When do you put your garden in?

[Hulk]

I live up here in the north and we don’t put a seed in the ground until memorial day. Unless you have hot caps or greenhouses. So I guess I am looking for some dreamy warmer weather conversation about pleasant things like gardening to help with the winter time gloom. I am terrible curious as to when you people more south fire things up. Please be sure to add your location as I will find that very interesting as well.

 It also would be very interesting to know when you harvest say your first tomato.  I know I am such a child at heart, but golly you have to admit......There is just something to say about your first tomato sandwich of the year.  And what about melons?  They are tricky to grow where I live.

[clanter]

next week for us if we want a Spring garden… high today 74F

[2DogsFarm]

Le Sigh…
@Hulk I am in the frozen Midwest - well, actually the warmer-than-normal Midwest this year.
But no plans for anything before Mother’s Day.

Right now “gardening” consists of walking past the plot and looking longingly at where the rhubarb & asparagus will be coming up & checking the aged peach tree for signs of life. :sadsmile:

[Hulk]

@clanter

next week for us if we want a Spring garden… high today 74F

Oh just go ahead and rub it in. :lol:

[Hulk]

@2DogsFarm

Le Sigh…
@Hulk I am in the frozen Midwest - well, actually the warmer-than-normal Midwest this year.
But no plans for anything before Mother’s Day.

Right now “gardening” consists of walking past the plot and looking longingly at where the rhubarb & asparagus will be coming up & checking the aged peach tree for signs of life. :sadsmile:

Um yeah the only attention the garden here is getting is manure added to it from daily stall cleaning. :lol:

[Hulk]

@clanter

next week for us if we want a Spring garden… high today 74F

and spring garden? We only get 1 garden a year. Do you do 2nd plantings for a later garden? What do you plant for spring.? Spring garden here consists of daffodils, tulips, crocus, and that’s about it. Some times some early beets while there is still frost. But honestly nothing else till the frost is gone, and that means memorial day.

[TCA_Arabians]

High desert of SoCal here. We’re putting in daffodils today and poppy seeds. The Oregon Grape is showing the blooms that will bloom out Feb/Mar… then the lilacs/Joshua Trees in April along with the Iris/daffodils… the roses start in May after a March pruning. I put in salvia. It froze but should come back. The lavender just keeps blooming. I’ve given up on vegetables. What the rabbits and squirrels don’t eat the tomato bugs attack. The Mother’s Day/Memorial Day rule goes here too. We’re at 4800 ft. I have a large clump of rosemary that blooms lovely blue flowers. The penstemon will bloom in spring too… ditto the vinca. Eden Bros has a final sale on bulbs. I get a discount coupon from them daily.

I have discovered that the rabbits and squirrels do not like zinnias. Hallelujah! We’ll plant some in March and later for a continuous bloom. We had some that were planted late last year still blooming at Thanksgiving. I also have some wildflower packets that will go in soon. I’m experimenting with creating a butterfly garden on our dog’s grave.

We also have a good variety of native plants/bushes here. I’ve added more and will continue to do so. We have a row of grapes on a fence line. They won’t leaf out until late spring.

You put manure straight onto beds?! I’ve always let it dry out elsewhere and used it sparingly. Learned that the hard way - destroyed a few plants using too much. It burned the roots. Do you do that daily?

Warm weather came so early last year that trees leafed out and then were hit with a freeze. I’m waiting to see how they leaf out this year before cutting any branches that didn’t grow back in last year.

Just bought a book on the native plants of the Mojave Desert. I’m loving it. I’m working on plants that will fill in the bloom cycle. The part of the property that is landscaped is irrigated. I do miss some of the plants I could grow when I lived at the beach. I’ve come to love the natives just as much. I’ve also committed myself to not buying anything that can’t take the winters and summers here. … not to mention the voracious squirrels and rabbits.

[Rae89]

I am in the north to. I plant some early-mid may. But we can get a good frost in May so have to be careful what your planting early. Usually after the May long weekend I have everything in.

[Mango20]

I’m in the mid-atlantic, and the old wives’ tale here is to plant your peas on St. Patrick’s day. Other early crops like lettuce, spinach, kale, broccoli, etc, can go in fairly early too. I usually find my ground is too wet to till in March, so don’t usually get anything started until early April. Things like tomatoes, beans, melons, and other stuff that likes warmer weather usually goes in around the first of May. I do usually have more than one “season”. I will do a second, later row of beans, and in the late summer, I will plant those spring things again with hopes of getting a fall crop of them before we get a hard freeze. This fall, my peas were blooming then were killed by a freeze, but it often works out. Things like broccoli, kale and cauliflower are a bit hardier and can withstand some cold nights.

