Stovepipe

Thanks guys! I ripped out about half of my summer plants to make room for cool season stuff. This weekend I got cabbage, collards, carrots, lettuce, and spinach in the ground. I may plant a few more greens but generally will just put down crimson clover again for a cover crop over winter. I'm most excited about getting the garlic and onions planted in October. Although I spent a little more than I would have liked, I decided to try a couple of garlic varieties from a seed company. Hopefully if they are successful I'll be able to keep some bulbs for planting next time to avoid that cost again. From the website: Garlic German Red Strong, Rich Flavor! Authentic flavor, bold and spicy! 140-150 days. When it comes to hardnecks (Rocamboles), German Red is the choice for northern and cold-winter gardens from coast to coast! Right at home in severe winter weather, it matures beautifully from a fall planting, yielding plenty of large, shiny, striped purple-and-white cloves for your enjoyment. German Red sets large fruit, with about 8 to 10 big cloves and no smaller internal cloves. Superbly fragrant as well as flavorful, it offers that satisfying "real garlic" bite that is so mouthwatering. The cloves are easy to peel, with an ivory base color and many lavender stripes and streaks. German Red harvests in midseason and holds very well, so you can grow a big crop and harvest them all at once. It's quite easy to grow, having very few problems with pests. Plant it in rich, well-drained soil -- garlic doesn't do well in dense soils with few nutrients. You should separate the cloves just prior to planting, placing them about 6 inches apart and 4 inches deep. 1/2 pound. and Garlic Kettle River Giant This is an Artichoke variety, spicy and hot. It originates from the Pacific Northwest, so cold climates are no issue. 90-150 days. This tasty garlic is called giant for a reason -- the bulbs can grow up to 4 inches across! A softneck Artichoke variety, Kettle River Giant actually offers the best of both worlds, displaying the long storage capabilities of a softneck combined with the rich flavor and medium-hot aftertaste of a hardneck. Kettle River Giant is an heirloom garlic that originates in the Pacific Northwest, so cold climates are not an issue. In fact, it consistently produces large bulbs in areas that experience harsh winters. Its beige-white wrappers with pink overtones cover 10 to 14 cream-colored cloves. Kettle River Giant is quite easy to grow, having very few problems with pests, including deer. Plant it in rich, well-drained soil -- garlic doesn't do well in dense soils with few nutrients. You should separate the cloves just prior to planting, placing them 6 to 9 inches apart and covering them with 1 to 2 inches of soil. This garlic has also proven to be quite suitable for growing in containers. 1/2 pound. Anyone tried growing these before?

Well it has been an enjoyable yet very busy summer for gardening here. It was mostly successful but there are always lessons to learn and I have a few things that I'll do differently next year. At this point we've canned over 100 quarts of stuff, mostly tomato products, and frozen quite a few quart bags of peppers. Tomatoes and peppers are still coming in but things are starting to slow down a bit, which is good because I'm almost reaching the burnout point. Tomatoes started ripening mid June and by July 4th Brandywine and Cherokee Purple heirlooms were getting abundant. By mid to late July the 28 seedlings matured and that bed went nuts. Since then we've been having to can 2 or 3 times a week just to keep up and avoid having them spoil. It's funny, the bed with the seedlings performed the best despite it being the redheaded step child garden. None of those plants were staked, I just let em flop over and grow wild on the ground (on woodchips). I only ran the sprinkler like 4 or 5 times down there all summer. Yet, they seemed to thrive better than the ones in beds closer to the house that were tied up and pampered a bit more. My green peppers matured late and I've only gotten to pick some decent sized ones since mid August. Jalapenos though have been going crazing all summer. I probably have 12 or so vacuum sealed quart bags of them in the freezer after giving a ton away. They just keep coming. The Cajun bells have been the darlings this year though. They have grown consistently well all season, have awesome flavor, aren't quite as hot as jalapenos and therefore have been more usable in more stuff. I will be planting lots more of those next year. Tabascos have also done well. My cucumbers were the most disappointing but they were also planted in the more marginal soiled areas of my gardens. We got enough for maybe 8 jars of pickles but considering the number of plants I had, that was a pretty big fail. Next year I'll put them in better soil, fertilize and water them more often, and build something for them to climb. Herbs did very well for us this time. We had plenty on hand for salsa and pasta sauce, as well as pesto. We did two big herb harvests where we dried them and stored in jars. They out grew my herb box so I had to move some of it around to other places in the yard. The only thing that crapped out early was the cilantro. Green beans were an afterthought, but when the onions and cabbage were harvested I shoved beans into the space that was freed up. We ended up with about 10 quarts and some pints before we got tired of messing with them. As far as canning, I started out focusing on salsa. Aside from having to buy a few farmers market green peppers and a few onions here and there, everything came from the garden and it was delicious. Then I switched focus to pasta sauce. This is the first year I've done it, and man was it the star of the season. It takes almost all damn day to work up a batch but the flavor is ridiculous. I followed almost to a tee the sauce recipe on the Old World Garden Farm site linked in this thread, although I reduced the hot peppers a bit. I highly recommend it even if you have to buy the ingredients. It blows away any store bought sauce I've ever had. I also made many quarts of V8 style tomato juice, also following the recipe on that site. Now, as I'm reaching burnout and September is on us, I'm pretty much just canning whole tomatoes or cooking them down and canning the stock juice. I figure I can use the stock at a later time to make more pasta sauce or whatever. In summary, I think the woodchips helped tremendously this year. Weeds were better kept in check and I did far less watering than ever (granted the weather cooperated). Next year I'll probably plant fewer tomatoes (100 plants is kind of nuts) but space them out a bit more. Most of my plants were sort of crowded so it was a lot of work to get into that jungle everyday and pull out maters. I'm also going to rotate crops around next year as a few of my traditional tomato beds didn't perform as well and I think it's because this is the third year in a row I've planted them there. Here are a few pics taken at different times this summer: Dining room table was covered up constantly: We have been pulling in two to four of these tubs of tomatoes every day for weeks: The cajun belles were the stars of the pepper show: The 24 plant Roma bed exploded but then crapped out afterwards, only one or two good harvests which was kind of a bummer: Some of the canned goods, with fresh chicken stock on top: Cherokee Purples are the best tasting tomato I've ever eaten in my life:

