BYC gardening thread!!

[SunnySkies]

Then seems I should dig sweet potatoes then...I may have left them a bit long. Yikes. I totally forgot about them, actually, as they ended up in the garden as an experiment after I bought the slips locally on a whim (25 for $4 or something like that) and stuck them in the ground in an out of the way spot. But I saw them when I was pulling up some other stuff and noticed they did pretty well, or at least the greens look good, lol.

My garden got kind of neglected toward the end...I got really sick with some undetermined disease that behaved an awful lot like mono. All I could do for most of July, all of August and part of September was go out to feed and water the critters and check that the drip system auto system was kicking on, then go in and make sure the kids didn't burn the house down from my reclining position on the sofa. Hubby harvested, but nobody weeded.

A broadfork is more work than I want to do, lol. I don't own a tiller and didn't want to pay the guy again to plow with his tractor (and dig up yet more weed seeds) so I hope that this low-tech tilling helps with the weeds next year.

 

[Smithyard Farm]

hi all! when you say you are planting "cover crops" what does that mean? are you planting something to leave in over the winter? what are you planting?

also - does anyone have any ideas on powdery mildew? I have had a terrible time the last two years with it. This year I kept it (sort-of) at bay with neem oil.. however, it still eventually took over and I was unable to stay ahead of it. I had 9 zucchini plants and only 7 zucchinis. I pulled three and completely started over with three new plants.. but still had trouble. I know it over winters and am so upset that I cant get a handle on it. I was thinking of putting hay and leaves on top of my beds and lighting fire to it!!

any suggestions??

 

[SunnySkies]

Cover crops:
http://www.woodprairie.com/category/cover-crop-seed

No idea about the mildew. We had a tough year with things because of a lot of rain.

 

[marktoo]

hi all! when you say you are planting "cover crops" what does that mean? are you planting something to leave in over the winter? what are you planting?

also - does anyone have any ideas on powdery mildew? I have had a terrible time the last two years with it. This year I kept it (sort-of) at bay with neem oil.. however, it still eventually took over and I was unable to stay ahead of it. I had 9 zucchini plants and only 7 zucchinis. I pulled three and completely started over with three new plants.. but still had trouble. I know it over winters and am so upset that I cant get a handle on it. I was thinking of putting hay and leaves on top of my beds and lighting fire to it!!

any suggestions??

Cover cropping here is vastly different from what it would be there as I'm sure all the annual cover crops would winter kill. The trick would be getting the garden out, the cover in & still have time for it to get some growth to it. Small patches of annual rye in some empty spots perhaps? Check with the state university ag dept. they probably have a lot of info on gardening, they may be able to help out with the mildew problem as well. You might also want to see if there are any demonstration gardens in your area or master gardener programs, very good resources.

Then seems I should dig sweet potatoes then...I may have left them a bit long. Yikes. I totally forgot about them, actually, as they ended up in the garden as an experiment after I bought the slips locally on a whim (25 for $4 or something like that) and stuck them in the ground in an out of the way spot. But I saw them when I was pulling up some other stuff and noticed they did pretty well, or at least the greens look good, lol.

My garden got kind of neglected toward the end...I got really sick with some undetermined disease that behaved an awful lot like mono. All I could do for most of July, all of August and part of September was go out to feed and water the critters and check that the drip system auto system was kicking on, then go in and make sure the kids didn't burn the house down from my reclining position on the sofa. Hubby harvested, but nobody weeded.

A broadfork is more work than I want to do, lol. I don't own a tiller and didn't want to pay the guy again to plow with his tractor (and dig up yet more weed seeds) so I hope that this low-tech tilling helps with the weeds next year.

Here summer greens are pretty hard to come by cause of the heat. Sweet potato leaves are pretty tasty sauteed with garlic. Amaranth does pretty well but forget spinach, kale, etc, etc in the summer.

Looking at your signature I can see you have a full plate. I'm surprised you garden at all, although I'm sure it would work in well with homeschooling. My wife & I stopped gardening for s short while when the kids were young. We were both working, it was just too much, as they got older we started out small & it just grew. We're retired empty nesters now, wouldn't know what to do with the backyard if not for the garden.

Don't let them piggies know whats in store for them or they may not be so willing to do your tilling.

 

[SunnySkies]

Looking at your signature I can see you have a full plate.  I'm surprised you garden at all, although I'm sure it would work in well with homeschooling.  My wife & I stopped gardening for s short while when the kids were young.  We were both working, it was just too much, as they got older we started out small & it just grew.  We're retired empty nesters now, wouldn't know what to do with the backyard if not for the garden.

Don't let them piggies know whats in store for them or they may not be so willing to do your tilling.      

