2009 Garden Vlog 5, Total Garden Overview

[misskisskadee]

did ever try planting asian long yard beans ? pls do if so we will see how u grow theme ,thanks alot !!! ur video are great !!

[Blinkazoid]

I guess I"m not too adventurous with my plantings. I long ago decided what I liked best and mostly stick to that. White Half Runner beans is the only kind I plant. I will be planting some watermellon and cantalope next summer which is fairly new for me. I did plant watermellon and cantalope for the first time in ages last summer but they didn't turn out so good because I didn't give them enough space.

[cjacustomwoodworking]

Hales Best I did and it did great. I think out of two mounds of plants I wound up getting 14 good eaters. Very sweet. Good luck, great video.

[Blinkazoid]

Thanks!!! I'd be very happy with 14. Especially since my cucumbers are starting to encroach on my cantaloupe, and watermellow too. It's probably the most vigorous growth I've ever had with cucumbers and that's saying a lot!

[BasicModelling]

I have had a disaster with my tomatoes, due to neglect / not being home to care and nurture them / forgetting them in a hot window.. and any other excuse I can think off!! But I will do a update next week..

YOUR garden's looking good, long may it prosper... :) :)

[Blinkazoid]

You could always blame it on your wife sending out bad karmic vibrations towards them since she wasn't crazy about them occupying space in the window:)

Things are looking reasonably good here other than my beans which have now seen a total of 5 days partially submerged from so much rain and are turning yellow. I might have to rip them up, wait for dry weather and then ridge up a tall mound of dirt and then replant. Yikes we've had more rain this year than in the last 7 or 8 years.

[crewlla]

dont laugh at me but, I was trying to get the seeds out of a banana pepper and one seed end up getting in to my nose. the pain was killing me the only way I could get the pain to go away was to snort water......... I guess youcan laugh now. Dont try this at home.

[Blinkazoid]

Wow, I guess that episode cleared out your sinuses:)) Whew, thanks for granting me laughing permission. I had a lot of pressure building up there, LOL. I feel better now. I shall be on guard during pepper harvest time so try and head off any such calamatities.

[ironhead41]

LOOKIN GOOD

[Blinkazoid]

Thanks Ironhead! All I need is for it to stop raining quite so much!

[ironhead41]

the rains good 4 what you have in the ground now. plenty of time 4 the rest as long as our fall is still as warm as its been in the past several years. good vids my friend

[webcajun]

Your garden is coming along real well. We've had lots of rain too which was good for the corn but not for most of the other stuff....... Donald

[Blinkazoid]

Yep, same here. My corn looks great. Everything else has suffered from having so much rain. My beans had standing water on both sides of them for 3 days and they've turned a little yellow. Hopefully they'll recover. I've always had trouble with my beans turning yellow prematurely in the best of conditions and the rain makes it that much worse.

[petuniabelle650]

Maybe when the beans start running, they'll chase the rabbits away. :)

I'm enjoying your garden.

[Blinkazoid]

Hehehehe. It's looking like they might need to do some running to escape from drowning the way it's been raining. They're still looking pretty healthy though.

[abzdeman3]

i want a garden like that =[

[Blinkazoid]

If you want a taste of what it's like I'll generously allow you to weed mine this summer in exchange for a few veggies.

[highheadjester]

you're gonna have corn comein out of well your ears... I hope the Melons do good..... They're tasty!!

[Blinkazoid]

Yep, I'm going to have LOTS of corn for sure. Let's see 300 stalks of corn with 2 ears per stalk comes to 600 ears as a best case scenerio. Yikes that's a lot of work to get them processed and put in the freezer. None of it will go to waste though:)

The Melons really are a bit iffy. It doesn't seem like too many people around here grow them. I grew one crop of cantalopes one season that certainly looked good enough, but they had a bad taste for some reason. We'll see how it goes.

[myrnaukelele]

I'm growing corn again this year too. Hopefully it'll get more than ankle high...

[Blinkazoid]

I think I remember seeing that ankle high corn in one of your videos. Here's hoping you have much better luck this season Maureen. I really think the corn is going to be my best performing crop this year. It's off to a good start anyway. I'm going to be pretty late getting those last two rows in. It just keeps raining, and raining, and raining here.

[sugerbear520]

nice garden!!!!!

[Blinkazoid]

Thanks Sugerbear!

[spiralisedcat]

wow i just went from one vid to the next and you have insta-corn,corn that gets 2" in 10 seconds impressive hehe

[Blinkazoid]

It's like magic, LOL. If only things grew that fast in real life.

[Praxxus55712]

I love your units of measurement. You only got 2 messes of beans last year......but you should have gotten alot of messes of beans. LOL Your videos are so cool. I look forward to them. Plus, your camera gets amazing closeups! Holy crap mine blows for closeups. aaaaak.

