and relaxation as we no longer can or freeze very much.

[biggdowgg]

guy we are working for ,has been fighting them tater bugs for a while now, he puts the chemicals on to kill them,and it rains as soon as he does and washes it off ...he has been going throiugh them everyday hand picking them off and killing them

[Runner]

guy we are working for ,has been fighting them tater bugs for a while now, he puts the chemicals on to kill them,and it rains as soon as he does and washes it off ...he has been going throiugh them everyday hand picking them off and killing them

For some reason it seems like potato bugs get immune to many of the chemicals that are out today. They are not near as strong as they once were. If anyone uses Sevin Dust on their plants, they are just throwing their money away as potato bugs love that stuff and will get good and fat from it. The same goes for the tomato bugs.

I can remember my grandpa having problems with potato bugs early in the season. He would get the small coffee cans and fill each one with halfway up with gasoline and set one at each of the rows and two in the bulk in between each row. He would go through and hand pick the bugs off when they started to get bad and drop some in each can of gas and leave the lid off unless it was going to rain. The odor that it put off was not noticeable to people (except for the smell of gas), but the combination of the bugs and gas was toxic to the bugs. After doing it that one time, he did not have any trouble with them the rest of the year.

[biggdowgg]

guy we are working for ,has been fighting them tater bugs for a while now, he puts the chemicals on to kill them,and it rains as soon as he does and washes it off ...he has been going throiugh them everyday hand picking them off and killing them

Sounds like the turnip bugs when we were kids.....Of course, the farmer's shotgun put an end to those critters..

[caglewis]

I swear you could sit on my back porch and literally SEE my tomato and pepper plants GROW the last few weeks. Tomato plants have blooms now, but not the peppers yet. Radishes are very near to ripe and ready to eat! We, here in Ironton, have luckily received such nice gentle, needed rain recently - as opposed to the hard destructive storms that happened all around us.

[orange-n-brown 365]

I have lettuce and onions ready cucumbers blooming blooms on the tomato plants one tomato on peppers and cabbage growing i am so excited! Green Acres is the place for me Farm living is the life for me!!

[blue53]

thanks bro, i'll have to make extra for you.

[Tiger Lady]

green maters on the vine.......

[vids4ckcrash]

green maters on the vine.......

Well ya better check the vines. John Mara did a thing on the Colarado Potato Beetle today and mentioned that the beetle and/or larvae is also on Tomatoes. I noticed a couple of days back that the larva are on some of my tomatos.

I am trying BT to see if it will kill them. I have used BT (Dipel in powder form) for many years on cole plants. It does work very well for the cabbage looper. I have my fingers crossed. Only problem is that the Dipel I have is probably several years old and may no longer be effective.

I beat the bugs off my potatos with a stick but tomatos don't take very well to a little chatisement.

[caglewis]

I found the first tiny little green fruit on one of my tomato plants [which are 3' tall/wide now] Sunday, and my pepper plants [about 2' tall] have blooms on them finally. I check them all daily!

[ironmen1987]

With all this rain and heat i think the weeds may need staked before the tomato plants will..

[NorthernLight]

I've been eating tomato's, peppers & cucumbers for the last week out of the garden. It helps that I can get the garden in the 1st or 2nd week in April down here.

[d-5]

Green Beans in two days

[caglewis]

My small garden looks great! My tomato plants are nearly 4' tall and sporting many nearly-golf-ball sized fruits - my pepper plants are also flourishing -blooming profusely-, but haven't got as far as fruit/vegetable formation/development yet. I didn't have enough room for green beans. It just started to rain here in Ironton - hooray - I won't have to run up my water bill!