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Old 09-09-10, 04:32 PM   #1
RobertSmalls
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Default Robertsmalls' 2010 Garden

2010 was my first year with a garden. Here's a photo of my garden, with the peas already gone and the tomato plants appearing to have given up for the season. First frost is only a few weeks away. Tomatoes at the back, peas up front, carrots on the left.



I planted eight tomato sprouts because they're supposed to be easy to grow. I only had room for five in the garden, so three got planted in the lawn. I got a nice crop of Roma and Beefsteak tomatoes (4kg so far), only to realize that I don't really eat fresh tomatoes. I guess I'll make spaghetti sauce now. I'll save some seeds and plant just one Roma next year, but the fact that I'll only be in fresh tomatoes for two months out of the year is annoying.



Above are the lawn tomatoes, which were just for fun. The plant in the front, with one irregular shaped red tomato, is about 40cm tall. The one in the back has half a dozen grape-sized Beefsteaks, still green.

I really like peas, and I was hoping to get a nice harvest. I planted a dozen plants, but only got about two dozen pods before the plants all turned a pale yellow color and died. They're Alaska peas, and I probably planted them too late. Next year, I'll plant in April and late June, not just in May like I did this year.

I sowed a few dozen carrot seeds. They look great above the ground, and they're 2cm around at the top. Unfortunately, they're only about 6cm long, and many of them were planted so close together that they're touching. They're crunchy and sweet. I just wish they were a lot bigger. I expect to get under 500g of carrots.

Here's a knot of carrots, planted way too close together.



I planted a few herbs, but there's no sign of them. Did I weed them? Did the carrots choke them out? Did birds eat the seedlings? I may start herbs indoors next year.

I think I'll plant some berry bushes - raspberry and blueberry most likely. Maybe I'll start them indoors this winter.

I'd also love to grow Crispin apples, but I probably don't have enough room in the yard. Besides, my dad's fruit trees have always been needy, sickly, and unreliable.

I also eat a lot of grain. I'm tempted to try growing barley or oats, but will I be able to hull them and roll the oats myself?


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Old 09-21-10, 05:51 PM   #2
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I needed some carrots, so of course I went to the garden and pulled the most overcrowded-looking ones first. Got three little guys... then this leviathan! 42mm around. I'm excited. There are real carrots in my garden this year, and next year should be nothing but real carrots. I'll even let one of them go to seed this winter.

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Old 09-21-10, 08:06 PM   #3
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Any explanation for the tiny carrots?
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Old 09-21-10, 10:11 PM   #4
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I couldn't bear to kill the carrot seedlings. I scattered some carrot seed around, figuring most of the seeds would get eaten or die, and the result was WAY too many plants per square foot. Not only were the plants shading each other, most of the carrots are touching.
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Old 09-22-10, 11:20 AM   #5
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You're ground may be too hard as well. It may explain they stubby carrots. If you didn't till the soil where you planted carrots deep enough or at all, they'll offshoot or go stubby like this.
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Old 09-22-10, 07:15 PM   #6
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4.2kg fresh tomatoes -> 969g tomato paste -> 1.3kg sauce.

Removing the skin and most of the water from the beefsteaks reduced them to 28% of their mass, and the Roma reduced to 43%.

Beefsteaks might be big, but they're all water.
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Old 10-14-10, 03:20 PM   #7
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w00t, I've gotten 0.9kg of carrots this year. I planted Chatenay carrots, which are stubbier than conventional carrots. These were halved, then roasted alongside quartered potatoes:



I *really* need a compost pile. Not just to generate compost, but also to get rid off these tomato plants and yard clippings.
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Old 10-14-10, 03:25 PM   #8
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If your tomato plants have late blight--the leaves turn brown and the stems begin to wither and turn brown but not from lack of water--it may be a better idea to either throw them out or bury them in an area far away from where you want to grow tomatoes. The spores overwinter and are usually not killed in the compost which can cause next season's tomatoes to suffer an untimely demise.

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