2011 - How Does Your Garden Grow?

[Watchman]

Get those seed catalogs and start drooling over the lush, green growing things. Begin now in this category to tell of your preparations, successes, and not-so-successes. Will this be the last year we can grow things?

Please stay on the subject of YOUR garden and don't use this as a place to rant. This is a diary of OUR efforts to grow food. It is a given, even in the worst circumstances, that we will garden ANYWAY.

[Toepopper]

I have been raking leaves and dispersing them over my raised planting beds and will turn them into the ground. Over the course of the winter they will break down and add leafmold to the soil. The potato patch will thrive in this soil. Am also adding the ashes from the woodstove to the soil for potash. Also digging a little each day to terrace the hillside in hopes of doubling food production next year.

[bbj101]

You know my mom mentioned this earlier today and it makes me want to plant a garden the entire size of my tiny yard. No one should have a say in whether or not you choose to garden. 90% of the produce we grew in my moms garden was for my son! I don't see the need to pump all those pesticides and genetically enhanced chemicals into his system this young (18 months)..

This enfuriates me to no end, I intended on growing things here at my house next year for simplicities sake.. watch me...

[Toepopper]

[rray]

I've picked up most of my seeds for the garden and am gathering supplies to try my hand and starting my seeds indoors myself this year. We are also going to get some laying chicks this year. We'll see how that goes!

[Toepopper]

I would like to know if anyone has any experience growing peanuts. Will they do well at 45 degrees lattitude and do they need the high humidity and blazing hot sun of the south east U.S.? What kind of soil do they require and how much water. I would like to grow some for a source of protien if they will grow in my local environment.

[acet7]

Planted tomatoes and green peppers yesterday and I also planed some herbs.

[WillyPete]

Got a motor for my roto-tiller this weekend. Hopefully it won't be long before I have the back yard all churned up getting it ready for the first wave of fertilizer and such.
I wonder if my neighbors will let me take all of their horse manure?

[Watchman]

I can't wait to get my hands dirty, but unfortunately in Wyoming there is still snow on the ground and we are expecting more. I will give a bit of a progress report on what we have been doing. The stretch of ground that our garden occupies had been "organically" dead - clay. hard-packed at that, and devoid of worms and bacterial activity. For the past ten years we have CONSTANTLY amended the soil with leaves, grass clippings, kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, all things plant-based. Even weeds! I've found that the weeds, when they get hot enough, decompose and don't pose a problem later by germinating in the garden. Last fall I spread the raw compost pile over the garden area, it soon covered with snow and has stayed so all winter. Now that it is somewhat thawing it is rotting into the soil and should be ready when I till. I don't use any other type of fertilizer save some fish or seaweed emulsion. Thats it! Throughout the time of the year when the ground is not frozen I bury what I call raw compost; simply un-composted kitchen scraps. I just pick a spot and dig a hole, drop it and fill it in. The microbial activity and worms do the rest. Attract worms! Their casings will enrich the soil very well.

[Toepopper]

Sunday I planted 2 pear trees and a golden delicious tree plus 4 Himrod grape plants. That makes a total of 14 fruit trees but I will have to log to make more room to plant some walnut and almond trees. It has been in the 50s here with rain so this has prevented me from doing more work in the garden. Still digging terraces on the hillside to plant more crops and this is a never ending project that consumes much time and energy. This year I am going to experiment with growing peanuts and popcorn plants to see if they will produce in this climate. The seed shelves in the stores are empty here but maybe it is just too early.

[SS5R]

I worked on my garden beds and planter bins last weekend and they are ready for planting. My neighbor has a worm box so I traded her one of my All Blue seed potatoes for a container of worms for my bins. Some elephant garlic that I planted last year is starting to come up but I’m keeping it covered with mulch and my herb garden that was covered with plastic all winter is starting to sprout Tarragon, Chives, and Parsley. The Parsley, Thyme and Rosemary never really stopped growing though the winter just slowed down. Today I am going out to buy Yukon Gold and Kennebec seed potatoes, garlic, shallot and onions for planning later this month.

[bbj101]

After our huge garden at my moms house this past year, I've wanted one for myself here at my home but we just don't have the space.. so! My one neighbor plants a small bed of herbs and then uses very large plant pots to grow her veggies in, and had had amazing sucess at it! My neighbors to the other side compost and have an enormous amount of tomatoes that they grow yearly for canning. Between my two neighbors I'm set, I'm stealing the idea of pots to grow and I'm getting compost filled soil to fill my pots with. That and I get all the tomatoes I can stand.

I've started germinating and have sprouts up about 2 inches tall already. So far I've started basil, thyme, oregano, rosemary, taragon, 3 types of tomatoes (that my neighbors don't already grow), zucchini, yellow zucchini, spanish onions, garlic chives, green onions, eggplant, watermelon, spinach and romaine lettuce.. fingers crossed it goes well, I just need the weather to cooperate so that in another week or so I can plant them in the pots and not have to worry about how I'm going to water them all in the house without making a mess or my son getting a hold of them!

[Watchman]

With the advent of Spring here in Free Wyoming, I was FINALLY able to dig a shovel into the ground - hallelujah! It has thawed. This year will be a sparse garden I'm sorry to say. Because of the fact that we're out on the road so much what we plant will have to be 'self-caring' plants, things that don't need intensive labor.

