@abasket I don’t do anything - I wish there were a way to post pics here, in fact, we have very helpful birds -they come and help themselves to certain things i.e. fennel flower seeds and then ‘drop’ them on their way out! I just had to pull fennel seedlings from my rose garden. Which reminds me, some years ago, a bird ‘dropped’ fig seeds - we now have a wild fig tree that I dug up and potted; it produces a couple of pounds of figs each year !
@momo2x2018 where do you live? I assume a warm climate since you mention a fig tree.
I have a couple of raised beds. Gardening style is haphazard at best. I’m in AZ so the seasons are nearly reversed.
@katliamom pick the snap peas every day. They’ll keep in the fridge until you have enough for a serving. I have grown them (and snow peas) a couple of times but I tend to be lazy about picking them. If you let them stay on the vine, they get oversized, and don’t taste good, and the vines stop producing, at least in my limited experience. If you pick them every day like I finally did this year, they produce much more and better.
I just harvested 5 ripe cherry tomatoes from my garden. I live in the Bay Area, everything is delayed this year due to the wacky weather. This has been the coldest May/June in 25 years ! This time last year I was picking ripe Peaches, Plums , Tomatoes and Nectarines.
@momo2x2018 The whole premise of permaculture is returning to what naturally occurs in the wild, so once my youngest has ours set up, that’s a bit of what he plans to do. We already have volunteer tomatoes and kale and those tend to do very well compared to the planted each year plants.
@Parentof2014grad Thanks for the advice on Snap Peas. This is the first year of growing them for us. All of our peas are absolutely loving the weather this weird year. Peppers and squash not so much (sigh). I use peppers and squash pretty much daily most years so I’m bummed about their reaction to spring. Beets are pleased.
Thanks, @Parentof2014grad !! I just went out and picked by cute peas! All other vegetable gardening welcome!
@Creekland Ha! Now I have a new term for my laziness,LOL!
Hi, we live in the New Orleans area and this year have planted Creole tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, snap beans, eggplant and cucumber. We also planted new jalapeno pepper and Tabasco pepper plants, to replace some really wonderful and prolific jalapeno, poblano and Serrano pepper plants that an atypical hard freeze killed off last winter.
So far, the snap beans are coming along very well (too hard and wet to pick every day but we are trying!). The cucumber vine and eggplant are growing well though no production yet. The tomatoes are producing fruit but we are losing the pest/animal war. As soon as they start to ripen, something is getting at them. We thought it might be birds or squirrels, so we covered them in a garden fabric. But they are still being eaten. A couple of days ago we found one of the culprits, a big, fat caterpillar who had camouflaged himself the exact color of the vine and was happily gorging himself. I extracted him, but others will return. Any suggestions as to how to keep the caterpillars away?
For those garlic lovers - and growers…
My new favorite place to look for fantastic garlic recipes - including many recipes for using garlic scapes - the long green stem that grows and curls up from the garlic plant a few weeks before picking time!!
I’ll be picking and using my scapes in a week or so I expect!
I’m loving this thread and don’t know how I missed it before! We have 4 raised beds in our sunny side yard. We reconditioned the beds this year by raising them another foot to ease my aching back, reconfigured our drip irrigation and added some lovely organic garden soil. We have a good mix of tomatoes, squash, peppers, eggplant, cukes, radishes, beets, kale, greens, pumpkins and a couple of melons. Plus herbs. We’ve been harvesting the salad greens for a while now - and chard - cukes and tomatoes are coming along nicely. I have way too many radishes to use up in salads so I sautéed some last weekend and they were a hit with the family. I am DREADING the return of the rat wars, though. They show up just when my tomatoes start to ripen. Last year my yield was low and I think they got more than we did. If anyone has good tips, I’m all ears!
^^^No tips,but have to say I couldn’t handle rodents!!! Yikes - I know it’s a problem for many though!
@abasket I didn’t think I’d be good at battling rodents either, but they are brazen and it’s personal now. Don’t steal my ripe tomatoes!
Have you tried using physical barriers to keep the critters out of the tomatoes? I bought some Tierra Garden micromesh net blankets and they’re terrific. They’re lightweight, UV resistant, and rip proof. They have loops so you can pin the fabric to ground. And they seem sturdy enough that I’ll get several seasons use out of them (unlike regular row cloth which tears).
