BYC gardening thread!!

[RichnSteph]

Some of my favorite interplantings: Onion sets with any type of greens (lettuce, spinnach, and similar) Radish as row markers. I love French breakfast. Slice them vertically, and spread the slices with peanut butter. YUMMY!! Cabbage among the asparagus. Potatoes between rows of corn planted 1' o.c. (I plant 2 rows of corn, 1 foot apart, then a row of potatoes, 2' from the corn, then an other 2 rows of corn. Potatoes LOVE corn. I mulch the whole thing heavily with hay. Wide row: all of the greens, onions, beets, carrots. Lots of nasturtium, calendula, marigold. Sounds like you're starting out well, Buggseye.

You need to change your name to Motivated Gardener.

 

[lazy gardener]

Thanks, but, No, I'll stick with the "LG". My motto is: never work harder to accomplish a task than you need to. I do work hard, and always need to have a project going, but, my gardening style with mulch, self sowing, interplanting is definitely a "lazy" approach.

 

[hennible]

I'm so jello!!!! Lol (; Im a collector and have been collecting materials to build one.

I should be doing that... I need some more greenhouses...

You need to change your name to Motivated Gardener.

Lol

 

[Arielle]

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PC going wonky-- cant see indiviudal quotes. Yup definitely good use by interplanting and using companion planting method. Some like others better; and hate others so wont grow well. Many on line suggestions for companion planting. Leeks-- I've not used them for cooking but a couple times. Being rather frugal I really hated tossing the tops. Just plain wasteful to my way of thinking. SO I stick with garlic, onions, and chives. LG can you tell me how you manage your garlic in the lazy fashion?? I would like to follow suit. Sure hate putting the labor into harvesting and storing , and praying I have the right type to make it to spring planting. THough now that I think of it they really only need to make it to fall planting!! lol Perhaps thenmy questions hould be, how to you cover them or otherwise manage the garlic to over winter establish "beds "??

 

[roseyred]

So far all I collect is pallets. I have so many freaking plastic bins it's insane. I use them as brooders and give them to friends who need more brooders. I've found computer fans for incubators, plastic pet carriers, ply wood, tiles, roofing stuff, table and bar tops. You name it. Behind any store is some amazing stuff.

 

[roseyred]

I'm not sure what exactly id need for a green house....thinking palet walls then rounded top? I don't know. I throw thigs together and somehow it works lol. I built my smaller quarantine coop without even cutting the scrap wood I had. How? I don't even know. Tetris. Lol but it works

 

[lazy gardener]

Love to. Garlic is the easiest lazy crop there is. When it sends up the seed scapes in the early summer, don't remove them. They will "flower" and produce a crop of bulbils, which are small bulbs at the top of the scape. Leave these in place until they get quite large. They will get up to 1/2" in diameter. You can then pick them off and plant them where you want your next crop of garlic. (or you can just let them fall to the ground and plant themselves.) I warn you: it will take a while. They will send up a tiny bit of growth the first year, looks like a couple of blades of grass. The following spring, you'll have a single clove from each bulbil. Leave that in place, and the following year, you'll have a typical head of garlic there. Now, depending on how much garlic you use, how much garden space you have, and whether you till or not, you can leave a clump of garlic in place indefinitely. I have clumps of garlic that are about 8 - 10" in diameter at the roots. They consist of MANY heads clumped together. When the leaves die down in mid summer, I harvest enough heads to carry me through the year, and leave the rest of those clumps right where they are. Until this season, garlic was every where in my garden, all stages from recently sown bulbils to 10" clumps. This year, I re-organized my garden, so dug up most of those clumps, and put them in a single row. They are spaced about 1' apart, and the row is about 30' long. I broke up some clumps and took them to a fund raiser plant sale. I sold every pot I took, and could have sold a lot more. Am thinking that garlic plants would be a great spring cash crop. People really became interested when I explained how garlic can be a perennial crop.

For northern gardeners, you want to be sure to grow a stiff necked variety. I am zone 4, and don't do anything to protect my garlic over the winter. But, my soil is sandy loam. Did you know that bulbs have the ability to draw themselves deeper into the soil? They actually use their roots to pull themselves down if they are not planted deep enough. Ever noticed that when you plant tulips or hyacinths, and dig them up several years later, they're deeper than you remember planting them? How awesome is that. Who taught them how to do that????

 

[dan26552]

Me either, Dan. Wish I coould help.

That's ok, I figure I'll let it sit on the counter a few days and then replant it and see what happens

 

[Bugseye]

Well, LG, I just learned a lot from your post. I'm also Zone 4 in north Idaho, and last fall I planted a handful of garlic in a corner of the raspberry patch. It was my first season here. I think I want to move them around the corner near the potatoes, and I am fascinated with their ability to self-bury and propagate. When I was making a salad a couple of nights ago, I got a scape from the garden for some flavor. Boy, was that good!

 

[A-K-A]

I need to start scrounging again, a greenhouse is on tap and another chicken facility. I have pretty well depleted my stores of lumber. I love repurposing materials.