What did you do in the garden today?

[Artichoke Lover]

My husband and I will be moving into our new home within the next 3 weeks, and have already decided where my garden will be. I decided that the rest of this year will be used to prep the ground for the spring. Without a tiller, I'm curious about what y'all would do. Is there a way to just weigh down the cardboard and not till?

Use something else on top of the card board. I know a lot of no til methods involve layering card board and then covering with at least a foot of straw and then spraying it down with a hose. It should be mostly broken down by spring and you can plant through it.

 

[alwaystj9]

My husband and I will be moving into our new home within the next 3 weeks, and have already decided where my garden will be. I decided that the rest of this year will be used to prep the ground for the spring. Without a tiller, I'm curious about what y'all would do. Is there a way to just weigh down the cardboard and not till?

Look up "Lasagna Beds", it may be what you are looking for.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Hi Aaron, my horses don't live on my property, they live at a barn nearby, where everything collected from the stalls and pastures (manure, urine, pine shavings) is mixed together and composted. I get a trailer load of this compost twice a year - in the fall I just dump it on the garden, mix it with brown components like leaves, and sow a cover crop, then in the spring I get another load 6 weeks or so before planting time, and mix it in with the dirt and add lime.

So I can't really judge the effect of horse urine by itself, but from my experience the compost mixture of manure, urine and pine shavings provides a lot of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium for the plants, but it tends to be a bit acidic (not too acidic, since it's full of healthy red worms) so I test the soil and add lime as needed. The compost mix from my horses' barn is about 70% manure (nitrogen) 20% pine shavings (carbon) and 10% urine (potassium and phosphorus) which is pretty nitrogen-heavy.

Some people who have horses on their property, have found ways of controlling the proportions better. I've heard of people who train their geldings and stallions to pee in one place where it can be collected (like a barrel buried underground) since males tend to pee and poop as a way to mark territory, whereas mares pee wherever they are when they have to go, or it they're in heat, wherever they are are when they have a stallion's attention.

If you're collecting manure/pee/stall bedding from a local barn, depending on how much bedding they tend to use (it can vary a lot) the best thing might be to mix in more carbon and then let it compost further before you use it your garden, then test your soil.

Another thing to keep in mind, is most responsible horse owners treat their horses for parasites, with drugs like Ivermectin or Panacur, which take about six months to degrade into harmless molecules that can't harm soil microorganisms. So this is another good reason to let any compost you get from horse barns, to sit and compost further.

I have 2 mares on my property.... I compost the material from their stalls. I get really annoyed when they pee in their stalls or the aisleway because it stinks. I keep lime handy to cover it when they do it. Most of the time they are peeing outside in the pasture just wherever they are....

I have my horses on a rotational worming schedule every other month. Each time they are wormed, they get a different wormer (Quest Plus, Ivermectin, Pyrantel Pamoate, Fenbendazol, etc...) depending on the parasite cycle. Honestly I never considered how that might affect my compost. Makes sense.... But I do allow my compost to cook for well over 6 months before it is used...

 

[TJAnonymous]

Oh yeah.... Th

We have squirrels everywhere. I live in the Piney Woods of East Texas. Every tree has a squirrel family. I had to get creative with the bird feeders and the chicken feed. My veggies get attacked and gnawed. Some think they are cute. They are big rats with fluffy tails.

The squirrels attack my bird feeders on a regular basis. I had DH shoot at least 3 or 4 last winter/spring because those fat (bleep) wouldn't stop raiding them.

But at least they don't eat my veggies in the garden....

 

[BReeder!]

I need to check on the garden. So much rain this past week. Things are growing really well because of it though. Cucumbers are developing and I might have a few to pick. Yellow squash and zucchini are growing well too and producing for us. Tomatoes are still green as of yesterday, but there's a lot of them developing. I haven't pulled onions yet. They haven't really died back much. First time growing them successfully too, so hardly know what I'm doing. Pumpkin and butternut comes have taken over the ground and even climbed a bit in the 3 sisters patch. There's a rabbit living in that patch that I need to shoot with the pellet gun. It chewed through the deer fence I put around that part of the garden leading a gaping hole so it can go from the main garden to the 3 sisters patch as it pleases. Watermelon was planted away from the 3 sisters due to limited space and too many vining plants already. There's two pants and they are starting to do well. There's even a flower on one vibe already. Wonder if there's more now... I'm probably going to pick some peppers today. I know there are banana peppers ready to pick. There may be jalapenos ready too. Habaneros are growing leaves and branching well but just starting to flower last I checked. I'll look today to see if there are peppers developing yet. We already picked 3 bell peppers but there's more growing. Doubt they are ready today though. They seem to take a while to develop from flower to harvest. Corn is odd this year. The 3 sisters corn (glass gem) is 6ft tall while the bodacious sweet corn is only about 3ft tall and so is the early sunglow, but the sunglow was only expected to get 4ft anyway.

There's more or there, but that's it for an update.

 

[TJAnonymous]

I picked a bunch of hot banana peppers....going to stuff them tonight with sausage and cheese, topped with italian seasoned diced tomatoes and more cheese.

