Garden 2013
 

I've got some potatoes on the windowsill to sprout, and we just picked up some seeds. Early? Maybe. But I'm always fuzzy on timeliness, and I still need to build some raised beds.

I remember once reading about a style of raised bed that was designed around the gardener's ergonomics, rather than around an arbitrary square geometry. It was sort of kidney or C-shaped, and you could sit in the middle and do all your weeding from more or less one point. I remember it being made out of brick -- which is convenient, there's a lot of free brick around here. I want to say it was from the southwest, or Latin America, and the name started with an 'A'. That last part might be totally bogus.

Does this ring any bells? The woman of the house is always easier to convince when I can show her some example of an idea of mine having been done successfully by someone else.

I was told we're getting 5-10" of snow tonight so, yeah, I'm against gardening©

Yep. Pretty dangerous drive home this evening.

Good reminder gvidas!

In my new homestead I can't really garden, although I don't know who'd notice. Maybe I can work out how to do one of those tomato vines in a hanging pot deals.

We are doing the hay bales again this year ,
also a hugelkultur , a small one just for a test ,
and carol had me put her raised bed AGAIN this year

Ut you should try the hay bales , they take Little room and seem to work Great

I don't think he'll get much sun where he is... in a ravine with a high canopy of mature trees, as I remember.

Borrowed a heating mat to try for seed starting this year - seems to work very well. Also bought some high (7") clear covers for the trays to keep moisture in. 2" of wet snow this AM, we are all SO ready for spring...

6" of snow. whatever.

Zip, have you done Hugelkultur before? It seems like an interesting idea.

I think I'll try hugelkultur principles with some raised beds this year. Put a wood frame on the raised bed, place the wood and soil in it, finishing with a decent depth of soil, and let the interior wood slowly rot. Would there be problems with that?

The nice thing is that it would allow more height in the raised bed (easier on the back) without having to initially put in so much soil. And the rotting wood would keep the soil lighter.

It might be a season or two before that interior log rots. It's gonna need moisture. Not too much, not too little. And time, maybe a little oxygen.

We had the town drop off a huge load of wood chips a few years ago. For two years we had a nice pile of chips for paths, for another two years we had semi-mulch chips, and the following year we had pretty lovely soil with chips in it.

Had we mixed some soil in things would have gone quicker, but solid wood takes a few years, at least, to turn into honest to goodness soil.

I've got a limb/branch/stick pile up against the back fence. Maybe I should pull everything out into the sun, dig up the nice soil that's probably under there, and spread it on top of the pile, and have a go at this.

Someone should write music to go along with that post. I can hear it as a Junior Brown song, Guit Steel Blues

Folks I am just the grunt labor .when it comes to gardening ,
Every body has their tallents. gardening atnt one of mine ,
Hell I killed a cactus once

Well it was him or you.

And that spiney bastige got it

First asperagoose of the year ;)

You have growing things already?
Our daffodills aren't even flowering yet.

Yes, I know we live in different climates.
But sometimes, because we share a language, I forget a little.

I'll have to take some photos of Penny (my Cherry tree) again this year.
She's already fat with bud.
Still leaning like Pisa's tower, but I've decided it does not bother me. I haven't killed her yet and that's what's important.

we had a few good days and I got a few crocuses (just the yellow ones/ don't know where the other four colours are!) a couple snow drops fighting their way up.

Dafs and tulips and hyacints and maybe the alliums are coming.... they're making a nice show of green but no colour yet. Then we got a snow storm this weekend and I'm wondering if I'll ever see em.

Hard to plan buying seed potatoes when the world still looks so white

I'm going to make a big attempt to get my vegetable garden in today or tomorrow. We are already up in the mid 80's F in the day and 60's to 70's at night so summer will be here soon. My plot it about 10 x 25 ft or so and unfortunately the trees I planted on the west side of our property are getting bigger which provides afternoon shade but doesn't help the garden.

I stopped by Home Depot over the weekend and they had plant sale, the vegetables that usually go for $3.98 (which is outrageous) were reduced to $2 each (which is bearable) so I got about 10 tomatoes of different varieties and some peppers (capsicum for you Australian Cellar folks) and some additional herbs to add to that garden. I also got 10 bags of manure to add, the soil is pretty good but can always use a little more organic matter.

I have a gasoline powered tiller and will rake off the spring weeds and then get it all turned over and the plants in. I usually put down some of that compostable weed block material as I hate weeding. It keeps the weeds from growing but lets the water get to the ground.

