What did you do in the garden today?

[CapricornFarm]

i just planted the two sunflowers i bought at the flea market yesterday. encourage me to find the sunflower seeds and plant them too! I like having some flowers in the veggie garden.

 

[EquiSally]

So, I'm having the best garden ever this year.
I'm not following any of the rules I usually do: It's ugly as sin, because I haven't even tried to weed the thing. I gave up on trying to cage or tie my 10 tomato plants in the very beginning and haven't snapped off a sucker since week 2 or 3. They're growing wildly all over each other.
Everything; beans, peppers, squash, eggplant, and tomatoes are squished together rather tightly. I haven't done anything about the insect life and have only lost 1 squash plant (so far) to borers. (Which I dug out and gleefully fed to the chickens.) There are tons of wasps and other good critters just loving this mass of green.
Additionally, I haven't used an ounce of traditional fertilizer, but I have my 4 big hens in a tractor supply style coop pressed up against the back side of the garden; instead of composting what comes off the poop board every week, I've just been washing it directly into the garden, between what would be considered "rows" but is really a couple small grassy weedy patches that I can almost fit my feet in.
Despite my complete lack of "proper" handling... its producing like some mad science experiment.
The only negative I have found is trying to find everything that needs to be picked, and thoroughly washing all produce since I'm putting fresh chicken litter in between rows.... And finding enough people who will eat the tomatoes before I decide they're over ripe and feed them to the chickies.
I only decided to let it go wild because I'm taking organic chemistry this summer and don't have the time to pamper it, however, I think I'll be doing it this way every year. Love my lazy garden!

 

[Beer can]

I was born in Oneonta, NY and grew up in Delmar (outside Albany). My Dad always had a great garden with towering tall tomato plants and lots of delicious peas. I grew up wandering in the woods and catching wild things to enjoy, then release. It was great fun.

Oneonta the "City of the hills", we do most of our shopping there.
About 20mins from us. One of our's was born there, first couple in Sidney, last two in Binghamton.
Our tomatoes are just starting to flower, Early girls. Have a bunch of Parker whopper improved to try out this yr also.
Tried a couple of early heritage tomatoes last yr, Alaskan fancy and Bloody butcher, wasn't impressed. So I'm back to our favorite Early girl hybrid, early, grows tons of medium size super juicy sweet red mators.

 

[Pensmaster]

Tomato plants are actually vines. Try training them to grow up strings. I had to delete my garden pics for space so I can't show an example. But as the branch grows, periodically twist the vine branch around the vertical string and as it grows it will be supported by the secure string. One season I had my tomatoes grow 10 feet tall. Had to use a tall ladder to pick the fruit.
Also tomatoes flowers have both sex organs. Meaning insects are not needed for cross pollination. When trained up the strings, I would walk down the line of tom plants and strum all the strings lightly with the handle of a broom like playing a harp. That motion would vibrate the vines and cross pollinate the flowers. I yielded so many fruits that year.
I love making homemade tom sauce.
I will look for those pics, reduce their size and show you them soon!
Fc

I'm actually set up this year to try that. It got so hot last week I built a temporary awning over them. Well they have grown up to it now so strings or strips of old sheets would help. I'm also trying the pruning method for the first time. I like the extra air space it gives especially at the bottom of vine.[/QUOTE]
Try adding extra fresh soil as the bottom is exposed.
I sometimes mix fresh potting soil and dried aged manure in a 5 gal bucket with a little water. Almost like poop gravey. I mix it thick so it doesn't run away when poured. It's like steroids for toms.
Since the tom is a vine, the stem (trunk) will grow roots out the sides if the trunk gets buried with more soil.[/QUOTE]
Ahh poop tea lovely stuff. Also comfrey tea as well. I buried the vine by 12 inches to start. Once they hit the chicken poop boy did they take off as did the sesame seed plants.

I am fortunate that we live in a very small but safe town set back but not local to many big city issues as we have no stop lights but for the one at the highway but means we leave something out it is there always

3 bat crazy people as in batty crazy or going crazy and you can't come as my mom used to say when we asked for the 150 th time "where you going" during the day. or 3 people who love bats?

 

[Beer can]

So, I'm having the best garden ever this year.
I'm not following any of the rules I usually do: It's ugly as sin, because I haven't even tried to weed the thing. I gave up on trying to cage or tie my 10 tomato plants in the very beginning and haven't snapped off a sucker since week 2 or 3. They're growing wildly all over each other.
Everything; beans, peppers, squash, eggplant, and tomatoes are squished together rather tightly. I haven't done anything about the insect life and have only lost 1 squash plant (so far) to borers. (Which I dug out and gleefully fed to the chickens.) There are tons of wasps and other good critters just loving this mass of green.
Additionally, I have my 4 big hens in a tractor supply style coop pressed up against the back side of the garden; instead of composting what comes off the poop board every week, I've just been washing it directly into the garden, between what would be considered "rows" but is really a couple small grassy weedy patches that I can almost fit my feet in.
Despite my complete lack of "proper" handling... its producing like some mad science experiment.
The only negative I have found is trying to find everything that needs to be picked, and thoroughly washing all produce since I'm putting fresh chicken litter in between rows.... And finding enough people who will eat the tomatoes before I decide they're over ripe and feed them to the chickies.
I only decided to let it go wild because I'm taking organic chemistry this summer and don't have the time to pamper it, however, I think I'll be doing it this way every year. Love my lazy garden!

