What did you do in the garden today?

[NorthTexasWink]

I found out our dog has chipper/ shredder mode. If she gets tired of playing fetch, she gnaws the stick to shreds. I used to worry about it, but so far it has not made her sick.View attachment 1078955

This made me

I had a 120 pound mastiff mutt puppy, cutest most soulful cornflower blue eyes. He turned those eyes on my HE when he was eating an ice cream bar, so HE shared. HE yells and runs to me "The dog swallowed my popsicle stick! What do we do!?" I ask " Was it a plastic or a wooden stick? Wooden is good. Ok, go get me a can of pumpkin out of the cupboard. And stop feeding my dogs ice cream!" Three cans of pumpkin purée and three hours later out comes the stick. Shaped like a corkscrew! I was kinda tempted to keep it, but sanity and good taste prevailed. This time.

 

[NanaKat]

Today in the garden, I picked banana peppers, weeded, and cleaned up the dried onions and put them in mesh bags to hang in the carport. The flowers in the carport planter have finally started filling in nicely. Put 1" chicken wire around the bean bed to keep out the rabbits that are nibbling on the sprouts.
Got the boar coon and a female last night. Found a juvie this afternoon napping in the pear tree. He joined the adults. Will still be on guard. Set the camera and traps again for tonight...still finding scat from a coyote.

 

[Pensmaster]

Just a thought on getting compost from other sources like the dump. The vegetation they bring in for their compost pile may have sprays including round up and pesticides.

 

[NanaKat]

That was an awesome video on BTE covering gardening. Definitely going to get started with it. I compost a lot here but this is so much easier.

I have had a subscription to "Organic Gardening" magazine since 1974 and was saddened when Rodale shut down the magazine this year.

 

[Pensmaster]

My dad had organic gardening mag as well. Gave me a subscription to it once. To much competition from on line sources now for magazines to make a go of it.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Nana, that's the best way to go with wood chip use... But you use what you can where you got it. If all you have is a pile of oak wood chips and you wanna do BTE, I say use em in the garden.
What I do is I get about 5 yards of wood chips each year for my chicken pen. I take the old ones out and use them in prepping the new beds (we have heavy clay about 6-8" down, and they help to break up the clay and allow drainage, so we double dig the beds and put the woodchips in the bottoms of the trenches) then put the new ones in. So they've spent a whole year aging with chicken droppings falling on them and they make for beautiful soil after. I top the beds off with my lawn soil mixed with compost and mulched with shredded leaves, weeds and lawn trimmings.
This also allows my chickens to live well by having loose, clean ground that quickly breaks down the chicken poop and lets them dig and breeds bugs. They adore the woodchips, more than they like normal ground, and I love that you can't even smell my chickens while standing in the middle of their pen.

 

[jvls1942]

black walnut is not really something you want on your garden. I have a black walnut grove with about 80 trees that I planted 30+ years ago.

pine is good for blueberries .

after burning the hardwoods, the ashes can be used.

If it once grew, it is compostable..

......jiminwisc.........

 

[GldnValleyHens]

I weeded the chicken garden and the backyard island bed, which were both full of crabgrass and dandelions that the chickens failed to eat, as usual. Those people who write about chickens helping out your garden, eating bugs, weeds and aerating the soil are liars and live in Chicken Garden Utopia LOL.
I am having some troubles with our tomatoes, and wonder if this is a common problem. Our tomatoes are in a raised bed that gets full sun, maybe too much, and grow in compost black dirt mix. Their leaves and branches on the lower part of the plant have begun turning yellow and dying, and this slowly spreads up the plant but besides this there are no signs of disease and the fruit are unaffected besides a few turn black on the bottom like blossom end rot. Is this a case of too much sun, not enough water or calcium?

.

