2018 gardens

All the rain lately, around 10" in a week has just about ruined my garden! Tomatoes took a real beating. Try to dust plants for bugs and it washes off in a day or two. Try again next year. Carrots do look pretty good though.

have not got jack squat from my garden yet,,,,,
peppers are just plants and buds, but nothing else.
tomato, ditto.

 Well,,,,,,,,,,,, I don't plant a garden as it is a waste of time and money,,,Our water co-op is prolly the most expensive in the country,,so you gotta rely on the rains,,,which we don't get,,,,but,,,,but,,,,the rocks and the goat heads been doin  pretty good,,tho,,,,

ac fleet wrote: finally got harvest done! this was the biggest tater, at 6.5 pounds. a LOT of the crop was from 3 to 5 pounds and are not a bit stringy. some of the sweet potatoes and a pic. of the little chesnut tree. this year it had a gallon of nuts on it. The bag of peanuts is part of the 150 pounds that the short row produced. Started sub-soiling but got rained out, so about half the gardens didn't get done. Now trying to moldboard plow as much as I can before the ground freezes. Garden in general did good this year despite the long dry growing season. Guess my water hauling paid off! thanks; ac fleet

ac fleet, what a green thumb you have. Wish you were closer, I would pay you a visit. Would love to see how a pro does it! Tracy

yeah...I wishes you was closer too, I could prolly borrow some of them melons and peaches!

As sheriff Martin Brody would have said "gonna need a bigger pan". 

Edited by chaskaduo - 14 Oct 2018 at 8:55am

Well, 2018 is in the books for me. They say the happiest two days of a boat owners life are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. I think gardening is similar. The day you plant and the day in the fall that you plow! I did have a good carrot crop this year, after the last two years of one carrot each year. Don't know what I did different.

I only disk in the fall, then plant cereal rye.
In the spring I plow and disk.
Maybe I should try plowing in the fall?

Brian, my readings also indicate to plow in the fall.  That supposedly messes up all the plans that grubs and the like have/ were making for the following year. 

I also run the rotary cutter over the corn before fall discing.

I plow the cereal rye under in the spring. Sometimes because it is too wet, I have to delay the plowing, then plant the corn immediately next. Supposedly, that is not good to plant so soon after terminating the rye. I like plowing under the rye, it is mesmerizing.
This year we were wet in the fall. After I planted the rye (Oct 9) we got 3" rain, standing water for 4 days in the low spots. That low spot rye didn't germinate. But mostly it is 3" tall now. Because we had a big family party Sept 30, I was encouraged to leave the corn standing later than normal. Then it got wet...

Next year I will try plowing in the late summer fall, and plant the rye earlier.  Maybe I will also run a field cultivator, deep, perhaps that would allow better drainage.
Could run the field cultivator in early spring also, during a dry spell, before plowing.
So then if it rained just before I wanted to plow, it could have dried some.

The water table is high- 3ft down. Any advice to get the plot to drain better is appreciated.

My 3 foot wire fence (150 ft per sid) with a hot wire low and high kept the raccoons out. Last year they got me badly with no fence.

i grow about a 1/2acre of garden  , about 1/4  at a time so i can summer fallow with the garden tractor thats my entertaiment part  i grew the best potatoes i ever  have this year and finally got a few peanuts been trying to go peanuts for four years  ithink the secret to large potatoes and any kind of peanut crop is lots of potash , carrots are always a foot long my tomatos were not good this year was covering them before i started even getting tomatoes

I should try sub-soiling 36" deep. Yup. I would need a bigger tractor, got to get it...
We have a "dedicated tractor for every implement" mandate at my place.

What do you use (tractor/implement), do you really go 36" deep, or that how long the ripper(s) is?  And does it really help, even with standing perched water?

Picked up a bin of 50 some hog melons yesterday.   Got there for them just as they pulled in with a load of Seedless They  Pulled just down the road from my house. WAY PAST TIME FOR WATERMELON.  Greg gave me two fresh pulled. Cut one already.  One of the sweetest I  ever put in my mouth.