What did you do in the garden today?

[Sueby]

I plan to try training the zuc and cucumbers to climb this year. Never enough room for everything I want to grow. I'd really like one more bed just for onions. Well, maybe 2 and raise garlic and shallots in the second bed.

I totally get that! DH keeps giving me a hard time since most of our yard is now garden. Every year I add on but it's never enough. & I am sooo excited to grow my bush squash UP!

@Sueby - so an idea hit me today... I'm planning on building some small raised beds (3 ft L x 1 ft W x 18" H) and arch some plastic lattice between them. Think of the McDonald's golden arches... The purpose of these beds is to grow my Butterfly Peas and Runner Beans. However, I was thinking about the space under the arches between the boxes. There won't be a ton of room under there. Maybe 3 ft x 2.5 ft under each arch... But I was wondering if the lattice work and flowers could provide enough shade for lettuce to grow?

That's where my lettuce is this year! My trellis is a cattle panel so I figure it will get great sun till the green beans grow big, then it will be great shade for hot summer. Give it a try, I sure would think a trellis would provide great shade for the lettuce!

Those are lovely mixes of herbs with a bit of lettuce thrown in! Once it grows in it should be gorgeous. I hope you have it near the kitchen door, I know for mw, the closer to the kitchen the more I use my fresh herbs.

I'm betting it depends on how wet your planting area is. Here, you have to jump back once it touches the ground and hope it doesn't outrun you. Seriously! We planted some in a old cast iron bathtub that was left in our backyard at our first home in Portland. It filled the tub frighteningly fast. But even before that, it shot out runners in all directions and tried to escape to the main garden. The only plant that I've seen that is worse for spreading is Creeping Jenny.

As someone else said, I'd nip off the leaves from about half way down and maybe lay the pots on the side and once they reorient, either up-pot them or plant them outside if the weather permits.

Oh lord, please don't put that mint in the ground in your main garden. Once it goes nuts, you'd have to get every scrap out or it'll regrow.

I'm so sorry Sueby, that sounds miserable.

We've tried to mix varieties of mint the the same pot but the common mint always outgrows everything and fills the pot with roots. We uproot it, trim it back roots (it always looks like there is no soil at all) and all then replant it to let it go nuts again.

I've been tempted to plant it in wet ditches in the past. Actually did once and I figure whoever lives there now curses me.

Oh THIS! I have a 8 gallon pot of the stuff in front of the covered run and thanks to you, I'll put it into the open run today!

Oh man that stuff is so hard to dig out. If you try to pull it up like a normal weed, you end up with a handful of leaves and the root stays put. Try dynamite.

You mint sounds like my horseradish! I do wonder how much depends on the variety too, or maybe the zone it's in. Mine is so tame compared but maybe because it dies every winter & has to regrow?

Morning all. Took it easy yesterday so I only got the starts out for a couple hours, got the onions & garlic side dressed, watered everything & laid out the irrigation for the other end of the garden. DH kept poking his head out & yelling at me 'thought you were taking it easy today'...

I would like to start some more starts but I just don't have the room till the others go out to my little mini makeshift greenhouse, but we have some 30s in the forecast this week so I want that to pass & then boot them out. Heres hoping!

 

[IvysAnimals]

4 rose bushes, 2 lilies, 1 daffodil, and 1 Eastern Redbud and 1 Crabapple

 

[638858]

Just checked rain gauge I got 2 inches of skywater over night.. slow steady rain.. and it’s still raining and will until noon.. we need every drop..

 

[SheaLoner]

Yes, Dock is a wild edible.. you’d be surprised what all “weeds” people get rid of that are edible and quite nutritious and beneficial to man... what a concept, almost like someone planned it that way... with coming food shortages it may be time to learn what’s growing in your area that you and your family can use to supplement your diets.. animals too.. but always positively identify anything you are not familiar with.. before consuming..

A LOT of really good wild edibles out there. I am partial to wood sorrel and purslane. May be known to stop while mowing and grab a snack.
But dock can go be edible and medicinal somewhere other then my garden.

 

[littledog]

Just barely caught up, so sorry if some of these quotes are old...

little dog: I'd be careful of the "waterplants". My experience: I used to work @ a minicipal water plant. Our holding ponds grew lots of aquatic plants. Many different kinds. I decided to compost some. Mind you I'm not a very good composter but finally got, what I thought, a decent compost outta the pile. Added it to the garden and almost immediately Stuff started sprouting in my garden that had never grown anywhere around my house. It was the plants that I had supposedly composted. Took me years to finally get it all outta the garden!

Thank you! You helped with my decision to avoid this. I have plenty of compost sources I can trust, I'll stick with those.

For asparagus growers out there.
I have had an asparagus bed for about 10 yre. Last few years the quality has been goin downhill. Spears gettin thinner. This year they are really not worth harvesting. I think I read somewhere, a while back that the plants have a limited life of a few years. Any truth to that?

Unfortunately yes. Our asparagus bed finally is done, after probably 20+ years. We bought our place in 2009 with a thriving asparagus bed, and for several years before we bought the place, I used to see the asparagus as I was driving by.
Last year, all the spears were tiny, so this year we made a pen there for our roosters to till up and fertilize. This fall we'll move the roosters and replant the bed with new asparagus crowns. It'll be hard to wait another two or so years for fresh asparagus, but I still have quite a few cans of picked to use in recipes.

taking care of puppy ashes, ugly cried all the way home from the vet yesterday. :::crying:::: then plant therapy.

