Sugar snap peas make shift fence.

When I posted my last post "Can I grow a garden where I'm located?" I had mentioned my make shift fence for the peas to climb. When I posted it I noticed in the main picture on my blog that you can see the god awful yellowish metal legs from some old shelving I had to add to my not so bad looking pea vine climbing fence. On the main page picture under the word Northern you can see the yellowish metal leggings I used. Those are the same awful leggings I talked about that I nailed to my nice wood posts and ran more yarn between to make up for the height needed because the vines grew higher then I thought. Picture those nailed to some nice posts (1x2's) with yarn, sticking up in the air bent a bit because of the weight of the vines. It looked horrible like I mentioned in the last post, but like I said I worked with what I had that could do the job and cost me nothing except being on the receiving end of a few pokes, laughs and jokes about what I used from my family and friends. Because the leggings I used were kinda flimsy they were bent over (like a fishing rod with a fish on the line) because the vines were so heavy. If you can picture it you'll see the humour in it. Like I said I'm cheap and if I have something I'm not using that'll work in my garden I'll use no matter how bad it looks...HAHAHA! Why spend money on nice looking fancy gadgets for the garden if you can make shift your own, unless it's where everyone can see it and your worried about the cosmetics of it all. For me I don't care either way cause I'm cheap, I'll take the pokes because it cost me nothing to get what I want...my free fresh grown veggies. :)

Can I grow a garden where I'm located?

In my experiences if I wanted to grow some veggies I grew them regardless of what others said. 1 year I had people telling me it'll be too hot to grow cucumbers because we weren't getting any rain. Well I proved them all wrong, I had tons of cucumbers and they had none. I planted mine in an area that got sunlight about 70% of the time and shaded about 30% of the time just to give them time to cool down slowly before sundown so they didn't get any shock in temp changes and I watered them twice as much as what I normally would have. Mine grew and kept on growing all season and they ranged from 9-16 inches. If my memory serves correct it was 2 or 3 years ago and it was one of our hottest, driest summers ever.
Another year I was told none of my onions would grow because I planted them 3 weeks earlier then what the so called experts that they follow gave as a good start date for veggie planting. Well by the time they started planting thier set of onions I was almost ready to pick and replace going onto my 2nd batch of onions(green onions not cooking onions because cooking onions need alot more time to get bigger). Near the end of the season I had picked and replanted 4 or 5 times, I'm pretty sure it was 5 but don't quote me on that...hahahaha.
That same year I was told my sugar snap peas wouldn't grow for the same reason(planting them too early). Mine grew like crazy, and it was so crazy the plants all grew over 8 feet tall which I think was due to the extra few weeks in the ground giving them a huge head start over everyone following the experts opinions. I had originally built a make shift climbing fence like thing with wood and heavy yarn about 6 feet tall for the pea vines to climb(which looked awesome) and I had to keep adding to it with whatever I could use to support these crazy growing pea vines. I wish I had pictures to show you because it looked so ametuer (which really I am) that it was hilarious, even I fell down laughing at it but in the end it served it's purpose. I had the original make shift climbing fence I made then when it got taller I nailed some metal shelving legs(a god awful yellowish colour) to the posts to get more height and ran more yarn from end to end. It looked like something the worst handyman would have done, but hey I worked with what I had because I'm too cheap to spend money if I have something here that can do the job(no matter how stupid it looks). And for those that laughed, I had 10 times the peas they had.
Besides that both onions and peas along with potatoes and alot of other veggies are planted under the ground giving them a bit of protection from the changes in temperature or frost at night that might occur. It's not like your planting tomatoe plants that early or any other veggie thats alot easier to plant using pre-grown plants as apposed to seeds.
I found through trial and error that with any veggie I've planted that starts under the dirt 1st that I can plant them 2-3 weeks earlier and watering them during the afternoon when it's warm once a day.
For my cucumbers I plant them the same way 70/30 sun/shade every year and it works for me. Now depending on your area and the weather this may or may not work. I've lived in Southern Ontario, Western Ontario and right here in the great north, Nothern Ontario and if I wanted to grow it I found a way. One thing I've never tried are those additives for your soil or bagged soil with nutrients or whatever it is they put in it. I've always just turned the same soil and planted and used good old tap water from my hose for watering or rain:)so I'm not sure how those other things work(just in case someone asks).
It basically comes down to trial and error and whether you want to learn exacty when the times are good in your area to plant, where to plant and how often to water based on your weather. It's a learning experience once you think you have it figured out you add a new veggie(s) and it doesn't grow right because what you learned growing everything else works for them but now you need to figure out what works for that new veggie(s). You can get some basic ideas online(like here) or in books but it really comes down to your exact area because alot of what's the so called "written in stone" ways of planting are just guidelines, some work and some don't. I gave up on reading experts advice, trying what they say and still failing , so I decided to learn the hard way and I have done alot better ( I EVEN GREW CORN!!!!!) and everyone said I couldn't because of my location and such a short season. I proved them all wrong and I only used seeds, my garden and water (no other enhancers or additives I grew it all natural).
Remember what I post here is what's worked for me and still works and for some it may or may not work, but at least you can be assured I'm not some expert growing in greehouses, labs or talking to thousands of people to gather my findings, I'm just a regular at home outside gardener who wants to try and help if I can. I've beat my head against the wall so many times trying to grow different veggies until I final got it right so again I hope some of what I post helps.

