April 28, 2016

Garlic Planted in Styrofoam Containers and Bamboo Trellises

Bamboo trellises planted with pole green beans, cucumber, pole dry beans, luffa, and bitter melon.

The garden is huge. I didn't realize how much my husband had expanded the garden until I started putting up the trellises. It was actually my husband's idea to put the trellises alongside our neighbors garage. The neighbor tends to have lots and lots of outdoor parties where they sit outside and watch sports on t.v., and this will shield our backyard from view so I can garden in relative privacy.

And that's an alley running along our backyard perpendicular to the bamboo trellises. Okra will be planted along the alley side, which will shield the tomato beds from passersby. It looks like I'll have ten long beds, each about 4 feet wide available for planting.
Garlic. I had planted 4 styrofoam containers with different varieties of garlic. Two were planted with unknown grocery store garlic and the other two were planted with garlic I had purchased from a seed company. All of the unknown grocery store garlic died during the winter, only one thin waif-like stalk remains of those doomed garlic.
But as you can see the 2 varieties of fancy garlic I purchased online are doing ok in their separate styrofoam containers.

6 comments:

David Velten said...

That's a big garden. I thought your garden was already huge. Good strategy to use the beans and okra to screen the yard. It is amazing to me you are already planting beans. I don't do that until the first week of June because before then the soil doesn't warm up enough to avoid poor germination.

Phuong said...

Hi David,
It's probably a little early since I usual don't start planting beans until May, but it's been nicely in the 80's the last couple of weeks. I'm just hoping the crazy amount of rain we just had doesn't rot the beans out.

I can't get over how good your seedlings look. Your brassicas and peppers look absolutely amazing.

Margaret said...

Beans are such fast growers, you should have a nice privacy screen in no time - what a great idea - kudos to your husband! That's too bad about the grocery store garlic. I have read that certain crops are sprayed with growth inhibitors to prevent them from sprouting, and perhaps that's what happened to the garlic - good thing you had a backup with your seed house garlic!

Phuong said...

Hi Margaret,
I'm really excited about the pole beans I'm trying out this year. Hopefully they'll be lots of shelly beans in the future for Italian tuna salads, soups and regular salads, so exciting! And I really want the luffa to do well this year I want to be drowning in them, they are just so good in stir-fries.

The grocery store garlic actually sprouted and was growing really well with our weirdly warm winter, but once the really cold weather hit they just died. I assume they were soft neck garlic and had put on too much tender growth. Whereas I think the seed house garlic were both hardier hard-neck varieties.

gardenvariety-hoosier said...

I like the bamboo trellises. Have you ever tried Silver Queen okra? It can grow 8 feet tall and make a good screen, and the pods are tasty, thick walls. Needs a long growing season, though.

Phuong said...

Hi gardenvariety-hoosier,
Silver Queen sounds like a great okra, I'll give it a try next year though because I've already purchased a couple packs of Red Burgundy and Beck's Big Buck. We have a really long growing season so Silver Queen would work well.