Favorite Tomato

[pfields]

I am also planting a few Mortgage Lifter, and a tasty one I grew last year, Boxcar Willy.
Cucumbers: my favorite is the Straight Eight, excellent taste for eating raw, or in salads, also for pickling.
Beans: Contender Bush beans, Italian Flat beans, and Yellow Wax beans.

On my ground level garden, I went to the Back to Eden method on a 20 X 50 ft section in the fall of 2013. This will be my 3rd spring using this method, and I would recommend it to everyone. After seeing the first year results, I have expanded it to the whole 100 X 60 veggie garden, plus my fruit orchard, containing 14 fruit trees. Plus, last year I covered six 4 X 16 ft raised beds with 3 in of wood chips. I have been blessed so far with over 25- 10 yard trailer loads of wood chips from the different tree trimming companies here in East Texas.
I bought a good quality chipper/shredder, and I run all the chips I get from the tree trimmers through it to end up with a fine ground end product. I can simply tell you all, the results are absolutely phenomenal. In the orchard, I laid 12 in to start, and the trees love it.
As soon as you lay the wood chips down, the first rain seeps through them to create a compost tea. It is amazing.
You never have to till again . I sold both of my tillers.
And I will finish with this---NO MORE fertilizer needed. Try it you'll like it.
I suggest to everyone, www.backtoedenfilm.com
That is enough for now.

What brand of wood chipper did you buy?

 

[SittinDuck]

I am also planting a few Mortgage Lifter, and a tasty one I grew last year, Boxcar Willy.
Cucumbers: my favorite is the Straight Eight, excellent taste for eating raw, or in salads, also for pickling.
Beans: Contender Bush beans, Italian Flat beans, and Yellow Wax beans.

On my ground level garden, I went to the Back to Eden method on a 20 X 50 ft section in the fall of 2013. This will be my 3rd spring using this method, and I would recommend it to everyone. After seeing the first year results, I have expanded it to the whole 100 X 60 veggie garden, plus my fruit orchard, containing 14 fruit trees. Plus, last year I covered six 4 X 16 ft raised beds with 3 in of wood chips. I have been blessed so far with over 25- 10 yard trailer loads of wood chips from the different tree trimming companies here in East Texas.
I bought a good quality chipper/shredder, and I run all the chips I get from the tree trimmers through it to end up with a fine ground end product. I can simply tell you all, the results are absolutely phenomenal. In the orchard, I laid 12 in to start, and the trees love it.
As soon as you lay the wood chips down, the first rain seeps through them to create a compost tea. It is amazing.
You never have to till again . I sold both of my tillers.
And I will finish with this---NO MORE fertilizer needed. Try it you'll like it.
I suggest to everyone, www.backtoedenfilm.com
That is enough for now.

Wow we are really on the same page!

My garden is about 50x100 and I dump lots of wood chips on it. I have a chipper and chip lots of my own trees and had the power company trimmers drop off loads last year. I have a fruit orchard about your size, but I also have lots of blueberry bushes. They grow wild here, like weeds... under every tree, up against the house, everywhere. I mulch everything just like you do. I'm pretty amazed how black the chips have turned my soil in just a few years.

I quit doing the raised beds because we can easily go a month with no rain the summer and the ground here drains quickly. I tried not tilling last year and my crops were smaller and the weeds got out of hand. What are you doing different? Maybe I don't have my soil as deep as yours yet? This year I'm planning to let the weeds sprout and then till right before planting in May or late April. Plus all the tilling I did over winter to till-in the wood chips. I figure the tilling breaks up the rocks and sand into minerals the plants use. I was going to see how this year compared to last year to know for sure.

I never tried Boxcar Willy. What's it like?
For cucumbers I like the Eureka. It's a lot like the straight eight I think. They work well for fermented pickles and everything else a cucumber should be. I can get 300lbs off one 20ft row, which is way more than i know what to do with.
Have you tired Blue Lakes beans?

 

[texpat]

I have more fertilizers then I can use already, so either way I have to dispose of them might as well be in the gardens...

I still have stash of fertilizer, and use it sparingly now. I say it is not needed, because I don't use it on everything.

