What did you do in the garden today?

[jnicholes]

Oooo! I love ballet, even though I've only seen a few! What are you going to see?

I’ve seen is The Rite of Spring, and I’ll tell you this, it was the weirdest thing I ever saw.

I also saw part of The Nutcracker.

 

[Sally PB]

Today I pulled 4 buckets of weeds, and dug up a patch of grass. I should be digging the entire perimeter of the garden the way I dug today, but it would take 15 of me to do in a reasonable time.

While I was digging the grass, I found a lot of grubs. I stopped counting at 50, and that was about half. Most were small to medium sized. I read that they spend 3 years growing underground before they pupate and come up as Japanese Beetles. Based on their size, I'd estimate they were 1-2 years old. The chickens ate them all. And the 4 wire worms I found too.

 

[TJAnonymous]

70 more to go. Waiting for DH to bring home some more potting mix.
And the section I thought was only 40 was double planted so instead of 4 in a 4 cell, there are 8 in a 4 cell. I'll not make that mistake again in spring.
I just hate tossing seeds. LOL.

The amount of tomatoes you have always astounds me...

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

Today I pulled 4 buckets of weeds, and dug up a patch of grass. I should be digging the entire perimeter of the garden the way I dug today, but it would take 15 of me to do in a reasonable time.

While I was digging the grass, I found a lot of grubs. I stopped counting at 50, and that was about half. Most were small to medium sized. I read that they spend 3 years growing underground before they pupate and come up as Japanese Beetles. Based on their size, I'd estimate they were 1-2 years old. The chickens ate them all. And the 4 wire worms I found too.

That's a lot!

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

70 more to go. Waiting for DH to bring home some more potting mix.
And the section I thought was only 40 was double planted so instead of 4 in a 4 cell, there are 8 in a 4 cell. I'll not make that mistake again in spring.
I just hate tossing seeds. LOL.

I hear ya...I quadrupled my tomato seeds during our warm snap in February...beyond thankful to finally get them all planted or gifted! Saved couple folks no telling how much $ with 30 tomato plants!
Thankful beyond belief!
Now bring on the tomatoes!!!

What all kinds did u plant this year?!

 

[TJAnonymous]

I poked my finger in various places around all 3 strawberry barrels today. The soil felt cool and moist, not wet. My experiment is off to a good start! All the Mara Des Bois (Etsy seller) are lush and beautiful with loads of leaves but haven't flowered. Half the Allstar were DOA. Those that weren't are starting to green out with tiny leaves. The Honeoye & Ozark Beauty are doing a little better. Not as lush as the Mara but there are a couple already flowering. Stark Brothers is replacing the Allstar and threw in some Honeoye too. I should get all the replacements this week. The handful of mature Allstar plants in my original beds that weren't killed by the blight are producing nice berries. Not ripe yet but looking good and healthy.

I didn't do much around the garden tonight. Potted up the few remaining plugs that have late starts until I can figure out where to put them. I have an Amish Paste tomato, sesame, and 2 birdhouse gourds to find homes for...

I also up-potted my Honey Mesquite seedling and the 2 Pink Mimosas that germinated. I gotta decide when to transplant them into the pasture... I don't want the weeds to crowd them out or the horses to eat/trample them. Maybe keep them potted until fall and then transplant?

Going to reseed the pasture tomorrow too since we are expecting rain every day for the next week. In addition to the pasture seed, I'm going to toss out some millet and buckwheat as well.

 

[karenerwin]

The amount of tomatoes you have always astounds me...

She sells a lot of tomato starts, if I remember correctly

 

[karenerwin]

Yesterday I worked in all 3 gardens and got a lot done.
At home I planted tomatoes ( 2 cherry, 4 Amish paste & 3 slicers), 3 green peppers, some lemon basil, 2 jalapeños , 2 Cheyenne peppers, planted more beet seeds & zinnia seeds. I tried to dig up some of the Jerusalem Artichokes that I never harvested last year. Not that was a mistake! They are taking over that whole end of the raised bed.
I ended up having to move some broccoli plants that were being completely overran by the Jerusalem Artichokes.
Then I drove out to the farm garden. I planted 4 tomato plants ( all slicers), some basil, & the Jerusalem Artichokes I pulled/dug up ( I fully expect the deer to eat them like they did last year). I pulled weeds out of the onions & potato beds and watered everything ( including blueberries, blackberries & raspberries & table grapes) really well. Oh and I planted some beet seeds.
Then I drove out to my daughter’s and we went to her church garden plot. There we planted 2 tomatoes, some more basil, a green pepper plant, a jalapeño & a Cheyenne pepper, onion sets carrot seeds ( lots of carrots because the package had a leak! ) and some spinach seeds. Plus we planted a lot of flowers in the flower tub also. Oh and I planted the 2 broccoli plants here that I removed from my house.
There was another member of the church garden board there who told us we could dig up and take as many strawberry plants as we wanted out of 2 beds. I couldn’t believe it! The plants were growing great and many had nice big berries on them already. So we dug up 20 or so. I would have gotten more but didn’t have anything else to transport them in.
My daughter kept about 4 for her house. I gave a friend the gallon ice cream container full today.
Today I planted the aluminum roasting pan full of them at my house and I still have a 5 gallon bucket with a layer or 2 of them. I’m going to take them out to the farm garden to replace all the crowns I planted that never grew.
Plus a friend brought me a really nice butterfly ( bush or weed I don’t remember which)!

 

[muddy75]

Still deciding final location for the garden

 

[gtaus]

Happened to be looking at Gorilla (and non-Gorilla) 4-wheel poly dump carts online to see how much they cost this year. Just found out that our local Menards had the very last box of the Huntingon Pro 1,400 lb. capacity poly dump cart on clearance for about $100 off.

Lucky for me that I had some Menards rebate checks ready to be spent and a credit card that needed to be exercised. So, I went into town this morning and snatch up that last cart. Final cost, around $135 after 11% rebate which I will send in. But I had a couple rebate checks that I cashed in, so I was out of the store for a little less than $100.

They don't list the cubic foot holding capacity of these carts, only the weight load at 1,400 lbs. I compared that to the Gorilla cart closest size at 1,500 lbs which costs $388.00 at WalMart. I really like these poly dump carts, and now I have two of them, but neither is a Gorilla band cart. You can save a lot of money buying these non-Gorilla brand carts.

I was expecting this poly dump cart to be the same size as my previous cart, which is 6 cubic feet. However, when I got the box home and took all the parts out, I discovered that this Huntington Pro poly dump cart is almost half again as big as my previous 6 cubic foot cart. I did some measurements and worked out the math to discover that this new dump cart holds 8 cubic feet of material! That was a nice surprise.

One of the "must have" features that I need on these carts is a handle that converts from manual pull to tow behind a lawn mower. This cart has one of those 2-in-1 handles. Very nice.

Already put it to use this evening when I filled it up with chicken run compost and then sifted it through my cement mixer compost sifter. Topped off another 3 raised beds with freshly sifted compost before it got dark. My raised beds are looking good this year, at least starting off.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the reason I was looking at getting yet another Gorilla (type) 4-wheeled cart was because my old one-wheeled wheelbarrow was getting stuck in the compost litter in the chicken run and I was really struggling to fill it up and move it out of the chicken run. This new 4-wheeled poly dump cart hold about 4X as much material as the wheelbarrow is infinitely easier to move around in the chicken run. The cart, even when loaded up with compost, just floats over the compost litter in the chicken run on those four big 13-inch wheels.

My back appreciated the lack of effort I had to put into moving the compost out of the run and over to the compost sifter. Worth the cost already.