Anaheim peppers and red bell peppers are FINALLY starting to turn red. I didn't think they would ever change.... I have a lot of jalapenos too but I just feel they aren't QUITE ready yet. Maybe another few days or a week.

The spaghetti squash that was completely wilted yesterday has popped back up just slightly. It is now an ugly shade of yellow, but it is standing again. And it looks like a couple of the squash that were on it are turning yellow. Hopefully I will get at least one squash off of it before it dies.

My yellow squash have suddenly stopped putting out female flowers. Not sure why.... There are a TON of male flowers, but rarely a female. Also noticing that many of my little squash are rotting on the vine. Even flowers that are no longer attached are covered in mold. Again...I'm pretty sure that the plants are a victim of their own success. They've gotten so big and lush that there is no air flow under the leaf canopy and its leading to mold. I may go try to thin out some of the leaves later this evening.

My tomatoes also suddenly grew about a foot. They have outgrown the support I created for them so I'm going to need to add more baling twine at around the 4 ft mark to keep them from falling over. Still no tomatoes ripe though although quite a few of them are full size but still green.

Lastly, I got the report back on my blueberries. If you remember, I took 4 baggies of soil to the Extension office. Only when I got there, I learned that I didn't have enough soil....so we opted to combine them into two separate baggies. The plants from 3&4 look WORSE than 1&2 but all of them are struggling. This report helps me a little bit, but still leaves me puzzled. I can clearly see that I need to RAISE the pH on 1&2, but it doesn't really explain why the plants are sick on 3&4. Here's a link to the report if you want to look at it and give me your opinion....

https://www.dropbox.com/s/edmxn9nrksuoniy/Soil_redacted.pdf?dl=0

ETA- after looking over the reports a little more closely, I'm diagnosing my problems as:

1&2 - soil is too acidic. Need to raise it and bring down the phosphorus a bit.

3&4 - over-fertilization which is causing salinity injury and leaf scorch.

 

[vall]

Today I caught a gopher in a hole right behind the honeydew that got chewed up. Will a gopher climb up a honeydew vine planted in a wine barrel and chew through stems at the base of the plant? I've seen them travel a little ways above ground. I saw a squirrel a couple days ago so I figured my culprit was the squirrel.

Other than that, I cleaned up around that wine barrel, leveled the dirt and pulled out some rocks so now I can mulch around it and probably have room for another small raised bed. Picked the last of the corn. Checked another raised bed and I have three watermelon growing, and a true cantaloupe (supposedly, third hand seeds). Pulled out one squash plant that is covered in powdery mildew and sprayed the rest that aren't too bad yet.

 

[vall]

ETA- after looking over the reports a little more closely, I'm diagnosing my problems as:

1&2 - soil is too acidic. Need to raise it and bring down the phosphorus a bit.

3&4 - over-fertilization which is causing salinity injury and leaf scorch.

I will take a look later this weekend. My soil worksheets say to not use them for blueberries so I'll look for something more appropriate.

Removing P is difficult because it's not water soluble. You have to just not add more.

 

[TJAnonymous]

I will take a look later this weekend. My soil worksheets say to not use them for blueberries so I'll look for something more appropriate.

Removing P is difficult because it's not water soluble. You have to just not add more.

I'm doing more digging but I think ultimately my problem is WAY too much phosphorus in BOTH samples which is leading to major problems with my plants.

The buildup of phosphorus in lawns, gardens,pastures and croplands can cause plants to grow poorly and even die. Excessive soil phosphorus reduces the plant’s ability to take up required micronutrients, particularly iron and zinc, even when soil tests show there are adequate amounts of those nutrients in the soil. Phosphorus buildup is caused by excessive use of in-organic fertilizer or the use of composts and manures high in phosphorus.

My plants started out very chloritic....yellowing and dropping leaves. Now they have leaf scorch. I assumed the soil pH was too high and added more sulphur and fertilizer. I have clearly burned the roots (salinity injury) and haven't solved the problem which is, ultimately I think, the phosphorus is too high.

 

[gtaus]

Aaaanndd…. We have shade!

View attachment 2742600

Just 6 days ago….

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@gtaus -note the hose connection in first pic. We have a split valve (2 spigots) at the water source. We connected a 3/4” hose to it and brought it back to the garden and created a fixed stand with a hose connection. How far away is your main garden, and would a hose extension work for you?

Very nice. I planted some pole beans along the chicken run fence, but they are only about 1 foot tall and not climbing up the fence yet. I hope they will take off. I have been watering them every other day as we have had no real rain for weeks and weeks.

My main garden is about 600 feet away from my new house. It's also on the other side of a creek. So I have no desire to stretch out garden hoses that far. In the past, I did have an old house on that plot with a well, but the pump up and died suddenly after 30+ years of service, and I just was not going to spend $500 to get the well pump replaced. If/when we sell that property, I might consider getting a new well pump at that time. But since nobody is living there, I just don't want to spend any money on it.

Like I said, I started building new raised beds in the backyard of the new house. Those raised beds are doing very well as I started off with good soil and chicken run compost in the beds. They also get better sunlight during the day. And I just have a single garden hose with a sprinkler out there and can water the raised beds any time I want. Dear Wife is encouraging me to move the entire main garden closer to our new home in the backyard. I think that might be the best option.