Dixie Chicks

[perchie.girl]

breakfast

.... Um nice carrot

 

[BriardChickens]

Yeah I sell my cucumbers for $4 each.
Well garden advice... Prep the site now. Use mulch. Never leave the soil bare, way to many benefits to mulch. Straw, hay, old animal bedding, wood mulch, grass clippings, whatever you have handy... Even gravel. Read over the winter about gardening. Get some frost blankets. Zucchini can do well outside but tomatoes and pumpkin can be tricky in our climate to grow out side. Cold frames are a great option if you don't have a greenhouse. Make compost tea for your pumpkins, tomatoes and zucchini they like to eat! Members of the squash family don't take being transplanted well so be gentle. Get a head star and get things going indoors or buy transplants. Chives are like weeds, they spread and are perennial. Rosemary is perennial too, I buy most herbs, starting from seed has never gone that well for me. Spinach will bolt easily get the seed out early, a shady spot may work... Buy asparagus roots or plants, from seed can take years and years.... Listen to spacing recommendations with your broccoli, or you really won't get much. Plant lots and exspeirment your mistakes will teach you the most... PM me if you want seeds (on here or FB)

.
Hit the gardening thead, lazy gardener knows lots and so do many of the regulars on there.

I love cucumbers, but not $4 worth, I need to grow my own. Fresh homemade tzatziki is the best.

Thanks for the brilliant info, I will have to start everything from scratch.... Although, I wait a few months and she sheep will have produced enough manure for a good start. I have read you can use sheep manure "fresh". And I might take you up on the seed offer!

@BriardChickens Burgess seeds has the best prices on asparagus plants, $6.99 for ten jersey knight hybrid. Purple ones ten for $10.99. I got the mary washington ten for $3.96 a few yrs ago. They were ready to eat this yr but I'm waiting one more.

Do they ship to canada? Busy day at work, remind me tomorrow. I need start a note book to write down all these things.

oh violet is ready she decided to go broody the day we left ..sheesh...anyways had mny friend kick her out everyday so she is eating n watered going to slip the eggs under her today

Yay! Good luck with your hatch!!

.... Um nice carrot

 

[Alaskan]

@perchie.girl desert climate is all about extremes.. And yes, out there even tomatoes like shade.

You probably need to plant next to walls or wind blocks of some sort... If you make the wall a woven twig/grass fence then it will not reflect heat and make the ground even hotter...

Also, your growing seasons are TOTALLY different than everyone else. I can't remember just how cold you get (I know your temp swings are giant).. But in late fall, and maybe in winter, as long as the day time temps have dropped enough, you can plant all of the cool season crops that don't care if they get some freezes. (Peas, spinach, etc.). Spinach might want a row cover to help keep the wind from blowing away all moisture... You will have to really work with microclimates and see...

Most crops do well in pots (except that pots dry out even faster than the ground-gasp for you- I would pick self watering pots or set up your own self watering system for them)... I would stick pots all over, try in different locations and at different heights..l and as soon as the weather cools down plant all of them with something you like to eat.... Radishes are fun, tasty, and fast, and pretty forgiving in regards to temperatures..... And see... You will then clearly see the differences in microclimate.

 

[Alaskan]

Oh.. I saw one garden in the high desert of New Mexico, and the lady had a lattice kind of roof over all of her tomatoes... It created a dappled shade.

 

[cindydintn1]

huge to me, 5 or 6 inches long. I really don't know how big they get.

That's probably a female getting ready to leave an egg sack. That's about as big as they get. I love those bugs!

 

[perchie.girl]

@perchie.girl desert climate is all about extremes.. And yes, out there even tomatoes like shade.

You probably need to plant next to walls or wind blocks of some sort... If you make the wall a woven twig/grass fence then it will not reflect heat and make the ground even hotter...

Also, your growing seasons are TOTALLY different than everyone else. I can't remember just how cold you get (I know your temp swings are giant).. But in late fall, and maybe in winter, as long as the day time temps have dropped enough, you can plant all of the cool season crops that don't care if they get some freezes. (Peas, spinach, etc.). Spinach might want a row cover to help keep the wind from blowing away all moisture... You will have to really work with microclimates and see...

Most crops do well in pots (except that pots dry out even faster than the ground-gasp for you- I would pick self watering pots or set up your own self watering system for them)... I would stick pots all over, try in different locations and at different heights..l and as soon as the weather cools down plant all of them with something you like to eat.... Radishes are fun, tasty, and fast, and pretty forgiving in regards to temperatures..... And see... You will then clearly see the differences in microclimate.

Oh.. I saw one garden in the high desert of New Mexico, and the lady had a lattice kind of roof over all of her tomatoes... It created a dappled shade.

Ok How about a patio.... I have a patio room that used to be a green house. The opening to the outiside is six by twelve feet and faces south. Therefore it has shade over head and wind protection on three sides.

The floor is concrete so I could set the garden bed right on that... Not to worry there are drains that take water unoff out. This is also the same room i would be doing my Tilapia in. It has water and electricity so I can heat the water tanks during the winter.

It does get very cold but still very dry in the winter. Cold enough to grow apples if I had water.... but not all varieties.

I would love to grow Blackeyed peas, and some squash... I love Acorn squash. and Asparagus.... The space is about 20 x 12 +- total but I cant use it all. Even though its mostly all shade there is an ABUNDANCE of light that comes through that opening. about 80-90 percnent per year



the chicken coop then the horse corral in the back ground. the short wall is two cinderblocks high.... so... maybe eighteen inches? I want to put a garage door in there the roll up kind but I may rethink that if I devote it to a garden room. This opening faces south. The winds come from either north west or south east.... The winds that come from the north west are the strongest by far.... they blow doors off things including cars if you arent careful. and they are the ones that bring extreme heat or extreme cold.

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

Hmm I could still do a garage door for security.... but build out a hanger for the chainlink to keep big critters out... .like goats and ravens....

deb

 

[BriardChickens]

My next garden will also get lost of fruit trees.

apple
lemon (already have a small producing tree at my parents place)
lime
olive (got 2 small ones that will move with us)
peach
plum
and grape vines

hmm, what else?

 

[hennible]

@hennible $4 for cukes, I could have been rich! I've given my father inlaw enough to make five gallons of pickles. I've made fifteen quarts. Going to make a three gallon crock of half sour fermented ones tonight. Have many more to go. Plus we've ate many fresh.
Going to be my first atempt at fermented pickles hopefully they turn out.

Only the big arminian ones are $4, the regular are $3 and pickling are a $1.

My next garden will also get lost of fruit trees. 

apple 
lemon (already have a small producing tree at my parents place)
lime
olive (got 2 small ones that will move with us)
peach
plum
and grape vines

hmm, what else?

Cherries
And berries

 

[Outpost JWB]

My next garden will also get lost of fruit trees.

apple
lemon (already have a small producing tree at my parents place)
lime
olive (got 2 small ones that will move with us)
peach
plum
and grape vines

hmm, what else?

Only the big arminian ones are $4, the regular are $3 and pickling are a $1.
Cherries
And berries

We have pear trees, apple trees, grape vines, blackberry bushes, blueberry, raspberry, and mulberry.

@hennible , Cucumbers go 2 for $1 around here. 3 for $1 for pickling. They grow so easily here. I didn't get much out of our garden this year, but we got an abundance of cucumbers. A lot got fed to the chickens. Couldn't get in the garden to pick then without wearing wading boots!

The pumpkins I posted this morning, I didn't even plant.. They were volunteers from my composting pile.