A Bit of Photographic Gardening History

It has been so long since we last sent out a family e-mail newsletter that a lot of what we've been up to since then has sort of slipped on by. I won't force you all to wade through all of that but I did come across some random photos yesterday that I thought you might like to see.

This first one is of me spreading horse manure on the Spring 2005 garden. A friend of Diana's owned a horse at the time which she kept in a rather small paddock. This naturally led to a problem of manure disposal which turned out to be a boon for me as she was only too glad to give me all that I wanted! That particular load I was spreading on the as yet unplanted half of my corn patch. In the background you can see the other half of the patch that had already come up. Unfortunately I lost the new planting - twice - to squirrel depradations. About two months later I lost much of the first planting when a downburst from a thunderstorm flattened it. Gardening can be a hard road to travel sometimes.

In the foreground you can see the ends of several rows of beans. Hadn't put much mulch down just then, but did over the next several weeks.

This photo is from April of this year (2006) and shows the Spring garden not long after I had planted it. On the far right you can see a bit of the onions and garlic. In the center you can see the bell peppers, tomatoes, and Swiss chard that I started from seed in the hoophouse. In the past I have always been content to buy my bedding plants, but this last winter I resolved I would start all of my own so that I could get the varieties that I really wanted rather than having to settle for whatever the stores had to offer. I seeded four varieties of tomatoes, two of sweet bell peppers, eggplant, and two varieties of Swiss chard. On the leftmost side are two cayenne peppers at the end of the Swiss chard row and a half row of some pimento peppers and two MexiBell bell peppers. Those were purchased starts. When it came time to plant the seed I realized I'd forgotten to buy pimento seed and I could not find any locally so I bought those already started. The MexiBells are bell peppers with just a slight zing to them, mostly intended for fajitas, and I wanted to see what they were like. The cayennes were last minute purchases.

I decided last year that for once I was going to have all of my trellising and supports in place before I really needed them rather than my usual system of trying to get things tied up after they had already grown large. I used steel T-stakes and livestock panels for the tomatoes. For the peppers I used wire baskets. I would have made those, but they were so cheap at the store I could not have bought the wire for what they sold for. They all worked OK. I even had everything mulched in on time for once. That makes a big difference in how much irrigation is needed and how well things are going to grow once the weather turns hot.

The tomatoes burned up about mid-July as they do every year. The Swiss chard gave it up not long after. Even with the mulch and water by the time it started hitting 94-95 every day they'd had enough. The peppers and eggplant soldiered on regardless and since I'd put wire baskets around them when they were small I suffered less loss from limb breakage. They still broke a lot of limbs but not as bad as usual. It's one of the most annoying things about growing peppers in fact, particularly the pimentoes, which will break if you give them a harsh look.

Here is a better photo of allium rows:
They were planted in the Fall of 2004 in early November. The middle row that you can see already pulled are the Granex (Vidalia) onions. I was very happy with those as most of them were large enough to make good burger/onion ring onions. In fact, they were the best onions I've ever grown.

The row to the right are the generic yellow onions I bought from the farm supply. The eventually grew into big, pretty looking plants, but they ended up looking more like leeks than onions as none of them made a real bulb. I later discovered that most of the generic onion sets sold here in the South are actually long-day onions that won't bulb up properly in the Deep South and do much better north of the Mason-Dixon line. I wish I'd known this years ago as I'd have been able to grow much better onions. Now I am sure only to buy the Granex types.

The row on the left is a mixed stand. The blossoming onions in the foreground are from a pack of starts labeled "old fashioned multipler onions" that I bought at a local market. I let them blossom when I shouldn't have as I think that hurt the bulb size considerably. Unfortunately they did not make it across the summer so I could not plant them again.

The middle of that row are the red shallots that I acquired from several different sources. They grew very well, made big plants, did not blossom, but also did not bulb up. I'm not sure I handled them properly that last month so I'll probably try them again in the future. The far end of the row where you can see the plants starting to yellow is the elephant garlic. About a week after I took the photo I pulled them as well. I let everything cure on the ground in the garden for a few days then moved it all to the carport where it would get afternoon sun but no rain to finish curing. Actually I left them out there about a week longer than I had intended, but maybe that contributed to their longer shelf life?

In the far background you can the sweet potato patch after I fenced it in.

This photo is from June of 2005. The tomatoes and other cool weather plantings were beginning to wind down, but the hot weather lovers like peppers and eggplant were just starting to hit their stride. Those are the Ichiban variety of eggplant and they are very decorative in the appearance of the plant and the fruit. Underneath the eggplant you can see some of the Roma tomatos peeking out. I have learned to pick them when they are about three quarters red and let them finish the last little bit in the house as I lose fewer fruit that way. I also discovered that gopher tortoises really like ripe tomatoes.

These last several photos are some of the daylillies in the driveway flower bed. Not the best shots, but I'm still getting the hang of these digital cameras. And finally, a shot of one of the nasturtiums that I started along with the vegetables in the hoophouse last winter. I had intended to put them in hanging baskets, but they ended up in regular pots instead. I pruned them all back about July or so and they are still blossoming today.

We have some other fairly decent photos as well, but I can't find them at the moment. They're probably still on the old computer so I'll see if I can produce them over the next week or so.

.....Alan.