I grew up gardening, as part of supplying our food, so once I moved out and got my own place, I just always have raised something. Even in vet school, I "gardened" in the little tiny space in front of my apartment. I tend to go very low maintenance...drip systems, lots of mulch, and yep, even neglect if I get busy.

I might scale back this next year. I had a 100x125 foot garden. It was a bit much. I'm thinking about planting half of that space next year in flowers for cutting instead of corn. The corn was tasty until I got sick and the bugs took over. But I can go buy it from the farmer down the road very cheaply. flowers are much harder to come by here.

The pigs are actually blowing through my garden...I moved the pen twice this week. They might get the garden worked over twice before making bacon. I do not want to park the pen as that will lead to severe soil compression and smell...and the pen is not far from the neighbor's house!

 

[marktoo]

I grew up gardening, as part of supplying our food, so once I moved out and got my own place, I just always have raised something. Even in vet school, I "gardened" in the little tiny space in front of my apartment. I tend to go very low maintenance...drip systems, lots of mulch, and yep, even neglect if I get busy.

I might scale back this next year. I had a 100x125 foot garden. It was a bit much. I'm thinking about planting half of that space next year in flowers for cutting instead of corn. The corn was tasty until I got sick and the bugs took over. But I can go buy it from the farmer down the road very cheaply. flowers are much harder to come by here.

The pigs are actually blowing through my garden...I moved the pen twice this week. They might get the garden worked over twice before making bacon. I do not want to park the pen as that will lead to severe soil compression and smell...and the pen is not far from the neighbor's house!

Your garden is a tad bit bigger than my lot, Ok maybe a couple of tads. Your garden is 10 times bigger than mine! Maybe you should get a draft horse to pull a plow,cart or whatever. They don't eat much...get 2!

We have about 1,000 sq feet for row crops of which I plant about 2/3 in veggies, 1/3 cover in the summer. Winter it's about 50/50. Got another 200 sq feet in perennial veggies & then a small orchard that we started last winter. We get burnt out during the dog days of summer, temps range 100 - 110, mid July thru mid August. What little we do we do early!

We collect leaves in the fall that i use for mulch in the summer as well as compost. The cover crops generally get cut & planted through or cut & used for mulch elsewhere in the garden. We often have to move the mulch from place to place, there never seems to be enough to go around & I don't like bringing in hay or straw stuff from elsewhere. Got enough weeds of my own!

Currently running old fiskers soaker hose in the garden but it's aging & it's time for a change. We plan to run water lines to either side of the yard this winter as well as run drip to the perennial stuff & orchard. Right now it's just too dry, it's very sandy soil, it just caves in. I don't know how the dang gophers do it? I can just see em down there, with their hardhats, lanterns, picks & shovels workin their little tails off & all of a sudden one yelling " Cave in...run for your lives". Some day our house is gonna disappear into a gopher tunnel.

 

[marktoo]

Fall garden is coming along nicely but I'm slacking on getting whats left of the summer garden out & the cover crops in.

 

[CheleB]

I'm in the dry tropics in north Queensland right near the beach. Gardening of any kind poses a huge challenge. Im just getting started with veggies and fruit. I have 2 passionfruit vibes, 2 Valencia orange trees. I've got the herbs going in car tyres. I've also planted potatoes in a car tyre stack and am sprouting sweet potatoes slips. My pumpkins are growing great guns. Everything here has to be in raised beds because well 'sand is just sand'. So I'm always making as much compost as I can. It's way too hot here in summer to grow most things but I have a bore and the water is sweet and beautiful. My chooks are laying and providing me with valuable manure for the compost bin. Really want to give sweet corn a go. Unless you can grow in the shade up here a lot of veggie gardeners up here give a lot of it a miss till autumn. Interested to hear how hit weather affects what you grow there.

 

[SunnySkies]

Your garden is a tad bit bigger than my lot, Ok maybe a couple of tads.  Your garden is 10 times bigger than mine!  Maybe you should get a draft horse to pull a plow,cart or whatever.  They don't eat much...get 2!   We have about 1,000 sq feet for row crops of which I plant about 2/3 in veggies, 1/3 cover in the summer. Winter it's about 50/50.  Got another 200 sq feet in perennial veggies &  then a small orchard that we started last winter.  We get burnt out during the dog days of summer, temps range 100 - 110, mid July thru mid August.    What little we do we do early! 

We collect leaves in the fall that i use for mulch in the summer as well as compost.  The cover crops generally get cut & planted through or cut & used for mulch elsewhere in the garden.  We often have to move the mulch from place to place, there never seems to be enough to go around & I don't  like bringing in hay or straw stuff from elsewhere.  Got enough weeds of my own!