Oh, I'm so sorry. It's so hard when you lose them - plant therapy is real. Ours is the willow tree where they are buried, that is growing so big and beautiful.

I also started putting down cardboard in the garden as a weed stop. For those of you who have used this method, what do you use to tack it down so it doesn't blow away? I'm currently using landscaping pins but I can easily see those will disintegrate or simply tear through the cardboard eventually.

I used this for the first time last year and the results were amazing. I don't tack it down, I just timed it to get a chip drop, so that I cover the cardboard with a thick layer of wood chips right away, and stamp it down.

the tape that I was too lazy to remove from the cardboard before laying it all out.

I'm so lucky that my workplace collects so much cardboard that I can pick and choose, and get plain flat pieces with no tape.

Saw this the other day from HOSS tools. Anyone use this Florida weave style for trellising tomatoes? I was probably gonna cheat and use the old round cages I have floating around, but this looks better.

I used a similar method for the first time last year, with good results. Had a big learning curve though - started with jute twine, which broke when the tomatoes got too big and heavy. Switched to baling twine, which worked well until the tomatoes got so heavy with fruit that their weight bent the U-posts. Still, I got way more tomatoes than in past years when I was using the old round cages. At least I was diligent about removing suckers and keeping maturing fruit off the ground and getting airflow to the ripening fruits.
This year I'm going to start out with heavy-duty T-posts and baling twine, even though it seems like overkill when my tomato seedlings are so tiny.

We've had such perfect weather the past two weekends, and got so much done! Last Friday we picked up the trees and shrubs ordered from our conservation district, and actually got them all planted that day. Most in the ground to replace ones we lost in last year's heat wave, and some small ones in pots. Saturday I went around with many wheelbarrow loads of chips and mulched them, then we worked on dismantling two 4x8 wooden crates that will become the rest of the raised beds I need, plus an 8x8 shed for goats we want to get next year.

This past Friday I up-potted my tomatoes and luffas, set up an area for them in the laundry room with a grow light, filled a raised bed around the chicken coop with chips and compost and planted wildflowers, pulled up the weeds in the wood chip walkways. Composted the tire beds and planted dill and 4 strawberry plants.

Saturday, I mowed around the house while Mr. Dog used the brush-cutter, then while he mowed the field on the rider, I dug up an 18x10 section of the garden, covered it with cardboard, and wheelbarrowed load after load of wood chips to cover it. I was so tired and my back was aching, so Mr. Dog did the last 4 loads for me, then we sat outside with coffee and admired how nice our place looks when it's mowed and trimmed up,

The new garden section is ready for 4 new raised beds, they will be 36"x 84" so Sunday I sorted out the wood, measured and marked it, went to our local hardware store and bought plain boiled linseed oil to treat it. Then had to go to work, and we're expecting intermittent rain this week (good for our new trees) so next weekend I'll cut the boards, treat them with the linseed oil, and hopefully construct the new beds and install them. Just in time to plant out some tomatoes, squash and melons! I love Spring!

 

[TJAnonymous]

That's when you spray yourself with Americane or Solarcane and get on with it.

Well, I didn't go that far but I did go buy some sunscreen, put on a long sleeved shirt, and went back outside!

 

[TJAnonymous]

A LOT of really good wild edibles out there. I am partial to wood sorrel and purslane. May be known to stop while mowing and grab a snack.
But dock can go be edible and medicinal somewhere other then my garden.

I bought a couple of books a while back that are very useful:

Edible Wild Plants: Eastern/Central North America (Peterson Field Guides)​

Peterson Field Guide To Medicinal Plants & Herbs Of Eastern & Central N. America: Third Edition (Peterson Field Guides)​

 

[TJAnonymous]

what is humidity in summer? I cannot grow lettuce due to lack of humidity, it becomes woody.

We have pretty high humidity here through the summer. I'll have to look up the average but as an example, I turned my incubator on 2 days ago and didn't add any water. The humidity is sitting at 64%. We turned the air conditioner on because it was really hot outside and the incubator humidity dropped to 41%.

 

[TJAnonymous]

For the record, I also bought a laminated leaflet from TSC this weekend that shows all the mushrooms in Arkansas. It provides pictures, habitats, and also tells you whether they are poisonous, edible but tasteless, or edible and highly prized delicacies. Quite interesting!

 

[WthrLady]

Cleaning the shop yesterday did a number on my sinus'. Surprise, Not.
I still need one more shelf, so if I can pull my head together, I'll be back down to Menards to grab a shelf and a new mailbox while I'm down there (moving it to the other side of the driveway.)
Tonight will be down to 31, so I'll cover in the hoophouse. I caught the mouse, gave it to the hens. Will trap again tonight in case he had friends.
Thinking of moving the seedlings to the greenhouse and then back to the workshop at night. It's about that time of year. Nothing below 45 at night for the next week after tomorrow. Below 50 and I'll put things inside for the night, back and forth, back and forth. LOL.
I forgot to water the horehound for two days. I may have killed it. Grumpf.
Alrighty, I'm off.
Have a good day.

Got a hankering for cod last night (the only fish I can eat), and then I wanted hushuppies, BIG TIME, I haven't made them since we lived in Florida. They were delicious. Turns out what my brain really wanted was lemon and horseradish. LOL.