[Blinkazoid]

LOL, to be just a bit more precise I have a fairly large pressure cooker. I think it hold 6 quarts but I'm not sure without dragging it out and taking a look at it. To me a mess of beans is how many it takes to fill up the pressure cooker after the beans are strung and broken up.

I use a Canon FS100 camera. I've only had it about 4 months and I totally love it. It has an amazing zoom lens. It outputs to a rather odd file format (.MOD) but it's easy enough to convert that into an .MPG.

[CapnKangaroo]

yep...it's getting there "blink, you cover a lot of territory .

[Blinkazoid]

Yep, eating season is just around the corner!!! :)

[1DRock37167]

Corn looks good, I wish I had room to grow some!

You got quite the selection this year, I hope your cantaloupes do well.

I have been organic in my garden for the last 4 years, I sure do miss Miricle Grow sometimes:-)

[Blinkazoid]

I think as fertilizers go Miracle grow isn't too damaging to the soil. My tomatoes and peppers certainly needed a shot of *something*. I know as far as volume goes I certainly use less Miracle Grow than if I was putting fertilizer on the peppers and tomatoes. I did of course put fertilizer on the corn. I don't think corn would do too will without fertilizer unless you literally had tons of super duper compost, which right now I don't have. One bad thing about fertilizer is it kills worms.

[GramsandPapi]

Things are looking really good! Thanks, Ang

[Blinkazoid]

Your welcome and as always, thanks for watching and commenting Ang!!!

[hallbe]

That looks like such a nice garden!

[Blinkazoid]

Thanks hallbe! Things are coming right along:)))

[AZpugs]

These gardening videos are great. I can't believe how big your first corn plantings are already! You never say anything stupid. Fun-yes, stupid-no. It's a little late here in the southwest for a lot of planting, but I did get a small plot of giant sunflowers in.

[Blinkazoid]

Thanks AZ! The corn is really doing GREAT. I've not planted any in several years so the ground isn't depleted in whatever the corn needs to grow properly. Plus I've been growing beans in that same area during that time which adds nitrogen to the soil which corn needs in abundance. So I'm expecting a really good corn crop. There's no telling when I'll get those last two rows in. It rained 2" here last night with more rain on the way. Things are SOGGY! Good luck with the sunflowers!

[randomwritings]

and here are getting all excited because 4 out of a whole pack of tomato seeds have sprouted at last along with 2 peppers!

However we planted some peas in a hanging basket as we had no way to train them up a wall and we have a great display of trailing pea plants! Mushy peas anyone?

[Blinkazoid]

That's probably about how many watermellon plants I'll wind up with. Although the pack only had about 10 seeds to begin with.

And when it comes to peas I think I prefer to nice some nice normal round semi-firm peas and turn them into mushy peas with my teeth, LOL.

[robertpina99]

I think the bell peppers will be a hit. I couldn't help listening to the birds in the background, and once in a while I'd catch a glimpse of the woods out back. It just all seemed so peaceful.

[Blinkazoid]

I'm always patient with the bell peppers and wait for them to change colors. These start off green and then change to yellow or orange. They have a much better flavor after than change colors but lots of people do eat them green. This is a really nice place, although the garden is only about 100 yards from a 4 lane highway so I do get some noise from that.

[ohhyeahzulu]

your garden is looking sharp.!

[Blinkazoid]

Thanks!!! It's getting there:)

[MGABBYB]

Wow, that's a big garden and looks like alot of work. Do you sell any of it, or is it just for your own consumption?

[Blinkazoid]

Yep, it's quite a bit of work. I've never sold any of it. I eat it or can it or freeze it or my parents, brother, or neighbors do.

[GreatGig1]

Great garden once again! I'll be looking forward to harvest time!! :-)

[Blinkazoid]

Summer eating season is just around the corner! It's a good thing too because I eat too much fast food the rest of the year. It's time to clense my system:)

[LatteSue]

Did you just call your cat Snoozers? hehe My family calls me Susie and my niece calls me Snoozie. >.> Her name is Susan so I return the favor and call her Snoozan. Yeah, were strange.

I love these garden vlogs because right now I'm living in a concrete jungle. hehe

I'm wearing my parachute just in case you try to give me another kick. ;)

[Blinkazoid]

Yep, that's exactly what I called her. Her name of course is Suzy but I call her all sorts of stuff. Snoozers seems to be the most common other than her real name, followed closely by Snoodles, Snubunny, and Snoozy.

I hope you packed that parachute yourself. You just never can trust some things to disinterested parties. Of course if you're like me you don't have the faintest idea how to pack one so in that case packing it yourself would be dangerous. Cont.

[Blinkazoid]

Seriously speaking I think if I lived in a hi-rise I'd probably buy at least a LOOONG rope just in case.

