Pictures of my giant vegetable and flower garden

17 Dec '08 4:50 pm

Looking for other people interested in competitive gardening. Here are some pictures over the years of some of my large plants.

19 Dec '08 5:28 am

Your pictures are amazing,Sunflower.I have never seen such enormous plants-you would need plenty of room.Where do you enter them competitively?Please keep showing us your hobby.

19 Dec '08 11:16 am

Great pics. I particularly like the sunflower leaf!

20 Dec '08 9:15 am

I can't imagine a sunflower leaf being so big! My goodness - lots of goodness must go into your soil to grow such things!

22 Dec '08 4:36 pm

Wow, Moosey! What huge leaves and tall, tall plants! I had no idea that a maize plant could grow that tall! Is that an edible variety, like regular "Sweet Corn", as we'd call it here? Or is it a variety that's fed only to farm animals?

And what about that marrow? When they get that big are they still good to eat or do they get tough or woody?

And could you please tell me a bit about a Jala plant? Are the ears edible? I've never heard of this one.

Oh, to have a larger garden on seeing pics like these!

Cheers!

-gordonf

22 Dec '08 6:28 pm

I do best with growing things tall. I grow marrows for fun, but I am no where near the world record with those. All marrow records come from the UK and they are around 140 lbs. I know some people in the USA/Canada have had them close to a 100 lbs. There are many people who are much better gardeners than I, but the most important thing in growing giants is to find the varieties that get very large. I do most of my work by researching scientific articles, news articles, and web searches for clues on finding the best plants.
The marrows are good when they are a foot long or less. At that point the skin is soft and seeds haven't developed.

As far as the corn goes, I have never tried to eat any of the corn. The ears on Jala on some of the largest in the world. Ears can get around 2 feet long, and the cobs are up to 18 inches long.

There are many tropical races that can get very large. One of the tallest is Montanas, there a certain variety of Olotillo that gets over 20 feet. I have a variety of Olotillo-Tuxpeno that gets over 20 feet. I've also done well with a Uchima and Gallina. There are many more, but those are the ones I've experimented with and have done well. What works for me, might not work for you. Some of these are fussy about soil, temps, etc.

22 Dec '08 7:08 pm

Thanks for all the information! I doubt whether most of those very tall varieties would grow anywhere in Canada due to cold soil in spring and a generally shorter growing season. But it's nice to dream!

I spent a lot of time tonight searching for sources of Eastern European/Russian flower seeds with no luck. So I decided to look for some good sources of peonies instead. I found a couple of wonderful Canadian sites from back East in the Province of Quebec. Here's one you might like to look at. It's available in French and English, but you'll notice a few odd turns of expression in the English version. Makes it all the more fun! Here's the address:

http://www.pivoinescapano.com/

Enjoy! (I like the coral and single white ones the best!)

-gordonf

23 Dec '08 11:12 am

It must give you the a squirrel's perspective to walk below such huge vegetables. Sounds like hard hats my be in order for walking under that corn, just in case. Out on the west coast, there is a pumpkin weighing contest in Half Moon Bay, California. We always get photos in the local papers and footage on TV. Seems like a forklift is necessary for moving them. If I remember correctly the winners lately are around 8 or 9 hundred pounds. The only large vegetables I ever grew were by accident when we overlooked a zuchini or two.

Thanks for sharing!

28 Dec '08 7:06 pm

well i sure hope the parrots that eat your sunflowers are not as big in comparision Very Happy

29 Dec '08 2:40 am

Happy New Year, everyone! Now that we're past Christmas, it's time to look ahead. Here, the days are finally becoming longer by something like 2 minutes per day (hardly noticeable, really, but makes me feel better).

Well, we've had snowstorm after snowstorm over the Christmas holiday and I was actually snowed in for 2 days until the snowplows arrived. I got stuck right in the street downtown twice last week due to the depth of the snow and the poor plowing (they're really not set up for dealing with this much of the white stuff here).

I made my first ever vegetarian Christmas dinner for some friends, and even the carnivores among them came over the next day to compliment me on it, so I was really puffed up! Very Happy

It made me feel so good that no poor animal died for my meal that day! I've now just about eaten all of the leftovers so I guess I'll have to start cooking some more.

My garden is buried deeply under the snow, which is beginning to turn to ice. I bet it'll be February before it all melts, since my garden gets almost no direct sunlight all winter. The sun never rises high enough into the sky in the dead of winter to shine over the fence!

In a couple of weeks, however, I think I'll bring the bulbs that I'm forcing inside to get them started into growth. That'll give me something to look forward to. And, of course, there are always the seed catalogues that start arriving in the mailbox at this time of the year!

Keep well, everyone, and have a very happy new year!

-gordonf

Pictures of my giant vegetable and flower garden

Pictures of my giant vegetable and flower garden

Amazing pics

wow

What Leaves!!

Wow!

Wow!

sunflower giants

And now it's "Happy New Year" time!