Oddly enough when I am forced to write something out such as in a post like this it helps me to see things a lot clearer. So please bear with me as this post is intended to get some thoughts out of my head…
Sprinkler:
It has rained so much since about mid-June that the garden has only needed to be watered once since then! This is a boost because I still don’t have a watering solution I like yet. I borrowed a nice watering tower from Mom (thank you!) but after trying it out I feel that it causes more water to evaporate than what actually falls to the ground. No doubt this is due to user error on my part — but after adjusting the sucker for a couple hours to no avail to heck with it basically.
The last time I was at the Evil Empire (otherwise known as WalMart) I picked up a cheap rotating yellow sprinkler that I actually like. The water droplets are large enough that most seem to make it to the ground. it also covers the garden almost exactly. The only problem with it? It is designed to sit on the ground — but to effectively water it needs to be about 5 feet off the ground so the water doesn’t hit plants and result in dry zones.
The solution? Can you see this coming????? I am going to reach back into my hillbilly heritage and somehow mount the good sprinkler on the crappy tower… This will probably involve a 90 degree elbow, some Teflon tape, much sweat and more than a few curse words before it is all said and done. Oh, and maybe some duct tape! If this thing actually works I’ll definitely post a photo.
Plant Support:
Also in a gardening vein all of my plant supports need to be reinvented for next year. The cucumber netting worked pretty much as intended, except I had no idea that the cucumber plants would send out more than 1 vine as they grew. The netting is staked to the ground at the edge of a bed and extends at a 45-degree angle over the bed and is attached to the top of the nearby fence. In the beginning when there WAS only 1 vine to deal with I carefully trained each vine up in an orderly fashion. And for a while it worked like a charm! The vines totally cover the netting, the cucumbers dangle underneath and never touch the ground, and I can even reach in from the outside of the fence to harvest — which helps.
The problem is that the cucumber plants have been sending out secondary vines that tend to not want to use my nifty support. These vines are growing into the path, over the borage I tried to sneak in on the edge of the bed, etc. Also the netting isn’t really long enough — the vines basically shot to the top in about 2 weeks and have kinda stopped there.
Similar issues with the bean netting. For pole bean supports I drove in 2 fenceposts and stretched netting between them. The pole beans love this system and they have merrily circled their way up the netting with no intervention required on my part. Unfortunately the netting is about 5 feet tall and the bean vines are currently about 8 feet long and growing… The vines are circling around each other and now are beginning to flop over. One is close enough to the fence that in a few days it may attach itself there and keep going. So for next year I need to figure out how to at least double the netting height for the pole beans.
The tomato cages are another problem. In somewhat of a fit of desperation after transplanting the tomatoes I installed those cheap, flimsy circular cages that you can get from home stores. To be fair they have worked pretty darn well up to this point — they are supporting the tomatoes well and none have flopped over in the wind yet — in spite of some pretty fierce storms over the past month! But the cages are only perhaps 4.5 feet tall and the tomato plants are 6 feet and growing… I’m afraid that once the plants flop over at the top the weight will cause the flimsy cages to either bend or fall over. Definitely keeping an eye on this.
Garden Expansion
Basically I have already decided to double the garden for next year. After all, you can never have too much zucchini — am I right? It will only require 8 additional fenceposts and 4 feedlot panels, so the expense isn’t as much as I thought. And I still have about half the dirt sitting in a pile in the driveway.
Why a bigger garden you might wonder? Well first of all, I never do anything half — it is always go all-in or nothing with me. But the reality is I need more space to grow some of the things I want to grow. I’m just learning how to grow vegetables so I want to experiment and learn things for myself. Additional space allows me to do just that.
What else will I plant, other than less zucchini?!? Peas, broccoli (for seed and to eat), lettuce and greens, edible flowers, watermelon, garlic, herbs, basically a lot of different things. My goal next year is to grow 75% of my food myself. A larger garden allows me to do that, and it also gives me something to work on.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I see a patent on the horizon and with it . . . An even bigger medow!
