So trim the suckers but how do you know what not to trim again?  I'm confused.

 

My red peppers are coming in, but by the time they ripen on the plant, they get rot spots.  Drives me crazy

 

look at image above, the sucker is the one in the axil (corner between the stem and branch)

A couple other questions for the green thumbs:

 

I have about 5 or 6 corn stalks coming in nicely, but each one has a single ear developing.  Aren't corn stalks supposed to have multiples?

 

How do you know when to harvest underground veg?  I have a row of radishes coming up, but no idea how to tell.

 

Do you all weed your gardens?  I went away for a bit and now I can't tell what are weeds and what are things I planted.  I'm guessing the weeds compete for nutrients and end up stunting the growth of the good stuff.

Sweet Corn is various per stalk some varieties can get more depending on engineering and fertility and pollination. You probably don't have enough stalks for good pollination.

 

Radishes you can usually tell by removing some soil or pull one up to check. The will be plump , wait too long and they split

 

 

 

Yes weeds suck up all the nutrients leaving the good plants to starve. I weed what I can, it defiantly reduces my yield if i don't.

Cool topic, and the fact that it's on a local forum is even better.

 

First off, a 10ft tomato plant? That's insane. I've seen 5-6 footers, but never more than that.

 

I've got about 10 tomato plants that are doing well so far. I've had rather large hot pepper gardens the past 3-4 years (40-50plants) but it tended to be too much and I yielded much more than I could use (and even friends and family could use when I would give away half of them). 

 

I have half cherry tomato plants and half are from seeds my Italian neighbor gave me. The cherry tomatoes have started ripening starting about 1-2 weeks ago. Good lord they are delicious, sweet and great in salads. A few of the other plants are red tomatoes (that are a gorgeous green, large, ready to ripen in another week or so) and a few other plants are the orange tomatoes. I enjoy the orange the best because they are less acidic. My favorite thing to make out of tomatoes is a cold salad - orange tomatoes and red cherry tomatoes cut in bite size pieces, cucumbers cut in bite size pieces, and a vinaigrette of oil/vinegar/some other simple things poured on top, tossed, then refrigerated shortly to chill everything. So simple and so good.

I grew corn a few times in the past. It was so easy to grow, like most things. Plant, water, watch it grow. It was really good. For one reason or another I stopped growing it. One of those reasons may be that corn is so easily found in NJ and I found two places locally that have the best corn I've ever had and was better than what I was growing.

 

Melicks in Oldwick, NJ and a seasonal farm stand East Amwell. They both have corn so sweet that it tastes like they mixed sugar into the soil. I can't believe how sweet it is. I used to eat corn with butter when I was much younger but now I enjoy it plain. You get to really enjoy the full flavor of it and the different types of flavors of corn grown in NJ. And that goes with other vegetables/food as well, for me at least.

DeWolfs farm in Plumsted has amazing corn right now.

I'll take some pictures of my tomato plants and contraptions tomorrow.

I'll take some pictures of my tomato plants and contraptions tomorrow.

 

Please do, Vlad! I really want to see whatchya got over there..

Ok, these are crappy pictures, and the garden is in a bit of a disarray from some wind last nite.

 

First, here is what I used to do in the past, for reference the box is 4x4ft, the supports are 8ft tall, and the top of the vines were getting wrapped around at the top. The dog is 70lb, as a sizing/datapoint

 

 

 

 

 

 

This year, I've done a hybrid of that setup for one of my raised beds (only messier). Note that the vines are a lot taller then the 8ft supports, but they are wrapping around in a helix of vines. I've added twine supports between the uprights to take the weight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now the new model I'm also trying this year. The bed is 8ft long, the supports are like 11ft long for one set and 7ft for the second row. Note that I need to add more twine lines, because at the top the vines are coming back down for a 1-2ft worth of vine. Also note that the vines are not straight , they are somewhat bent and coiled as they've decided to settle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know the pictures aren't great and my garden is a mess right now, but I hope they explain what I'm doing. The one thing I should have done and haven't would have been some stability ties outside the box. You will note the weight of the plants is bending the metal poles some, so some stays on the outside would have been a good idea. I'll do that next year.

Neat setups and a cute dog, Vlad. Those are some impressively tall plants there! Who cares about a messy garden, most of us don't have the time to do maintenance 24/7. As long as you're growing some good-tasting veggies or whatever it may be, that's all that counts.

