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Sometimes I wish I had some extra help around here. Our garden suffered this year because the wife broke her leg, ankle and foot and couldn't do much. She's still gimping around on it.
Gardening 2022
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Our garden is about 75x120. About half of that is orchard and berries.
We're going out today and put mulch around the fruit trees and the berries and grapes. It's warmed up to 34 degrees already with just patchy snow on the ground.
We're going out today and put mulch around the fruit trees and the berries and grapes. It's warmed up to 34 degrees already with just patchy snow on the ground.
Mine is only 60 x 20. That does not count the small 12 tree orchard, berry vines, vineyard, hazelnut trees, lemon and orange trees, herbs that are planted around the fruit trees, or greenhouse. I have to take care of the chickens and the rabbits too. My husband does carry and move the heavy stuff for me. That helps a lot! He helps with the regular clean out of the chicken house and run too. He mulches everything in the fall and spring...which is a lot of work, as we can’t have mulch delivered to the house. It is delivered on the road outside our driveway and has to be shoveled and taken to the areas where needed.
All together I plant anywhere from half to quarter of an acre in raised beds and other inground beds, in containers around my property and under fruit trees. Some years I plant more crops than others. It depends on what I have in storage and what I already have in jars, freezers and buckets. If a certain crop excels one year and I have a bumper crop I may skip it the next year and concentrate on something that did not. This can help with pests also. For instance I used to be ate up with squash bugs. I changed tactics and planted less and not all in one location but scattered around the property. I used hubbard squash in pots to lure vine borers and then when present I put the pot and pests in plastic garbage bags and treated with pesticide then disposed of it all off site once the bugs are dead. No pesticides in my gardens then. I also skip some years on things like yellow squash and zucchini. That way if they do hatch out they have no preferred target crop. Same thing with potato beetles. I have not had a squash bug on the property in 2 years and a potato bug in 3. I use purple hull peas planted at the far back fence to lure stink bugs and aphids away from my tomatoes with no stink bug damage at all this year. How much and what I plant is also determined by what seeds I am running short of and need to replenish my supply of.
I only have about 10 medium pots and 9 fruit trees. No garden rows currently.
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I'd like garden help, too. Have a huge inground garden that is done for now except for some kale. One smallish greenhouse, and a new 25 ft by 20 ft greenhouse that the plastic just ripped on from a windstorm. So yesterday was: should I start making the growboxes inside of it? Or repair the plastic? Hoping for help from a cousin on the pitch of the roof of it, heights are not my friend. I made a large grow box yesterday. I should start on the plastic today. Gardens are what they are, if you don't have help.
We have about 100 mature paper shell pecan trees (our main crop). About an acre of summer gardens, a 20x10 green house, 3x4 (2) in ground green houses, a 6x10 green house and 9 fruit trees at BOL1. We also have a lot of naturally occurring edibles like Agarita, prickly pear, grapes. Mexican Plum and persimmons.
BOL2 is still in development but have about 8 fruit trees, 8 muscadine grape vines, 6 blueberry bushes and two of the smaller green houses there so far. Dill and dewberries (a type of black berry) is everywhere along with a lot of nut trees, pine nuts, elderberries, passion fruits, beautyberries...
We also have about an acre and a half at BOL1 that we use as a fenced paddock close to the house for the horses that need extra feed. They have churned it up with time and mixed in manure, hay and leaves over the years so it is decent (for this area) soil.
In a pinch, I could move the horses to another paddock or pasture and quickly throw some plants/wheat on it to grow. The horse shelter in the picture could be converted to another green house and the 150x300 riding arena (sandy loam) could be converted into grow space easily as well.
And I am grateful for the help I do have.
BOL2 is still in development but have about 8 fruit trees, 8 muscadine grape vines, 6 blueberry bushes and two of the smaller green houses there so far. Dill and dewberries (a type of black berry) is everywhere along with a lot of nut trees, pine nuts, elderberries, passion fruits, beautyberries...
We also have about an acre and a half at BOL1 that we use as a fenced paddock close to the house for the horses that need extra feed. They have churned it up with time and mixed in manure, hay and leaves over the years so it is decent (for this area) soil.
In a pinch, I could move the horses to another paddock or pasture and quickly throw some plants/wheat on it to grow. The horse shelter in the picture could be converted to another green house and the 150x300 riding arena (sandy loam) could be converted into grow space easily as well.
And I am grateful for the help I do have.
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I have a container garden with 50 containers. And 2 other fenced gardens , small one is 15' x 40' and the larger one is 75' x 25'
We lost about half of our tomatos to stink bug damage. Did not know that about the purple hull peas, I'll try to get some from the local heirloom saleslady....
