GARDEN 2023

[Bacpacker]

Nice bed Neb. Looks like you got a lot of stuff off to a good start

 

[Tommyice]

Looks great @Neb ! Ikm jealous of your broccoli—looks so lush. Mine are scrawny

 

[Tootsie]

FRIZIONE 8x4x2ft Galvanized Metal Raised Garden Bed for Vegetables, Outdoor Garden Raised Planter Box, Backyard Patio Planter Raised Beds for Flowers, Herbs, Fruits https://a.co/d/5nKtLIi

I am not sure what to suggest. The Princess obtained a bunch of trees that are a mix of fruit and nut trees. In our case the state considers The Ridge a private forest and sent a forestry agent to survey what we had. So...

Check with the state?

Ben

Thank you!

 

[joel]

My onions & Cherokee Garlic are up with some beets & radishes.
My Blueberries are gone.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Hey @Neb , Loved the bed, I have to wonder if you should paint it before filling to reduce rust and extend the life of the bed. Also if the color blends it may be camo for nosy folks with too much time on their hands.

Love the beds and progress. Hope you and the princess have a great growing season.

My wife's red-bud tree broke into bloom this week. Wheeled the wife over to look at it. She's from Ohio and her parents had some acreage with red-buds on it that she loved so. It's hard to believe just 7 years ago it was a 9" twig the size of an ink pen refill... Today it is about 8' tall, my maple tree that I started at the same time is over 12' tall. The whole batch of trees were so small that I kept them in containers until they were about 4' tall, that took 5 years. Some parts of garden require a lot more planning a patience than others...

My little greenhouse got up to 109F yesterday, I opened up the sliding glass door and closed the screen door to move some of the cool air from the basement into the greenhouse... This time of year I have to watch my covered raised beds like a hawk because once the temperatures get into the 80s the beds start breaking 100F and you can burn the plants up...

My rain barrels are now over half full, I estimate that I have 350 gallons on hand and I will soon need to finish reconnecting/repairing my drip irrigation system.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Today I checked my drip irrigation lines, I have 2 broken tees and a couple of bad valves. So I just placed an order with dripdepot.com. I have been using them for a decade and I find it hard to change... I ended up ordering a bunch of extra emitters and misters just to get to the free shipping $50... I find that during the start of the year I find clogged emitters as the system flushes itself out. I usually just replace the clogged emitters and then clean and store them to replace other emitters as the summer goes on.

There may be better sources (less expensive) than dripdepot.com out there but I have never had a problem with their products or their service.

My system is now big enough that it only takes about 15 or 20 minutes for it to drink about 60 gallons from my barrels. We get rain about once every 3 days so I have sized my system to cover 12 days worth of watering. Even with this much storage last year I had about 5 days (total and not all together) when I needed to use city water....

 

[Bacpacker]

I too use DripDepot.com for all my drip system purchases. Getting close to a decade myself. Never had the first issue with anything. Every order I place I add fitting, tee's, emitter, ets. Can never have too many. I use more drip tape in my beds than I do actual emitters though. So I get it by the roll. One thing I always look for is their big sale. I think it's in October. Good time to stock up on stuff and free shipping too. Some of the stuff is bulky so free shipping is a good deal.

Since I've been adding beds for a bit, I keep having to redesign my feed system to distribute to all the beds.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Because my raised beds have wood sides I can attach my 1/2 line on the inside of the raised bed and install my emitters so they spray into the bed from all sides. It lets me work the soil in the raised bed without having to move my irrigation system.

Each bed has it's own 1/2" valve so I can turn off sections of the garden that are fallow.

 

[Patchouli]

@UrbanHunter @Neb i thought galvanized meant it will not rust, also thought it means there’s lead in it.

 

[Neb]

@UrbanHunter @Neb i thought galvanized meant it will not rust, also thought it means there’s lead in it.

Zinc

Ben

 

[LadyLocust]

About a month ago, I took a few cuttings from my MIL's wisteria hoping I could get a couple to grow. Came home and stuck them in water. From 13 little sticks, today I potted 12 wisteria plants each about a foot+ tall with leaves and roots.
Mowed for the 2nd time this year. Got the one flower bed cleaned up. Spuds are sprouting up Still too early to plant anything outdoors.
I was watching a Charles Dowding video and he spoke about how he starts seeds and when. I'm trying to be patient and not plant everything at once, hoping it's a little easier to accomplish more by pacing things.