[Toepopper]

It finally quit raining, the sun came out and it warmed up to 70 degrees today so I got busy in the garden. Got a good workout on the number 2 shovel for as long as my body would tolerate it, creating terraces on the hillside to grow more food. I have planted 4 more fruit trees and 3 blueberry bushes and bought this years vegi seeds. Had to remove quite a few broken fir branches that had fallen out of the trees from the wind and policed up the area of other debris that had found its way into the garden. Spread last falls leaves over some of the raised beds and tomorrow I will turn them into the ground. I noticed many new red raspberry shoots poking out of the ground, filling in the empty spaces between the canes I planted last year. First seeds to be planted will be cabbage, potato and snow peas since they like cool weather and can tolerate any late frosts. I mail ordered 2 types of popping corn and some Virginia peanuts to plant as an experiment to see if these crops will grow here at 44 degrees north latitude.

[bbj101]

All of my sprouts are about 2-3 inches tall except for my squash and zucchini plants are about 6 inches already. We arent having any good luck with the weather here in PA so theyre just hanging out here in the house. Its been snowing on and off all day, I am looking forward to some nice days so I can get all my plants outside!

[Toepopper]

Hang on, good weather is right around the corner and soon you will be out there planting things. I am chomping at the bit in anticipation.

[SS5R]

Last weekend my wife and I planted most of our garden. We planted potatoes, yellow onion, garlic, shallots, fava beans, green beans, lettuce, spinach, kale, endive, basil, cilantro, zucchini, summer squash, and banana squash. We started early this year on some things hopefully the weather cooperates.

[fern]

Well I believe I will not be planting much of a garden this year. My neighbor, that had her pool torn down and flooded my garden last year, has hired a weekly company that started today spraying all the chemicals on her lawn until we could not breathe while sitting on our porch. Since her yard flows into ours...I do not have any desire to grow chemical food to feed my family.

[SS5R]

Early last year I picked up a couple of shipping crates from a stone and tile shop for free. They measure about two and half feet tall and 3X3 foot square. I had to fill in the gaps with extra pallet wood but that did not take much time I then bought a yard of triple mix soil and filled them, they work great we have one full of herbs and one I grow potatoes in. Maybe you try something like that if you don’t trust your soil. Total cost was about $30.00 for the soil. You can also cover them with a tarp if they are spraying next door.

[Toepopper]

Has spring finally sprung? Are the frosts and low night time temperatures done for the year? I hope so. I planted snow peas and they are popping up through the ground even though its still cool. Today I will plant cabbage, carrots, radishes and potato's and will hold off on planting other crops until warm weather arrives permanantly. I have spent many hours digging terraces into the hillside, moving 5 or 6 cubic yards of dirt to make flat areas where I can plant more veggies this year and also walk without breaking an ankle. I am halfway through the digging and must get done what I set out to accomplish before the soil gets too dry to dig in. No need to go to a gym, after a couple hours on the end of a #2 shovel I am wore out and have to move on to something else.

[cowboy38229]

Last fall I got lucky and came up with a ton and a half of cow manure and spread it on my garden spot,which is about 30x80,and let sit all winter. Two weeks ago we tilled it up and planted three rows of red potatoes,a row and a half of onion slips and half a row of onion sets,a row of cabbage,a row of broccollie,a row of brussel sprouts and a row of english peas. Even though weve had some cold weather every thing is growing like crazy.will have pictures later.

[Watchman]

Postby rray » 10 May 2011 10:59 am
I have my seedlings in the garage and most are breaking through the crust. I hope to put them in the ground at the end of May. I plan to put in some fruits this year, I think grapes and maybe some fruit trees. I took some advice from a local organic gardner and I am leaving my leaves from last fall right on top of the soil instead of tilling them in. It is suppose to work great to keep weeds and such down. I hope it works!

[SS5R]

I thought I had covered my garden for the last time last week but I may have one more time this weekend. Despite being a cold May everything is doing quite well. Four types of potatoes, two types of carrots, four tomatoes verities, onions, garlic, shallots, three verities of lettuce, spinach, kale, endive, summer squash, zucchini, fava beans, and about half dozen herbs have all survived temps down to 28 degrees with being covered at night.

I think my apples have leaf curl midge. It's a fruit fly that lays its eggs on the leaf then when they hatch they eat the leaf. Not sure what the cure is yet.

[bbj101]

So far so good, these photos that I'm about to post were actually taken about a month or so ago.. since then my herbs have tripled in size, my squash plant has begun flowering and my tomatoes are just about ready to start producing. i'm so excited for these to be on my plate.

And as I mentioned a while back, I've planted everything in pots due to my lack of space where I live and I was honestly shocked to see how well they're doing. A lot of my seedlings didn't make it so I am left with 4 different types of onions, 5 tomato plants, a beautiful eggplant plant, zucchini squash (i think, i was a goof and didn't label what was what, so its either zucchini or butternut), loads and loads of basil, rosemary, tarragon and chives!

I will see if I can get any pictures now since its so dark outside and post them as well..

[Watchman]

Way to go!