I highly recommend planting garlic in the Fall. This was my first crop and it was very easy. I just bought some grocery store bulbs (possibly organic, don't recall), pulled apart the cloves (keeping skins on), soaked in water over night, then planted them about 2 inches deep with the pointy ends up. Mine were pretty close together, about 9 per square foot, but I'll probably space them out a bit more next time. Just mulched them a few times with straw and wood chips. Planted mid October, harvested when they fell over first of June. I let the whole plants cure in the garage for about 3 weeks before trimming the bulbs. Ended up with a decent haul! This spring was my first attempt at cabbage. It was only a mild success. They were very buggy, I got the worms under control a bit late, and mine were planted too close together. I got a few decent sized heads but nothing too impressive. Not sure if I'll fool with them this fall or not. They were fun to watch grow though. I finally got enough fresh stuff out of the garden to make my first homegrown batch of garlic dill pickles. Managed 4 quarts this time, hope to get 20 before it's over with. My family got me a dehydrator for Father's Day and I'm gonna try it out tonight with 2 kinds of beef jerky and some turkey jerky. Gonna dry out some herbs this weekend. Just need these heirloom tomatoes to ripen! Hopefully this hot dry spell will turn the tide.

Tennessee paradise right now: in the backyard, nibbling on a Cajun Belle pepper, just picked cucumber #10 and Early Girl #8 of the season, about to cut some maters up and cover em in cottage cheese and fresh basil, wife has a veggie and meatball pasta about ready, storm clouds rising in the sky over the mountains, the Dead's Europe '72 is playing.... Life is good in the valley!

Wow that's exciting! How often have you been watering the cucumbers in this dry pattern? They seem more sensitive to it in my yard than anything else so I've had to irrigate a couple times a week. Mine are still tiny.

Couldn't stand it any longer, had to put up 3 quarts of garlic dill pickles. Farmers market cucs, my dill, black peppercorns for flare. Mmmmmm mmmmmm.

What sorts of pests are you guys dealing with? In the past my biggest problem has been birds pecking my maters right as they start to ripen. I've lost as much as 50% of my crop due to them. Last year I put aluminum foil around and that seemed to help some. This year I'm putting up like 50 spinning foil pinwheels. We'll see how that works. Of course, cabbage worms are a pain in the arse. I just last week resorted to using a product I found at Lowes for use in organic gardens. I've not seen any worms on my cabbages since spraying them but plants took a beating before I could do that. I had seen the white butterflies around for weeks and knew it was just a matter of time before they hatched the worms. Two or three days after seeing the first worm my cabbages were hurting bad. This year I'm dealing with something new that is pissing me off: Voles. I first noticed I had a problem when a recently planted pepper plant just disappeared. Planted another one in the same spot and it vanished too, only a couple of leaves remained scattered on the ground. Then I started hearing scattering commotion in the spinach patch nearby. My mother in west TN said it had to be voles and that she'd killed several already this year. Apparently they love mulched areas, go figure. Now they've invaded my potato patch and have destroyed half of the plants. All I know to do is put out mouse traps and hope for the best. If they start messing with my maters heads are gonna roll.... What are y'all dealing with?

