June 27

Half of the potatoes are now under drip. The other half have their drip lines set out and just need to be attached to a supply line (header).

The peas have greened up well.
The Pontiac potatoes all have blossoms on them now and are doing great.

Pontiac on the left and Yukon Gold on the right.

The second planting of corn is up.

The best part of the garden, new potatoes. In two weeks these will be perfect.

June 20

Here are the latest pictures of the garden. Most of them can be enlarged by double clicking on them.

I was able to get the Yukon Gold potatoes hilled up and planted 4 more rows of corn this week. I also thinned out the first planting of corn. Everything looks good so far.

No sign of grasshoppers yet but the neighbours a block away have them. They are small in the nymph stage. At this stage the grasshoppers are easily killed by pesticides, but I would need to spray all of the fields for miles around to be affective. I sprayed the garden one time last year, mostly the corn and beans and killed hundreds of them. As soon as the farmer to the west cut his hay I was infested with more. It is not worth the cost and the biggest thing is that I do not want to use pesticides period. I will need to get pens for the turkeys set up in the garden in the next week or two.



Tomatoes on the right and peppers on the left.

The peas are doing well. The sugar snap peas are a pale green almost yellow but they should green up in the next week or two. The little marvels are the ones on the right and darker green.







Here you can see the corn after it was thinned out.


You can see in this picture how the brown soaker hose/dip lines will eventually fill up the furrows and do a good job just watering the plants. The beans are on the left, carrots in the center and beets to the right.

Here are the four new rows of corn. The drip lines are in place and will be the only source of water for the remaining plantings of corn, no overhead sprinklers.

June 13

We have had rain for the last two days. Everything is waterlogged. Things should be drying out for the next 5 days. Here are a few pictures showing how the garden is looking at this point. Everything is planted except for the later plantings of corn. I just need to finish hooking up all of the drip lines and should have that done within the next two weeks.





Last year we had problems with grasshoppers so I thought that I would prepare for them this year and run turkeys in the garden. The pens will be set up throughout the garden and along the perimeters to help with the migrating hoppers. These turkeys are 18 weeks old and ready for the job. So far we haven't had any grasshoppers yet. The wet snow we had two weeks ago may have wiped many of them out.

June 13

I am late getting this blog up and running. Last years Mega garden can be viewed at this link http://themegagarden2009.blogspot.com/


I will bring you up to date in one post and will try to keep this current from now on, but don't hold your breath.
All rows are 75' long unless otherwise noted.

April 24 Planted 21 rows of Pontiac red potatoes

April 26

Planted 9 rows of Yukon Gold potatoes


May 8

Panted 2 double rows of Little Marvel peas, 2 double rows of Sugar Snap Peas.


May 15

Planted 1 double row of beets, 1 double row of Danvers carrots, 1 double row of Scarlet Nantes carrots. Potatoes starting to emerge


May 21

Planted 2 double rows of blue lake bush beans (4 ea 75' rows total) 7 rows of Ambrosia corn (75' rows). 12 Roma, 11 DX, and 2 Goliath tomato plants. Peas are starting to emerge

May 23

Light frost, 32°. tomatoes toast and potatoes nipped.

May 24

5” of wet heavy snow
May 26

Frost

May 28

Replanted tomatoes, two Roma, 12 DX, 11 Goliath

May 29

Beets are up, Yukon Gold potatoes up.

June 3

Corn and beans are up.
Planted 6 hills of yellow zucchini
6 hills Black Beauty zucchini
3 hills Jackpot bush zucchini
2 hills yellow straight neck squash

12 green Bell peppers
2 red bell peppers
8 Anaheim chili peppers
6 Banana peppers
6 Jalapeno peppers

June 4

planted 4 hills Spacemaster cucumber
8 hills Marketmore 76 cucumber
7 hills Poinsett 76 cucumber

8 hills Hales Jumbo cantaloupe
7 hills Crimson Sweet watermelon

June 11

Hilled up the Pontiac potatoes
planted 8 hills Summertime Sweet Honeydew melon
6 hills Bush Sugar Baby watermelon
1 hill Crimson Sweet watermelon

4 Spaghetti Squash
5 Walthem Butternut squash
5 Acorn Table Queen squash
4 Hubbard Blue squash
4 Pink Banana squash
8 Jack O Lantern pumpkin
3 Big Moon pumpkin
3 Small Sugar New England pumpkin