Garden is looking good. Tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, melons, garlic, onions, cucumbers, beans, corn, pac choy. Zinnia.
- Thread starter gary350
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Great work, garden looks fantastic!
The first picture looks like you are planting the vegetables in pots IN the ground? Never seen that before - can you explain this technique??
I think it's possibly rings/tube for keeping the watering from going everywhere. Correct me if i'm wrong though. Looks like the soil has sunk down inside them a bit perhaps from watering. I've seen it done like collars of waste pipe with carrot seeds/seedlings in sand boxes. But I suppose pots would work for certain things if there were holes in the bottom for the roots to go through. Seen people put potato pots on top of soil to give roots more access to nutrients.
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Round white color circles are 6" PVC pipe cut into 2" long pieces to use like a levee to hold water. I thought these will be a better idea than hilling up soil around each plant like I have done for 40 years but water goes under the plastic pieces. 6" diameter is not enough water volume either. They work ok if I put soil around the pipe pieces so water does not go under the pipes.
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Great tips, thanks. Wish I had all those onions and corn on the go, looks amazing
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Trick to growing big 3" diameter onions is to plant onions that grow in your area. Grow short day onions in the south. Grow long day onions up north. Grow intermediate onions if you live near 34 degree Latitude. We live at 34.4 deg latitude I grow yellow candy onions. I plant March 1st that is 7 weeks before last frost. I buy onion plants NOT onion sets. Sets are already 1 year old. Plants are only 2 or 3 months old. Plants come in a bundle of green onion plant about 70 per bundle for $5. Plant them in good soil but cover them with mulch or straw 2" deep or more. Plants need 21-0-0 fertilizer until OUR day length is 12 hours of sunlight then switch to 0-20-20 fertilizer. First 6 weeks I try to grow 10 leaves on each onion plant. Then switch fertilizer to grow large bulbs. Onion bed is 32" wide x 30 ft long. 3ft of the bed is 80 garlic. This is not a raised bed its just boards to hold in mulch and water. Onions need lots of water. Once a week turn water hose on for 30 minutes flood the bed with 50 gallons of water. When onion tops fall over about first week of June its harvest time. You don't need to pull all the onions up for another month unless you get too much rain. I grew 380 onions, some did not grow, some rotted, some would not mature, we got about 300 good large slicer onions.
This winter December 1st I am going to plant candy onion seeds in a hot bed in the garden to see if I can grow my own onion plants to transplant. Onions plants are hard to find not many places sell them anymore. Dickson Dale Farms sells onion plants but 3 bundles plus postage is about $50.
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That's valuable info there, a real help thanks very much. I use onions quite a lot and yeah I doubt I'll ever use sets again. That's good how you get the leaves sorted then switch to the bulbs 
Meadowlark
Gardner, Angler, Adjunct Professor, and Rancher
Well, there's more than one way to skin that cat...grow big onions that is. 
I never use synthetic fertilizers and do use fish emulsion applied consistently over the growing period along with other soil amendments. My growing period is Nov. to May. Also, I grow them in highly conditioned soil built up in advance through nitrogen fixing cover crops.
My yardstick... 3-4 inches medium, 5-6 inches large, and 7-8 inches jumbo. Only grown one jumbo of over 4 pounds in decades of growing onions but many 2-to-3-pound large onions. I grow 1015s yellow and red in my short-day East Texas location. You have to find what works in your location.
I never use synthetic fertilizers and do use fish emulsion applied consistently over the growing period along with other soil amendments. My growing period is Nov. to May. Also, I grow them in highly conditioned soil built up in advance through nitrogen fixing cover crops.
My yardstick... 3-4 inches medium, 5-6 inches large, and 7-8 inches jumbo. Only grown one jumbo of over 4 pounds in decades of growing onions but many 2-to-3-pound large onions. I grow 1015s yellow and red in my short-day East Texas location. You have to find what works in your location.
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Yeah you could no doubt produce plenty of plants yourself, that would be ideal
This is great info, I need to look into this cover crop thing more. I'm growing on a much smaller scale but perhaps I can use the red clover I've got to help the soil? Got plenty more seeds of it tooWell, there's more than one way to skin that cat...grow big onions that is.
I never use synthetic fertilizers and do use fish emulsion applied consistently over the growing period along with other soil amendments. My growing period is Nov. to May. Also, I grow them in highly conditioned soil built up in advance through nitrogen fixing cover crops.
My yardstick... 3-4 inches medium, 5-6 inches large, and 7-8 inches jumbo. Only grown one jumbo of over 4 pounds in decades of growing onions but many 2-to-3-pound large onions. I grow 1015s yellow and red in my short-day East Texas location. You have to find what works in your location.