In 2018, I picked my first tomato in early July, and the last one in November.

[Hulk]

@TCA Arabians

High desert of SoCal here. We’re putting in daffodils today and poppy seeds. The Oregon Grape is showing the blooms that will bloom out Feb/Mar… then the lilacs/Joshua Trees in April along with the Iris/daffodils… the roses start in May after a March pruning. I put in salvia. It froze but should come back. The lavender just keeps blooming. I’ve given up on vegetables. What the rabbits and squirrels don’t eat the tomato bugs attack. The Mother’s Day/Memorial Day rule goes here too. We’re at 4800 ft. I have a large clump of rosemary that blooms lovely blue flowers. The penstemon will bloom in spring too… ditto the vinca. Eden Bros has a final sale on bulbs. I get a discount coupon from them daily.

I have discovered that the rabbits and squirrels do not like zinnias. Hallelujah! We’ll plant some in March and later for a continuous bloom. We had some that were planted late last year still blooming at Thanksgiving. I also have some wildflower packets that will go in soon. I’m experimenting with creating a butterfly garden on our dog’s grave.

We also have a good variety of native plants/bushes here. I’ve added more and will continue to do so. We have a row of grapes on a fence line. They won’t leaf out until late spring.

You put manure straight onto beds?! I’ve always let it dry out elsewhere and used it sparingly. Learned that the hard way - destroyed a few plants using too much. It burned the roots. Do you do that daily?

Warm weather came so early last year that trees leafed out and then were hit with a freeze. I’m waiting to see how they leaf out this year before cutting any branches that didn’t grow back in last year.

Just bought a book on the native plants of the Mojave Desert. I’m loving it. I’m working on plants that will fill in the bloom cycle. The part of the property that is landscaped is irrigated. I do miss some of the plants I could grow when I lived at the beach. I’ve come to love the natives just as much. I’ve also committed myself to not buying anything that can’t take the winters and summers here. … not to mention the voracious squirrels and rabbits.

Oh how I wish to see Cally!!! I have only ever got as far as Vegas on my ventures west. We have friends out there we would love to come see, but the farm and animals own us. Any hoo… For butterflies here they hands down loved the Mexicans torch flowers. They were loaded with them every day.

  And the manure yeah I know it is very heatedly debated subject, but.... here goes.  Yes I do put it on every day all winter. In the spring I run a hand driven tiller over it and turn it in with the ground.  I do that mostly for conformity, for eye appeal really.  If not I just rake it even and plant.  Most of my garden is really heavy feeders (squash and pumpkins) and my soil is denser than dense clay with gravel mixed in. So This way my beds are raised beds, easier than easy to work, spongy to the foot, very loamy, and drain well.  Once the bed is in I leave it and start dumping some where else for next year.  I never have a manure pile ever.

 I get told over and over every year how I can't do this.  I have been doing it since early childhood so whatever.:confused:

I love growing large heirloom pumpkins so that could be why it works. They get huge. It also works well for the giant red mangle beets I like to grow. They grow as large as my upper leg. I put in peppers where the soil is the poorest, and has the least of manure amendment. Well this years were more like shrubs than plants. They had huge thick woody stems and were a bear to pull out in the fall. We harvested 2 bushel of peppers off the already picked plants before giving up on picking before pulling out.

This method works for me. People are always impressed with my garden and fruits from it. And they do like to tour it. Which I think is weird, but hay who am I to judge?:lol: One time I was giving a tour of my tomato patch. I usually grow over 30 different varieties, so I was going along naming them all and telling their story of origin. When a guest asked me, and what are theses here? Well I said, um milkweed. I had to admit I don’t pull milkweeds on the account of butterflies.:o So I totally don’t know if I am qualified to give out any garden advice anyways.

[Hulk]

@Rae89

I am in the north to. I plant some early-mid may. But we can get a good frost in May so have to be careful what your planting early. Usually after the May long weekend I have everything in.

Gotta love the North!! I have had a frost take my plants a few days after memorial day. :mad: That year I was not the happiest of campers.

[Hulk]

Mango20 you picked a tomato in November??? I am so jealous!!! I don’t do broccoli or kale or stuff like that so much because they are cool weather. And here it seems that the weather goes from unbearable cold and rain and wind to hot blazing sunburn weather on the flip of coin. So its not like you get a few good early spring days to dig around and plant. You seem to need to wear a winter coat or a pair of shorts. When i was a kid the florist next door used to talk with people ordering flowers form all over the US. They would all ways ask what the weather was like here. She would say oh it’s Christmas or the fourth of July and no in between. :lol:

So I am jealous of your 2 growing seasons as well.

