2019 Gardens, All sizes

[John P]

How early do you guys plant your gardens?.Up here in Canada or Ontario we do not really plant much before May 24th weekend (Victoria Day Long Weekend here in Canada)

[Eugene]

How early do you guys plant your gardens?

Missouri University, Columbia, Mo., has ag test farms. The farms have soil temperature monitors with the data available on the internet.

I watch the local soil temperatures and will start planting some vegetables when the soil reaches 60F. This is central Missouri, so early crops mid April, May for the rest.

[Peter Person]

So we've had enough cooperation from the weather such that my bride was able to get the garden planted over the weekend.
I get to till and pound stakes!

Total footprint is 30' x 60'. Not using the end of the garden this year. Burned off the weeds and covered in black plastic.
Pig Fence is for cucumbers.
Several varieties of tomatoes and peppers, plus the usual green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, butternut, green soybeans, lettuce, parsley, garlic.

Peter

[Slim140]

Got the garden chopped out, cultivated and fertilized yesterday. Just in time for some much needed rain today.

[Slim140]

What a difference 3 days makes. Have gotten 3” of rain since weds. This picture of the gauge is just since yesterday.

[Slim140]

First squash of the year. I was hoping to cultivate more then twice this year with the tractor but that’s not happening.

[SONNY]

LOVE the yellow squash! ----Didn't get ours to come up this year. --- wanted to freeze dry a lot of them, BUT that's out for this year!
The onions are about half sized so far, only have a few weeks growing time before harvest so hope they get some decent size to them. Sweet corn ranges from knee-high down to just planted yesterday. -- will see how this stage planting goes, never tried it before and so far I'm not impressed with growing corn that way! Sweet potatoes are growing decent despite the setback from cold weather and some nasty hail.
Small patch of popcorn is just short of knee high and came up good so we see what it does this year.
Our red beans are about ready to bloom, some of them didn't make it out of the hard ground, but 75% did so I planted 1 more row yesterday to see if they will do anything late.
The green beans are starting to bloom and look fairly good despite hail damage.
Radishes are done as is the leaf lettuce. Turnips dont look like they are going to bulb, just making tops and nothing underneath.
We are over a month late getting dry enough to garden this year AND now we need some rain!!! ---- We got a couple tenth's last night but didn't wet the ground under the trees so I am ready to start hauling water again this year.
Kinda figured it would be a bad garden year this time, so we are still attempting to get whatever we can to grow.
Potatoes are almost waist high and blooming, Early red norlands usually get it on real early here so we may have a few of them to munch on. Still spraying them for bugs and for right now it seams to be holding the bugs off! Thanks; sonny

[Slim140]

What a difference 2 weeks make. Oh and 7+ inches of rain.

[ScottyD'sdad]

Sonny, it's not too late to replant summer squash. Here, we can replant in early July, and still get a crop.

Ed

[Slim140]

We got hammered with a bad storm here today. From the time it clouded up until the sun was back out was only 20 minutes.

In that 20 minutes we got 1 1/2” of rain.

The squash and zucchini plants got blew over, Hope they recover. Our storms usually come from the west, this one came from the north.

Today’s haul, if our plants don’t recover we will have around $32 each in these veggies

[Jack]

This has been the wettest season that I can recall,

[Eugene]

This has been the wettest season that I can recall,

Same for Ozarks, central Missouri, and more rain in the forecast.

3 weeks ago spoke with the truck farmer who sells as the farmers market. He said is vegetables were rotting before maturing and didn't think he would have anything to sell until conditions improve.

Neighbor farmers are ready to combine fescue as soon as things dry out. Hay and pasture conditions, great.

My garden. Ground cherry seed have sprouted, finally. Three tries, first two tries didn't sprout. Guessing seed rotted.

Elephant garlic doing great. Other 3 types of garlic either rotted off or doing poorly.

[SONNY]

We had rain for the last couple of days, clods kinda softening up, at least I can break them up with a hoe. Too wet for the tiller, so am hadn weeding/hoeing/etc. Some of the plants look fairly good, but if they produce or not will be a wait and see thing!
Look's like we are all in the same boat this year with gardens! ---Hope some late stuff makes it! ----bugs/hot weather/etc. make it harder to get anything to produce. ---- Hang in there guys,---gotta have a little fresh produce! ---Markets here are not having the big flow of local stuff either!---a few of them went out of state looking for something to bring back to sell!--so much for local grown quality! lol!!

[SONNY]

Now that we need rain, none to be had! ---looks like 100* temps and muggy times are here. --will have to start hauling water to the gardens!

[SONNY]

Anybody else have Jap beetles?---They have destroyed all of our fruit trees and grapes. Spray kills them only after they eat the leaves so that don't help. I have the ground covered with dead bugs, but more keep coming in to take the place of dead ones.
Need something that will kill on contact, Anybody know of such chemical??? I can't find anything around here.
Did harvest a few green beans yesterday. Might get 1 more picking before beetles destroy the plants.
Onions are starting to get ready, at least the short day ones are. The long day ones are not even close to being done.---we were 6 weeks late planting anything this year due to rain, NOW when we need rain, none to be had. Been trying to haul water to some of the gardens so don't know if thats going to help or not.
Potatoes are starting to die back, so will dig them shortly. Tomatoes are just now putting on green ones. Sweet corn is getting some fair looking ears on it. This year I did several plantings in stages and the last plantings will not make it.---too dry. I will never plant in stages again,-- it don't work here. --it's early or not at all!
Temps near 100 with heat indexes of 124 here for the last 2 weeks. Next 2 days s'posed to be only in upper 80's but weekend back into 90's again.--that seams to be the forcast for next 2 weeks, with no chance of rain.
Gardens this year were about the worst I ever had.
How are you guys doing with your gardens?? thanks; sonny