Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: Rodney on August 10, 2004, 01:56:44 AM
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Dat's right, no, it's not an FOC post, not an FN post, not even fishing related actually! ;D
Something lighter to get the quiet ones participating. Are you an avid vegetable gardener?
Nina and I have been planting, whether we are successful or not.... ;D The zucchinis yielded very nicely as usual. Yesterday I just picked a gigantic lettuce. We got a whole bunch of tomato hanging off the vines. The cucumbers are... coming... The corn, looks kind of short. ::)
I'll post some photos later, let's hear about your harvest. ;D
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Oh wait until CasinoJim wakes up, finally someone else can listen to his gardening stories. ;D
RobertO
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We've been harvesting fresh lettuce since June, taking off a few leaves off of each plant each time. Peas are always a good reliable crop each year. Cherry tomatoes are now ripening too. Can't beat fresh vine ripened tomatoes. Everything grown without pesticides or herbicides.
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in the middle of building some 2' x6' planter boxes for my patio, for next years growing season. am going to plant garlic, chives, parsley and other culinary herbs.
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I always put in a garden even though we have a really small plot for gardening at our place in Oregon. I don't have room to plant corn, for instance. One of the things that surprised and impressed me about a trip through your neck of the woods was that people's gardens in both Vancouver and Bella Coola had very much the same things in them and were very much at the same stage as mine here.
I grew the best garlic ever this past year. It is great crop; you plant it in September, and then you have something growing out there all winter long, which makes for a good excuse to be out there puttering around during winter months. Yesterday I put away the onion crop (a couple of flats). I grew Walla Walla Sweets, and they also came out big and firm. Yesterday we also pulled most of the leeks and steamed steamed them and froze them to use in soup during the winter. Soon Violeta (my wife) will be doing the same with celery. We've gotten two crops of lettuce this year, and a third is on the way. I always let some lettuce go to seed, and in the spring there are always enough volunteers to get the first planting started. I didn't thin the beats, so we have a lot of small ones of those. I've had enough tomatoes to (just barely) keep me in BLTs, and the Long Keepers I planted look like they will do OK, but the tomatoes aren't going to be all that big. I planted a couple of egg-plants (I think perhaps you have a different name for these: auburgine?), and the black beauty variety is doing really well with about six nearly pickable fruit right now. The Ichyban variety has only one fruit so far.
My only near failure this year was beans. I planted three times and only ended up with a handful of mature plants. I don't know why. I planted a fig this year, and it's doing really well so far (even has a fig on it). Another thing I noticed about Vancouver is that many back yards have well developed fig trees (and there is one growing along that big curve about the 1500 block of Commercial Dr. that I ate a bunch of figs from!), while down here we mostly have fig "bushes" because every once in a while it gets cold enough to kill off the trunks, which tells me, without looking up any statistics, that you guys have a milder climate than we do.
I have to admit that I love gardening even more than fishing (*blush*). As soon as my wife retires (as soon as our son finishes college), we'll be looking for a place where we can have a really big one.
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Same here rod...my zuchinin is kicken my friend on my garden, the stuff grows like a weed!
I have several spagetti squach vines growing too...the female flowers are just starting to open so I have been doing some cross polinization!
I would guess my tomatoe are 2-4 weeks off (2 for the cherries, 4+ for the big ones). Only problem is that as soon as a cherry tomato starts to get some color, my 2.5 year old will pluck it off the vine...I havent had a single one yet! He's as bad as the coons eating my grapes!
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Used to. Only have Rhubarb, Raspberries, Blackberries and Blueberries this year. Working on it for next year though. The kids are getting into more outdoor stuff and enjoyed growing flowers.
Rodney, try planting your corn with lots of manure. They're food hogs.
Don't forget to vote for my kids with their Tunkwa Lake Rainbows ;D
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Only problem is that as soon as a cherry tomato starts to get some color, my 2.5 year old will pluck it off the vine...I havent had a single one yet!
No kidding. ;D I have the exact same problem. Actually double that. I have twin 2.5 year old girls who just love to eat cherry tomatoes off the vine.
Before that, it was shelling and eating peas off the vine.
At least they like to eat their vegetables. Better than eating junk food. Start them young I guess.
