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I'm new to gardening, which I happened upon by accident and has since become my new hobby. It's relaxing and satisfying to know that something is thriving in your care that you won't have to take their blood pressure twice a day, watch their diet, give them meds, show them how to put their own dentures in or listen to them scream.
I decided I was going to try- to save money because littlest "puppy" has a voracious healthy appetite...and I'm tired of paying for moldy, bruised and dinged fruits and vegetables.

I have garden ang grow veggies to make Salsa. Last year was a bust with the extreme heat. Hope this summer will be better if I can keep my damn puppy out of there.

I try to grow some basic veggies, such as tomatoes, peppers, cukes. Last year I had a couple of good pumpkins, not sure I'll bother with those this year.

This year is also supposed to be really bad here for the invading asian stinkbugs, so I am not confident of reaping a bountiful harvest

Cool! My question is this. Do tomatoes need full sun and a lot of water? So far I have roma tomato, green onion, mini carrot and squash pumpkin and everything gets sun and watered twice a day, but the only thing growing like crazy is the squash pumpkin. It's insane how much this thing grows in a day...it's gotta go in the yard soon with a trellis!

I'm not the best gardener to ask, I typically water only when things start to look wilted. Tomato plants can stand full sun, don't know if they need it. There seem to be some forums with threads about Hawaii tomatoes, check out http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/higard/

Here on the right side of the mainland, pumpkins usually mature after 3-4 months, so I usually don't plant them until later, try to time them to be done in time for Halloween, but not so much earlier that they'll rot before then

Salsa Guy wrote:I have garden and grow veggies to make Salsa.

I would have expected no less from someone with your username

Watering any veggie twice a day is a bit much. You should only water in the early morning for best results (keeps fungus and diseases from growing). One year I couldn't figure out why my pepper plants were turning yellow and not producing, found out that they were over watered. I cut back and they come back great.

This thread is relative to my interests

I joined up with http://www.helpfulgardener.com/phpBB2/ this year and it's been pretty helpful. My tag there is "clutchrider". Last season for S&G's I wanted to see if I could grow corn, so I dug out the grass, did the soil, manure, and tilling; and ended up with over 24 stalks that were 8' high and almost 50 ears of corn.





This year I got more adventurous and from seed am doing 3 kinds of lettuce, onions, peppers, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, and broccoli rabe. I expanded the garden and gave it a better perimeter fence.




Onions and lettuce are in and I added a drip irrigation system as well


And I setup two pots for herbs. I have Oregano, Cilantro, Parsely, Basil, and Mint.


So far I think the lettuce and onion seeds may have washed away with the heavy rains we have gotten so I may have to reseed. My pepper plants are 2-3" tall in the house (going outside this weekend), and my Oregano and Basil has sprouted.

Just turned over the soil here in northern Ohio last week. Will add the winter's compost and till it up the weekend before Memorial Day. Can't plant outside up here til then or things tend to get frosted. I always have rhubarb, tomatoes, peppers, and green beans. Last year I did cabbage. Never. Again. I couldn't keep the damn worms off of it! It was good tho... hmmm. In the past I've done cucs, pumpkins, squash, potatoes, carrots, onions... but this house is tricky due to the deer eating everything! It makes for a much smaller garden area than I would like and I've had to reel in how much I plant.

Can't wait! I do find gardening relaxing. Well, as long as the dog doesn't hop the fence and wreak havoc in the garden!

WOW...I'm jealous. Thank you. I water them in the morning, and when I check on them again in a few hours of being in the sun, the soil looks like the desert! Some are ready to be put in the yard, but I'm going to wait until after the termites in the house get gassed.
(just passing through real quick while studying for finals. Now back to Erikson!)

Sounds like your plants are in pots... try putting a bowl or pan or tray under them to give them access to extra water, like a reserve. Or next time, use bigger pots! But once you put them in the ground, you should be in better shape. I heard somewhere that it's best to water gardens at night (I do) and water the lawn in the morning (we don't water grass!). Something about the lawn bugs eating roots over night in the moist soil and garden plants needing the night to "recover" from the day's heat... who knows. Best of luck!

trtlflwrs wrote: I heard somewhere that it's best to water gardens at night

I usually hear that as part of water conservation. Less evaporation at night, more water to the plant, less to the air.


Yesterday went out to my garden and surprised a milk snake. Actually, I was the surprised one, it didn't seem to care. I was barefoot, and was about a foot away from it when I saw it. I recognized it as benign a second after I saw it, but in that one second, I had an unmanly reaction of which I am not proud

^ Don't worry. I won't tell anyone
Yep, I don't have a yard, so they're in sustainable peat pots with saucers under them. I was going to plant them in the yard of the other property, but it will be put up for sale soon.
So today I'm giving away most of my Roma tomatoes, squash pumpkin and green onions to my mother's church peeps.

While my carrots, onions and squash pumpkin are thriving, my oldest tomato has white spots on the leaves, and most of the young tomatoes have yellow leaves that are falling off. I'm not sure what is going on.

Salsa Guy wrote:Watering any veggie twice a day is a bit much. You should only water in the early morning for best results (keeps fungus and diseases from growing). One year I couldn't figure out why my pepper plants were turning yellow and not producing, found out that they were over watered. I cut back and they come back great.

This^ water in the morning before you go to work. It's cooler, and no matter how hot the sun gets later, everything gets soaked. If ou water middle of the day and it's hot, the droplets sitting on the fruit/leaves can act asps magnifying glasses and burn.

Ano, 808, welcome back. Ohisashiburi, desu ne

My garden is almost dead despite watering. It's been 100+ since the last week in June and now it's been 110+. The only thing that is producing is peppers and the fruit is very small but very good. One of the plants just died today for no real reason other than the weather.

Most of my Romas didn't make it but the oldest seems to be hanging on. Green onion OK. Squash Pumpkin OK and we ate all the carrots-moist, crunchy and very good.

I don't grow a lot. My soil here is rocky clay so I've switched to raised bed gardening.
I raise salad. Various Tomatoes, Green Peppers, cucumbers, various lettuces, red onions, horse radish, parsley, oregano, strawberries, water melon and pumpkins.
All of this grows amongst my patio area, it makes upkeep easy for I'm not having to go to a removed special garden place to weed or water, it's right here, in sight and in my mind!





Dave

^^WOW that really looks great! You may want to consider a drip watering system instead of the spinkler.

I have a container garden on my (rather large) condo balcony- three blueberry plants, two strawberry plants, two tomato plants, a stevia plant, and a large pot with mint, rosemary, basil, and oregano. All of them are growing like crazy. This doesn't include the non-edible plants all over the place- I seem to unintentionally have a green thumb!

So I was growing tomatoes in a raised bed. I got some, nothing big. The ones in the most sun did best. My father's tomatoes were bonkers. He has it down!

He fertilizes at the time of planting the seeds... He has a drip line about 8 inches below the surface(supposed to promote deep root growth).... The tomatoes get about 10-12 hours of sunlight....he is in LA and it was in the 80s most of the summer....

Here is the crazy part...He waters them once a week. He turns on the drip hose for about 4 hours and drenches them. Just once a week! He got loads of tomatoes and they were soooo delicious. One heirloom of his was pushing 2lbs!

I've started cantaloupes! Squeeeee

frosts here, so no more gardening for me until spring

Yep I've been working hard. 15 quarts of salsa and 2 quarts of Tomato Juice.