Wanted to comment making your own tomatoe cages. I used to go down
to a local woodshop and pick up 2×2 they burned each week and make my own cages before planting time. but now that i’m growing at least 175 tomatoes plants, that took a good week to build. So couple years ago after looking at Walmart hoops and knew that was not going to support a full grow plant. I went and bought 4 feet fence roll. Just count about 12 squares and cut with bolt cutters. Now i got all the cages i’ll ever need that will last a life time. Also consider fence guage strength, i did not think but only light duty wire for my first roll. Can get 60 cages out of 330 feet of fence wire. If you’re growing 8 ounce or less fruit size light duty fence wire is fine, but i tried some 1-lb and up variety and that light duty wire collapsed, then i had instant tomatoe juice. LOL. Had to tell the plant i was sorry. Thicker wire is twice the price, and while relutant i’m glad i spent the money. Also if anyone grows tomatoes in 5 to 10 gallon pots and sets them on top of weed cloth and does not want to weave wooden stakes to pound though your week cloth, then just cut some 2×2′s to place on top of the bottom cage wire. Tilt the pot up side the wood under it. The weight of the pot for 5-10 gallon side is going to hold your cage, plus the drainage holes with work better too.
Kevin King
Hot Springs, AR.
@ Kevin King — The hoop cages definitely didn’t work out. A tomato plant loaded with fruit is surprisingly heavy as we found out after the Hurricane Ike remnant winds knocked them all over last year.
For this year we are considering something along the lines of your fence roll suggestion. Instead of caging them individually we are considering growing the tomatoes between two parallel fences that are maybe a foot apart or so. More to come as we work out all the details…
Question: Since I prefer not to use any commerical insecticides on my veggy garden, I have no clue what to use to get rid of those aweful squash bugs that show up and evenually swarm on my plants. Oh I get a harvest sure but i don’t like seeing those bugs eat the plant up. Seems like every type of garden plant has their own enemy. Almost need a PHD in gardening to some degree. For my tomatoes and beans I use SAFER brand organic insecticide soap. Controls mites, aphids, earwigs, lace bugs, leafhoppers, mealybugs, scales, spider mites, thrips, and whiteflies. Can also be used in combination with other organic control agents against hard-to-control insects such as cucumber beetle and tarnished plant bug. By the way, if someone is looking for Purple Royal fence beans in bulk i get this spray and other seeds from http://www.highmowingseeds.com. They also have a wholesale side if you wanted to sell their organic seeds, but as much as that is interesting to me, i just don’t have the time. I need to build five more 70 foot fences for vining plants this week. I usually don’t plant till April 7th, but need to get it ready. While it looks like it’s near time, other states are still in deep winter. I lost a lot of plants one year planting to early with one week of very warm weather. Let someone else gloat they got their garden in early. Also those chinese vining beans are awesome in flavor and they grow 20 inches long. Amazing! But got to use this spray to help with the potential affids that might show up. First year i tried them i had to rip them out as i did not know what to use other them just regular household soap, which did not work. I used to think healthy soil, healthy plants. Well again, plants have enemies that show up. Personally I think the pests must be in the seed itself some how. All these bad bugs don’t show up till you plant the seed. Well thats my 2 cents anyway. SAFER is great stuff and won’t hurt your soil or plants. But what to use organicly to stop those squash bugs?
Kevin King
Hot Springs, AR.
@ Kevin King — From everything we read Squash Bugs are tough to get rid of. There is a small writeup on the site about them here: Zucchini Wilt Article.
The gist is that there is little that can be done organically to control them. Even chemicals don’t work well. We are going to try the board trick this year and will report on it later. Crop rotation and succession planting might be the only real solutions.
We are working on some pest guides for the website and Squash Bugs are definitely at the top of the list. Keep an eye out over the next few months for more info as we research it.