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I only planted tomatoes, strawberries and Rhubarb this year. I did plant some cukes but had to pull them out when we decided we were going to cement in part of the greenhouse. This is a new house to us and we are trying to get it the way we want it. Next year we should be better organized and hopefully will plant a bit more next year.
I did go wild on the flowers and got the gardens where I want them this spring. Hopefully all shrubs, hedges and trees will grow well.
Carole
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I have been known to try my hand at growing the odd weed...
this year... deep breath
cilantro
carrotts
cherry toms
hungarian beefsteak toms ( bigger than a softball ... and still green and growing!)
kholrabi
beets
broccoli
red sweet spanish onions
chives
black macs ( purple table potatoes)
spinich
rutabagas
brussel sprouts
Kale (savoy cabbage)
purple cabbage
cabbage
celery
celery root
cucumbers
swiss chard
zucchini
mixed mesculn (endive)
butter lettuce
peas
pole beans
parsley
giant strawberries
Blackberries
black currents
We have 2 plots in our backyard 1st is a 10 x 45-50' strip
The second is a triangular chunk behind the creek (lil trickle in the summer) about 18' at the widest to 8' narrowest and again about 40-45'
absolutely no pesticides
All were grown from organic seed and most are heirloom seed.
CJ
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Just love gardening!!
This year I planted:
French pole beans - the best beans I have ever eaten!! The variety is called "Fortex". Try it, you'll never plant any other bean.
All kinds of tomatoes - I've picked 32 already
Tons of cherry tomatoes
Cucumbers - already picked 65
Watermelons
Cantaloupes - I see about 30 of them but only two are over 5 inches so far.
peppers - bells, jalapena, banana
Japanese eggplants
spinach
garlic and onions
red amaranth
lettuce
also got tons of cherries, apricots and plums. Apples and pears are not ready yet.
All organically grown, like everyone else. I get all my seed from West Coast Seeds.
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When I was a kid, there was an empty lot next to our house. My parents offered to buy it from the city but they said no. Instead they rented out the lot to us for $1.00 a year ! We grew tons of potatoes, spring peas, beans, squash etc. And we had a lot of space left over for our dog to run around.
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Love to garden, fruit and veggies. Used to have 24 fruit trees in my old house with 175' lot, including kiwi fruit, grapes, apples, asian apple pears, peaches, nectarines, cherries, plums, cherries, strawberries.
For veggies, I am experimental on new varieties (especially those all-american winners) besides the standards. I have grown these through the years, each in multi-varietiies:
Cheery tomatoes - love 'sun sugar' in gold colour, so sweet
- 'Sugar snack' is my top red variety, then 'sweet million/100'
- also love 'juliet', the grape tomato, just perfect.
- also just try a Taiwan variety this year, waiting to taste
Standard tomato - just too many to name, 'fantastic', 'wonder boy' etc.
Bean - love 'blue lake', also grow 'yard-long' bean, an oriental kind.
Squash - love 'peter pan', so good for pickled or stir fry. Also Chiense
'mo qua', just love to see their huge size. Have grown 'tung gua'
and speghetti squashes, even cantelopes.
Peas - 'homesteader' grown for just eating the sprouts, oriental delicacy
as it is dwarf and robust grower.
- many types of snow peas for stir fry
- love 'sugar daddy' for snap peas, so succulent & sweet.
Pepper - love 'anaheim' and the semi hot varieties and make hot 'XO'
saurce with them.
Corns - love the super sweets and sugar enhanced ones.
Egg plant - the long oriental varieties are great for stir fry and stuffing.
Cucumber - all kinds of them for pickle, fresh slicing, etc. Some oriental
and Japanese varieties are mild & great, but also love to grow
'market more' to eat it at thumb size, real crunchy.
leaf veggies - choi sum, pak choi, gai lam, gai choi, spinach, many types.
- love German gai lam, can over-winter, can pick from April on.
herbs - mints, basils, chives, garlic, onions, shallots, etc.
"nothing beats fresh veggies from the garden, organically grown!'
Great harvest to all!
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Rod-you should be growing Squash with your Corn-it fixes Nitrogen in the soil.
Growing Corn with Squash that way is an old Meso-American technique proven over the millennia.
It can be a little invasive/messy but it's a garden not a surgery.
I no longer have time for a garden :'( which is a shame.
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Joedavis, is 'fortex' available in local garden centers? Love to try it. Thanks.