 

I am with you on the planter boxes. I have a few myself that are 6x4 for the tomato plants and slimmer ones for herbs (6x3). I was never a big believer in them but once I sized-down my garden after the pepper plants I used to grow, they are very easy to maintain and weed from as well as keeping everything organized.

A couple other questions for the green thumbs:

 

I have about 5 or 6 corn stalks coming in nicely, but each one has a single ear developing.  Aren't corn stalks supposed to have multiples?

 

How do you know when to harvest underground veg?  I have a row of radishes coming up, but no idea how to tell.

 

Do you all weed your gardens?  I went away for a bit and now I can't tell what are weeds and what are things I planted.  I'm guessing the weeds compete for nutrients and end up stunting the growth of the good stuff.

1. Not much experience with corn. Plants take up too many resources; ears are 60 cents each at the farm stands. Bah

 

2. Radishes are ready in 2-3 weeks; potatoes 3 months. Carrots you can harvest in 5-6 weeks (baby carrots) or until the snow is too deep. I brought fresh carrots to Christmas Eve dinner last year. One was purple, as big as a man's fist; everybody loved them.

 

4. Weeding is a pain in the ass. I just did it for 2 hours and we have a tiny 16x14 foot garden. I'm going to use plastic mulch next year.

Ok, these are crappy pictures, and the garden is in a bit of a disarray from some wind last nite.

 

First, here is what I used to do in the past, for reference the box is 4x4ft, the supports are 8ft tall, and the top of the vines were getting wrapped around at the top. The dog is 70lb, as a sizing/datapoint

 

 

I know the pictures aren't great and my garden is a mess right now, but I hope they explain what I'm doing. The one thing I should have done and haven't would have been some stability ties outside the box. You will note the weight of the plants is bending the metal poles some, so some stays on the outside would have been a good idea. I'll do that next year.

These are GREAT pictures, the garden looks fantastic. Vertical gardening, protected by fencing. Looks like you get a ton of tomatoes. I'm definitely trying this next year. You are a genius.

Thanx, but I can't take credit for the idea. I read what everyone else is doing and adjust and adapt to my budget and circumstances. The "twine trellis" is based how some commercial growers do it, except they user much longer rows, with posts spaced out equally along the way.

 

I suppose you can also use some old fencing materials between the posts or anything really, wire, etc.

 

I love this time of year where I have to come up with new idea of what to cook or start giving away food. I just made a baked dish out of layers of zucchini slices, tomatoes slices, onion slices, sliced, pepper, browned ground beef, and lots of parsley. Lots of garlic as well. I kept on making layers, about 3 sets of them filled a dutch oven, seasoned with salt an pepper and baked for 1h. Its kinda awesome, and I grew pretty everything except the onions, garlic and the beef.
 

Here is one of my go-to salads I just made for my gf and I. A little mid-day snack. All the tomatoes (red and yellow cherry's and red ramapo's) and basil is from my garden and the cucumbers and onions are from my Italian neighbors garden. We have been close friends for over 20yrs and they grow a mean garden that's about 3/4 of an acre and grow lots in there. They have a some farm animals as well that they slaughter.

 

Making food with your own home-grown ingredients is the absolute best. Incredibly tasty and makes you feel good you grew it yourself.

 

The wine is "Barn Red" that we bought at their winery in Vermont.

 

Yep, around here we like our cucumber and tomato salads too. Also, black krim tomatoes with fresh mozzarella, fresh basil and oil and vinegar. Also toasted rye bread with mayo, bacon, yellow american cheese and big thick slices of tomato. Yesterday was sausage, tomato, and spices stuffed zucchini.

 

I do like it when the garden is in full production, makes all the rest of work worth it.

I've been disappointed with our tomatoes this year. Maybe it's the soil. Lots of growth but little fruit. Just getting green now.

I've been disappointed with our tomatoes this year. Maybe it's the soil. Lots of growth but little fruit. Just getting green now.

 

My neighbors son and I buy a lamb every year and slaughter it his mom's birthday. This year while we were at the lamb farm, they were selling sheep manure in 25lb bags. I bought some and mixed it into my soil with the tiller. It seems to have worked well, but I think I put in a little too much as the plants were stunted a little bit for about a week after I planted them. After that they grew fine. It seemed to have worked well though, at least it seems like that.