Right now I have one over my greens & bell peppers to stop the deer from eating my veggies. Another is over summer & winter squash both to stop the deer from eating those and as an experiment to see if it reduce/eliminate squash bugs.
My friend uses the mesh covers to keep rabbits out her tomatoes.
Lots of places carry them. Amazon does. Blankets come in 3 sizes: 8x8, 12x12 and 16x16.
Google “Haxnicks micromesh” or “Tierra Gardens micromesh”
Good info! We could not get our garden going this spring because the deck foundation repair gorillas would have trampled it… just like completely wiped out the peonies on the other side. They have been busy at another job so kept postponing. I am so glad the gorillas are finally coming this weekend to start the job. We will need that mesh and a new Great Wall of Chickenwire when we plant next year because we have so many critters in our woods!
My garden report–looks like this year onions are going to be a bust. No sure why. Maybe I didn’t give them enough water early on?
Have lettuce & kale for picking. Lettuce hasn’t turned bitter yet, but it’s starting to bolt. I’ll probably pull it all within the next couple of weeks. Will plant basil and a small loosed- headed variety of cauliflower I got from Burpee called “Fioretto 60” in its place. I’ll be picking my first bell peppers this weekend. All the eggplants have set fruit; some are as big as XL eggs. Lots of green tomatoes on most of the plants. Cherry tomatoes are blooming and have set fruit. Cucumbers are taking off and I have I have 2" long baby cukes already. Zucchini & yellow crookneck squash are blooming. So is the winter squash. I planted Monte Gusto wax pole beans and boy were they slow to germinate. But they have finally taken off and the some of the plants are taller than I am already. I’m expecting those to start blooming any minute now.
We have a really bad problem here with a tomato virus you just don’t commonly see in other parts of the US. It’s pretty common locally for tomato growers (backyard & commercial) to lose 30+% of their plants every year to Beet Curly Top Virus (BCTV) , which is carried by leafhoppers–which are just everywhere and thrive in hot, dry weather (which we have in spades right now). There is no cure for the virus and there aren’t any resistant tomato varieties. They only way to prevent it is to use physical barriers like plant covers/row cloth. I’m going to cover several plants with the micromesh covers I mentioned in post #52.
The cauliflower and the mesh covers are this year’s garden experiment. Last year was sweet potatoes–which I decided after digging them up last fall weren’t worth the effort–or the amount of space the vines take. The year before that was potatoes in grow bags–which were a surprisingly big success.
One of the worst surprises of moving to town is that…there are MORE obnoxious annoying critters than in the country. Who knew? I never knew I hated squirrels so much, and so does my German Shepherd. I have an extremely small back yard, and can count 8-10 of those varmits pulling up my garden and flowers, viciously taunting my poor dog on his leash. The idiot neighbors put out ear corn. They are like a feral cat population.
I am used to having a beautiful, bountiful garden, and I’m getting ticked. My spinach is doing great–tomatoes, onions, snap peas, and petunias, gone 
I hope they enjoy the cayenne pepper I’m using liberally.
The squirrels get in my flower pots and tick me off!
I have done potatoes in a felt grow bag the last 2 years, year 3 currently planted. So far I’ve had good luck with them!
Trying onions for the first time this year. I figure they take awhile - yes??? I planted in late April or so and May was sort of a weather bust.
Speaking of feral cats—an outdoor cat or two will help take care you any rat or squirrel problem in your garden.
Dogs may chase rodents, but that’s all they’ll do. Cats will track the critter back to its hidey hole and kill it.
Lettuce, radishes, and very tender beets tonight!
Green Peppers and Onions have both developed a powdery mildew - I am tempted to get rid of them entirely so it doesn’t spread.
The early green beans are a still few days away. We have tiny green tomatoes and lots of blossoms, but few bees so I am worried.
Cukes/pickles seem to be thriving. Summer Squash and Zucchini are getting full - and the first few blossoms are appearing.
Sweet corn is waist high.
Ate our first peas today. It was a good mental reminder of why we still grow peas even though they produce so little and are such delicate plants. They taste so much better than any store bought ones!
The fact that it’s already the middle of June shows just how far behind we are in southern PA… many farmers are getting their first cutting of hay in now - and planting - in JUNE! (vs mid May)