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In the back yard we have 3 tomatoe plants, allready some red ones....4 lettuces, 2 cucumber plants. ;D
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Rod-you should be growing Squash with your Corn-it fixes Nitrogen in the soil.
OOPPSSS!!
make that Beans fix Nitrogen in the soil. ::)
See here for Three Sisters info.
http://www.gardengatemagazine.com/tips/27tip3.html
(http://www.gardengatemagazine.com/tips/images/27tip3_4.gif)
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Used to. Only have Rhubarb, Raspberries, Blackberries and Blueberries this year. Working on it for next year though. The kids are getting into more outdoor stuff and enjoyed growing
so Grumman, trade ya some betties for a nice homemade pie ;D
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I've tried the beans/corn technique that Sam Salmon mentions. Notice in the picture there is also squash.
The idea is that the corn stalk makes something for the beans to climb, and the squash, with those prickly leaves keeps unwanted critters away. I think this last part is mostly wishful thinking, since anything that wants to get at that corn isn't going to be slowed up much by some squash leaves.
Anyway, it's tricky to actually pull this off. Your timing has to be just right. If the beans get ahead of the corn, then the beans just smother the corn, and if the corn gets much ahead of the beans it shades the beans--in any case, you can only really get away with planting the beans on the outside and southfacing row; otherwise, at worst, one or the other ends up overcoming and drowning out the other one. At best you have a tangled mass that's hard to penetrate for cultivating or weeding or for picking either the corn or string beans.
Squash, by the way, is another heavy feeder.
If you grow winter squash, here is something you might be missing out on: those squash will keep setting fruit in the fall way past when they have any chance of maturing. When your squash get to that stage, start picking the immature squash while they are really small. Think of them as zuccinis, but better. Also try this: pick a bunch of the male blossoms early in the morning and add them at the last moment (say five minutes before it is done) to your favorite chowder base. Tastey, and the pollen makes it a very nice color
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Well, I just smoked up a bunch of humpies and old springs from the freezer this past weekend. They turned out fairly well.
Since we are talking about veggies and gardening, I had a question about what to do with the alder ash that I've got from all the smoking. Is it a good thing to add to the soil? Does it help out vegetables? I was thinking of adding it to the soil where the tomatoes are.
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Perfect, as the ash is nothing but Potash, potassium oxide. It is one great nutrient to supply potassium to the veggie. Those plants like tomato which need strong stems or shoots will love the potassium. It is the one element to promote healthy stem, which all fruiting veggies need. Remember fertilizer like 6-8-6, it means 6% nitrogen (for healthy leaves), 8% phosphorus (for great flowers), & 6% potassium (for strong stems). It is one of the 3 main nutrients plants need. So wood ash is one great natural supplement for potassium.
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funfish:
The fortex seeds may or may not be available at your garden center, so you should phone West coast seeds to make sure and they will direct you to the nearest garden centre that carries them. Obviously it's too late to plant for this year, but give it a try for next season. Fortex pod grows to about a foot long, but it should be picked when it's about 9 inches long, it's stringless and it stays super tender. You won't regret it.
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Joedavis, thank you very much for the information. I just email them through their web site. Hope I get a reply. Have a great gardening season. Thanks.
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Looks like a gardener discussion board is almost needed. ;D Thanks for the advice Sam. This is our first year planting corn and I just wanted to see what happens. I've heard of the bean and corn business, must try that next year. :) We also had peas this year. We have this patch that yields so much parsley, they just keep coming, and coming and coming.... ;D
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Holy crap! All you men do that well gardening?!??! I think I tried to grow chives (yeah, I know...that's an herb) one year and I roasted them out in the sun. Came home and they were wilted and yellow. I just about killed my hanging basket (flowers) since I didn't water them. Hubby had to save it for me ::)
Just want to say that's cool. Maybe one day I will attempt it. My hubby gives our next door neighbors fish, and they have an amazing garden. So...they give us veggies. ;D
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Thanks for the info Funfish.
Have you tried putting fish guts and scraps in the soil? Its supposed to be a great fertilizer. I once tried burying it but the racoons dug into it and made a mess.
This past weekend, I cleaned some fish and put the guts and scraps in a double plastic bag and into the trash. But of course the garbage truck does not come until Friday so I've got a real smelly can in my garage right now in this hot weather.