Claud The Backyard Farmer (self proclaimed)

Think I'll set up the two x 3.4m long galv steel roof gutters converted to strawberry on fence planter troughs to try both
one using 2 parallel short lengths or a short loop of Pope Water Weeper® With flow regulator
one using 2 parallel 13mm PP w/ half circle micro sprayers.

Get a gander at my herb , veg , and back yard native flowing plant garden , and berry plants driving irrigation set up , finally come up with a design that I think will work a treat for my 6 beds in the backyard , off two new taps & two individual digital timers which sense if it's been raining.

The Hockey Stick , fed by the new tap attached to the NW corner of the bed , which feeds the big level bed & the two 3.6m long gutter troughs mounted on the Sth Bdry Fence faces North ( gets FULL SUN ( highly recommended by an expert gardener ) , 11 berry plants in 40cm selfwatering pots


The three 3m x 1.5m and the 6m x 1.5m beds fed by a mains pressure 20mm PVC manifold from the other new tap near my Nth Bdry fence


The main 19mm PP lines will be fixed to the inside of the timber sleepers in all 5 big beds.

Question for the green thumbs :

Regard herb tube stock , am I better off getting 2 or 3 specimens of each herb for 3 or 4 people to consume . These will go into one of my 3m x 1.5m beds and maybe a few in some handy on patio pots ( a few mixed herbs per pot ? )

Thinking of buying as tube stock to get things moving quicker than germinating seeds :
Herbs in my list :

Thyme ( a 3 or 4 different types )
Rosemany ( 2 different types )
Basil ( 2 or 3 different types)
Origano ( 2 different types )
Lemon grass
Chives
Mint ( a few different types )
Parsley ( a few different types )
Rocket
Chicory
Bay Plant
Mushroom Plant
Sea Purslane

All of my tomato plants have gotten huge and kind of taken over. There are two or three clear winners as far as which variety is producing the most. We will see how things progress.

-Brandon

Claudiusx":12y8mqmv said:

All of my tomato plants have gotten huge and kind of taken over. There are two or three clear winners as far as which variety is producing the most. We will see how things progress.

-Brandon

Click to expand...

varieties ?

Photos please ….

You got it! Coming up.

Gonna probably rip out my peas. They've done super good, definitely going to do them again next year, or maybe even this fall once it cools back down. Starting to get hot here. Peas are getting some powdery white substance on them and they aren't producing much anymore. But boy, we got a ton of peas from them.

Pictures and updates on the tomatoes coming up.

-Brandon

In drought in your area ?

Saw on news that some parts USA are in a very deep drought this northern spring. How will water restrictions effect your ability to legally use drip irrigation ?

I'm drought proofing myself , bought an 8L handpumped pressure sprayer last night ( when I thought it was going take a while til the irrigation in my two systems in the backyard running properly (what a drama it's been getting a so called expert install my high pressure four outlet PVC class 12 manifold and the slightly complicated drip irrigation systems and he was a no show again yesterday ).
Garden hose too short to get down to the 6m x 1.5m natives bed so made sense to get portable water.
Nylex 8L Heavy Duty Garden Sprayer


Will reserve it ONLY for watering.

Will set up irrigation for my seed raising tray rack this week , thinking

one at each corner of the rack per level covering 2 seed raising trays per rack .
I have a 20 pack of these.

Or maybe

Will need to order in a pack of these.

I have a bunch of left overs of these beasts

but I think they are over kill for seeds in seedraising trays.

Hoping to have some veg germinated and big enough to transplant to the veg bed in a month or two for a spring /summer harvest. This time they wont die of thirst and the bed will be ready for them.

I'll run a combination of weeper pipe and dripper pipe in the veg bed to irrigate them depending the species water needs.

What do you guys think will be the best option ?

Harvested my 3 potato plants today since they seemed to have really suffered in our heat wave. Pretty surprised with the haul from just 3 plants
Might not look like much but that's probably 10-15 lbs of potatoes. If we do a whole garden box of potatoes next year we will likely have enough to last us the year at this rate.

Also, here is a picture of the 1 tomato variety I have that is doing really really well. Tons of production and the fruit are pretty sizeable.
The breed is Dixie Red.
Here is my hand for size comparison.
Most are about baseball sized, some bigger. VERY dense and heavy! The plant probably has about 30+ of them. None have ripened yet.

Roma tomato also has probably 50+ green ones all about half the size of a Roma I'd buy in store. But none have ripened either so maybe they will grow bigger.

-Brandon

Doing well young fella …. and likely saving a few $ to.

Were to spuds grown in a bag ?
or a container ?
or in a bed ?

kingofnobbys":3f70mddk said:

Doing well young fella …. and likely saving a few $ to.

Were to spuds grown in a bag ?
or a container ?
or in a bed ?

Click to expand...

Grown in pots, but next year I'll probably just do them in the beds.

Got my first few ripe tomatoes off the Dixie red plant.
1 at 208g
1 at 224g.
Decent sized!

-Brandon

Had a 288g tomato... pushing for that 300g now!

None of my large beefsteaks have really done much.. I definitely know the variety i'm planting next year.

-Brandon

Welp, here is the record tomato for this season. Not as big as they could have gotten, but I kind of stopped paying them much mind after awhile.
This is definitely going to be a variety I plant next year. Tons and tons of production, did amazingly well.

Im ripping out basically all of my summer crops to make room for our "fall" crops. The only thing I'm leaving in is my pepper plants.

We live in a weird zone here, local farmers grow a variety of things year round. Going to be planting carrots, broccoli, collards, mustard, maybe a bean variety, peas, and I might try cantaloupe too... Sounds like a weird time to be trying to grow cantaloupe, and I agree, but I had a local guide mention that they have had success doing it at this time of year. And surprisingly, lots of nurseries are selling little cantaloupe and watermelon seedlings..

-Brandon

Wow , that tomato is a whopper !

Was it sweet and juicy ?

Suggest you harvest and dry some seeds from it to plant for next season .

I still have a few of the seeds from the packet from this year, it should be good for next year. I had too many tomato varieties planted near eachother so there is a good chance they cross pollinated unfortunately. But, I think it's a fairly common variety I can find online, so that's good.

Just planted the fall garden, everything except for the cantaloupe seedling I'm going to go pick up tomorrow most likely.

I Kept my pepper plants in, I planted a whole bed of broccoli, two varieties. I planted a bed of Collards and spinach. 1 bed with peas. And the other bed (large bed) has carrots, beans, mustard greens, and is where I'm going to try vertical growing a cantaloupe.

Everything should look pretty awesome once it starts growing in. Excited about the carrots and beans. Carrots are always so tasty, and I've never tried growing the beans before. I don't have much faith in the cantaloupe but we will see.

-Brandon