Nice harvest! That's a lot of onions.

Thank you Amber! This is just the last of them. I've been pulling them up for the last few weeks. Will I see you tomorrow at the swap in Tampa?

Tina, that a great harvest. Good for you. BTW, how did the seed do? :o)

That is fantastic Tina! Yummy - those onions and cucumbers are lovely.

~dianne

Hi Kathy! It was cold so I didn't try to start much when I got the seeds. I had great luck germinating the moonflower, pea vines, and the pride of barbados! After that my luck went downhill though. I put the moonflower and pea vines in the garden to vine up with the beans and something got them, myabe pill bugs which I put some sevin down for because they were hacking off the bean seedlings too. The pride of barbados I am not sure what happened...they were all going good in little pots and then suddenly one day I got home and they were shrivelling. It was still very cool then and I thought maybe I gave them too much water for the weather and I decided to try again when the weather warmed up, which is now. Some of the seeds I tried didn't do anything, and my new propogation book says they need to be soaked or scarified...can't remember which ones now, but I can tell you the weather is warm now and I am putting all kind of stuff I've collected out in the garden. I will be trying to start some more seeds really soon...this time following the propogation book and trying to do it right. It's all been very educational, but it was a little heartbreaking loosing all those seedlings. Never mind though...you gave me plenty and you only learn by doing. I will put this on my agenda for sunday and send you some photos. I sure do hate admitting to my failures.

Hi Dianne! Thank you! This is my first time growing cucumbers and onions and I am pretty happy with the outcome. As you can see with my post to Kathy, I am not always so lucky.

Hi Tina,

Those cucumbers and onions look so good! Onions are the best return for your investment and eating them fresh from the garden and using them in recipes, they are so versatile. We should always plant onions.

And to tell you a secret, Kathy is the flower Queen, her garden is beautiful! It took her many years to perfect her craft.:)

Silvia

Awesome! My onions aren't that big, I wish I knew the secret to get nice round onions! Any tricks for next time? And the cukes. I love them and I sure hope I can get some off of my plants before it gets too hot

Thank you guys so much! You always make me feel good. It was just luck with the onions, Julia, and not too much water. I understand they don't start bulbing well until April. I put them out in November.

Looks great Tina, I didn't grow onions this past season and I'm regretting it now :-( What varieties of cukes did you grow?

Tom

Hiya Tom, nothing fancy just some bush champion for Nick's garden and a burpee hybrid for mine. They sure are tasty though! :)

I'll post some photos tomorrow. Nick decided he didn't want to go to universal, he got hot in the car at the end of the swap, silly boy had the car doors closed while he was reading that last 1/2 hour. Anyway he amended the carrot bed and where his flower border was with some peat and planted some new seed today. He choose verbena for his new border and some crimson sweet watermelons. It might be too late for them, but his heart was set. His peanuts are looking great!

Oh - I almost forgot - Silvia I got the sweet potato slips in the garden today! Thank you! Tom, Silvia gave me one of the Blue X tomato plants. I bought a pot for it, but all the tomatoes are doing great in the garden so I might just plant it directly.

Tina,

I went to visit the garden near my house that Tom was talking about and here is my report. While everything is producing in the ground, tomatoes including, he even had some ripe already, they started to show signs of disease, a lot of yellowing leaves and wilt. As for the artichokes they were producing really well! huge heads but they had bugs that came from all the animal bug planet, I have never seen them before, the interesting thing is that I saw no small animals eating them even the garden is in the open and we have in the area, squirrels, armadillos, skunks and others.

About the blue tomato plant, out of my 45 different varieties, a lot of them from Tom, they are producing fruit now, but I could not called them the strongest plants, the experts said the strain are not set yet or something like that. From all the blue plants that I grew some of them have purple stems and some not, we will see how the tomatoes turn out.
Another new tomato that is showing to be very productive is the cherry, tomato berry and it is shaped like a strawberry, cute!

Keep the sweet potato slips moist till established, after that they will be very hardy in the garden and don't forget to keep some sweet potatoes for the future.

Silvia

Thanks for the tips, Siliva! I had a spot saved for the bean seeds you gave me and I just planted the black jungle. They are on the very right side of this photo between the two stakes. Since I have all different types of beans there will each bean plant produce a seed for only it's own variety? I don't know how that works.

I have to fix the netting all round...that big storm we had a couple of thursdays ago messed it all up. I pounded the stakes back in but the netting needs restapling and trimming. Your sweet potatoes went where the onions came out so they are in the center surrounded by beans. I also have to come up with a better way to string up the tomatoes or I won't be able to walk around the plants. I always get something wrong in the planning. :)

Your insect report has me a bit worried...and I've seen that Amber is having issues as well. Since I put sevin down for the pill bugs I haven't had any other issues at all. But I am looking every day. I will listen to your advice and keep the blue x potted. I have to see those blue tomatoes!

BTW my Orlando dates are July 17 - 24 in Orbit One villas, very close to you.

Looking good Tina, I've got Bush Champion's and Spacemeaster 80's in the garden, and Cool Breeze, Sweet Success and Diva cukes inside the pool cage. I'm still having to spray the cukes inside the pool cage too, I do occasionally see a moth in there. You're tomatoes are looking great too, I'm getting lots of tomatoes but my plants suffered and yellowed quite a but when we had all that rain, I'm still working on better drainage for the garden since it's downhill from the house and floods with persistent rain :-(

Tom

Tina - The tomato and bean plants are looking so healthy. Great looking cukes and onions too. I bet they tasted wonderful.

Christine

Tina, yes, the tomatoes are looking really good! I can not tell about their height. Remember mine? even though they are all bunch up together they are fine. The garden nearby, his tomatoes are half the size of mine are and already showing signs of disease, and we are under the same weather.

Keep me updated on your Orlando dates, it is for work?

Silvia

Tom I am going to have enough tomatoes for the whole state if all those produce. Most have little tomatoes, but all the fancy yellow and purple ones don't. Prudens Purple, Black Crim, Cherokee, Dagma's perfection (mostly because I tripped on the cord and chopped it in half accidentally) and the Arkansas Marvel don't have tomatoes yet. The Prudens keeps dropping its flowers. :(

Christine, whats your favorite place to get the fruit on dwarf stock you were telling me about?

Hi Silvia! I have a timeshare and Nick and I are going to kick up our heels together for a whole week!