Kitchen garden

[Anonymous]

If you have a kitchen garden in the DMV area, what vegetables are you growing this spring/summer? Do you experiment with new varieties or stick to the ones you’ve been growing for a number of years? Do you hire someone to assist you?

[Anonymous]

I grow what we like to eat:
Tomatoes, eggplants, all kinds of sweet and hot peppers, okra, cucumbers, radishes, bush beans, pole beans, hyacinth beans, yard-long beans and lots and lots of herbs. I gave up on zucchini because of squash bugs but I sometimes plant a cucuzzi or tromboncino vine.
I also mix in flowers for beauty, salads and to attract pollinators and hummingbirds: marigolds, sunflowers, nasturtiums, Tithonia and scarlet runner beans.
I have raised beds and do all work myself.

[Anonymous]

You will quickly find out what grows well in your soil and what doesn't, unless you scoop out the soil or till in a ton of organic amendments.

[Anonymous]

I grow what we like to eat in raised beds. I also like to include varieties that are hard to find in stores, noted in parenthesis, so I do tend to experiment.

Potatoes (rose fingerling), sweet potatoes (purple flesh), peas, sugar snap peas (purple), red long bean, purple pole bean, 4-5 varieties of radish and beets, mixed leaf lettuce, butter head lettuce, perennial arugula, red Russian and dinosaur kale, pickling cucumbers, gherkins, slicing cucumbers, lunchbox bell peppers, Hungarian paprika, tomatoes (3-4 types), leeks, green onion, walking onion, garlic, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, figs, every possible herb and edible flower I can get my hands on, red zinger hibiscus.

I keep trying with varieties of squash, but I cannot keep ahead of the squash bugs. I've also played with mini watermelon, but find them a lot of work for little reward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grow what we like to eat in raised beds. I also like to include varieties that are hard to find in stores, noted in parenthesis, so I do tend to experiment.

Potatoes (rose fingerling), sweet potatoes (purple flesh), peas, sugar snap peas (purple), red long bean, purple pole bean, 4-5 varieties of radish and beets, mixed leaf lettuce, butter head lettuce, perennial arugula, red Russian and dinosaur kale, pickling cucumbers, gherkins, slicing cucumbers, lunchbox bell peppers, Hungarian paprika, tomatoes (3-4 types), leeks, green onion, walking onion, garlic, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, figs, every possible herb and edible flower I can get my hands on, red zinger hibiscus.

I keep trying with varieties of squash, but I cannot keep ahead of the squash bugs. I've also played with mini watermelon, but find them a lot of work for little reward.

That’s impressive. Are you growing all those vegetables in one single season or alternate crops?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grow what we like to eat:
Tomatoes, eggplants, all kinds of sweet and hot peppers, okra, cucumbers, radishes, bush beans, pole beans, hyacinth beans, yard-long beans and lots and lots of herbs. I gave up on zucchini because of squash bugs but I sometimes plant a cucuzzi or tromboncino vine.
I also mix in flowers for beauty, salads and to attract pollinators and hummingbirds: marigolds, sunflowers, nasturtiums, Tithonia and scarlet runner beans.
I have raised beds and do all work myself.

I love growing different varieties of zucchini despite the bugs invasion that happens toward the end of the plant life.
This year, I’ll protect the plants with insect netting.

Keep it up.

[Anonymous]

Only do tomatoes, a bay laurel, a fig tree and outside and have a room inside my house dedicated to hydroponics. In there i do microgreens, 10 lettuce varieties, and 3 varieties of basil, 2 types of parsley, thyme, cilantro, sage, dill and mint.

[Anonymous]

You put a garden in your kitchen? Why?

[Anonymous]

To avoid the squash borer, plant later in the season.

In addition to zucchini and yellow squash, I also grow tomatoes, eggplant, Swiss Chard and Spinach, I also grow basil, parsley, and dill

[Anonymous]

this year i'm doing two types of cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, green peppers, jalepenos, and a variety of herbs. and I'm trying lettuce for the first time.

My favorite is the cucumbers and the jalepenos because I can pickle them. I haven't had much success with larger tomatoes as they always get eaten before they grow big enough, so hoping the cherry ones work better.

[Anonymous]

How do you protect your tomatoes from squirrels and rodents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you protect your tomatoes from squirrels and rodents?

Try to keep your tomato plants in containers surrounded by gravel and sprayed with a repellent made with hot pepper wax and other “magical” ingredients.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you protect your tomatoes from squirrels and rodents?

Build cylindrical cages out of welded wire fence. Also helps support the plants.

As far as mice or rats, never had that problem, but if they are that prevalent, then that's a more pressing issue than a garden.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grow what we like to eat in raised beds. I also like to include varieties that are hard to find in stores, noted in parenthesis, so I do tend to experiment.

Potatoes (rose fingerling), sweet potatoes (purple flesh), peas, sugar snap peas (purple), red long bean, purple pole bean, 4-5 varieties of radish and beets, mixed leaf lettuce, butter head lettuce, perennial arugula, red Russian and dinosaur kale, pickling cucumbers, gherkins, slicing cucumbers, lunchbox bell peppers, Hungarian paprika, tomatoes (3-4 types), leeks, green onion, walking onion, garlic, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, figs, every possible herb and edible flower I can get my hands on, red zinger hibiscus.

I keep trying with varieties of squash, but I cannot keep ahead of the squash bugs. I've also played with mini watermelon, but find them a lot of work for little reward.

That’s impressive. Are you growing all those vegetables in one single season or alternate crops?

I grow each in its season. I don't use season extenders. For spring and fall crops, I start from seed. For summer crops, I will buy starter plants to account for the overlap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you protect your tomatoes from squirrels and rodents?

Oddly, they have never bothered my tomatoes. I don't know why. Hope I didn't just jinx it!