 

[texpat]

Pfields, I bought a DR 14.5 hp. It is a fabulous machine.

 

[texpat]

Wow we are really on the same page!

My garden is about 50x100 and I dump lots of wood chips on it. I have a chipper and chip lots of my own trees and had the power company trimmers drop off loads last year. I have a fruit orchard about your size, but I also have lots of blueberry bushes. They grow wild here, like weeds... under every tree, up against the house, everywhere. I mulch everything just like you do. I'm pretty amazed how black the chips have turned my soil in just a few years.

I quit doing the raised beds because we can easily go a month with no rain the summer and the ground here drains quickly. I tried not tilling last year and my crops were smaller and the weeds got out of hand. What are you doing different? Maybe I don't have my soil as deep as yours yet? This year I'm planning to let the weeds sprout and then till right before planting in May or late April. Plus all the tilling I did over winter to till-in the wood chips. I figure the tilling breaks up the rocks and sand into minerals the plants use. I was going to see how this year compared to last year to know for sure.

I never tried Boxcar Willy. What's it like?
For cucumbers I like the Eureka. It's a lot like the straight eight I think. They work well for fermented pickles and everything else a cucumber should be. I can get 300lbs off one 20ft row, which is way more than i know what to do with.
Have you tired Blue Lakes beans?

I keep my raised beds because I have such a large investment in them. By adding the wood chips, I only water once/week in dry weather, instead of every 3 days.
I was taught that tilling the wood chips into the soil depletes the nitrogen, while sitting on top as a lasagna layer doesn't.
I had a serious problem with nut grass in my garden, for years. After I added the wood chips, it came back with a vengeance. Whereas before the chips, I could never get the nuts out, because the ground was too packed down, now with the softer ground, I was able to get rid of the whole weed. Weeds do blow in now, but they are so easy to pick, I don't consider it a major issue anymore.
Boxcar Willie is an heirloom, and quite tasty.
I love Blue Lakes, but my wife prefers the Contenders. So guess what?

 

[Chris09]

It doesn't matter if the wood chips are in the soil or on the soil they still rob nitrogen from the soil the only difference is weather it takes nitrogen with in the soil or from the top few inches of the soil.
Wood chips much like saw dust also has a acidifying affect so pH also has to be watched also.

 

[MeepBeep]

I have more fertilizers then I can use already, so either way I have to dispose of them might as well be in the gardens...

I still have stash of fertilizer, and use it sparingly now.  I say it is not needed, because I don't use it on everything.

My fertilizer supplies keep amassing so I want to use it copiously everywhere I can... With 100ish birds worth of poop on the coop poop boards, a barn floor full of llama and goat beans that keep piling up, a pasture with mounds of llama beans and the loft floor of my barn layered with fresh bat guano every summer, I have to find somewhere to put all of it... And I can't argue with the results of using it in the garden(s), flower beds and around young trees and bushes...

 

[texpat]

My fertilizer supplies keep amassing so I want to use it copiously everywhere I can... With 100ish birds worth of poop on the coop poop boards, a barn floor full of llama and goat beans that keep piling up, a pasture with mounds of llama beans and the loft floor of my barn layered with fresh bat guano every summer, I have to find somewhere to put all of it... And I can't argue with the results of using it in the garden(s), flower beds and around young trees and bushes...

I should have been more clear. I was referring to commercial fertilizer, not the barnyard type.

 

[texpat]

It doesn't matter if the wood chips are in the soil or on the soil they still rob nitrogen from the soil the only difference is weather it takes nitrogen with in the soil or from the top few inches of the soil.
Wood chips much like saw dust also has a acidifying affect so pH also has to be watched also.

It doesn't matter if the wood chips are in the soil or on the soil they still rob nitrogen from the soil the only difference is weather it takes nitrogen with in the soil or from the top few inches of the soil.
Wood chips much like saw dust also has a acidifying affect so pH also has to be watched also.

I am certainly not an expert on this subject. I would defer to the video I mentioned earlier. One can go to YOUTUBE, and search: L2survive. There are several hours of interviews and videos on this subject. I can only speak for my own results.

 

[enola]

I have raised several varieties of green beans over the years, and Blue Lake are definitely my favorite.