Thanks for all the answers, I guess I am about in the middle of the running on garden sizes. We plant peas twice each year, potatos twice, tomatos twice of different kinds, onions and garlic only once.
We will stay away from pumpkins, squash, zuchinni and beans as we did not and do not get good harvesting from any of them and they take up too much space for the produced food.
I am thinking about taking watermelon, pumpkin and zuchinni seeds out around the lake again to see if they would just grow wild again next year. Same thing with the wild garlic.
We will stay away from pumpkins, squash, zuchinni and beans as we did not and do not get good harvesting from any of them and they take up too much space for the produced food.
I am thinking about taking watermelon, pumpkin and zuchinni seeds out around the lake again to see if they would just grow wild again next year. Same thing with the wild garlic.
We are just getting gardens ready at our new house, so I'm not sure how much we'll end up with. When I was going through chemo, I didn't feel up to much other than cleaning up the previous owner's mess of a garden and planting trees/bushes. We have I think 15 Blueberry bushes, 8 apple trees, 3 peach, 3 cherry, 3 elderberry, currants, gooseberries, and two plums. We might have a couple pears on the other side, too. I can't remember. Then in the woods we planted several persimmons and pawpaws. But we share the property with family, so the orchards are all of ours, regardless of where they're planted.
I'm going to have a rough spring next year because I have a couple large spaces I'm planning to prepare for medicinal gardens and then we have the vegetable gardens, too. We don't share the veggie gardening, though we help each other if need be.
We'll send the kids out to weed some days. They help with the animals. We all pitch in and we have several neighbors who will help if we are in a pinch and vice versa, too. It's pretty good here.
I'm going to have a rough spring next year because I have a couple large spaces I'm planning to prepare for medicinal gardens and then we have the vegetable gardens, too. We don't share the veggie gardening, though we help each other if need be.
We'll send the kids out to weed some days. They help with the animals. We all pitch in and we have several neighbors who will help if we are in a pinch and vice versa, too. It's pretty good here.
Same here...had a small one this year, Larry not able to keep much of anything up, he really can't walk for ****. I get my sons to help when I can nab them when they are off work (rare). Other than that, garden work is by the wayside for most part. Have raised beds, and a small area tilled up in ground this year. I had sons build me a greenhouse this summer (hoping to use this winter for some veggies, but wont be large quantities) and have pots scattered around, from large to small with little of this, little of that in....bought several berry bushes, citrus and fruit trees this year that got planted, but the maintenance of garden is getting the best of us. If i could quit work, I could likely handle what we have, making it my job, but that ain't happening any time soon. Unless everything shuts down and puts a stop to that...which I'm praying does not happen. I've bought more than 70% of what I've put away to preserve (via canning, freezing, dehydrating, etc.) this past year than what we were able to grow ourselves. Uggh!
I overslept this morning, (til 8:45! 
).. which is super rare! But I took off work yesterday to go get fitted for good walking/running shoes and get some other stuff done..I think it threw me off. I Jumped up, picked up mother, we went n got our hair done, and we went and voted today! Stopped at Wally World, picked up more quart n pint-sized canning jars. Stopped at Winn Dixie bought a pork shoulder so I could can some BBQ pulled pork...got home..was trimming fat off pork and I could smell it just from standing up while trimming...picked up a piece of it to whiff.. and bluuck! Called store to inform, asked if I need to bring the whole shoulder back in for them to verify is bad..Said no, bring receipt in and will replace...drove all the way back, got "fresher" one to replace.
So I got 7 pints of pulled pork, and also 2 pints of chicken meat canned today. Meh! Not much, but it's a few more meals put up for future!
).. which is super rare! But I took off work yesterday to go get fitted for good walking/running shoes and get some other stuff done..I think it threw me off. I Jumped up, picked up mother, we went n got our hair done, and we went and voted today! Stopped at Wally World, picked up more quart n pint-sized canning jars. Stopped at Winn Dixie bought a pork shoulder so I could can some BBQ pulled pork...got home..was trimming fat off pork and I could smell it just from standing up while trimming...picked up a piece of it to whiff.. and bluuck! Called store to inform, asked if I need to bring the whole shoulder back in for them to verify is bad..Said no, bring receipt in and will replace...drove all the way back, got "fresher" one to replace.So I got 7 pints of pulled pork, and also 2 pints of chicken meat canned today. Meh! Not much, but it's a few more meals put up for future!
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Today were going to put bark mulch around the berries, grapes and fruit trees. I'm also going to cut some corrugated plastic sewer pipe and put around the tree trunks to keep the vermin from eating the bark. We lost several fruit trees last winter when the critters tunneled under the snow and ate the bark.
Gary why do you think you do not get a good harvest on squash and beans?
Personally if I were limited on space I would agree on the squash and zucchini as they are heavy feeders and space hogs that tend toward lots of problems in the states with squash bugs and vine borers.