My apologies

I'd like to apologize for not posting in a long time for those who do come back here once and a while. But I will try to offer some more helpfull tips now that I have some spare time :).

Pumpkins

I cut my pumpkins off the vine a few days ago and got 5 nice size pumpkins from the 5 seeds I planted. I noticed today there are 4 more new pumpkins growing and the vines are still flowering. 1 is about the size of a softball and the rest are small like a big marble so I'll see if they get bigger before the end of October. I was reading on a few sites that as long as pumpkins aren't cut(meaning the skin punctured) they'll last for months before starting to go bad and if you tap them and they sound hollow even when their green you can cut them fro the vines and set them on boards or a deck and they'll turn orange in the sun during the fall. If the weather is too warm though they will start to rot, it needs to be a cooler season for them to change after being off the vine.

Corn

This year growing corn has been hard with this horrible weather(I mean very little rain and alot of heat at the end of the season). My corn stalks like alot of others are very thin and weak but are still growing corn. Mine are still growing but I had to reinforce the stacks with sticks to hold them up so the corn can keep growing and the stalks themselves don't break and die. This was my 1st year growing corn and I learned 1 thing...do not follow the packet instructions. It said to put 2-3 seeds per hole which I did then weed out the smallest plants only leaving 1 in each spot. Well I tried that and the roots inner twine so you end up pulling them all out by accident. I planted some with just 1 seed in each and thier doing perfectly fine. So I would say plant 1 seed per hole and see what happens because if not you'll end up like mine. It's late in the season now but with this weather I may end up getting some nice corn out of mine. Right now my cobs are about 6 inches long and keep getting bigger every day so we'll see what happens. The key to growing corn is to make sure it's in a spot where it can get alot of sun all day long and plenty of water on the roots(not the entire plant). A great spot that not many use is beside a shed, garage or fence where it gets alot of sun during the day and just do 1 straight row instead of multiple rows. This is how my neighbor has grown corn for years and always gets lots of corn(sweet corn). Planting next to a garage, shed or fence also keeps it out of the way of any traffic in the yard. Also if you plant corn in your garden make sure it's in a spot where it will get alot of sun but won't block your other plants from the sun as it grows taller.

Pumpkins

This year I decided to try growing pumpkins because every year my wife buys so many of them every year to decorate around the front and back yard that it isn't funny or cheap anymore. Well I learned the spot I picked and tried to contain the plants in wasn't a big enough space for these long growing plants. I planted 5 seeds in the ground spaced about 8 inches between each in late May with the hopes that maybe 2 or 3 would take. All the seeds started growing but it did take a while, it took almost 7 weeks of patiently waiting to see if they would actually start to bloom. After the 1st ten days in the ground they did start to grow out but they dod take a long time to start getting bigger. Over the past 2 weeks I've noticed alot of pumpkins starting to grow and in the past few days we've had alot of rain and the little pumpkins are now the size of volleyballs so come Halloween I'm going to have alot of huge pumpkins for free :). With the pumpkins all you need to do is give them lots of water maybe once every 2 to 3 days in but in the beginning stages before the plant starts to blooming flowers I would water them everyday that it doesn't rain just to ensure thier getting enough water(all I did was water them for about 4-5 minutes each evening to give the roots a good drink). Pumpkins are great and easy because you really don't have to do much to help them along except water them. Since this was my 1st year growing them and didn't know what to expect size wise I had to cut the boards off the back side of my garden and turn the branches from the pumpkin plant to grow out that way so it had more room. Next year now that I know how big the plants get I'm planting them in the back corner of my yard by themselves. I'll post some pictures of the pumpkins and plants soon.

Growing Peppers

Growing peppers is so easy. I have alot of varieties of peppers in my garden because we have different tastes in my house. I'm growing little red hot cherry, sweet yellow banana, yellow bell, red bell, green bell, orange bell, jalopeno, mucho(this is a new one for me), and some other vareties of hot peppers. I planted some at the end of May this year and planted some at the end of June and 1 week in July. All the plants seemed to have bloomed at the same time even with me planting them so far apart. I experimented with a few of the plants and what I did was any leaves that where growing out and had a bud growing right at the leaf's stem and the plant's main shaft, I pinched the leaves off so the bud got all the nutrients to help them grow better. This made them look almost like twigs with a few buds and leaves but after a few weeks they started producing peppers. All the others I let them grow without pinching the leaves and they seemed to do very well also. Once the leaves turn yellow you can pull them off so it's just the nice green leaves and buds showing because once thier yellow thier dead and don't need any more nutrients(this will help the other leaves and buds grow alot faster). I experimented doing that also and found all the ones I pinched the leaves off of that were turning yellow have bloomed alot more peppers then the ones I just left the leaves to naturally fall off of. Something else I did this year too was all the extra pepper plants I had I put them in my wifes flower gardens in half barrell planters and thier doing very well and look good when placed right throughout the flower garden(I planted them in 3 colours for a nicer appearance amongst her flowers, I put red.green and orange peppers and the colours really stand out nice and she really likes the look of them). Again once I get my camera back I'll post a picture of the peppers in the main garden and the ones in my wife's flower garden.