[eponacelt]

My wonderful neighbor came over and tilled my garden over Christmas, but that’s a few months earlier than normal!

I’ll usually put kale and other cool weather crops in by the end of March, and then plant tomatoes from pots in late April, depending on the forecast. Last year’s crop was abysmal, with horrible blight from all the freaking rain. I couldn’t keep ahead of it with spray, and at a certain point, I gave up trying. I usually pick my first tomato in early July and keep going through September if its a good year.

[Hulk]

Eponacelt… Now that is a wonderful neighbor. !:encouragement: Weather does seem to have a lot to do with things as well. Some years some things just explode while others fizzle. On drought years the apples always do smoking. I have known this from my days as a kid. We made sure to feed the horses apples everyday to help with their moisture intake. Funny thing is we still do that to this day. Can’t have them dry up.

One year we had a bumper crop of watermelons. They usually don’t grow here at all. They were coming out of our ears. We had them all over the back porch, tons of 6 or so different varieties. People would show up and ask so what’s the deal with all the watermelons.?! Our answer…Do yah want some.? Even the chickens were sick of watermelon by the time they were eaten all up, if that’s possible.

[buck22]

Mid atlantic here, zone 6b/7a. I’ve scaled back the gardens quite a bit in recent years, but ground gets turned over late march, and our last significant frost is about the 3rd week of April, so everybody is in the ground by May. We always get tomatoes by the 4th of July. And we can harvest toms until the end of October too, if the bug damage isn’t too great.

But hey you northerly person, don’t despair! You don’t need a hothouse to get an early start… http://www.wintersown.org/

Winter sowing is SO MUCH FUN its addictive. I got so into it one year, I was growing celery, lavender, strawberries, almost all of my flowers, anything I could think of really, from seed. Its so much fun to watch little seedlings come up and SURVIVE snowy days.

And, once you start seeing how incredibly high your germination rate is, then you realize you have to PLANT all the little buggahs because they survived after all, they need a chance to grow. So… then you have to start finding new places to expand the garden, and if space is limited, like mine, then you have to get creative, like multi level gardens and, my favorite … https://smartpots.com/

Mwah ha ha, welcome to an addiction I had for many many years : )

[wsmoak]

Our average last frost is mid-April, but the ground is typically still too cold for anything to happen at that point. Tomatoes get started indoors no earlier than March 1 so they can get planted out on May 1. I used to start them way too early and then have to deal with giant leggy plants trying to fall over, and would need post-hole diggers to get them in the ground.

[Hulk]

buck22… It is a good addiction to have really. It usually starts out all fairly quietly. A couple of tomato starter plants here, a small little mound of summer squash there, next thing you know your sun porch looks like a jungle full of starter plants, because you want more variety than they offer at the local greenhouse. And your whole yard gets taken over, so you start to shove plants into large pots on your patio. And you justify that by calling it container gardening, cause that is a hip new word they throw around in gardening circles. Ive seen it all before, the hand writing is all over the wall once you go down the dark path of gateway plants and gardening. ;):lol:

Seriously though I have eyeballed cold frames for quite some time. And come to think about it I just might deserve a green house after all.

[Hulk]

Wsmoak… now that is interesting. GA is on the list of places we are scouting for a winter property to farm at. I was kind of wondering if I could throw in a garden before I left, just because it just might be an addiction.

[2DogsFarm]

:applause:
@Hulk you my kinda gardener!

I’ve been dumping stall cleanings in my veggie plot since Day One.
Ever since a Purdue Extension agent told me even the nitrates/urea in used shavings composts just dandy.
I use pelleted bedding now & it breaks down in my pile & the garden so that by Spring it is lovely planting medium.

LOL!
I did the heirloom pumpkins - Rouge Vif Detempe - sown directly on my compost pile one year.
And was buried alive in 30# pumpkins :eek:
Then there was the year I did the same with 15 rows of zucchini & banana squash seeds…
What was I thinking? :o
Of course, horses disdained eating any of the fruit that sprawled into their pasture.
They did step on it, so at least birds, bunnies & etc profited.

[Megaladon]

Well here in the beautiful bipolar North East, the seeds get started indoors around April to be planted in late May. And that’s if they survive a rampage by Catzilla sampling all of the germinated seeds!

Thinking about adding a new hot pepper this year, anyone brave enough to try an Apocalypse Scorpion pepper?