[LatteSue]

I don't have the arm strength to hang onto a rope 20 stories up! lol I'm a goner! ;)

[Blinkazoid]

People who do mountain climbing have their ropes rigged up where they can "rappel" down the rope. Arm strength enough to support your entire weight for 20 stories wouldn't be needed. It's just a  matter of getting the right hardware.

[MissTruly]

I always enjoy your garden vlogs!

[Blinkazoid]

Thanks MissTruly. Yep, I know you've prodded me in the past when I've been slack on posting updates, LOL. I was a little late with this one which is why it turned out to be so long. I had a lot of ground to cover.

[thizizliz]

Wow, that's a LOT of garden. It will be fun to watch it grow this summer too. No English peas or broccoli or cauliflower... hmmmmm. Everyone likes different things - oh! no lettuce either. I'll bet you learn a lot about people's eating habits by looking at their gardens.

[Blinkazoid]

I like peas a lot but peas are one of those things that I like about as well out of a can as out of the garden so I don't plant them. I hate, hate, hate, broccoli and cauliflower. And lettuce is only about a buck a head in the store so it's hardly worth the effort. Besides that, you have to plant lettuce very early in the season for it to head.

[thizizliz]

When my sister in law and I lived up in the mountain here we grew leaf lettuce all summer but the days were much shorter due to the canyon walls causing shade. Really, how much salad can you eat though? Seems like 10 families could share a packet of seed. I think it's more of a pain than it's worth for lots of folks. I often put carrots in my flower bed - easier to reach (raised) and the ferns look pretty with the flowers. But we love carrots, so it works well for us.

[sprichbeeke]

Super vegie garden you have started there...you will be eating lots of yummy healthy "stuff" ...Great work!

[Blinkazoid]

Thanks Beeke! It's shaping up like a good year. I was a little worried there for a while with the peppers and tomatoes being so yellow but things are looking better. Now if only my beans will do better than they did last year!

[rimshotrulz]

Hey Blinky, how do you post videos this long? it won't let me post anything over like 10 mins. Could you help meh?

[Blinkazoid]

I'm grandfathered in. If you had a directors account before sometime about Febuary of 2007 you can post long videos. After that date YouTube started limiting things for newer directors accounts. I'm afraid you're out of luck:( They did it because so many people were posting entire TV shows. It sucks but that's the way it is.

[rimshotrulz]

KK thx

[dicom]

Don't get me wrong, I am glad for the rain. You and I are in the same region you are in Western Carolina and I am in Southwest Virginia, and as you know our water table is low and we need all the rain, but it sure does put a damper on the garden work. I just hope we don't go dry mid season.

[Blinkazoid]

Yep, the rain *can* be an inconvienence at times but you're right. We really do need it. We've actually had drought conditions here for the last 4 summers or so. I had to water my garden more last summer than I ever have. As I mentioned in a comment to someone else, I heard today that the water level in Lake Lanier North of Atlanta had risen this year from 18 feet below normal to only 5 feet below normal so I'm sure those folks down there are thrilled with all the rain.

[Blinkazoid]

Yikes this video certainly looks extra crappy in the eary going. Hopefully it will improve. It actually looks great on my computer.

[odin422]

Huge area you have there....nice to hear your starting to GUILD your plants.

[Blinkazoid]

Hmmm, I know I must have said *something* which must have sounded like "GUILD" but I can't think of what it was, LOL.

[odin422]

the combining of different plants to create a symbyotic envorinment is Guilding.

You did it with the corn and then growing the beans up the taller corn.

Please look up Forest Gardening by Robert Hart there are two or three other documentaries and they are GREAT

Another is by Sepp Holzer...ENJOY!

[Blinkazoid]

Ahhh, I see. I knew a lot of people planted beans in with their corn but I didn't know there was an actual name for it other than something like "companion planting". Supposedly it's something the American Indians used to do. I think they planted squash in with their corn as well but I don't think that was the same type of squash as these "straight necks" I always plant. Those need a LOT of room.

[odin422]

Put a fake owl above your beans, no more poopy birds.

[Blinkazoid]

Good idea!

[odin422]

Corn is TERRIBLE for your soil, try some beans

Black Turtle Beans are EXCELLENT for your health.

[Blinkazoid]

I don't doubt that. It does use up a lot of nitrogen. On the other hand it's stalks do return a lot of material back to the soil in the fall. I always take lopping shears and chop every stalk up into 6" lengths so it's decompose faster. I've never heard of Black Turtle Beans. I think beans are good for you pretty much across the board. I need to start eating more of them.

At any rate I love corn so I'm going to enjoy this:)

[Dlorezzz]

I am ready to eat fresh corn from the garden. We have had so much rain this spring I am not sure how our gardens will do this year

[Blinkazoid]

Everyone must be having a lot of rain. We've certainly had tons of it and rain is in the forecast every day this week. I heard on the news today that Lake Lanier north of Atlanta was 18 feet low last summer and now it's only 5 feet low so I guess we needed it.