Veggie Garden Info

Tomato Trials 2008

Original post from Notes from a Cottage Garden

I'm always game for trying new vegetable varieties, especially when it comes to our garden favorite, the Tomato. In 2008 I trialed several heirlooms varieties. The real test, for me, is the comparison to Brandywine, which I have grown for many years. So far, nothing has come close to Brandywine's great taste!

This is Cherokee Purple in the not-quite-ripe-yet stage. You can see the darker shoulders, which have yet to turn color. I also grew Cherokee Chocolate and Black Krim, but found all of these varieties to be rather bland tasting, and also pretty soft texture wise. I prefer a firmer tomato. In years past, I have also tried Pruden's Purple, which didn't pass the test either.

Read the rest of this post HERE.

Vegetable and fruit garden in full swing again

Original post from down to earth

Clicking on these photos will enlarge them.

Autumn, that most favoured of all the seasons, is here, and in my neck of the woods, that means it's growing season. I live in the subtropics, and while Winter temperatures do sometimes drop to zero degrees C at night, the days are usually warm with clear blue skies. March marks the beginning of our new gardening season. We pull out all of summers old crops, build up the soils again with home made compost, manures, worm castings and blood and bone, and start again from scratch. It's a great time of year.

The garden is slowly taking shape. Hanno has planted his crops in small stands of neat rows. Not everything is in yet but it's getting there. On the other side of the garden there is a full garden of potatoes and one empty bed that will be planted up entirely with kale. So let me take you on a visit through my garden to show you what else we're growing this year.

 

Read the rest of this post HERE.

new potatoes

Original post from sustainable garden

A spell of mild, sunny weather has warmed the mid-March soil. Compost has been spaded onto the ground to be incorporated by worms..... We are ready to plant our first early potatoes.

We have tried many different varieties of potato and have settled on Kestrel or Osprey as our favourite second early and Pink Fir Apple as our favourite (if wayward) maincrop salad potato.

This year we are trying Sharpes Express as our first early.

Read the rest of this post HERE.

first garden work day of the season

Original post from Skippy’s Vegetable Garden.

Another photo of my plot. This time with evidence of work that's been done. The soil is now thawed and ready for work. And the weather this weekend was beautiful for gardening.

Tasks accomplished:
Brought tools to plot.
Removed of salt hay from beds and stacked for reuse.
Spread 40 lbs of lime.
Gathered and spread about 5 wheelbarrows full of horse manure.
Marked out beds and added up footage of boards needed for raised beds.
And I finally mailed out my garden registration form and fee.
Took down my birdhouse.

Read the rest of this post HERE.

How to determine your own personalized last frost date

Original post from The Cheap Vegetable Gardener.

There was a discussion in comments on my previous average last frost post on how to determine an accurate last frost.  A great point was made by Daphne where every garden can have its own microclimate so the date you find online or in a book could be many weeks off for your microclimate in neighborhood. 

To be able to predict your last frost date accurately it takes some history, if you have lived in your current residence and happened been capturing your temperature data accurately by memory or paper you may the information to predict your last frost date. 

For people that are relatively new to their residence, like myself, I felt there I had very little information to determine an accurate prediction of my last frost date.  This was until I remembered Weather Underground which logs results of schools or private individual that register their weather stations. 

Read the rest of this post HERE.

PSB

Original post from Down on the Allotment

I am really pleased with this ultra early purple sprouting broccoli 'Rudolph'. It first started cropping in late December and has continued right the way through till now. In a couple of weeks my regular March / April crop of PSB will start cropping and will continue through to May or June.

Read the rest of this post HERE.

Onions and Early Potatoes planted

Original post from Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

Our adventures with potatoes last year can be read here. They weren’t too successful after a lot of early promise although the ones we grew in big black tubs did better than the ones in the raised beds.

This year we have gone for a few different types after quite substantial research based upon time of planting and use. The types we are growing this year and reasons for choosing are here.

It was quite windy down the plot today but was also quite quiet so we got our head’s down and got on. We’ve set aside four beds for potatoes. 2 beds for first and second earlies and 2 for maincrop and late maincrop. The tubers had chitted well - Winston below, better than the rest though, with a multitude of colourful sprouts appearing over the last month. 

 

I hoed out 4 rows in the bed in the corner of our plot and the Mrs. put the tubers in the holes, about 30cm apart, chitted end up. The picture shows them just before i covered them over using the hoe.

Read the rest of this post HERE.

Express yourself: parsley

Original post from Tiny Farm Blog

Three weeks old, and the parsley is already well past its seed leaf stage, where everyone pretty much looks the same, and is busy expressing its true nature. On the left, Green Pearl, a curly variety, starting to pucker and…curl. On the right, Hilmar, of the generally stronger-tasting flat-leaf type.

Read the rest of this post HERE.