Gardening for Old Folks (Adaptative)

[henless]

Your beds are beautiful! And as a not tall person, I'm a big fan of how you used the cattle panels. I did a similar thing with tomatoes. I fenced the yard with it too as a grape/kiwi/cucumber trellis.
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Love your beds! Are they prefab or did you make them yourself?

My garden isn't as pretty as those I have seen on this site. I just stacked some cinder blocks and put down landscaping cloth and filled with garden soil and chicken poop. I have three of these beds and really enjoy not bending down to the ground.

Cinder blocks rock! They don't rot or fall apart like wooden beds do. I've had a small cinder block bed in front of my coop for a few years. Love it!

This year we're converting my wooden raised beds into cinder beds about 2 blocks high for now. There's always the option of raising them higher if needed.

 

[nminusyplusm]

Love your beds! Are they prefab or did you make them yourself?

They are prefab. I only made the trellis.

 

[nminusyplusm]

For my three beds I mixed two batches of: 1) 5 pounds lime, 2) 1 oz borax, and 3) 4oz of Epsom salt and evenly distributed it and turned it in. I also added a pound of the mittleider premix fertilizer to the two 12' beds and a pound, 12 oz to the 20' bed. Then watered it and let it rest a week before planting. As to why, well pretty much because the book said so I find soil science really confusing and tend to look for books published in the 30's to try and weave between modern science (aka dump chemicals at it) and real science using nature and natural ingredients. I tend to rely on rodale and mother earth to keep me on the right path. But in the end, I have no earthly idea what I'm doing and just stumble along. Sometimes I get lucky.

I forgot that I watered and let it rest too, I think it's to give the mycorrhizae in the soil time to establish.

 

[Beer can]

Sorry, just had to share this for any who haven't heard it, this thread reminded me of it.

 

[chickadoodles]

 

[lazy gardener]

Maybe my husband will like canning. I just need to get the garden to grow more.

My hubby, so not the farmer, so not the cook will hang out in the kitchen and help me with the canning. I know he would never admit it in a thousand years, but... I think he finds the process fascinating. In his younger days, he had a photography business, complete with a dark room. So, playing with chemicals, and exact processing times must be the common link for him. Any how, I'm delighted to have the help, and the company, and thinking this is the beginning of planting a seed of interest that will continue to grow.

Tomatoes and peppers are hydroponic.

Please, more details about how you have your system set up.

This thread has some truly stunning and educational sustainable garden porn.

I'm all aquiver with excitement! Taking a while to get caught up this morning. This thread and the many ideas and pics are an oasis in the middle of a winter desert.

Be careful what you wish for! Lol. The bf LOVES the end product of canning and now has plans to increase the garden another 20 feet...at least! Lol

Lucky you. I'd be planting an idea seed right about now: If you're gonna increase it by 20', perhaps 30' might be better. And perhaps 40' would be just right. It would allow wider spacing between the beds, or even more beds, and would even make room so the girls could work areas of the garden in a tractor that I would build.

For my three beds I mixed two batches of: 1) 5 pounds lime, 2) 1 oz borax, and 3) 4oz of Epsom salt and evenly distributed it and turned it in. I also added a pound of the mittleider premix fertilizer to the two 12' beds and a pound, 12 oz to the 20' bed. Then watered it and let it rest a week before planting. As to why, well pretty much because the book said so I find soil science really confusing and tend to look for books published in the 30's to try and weave between modern science (aka dump chemicals at it) and real science using nature and natural ingredients. I tend to rely on rodale and mother earth to keep me on the right path. But in the end, I have no earthly idea what I'm doing and just stumble along. Sometimes I get lucky.

What is the size of your beds? I'm particularly looking at the application rate of borax per sq. ft. Have you ever had your soil tested, particulary for Boron? I had never heard of mittleider gardening. Need to do more research. Name of book please? Or resource? Rodale and Mother Earth are the gardener's bible of the granola days. Good stuff that never gets old.

An other book I drool over is Joy of Gardening by Dick Raymond. He was a Garden Way (aka Troybilt) guru, pioneer of wide row planting. He was also pretty entrenched in big chemical. But I can forgive him for that. B/C he was also a huge advocate for multi crop planting and green manure systems to limit the need for chemical fertilizers. His book makes nice drool material on a cold winter's night. He shook up the notion that a garden should consist of lots of naked soil interspersed with single rows of mono crops marching up and down the length of the garden. He did abuse his soil with his Troybilt, but achieved incredible results b/c he fed his soil with abundant addition of green matter.

Trellises: Frequent use of trellises make gardens much more user friendly, whether one is physically limited or not. Cattle panels make the ultimate indestructible trellis. Once the T posts are driven, they can stay in place from year to year. At that point, you can even mount your CP and leave that up through the winter as well. CP are galvanized, and will not rust. Previous poster had a CP trellis that spanned 2 beds. I really liked that concept, b/c the gardener can walk UNDER the trellis to pick the fruit, which will hang down on the inside, to make for super easy picking.

I also use an old swing set. The beauty of those old metal swing sets is: They are practically indestructible. They can be easily moved from one location to an other, making it easy for annual crop rotation. The usable length can easily be expanded by adding a length of conduit to either end. (my swing set, which is now 35+ years old) has holes in the metal framing at either end which perfectly fit the conduit. I then drill 1" holes in the ends of (2) 2 x 4's, slide the conduit through those holes so they support the far end of the conduit in an A frame style, and bury the ends of the 2 x 4's in the soil to hold them in place. If needed, the top of the A frame at conduit x 2 x 4 union can be tied with twine. The down side of an A frame style trellis is that the veggies hang on the INSIDE of the frame. This requires leaning in to pick the fruit/veggies. I have overcome this obstacle somewhat by using a spare piece of conduit as a leaning post on the swing set. I simply place it as needed against the top rail of the swingset, and use it like a monkey bar to allow me to lean in as needed. The top of this piece is drilled with a nut/bolt so that the conduit does not slide away from where I place it. I often have something planted under the vining crop so I try not to step inside the A frame. My typical crop is Fortex Pole beans. Inside, I've planted lettuce, spinach or other such leafy greans. This year, I planted wine cap mushrooms!

 

[RollTideChicken]

I'm jumping in here just to keep up...
Heck I aint old but I like things easy! My old man can garden circles around me but he's very old school and labors hard in his garden. My guess is I'll catch up...in 20 or so years

 

[lazy gardener]

My Dad is 92. That man could grow a 2# tomato in the middle of a gravel driveway. I caught my love of gardening, and all things animal/nature from him.

 

[CapricornFarm]

I'm trying to picture where you're at in VA. I spent 20 years in springfield. We've got a friend out here in roanoke and I'm so jealous... Great feed just down the road from her.

We are near Gretna, though our address says Chatham. On one of the loops of the Pigg River. Lovely how the river loops around the property like a horseshoe!

 

[deepbluesea]

Well, I have like an inch or two of top soil, then rock and then red clay. So trying to make a soil that will work well and is easy to weed. I've probably got a hundred garden books, but still just don't really get the whole soil farming thing. So I read and look for things I have or can get a hold of and go from there. Here's a look at my garden that went in late spring.
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Tomatoes and peppers are hydroponic.

Beautiful!!