My neighbors son and I buy a lamb every year and slaughter it his mom's birthday. This year while we were at the lamb farm, they were selling sheep manure in 25lb bags. I bought some and mixed it into my soil with the tiller. It seems to have worked well, but I think I put in a little too much as the plants were stunted a little bit for about a week after I planted them. After that they grew fine. It seemed to have worked well though, at least it seems like that.

I think burlington county will check your soil for you. Maybe other counties as well. I just haven't had the chance to get up to the county complex.

 

I'll definitely be trying to boost the soil for next year. Not sure slaughtering a lamb will fly though. Vegan wife and all.

Compost that manure first.

 

In one of my pictures you can see my compost bin. Anything non-meat goes in there. Grass clipping, shredded paper, kitchen scraps, dried up leaves, whatever. I mix it a couple of times a year and by next spring it awesome and ready to be added to the beds.This spring I had a very heaping wheelbarrow of compost to distribute.

 

You can add the manure to the compost pile.

 

On the general soil improvement side, I have a simple solution, I don't plant grass, I let whatever wants to grow do its thing in my lawn, and then I use the mulching cycle of my lawn mower to put it back in. I figure whatever can grow in my yard is the stuff that it is best at extracting nutrients which are lacking, so why not make the weeds work for me.

 

If you want to boost an area for next year, do it this fall/winter. Decide where you want your beds next year, layer it with compost, wood chips, whatever leaf litter you may have, and give  the worms a chance to chomp on that stuff and aerate the soil. By spring you should be ahead of the game.

 

Also remember tomatoes favor slightly acidic soils (well everything does, but tomatoes more then most). You can add some peat moss to your soil mix as it tends to drop the ph a bit and also helps with holding water until it decomposes.

In southern Burlington county. we've been getting cherrys for a month now and a couple early girls but beefs are still a week or two from being ripe. basil, spearmint are going great. green and yellow bell peppers are still a few weeks from being ready....I think. I have a strawberry plant that has come up for the 4th year. I don't tear it out in the fall I just trim the dead stuff and don't plant anything over top of it. 1st year it had great fruit, last couple years only a few berrys. this years its much bigger and producing but the critters and bugs usually get to them before we do.    My boys (9 and 6) love to eat veggies and they are out there daily watering the ,checking it and eating the fruits of labor before I see it. lol. I don't mind. My one son has become the fruit/veggie snob. lol. he will literally turn his nose up at some nice big ripe blueberries from the supermarket but we can drive out to the pines and he will spend an hour filling a container full of the much smaller but wild blueberries. I also threw some grape tomatoes (store bought) into his "garden container" in the fridge. I was making room in the fridge and the store container only had a few in it so I tossed them in with his. he ate one and literally yelled at me like I played a trick on him. lol.   He shares our basil and spearmint with the entire neighborhood. lol     Nick

I got tons and tons of composted chicken manure if anyone needs, Will load trucks or trailers w/ my loader or smaller amounts you can bag yourself.

Ooh .. I may take you up on that in fall or spring.

I also have an unlimited amount of human manure if anyone needs

OG, I'll definitely take you up on that come Fall/early spring.  

I got tons and tons of composted chicken manure if anyone needs, Will load trucks or trailers w/ my loader or smaller amounts you can bag yourself.

Has it been composted above 140 degrees?

My attempt at corn was just for fun.  I have Lee's Turkey Farm just around the corner with plenty of great corn if I need it, but this is more of a hobby thing...experimental.  I must have spent $30 in manure and soil nutrients to get $10 worth of vegetables (not just the corn), but my soil is basically 30 years of compacted clay, so it had to be done.

Bergen county.

It's my wife's hobby, I'm not much involved but know the results. Six plants, all are different:

Name - First ripe - count as of today

Marianna's Peace - 07/29 - 3

Brandywine - 07/25 - 10

Prudence Purple - 07/24 - 4

Azochka (yellow) - 08/03 - 1

Caspian Pink - 07/23 - 4

Sunset Red horizon - 07/24 - 19

Has it been composted above 140 degrees?

 

yes, I am USDA Certified Organic and we meet all NOP composting guidelines. If any compost or manure produced on farm is not finished thru high temperature process 131-170deg F for up to 15 days and thoroughly mixed and turned at least 5 times during those days. Then I must follow 120/90 days to harvest rules. 120 days for any crop who edible portion touches ground (roots,lettuce,etc..) and crops whose edible portion does not touch ground ( corn, tomatoes, peppers, etc...)is 90 days from date of application/ incorporation. I add my compost in fall or early spring to my fields.