 

[Bacpacker]

i set my tomato seedlings outside this week to start hardening off. Looks like I've lost at least half of them. We hit 80+ degrees a couple of days then a cold rain last night and today. I disgusted with it. Gonna plan to buy some plants now, actually got 1 tomato and 1 pepper at TSC today, cause I'm late getting stuff started. I'm gonna try a few select varities but they'll be for late harvest. My main crop will be store bought.
I'm thinking I may be better off just waiting to do my main crop stuff from seed starts after I retire. Just don't have time to devote to controlling the full range of inputs I deal with currently.

 

[UrbanHunter]

We had a frost last night, everything did okay.. I checked my raised beds and my spinach got overheated the other day, about 1/3 has burned leaves but there is a good stand. I was getting ready to net my grapes and the robins have already place the start of a nest. I removed it because last year I couldn't net them and lost all my grapes....

I have a new problem, the neighbors got a little dog that has decided that my yard is his yard and he is very territorial, to the point where every time I open my back door he comes running barking itching for a fight... I decided to carry a bag of beggon strips in my pocket to give him a treat in the hopes of making him less aggressive. I figure it is better to try to make friends first...

I moved my indoor cucumbers to the greenhouse yesterday, they are about 2 feet tall now. I hope to do a little weeding and transplanting today.

@Bacpacker, I am sorry about your tomato plants being knocked down by the frost, I plan to move most of my indoor tomatoes into containers outside soon (next weekend?). I forgot to start my canning tomatoes this year, I will start some seeds tonight...

 

[LadyLocust]

We had a frost last night, everything did okay.. I checked my raised beds and my spinach got overheated the other day, about 1/3 has burned leaves but there is a good stand. I was getting ready to net my grapes and the robins have already place the start of a nest. I removed it because last year I couldn't net them and lost all my grapes....

I have a new problem, the neighbors got a little dog that has decided that my yard is his yard and he is very territorial, to the point where every time I open my back door he comes running barking itching for a fight... I decided to carry a bag of beggon strips in my pocket to give him a treat in the hopes of making him less aggressive. I figure it is better to try to make friends first...

I moved my indoor cucumbers to the greenhouse yesterday, they are about 2 feet tall now. I hope to do a little weeding and transplanting today.

@Bacpacker, I am sorry about your tomato plants being knocked down by the frost, I plan to move most of my indoor tomatoes into containers outside soon (next weekend?). I forgot to start my canning tomatoes this year, I will start some seeds tonight...

My dad had a similar issue. No matter how nice he was to the dog or the owners (the owners are nice enough) the dog was awful. It was a little pug. He finally put lemon juice in a squirt gun. After a few times, the dog would go to the other side of the yard when my dad went out back. He didn't want to hurt it, but didn't want it charging him either.

i set my tomato seedlings outside this week to start hardening off. Looks like I've lost at least half of them. We hit 80+ degrees a couple of days then a cold rain last night and today. I disgusted with it. Gonna plan to buy some plants now, actually got 1 tomato and 1 pepper at TSC today, cause I'm late getting stuff started. I'm gonna try a few select varities but they'll be for late harvest. My main crop will be store bought.
I'm thinking I may be better off just waiting to do my main crop stuff from seed starts after I retire. Just don't have time to devote to controlling the full range of inputs I deal with currently.

Maybe don't give up just yet. I'm in a similar situation - I will snap a pix and show you what I came up with. Not expensive and seemed to work pretty well. That doesn't help for today, but maybe going forward. Might take me a few as I need to scrub the spuds and get a few things ready for Easter dinner.

 

[Wingnut]

Might start some melon seeds today, another experimental batch to see how they do... the last batch was killed by frost, I put 'em out too early. Good thing these are the seeds from the melons I grew last season, so I have 200 seeds, lol. I'll save the seeds Weedy sent until I know for sure there'll be no more freezing nights... we may be there now, but I don't trust the weather, it has been fickle in the past month. I have a bunch of other seeds to start, but I'm gonna be patient with those after the hard (and expensive) lesson with the fancy pot seeds. The time will come to try again...

 

[Patchouli]

@LadyLocust what’s up with you and wisteria? Lol
At my property back east, a wisteria that was quite old, had been trained up the trellis from near the garage (a basement floor), went up the backside of the house to the main floor, edged along the deck and was wrapping itself around the deck railing…and without my realizing it, had gone under the deck, under the dirt path, and up into the pine trees.
GARDEN 2023: big plans for tomorrow. Repotting stuff, flower seed scattering, work on front and back beds.

