It was the highlight of my summer mamagotcha! I can't wait to try again next year with a deeper and broader container--planning a built in planter just for the corn (and probably some beans and other companion plants )

FP--take her up on it and you can plant along with me!!!

boudreaulicious wrote:FP--take her up on it and you can plant along with me!!!

I'm in, I should have enough room in the garden to plant as many seeds as I get. I'm off to PM mamagotcha all the info......

boudreaulicious wrote:....planning a built in planter just for the corn (and probably some beans and other companion plants.....

I had a magazine here with plans for a container garden setup, that used 5 gallon buckets and plastic eavespouting for irrigation. I was going to send you the contact info, but I think I just recycled the magazine. I'll see if I can find it online. It would have been just the ticket for your corn crop.

Tim

If you can think of the site, let me know. We're hopefully going to do it now before winter, v. in the spring.

Found it!! I'll post it here, in case anybody else wants to build one.

Gutter Garden

Good luck,

Tim

Great--thanks! Sent it to me garden engineer/construction manager for his thoughts!!!

If your engineer guy thinks that's the dumbest thing he's ever seen, I won't be offended. That magazine is full of hairbrained stuff. There is just enough valuable info in it that I keep subscribing.

I just thought of your high rise farm, when I saw it.

Tim

Ha! My "engineer guy" is a furniture designer who builds my planters in return for vegetables (and helping with his business years ago ). Good to know that it might not be fully vetted though! We'll report back.

And so the season ends.
The Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli) which grew continuously but weirdly all season (bolted quickly, never manifesting stems more than a finger's width, but keeps putting out more delicious leaves to harvest), was harvested on Tuesday, blanched on Wednesday. I've only got about three cups of it in the freezer -- could have had a lot more if the stems weren't so fibrous -- and a whole pile of seed pods to dry for next year's planting.

The last of the tomatoes and peppers were brought in almost a month ago, and every one of the true-green tomatoes has turned red, and for the most part haven't gone rotten before ripening. They're a long shot from September Beefsteaks, but juicy with some sweetness and tartness better than store-bought. A few of the peppers have turned yellow too, although they're wrinkling. Not enough to can, not enough reallly to roast and freeze, just a caponata or pepperonata's worth.

The last of the tomatillos went into about a half-gallon of salsa when the tomatoes were picked;that's just about gone -- we eat it pretty steadily.

Overall, not a great season: The lacinato kale disappeared around July, and something killed some of the tomatillo plants early. The tomatoes were devoured by varmints faster than they'd ripen, what little ripened before the summer turned cool. The gai lan and peppers were a little more prolific, and we did well with lettuce early in the season.

Time to plan for next year: Gai Lan definitely, perhaps fewer tomato and tomatillo plants (they tend to spread all over, meaning I don't get to the back to pick them before they rot).

I cleaned out everything over the last week--last harvest yielded a nice full bag of lacinato kale, another of rainbow chard, the rest of the celery, and all of the remaining chilis which are still in a bag in the dining room awaiting stripping from the branches--there are hundreds of them so I've been procrastinating. Also cleaned out the herb plants--ended up with a small bag of dried oregano, another small bag of fresh sage and a bunch of parsley and cilantro. The thyme and rosemary will be fine until there's a hard freeze so they will stay outside.

It wasn't a great year--very few tomatoes, tomatillos were infected with something and never filled out past a few at the beginning--even the little purple ones which are usually very prolific. Had to buy a jar of salsa for the first time in years last week.

Next year I 'm going to do twice as many potatoes and onions--they are so delicious home grown, store well and get used the most anyway. And I have big corn plans I'll still do tomatoes and tomatillos but, hopefully, the plants will start out healthier--this year's batch had white fly infestation that was brutal with the damp weather. Even the beans (except the long beans which were very productive) didn't yield the usual amount.

I also didn't get to can anything this year--kinda bummed that the season passed without doing it. It's the first year in ages that I haven't had a store of tomatoes. I usually buy a flat of beefsteak from one of the farms on my path to NWI to add to what I don't eat fresh from my stock and freeze/can enough to keep me supplied through the winter--bought canned tomatoes yesterday as well. Sigh. There's always next year!

Hi. This year I participated in the Peterson Garden Project. Overall, i think my little plot was a success. I went crazy with tomatoes and planted about 6 plants. A couple died initially in the season and I had to replant some new ones. After that little bump, they did really well. I didn't have to buy tomatoes all summer which was great. I also grew cucumbers which did nicely up until around August, then they started to peeter out. i made some cucumber kim-chee with some of those. My habanero plants didn't really start taking off until the end of the season, however, the few that I got I was really proud of. My green pepper plants however were disappointing. I think I may have gotten two small peppers off those. I learned the hard way that you shouldn't plant too many carrot seeds close together. I just spinkled an entire packet down the middle of my garden and found that they barely grew since they were so crowded. I truly had baby carrots this summer. I learned that mint can survive just about any type of weather; the catnip did well; the basil not so much. It seems like a really sensitive plant. All in all it was a great learning experience for me and the family. My boys really had fun picking the veggies every weekend and helping out with the watering. It became our family tradition over the summer. I'm looking forward to next season!