Back to Eden Gardening and Hugelkulture and other non-conventional garden methods

[chickadoodles]

Lazy Gardener we finally got the wicking bed put together and have some Walmart bags full of potting mix. Each bag holds 7 gallons of mix.
For the mix I use Larry Hall's recipe and add a bit to it.
I bale Sphagnum Peat moss, a small had full of epsom salts, Rabbit manure, fish meal, pork blood and bone meal, coffee can full of perlite.
I had a bunch of miracle grow potting mix from last year and just added these ing. to my soil and mixed it in.
I lined the bottom with used boxes before we put the plastic sheeting in. The plastic sheeting is 6ml. thick and we got a roll that was 10'x100'.
This float I got off ebay it is sold as a poultry automatic water float it was about 7.00 a couple years ago. .

This is a lid off a plastic jar we used as a spacer since the pipe was 8" and the RR tie was 6" or so.





Mixing everything in the soil

We used 1x4's to screw down the plastic to the RR ties to hold it in place.
The float is adjustable and for this to work properly we have it set to hold 1& 1/2" of water the hose is connected to the float to maintain the water level.
We still need to drill the over flow hole. It needs to be at 2 - 2 1/2". To get the bags started to wick the water up we have to top water for a couple of days then it will start wicking. The 4 bags that have the little tomatoes in them I watered for 2 days till the water was running out the bottom of the bag to start wicking. These tomatoes were about 6" and I buried all but 1".
Last year we did small kiddie pools with the auto float and loved it. I have never had a garden do as well. So this year we decided to make a larger size bed to hold everything vs the 4 kiddie pools.

 

[lazy gardener]

Sounds interesting.

 

[chickadoodles]

Sounds interesting.

I shared a video on the "What did you do in the garden today" thead. It shows just how much the plants love the water.

 

[ladyearth]

yeah they grow like weeds around here. we eradicated lots of them. But missed a few out the roots growing indie area of grape vines...
Plenty of wild blackberries and that parasite honeysuckle all over the edges of mowing area....
Im conerned that the girls will get thorns in their feet. also we have had our skin ripped when mowing close to the "woods" If possible I try to pull up the whole plant when ground is wet from a rain...I throw the mess in garbage
so DO NOT wanna take a chance of dropping a thorned part or even tossing into the "woods." the thorns are so bad. thornless I grw years ago bigg put sweet when very ripe as I remembered...

 

[lazy gardener]

I'm in the process of conditioning 6 hay bales for a sweet potato planting. I've got the hay bales set up on some plastic over a perennial flower bed that I want to remove. The bales are also close to my rain barrel for easy watering. While the hay bale garden is growing this season, it will also be removing the perennial flowers and softening the soil for next year's plan.

 

[chickengr]

I have a plum tree I planted about 3 years ago. it was full of blossoms but I see no fruits. any idea what went wrong?

there were hundreds of bees every day, no frost, fertilized with chicken manure as this tree is in the chicken's run. regular watering as well.

 

[1cock2hens]

What kind of plum? It could be a type of plum that needs a different kind of plum tree as a pollinator?..I will ponder.. I have a book with almost 340 different plum cultivars, out of the first 10 trees 2 required a separate pollinator and out of all of them a small chunk of them are only ornamental, about 30.

 

[chickengr]

What kind of plum? It could be a type of plum that needs a different kind of plum tree as a pollinator? Did you get a cold snap after the flowers were pollinated? I lost my peaches this year to a cold snap..I will ponder

not sure but plams are big dark blue/purple colour (round).

it is not cold here. last year it had 1 plum so I don't think it needs another plum tree. would too much water do a harm?

 

[1cock2hens]

I have tons of different kinds of trees but plums are one of the things I don't have yet so I definitely don't have all the answers I have been reading about them for a while though, I plan on getting a couple plum trees next.. all I really know is they are kinda sensitive to having too much nitrogen and the most common reason for crop failure is no cross pollinator​, too much water could be a problem if you have poor drainage.. A bee could have pollinator the one flower last year from a plum a mile away, I grew 1 single corn plant a couple years ago and it managed to get half pollinated in the middle of town

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/fruits/plum/plum-trees-not-fruiting.htm

 

[lazy gardener]

Corn pollen is air born. So, it's possible that your single corn plant was pollinated with it's own pollen.

As for the plums, even though many fruit trees are "self pollinating", most of them produce more fruit if there is an other tree of the same species, but a different cultivar. From my reading, plums need a cross pollinator.