[golddust]

Put in my first garden here in Florida. Used to garden a lot when we lived up north but that was a long time ago. With produce skyrocketing in cost, I decided to start planting again. Have plenty of room but only put in a smallish trial this year. Have several types of tomatoes, some bell peppers, pablamo, jalepeno, and banana peppers, eggplant, spaghetti squash, and green beans. My first banana pepper is getting a good size, and flowers on the other plants are starting to change into the starting buds of their soon to be veggie. Now if our rainy season would just kick off. Have to water twice a day some days because it's been so dry.

[ekim68]

We share a big garden with some friends and we put in peppers, bush beans, and onions today....Pictures to follow...

[golddust]

My banana peppers (sweet) have been producing big time. Bell peppers are coming along. Guessing I'll be harvesting some within two week. A few tomatoes - mainly the Romas are coming along. My others only a few. As the rainy season moves in here in Florida I'm guessing they'll do better. We water and water but only had a couple of days of really good rainfall. Saw my first eggplant the other day. Before our fall growing season starts, I'm going to have the soil tested. Cooperative Extension has the kits for $7 and they send it out. I'm sure there will be several recommendations for what to add to the soil.

[ekim68]

Well this is our family garden in the start up faze....More to follow:

[golddust]

Wow, you guys really get into it. Big garden. Maybe next year mine will be along those lines. Just got the soil test kit from the cooperative extension here and will see what we need to do to improve our soil before the fall growing season - living in Florida we get two growing seasons.

[ekim68]

I like the idea of two growing seasons... In this part of Oregon we only get about three months of cloudless days out of a year, so time is short....

[golddust]

We really have only about five months out of the year that you can't grow much - although some experienced gardeners have been able to stretch it knowing what does best when.

[ekim68]

Looks like we're making an amusement park out of the Garden... Here in the Northwest we have lots of slugs and snails. Those little upside down styrofoam cups around the bean and pea plants are a deterrent to them because they hate the texture...

[Oldngrumpy]

I never would have thought to look to a tech support site for fellow gardeners.

I expanded the garden a bit this year since our neighbor decided not to use the plot they tilled up and offered it to me for a small share of the bounty. I have also been experimenting with container gardening, especially self watering containers, and I'm anxious to utilize this method more next season. I've got two Early Girl tomatoes in a 12w x 30l x 16h self watering container showing fruit and lots of blooms with dark green leaves.

[Oldngrumpy]

I have a friend in N. Calif. who scatters pennies around the garden to deter the crawly things. She says it's cheaper than commercial remedies, better for the environment, and the pennies aren't good for much else lately anyway.

[hippiegentleman]

never heard of this one tku/i use the beer in saucer trick but you have to replace ever rain/the slugs drown when they go into the saucer/old beer works so save any left overs

[imaitken]

Hi; Here us a tip for anyone who has voles or moles digging tunnels in their lawn or elsewhere. Don't buy a commercial product, get some Juicy Fruit gum. Poke a hole in the tunnel, drop in half a stick of gum(it must be Juicy Fruit) and soon--no more voles or moled. You must poke the holes in several places in the tunnel. We always had a problem with these critters but since using the gum, we have so far had 3 years of lawns without tunnels.

[jimmcq]

At the end of Feb this year, I planted 2 15 gal "Red Sunset" maples, Acer rubrum to be exact. Dug over size holes, stood up a piece of 3 in dia PVC pipe in each hole and planted the trees. They both blossomed, lots of seed pods, many leaves and they appeared to be healthy. Now however, these many leaves are really flaccid and droopy, not falling off, tho'. I've watered them deeply as well as let the hose run and flood the surface. They are planted in the lawn but the purpose of the PVC pipes was to encourage the roots to go deep and not depend on the lawn sprinklers. We had a normal spring temperature wise for our area, Tracy, CA about 50 miles south of Sacramento. We have been having a hot spell, mid 90's to 100 but that doesn't appear to make a difference to the leaves. Research online says that these maples tolerate drought as well as flood. Any thoughts???
I don't know how responses are sent so here is my email address just in case, mcq1@comcast.net.
Thanks in advance,
Jim McQuillen

[Oldngrumpy]

I'm far from expert in the tree realm, but I do know that trees (all plants) deal with temperature extremes in a variety of ways. Some turn their leave's lighter undersides to the sun in extreme heat to reflect the rays away and provide shade for inner leaves. Some "pinch off" outer leaves, cutting back the capillary flow to those. This creates a "drooping" appearance, but usually only effects the outermost leaf canopy. Are all the leaves in this condition, or is it confined to the outer leaves, or the branches most directly lit by the sun? Is there any visible difference between early morning and full afternoon in this condition? These would tell you if the tree is using it's own defense mechanism or if it is reacting to a soil or water condition. In the latter event it will be important to know the chemical and material content of the soil via testing of a core sample.

[ekim68]

Got a couple more pictures into our third week of the garden.... Here's one....