Egads. I have a small little patch, I wouldnt mind having something a little bigger.. but yours looks fairly large.. I grow 4-5 tomatoes plants, a couple of peppers, a few cucumbers, zuchinnians, sweet corn and green beans, early season did spinich, lettuce, scallions (not ready yet) and shell peas in a little plot around 15 feet by 10 feet or so..

If I had a lot as big as that.. I would be too tempted to convert it to a flower bed lol..

You must be way ahead of me in frost dates as well. My sweet corn was planted late may and is to 3 feet high.. my green beans are 2-3 weeks away from producing..

Silverkelt

Like many things on our property it is TOO BIG. There are plenty of weeds under the sweet corn - I used to have a big lovely red raspberry patch in the center, but it died out in the neglect while I was working out of town. I did really enjoy it - I may replant a few plants this fall.

You can see all the space we leave between the plants - yep, too big. I want a cute little potager garden about 1/3 the size with a fence and roses around it...

But I was not into vegies AT ALL and like almost anything you grow you can find pleasure in success. In the past about 2/3 of the sweet corn was lost to the coons and deer - if we actually harvest all of this we are going to have a lot of corn. There are 24 tomato plants, too - that's a lot of tomatoes!

but of course. I don't have the space but I have several heirloom tomatoes growing in pots as well as zucchini and asian eggplants. I have dill, thyme, basil, majoram, oregano, corriander too.

I have a vegetable garden. My favorite thing to grow has become potatoes! They are so good fresh. I'm trying carrots and garlic for the first time this year. I do all my tomatoes in topsy turveys now, which has freed up a lot of space.

Everything looks good this year except the peppers. The plants are healthy looking, but still quite small.

I would definately give up the veggie garden before the flowers, but I am glad to have both.

I grow herbs, tomatos, cucumbers, and several varieties of peppers. We also grow blueberries. It feels like a lot of blueberries this year. Everything is doing well.

I had to laugh when you hinted that your DH was not Mr. Gardener. My own DH has killed more tomatoes with loving kindness and too much water. This year he hasn't touched them and we have had tomatoes since the middle of May (I started them in the greenhouse, so they had a head start).

kay

Your veggie garden is huge! I have a much smaller raised bed garden, and just put more tomatoes and peppers in an area I'm trying to establish a fruiting hedge in (but will take advantage of space while I have it...). I love my veggie garden and spend most of my time there. Possibly because it's organized, weed free and so accessible. Plus I have to water and harvest fairly frequently (or will be harvesting....). Last year I got over 400lbs from my little area, and I thought I was doing pretty good...you must get a TON of produce! It's a beautiful garden (and you can't see weeds...)

Well, I think you know I do.

No corn this year though. I bought the seed but didn't have room. I grow all my veggies from seed, including my asparagus. This year I grew 7 kinds of heirloom tomatoes, 5 kinds of sweet & hot peppers, Okra (yet 2 B planted), 2 kinds of squash, 2 kinds of cucumbers, bush beans, pole beans, onions, Red potatoes, 2 kinds broccoli, cabbage, pumpkins, Asparagus, and Musk melons in the veggie garden. I also grow 2 kinds of strawberries, 2 kinds of blackberries, 2 kinds of blueberries, 2 varieties of grapes, and fruit trees - Apples, 2 kinds of Peaches, Santa Rosa Plums, Bush Cherries, and 2 kinds of pears.

I grow a large variety of herbs.

I used to grow a lot more vegetables when my kids were still at home, but not any more. I don't have the monster garden you have by any means, but it is enough for DH & I to eat fresh and can for winter, and have a little extra to share with my parents and others. I go to the Farmer's Market to get my corn now and anything I don't have room to grow.

Great thread.

~Annie

I have a few veggies and herbs but they are scattered throughout the garden.
Tomatoes - Cherokee Purple, Boxcar Willie, Black Sea Man, Cheerio and Snow White Cherries.
Garlic - 4 varieties
Lettuce - Croatian
Carrots, Cucumbers, Montreal Melons, Rhubarb, Strawberries, Raspberries, Bell and Hot Peppers,
Beans - My Italians (main) the rest are just enough for a taste test and saving seed, Uncle Steve's, Blue Jay, Comtesse de Chambord, Little White Rice, Ritz Escoffier, Zelma Zesta, Oregon Giant, Insuk Wang Kong (Runner), Barksdale, Garafal Oro, Tennessee Cutshorts, Bosnian Pole, Signora della Campagna. Chinese Red Noodle and Pretzel beans are in the greenhouse as they need the extra heat.
Herbs - Rosemary, Winter Thyme, 6 different kinds of Chives, Egyptian Onions, Sage, French Tarragon, Lovage and Sweet Cicely.

