Homesteaders

[chicken-lady13]

Hey Kentucky Chick u must live kind of close to me. I live in western Kentucky to. My tomatoes were about seven feet tall and covered in fruit this year, but my okra got washed away. I was to lazy to replant it. I got all my tomatoes off before that frost last week thank goodness. I try to help Newbie all I can but I to have never dealt with her kind of soil and growing conditions. I guess the ideals I give her is just a hit or miss and we will have to see how she turns out. Which I'm praying for the best turn out for her.

 

[rancher hicks]

I love that country living magazine to !! I get a lot of my ideals from them also and a few others. I really enjoy the birds in bloom , country, and farm and ranch magazines. They have great ideals in them and good articles to read and BEAUTIFUL pictures.

I've taken a fancy to the British version of Country Living. or is it Country Gardens?

 

[heidisue]

Okay, I should introduce myself I follow this thread, but I've only posted a couple times. I grew up in Illinois, and lived there, Kansas, and Missouri in the past ten years. We just moved to a house just outside tucson, az (a year ago) so I am setting up a "homestead" on our one acre property. The biggest challenge so far has been figuring out what and how gardening works out here and I'm still working on that, lol! I added chickens in February and we put solar power on the house in August.

As far as gardening goes... I made raised beds. Container gardening worked great in the Midwest, but its hard to keep from drying out here. Here are my beds:

Sorry about the iPod pic! They are concrete blocks with caps. I left the corners open and I have herbs in those - they are growing good, but I haven't had luck with too much else this last season. I think the soil I bought is crap the herbs are in my compost. Work in progress...

 

[newbie32]

Okay, I should introduce myself

I follow this thread, but I've only posted a couple times. I grew up in Illinois, and lived there, Kansas, and Missouri in the past ten years. We just moved to a house just outside tucson, az (a year ago) so I am setting up a "homestead" on our one acre property. The biggest challenge so far has been figuring out what and how gardening works out here and I'm still working on that, lol! I added chickens in February and we put solar power on the house in August.

As far as gardening goes... I made raised beds. Container gardening worked great in the Midwest, but its hard to keep from drying out here. Here are my beds:



Sorry about the iPod pic! They are concrete blocks with caps. I left the corners open and I have herbs in those - they are growing good, but I haven't had luck with too much else this last season. I think the soil I bought is crap

the herbs are in my compost. Work in progress...

Grandma lived in Tuscan for 10 years. I live in another desert over here in California. I feel your pain as far as what will grow and what wont. Your climate is not like mine but at least we can cry on eachothers shoulders when something fails because we will understand the pain! I lost ALL of my seeds that I had and I hunted all day for them. Tomorrow I will buy more and then I will tell you what I plant-cucumbers guaranteed!!! I LOVE THEM!!!!

 

[rancher hicks]

Okay, I should introduce myself

I follow this thread, but I've only posted a couple times. I grew up in Illinois, and lived there, Kansas, and Missouri in the past ten years. We just moved to a house just outside tucson, az (a year ago) so I am setting up a "homestead" on our one acre property. The biggest challenge so far has been figuring out what and how gardening works out here and I'm still working on that, lol! I added chickens in February and we put solar power on the house in August.

As far as gardening goes... I made raised beds. Container gardening worked great in the Midwest, but its hard to keep from drying out here. Here are my beds:



Sorry about the iPod pic! They are concrete blocks with caps. I left the corners open and I have herbs in those - they are growing good, but I haven't had luck with too much else this last season. I think the soil I bought is crap

the herbs are in my compost. Work in progress...

They look great. I suggest adding lots of Peat Moss. It will help retain water. I also suggest checking your local garden shop to see what sorts of things would be good.

My DS and his lived in AL and I realized that while I may plant somethings at a certain time of year here, I'd be planting them at a different time there. There summers would be too hot for some things. I'd be planting them in the spring, fall or even winter there.

We may have a CA, AR thread on BYC that may help.

You definitely want to mulch to help retain water too. Some good mulches are hay, straw, newspaper and cardboard.

I wish you well,

Rancher

 

[CedarAcres]

Anyone here grow veggies through the winter in a greenhouse? We're in Connecticut and have in the past had tomatoes all the way through February and lots of greens. We don't have a huge greenhouse but it's worked well for the last 15 years. I think it's time for us to upgrade though because the last few years it's been getting tight. I started selling our extra plants in the spring that we didn't need, but people really liked them so now I have a demand every year and we've started to not have enough room.

 

[MoonShadows]

May I ask you what type of greenhouse you have? I am in NE PA, so we share the same winters. I plan on building a greenhouse this spring....in fact I'm on the internet right now pricing Cedar. Is yours wood, metal; do you have glass, plastic, polycarbonate; do you have a heating source? I would love to grow veggies year round.

 

[CedarAcres]

Ours is in the backround of this photo:




The frame is metal and the panels are plastic I believe (I'll have to double check with my husband though). My great uncle ordered it from a catalog about 15 years ago. We've never used a heating source in it, although we've used fans in the summer/spring because it gets HOT in there. Although I haven't used any electricity out there the last three years since we dug up the wiring. We need to put a shade cover on starting in the spring or it just gets wayy too hot. In the middle of the summer with the shade cover on & door open & vent it can get over 120 degrees. In the winter it gets up to 80 or 90 during the day with the door shut. At night the temp drops obviously, but as long as you don't open the door in the later part of the day it retains a lot of the heat during the night. We would always put one of those thermometers that transmits the temp to the house (my uncle went crazy for those.. one in each chicken coop, one in the goat barn, one in the greenhouse lol!). The only problem is when there is heavy heavy snow like the last few years, it's popped a few panels out and they've fallen inside along with all the snow. But the good thing is that the panels haven't ever broken.

I just found these of when it was new:





There are now tables on both sides and raised beds underneath the tables.

 

[heidisue]

They look great.  I suggest adding lots of Peat Moss.  It will help retain water.  I also suggest checking your local garden shop to see what sorts of things would be good.  

My DS and his lived in AL and I realized that while I may plant somethings at a certain time of year here, I'd be planting them at a different time there.  There summers would be too hot for some things.  I'd be planting them in the spring, fall or even winter there.  

We may have a CA, AR thread on BYC that may help.  

You definitely want to mulch to help retain water too.  Some good mulches are hay, straw, newspaper and cardboard.  

I wish you well, 

Rancher

Thanks I love the az thread! I successfully grew a few things (corn, peppers) but they were stunted, which is why I'm leaning toward soil issues. The herbs grew great in the compost! My compost is awesome too - super fast. We have two good seasons here, our first season is pretty similar to the Midwest except it starts in Jan/Feb instead of Mar/Apr. not much will make it through the hot months so we take a break when everybody else is in full garden mode and our second season starts sep/oct with the cooler loving plants.

On the plus side, my trees are doing excellent. I have an orange, lime, and tangerine. I want to add a few more at least!

 

[heidisue]

Love the greenhouse cedar! Hubby used to work at a nursery and had a greenhouse at his home, but I have never used one. I can't say I have any ideas for snow load on the roof though - you could go with glass instead of the plastic, but that might be crazy expensive.