Currently running old fiskers soaker hose in the garden but it's aging & it's time for a change.  We plan to run water lines to either side of the yard this winter as well as run drip to the perennial stuff & orchard.  Right now it's just too dry, it's very sandy soil, it just caves in.   I don't know how the dang gophers do it?  I can just see em down there, with their hardhats, lanterns, picks & shovels workin their little tails off  & all of a sudden one yelling " Cave in...run for your lives".  Some day our house is gonna disappear into a gopher tunnel.    

Mine actually might fall into a gopher hole. I thought my kids were lying when they said no, mom, we aren't piling rocks and gravel in your greenhouse. I showed it to DH last nigh, as we were wandering in from locking coops and picking up tomatoes. He realized something is digging under the garage slab and pushing the remnants up into the greenhouse!

EEK.

I got my drip system equipment from Dripworks. Very happy with it. I use the 5/8" tape off 1" mainline (iirc) and it has done a great job.

I am putting thr word out that I will come get leaves as people in our church start raking. We don't really have trees on our property that are not in the woods, so we don't get a lot of leaves .... Unless I wanted to go brave the poison ivy and electric fence and go rake them out of the woods (um. No.) But people throw leaves in the garbage, which makes me want to cry, so I'll see how many I can save,

The soil here is rocky clay, but hopefully in a few years, with liberal application of coop materials, compost, mulch and not tilling deeply, I will have some decent soil. Someday. What I have did grow a lot of produce though. But I know it could be better.

 

[marktoo]

I'm in the dry tropics in north Queensland right near the beach. Gardening of any kind poses a huge challenge. Im just getting started with veggies and fruit. I have 2 passionfruit vibes, 2 Valencia orange trees. I've got the herbs going in car tyres. I've also planted potatoes in a car tyre stack and am sprouting sweet potatoes slips. My pumpkins are growing great guns. Everything here has to be in raised beds because well 'sand is just sand'. So I'm always making as much compost as I can. It's way too hot here in summer to grow most things but I have a bore and the water is sweet and beautiful. My chooks are laying and providing me with valuable manure for the compost bin. Really want to give sweet corn a go. Unless you can grow in the shade up here a lot of veggie gardeners up here give a lot of it a miss till autumn. Interested to hear how hit weather affects what you grow there.

G'day mate! So, your post first took me to an Aussie slang dictionary....I didn't know what a "bore" is, still don't, but I assume a well. Next I googled North Queensland...checked out a map, a C to F conversion chart, read a little, checked out some pics. The place looks awesome! Hey! You really should take up fishing.

I'm in the central valley of California, my soil is very sandy, winters are cold & wet, summers hot & dry temps often hitting 100 - 113 F. My summer crops generally include; summer & winter squash, tomato, cucumber, eggplant, okra, peppers, amaranth, cow peas & basil. Everything is mulched. The tomato, peppers, eggplant would benefit greatly from shade cloth, I don't but I should. In the winter the trick is to get stuff in early enough so it gets some size to it before the cold weather hits crops include; turnip, beets, fennel, kale, collard, mustard, garlic, lettuce & favas. Some things need to be protected form the frost.




Quote:

Mine actually might fall into a gopher hole. I thought my kids were lying when they said no, mom, we aren't piling rocks and gravel in your greenhouse. I showed it to DH last nigh, as we were wandering in from locking coops and picking up tomatoes. He realized something is digging under the garage slab and pushing the remnants up into the greenhouse!

EEK.

I got my drip system equipment from Dripworks. Very happy with it. I use the 5/8" tape off 1" mainline (iirc) and it has done a great job.

I am putting thr word out that I will come get leaves as people in our church start raking. We don't really have trees on our property that are not in the woods, so we don't get a lot of leaves .... Unless I wanted to go brave the poison ivy and electric fence and go rake them out of the woods (um. No.) But people throw leaves in the garbage, which makes me want to cry, so I'll see how many I can save,

The soil here is rocky clay, but hopefully in a few years, with liberal application of coop materials, compost, mulch and not tilling deeply, I will have some decent soil. Someday. What I have did grow a lot of produce though. But I know it could be better.

I'd be interested to to know what is doing the digging. You don't have gophers, do you?

My perennial herb garden drip has in it from dripworks. Are you using T-tape?

I removed the few large trees in my yard, as they were becoming problematic. Someday I'll plant some small ones in the front.

I've been putting stuff in the soil here for years, it just washes out but I just gotta keep at it. Seems to be a matter of just figuring out what will grow & what won't. I try to stay away from heavy feeders. A couple years back I planted a mix of winter squash & we had them coming out our ears, past couple years not so good. I rotate crops ever year. I don't test my soil & I don't keep records so I guess I'm doomed to repeat my mistakes.