Annette

Oh, yes! A quarter acre of our property is designated to just the veg garden.
But, I don't think my vote would count if it came down to an 'either or' situation as I have a
garden to purposely feed 4 people through the winter. If it came down to a choice of
food or flowers - the flowers would have to go :(

We have a small veggie garden. Hubby especially enjoys it. We have tomatoes (different varieties), cukes, couple varieties of peppers and cantaloupe. That's all for us this year.

I do have a few herbs also. My favorite is the mint - I have it right off the patio and love to smell it.

tina

Your garden is huge! Imagine a lot of production, but a lot of work too.

Mine is much smaller and on a scale I can handle. I had 21 tomato plants this year, but now I'm down to 2. Stink bugs were a major problem and I'm ended up pulling the plants early. Had a good harvest for 3 weeks compared to the typical 6-8.

I planted burgundy okra in a small area after pulling the tomatoes. There's something eating the leaves, but I'm not worried. I'm really only growing it for the flowers. If I get okra I plan on roasting it and see it that makes it more palatable. Never been a fan.

Also growing sweet & hot peppers, herbs (lots of different basils), and flowers in the veggie garden ... coneflowers, zinnias, cosmos, periwinkle, milkweed, and firecracker vine. Put an obelisk out there a few weeks ago and planted moonflower vines. They're already up and vining.

I love my flower gardens, but there is nothing like walking out the back door and picking my dinner fresh and organic in the summmer! I grow roma tomatoes, sweet red peppers, melons, zuccinis, summer squash and lemon cucumbers. I have my herbs all growing in pots along the back of the house. Love your garden!!

This year we have the following tomatoes - usually I ponder and work the list hard, but this time it was a few old favorites and a few that I tried and some that came along as free seeds. Next year I do want to add the wonderful hybrid cooking tomatoes that are similar to what I used to grow from Shepherd Seeds years ago as San Remo - now Renee's Seeds markets them as Italian Pompeii (see link below). But for now we have:

Brandywine Sudduth Strain (fabulouso)
Pruden's Purple - an all-time favorite
Kellogg's Breakfast - also an all-time favorite - this year the plants look especially wonderful - I can't wait...
Believe it or Not
Early Wonder - freebie and getting ready very soon
Pineapple - also a freebie but I like variety for slicing
Roma - we picked this up by mistake meant to get something different - arrgghh. But these little guys aren't worth a darn to eat but make great sauce
SuperSteak - also one we picked up and I grew years ago

Here is a link that might be useful: Sauce Tomato

I have a lot of tomatoes planted, but I'm having problems for the first time. I've got blight, I'm sure of it and it is making me fret. Not like I didn't plant oodles more tomatoes than I needed, but the summer squash keeps getting borers, the tomatoes look blighty (but not fully into blight, so it's hard to tell), and something keeps eating all the newer beans I'm planting. :( The high temps have not helped and I'm very far behind. Normally I would have TONS of beans frozen by now.

I have itchy fingers because I started to learn to can, and I'd like to get some tomatoes in the jars :)

girlgroup - if you are not absolutely adverse to using something - Daconil or marketed as Ortho Disease Control is excellent and widely recommended by those in the know on the tomato forum. I must spray here - we get early blight terribly and I have tried misc things but if I don't treat early and often I will lose the plants completely and get essentially no tomatoes at all.

I have a few tomato plants, some beans, peas and a few types of squash and pumpkins...and my nephew's watermelon :)

It's been raining so much here, it was hard to get anything planted...then all the weeds. I hope to have a larger vegetable garden next year. Your garden is beautiful, but I don't think I could maintain one that large. You must have your hands full, but what wonderful produce!

I grow a pretty substantial vegetable garden. We have 40 tomato plants, including many heirlooms,40 pepper plants, green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, spaghetti squash, cucumbers, sweet corn and an assortment of herbs. We just pulled out the peas and all the lettuce and spinach as the heat really wiped them out. I also have 4 blueberry bushes that we have picked about 9 quarts from so far. We have a raspberry patch that is starting to ripen, we also have 3 peach trees and six apple trees. We like to can and freeze our produce for the winter and to share with our family. Its a lot of work, but we love it. Nothing beats home grown.

