Zucchinis Gone Wild

Posted on August 6, 2012 by dowd0019

These photos were all taken back on July 19, when I did my second real harvest. am still playing catchup with my posts, and unfortunately my garden isn’t looking as pretty today as it was a couple weeks ago when I took the below pictures. The real story here is my zucchinis. Check out how these guys totally took over the expanded patch. They came, saw and conquered the already growing eggplants and onions.

I hope the onions still turn out. But the huge submarines we’ve been pulling off zucchini plant have made it worth it. I really wanted to try this squash blossom recipe too, but all the flowers started flowering before I got around to picking them.

Zucchini 1 Zucchini 2

The tomatoes were still doing pretty well and producing at this point. Here’s the second haul that we got that day. We got these just in time in time to take up to Big Bear. The awesome bruchetta we made is shown in the pictures in the Big Bear post, and the recipe will be available soon too.

Last and most certainly least is my struggling fruit/lettuce plot back by the fence. You can see the little lettuces trying to come up in the background, bless their hearts. Keep fighting the good fight guys. Poppa needs his greens. All the berries in the front are pretty much on their last legs.

I have to do some reading to figure out what went wrong here. I know Paul suggested that I need another blueberry plant because you have to have two to get them to cross-polinate. But I don’t know what happened to the strawberries. I am just hoping the raspberries over on the right hold on and by next year grow into an actual producing plant. Wish me luck.

Stay tuned for my next updates with an awesome bruchetta recipe and finally the building of my trellis.

Kooms Garden – Introduction to my Patio Garden in MN

Posted on June 11, 2012 by briankooman

My name is Brian and I live in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis. I have a small patio that I have been growing a few plants on since I moved into this condo two years ago. I am a chef at Muffuletta in the Park in St Paul MN. My co worker and I have saved some heirloom tomato seeds and sprouted over 200 this year. I gave six seedlings to another Agridude, Sam, for his work garden. I also have two on my patio, along with hops, basil, thyme, and some lettuces and spinach. I haven’t grown hops before but I do brew my own beer so I am hoping to get some off of this plant so that I can use it in my beer. I am trying to start a micro brewing company called Brown Bottle Brewery. I will be blogging this season to show what I am able to grow.

These pictures are from May 12th. Paul was in town and we had a perfect early summer day to hang out and catch some rays while having some brews. We invited some of our friends and Paul’s family over to hang out too. Here are some pics:

The two pots closest to you are my tomatoes. I am growing two heirloom tomatoes that we sprouted from the restaurant. I can’t remenber what types they are, but I know they will be small cherry like tomatoes

I made the trellis by myself to grow the hops on. I bought the root from my local home brewing store and I was told to only let two sprout. One of them did not make it so next year I’ll try something different. These are supposed to grow 2 feet per week so I should have some great updated photos for you guys in a few weeks.

Here are some other planters that I planted lettuce, spinach, basil, thyme and two peppers. I started these from seed as well. My wife won a small green house at a work event raffle. I am looking forward to having these at my disposal for cooking at home and work.

Here is a picture of Paul’s cousin Andy and our other friend Wyman playing bags/cornhole in the side of my yard.

Sam’s Work Garden – Introduction to my work garden plot

Posted on June 7, 2012 by larson3

My name is Sam and I live in MN. I have been working for Minnesota Rubber for over 10 years now. Two years ago, the company decided to turn part of the grassy area on our land into a community garden for it’s employees. I jumped on the opportunity to get some extra space to garden. This year I was fortunate to receive a 20×23 plot.

I have been gardening for a long time. As a family, we used to rent plots at community gardens with some friends. As the years went on, I eventually put a garden in my backyard. That space has now turned into a strawberry and raspberry patch, and I planted a grape vine that goes around the garden. I will be posting pictures of this soon.

Here is another Agridude, Brian, helping me plant all of my seedlings. He gave me 6 heirloom tomato seedlings that he and his coworker sprouted earlier this year. I can’t remember all the varieties, but there are some cherries, white tomatoes, and grape tomatoes. I also purchased some beefsteak and early girl tomatoes. I have a total of 16 planted, so I should be having tomatoes galore this year.

Here is another Agridude, Paul, who is my son, planting watermelon and cantaloupe. I learned that you need to plant these in mounds, so be sure to do that if you are putting them in your garden. These plants also need space to grow so make sure you give them plenty of room. I ended up planting 3 cantaloupes and 1 watermelon. In years past, I have tried to grow giant pumpkins for fun and also so that I could get a picture with my granddaughter on it for Halloween. I have been unsuccessful though due to deer eating them. This year my work is going to put up fencing around to keep them out of everyones garden.

