2026 Gardening

[Graybeard]

New year so new thread.

So far I have some onions in the dirt. Most but not all of my raised beds have been weeded to remove stuff that grew up over winter. Need to get some plants soon, frost and freezes are done here.

[Bob Riebe]

       Hugo, Minn. Feed Mill's 2026 tomato and Pepper seed lists:

https://www.hugofeedmill.com/w...

https://www.hugofeedmill.com/w...

        I did not get back there last year, and really have zero need for more than at most 3 tomato plants
 (a freezer full of frozen tomato and chiles for chilli) but for what ever reason

[DDZ]

It might be dry enough today to till my garden and get some onion sets in. We have had some days with inches of rain. Its been to wet to till it. I used to plant lettuce early but don't anymore. It takes forever to wash all the dirt and bugs out of it. Plus lettuce is one of the things that is still fairly cheap to buy.  Won't be putting in tomatoes and peppers until around 3rd week of May. To much chance of frost before then, and 40 plus tomato plants are to many to cover. 

[Ranger99]

Looks like another bust year for me.
After a few bad years, a younger relative
sent me a selection of heirloom seed in
hopes that it might do better.
Things havent looked all that good so far.
First try was some variety of lettuce that
can be utililized as head if planted spaced,
or as greens planted in close. I had maybe
1/3 germinate before the cold fronts came
through and we were having high 30's at
night. I planted 1/4 of the pea seed, and
haven't seen any sprout. Probably plant
the rest today for the h.o.i.
Cool and dreary and dark skies all morning
so far. Not very promising for gardening

[Graybeard]

We're having nights in the upper 50s, soon to be lower 60s and days in the mid to upper 80s.

I now have everything Matt bought and brought over for me to plant in the ground except some cucumbers that I don't eat anyway but Faye and Phil do. She helped me this morning and we got all the tomatoes and pepper are planted. I think I have 35 tomato plans in the ground and I have no clue how many bell pepper and sweet banana pepper there are, a LOT tho.

[Ranger99]

I planted some more peas and different tomatoes just
to see what I could see.
I have definitely seen that these heirloom variety seeds
are too pricey vs the seed count. For what they cost
and the much smaller amount of seed you get, I'd
expect much faster germination and a pretty much
guarantee that every seed planted would sprout.

[Ranger99]

Hmmmmmm . . .
That ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ also posted with no difficulty

[Graybeard]

I got some of the cucumber plants in the ground and also some few sunflower seeds I found in a tiny pack that may have come in the package with my onions. They onions are up and growing nicely and it looks like the sunflowers are germinating also. I expect to see the okra poke out of the dirt just any time now.

The tomato and pepper plants seem to be doing well. Some of the pepper had blooms when they got here.

I hope they produce as well as my garden did last year. We sure had a lot of great BLT sandwiches last time and put a huge about of peppers and tomatoes in the freezer. We had friend green tomatoes a few times also.

Then out old chest freezer died and it as a few days before we were aware of it. So we lost hundreds of dollars of our crops and lots of meats also.

Now we have a new upright freezer.

[Bob Riebe]

I planted some more peas and different tomatoes just
to see what I could see.
I have definitely seen that these heirloom variety seeds
are too pricey vs the seed count. For what they cost
and the much smaller amount of seed you get, I'd
expect much faster germination and a pretty much
guarantee that every seed planted would sprout.

         Heirloom seeds, depending on where you get them are NOT a guarantee for better results, from personal experience.
The number of seeds you get varies to a humungous difference and high price, too often, does not mean high seed count.
I finally got rid of a lot of old seed before last year but have found ground prep., and treating the garden like your new baby, as I did ten years ago,  is main reason for success or misery.
Learning the hard way.

Most seed sites list the number, or weight, of seed you get but it is still weird how two different places, same variety, can vary greatly in how many seed you get with more seeds some times being the cheaper.
So many seed companies I grew up with have gone belly-up or been absorbed by another seed seller, so some times if you buy from 3 different places, if you check who is actually the main entity, you find out in reality, you are sending money to the same people.

I finally bought some Ramps, and they arrived last week, now I have to decide where is best to put them.