A few years ago I found a bunch of Rodale's gardening books for cheap at McKay's. There are some on organic gardening, container gardens, herbs, vegetables, ornamentals, you name it. I highly recommend them. A quick Amazon search

Very impressive Carvers your garden looks awesome! So did you start most of that stuff from seed? If so, when did you start it? I love your fennel, that is such a beautiful plant. I've got some that I've tried to get going from seed but it isn't really taking off. I've searched for fennel plants but haven't seen any around here, otherwise I'd buy a few to put in the ground. Very nice work buddy!

Red Cherry seedlings, cabbage and onions, hot peppers: Massive friggin load of wood chips: Ok, I'm done attention whoring for now. Let's see y'alls pics!

Here's some pics taken this afternoon. Wide shot of the southwest side of the yard, lots of tomatoes and a few ornamentals: Overflow plot built recently. It'll be a year or two before the soil gets ideal but so far sunflowers and tomato seedlings are doing ok along with some strawberries. Saving some space for tomato sucker plants later this summer for fall goodness: Raised rows that catch water off the porch. Bottom row has cucumbers and little jalapeno seedlings, top row is various peppers with kale in between, upper box has sun cherry tomatoes. Dill bush barely visible in the background: Herbs and flowers on the deck: Tomatoes and rain barrel catching water off one corner of the house: Roma seedling bed with 24 plants, some cabbage and onions in the corner: Stump bed with 10 tomato plants put in the ground April 5th. Got one early girl that's orange! Should start getting a regular harvest off these within 2 weeks: Raised row of cucumbers: Back view with potato stump bed (which is sadly invaded with voles, trying to remedy that), hot peppers, green beans, and cabbage/onions: Compost bins. The tumbler can turn grass clippings and fine wood chips or straw into usable fertilizer in 3 to 4 weeks. The pallet bins are for rougher stuff: Never enough plants, I want MOAR MOAR!!!

That is a nice sized garden, I like the variety! I've not ventured into okra yet but I'd like to. Let us know how aggressive that vine becomes. Sounds good Bob! If you need wood chips, I'm right down the road from you and have WAY more than I can use right now. PM me if you want a load.

For this year's warm season I've got the following in the ground: Tomatoes - around 90 plants: Brandywine, Century, Roma, Beefmaster, Early Girl, Red Cherry, and Sun Cherry Peppers - around 50 plants: Green Bell, Red Bell, Cajun Bell, Tabasco, and 4 varieties of Jalapeno Potatoes - around 20 plants Cucumbers - around 20 plants: 4 large burpless hybrids and the rest Boston Picklers Strawberries - 8 plants Green Beans - maybe 30 bush beans Cabbages - 8 plants (planted early spring, still making) Eggplant - 2 plants Sunflowers - around 30 plants, mostly Mammoth Herbs: Basil, Sage, Thyme, Cilantro, Parsley, Rosemary, Dill, Fennel, and Oregano (including spicy hot variety) Onions and Kale still growing Various flowers About 75% of the tomato and pepper plants were started from seed under grow light back in February. I'll take some pictures tonight. Looking forward to hearing about and seeing everybody's stuff!

