2022 Gardening Thread

I don’t eat eggs and bacon in the morning. Just a bowl of steel cut oats and cherry preserve on toast.

I’d put a fruit pepper jam in my oatmeal for a savory breakfast OR on my toast!

Ok if you don’t like it but if you do there are many uses! :blush:

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Too early for me, pepper anything. I just grow them for fun. I don’t waste a lot of space either, they are literally at the edge of my blueberry bed.

Thinned out our greens today and had a little salad of micro greens with dinner. Photo is of them from a week or so ago. Everything started to take off in the last few days.

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Picked my first cherry tomatoes today! They were delicious. I would have had tomatoes weeks ago, but my little “baby goats” (D1’s 18 moth old twins) graze whatever they can reach. They pulled off–and ate–any green tomatoes they could reach. We’ve explained the need to wait until the tomatoes turn red, but patience is not a toddler virtue.

Although it’s late, I’m planting cucumbers and zucchini seeds today. (It’s late, I know…) Will also sow another planter with carrots. (I had a whole long planter box filled with carrots I planted in mid-March, but the baby goats have pulled and eaten them all.)

I have 6 tomatoes in pots, plus 8 peppers (Big Jim, Sandia, Anaheim and Poblanos). Doing container gardening only this summer because of MAJOR indoor and outdoor remodeling projects going on.

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The master gardener at my community garden would praise your 2nd round of planting depending on the plant variety. For many gardens it’s smart to plant in phases so you have more/staggered crops - and a longer season if your weather allows it!

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For some reason, I ended up with more tomato plants than I have pots for. I still have two that still need to be transplanted into a larger pot (one’s a foot tall, the other is only 3 inches so I still have time with that one). I know the bigger the pot, the better, but I’m curious what is the smallest size that you all have had success with.

You can throw some of your peppers into the freezer. You don’t have to cut them up or anything.

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Thanks @Mathmom, while I have 2 fridges, I don’t have room for them in my freezer. My husband doesn’t want me to get a standup freezer like the one I had years ago. I did find somebody at the senior center who are willing to take them. A lot of people or older people don’t really like to eat hot peppers. I once gave a bag to an Indian doctor at my bridge club, thinking he would most likely eat them, but he said he couldn’t.

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I’ve grown 3 plants in 5-gallon container, I too can’t throw them away. This year I already have about 35 tomato plants, a lot of them are in containers.

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All of my tomatoes are in containers. I would only stick one plant into a 5 gal container. I got away with 2 in a shallower, square pot, but here in my neck of the woods, tomatoes like to have at least a square foot of surface per my observations.

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This is an excellent point. When square foot gardening, tomatoes are recommended to get planted one per square foot space. So in a 4 ft wide raised bed, that would be 4 per row - which IMO, is TIGHT when they start growing unless you’re great at pulling off suckers. I never do more than 3 per row.

So I think you wouldn’t want to get too much smaller than a 12 inch pot. Do keep in mind that depth is also important for root growth.

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True if it’s your only tomato plant. I had so many left and I ran out of space so I put 3 in one 5 gallon container, guess what I did have lots of fruit out of that container. I gave my daughter and her business partner each a 5 gallon container with one plant in it , it did last quite a few months, even growing them in the shade in the balcony.
You can’t kill tomato plants here.

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Got my first pickling cucumber, I think it’s National Pickling, good thing I just picked a big dill plant and froze some of the stalks, I’m looking forward to making dill pickles. The only thing I do for summer harvest. I’m not into canning of anything. One of my daughters loves dill pickles, so I will give her a jar for Christmas gift.

A cool link from my local NextDoor app discussion about gardening….

except screenshot:

OMG! The city workers enforcing noxious weed code compliance can’t tell dill from fennel or figure out what kind of fennel there is?!

https://amp.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article262204012.html

Her garden looks great (but I would not have used pressure treated timbers for the beds).

Pardon my language but A_oles!!!

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Exactly!!!

I helped out at the church giving garden this morning, where the beets were thinned. I got the beet greens to try … I assume just wash/trim and steam them(?)

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Yup! Chop off the stems that are too woody, wash the rest well, chop, and cook with onions and bacon! Yum.

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