What am I doing typing here? I could be working outside!:rolleyes:

Arkansas is like the Spain of the US. I think they can grow Pawpaws and bananas down there.

I put down black plastic two weekends back. Just too lazy to weed.

I need to make the posts and cross arms for my Hops ranch. Need to negotiate visiting rights for the hops plants.

Well, hop to it.

I'm hoping to hop to it.

It's the yeast you can do.

Start early, finish someday.

A few weeks back (4/14) I dug out the previous tenant's raised bed, added the tree that fell down and the rotting logs that used to define the bed perimeter, and then piled some straw and the topsoil back on.

In the end, that day of yardwork turned into a round of pruning the trees that resulted in just as much of a brush pile (maybe more) as we had before the hugelkultur. Oh well.

I'm calling this a "more cultured hugelkultur" -- the missus likes things more when they are rectilinear.

There's only a few inches of compost so far, and most of it is filling out the sides between my pallet-wall and the mound. A neighbor has a giant pile of compost, since he does this for a living, and a slightly more distant neighbor has an even larger pile, but after 8 wheelbarrows I'm starting to wonder what the upper limit of "take as much as you want" actually is.

(the photo is from around barrow #5)

well our hogra,, hogfra ,,,,, , fuck it raised wood garden aint so pretty but i bet it will do the job ,
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7047/8...2698c97a_n.jpg
DSCF7769 by zippyt, on Flickr
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7053/8...36073e4e_n.jpg
DSCF7768 by zippyt, on Flickr
Carol even put a few extra tomato and other plants in it ,
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7056/8...1f8a283d_n.jpg
DSCF7770 by zippyt, on Flickr
part 2 to follow

Planting time
 

Hay bales with maters and the such ,
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7048/8...acc91402_n.jpg
DSCF7762 by zippyt, on Flickr
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7051/8...ae4b79cc_n.jpg
DSCF7753 by zippyt, on Flickr
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7049/8...e50a975a_n.jpg
DSCF7758 by zippyt, on Flickr
I beleve these are eggplants and squash
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7048/8...b6f1c5fd_n.jpg
DSCF7761 by zippyt, on Flickr
Scuze me here's the egg plants , and peppers
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7056/8...04868ab3_n.jpg
DSCF7764 by zippyt, on Flickr
the pea patch is Happy happy ,
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7053/8...4d8db5ac_n.jpg
DSCF7766 by zippyt, on Flickr
and the Asperageese are doing Fine despite the weeds that Seem to
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7051/8...446b579d_n.jpg
Asperageese by zippyt, on Flickr the asperagoose patch

And Yes Sunday , we have growey up thingees all ready :)

Looks to me like spring time is when you take all the dead hobos and hookers that have been cluttering up the basement all winter and fed 'em to the worms, eh?

Well ya Know , compost is compost , the secret is to fill their pockets with some good nitrogen rich fertilizer ;)

Won't actually get out into the gardens till tomorrow, (and the rest of the week)

I've got a mass of expensive root stock to go in - a good chunk o' grocery budget here!
http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/ocean...441009_600.jpg

But today wasn't a complete waste - I did get a lot of seeds into starter
(yeah I know - I'm LATE! I waffled over the cost of the plant order so long....)
http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/ocean...439393_600.jpg

In the meantime I'm playing a good game of "Guess That Plant" .... always happens when I move into a place, I'm such a neophyte gardener and there's so little I can recognize at a glance.

I'll save ya the bazillion images and just give you a link to the game if you want to play.

Guess That Plant!

I don't know, we had frost is PA the other night. :eyebrow:

yeah but I should have started my tomatoes indoors back in february :(

My first harvest from Penny.

How are they? That's about how many blueberries I got from my blueberry bush this year.

Still a bit firm, and not very sweet. But already edible, and I got some before the birds!
Those in the photo I will leave a few days more, see if they improve. Even if this is as good as they get I am excited to be eating my own home-grown fruit.

I expect more next year, she's still a baby.

Very nice! I have yet to get to the cherries on my trees before the birds do. I think I'll have to try nets next year.

I should get some good pictures of my parent's garden. Throughout the year they have blueberries, figs, tomatoes (heirloom and plum), asparagus, garlic, green beans, peas, peppers, rosemary, thyme, bay, spinach, lettuce, carrots, beets, fava beans, eggplant, and zucchini.

I'm probably forgetting a few.