I've dabbled in vegetable gardening for many years but only got serious about it in about the past 5 or so. It's gotten very addictive and each year since 2008 I've expanded my space. Historically I've just done the usual summertime tomatoes and peppers but I ventured into cool season stuff spring 2013 that got me hooked in a big way. Now I'm growing and preserving everything I possibly can. It's bordering on getting out of control haha. I did not start out using an organic approach but have migrated to that over time simply because I've found I have much better results using those principles. For me, hands down the two main keys to success with vegetable gardening are composting and mulching. We focus heavily on building compost year round using neighbors' grass clippings, leaves, kitchen waste, yard debris, wood chips, and straw. I plant everything in deep compost and mound it up around them regularly to fertilize. For the mulching, I've been getting large loads of free wood chips from the tree service people. This has been a massive improvement to my gardens as I've left no soil exposed and everything stays nice and wet. I rarely even have to water anymore and weeding is easier than ever. The chips break down overtime and combine with the compost to build good rich soil. I've found preserving to be very rewarding. In the past I've water bath canned garlic dill pickles and tomatoes that we've enjoyed year round. I never had enough from my own garden to put up what I wanted to so I supplemented with farmer's market goods. This year, barring major disease, pest, or weather issues, I should have more than enough produce to put up over 100 quarts of various things. My primary focus at the moment is salsa. I hope to put up 50 quarts or more of salsa using all homegrown ingredients. Then, garlic dill pickles. I like them very garlicy and very dilly. Then whole tomatoes for soups and chili then some pasta sauce as well. I recently bought a pressure canner to ensure I can safely can anything else. It worked very well for doing mustard greens and chicken stock last month. Looking forward to using it for green beans and corn as well as soups later on. We will also be freezing a bunch of stuff. My current gardens consist of a series of raised beds, some built with landscaping logs, some with old pallet and fence wood, and some with large pine stumps. I have 3 raised rows that I've been building soil into slowly over time. And finally a new decently large plot (for suburban standards) for putting excess seedings and tomato suckers, basically just overflow space. I'm fortunate to have a good sized yard for suburban west Knoxville at 3/4 of an acre. My gardens are all currently in the back yard but I will be expanding to the front yard for more veggies next spring as well as the side yard for berries this fall. Hope to get some fruit and nut trees started too at some point. For last fall/winter I had the following in the ground: Garlic, onions, spinach, mustard greens, collards, swiss chard, lettuce, and a crimson clover cover crop. The spinach, garlic, and onions made it through winter just fine. The spinach got waste high, the garlic was harvested last week, and the onions are still making. This spring I had kale, lettuce, collards, and mustard greens. Only the Kale remains. Here are a few cool season photos: Garlic patch: Garlic harvest last week: Spinach beginning to bolt Mustard Greens: Some of the Crimson Clover planted as a cover crop to fix nitrogen:

Let's talk about gardening! I know we have quite a few gardeners around here. I'm sure we all have advice to share. Post what you're growing and let us see some pics! I'll edit this initial post over time and add any gardening links or resources that are relevant to our region. Some links: University of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Publications - Warm and cool season vegetable growing guides tailored for our area - Pages and pages of information on soil management and pest control - Good ideas for planning your garden USDA National Center for Home Food Preservation - THE source for proper canning guidelines to ensure food safety - Also covers drying, smoking, pickling, etc. Old World Garden Farms - An excellent source of information on vegetable gardening, canning, recipes, pallet projects, and other DIY - I'm a big fan of their "post hole digger" planting method, I've had great success with it Back To Eden Film - This film drives home the benefits of wood chip mulching and organic gardening in general - If you can stomach the religious stuff (not my thing) you can learn some good gardening methods that work Carvers Links: http://www.southernexposure.com http://www.seedsavers.org http://parkseed.com http://www.sandhillpreservation.com http://www.johnnyseeds.com http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/victorygarden/ http://leapingwatersfarm.com/?page_id=16. (Our meat CSA...highly recommend this.) http://www.seedsofchange.com

Welcome Jed, glad you joined us!

Saw this posted in the SE forum today, also very cool: http://weather.cod.edu/forecast/

I'm impressed with some of y'alls memory and record keeping skills, wow. I do good to recall general details of storms 3 years ago lol. We should make a severe version of this thread come spring time.

January 22nd 2000, Smithville Tennessee, my wedding day. I wasn't on weather forums at the time and the local news was not hyping this at all, so everyone in my wedding party was shocked to wake up to moderate snow with 2 inches or so on the ground. Roads got very bad quickly and many friends and family from west TN and north MS weren't able to make it. But, it was a friggin awesome snow storm and the timing was perfect. It snowed on and off all day resulting in probably 4 to 6 inches by the evening in Smithville. I white knuckled it over the plateau in my Maxima to the airport in Knoxville. Good times.

Great thread idea! I'm enjoying the responses so far! The memory is fuzzy, but I was in Knoxville for that one as an undergrad. Wild storm for sure and fridgid temps, it shut down UT campus which was very rare. I recall about a half foot on the ground, in which some of us buried a keg of beer. Seems like there were several snow storms in a row there between January and early February but like I said, my memory is fuzzy and I'm too lazy to look it up. I do know there was enough snow to bury a keg of beer though.

Your passion for this is appreciated my friend!

Good idea, here's Cold Rain's nifty list that was crowd sourced. Some of these won't be relevant to our area but many are. Edit: well that paste kinda failed, stupid iPad. I'll attempt again.

Dwag! You gonna go chasing on the Skyway again this winter? Good to see you posting man.

Bob, a round of beer is on me at the Bearden Beer Market, maybe two.