What did you do in the garden today?

[Sueby]

Chilly here, was 43 when I work up at 8. Went outside with bare feet, that was a mistake.

Beautiful @igorsMistress!

Thinking about canning a batch or 2 of tomato soup. @WthrLady when you make your soup, (which is the recipe I'll use, love that it is about the maters, not all the sugar & other veggies) do you pressure can or wb? I will test it if I decide to wb, but just curious if you just pressure can & call it done.

 

[Sally PB]

But a big part of me enjoys growing food in low cost pallet wood raised beds to get the most bang out of my buck. I'm even starting seeds inside the house when the snow is still on the ground. At first, it was just to save a little money over buying plants at the big box stores, but now it's because our big box stores are not selling many of the plants I want out in my garden.

I tend to opt to save money where I can, even if it means I have to do a little more work out in the garden. Might come a day when that equation changes, but right now I'm still in pretty good health.

Oh yeah.

One of my goals with gardening is to be as self-suffient as possible. Yup, it's more physical labor and more time consuming. If I wanted easy, I'd buy my produce at the farmer's market. It's a lot easier to just buy the stuff at the market or the store.

BUT, and it's a big but, I want what I want. Dragon Tongue beans, 20+ gram garlic cloves, my own free tomatoes to can, potatoes for free (just the labor, haha, since the seed potatoes were leftovers, and I used my saved tomato seeds). All grown organically.

There may come a day when I can't do all the work. That will be the saddest day of my life, I think.

 

[fuzzi]

I was going to post that my turnips were a foot tall, but I wanted to be sure:

Close enough!

My favorite flowers:

Not so Petite marigolds...

 

[gtaus]

If I wanted easy, I'd buy my produce at the farmer's market.

Yes, some things are easier to grow than others. We have a very good Amish farmer's market here that sells great produce. If they sell something at a great price, it's more likely than not we will just buy that produce from them and use our limited garden space for other foods.

The trick is to find food that is easy to grow, expensive or not available at the store, and then use our gardens for those plants. Most bang for the buck and most benefit for my labor.

There may come a day when I can't do all the work. That will be the saddest day of my life, I think.

Well, there are many ways to push out those years of productive gardening. I went from in-ground gardening to 6-inch-high raised beds about 10 years ago. That cut down a little on the bending over to maintain a garden. About 4 years ago, I started building my 16-inch-high raised beds and that, I am sure, added some more years to my gardening abilities.

I have also built some elevated sub-irrigated planters for the deck that I could grow things in even if I was in a wheelchair.

I met an elderly couple this spring that was making raised beds out of full pallet height. She had an operation on her hips and could not bend over at all. So, hubby was making new raised beds the height of what we have for pallet compost bins. You do what you have to do to add some more years on gardening productivity. Live and adapt.

 

[WthrLady]

Chilly here, was 43 when I work up at 8. Went outside with bare feet, that was a mistake.

Beautiful @igorsMistress!

Thinking about canning a batch or 2 of tomato soup. @WthrLady when you make your soup, (which is the recipe I'll use, love that it is about the maters, not all the sugar & other veggies) do you pressure can or wb? I will test it if I decide to wb, but just curious if you just pressure can & call it done.

Pressure can.

 

[gtaus]

Yeah doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me personally.

Thanks for the link.

Interesting. I'm not quite sure what he is talking about. If the soil needs a rest to dry out from water, then I guess my wicking beds/planters get a good 7 months of rest in the late fall and winter. As far as top watering, well my wicking planters are all outside and get natural rain. I think he mentioned somewhere that he grows food in his wicking beds year-round. That is possible in some places. But I live in northern Minnesota and we have one pretty short growing season. I don't see any benefit to letting my wicking beds/planters drying out during our summer months.

If letting the soil dry out is a good idea, then I really don't understand why anyone would spend extra money to build a wicking bed.

I'm still looking for someone who has tried using free hügelkultur wood in the bottom of a wicking bed instead of using expensive drainpipes. Would that work, I ask myself? I have seen people make hügelkultur pots but there the water drains through holes in the bottom, so there is no water reservoir in those pots.

Another concern I would have, is how long would a hügelkultur wicking bed last? As the wood decomposes, the soil level in the wicking bed would drop, eventually the bed would be all soil with no air gap to prevent flooding of the plants. I don't think I would want to build an IBC hügelkultur wicking bed only to have to dig everything out in a couple of years. Those IBC's would be darn heavy and it seems like it would be a lot of work to rebuild one every 2-3 yeas(?) whereas the drainpipes would last a lifetime.

 

[igorsMistress]

G’morning all. Worked on the new garden a little bit this morning, but we have an appointment to go to. I was able to make it so the beds will be in sun all year so will be able to use the whole beds for cool season stuff too. Our yard is weird and about half of it gets deep shade from the house for a good portion of the day in winter. Time to go, have a good day all

 

[jerryse]

Picture from a few days ago of summer squash. Rainy day here. Drying some mushrooms for mushroom powder. Great idea. Checked tomato germination test. Sprouting has started. Seeds from the food mill will sprout!

 

[Sally PB]

Off and on heavy rain for the next two days, so I'm staying inside.

I still need to finish the garlic and multiplier onion beds. I'll do that next week, and then plant garlic and multiplier onions.

Then, I think the garden is done, except for cleanup and any prep I can do in advance of next spring. Like spread compost and old wood chips.

There is a LOT of clean up I could do. I'll be kicking myself next spring if I don't do it now. I can peck away at it until the ground freezes. It's just nicer to do when the temps are closer to 60 than 30, so I'm hoping for some nice fall days to come yet.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Going to harvest peanuts from the garden this weekend! We are also carving pumpkins with the kids so it looks like roasted peanuts and pumpkin seeds are in my immediate future!