Pumpkins also are space hogs but you can get a good harvest of a vining winter squash such as butternut grown vertically up a fence and taking up minimal space within that same taste perimeter. I use butternut in place of pumpkin in most recipes. They tend to be smaller and store extremely well for me.
Personally I think you can buy dried beans pretty cheap right now and if I were limited on space I would also agree on the beans. However those same dried beans could become seeds in a survival situation. It can also vary by the bean variety you are growing as to crop size versus space requirement. I prefer bush beans because they tend to produce more than runners. Bush beans tend to produce one large crop usually in about 70 days and are great for canners. I cycle through 3 successive crops a year in my own garden. Running beans tend to produce smaller amounts over a long period of time which lends itself more to fresh eating unless you are planting large quantities. I agree that running beans do not produce enough for the amount of space they tie up in the garden IMHO.
As for planting pumpkin seeds out by the lake the old timers used to plant pumpkin seeds in old rotting stumps.
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The little feed and seed store I shop at has purple hulled peas. They don't have a huge inventory so they must be popular
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Diva, since I started growing my squash and zucchini vertically, I have more space between rows.
I try to buy all deeply colored veggies when possible. They are higher in polyphenols because the good cancer fighting compounds are the color pigments. I need all the polyphenols I can get!
They are a very popular traditional southern crop due to their versatility. Heirloom, open pollinated and can be used not only as a edible pea but also as a cover crop, animal feed or pest lure. A traditional half runner, pink eyed purple hull which is what I grow is heat tolerant and also tolerant of less than ideal soils. Seeds can be hard to find in this day and age.
I have seen a few pictures of vertical squash but have not tried it myself. How do you train yours?
I grow my summer squash successively planting a very far distance apart about every 3 weeks keeps me in squash most of the summer. It is a favorite for my family on the grill.
I also interplant dill surrounding my squash as a pest deterrent.
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hi lady, I consider the multiple facets of gardening to make my decisions now. We have only been gardening here in Hungary for 3 years now and the produced foodstuffs from the bean attempt and zuchinni attempts are less than good. In the same space in our little garden we can produce more storagable foodstuffs like potatos, onions, garlic and peas in the same space needed for only about 10 edible zuchinnis AND pumpkins...as I asked and it was discussed, our garden is not the biggest and does not yet produce enough to be self-sustaining. We still have to go shopping for much stuff and we have also limited space for canning and storage. We have to weigh in the value of food produced against the choice of produce...less water, less fertiliser, less space but more edible and longer storable food...
Just out of curiosity what is your climate like?
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I have t-posts on end of rows and ran a wire about 2 feet off ground down the row and then put another about 3 feet high. I use old panty hose strips to anchor
We have a dry summer with little rain, cool fall and short but not too cold winters. We can plant onion, garlic and peas in November just a bit deeper than normal so they do not freeze and they come out already in February.
Now in October till late January it gets cold with little snow and then warm so I can sit barefoot on the terrace in January on some days. We even have a banana tree but no lemon trees. We have nectarines but no oranges. Plums, apples, peaches, apricots, walnuts and watermelons, but nothing like an avocado or kiwi.
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Last spring we put a deposit on an 8×10 green house. When the wife broke here leg, and the doctor and hospital bills started coming in, we had to cancel. So now I have a green house on my 2023 construction list. I'm planning on installing a more efficient irrigation system for the garden. This summer I figured it cost around $600 in propane to water our garden. If I can't figure out how to reduce that cost we'll have to abandon the garden and just put in a few more raised beds.
Have you ever considered cisterns? My oldest son bought a farm the Amish built years ago and it has 2 or 3 large concrete cisterns on it with manual well pumps on them. You could catch water from every building you have and drain it in a cistern.
There was a really good book about desert gardening that I read once and didn't keep because we don't live in the desert. Anyway, it had some great ideas for completely off grid irrigation. I think it may have been on the Sahara? I can't remember but it had good ideas.
Gary, I'm new and it's none of my business, so feel free to tell me to bug off, but may I ask is that where you are originally from?
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That would be nice, except our garden is above the house and out buildings. We'd have to pump any water that we contained. Also, during summer we get virtually zero rainfall. Our well is 1/4 mile away and over a hill. Our house and garden are in a small valley surrounded on 3 sides by a low ridge.
This fall was typical, we had one day of rain then it turned to snow.
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The wife and I have been thinking about the water issue for our garden. I'm thinking about bringing up a dozer and dig out a depression about 6 feet deep × 30×40 or so above the garden and put in a pond liner. That way we can catch the snow melt and the liner should keep the water from soaking in to the ground. Then it would be gravity flow to the garden/orchard. It won't last all summer, but I think it would hold water until July at least.