 

[Tommyice]

About a month ago, I took a few cuttings from my MIL's wisteria hoping I could get a couple to grow. Came home and stuck them in water. From 13 little sticks, today I potted 12 wisteria plants each about a foot+ tall with leaves and roots.
Mowed for the 2nd time this year. Got the one flower bed cleaned up. Spuds are sprouting up Still too early to plant anything outdoors.
I was watching a Charles Dowding video and he spoke about how he starts seeds and when. I'm trying to be patient and not plant everything at once, hoping it's a little easier to accomplish more by pacing things.

How did you do the cuttings? Just clip some off or at specific places along the branch? Or was it one of those runner vines they send out? The one I have was pulled up from along a foundation by the barn where my horse was. Three years after planting it (it was a stick really) it finally bloomed. This mine 3 years ago

 

[LadyLocust]

Up the river, we had a 13’ tall pergola. My first attempt was a Japanese wisteria that had beautiful white blossoms- no go . So then decided to settle for regular wisteria but wanted purple not pink. I went to the only nursery in the area at the time. They had two gallon pots that had been knocked over and no longer had tags. They couldn’t even tell me what color they were. I hesitantly took two to the counter. They were over $30 each. I chuckled and said what really thinking they were joking. I left without them and wasn’t able to find any to plant that year. The following year I found two with tags for $10 each. I got them and planted one on each side of the pergola. They were just reaching the top of the pergola (after 2-3 years) the summer before we sold the place. I never got a bloom. I’ve been told wisteria are like a weed, but that’s not been my experience. Anyhoo, if I’m a little excited about it, it’s because it has been a wish for at least a decade +. Someday I would like to try the Japanese variety again. The pictures were stunning, but I think it’s more temperamental and at least at the time, the seeds were spendy.
@Tommyice I cut from a couple spots making sure I had at least one nodule where leaves would sprout from the stem. I just put those in water for a few weeks until they rooted and leaved.

 

[LadyLocust]

@Bacpacker I found this little green house on clearance a couple years ago. It’s 2 x3 and yes it’s in the house. When the plants get big enough, I will move the whole thing outside against the house. If the weather is cold, I zip it up. Otherwise I open it during the day and zip it closed at night. It worked great last year until a opossum got into one night and couldn’t figure out how to get out . Even then I lost very few plants but I had labeled my trays so the different kinds of tomatoes got mixed and different varieties of things etc. So I had some guessing last year. Anyways, it has seemed to work for me so far. I put them in the ground from there and they did dandy.

 

[joel]

Tommyice​

Is that a Chinese or North American vine in bloom on your fence?

 

[Tommyice]

Tommyice​

Is that a Chinese or North American vine in bloom on your fence?

I'm not really sure. There were beautiful vines, almost tree like, around the owner's house of where I kept my horse. Her son had dug them up out in the woods surrounding their property. During the 20's and 30's, the area they lived is was a summer home area for folks from NYC. We would ride through the property remains of those homes. Those Mother Earth reclaimed gardens are where I got most of my raspberry canes from. When we would go on our trail rides, I packed a folding Army shovel and plastic bags loaded with moist towels for collecting plants.

 

[joel]

I never new there was two types until I saw a video where the owner said the N.A. vine was not as wild or aggressive as the Chinese vine that so many people let go wild. Sorry I do not have a link to the video.

I'm not really sure. There were beautiful vines, almost tree like, around the owner's house of where I kept my horse. Her son had dug them up out in the woods surrounding their property. During the 20's and 30's, the area they lived is was a summer home area for folks from NYC. We would ride through the property remains of those homes. Those Mother Earth reclaimed gardens are where I got most of my raspberry canes from. When we would go on our trail rides, I packed a folding Army shovel and plastic bags loaded with moist towels for collecting plants.

 

[Buffalo]

Got a later than normal start on our seedlings this year. I wanted to have them going by the first of April, but life has been so incredibly hectic that I didn't get them started until this weekend. In the upper Farm of the aerogarden we have Black Krim and Beefmaster tomatoes and Black Beauty Eggplant in one side. In the other side, Spineless Okra, Long Island Brussel Sprouts, Early Dutch Cabbage and Waltham Brocolli. In the bounty at the shop, I've got Jalapeno and Giant Bells started.

In the lower of the farm at home, the last crop of my heirloom cherry tomatoes are just about ready for harvest, even though they have put out some more green tomatoes, they are going to have to get pulled so Momma can get her medicinal and kitchen herbs started.

Last year we planted our garden at my shop, which worked out really well considering that I spend 90% of my time there, unfortunately we had a bad year for hail and lost most of our plants, had to replant, got hit with hail again and wiped most of our garden out again! This year I am hoping that things will be better. I am going to have to use some kind of pesticide though, probably Sevin, as the Japanese beetles were horrible last year and ate up a lot of what the hail didn't destroy.

