While it's fresh in your mind, what improvements will you make on next year's garden?

Every year at this time, I start thinking about all of the mistakes I've made.
I've made some good changes, the primary one being to put cattle panel all around the garden, with deer netting surrounding that. The second good change is getting a dog. Hoping that slinging her poo into the underbrush at the west end of my yard will deter coons from my corn. Third good change is 3 plantings of zucchini. Yes, you heard me right. That allows me to pull the overgrown plants as the new ones are coming into production.

Need to improve upon:

1. Increase space between rows and beds
2. Don't be such a sap when it comes to allowing all of the volunteers to stay. Unless they are in an established bed/row, they gotta go.

I've made lots of mistakes this year. The one mistake I did not make was actually starting my own garden. I really enjoyed going out and working in my garden. I loved watching everything grow.

My changes:

1. Expand my garden ~ I did not have near enough room this year. I've already doubled what I had and working on putting in another expansion.

2. Better spacing between my rows ~ I thought I had everything spaced enough. I was SO wrong! My garden ended up looking like a jungle.

3. Add a fence ~ I had some rabbits eat a few cantaloupes, but I really didn't have a lot of animal damage. I like the look of a fenced garden. Then I will have permanent places to put my flowers & whirl-a-gigs. I love those!

4. Trellises ~ I need some trellises to help keep my garden from looking so wild. I want to trellis my cantaloupe & maybe my squash. I had no idea squash would sprawl so far. I'm thinking of using cattle panels and making an arch out of them.

I will continue with my BTE garden. It was not weed free, but it had less weeds than our regular garden did years ago.

lazy gardener said:

Every year at this time, I start thinking about all of the mistakes I've made.
I've made some good changes, the primary one being to put cattle panel all around the garden, with deer netting surrounding that. The second good change is getting a dog. Hoping that slinging her poo into the underbrush at the west end of my yard will deter coons from my corn. Third good change is 3 plantings of zucchini. Yes, you heard me right. That allows me to pull the overgrown plants as the new ones are coming into production.

Need to improve upon:

1. Increase space between rows and beds
2. Don't be such a sap when it comes to allowing all of the volunteers to stay. Unless they are in an established bed/row, they gotta go.

Click to expand...

rol sooooo truuuuuuuue!!!!!!

Tomato volunteeers in the compost result in nothing but a jungle of greens......poor ratio of basic three nutrients to get flowers!!! Live and learn!!!

Planted hundreds of tomatos at 2 feet part and four feet between rows........that is a huge water requirement!!!! When only hand watering is allowed at the community garden. Likely will keep tomatos at home next season where I can water to my hearts content......

As for dogs..... the coyotes would walk right by my rotties..... confident that the fense would hold back my dogs!!! lol. I plan to have my boys pee to keep away the deer.... dont expect it will work but expect boys will enjoy the fun of it!!

Discovered walking onions..... another gardener shared her supply... little did I know that she tore out every single plant!! Fortunately I took every single plant and got most planted. Didnt realize she planned to remove all the horse radish too as she only mentioned thinning those.....missed out there. Kept trying to catch her again in her garden to get a few roots but no such luck... then every plant was GONE.

Water water water.......and good soil... are the two most important ingredients......sandy soil is like gardening in a desert especially wen watering is limited.

fall garden did great!!!! Lots of kale, collards and boc choi types and carrots......and fall planting of grey sugar peas for greens.... will repeat this next year for sure... just MORE of everything. Fall rains a real plus.

henless said:

I've made lots of mistakes this year. The one mistake I did not make was actually starting my own garden. I really enjoyed going out and working in my garden. I loved watching everything grow.

My changes:

1. Expand my garden ~ I did not have near enough room this year. I've already doubled what I had and working on putting in another expansion.

2. Better spacing between my rows ~ I thought I had everything spaced enough. I was SO wrong! My garden ended up looking like a jungle.

3. Add a fence ~ I had some rabbits eat a few cantaloupes, but I really didn't have a lot of animal damage. I like the look of a fenced garden. Then I will have permanent places to put my flowers & whirl-a-gigs. I love those!

4. Trellises ~ I need some trellises to help keep my garden from looking so wild. I want to trellis my cantaloupe & maybe my squash. I had no idea squash would sprawl so far. I'm thinking of using cattle panels and making an arch out of them.

I will continue with my BTE garden. It was not weed free, but it had less weeds than our regular garden did years ago.

Click to expand...

RE squashes....... now I know why neighboring gardener only planted 6 hills of squash in the middle of a 30 x0 30 plot......the vines came to visit me!!!!

What I did right: Got my green house set up in new location, made lasagna style beds on either side of the walking path. Got it closed in before killing frosts, and planted soon enough for good lettuce and kale crop. Actually started those as seedlings in a flat in August. Set up a hay bale cold frame in the garden. Seeded it too late for it to get adequate growth before days got too short. But some seeds sprouting, and hopefully they'll survive to put on good growth for March salads.

Continued improvement: always building soil. Adding leaves to the garden. Hope to have tree service bring me some loads of chips when trees have good leaf cover. Plan to sheet compost the area between Hugelkulture mound and the grow out coop. About 25' x 40' of brambly weeds, hard clay, and lots of stones. Day dreaming of wide beds of green manure crops there to help the process along: short vine peas, and bush beans, sunflowers, wheat.

HK productivity was greater than I would have ever expected. Several hundred # of squash from the first section. That will be planted to brassica/cole crops next season. Squash will move down to the next section to be completed.

