Past, Present, and Future Gardens

[Matilda Belle]

I have NO shade! I need full sun plants. The land that we have right now has tons of trees but none are around the house or the first 1 1/2 acres of property. It's annoying. It gets so hot here too.

Oops. I misread your post. Squash does great in full sun, as do cucumbers and tomatoes. All I have is full sun on my property as well.

This year I am going to plant buttercup squash. It's even sweeter than butternut. My new favorite.

 

[FortCluck]

Oops. I misread your post. Squash does great in full sun, as do cucumbers and tomatoes. All I have is full sun on my property as well.

This year I am going to plant buttercup squash. It's even sweeter than butternut. My new favorite.

I want it for stir fries

Can you pickle squash? I don't know why but that just came to my head right now.

I want to pickle onions, garlic, cucumbers. I also want to can salsa and tomatoes.

 

[Meg-in-MT]

Since my orchard is finally done, I'll be focusing solely on aesthetics with perennials and my vegetable garden this year.

Past successes - Growing tomato plants in 1/2 whiskey barrels with complementary plants and herbs in various smaller pots. Garden always has potatoes, onions, rhubarb (perennial, though it's had a rough couple years and might need replaced), radishes (yuck, but fun to grow), carrots, kohlrabi, peas, corn (never had much luck), peppers, a variety of lettuce, cucumbers etc. Pumpkin patch has been neglected the last couple years, but I've got a great variety to plant this year.

I'm no master gardener by any stretch and can't wait to learn!

Biggest goal for this year is preservation of what I grow.

 

[Matilda Belle]

I want it for stir fries

Can you pickle squash? I don't know why but that just came to my head right now.

I want to pickle onions, garlic, cucumbers. I also want to can salsa and tomatoes.

I don't know. I've never pickled squash, just cucumbers. I can cucumbers and tomatoes. Tomatoes are much easier. It's hard to get the right pickle. I've been trying for years and mine always turn out too sour. I don't like them sweet, but I don't like them super sour either. I need to balance it out, but unfortunately it takes weeks/months of sitting in my cabinet before I can test taste and tweak for the next year.

 

[Kris5902]

I don’t have much to do with the farm gardens here... but this was my city house Garden in summer 2017. The pictures are from the “dressing up” of the yard for the sale, so there’s a whole lot of annual flowers instead of my veggies

The big tree on the Boulevard is a Cherry with small but Ranier like fruits, the rose by the stairs needed more sun, we had several large (60+ ft tall) pines in the front yard for shade. To the right in the small bed I had started 4 dwarf blueberries in spring, for a large hedge. They didn’t survive the new owners.

The raised bed on my patio terrace was where I grew my full sun tomatoes, cherries varieties and colorful heirloom slicers. The raised beds (4x10) in the background were for my zucchini, cucumber, lettuces, kale, chard, and potatoes. I never did well with beets, carrots, turnips, or radishes in this garden. I had started a grape vine trellising along the lattice fence. This was the good neighbor side There was a rock herb spiral or another raised bed planned for the grass near the hot tub. I did grow flowers in the bed under the eaves (usually marigolds, spring bulbs, and other random annuals)

In the back corner of the fence is my young grafted Apple tree with several fruit varieties (Fuji, Gravensteins, Liberty, Honeycrisp, and Empire) and I usually trellised beans and peas up this fence. This long bed was where also where I grew my bush beans, along with the volunteer cosmos and columbines. I had planned a small greenhouse to butt up against the wall of the garage under the window, and was collecting the glass for it. Edit to add: I also had a small garden pond planned for the lower corner of the patio, and most of the supplies to put it in, but got distracted by putting in our beloved hot tub. Sigh...

