What did you do in the garden today?

[erinszoo]

Cool herb planter. What a neat idea. Boo on the broken toe though.

We bought more gutter to make a bigger strawberry garden. Going to add a fourth tier to the one we've done and make another one four tiers too, all full of strawberries. Also working on a straw bale garden section for squash and okra. It's an experiment for the year. We have a driveway that runs down one whole side of our property to a garage at the back but because our *^@#$%* neighbors decided they didn't want us using it, they built a fence that keeps us from being able to drive up and down it without scraping our car ... anyhoo, we moved to parking behind our garage from the alley on a gravel pad and now we have this whole big long concrete area that is not being used. So we decided to be nice and not plop our compost heap in the middle of it but wanted to use it somehow. Straw bale gardening seems like the best way to go without having to purchase dirt or wait for compost to finish to build beds with. We'll see how it goes and hope our neighbors don't decide to spray weed killer all over our drive again ...

 

[cmcanallen]

I want to try the gutter gardening so bad but my husband has cut me off from buying anything else for the garden this year. So unless I find some in the trash somewhere, that'll be a fall project.

Sucks to have crappy neighbors. Just a question, did they build the fence on your property to get it so close to the driveway? If you get a survey done and that's so, normally they have to take the fence down and rebuild within their property lines. Otherwise, maybe put up posts on your side with clear painters tarps attached to protect your haybales incase they decide to go a little crazy with the weedkiller.

 

[MrsH527]

I was able to get my yellow squash and bush beans in the ground. While I'm at work today, my wonderful and helpful (most of the time) husband is preparing the rest of the soil in the beds for me to plant the rest of my plants. I started them about 3 weeks ago and I've got a ton of really nice veggies shooting up! This is extra exciting for me, because I might have the blackest thumb ever! I tried catnip, parsley, rosemary, and cilantro one time and mangaged to kill it all within 2 weeks. The rosemary was even really healthy when my mom gave it to me and it was sticks when I was done with it. Glad to know I can actually keep things alive. It was making me nervous to have children one day!

The plants that will be planted this afternoon include broccoli, cauliflower, sugar daddy snap peas, cilantro (again), "Big Boy" tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, sunflower, lettuce, carrots, okra, red/yellow/green/orange belles, jalepenos, and a few more that I can't remember right now. Hoping to have some pics soon of my garden!

 

[kian]

I got the first gutter yesterday. I am seriously so excited for the amount of growing space these will add. We only bought one last night, because we wanted to make sure we could figure out how to do this correctly and we found there is tweaking needed. One gutter is 10 feet and we're keeping it that length as it's against our side wall. We plan to do 3 down (maybe 4, it depends) and I can fit 3 across just in the garden area alone. Super super excited about this! Onions and garlic are going in the first group: I can have plenty of green onions and garlic and the gutter is just wide enough for smaller onions to grow. Can't have the huge ones but that's ok. This will free up so much space in my raised beds.

Next grouping I want to try strawberries and one for lettuces (leafy ones, not heads, romaine should work well I hope). Radishes would be awesome here too.

SO EXCITED!

 

[ohiochick2013]

I started some rhubarb, basil, oregano, and luffa. All totally new for me! I hope they grow alright.

 

[HenFriend]

Was planning to re-sow broad beans as only half of mine germinated. tried a new variety last year but disappointed. Have given up on those and bought a packet of Karmazyn broad beans instead. Also need to get the jalapenos started.... It is raining heavily so I may change my mind, they are forecasting cold and snow in a few days time, apparently its been the coldest March for over 20 years. Getting impatient to get going. At least my tomatoes and eggplant in my living room are looking good and the leeks, cauliflower and purple podded peas are coming along nicely in the greenhouse.

 

[erinszoo]

I got the first gutter yesterday. I am seriously so excited for the amount of growing space these will add. We only bought one last night, because we wanted to make sure we could figure out how to do this correctly and we found there is tweaking needed. One gutter is 10 feet and we're keeping it that length as it's against our side wall. We plan to do 3 down (maybe 4, it depends) and I can fit 3 across just in the garden area alone. Super super excited about this! Onions and garlic are going in the first group: I can have plenty of green onions and garlic and the gutter is just wide enough for smaller onions to grow. Can't have the huge ones but that's ok. This will free up so much space in my raised beds.

Next grouping I want to try strawberries and one for lettuces (leafy ones, not heads, romaine should work well I hope). Radishes would be awesome here too.

SO EXCITED!

Yeah! Post pics as you get them done. We got another two gutters and added a fourth tier to the one we had done and built a second one four tiers as well. Ours are all filled with strawberries. We wanted to get them off the ground 1) to make them harder for the chickens to get to and 2) to keep them out of the grip of pill bugs (roly polys, sow bugs, whatever you call them). There's nothing worse than watching a nice big beautiful red strawberry ripening up and going to pick it only to find a hollow shell full of pill bugs. Ugh.

It's been extraordinarily warm here the last two days, like in the upper 70's and low 80's. Our greenhouse got up to 108.

Needless to say we moved all the plants we could outside and watered the heck out of them all. I picked a little bit of lettuce - we grow cutting mix - but, sadly and kind of amusingly, we didn't eat it. The ducks and banty chickens ate it all instead. Lol. Going to finish up two raised beds tomorrow and get the onions in the ground finally. I'm waaaay late on them.

 

[ohiochick2013]

Ugh! Strawberry full of pill bugs! Oh how gross (disappointing). I'm just excited for 50 degree weather. LOL.

 

[erinszoo]

Well, after two days of absolutely amazingly beautiful 70+ degree weather and sunshine, it's been miserable and cold the last couple. Sure has put me in a foul mood. Got some of the cucumbers planted into the garden beds in the greenhouse. Decided it was time since they were blooming already. Lol. I have ironbark squash blooming too which I need to pinch off since the plant isn't big enough to support any fruiting yet. Only a couple of more days and I can plant in my hay bales!

 

[MrsH527]

Pretty upset about all this rain. I obviously want some, but this is ridiculous! My poor broccoli and cauliflower and lettuce don't stand a chance. Went out there last night and some of them had been crushed. Luckily I seeded some extras so I can easily replace them. It just sucks.
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