My dad never weeded his garden.
I usually keep ours well weeded if I can but was overrun last yr. Turned out most of the weeds were edible anyway, ripped up the plants and tossed them in the chicken runs daily.
Purslane, pigweed, chickweed.
About the only plants I think suffer from weeds is onions.
I used to plant pumpkins in with our sweetcorn, big pumpkin leaves drown out the weeds and keep the corn weed free, but dang hard to pick the corn avoiding the masses of pumpkin vines

 

[pennyJo1960]

3 bat crazy people as in batty crazy or going crazy and you can't come as my mom used to say when we asked for the 150 th time "where you going" during the day. or 3 people who love bats?

We are bat crazy as in having fun crazy doing pretty much we want in our later years

 

[EquiSally]

My dad never weeded his garden.
I usually keep ours well weeded if I can but was overrun last yr. Turned out most of the weeds were edible anyway, ripped up the plants and tossed them in the chicken runs daily.
Purslane, pigweed, chickweed.
About the only plants I think suffer from weeds is onions.
I used to plant pumpkins in with our sweetcorn, big pumpkin leaves drown out the weeds and keep the corn weed free, but dang hard to pick the corn avoiding the masses of pumpkin vines

It's pretty great this year. We're in a new rental house, so I didn't know what to expect. There haven't been any soil amendments here in years.
I don't have a tiller, and wasn't willing to wait to start my garden when we moved here, so I picked a sunny place in my yard, let the chickens eat off the grass for a week, then planted my hardened seedlings (had to use a post-hole digger to get through this yards hard Texas clay soil).
I just kept moving the coop every 4-days to a week and planted right behind them.
I thought for sure I would have root bound stunted plants this year, but I really think I owe it all to my 2-legged scratching machines.
I have received the occasional hairline scratch from a random volunteer vine winding through it all, but it's totally worth it. Not sure what's on that vine yet. I'm figuring its squash or a strangely shaped melon, b/c I throw all our kitchen stuff, that is too far gone for chickens, right back into the garden to rot and feed the worms.
So yeah, my garden is only getting fresh chicken poo and rotting produce that gets washed into the few grassy patches throughout it, and it is the best, easiest, garden yet.
I'm obviously happy with the wild beasty, lol, I love summer.

 

[CapricornFarm]

Oneonta the "City of the hills", we do most of our shopping there.
About 20mins from us. One of our's was born there, first couple in Sidney, last two in Binghamton.
Our tomatoes are just starting to flower, Early girls. Have a bunch of Parker whopper improved to try out this yr also.
Tried a couple of early heritage tomatoes last yr, Alaskan fancy and Bloody butcher, wasn't impressed. So I'm back to our favorite Early girl hybrid, early, grows tons of medium size super juicy sweet red mators.

My Grandparents used to live in Binghamton, The Bartlesons. Old Walt really did enjoy his beer, even had a kegerator. I enjoyed visiting there in the summer, playing on the farm with my cousins. Grandpa lived to be 102! Is the Fox Hospital still in operation in Oneonta? My Dad used to work on the D&H RR most of his life.

 

[lazy gardener]

My yellow squash had 3 female blossoms opened this morning. Odd year. Usually, there is a flush of male blossoms b/fore the female blossoms show up. That plant is loaded with buds. Cukes are not far from blooming as well. Fortex Pole beans are about 2 - 3' tall and climbing their jute. I planted some of the "Yard Long" beans this year. They are just sitting there, but the season is still young. The YL beans on 2 poles that have wood chips around them are definitely greener than the beans on the pole that does not have any chips. Raspberry canes are loaded with blossoms and fruit. Carrots are sizing up.

 

[CapricornFarm]

I just came in from digging around near my fence, the red clay soil is a pain. Back to mixing sand and manure with red clay in the wheel barrow and then shovel it back into the trench i dug out. My white work shirts will never be white again. My goal is to plant peas and sunflowers all around the inside perimeter fence. I have been piling the small rocks i sort out on the outside of the fence to cover the gap where the fence does not quite meet the ground. Good thing i am not depending on my garden to sustain me, because we moved in just over a month ago and this soil has not been used for any gardening. But it keeps me busy and i am hoping it will all be much easier next year.