What did you do in the garden today?

[TJAnonymous]

I miss the monarch butterflies of my childhood.... No milkweed here. It's toxic to horses...

 

[BullChick]

Okay, I have a spinning kind. We’re good… except I don’t have wine. I keep forgetting to put it in my cart when loading up with $200+ of liquor.

I joined a wine club.

 

[gtaus]

I've always wanted to try a hugelkultur bed, especially since we get a lot of rotting limbs from the trees around the house. But with lumber prices so high, we opted not to build more raised beds this year so I never got around to it.

I understand. I wanted to build some new wood raised beds in our backyard by the chicken coop this year, but the lumber prices were too high. I modified my plans and made raised beds using galvanized sheet metal for the sides. This saved me lots of money. There are a number of YouTube videos on metal raised beds, here is one that might be of interest to you.

Some modifications I used: I made my metal raised beds 4X4 feet. I cut the metal panel in half height, so my raised beds are 16 inches tall. I filled the bottom ~10 inches with old logs, wood chips, and whatever organic material I had on hand to throw in there. Then I topped of the bed with ~6-8 inches of good topsoil and chicken run compost mixed 1:1. I used 4X4 inch posts for the 4 corners and just used some old 2X4's for the wooden frames around the sides. I screwed everything together with pocket hole screws. The metal panels were screwed into the wood frames.

Here is a (partial) picture of one of the metal panel raised beds I built. This year, I save a lot of money by using the metal panel instead of going all wood.

 

[gtaus]

Bread is not all that good for the chickens or even wild birds.

Yeah, pretty much empty calories. Not much good for people for the same reasons. However, I only use 1 or 2 slices of bread per day, cut into small pieces, and mix that in with their daily chicken scratch. I have 10 chickens, so I don't think 2 slices of bread between all of them amounts to very much. They sure do like the bread. It must be like cake to them.

Same thing with all the kitchen scraps. Never too much to fill them up, and they always have their balanced commercial feed available 24/7. So I don't worry about too many kitchen scraps either.

 

[gtaus]

You've convinced me, I now intend to raise the beds higher and fill the bottoms with large pieces of wood. This will take a while since the current beds are practically new but the climate has and is changing and this area is simply not as wet as it used to be. And as we get older, higher beds will be helpfull.

I am just passing along what is working for me this year, and what is not. The higher hügelkultur raised beds have proven themselves this drought year. And yes, I am getting older, and not having to bend all the way down to the ground makes gardening easier for me.

 

[Sueby]

I haven't seen any swallowtail caterpillars this year. I grow a separate pot of dill for them. They also love carrot tops. I have the butterfly weed for them too, but the honey bees seem to appreciate that the most this year.

I am retiring at 59 1/2 - you can't make me work a day longer than that! I don't care if I have to live in a box under a bridge. I won't do it. 59 1/2 is it. THAT'S ALL THEY'LL GET FROM ME!

 

[TJAnonymous]

I understand. I wanted to build some new wood raised beds in our backyard by the chicken coop this year, but the lumber prices were too high. I modified my plans and made raised beds using galvanized sheet metal for the sides. This saved me lots of money. There are a number of YouTube videos on metal raised beds, here is one that might be of interest to you.

Some modifications I used: I made my metal raised beds 4X4 feet. I cut the metal panel in half height, so my raised beds are 16 inches tall. I filled the bottom ~10 inches with old logs, wood chips, and whatever organic material I had on hand to throw in there. Then I topped of the bed with ~6-8 inches of good topsoil and chicken run compost mixed 1:1. I used 4X4 inch posts for the 4 corners and just used some old 2X4's for the wooden frames around the sides. I screwed everything together with pocket hole screws. The metal panels were screwed into the wood frames.

Here is a (partial) picture of one of the metal panel raised beds I built. This year, I save a lot of money by using the metal panel instead of going all wood.

View attachment 2772434

Yeah, I have several raised beds made from corrugated roofing.

But I wanted to put these raised beds along my fence line in the backyard which is sloped. The beds need to be 25 ft x 2 ft for each leg in an L shape. Because of the slope, it would be a massive pain to do it with sheet metal.

 

[WthrLady]

Are you raising fennel or milkweed or something for them?

Dill

 

[Sooner Magnolia]

I have questions about timing for potatoes, onions, and garlic. I planted onion sets and seed potatoes when they were sold at my grocery store. I think late spring/ early summer. What timelines do you guys follow for planting them? Do you do a spring and fall planting of all of them and how do you know when they are ready?

 

[Sally PB]

I'm probably just going to take a clove from this year's harvest and plant it.

The "rule" I go by is to plant the biggest cloves for the next year's harvest. Eat the smaller ones.

I have Music garlic, and it usually has only four cloves, but they are HUGE!

I am retiring at 59 1/2 - you can't make me work a day longer than that! I don't care if I have to live in a box under a bridge. I won't do it. 59 1/2 is it. THAT'S ALL THEY'LL GET FROM ME!

That's our plan for hubby too. 59 1/2 and a day. We are counting down now; less than a year! If we can swing it earlier than that, we will.