 

[lazy gardener]

Hard wood chips take longer to break down so I use them in paths in the 20 x16 bed. Like carbon in the compost pile, adding greens to the chips helps speed up the process. The composting process uses up nitrogen in the soil. Therefore putting the hardwood chips in a compost pile slows down the process.
Soft wood chips break down more quickly. These I use for mulch in the beds....especially if they have been used in the chick and duck brooders.

NK, interesting how we all do things differently, but eventually arrive at kind of the same place. I NEVER put wood chips in a compost pile... perhaps I mis-interpreted what you are saying. For folks not yet using BTE: The principle of BTE is that the chips stay ON TOP of the soil, never mixed into the soil. The fines in the chip mix settle to the bottom of the chip layer, and they decompose there, while the large chips stay on the top, providing a barrier that helps prevent weed seeds from germinating, holds the moisture. Every time it rains, the rain carries a compost tea down into the root zone of the plants. The best chips for BTE have a lot of green mixed in, so best chips come from mid summer while trees are in full leaf. The addition of all this green matter speeds the chip break down. (what NK said!)

Today in the garden, I picked banana peppers, weeded, and cleaned up the dried onions and put them in mesh bags to hang in the carport. The flowers in the carport planter have finally started filling in nicely. Put 1" chicken wire around the bean bed to keep out the rabbits that are nibbling on the sprouts.
Got the boar coon and a female last night. Found a juvie this afternoon napping in the pear tree. He joined the adults. Will still be on guard. Set the camera and traps again for tonight...still finding scat from a coyote.

Congrats on getting your coons. Trap, or otherwise???? I have traps set for ground hogs. Have taken shots at huge adult and one juvie, think I missed both times. No further sighting of adult, but have seen juvie. Waiting for slash pile to start stinking.

I have had a subscription to "Organic Gardening" magazine since 1974 and was saddened when Rodale shut down the magazine this year.

I can't believe they stopped publishing that magazine. Is it available on line?

I weeded the chicken garden and the backyard island bed, which were both full of crabgrass and dandelions that the chickens failed to eat, as usual. Those people who write about chickens helping out your garden, eating bugs, weeds and aerating the soil are liars and live in Chicken Garden Utopia LOL.
I am having some troubles with our tomatoes, and wonder if this is a common problem. Our tomatoes are in a raised bed that gets full sun, maybe too much, and grow in compost black dirt mix. Their leaves and branches on the lower part of the plant have begun turning yellow and dying, and this slowly spreads up the plant but besides this there are no signs of disease and the fruit are unaffected besides a few turn black on the bottom like blossom end rot. Is this a case of too much sun, not enough water or calcium?

.

My birds are not allowed into the garden till fall clean up. Then, they go to town on it. Yeah, those idyllic pics of chickens happily walking down the cobbled path of a "Martha Stewartish" garden are a myth. Note, the leaves are intact, the mulch is still in the beds, and the cobbles are not covered with chicken poop!!!

All the garden debris that the birds don't destroy in the garden in the fall get hauled into their winter sun-room. Last fall, I made a pile that was 3.5' tall. I added hay and leaves to the area throughout the winter and early spring. By gardening season, they had reduced it to about 12" of nice black crumbly, semi finished compost. This in my "ground is frozen from Early November through Late April" climate. The back end of their run which was closed off until June, grew weeds and grasses that were 4' tall. The flock is still working on that forest of weeds.

My tomato plants also suffer from lower leaf yellowing and spotting. I'm not sure what the disease is, but the plants usually outgrow the damage and continue to produce. Here's an interesting article regarding that problem: https://dengarden.com/gardening/Yellow-leaves-on-tomato-plants-Get-rid-of-yellow-tomato-leaves

The fruit damage you describe is most surely BER. It is related to poor calcium uptake, usually related to weather fluctuation. http://www.gardeners.com/how-to/blossom-end-rot/5354.html

 

[pennyJo1960]

For years I read a magazine that was just starting http://www.motherearthnews.com/
guess they evolved as they seem to alive not sure if there is still a printed page anymore
this was at least 35 years ago