Hoping to cut some openings on north side of CP fencing on garden to allow some chicken tunnels into the garden so chickens can do some selective bug and weed patrol between garden beds. This will require some drastic discipline for me to actually allow room for the tunnels in the midst of the jungle.

Hey y'all nice to see ya!

I was just talking to my dh last night telling him I want to do a small garden in the ground this year in addition to the kiddie pools. I am not sure if we will get a new raised bed built before time to plant. But I sure hope so. We have a spot out behind the chicken coop that we have been dumping the bedding from the coop and brooder clean outs and I am hoping to get it mixed into the ground for spring planting. The trick is going to be getting our tiller back to use for a few days. We will have to put a new floor on our small trailer to go get it. hahhaa

We are going to grow okra, squash, cuc's, cantalouple and a few other things in the ground. And I will keep my tomatoes, eggplant in the kiddie pools.

I went small this year simply because I was having a lot of back problems. I'm still having the problems but have a plan for next year. 1) bigger garden 2) plant sugar pumpkins for our use and the chickens, and 3) ignore the back pain as much as possible and when not possible use my prescription medication, go out and dig in the dirt, which I LOVE to do.

I had a lot of trouble with what garden I did plant. Beans didn't do well, carrots didn't do well, radishes were very hot. I think it was the weather in all honesty. We had a very wet spring and early summer. My apple trees got hit with fire blight, the peaches got hit by first the late frost and then what survived the frost got hit by the deer. The only thing I seemed to have an abundance of was blackberries and I think we picked over 50 pounds of them. I've made lots of jelly and jam and we even tried to make some wine which I have to admit came out pretty darned good.

I've got to figure out what caused my beans and root crops to fail. I'm thinking that on top of the wet weather soil quality has something to do with it. DH will be tilling compose from the coop into the soil for me. Hopefully that will help things along.

Low of 11 here tonight. I'm ready for spring already.

chickadoodles said:

Hey y'all nice to see ya!

I was just talking to my dh last night telling him I want to do a small garden in the ground this year in addition to the kiddie pools. I am not sure if we will get a new raised bed built before time to plant. But I sure hope so. We have a spot out behind the chicken coop that we have been dumping the bedding from the coop and brooder clean outs and I am hoping to get it mixed into the ground for spring planting. The trick is going to be getting our tiller back to use for a few days. We will have to put a new floor on our small trailer to go get it. hahhaa

We are going to grow okra, squash, cuc's, cantalouple and a few other things in the ground. And I will keep my tomatoes, eggplant in the kiddie pools.

Click to expand...

I think you'll be pleased with your crops in the ground. Less maintenance and watering involved. As I stated to microchick, if your coop bedding still has a lot of visible shavings in it, don't till it in. Raw wood tends to just sit in the soil and rob nitrogen. It takes forever for it to break down when mixed in. Does better if used as a top dressing mulch. See below post. Lasagna gardening may be just what you need. Can you continue collecting compostable materials throughout the winter??? I'm going to sheet compost an area (about 25' x 30') next spring. Have collected 130 bags of leaves, and will be adding grass clippings, and goodies collected from the town compost area to build up the sheet compost (basically a large lasagna garden bed.)

microchick said:

I went small this year simply because I was having a lot of back problems. I'm still having the problems but have a plan for next year. 1) bigger garden 2) plant sugar pumpkins for our use and the chickens, and 3) ignore the back pain as much as possible and when not possible use my prescription medication, go out and dig in the dirt, which I LOVE to do.

I had a lot of trouble with what garden I did plant. Beans didn't do well, carrots didn't do well, radishes were very hot. I think it was the weather in all honesty. We had a very wet spring and early summer. My apple trees got hit with fire blight, the peaches got hit by first the late frost and then what survived the frost got hit by the deer. The only thing I seemed to have an abundance of was blackberries and I think we picked over 50 pounds of them. I've made lots of jelly and jam and we even tried to make some wine which I have to admit came out pretty darned good.

I've got to figure out what caused my beans and root crops to fail. I'm thinking that on top of the wet weather soil quality has something to do with it. DH will be tilling compose from the coop into the soil for me. Hopefully that will help things along.

Low of 11 here tonight. I'm ready for spring already.

Click to expand...

Sorry you are having back problems. I'm gonna suggest that you consider hay or straw bale gardening IF you can do so with ample water supply, having hose access to your garden. You could also use soaker hose. Gardening in the ground is easier in a lot of ways b/c it is easier to keep things watered. But, for the gardener with back problems, hay bale gardening is wonderful, b/c it gets the crops up off the ground, so you don't do as much bending. Also, growing many of your veggies on trellises will help your back immensely. Also, consider gardening under a deep mulch. You can use hay, straw, leaves, grass clippings, what ever you can get your hands on. This will hold the moisture, and keep weeds at bay.

You might consider having a soil test done before you get started this spring. That could make all the difference between a successful garden and a poor yield.

If your coop compost has a lot of shavings in it, you might not want to till it into the ground. Those shavings tend to just sit, and tie up nitrogen if they are tilled in. Not as problematic if they are applied to the TOP of the garden. Check out Back to Eden garden. Paul has an awesome video that just might be what you are looking for. This man has some very obvious disability, yet is able to grow an ample garden every year, and has it open to the public to come and sample and tour throughout the growing season.

I'm also ready for spring.

I do love the kiddie pools and so do tomatoes and eggplant. The squash did not do to great it got powdery mildew and I had to spray the daily. But the bugs were so bad I could not get to the plants.
I think part of that was due to the standing water in my pools. I will be better prepared for them this spring.

Thanks lazy gardener I will see if I can find his video.