BUT, my first love is flowers. My husband is of the belief that "if you can't eat it, why bother planting it?" I also grew sweet peas in the vegetable garden this year and he had a fit, but when I suggested they would help with the pollination, he seemed a bit more open to the idea.

Carol

I'm first and foremost a flower garden girl because I don't really like to eat veggies very much. But since I got some seeds in trades, I figured I'd give it a shot. I now have a small raised bed garden filled with tomatoes and cantaloupe. DH is thrilled about the tomatoes; he thinks I am the most wonderful woman in the world to grow tomatoes for him when I don't like them myself. I found I like the names and stories of the heirloom tomatoes, Mortgage Lifter, etc.

Lois, I had to laugh, Mortgage Lifter is one of the heirlooms I am growing, along with the usual Brandywine, also a Pink Brandywine, Purple Cherokee, Pineapple, Green Zebra, there are a few yellow and orange that I can't think of the names of and apparently one that is from Russia that I heard is supposed to be almost black. If we get all the tomatoes we should, we should be able to have quite a colorful salad.

Carol

Cindy, your garden looks amazing!

We planted over 100 garlic cloves last fall which are doing well with no care. I also have chives, oregano, and thyme throughout the flower beds. I recently seeded some mesclun mix in spaces in the flower garden so may have a few salads. Planted late but had to wait til we were going to be home for awhile. With the cool weather we're now having they might be OK.

When we lived in a warmer climate I had veggies and fruit trees. Miss the fruit trees but not the work of the garden. Easier now to buy in bulk at the farmers' market.

Thanks cindysunshine but I do not use chemicals of any kind in the garden. I spoke to a farmer who lives a 1/2 hour from here and she said that the blights are all over this year - a mixture of much early rains and then soaring heat. We will have to plant all the tomatoes elsewhere in the garden next year I'm afraid! I hope they can manage to get some fruit before they must be pulled out. I'm curious to see if it really is blight because it is ONLY tomatoes and not any other solanums or the basils..?
I think I've now got 50 tomatoes in, about 15 peppers (mostly sweet are in, I need to add a few hots), a small amount, maybe 6 plants of burgundy okra (going to try them for pickles) a 6x4 bed of blackeyed peas, malabar spinach, at least 10 melon plants and even more winter squash (which are going NUTS)...nothing on the tomatillos yet but they are flowering like crazy, 3 lots of climbing beans but the yellow mushroom beans are not doing so hot (high heat I guess)....so I planted more bush beans where the sickly tomatoes came out. I am going to put in yet another bed of bush beans too (for canning). I tried ground cherries as an experiment, and have planted loads of cukes - as usual lots of zucchini too but nothing so far. Which is sad because I'm the one person I know who would use the TONS of zucchini!!
Luckygal we grow garlic in the winter. I planted what should have been enough for the year but I think I'm a bit short :( I can't wait for more garlic planting room... I love the stuff!
What we are not able to grow here this year is corn because of the landscaping in the back we still need done. My hubby was looking forward to more corn.

I'm in Cleveland, no matter what I do, I get early blight. I would definitely recommend daconil, it helped me out a great deal.

Hi neverenoughflowers,

I also have Cherokee Purple, pink Brandywine and a couple Russian/Czech tomatoes... I know what you mean about colorful; tomatoes come in so many different colors that I am surprised that more farmers market growers don't display bowls of multi-colored cherry tomatoes. They would look so pretty.

krycek, I am seeing some early blight, too, but I unfortunately cannot spray, because any kind of chemical would trigger a migraine for DH. If I can't get at least some tomatoes without spraying, I will have to stop growing them. Roses are much easier anyway. :o)

Lois, I'm on the same page regarding chemicals, but for different reasons. Down here roses require religious chemical spraying unless you're growing the antique varieties.

As far as veggies and other flowers ... using chemicals would defeat the whole reason I grow them.

We harvested sweet corn today. Oh my absolutely fabulous. 2 ears for lunch. 2 ears for dinner. Life is incredibly good.

Oh that sounds so good! We wont have local corn for another 2 weeks. How did you get yours so early?

Lois in PA

We had a 4th of July bbq tonight and a HUGE pot of sweet corn - sweet corn overdose but it was great - we did fry some fish and had a big salad and made homemade ice cream, but the corn was the star. I snapped a pic this morning from the front of the corn bed - it will all be a scatter in a day or two but it is looking fabulous. I should frame this for a rainy day..

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