2021 How Does Your Garden Grow?

[Watchman]

Whether we realize it or not, we are descending into a situation where abundant food may not be available. Help yourself by planting a garden to supplement your home storage pantry. Our parents and grandparents did it during the Depression and wartime and it didn't hurt them. Personal experience please. No articles.

[Watchman]

5 Easy New Year's Resolutions for Gardeners

https://www.treehugger.com/new-years-re ... rs-4860393

[Toepopper]

Have started digging new holes for more fruit trees. Plan to plant 2 Hazel Nut trees and 2 more apricot trees. Seed catalogs should be arriving soon, will get this years seeds early before all the seed is bought up again like last year. Have also been wheeling maple leaves up into the raised beds and turning them into the soil.

[Toepopper]

Have planted 3 more apricot trees but cannot find any hazel nut trees for sale anywhere. Have not started any seeds due to the colder than normal night time temperatures so must wait a few more days to plant directly into the ground. We are having a drought, only received 25" of rainfall and the river levels are already at a late August levels with rocks protruding. Hardly any snow pack in the higher mountains, Mt Shasta has hardly any snow on it this year. Very unusual.

[Watchman]

FINALLY! I got my sweet little Mantis tiller in fine operational condition and have tilled one-third of our garden space, (BULLSHIT) we are expecting snow!

[Toepopper]

I saw on the radar that its snowing in Montana and Wyoming. Very unusual weather this year. No snow on the mountains here in Oregon and Mt. Shasta is bare. Have never seen that happen before as Mt. Shasta usually remains covered in snow all year. All the reservoirs are very low and I am worried about running out of water later in the summer.
Have planted more vegetables than I usually do and hope I can water them. Today I have 10 more tomato starts to stick in the ground and I will be done planting. Then the next project will be firewood.

[Watchman]

After numerous delays with my garden activity this year, I said to heck with it - at least, somewhat. My Mantis tiller has been a workhorse for 15 years and always has worked well but I'm getting tired of mixing gas, cleaning fuel lines, spark plugs, etc. Today I bought an electric tiller (corded) BEAST! 13.5 amps, 16" swath. The reason I decided on electric is that no part of our garden, flower beds, lawn sections is over 50 feet from the house. I have weather-proof GFI outlets every 25 feet or so, including the exterior of our detached garage. It was a no-brainer.



Here's the nomenclature for the tiller which you can get on Amazon. I know it is available other places but this was a good price - I saved 50 dollars.

Sun Joe TJ604E 16-Inch 13.5 AMP Electric Garden Tiller/Cultivator,Black

[Watchman]

Had to put the kibosh on a garden this year. Other HUGE challenges came up that have taken away most free time.

[Toepopper]

My garden is a non producer this year due to the extreme heat, Have big beautiful tomato plants but the heat caused the yellow flowers to bake and drop off. This happened to the cucumbers and melons also. Nice vines with no fruit ! They are just now generating new flowers but there is not enough time left in the growing season to expect a decent harvest. Another problem this year is all the smoke from the wild fires burning in Oregon and there is plenty of smoke coming up from California and Nevada also which blocks out the sun. Such a waste of time, labor and water. I have used all the water in my hillside storage tank and am currently using my well water to water the garden with. Pray for rain.