Here I am digging the holes for where I will be planting. Brian is in this picture doing the planting. Brian, Paul and I planted everything in about an hour. We really had a good system going. I am fortunate that my company has this plot tilled each year. The dirt is full of clay and would be tough for the plants to establish a good root system.

This is Paul and Brian putting the last few plants into the garden. Paul looks very Agridudish with those gloves on…yikes. They are putting in 12 peppers that I bought. I have some Purple bell peppers and California wonders.

Here are the Argidudes picking up the plastic pots that I bought the plants in. I forgot to mention that I also planted 2 zucchini plants. They are also sprawlers like the melons and cantaloupes. Brian mentioned to Paul that the blossoms are edible and often used as a fancy appetizer at nice restaurants. I will try to pick a few and have Brian post a recipe with them.

Overall, we had a great time working outside in the garden on a beautiful Minnesota early summer day. I will be posting updates as often as I can and I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Paul’s Potted Patio Garden

Posted on June 6, 2012 by lars1273

I live in an apartment that has a 7×10 deck on it. I have been growing romaine, thyme, basil, sage, blue berries, and one patio tomato on it since I moved in. Here is a picture when I just started it. My goal for the patio garden is to produce enough lettuce and spinach so that I don’t have to buy bags of salad at the grocery store. I am planning on building some planter boxes and filling it up with lettuce soon.

I get limited sun due to a large dead tree blocking the sun, and also because my apartment building is behind a large hill. This should be ideal for growing lettuces. I received a bunch of free seeds from Heirloom Seeds when I ordered a bunch of tomato seeds from them. I can’t wait to plant them.

Here are pictures of the other stuff that I have growing on the deck. I did not take pictures of the blueberries, but I will get those up soon. I have not had good luck with getting them to produce any fruit. I learned recently that it’s hard to grow them this close to the coast. I need to find someone inland to grow them for me…

Parsley Grown from Seed

Sage and Rosemary

Chives Romain Basil

Thyme Romaine

Patio Tomato Plant

Cape Mayhem Garden Status Update – We Have Fruit!

Posted on June 5, 2012 by lars1273

Well, it’s been a few days since I was over at the garden. I had my cousin Liz and her baby Chester in town for a week. I rode my bike over to the garden this morning to water the tomatoes since it had been a week since the last time. They might not have needed it, but it was going to be a warm day and figured that they could use it. Here is the left half of the garden.

Here is the right half. We have both slicing and pickling cucumbers on the trellis, 5 tomatoes lining the back of the fence, one giant jalapeño, 4 regular jalapeños, a serrano pepper, 3 uber hot peppers, mint, and strawberries (in the pots). All the tomatoes are heirloom varieties. We have Black Carbon’s, Omar’s Lebanese, Green Zebra’s, Tommy Toe’s (cherry) and Crnkovic Yugoslavian’s.

Today I noticed that we have a few green zebra’s starting to form, and a bunch of tommy toe’s starting to develop. I am excited to see that the tomatoes are growing, but I am thinking about why the plants aren’t nearly as tall as they have been in the past. There are probably many reasons, but I these are the ones that stick out to me so far: I planted later than normal. This means I bought my seedlings at the nursery later and maybe that extra time gave the plants less time to grow larger. I also did not stake the tomatoes when i planted. I put cages on them probably after 6 weeks. I normally do it when I plant, but they have grown so tall in past years that we were going to try to do a new custom cage, but never got around to it.

As mentioned earlier, we are growing pickling and slicing cucumbers. They are off to a terrific start this season. We have tons of flowers and the plants look very healthy. Here are two pictures of the cucumbers that we have already, the single cucumber is the pickling, and the group of 3 are for slicing.

I also noticed some small jalapeños growing:

That’s it for now. I’ll be posting some pictures of the harvested fruit when I pull them. I’ll also flush out the 3 uber hot peppers that we grow. I can’t remember the types right now…

Agridude

Agridude – A Gardening Resource

Tag Archives: tomato

Zucchinis Gone Wild

Kooms Garden – Introduction to my Patio Garden in MN

Sam’s Work Garden – Introduction to my work garden plot

Paul’s Potted Patio Garden

Cape Mayhem Garden Status Update – We Have Fruit!