r/vegetablegardening

And then we found this veiny, triumphant bastard hiding deep within the plant 😅

We have a south-facing front yard with a neglected perennial garden that we never used to spend any time in, so this year I decided to get into vegetable gardening.

I hired a landscaper to remove the garden strip along the house and install the gravel area. I built the beds, the short fence along the boulevard, and installed the irrigation and cattle panel and string trellis systems.

There are 5 raised beds and I have containers along the house and east fence. The last photo is what the yard looked like in January.

I’m with the Certified Gardeners Association of Passaic County, and am co-leading the development of a new garden for our local food pantry. Thought you all would enjoy a picture of our latest harvest: 113 pounds! We only started planting on May 13th, so we’re hoping to hit 2,000 pounds total by the end of the season.

Hi, just wanted to share pics of my garden from when I first planted to now 62 days later. I planted on May 3.

This is my first time having a garden

I’m currently growing about:
31 tomatoes
20–25 watermelons
A few cantaloupes
20 peppers
8–10 cucumbers (started with 25, planning to replant seedlings to bring the number back up)
2 zucchini (started with 3, lost one to pests :/

The garden is about 2,500 sq ft.

It’s had its ups and downs. Early on, a week of heavy rain stressed my beefsteak tomatoes and wiped out my paste tomatoes. They’ve recovered, but I’ve only harvested 2 large tomatoes so far.

My cucumbers were hit hard by bacterial wilt from cucumber beetles in early May, but they have since calm down. Im replanting soon.

my watermelons are thriving and starting to take over a lot of space.

This has been a one-man project after work and on free days I’m out there until dark tending to it. Next up is adding a marigold border around the inside and outside of the fence line, because yolo and I also started a separate pumpkin patch a few days ago.
Thanks for looking!

I’m working through gardening as someone terrified of bugs so the third shot was the best I could do 😪🥹😅 hopefully it’s enough.

Are these things friends or foes?

All my seedlings died in the late frost NJ got, so I grabbed these plants from a store. I thought burpless were supposed to be seedless, they taste good but the seeds are a little bit tough. Did I pick these at the right size, and should I pickle them instead if they're hard to digest?

I was intrigued and just let it grow. Is it a spectacular weed, or something I might be eating down the line? Note the little red bits where the branches deviate from the stem.

I bought a broccoli plant from a garden center back in May. It was growing fantastic, starting to look like what I would expect broccoli to look like. I left for a week for vacation, and came back to this monstrosity! It tripled in height and grew stems? What should I do now? Can I just cut all those stems off and get it to go back to making the normal broccoli part? What would everyone advise?

First harvest first attempt at pickling. Added a jalapeño to mix for some spice

Can anyone ID this cucumber/fruit? I started using a new seed provider and have noticed a few different strains mixed it here and there. Not all bad news, it kind of adds a bit of flair to the dog days of gardening.

It is 4" long, smells like a cucumber, skin is not waxy, no discernible spines instead the fruit had an off-white coating similar to a kiwi. Taste is definitely cucumber with a hint of sweetness.

Is this vine borer damage on zucchini?

Zucchinis have not produced fruit yet despite several female flowers. I think the bed was overcrowded, and thought leaves were dying off due to being smothered but now unsure. First time gardener. Have not seen any eggs but could have missed.

Does this look the right size to cut? I heard smaller was better. Help!

Noticed a new leaf in my 3 weeks old pea pods container. What is it, is it a weed?

Truthfully I’ve not treated my garden at all for pests yet. I’ve seen a few of these things around and wonder if they’re what’s causing the damage? The most the plants with the noticeable damage are kale (which i’ve just left as an offering to the garden at this point) and sunflowers (though i’ve noticed zucchini damage that might’ve just been low fertilization). I also see them hanging out in the carrot greens. I have some pretty bad phobias when it comes to bugs and i’m trying to let them just exist in the garden and not stress too much if i don’t have to ☺️

full garden pic at the end just for funsies

Thanks!

I like growing romas, and my romas end up being as big as my hand. I use raised beds that are 3' off the ground, so at times I end up with an 8' tomato plant at the end of the season. I like keeping the plant bushy. I like multiple leads. Stakes in the bed never work, they start vertical and then end up in a teepee formation. I'd rather not put more cattle t posts into the ground next to my beds because I like to rotate the beds.

I'm thinking of trying this: https://joegardener.com/video/the-ultimate-tomato-cage-in-5-simple-steps/?utm\_source=Pinterest&utm\_medium=organic

Usually I see people plant larger varieties in the ground. Is there anyone out there using tall raised beds for larger varieties? What do you use as a trellis?

After everyone has had their fill of sweet Sungold and now “just can’t have another,” the gold yummies are heading to the pan for sauce. I think it’s an unconventional use of cherry toms, but this is the third year I’ve done it - they make a fantastic sweet tomato pizza sauce…

I've been tapping my stems daily to help pollinate but the flowers will not fruit. It's been about 2 weeks of flowering without anything taking. I just got better watering set up so I can water deeper less often, I haven't fertilized and a have a thin layer of grass mulch. Any ideas?