Gardens for 2021 season

[Don McCombs]

Depending on how old your solar fencer is, you may need to replace the battery. I had to replace mine this year, after about five years of use.

[Eugene]

Depending on how old your solar fencer is, you may need to replace the battery. I had to replace mine this year, after about five years of use.

Replaced the battery a couple weeks ago. This fencer is about 15 years old. Trash bin in the morning, after I salvage the leads and alligator clamps.

OK. I know I'm frugal. Never know when I'll need another set.

Haven't used the fencer in perhaps 15 years.

Yesterday, purchased another tractor battery. One on the battery powered fencer and the other one on a maintainer.

[Eugene]

Planted elephant and California white garlic last fall. Elephant garlic is doing great. The white garlic, nothing, didn't emerge from soil.

Planted elephant and white garlic around the newly planted pecan seedling to keep the deer away. Elephant garlic great, white garlic nothing.

Grocery store yesterday. They had sprouted ilnichon purple garlic on the shelf. Purchased and planted two bulbs. May be to late in the season for the purple garlic. We will see.

[Mht]

I worked in the garden today. I tied up and suckered some tomatoes. I also ran my Armstrong cultivator a little while. My plants are looking good and starting to blossom.

[Mht]

Sorry about the rotated photos. I’m not sure why that happened

[SamsFarm]

I worked in the garden today.

Thats a bit more than a garden in my book!

Looks good though!

[Mht]

Yes my garden is pretty good size. I have a small produce stand and sell as much as I can. I have about 265 tomato plants in the ground right now and will continue planting them until July 4. I should have somewhere near 600 tomato plants by the time I’m finished planting. I grow mostly heirloom varieties and have little trouble selling all I can produce. I do have a couple of friends that help and take tomatoes for payment. I have three 90 ft long rows of okra in the same garden and I believe they are harder to keep up with than the tomatoes. I can pick tomatoes about three times a week where the okra needs picking almost every day. It’s a lot of work but I enjoy it and the income can be pretty good

[SamsFarm]

I have a small produce stand and sell as much as I can. I have about 265 tomato plants in the ground right now and will continue planting them until July 4. I should have somewhere near 600 tomato plants by the time I’m finished planting. I grow mostly heirloom varieties and have little trouble selling all I can produce.

Thats a lot of tomatoes!

Is your produce stand at your house?

What does your produce stand look like if you do not mind me asking?

Do you advertise any way?

Thank you!

[Mht]

Yes my stand is at my house in a neighborhood in Raleigh NC. My wife was working from home last summer and would usually go out and meet customers. We also had an honor box so people could get produce if we weren’t there or couldn’t break from work to come out and meet them. We had no noticeable theft from the stand when we weren’t there. We advertise on Craigslist and Facebook. Our best advertising is our customers though. My stand is just a small trailer with bins on the sides and a tin roof over the top.

[Mht]

I’ve been around and had gardens since I was a kid. My wife and I own part of a century farm about two hours from where we live. We are planning to retire and move there in a few years. I have a 72 year old neighbor there that gardens about five acres and sells most everything he grows. The amount of money he brings in from his garden is amazing and so I’ve thought this is something I would like to do on a larger scale once we move to the farm. My neighbor is encouraging and mentoring me in the whole process and pushing me to get started before he decides to get out of it. He is also helping another neighbor the same way. He thinks it would be a shame to lose the customer base he has developed and would like to see friends and neighbors take over the market as he eases out of it. Last year was my first year actually trying to grow enough to sell and it worked out ok. We had problems with too much rainfall and too much produce at one time to do great last year but we still did pretty good. This year I’m going to plant fewer plants at a time but over a longer period so maybe I’ll have a longer growing season and less produce at any given time and see how that works out. I’m also working on getting several permanent fenced garden spots in place at our farm and have planted sweet corn, beans, and peas there this year. I hope to be able to harvest a lot of this produce and bring to Raleigh to sell at my stand. These crops won’t require quite as much time as my tomatoes and so I’ll see how this works. I’m at my farm about every other weekend to mow the yard and family cemetery so I thought I would try some less intensively managed crops there. Worst case is that my family and friends will have plenty to eat,can, and freeze. I’ll continue to post through out the summer and let y’all know how things work out

[SONNY]

Glad to see it working for you! Most people dont have a clue as to the amount of work that is needed to grow a garden of any size. Your customers are your best advertising! --- They will spread the word and you will see more new faces in the yard!
Keep the posts and pix. coming all season long!

[Dale Finch]

I'm in Chapel Hill... I need to go to Raleigh soon to have my torque wrench calibrated...where is your stand? It'd be nice to meet you and talk cubs.

And I would love some tomatoes, but I guess they haven't grown up yet...

[Mht]

Hi Dale. My produce stand is at my house and I’m just south of I-40 and not far from NCSU. I’m hoping to have tomatoes by the last week of June. Anytime you are going to be in Raleigh send me a PM and we can try and get together to talk cubs. Now that the mask mandate has been lifted I’m looking forward to the next IH chapter 37 meeting and hoping Chuck is planning for his cubfest this summer. And I hope it won’t be on one of the weekends that we are at Sunset beach with my wife’s family.

[Super A]

Right now I have three rows of watermelons, two rows of sweet corn, four strawberry plants in pots, and that is it. I have intentions of planting a row of okra and later, a row of collards, but it's only May 17 and it's already almost as dry as the Gobi Desert around here. Then when you take into account how I tried to do a little cultivating on Saturday with another Super A I acquired last fall and it completely showed its a** before I could finish, (another story for another time but this thing might be for sale soon--cheap!) I think I may just call it a day with gardens 2021 and buy my vegetables at the store.

Al

[Mht]

I’ve had to water several times already this year. Luckily at my garden where I grow tomatoes and some other veggies I have access to a good well. I put a drip irrigation system together last year and only turned it on a couple of times. It uses a one inch main line with barbed valves installed matching my row spacing and connect 5/8 inch drip tape to each barbed valve. This system is fed through a filter and pressure reducer by one 3/4 inch garden hose and will effectively water 16 rows approximately 90 feet long.it may water more than that but that is the size of my system. I can shut off any drip line that I want to with the valve in the main line. The cost for the whole system was less than 400 dollars and that included a 500 ft coil of my main line of which I used less than 100 ft and a 6000 ft roll of drip tape of which I used about 1500 ft. I used new drip tape this year but if I had wanted to I could have probably saved and reused my tape from last year but I didn’t have a spool to wind it back onto for storage and by the end of the season it was kinda grown over with weeds and I felt like it wasn’t worth the time to gently remove it from the garden. That 400 dollar price also included a second filter and pressure reducer and multiple extra fittings. For anyone wanting to put together an irrigation system for a garden I highly recommend a system like I have. It’s very efficient and put no noticeable strain on my well. Feel free to PM me if you would like more info on my system. I’d be happy to take some pictures and give you some brand info and specs