I built and stained all the custom fences and lattice myself, from cedar from the family farm where we are now living. The privacy slatted fence being 4-5’ high before the lattice, but built atop a 3’ concrete retaining wall up from the boulevard and sidewalk level. To trellis my peas I just put in nails and string lines in the fencing, it was 1” full measure boards on full measure 2x4 framing. The “posts” are actually cladding the existing chain link posts that were set into the concrete wall when it was poured, carriage bolted right through the post. I also built the entire patio and retaining wall myself with concrete blocks, 12x18” colored concrete field slabs and darker “trio” pavers for the stairs, walkway, and retaining wall facia.

Then we sold the house and my little garden paradise shortly after I got it all mostly “done”, and moved to the family farm. So, now I have chickens, and will start another garden once my house is built, hopefully. I do miss it awfully.

 

[FortCluck]

I don’t have much to do with the farm gardens here... but this was my city house Garden in summer 2017. The pictures are from the “dressing up” of the yard for the sale, so there’s a whole lot of annual flowers instead of my veggiesView attachment 1995776The big tree on the Boulevard is a Cherry with small but Ranier like fruits, the rose by the stairs needed more sun, we had several large (60+ ft tall) pines in the front yard for shade. To the right in the small bed I had started 4 dwarf blueberries in spring, for a large hedge. They didn’t survive the new owners.
View attachment 1995774
The raised bed on my patio terrace was where I grew my full sun tomatoes, cherries varieties and colorful heirloom slicers. The raised beds (4x10) in the background were for my zucchini, cucumber, lettuces, kale, chard, and potatoes. I never did well with beets, carrots, turnips, or radishes in this garden. I had started a grape vine trellising along the lattice fence. This was the good neighbor side There was a rock herb spiral or another raised bed planned for the grass near the hot tub. I did grow flowers in the bed under the eaves (usually marigolds, spring bulbs, and other random annuals)
View attachment 1995773
In the back corner of the fence is my young grafted Apple tree with several fruit varieties (Fuji, Gravensteins, Liberty, Honeycrisp, and Empire) and I usually trellised beans and peas up this fence. This long bed was where also where I grew my bush beans, along with the volunteer cosmos and columbines. I had planned a small greenhouse to butt up against the wall of the garage under the window, and was collecting the glass for it.

I built and stained all the custom fences and lattice myself, from cedar from the family farm where we are now living. The privacy slatted fence being 4-5’ high before the lattice, but built atop a 3’ concrete retaining wall up from the boulevard and sidewalk level. To trellis my peas I just put in nails and string lines in the fencing, it was 1” full measure boards on full measure 2x4 framing. The “posts” are actually cladding the existing chain link posts that were set into the concrete wall when it was poured, carriage bolted right through the post. I also built the entire patio and retaining wall myself with concrete blocks, 12x18” colored concrete field slabs and darker “trio” pavers for the stairs, walkway, and retaining wall facia.

Then we sold the house and my little garden paradise shortly after I got it all mostly “done”, and moved to the family farm. So, now I have chickens, and will start another garden once my house is built, hopefully.

Really pretty!

 

[NHMountainMan]

Past successes - Growing tomato plants in 1/2 whiskey barrels

Please, please, please tell me the tomatoes took on a smoky, oaky taste of a good bourbon!

 

[Kris5902]

Really pretty!

Thanks! The professional photographer and all my “chuck in some colorful annuals to sell the house, as there’s not really a huge market for urban permaculture design here”, makes it look pretty. Normally the beds were a little* more messy looking, but full of veggies. We also had a nasty drought that summer.

 

[Meg-in-MT]

Please, please, please tell me the tomatoes took on a smoky, oaky taste of a good bourbon!

Haha, wouldn't that be an interesting thing! I believe these are "whiskey" barrels that I bought at Home Depot

Do you water bath and pressure can or just pressure can? I use a ton of canned tomatoes throughout the year and would love more than anything to never have to buy them. Do you can all varieties (diced, whole, sauce etc)?

 

[Meg-in-MT]

. I do miss it awfully.

Very nice! My garden is usually not very pretty (weeds, weeds, and more weeds), but it grows well

I missed my time frame the year before last to get my garden in and it was so depressing.