I am going to make some small raised beds, just 2x4s, to try and keep the grass from migrating into the beds this year. The only issue I am running into with all of that is trying to decide if I pay the price for a delivery of garden soil or if I go to the landfill and get a load of composted from there. The compost from the landfill is free, but I am worried that it may have herbicides in it from last season, as a lot of the compost is made from grass clippings from the previous year. I have no idea how long herbicides remain in compost and if they will hurt my plants if they are there. Anyone have any insight on that?

Also decided to hold off on planting root veggies this year, our soil is really heavy in clay and they just don't seem to grow well here. I am seriously considering for next year to build a raised bed at the homestead in Kansas and plant them there, mulch them really heavy and put them on a drip system to tend to them when we aren't there.

 

[joel]

Planted my Mashua & repotted my ginger.
Basil, Catnip, Stinging nettle, Cardoon & Johnny jump up seeds are here.

 

[Heartbroken]

Normally I'd have some plastic sheets suspended over the table to make a tent and be running the heater at night, but we've jumped from snow showers on Saturday to 70s/50s and 80/60 today. This warm spell has meant I've been able to move all of the seedlings from the basement out to the greenhouse already, even the flats. Only used the heater for two nights so far, though the long range forecast says we'll be back into the 40s at night in a week or two. Still much too early to plant outside, but my tomatoes are very happy to be out of the basement getting fresh air and sunshine. A friend came over today and helped me pot up another couple of flats of seedlings, mostly peppers, tomatoes, and flowers. Not as many plants as I had the first year with my greenhouse, but a lot better than last year's disaster. And it won't take long to string the ropes and put up the plastic and plug the heater back in should I need to supplement the warmth later on.

 

[UrbanHunter]

My drip irrigation order arrived today. I am off tomorrow and hope to get all my repairs made so I can do a pressure test...

Today it was 88F and I had to open up the greenhouse, just too hot.

 

[Pearl]

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Got a later than normal start on our seedlings this year. I wanted to have them going by the first of April, but life has been so incredibly hectic that I didn't get them started until this weekend. In the upper Farm of the aerogarden we have Black Krim and Beefmaster tomatoes and Black Beauty Eggplant in one side. In the other side, Spineless Okra, Long Island Brussel Sprouts, Early Dutch Cabbage and Waltham Brocolli. In the bounty at the shop, I've got Jalapeno and Giant Bells started.

In the lower of the farm at home, the last crop of my heirloom cherry tomatoes are just about ready for harvest, even though they have put out some more green tomatoes, they are going to have to get pulled so Momma can get her medicinal and kitchen herbs started.

Last year we planted our garden at my shop, which worked out really well considering that I spend 90% of my time there, unfortunately we had a bad year for hail and lost most of our plants, had to replant, got hit with hail again and wiped most of our garden out again! This year I am hoping that things will be better. I am going to have to use some kind of pesticide though, probably Sevin, as the Japanese beetles were horrible last year and ate up a lot of what the hail didn't destroy.

I am going to make some small raised beds, just 2x4s, to try and keep the grass from migrating into the beds this year. The only issue I am running into with all of that is trying to decide if I pay the price for a delivery of garden soil or if I go to the landfill and get a load of composted from there. The compost from the landfill is free, but I am worried that it may have herbicides in it from last season, as a lot of the compost is made from grass clippings from the previous year. I have no idea how long herbicides remain in compost and if they will hurt my plants if they are there. Anyone have any insight on that?

Also decided to hold off on planting root veggies this year, our soil is really heavy in clay and they just don't seem to grow well here. I am seriously considering for next year to build a raised bed at the homestead in Kansas and plant them there, mulch them really heavy and put them on a drip system to tend to them when we aren't there.

I would pay the price for garden soil! I have red clay and have mixed/tilled sand into it first. I have an endless supply of donkey manure which really helps the clay, and all souls!

 

[Amish Heart]

and all souls Ha.
I can't plant since we're going out of town. So I'll have to wait till the first of the month. Seedlings in the greenhouse are easier to water. But I'm itching to plant something.

 

[Pearl]

and all souls Ha.
I can't plant since we're going out of town. So I'll have to wait till the first of the month. Seedlings in the greenhouse are easier to water. But I'm itching to plant something.

SOILS

 

[Buffalo]

For anyone who has never seed started in an aerogarden, look at this:

Four days and the tomatoes are sprouting! It never ceases to amaze me how much faster seeds germinate this way than when I would start them in soil.

Just for reference, here us what the package says for germination time: