What did you do in the garden today?

[CatInTheHenHouse]

Planted the pepper seeds today - mostly cayenne with a couple of the mystery sweet pepper seeds from last year. The sweet will go into a pot and come inside once they start to bloom so I don’t need to worry about cross-pollination again, but that’s obviously a long way away.

I also put in some oregano seeds to replace the plant that died over the winter and planted the red lettuce seeds, which it transpires have a different shape from my usual variety so that means I don’t have to worry about them cross pollinating.

I went through my list and I’m actually running out of seeds that I can plant now! The garden boxes were still frozen last I checked so everything that needs to be directly sown has to wait.

 

[dirkandlorie]

Im a glutton for punishment so I built a little edge garden along the coop. I we’ll see how long this lasts. I’m sure the girls will make quick work of it.

Nice coop, and I'm sure your girls will enjoy anything you plant there.

 

[cj2024]

Im a glutton for punishment so I built a little edge garden along the coop. I we’ll see how long this lasts. I’m sure the girls will make quick work of it.

Whatever you plant there will be gone in a day if you let your chickens out to play. I would put a fence with 2inch x 4inch holes and grow sweet potatoes. They can trim the leaves as they grow and can't kill it. Five chickens keep this patch trimmed.

 

[cj2024]

I am new to growing potatoes, so this Viking potato sprout in my hydroponic perlite DYI Dutch bucket experiment makes me happy. I kept wondering if it was still alive.

I don't know why, but I don't see any YouTube potato videos using pine shavings as mulch. I put some pine shavings in water and took a PH reading every day for a week. The PH of my tap water is neutral 7 and it slowly dropped to 6.25, so pine shavings do lower PH a little over time.

 

[hammyanne]

Whatever you plant there will be gone in a day if you let your chickens out to play. I would put a fence with 2inch x 4inch holes and grow sweet potatoes. They can trim the leaves as they grow and can't kill it. Five chickens keep this patch trimmed.

View attachment 4073440

Great tip! Thank you. I’ll definitely add some fencing around my plots. I hadn’t thought about sweet potatoes but that genius

 

[Sally PB]

Our air is hazy, and it's from dust blowing up from the big storms crossing the plains. Air quality in Grand Rapids, MI, is the worst in the country right now.

 

[gtaus]

Im a glutton for punishment so I built a little edge garden along the coop. I we’ll see how long this lasts. I’m sure the girls will make quick work of it.

Yeah, I punished myself last year thinking it would be a good idea to build a couple of raised beds along the outside of my chicken run fence. What the chickens did not eat and pull through the fencing, the deer ate on the other side. It was about as much of a failure as you can imagine.

I left those raised beds alongside the chicken run fence, but this year I have added a protective cage on top to keep the deer out, and I will not be planting peas or beans to climb up the chicken run fencing. That just did not work.

Here is a nice picture of when I got the raised beds ready to plant some peas and beans with the idea that they would climb up the chicken run fencing.

I thought those 16-inch tall raised beds were high enough that the chickens would not eat the plants, but they got to the vines without a problem and pulled them out by the roots. The other plants I had in those raised beds furthest from the fence fed our local deer population. Bottom line, a lot of work for zero return.

I hope you have better luck with your edge gardens.

 

[gtaus]

Whatever you plant there will be gone in a day if you let your chickens out to play. I would put a fence with 2inch x 4inch holes and grow sweet potatoes. They can trim the leaves as they grow and can't kill it. Five chickens keep this patch trimmed.

View attachment 4073440

That's a very nice-looking bed of potatoes. Just wanted to add that the fencing there might keep out the chickens, but I had to add wire on top of my protective cages to keep the deer out.

Darn deer eating all my gardens...

 

[hammyanne]

That's a very nice-looking bed of potatoes. Just wanted to add that the fencing there might keep out the chickens, but I had to add wire on top of my protective cages to keep the deer out.

Darn deer eating all my gardens...

Hahaha, thankfully I have some deer fencing around the perimeter of my yard that has kept the deer (and surprisingly other predators!) at bay but I can never underestimate the savagery of my little dinosaurs.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Rain this morning but then the sun came out in the afternoon and it was quite nice outside. I finished weeding inside the hoop house. I have 3 broccoli plants that are STILL alive that I planted last spring. Three cabbage plants too! I did a major clean-up and pruning on the broccoli. I'll give it some 10-10-10 fertilizer tomorrow and we'll see how well they produce going on their 2nd year... I saw at least 1 crown starting. Hopefully it won't bolt.

We also spent the afternoon clearing a huge patch of privet, wild raspberries, and wild blackberries in our front pasture... The brush pile is at least 6-8 ft tall! We will let it dry a bit and then burn it sometime later in the spring. With all that big growth gone, we can keep anything that regrows controlled with the brush mower. DH really wants to put a magnolia tree out there.