Broses' Organic Garden

Hey guys, so i keep seeing a bunch of threads showing off peoples gardens. i figured id do the same.

ive got a 500 sq ft plot for all of this, and am using some stranger methods for what i do, and i also make everything myself.

im using the corn as a trellis in addition to the ones i made for my cucumbers because the leaves shade the ground keeping it moist, and drowing light out so weeds dont grow too much.

anyways...

EDIT: finally figured out the pictures, so there they are.


what ive got planted are:
-Cucumbers cv Long English
-Tomatoes cv Golden Queen, Sweet 100, Big beef
-Corn cv Butter Gold SE
-Carrots cv Purple Haze, Chantenay Red
-Beets cv Ruby Queen
-Swiss Chard cultivar unknown
-Turnips cultivar unknown
-Onions cv Red Spanish (i think)



now onto the pictures! (assuming i got them to work properly lol.. if not i put the link underneath so you can click i guess lol)

overall picture of the garden, the corn hasnt come up yet, i planted it a little bit late, but chose a short season variety to make up, there are a lot of weeds more towards the neighboring plot


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here is a bunch of my tomatoes, i planted them laying on their sides so theyd get a large amount of roots very quickly. theyd be about 2 feet tall right now if it werent for that, and im trying a training technique commonly used in greenhouses, but adapted for the field


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some upclose shots of the tomatoes

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my swiss chard seedlings.. i got some pretty bad seeds so not many are germinating, and the ones that are getting eaten to shit


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my onions, i these were little tiny bulbs, the only think in here that i didnt start from seed myself.


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my nasturtiums, im using these as a trap crop to keep the aphids away from my tomatoes. i also just love picking the leaves to eat.. and my parent slove them in salads


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now with the trellis


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i made another trellis for my cucumbers.. i actually have this ladder looking thing, and 2 tripods


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you can see the rows of corn in this one aswell


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now the cucumbers themselves.. i would have started these in the greenhouse, and i did try but we had a whitefly problem which nearly killed my tomatoes, killed off some peppers, and some cucumbers of mine aswell.


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had to replant my carrots because i forgot to give them nice big mounds, and sort of planted them kinda deep... lol.. anyways for those who dont know, these mounds make it easier to harvest, and also helps with getting those really big carrots.


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i scattered my beets over a smallish area.. it appears more crowded than it actually is. there is turnips beside them but i just planted those recently so theyre not quite up.. figured a picture of soil was kind of pointless.


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and we had some hail shortly after planting the tomatoes, this was one of the ones that was hit.. but this one was lucky and managed to survive.


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Edited by Broses, 16 June 2012 - 03:01 AM.

Nice!

You mulch?
How are the nasturtiums working?

Nice!

You mulch?
How are the nasturtiums working?

Well my experience is mostly in the greenhouse, but yep im planning on mulching. i am probably just going to be using some straw to keep the weeds away and the moisture in the soil, but if the farm im at has anything fancier that could help with providing some extra nutrients damn rights im going to be using it.

As for the nasturtiums.. its far too early to tell. most of my plants are just sprouting/sprouted. however in the greenhouse we had an aphid infestation early on and used nasturtiums to help get them off from the rest of the plants so we could spray just the nasturtiums and it actually worked surprisingly well. this time though its going to be more squishing than spraying.. i also have access to an organic pesticide the farmers im renting from make.

my theory is that the smell attracts the aphids, and if youve ever pulled a leaf from the nasturtium you very quickly will see a drop of sap, so it has more than enough food to keep those little buggers happy right on the nasturtiums. the amount of lady bugs around my garden though makes me think i will be harvesting the nasturtiums for food rather than using it as a trap crop.

Alright so i meant to get more pictures today, but the battery in the camera died and it isnt actually my camera.. so all i got was 1 picture of how im training my tomatoes. i think people who grow weed call it LST but anyways as you can see im tying them down where needed, so it grows along the cage. some plants dont need the string.. but like i said no batteries to get pics of these ones.

as for updates, i should be getting some straw to use as a mulch around my tomatoes and cucumbers.

So i did a small germination test on my corn seeds and only 5/10 germinated. on a larger scale i wouldnt be surprised if it was much much less, because out of 4 rows iplanted only 6 have come up. luckily the varieties im planting are 60-70 days to harvest so i was able to buy seeds from a different company that im much more willing to trust.

carrots for everybody this year have been doing awful, and barely germinating so i replaced 2 of my rows with some beans since they grow very quickly, and the variety i chose is good for freezing. hopefully the carrots will come up yet (ive found like 3 of them, but its been over 2 weeks so if those mounds arent just wasted space ill be surprised).

more pictures to come for my beets/cucumbers/tomatoes/peppers/turnips tomorrow so long as it isnt raining. i wouldnt be surprised if the beans will be up too because they germinated over night when i soaked them.

Alright heres some new pics. corn has been replanted, beans replaced 2 rows of carrots, and my tomatoes are doing great. infact theyre doing better than anybody elses ive seen, probably because im pruning mine so no suckers are stealing energy from the main plant.

Imageshack really dicked me around by rotating/shrinking a lot of the pictures.


an overhead view of the tomatoes, for comparison from 2 weeks ago. bigger ones ive just been pruning, smaller looking ones ive been training.


how im training them. a bit better picture than the one i posted previously


my guard spider



a picture of a tomato ive pruned and nothing else


overhead picture of the tomato plant



some basal im growing around the tomatoes, because ive heard growing basal and tomatoes together enhances the flavor of both plants


my turnips, more seedlings are still popping up, but im getting in there soon to take out even more of the portulaca



here are my beets now, theyve grown quite a bit. ive thinned them out several times now and have more beet leaves to eat than we know what to do with.


side view



the swiss chard has popped up quite a bit


the nasturtiums are also getting bigger, but i cant wait until i can start training them on their trellis to give some shade to the swiss chard.


my cucumbers are all doing pretty good. if you water these things a lot they grow a lot. its kind of cool to see the difference from one day to the next


a couple more cucumbers


the corn that has come up so far, ive planted a lot more that will hopefully be up in the week

so imageshack is pissing me off. im pretty much quitting this thread and just doing what i do best.