What did you do in the garden today?

[Ascholten]

Well got 3 more totes mixed and primed for spring. I mix grass clippings that been stewing allsummer, the leaves I get from neighbors yards, cockatoo poo, tilapia poo and chicken poo, pack it down into an IBC tote and cover with burlap sacks to stew over the winter. Come march, get a pitch fork and give it a good churning, stack into as many totes as can fill to a decent number and then plant in it. Typically the plants will grow bonkers so I start with something simple and fast so it grows, get a crop, then churn it up again, re mix and then start the summer crops.

Slowly but surely the 'garden' is coming along, when I started this endeavor Iknew it was literally going to take up to 4 years maybe more. I wanted everything to be as 'free' as possible. Using only mulch I made, didn't buy, and slowly growing my number up as I got the mulch and stuff together. It's been a bit longer than I expected but it's slowly getting there and the best part, I didn't have to spend 1000's or even 100's of dollars on all sorts of dirt,food, fertilizers and all that stuff. It's all going on its own.

I usually give a lot of fresh food away to my one neighbor, and eggs too, but have had a lot of people asking for this and that and if i really were to get into it, i could probably sell some of the stuff I grow. the Jamacian sorrel went stupid crazy when I planted it, and i FD'd some and still use it to this day. I could probably get some money to pay for the tools and stuff to keep this up. the problem of course is TIME. Never enough of that, with all my other hobbies, the bees, the birds, my coffee business, I just don't have entire days to just diddle around in the garden stuff, let alone even think of ramping to any sort of production levels. Now lets throw in the days when I am not feeling good and thats even more time not being able to garden.

In a way, I wish we would have a huge EMP, wipe all this stupid world out and everyone go back to the old days. With out all the 'modern' stupidity wasting all my time,id have time to do my 'old geezer old fashioned' things again. like gardens.

If I could only teach the bird how to pull a rake...

Aaron

 

[TJAnonymous]

No idea about next years garden yet.

I feel like it's too much work for what I need to be producing. Although, who knows. I might just stick with the normal rotation, and for that, I have the old standby seeds already here. That's not to say I won't snap and get some weird thing to try, but I will be reining it in from years past.

I feel your pain about the garden. My DH was complaining about how much money I spent on the garden in the past 3 years versus what we actually got out of it. That's not including the actual manhours I've spent caring for it. I keep telling myself I'm paying for a (non-traditional) education. By the time I get out of gardening, I'm going to have this crap figured out and be really good at it! Every year I learn a little bit more. Harvest is hit and miss though.

My goals for next year -

1. Figure out the water situation. I'm done with using a 500+ foot hose. I'm putting in a well and soaker hoses. I found a tool kit online that will allow us to dig our own well. Should save us a lot of money.

2. Go vertical with the squash inside the hoop house.

3. Stick with DETERMINATE tomatoes this year. Outside the hoop house.

4. Redo the strawberries in 55 gallon barrels. I'll end up posting about this extensively when I do it. It will be an interesting experiment.


I have most of my seeds already, I think. Probably need to do a quick inventory again just to be sure...


Oh, and it looks like Mother Nature is now playing catch up on our rain. We've been bone dry since June except for a pathetically few sporadic deluges. This next week is nothing but rain... Hoping my pond fills back up.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Oh yeah, I need new windows in my house. I'm almost afraid to get a quote from ANYONE in this economy for anything....

 

[Ascholten]

My goals for next year -

1. Figure out the water situation. I'm done with using a 500+ foot hose. I'm putting in a well and soaker hoses. I found a tool kit online that will allow us to dig our own well. Should save us a lot of money.


4. Redo the strawberries in 55 gallon barrels. I'll end up posting about this extensively when I do it. It will be an interesting experiment.

I find the soaker hoses are not much use. They do well for about 20 feet, then after that, they just don't really piss the water out, even boosting the pressure up it's like more goes out the front part and does not make it to the back real good. I don'tlike them and would recommend putting down some 3/4 or 1/2 inch pvc and putting those little tappers into it where you can screw in a sprinkler head that either tap taps or mists the area. Lot better water flow and use a lot less when you are putting it where it needs to go instead of just everywhere hoping to hit what you need.

strawberries don't need a lot of deep. cut the 55 gallon drums lengthwise so you have what looks like more of a plastic boat, instead of just 2 - 25 gallon buckets. strawberries will do fine plus there is a lot more square foot for them to grow in spread. They'll like it better too.

Aaron

 

[CaroleW]

I planted a flat of various greens and getting ready to plant another. Still waiting on seed orders to come in so I used some really old seeds and some newer. Some may not germinate - I used 8-10 seeds in some cells on old seeds.

 

[TJAnonymous]

I find the soaker hoses are not much use. They do well for about 20 feet, then after that, they just don't really piss the water out, even boosting the pressure up it's like more goes out the front part and does not make it to the back real good. I don'tlike them and would recommend putting down some 3/4 or 1/2 inch pvc and putting those little tappers into it where you can screw in a sprinkler head that either tap taps or mists the area. Lot better water flow and use a lot less when you are putting it where it needs to go instead of just everywhere hoping to hit what you need.

strawberries don't need a lot of deep. cut the 55 gallon drums lengthwise so you have what looks like more of a plastic boat, instead of just 2 - 25 gallon buckets. strawberries will do fine plus there is a lot more square foot for them to grow in spread. They'll like it better too.

Aaron

Good to know on the soaker hoses. I'll consider.

As for the strawberries, I have a terrible problem with blights. It's killed off hundreds of dollars worth of strawberries. I've replaced my strawberries 3 years in a row. I need a better system where I can ensure air movement around the plant, limited moisture, and yet still keep everything from dying of thirst in our high heat, high humidity location. I've done a lot of research on this idea. It will involve using a hole saw to create planting locations in a 55 gallon food grade drum. However, the REAL experiment is what I'm doing on the inside to make it self watering.

 

[TJAnonymous]

If you replaced the word DOG with CHICKEN, yeah....that'd totally be me.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Morning Gardeners Cold as can be 33 here.. May have brussle sprouts ready
in the spare room.

 

[igorsMistress]

I never had any luck with my lemon & lime trees. The grapefruit tree looked great but never bloomed in the 30 years I had it. I gave them all to my niece, no room for them here. I only have the fig now.

I made a casserole with the turkey leftovers & froze it. It looked pretty good. When we used to have football season tickets I would make bubble & squeak for the day after game with the leftovers & we'd warm them up on the grill - always a HUGE hit.

Bubble & squeak?

I finally figured out why my nest sleeper won't roost - she's being bullied. I've noticed that when I block the nests she either sleeps on the floor or at the very far end of the coop by herself. I figured it was because she was molting but I've seen another bird beating on her the last few days & have heard fighting going on a lot. Today was the last straw - she chased her 60 feet from one end of the run to the other, pinned her down & went to town till I separated them. So I set up the 2nd coop & locked the bully up. They are the 2 birds at the bottom of the pecking order, vying for that 2nd to the last rung I suppose. Chicken drama, just what I need right now. I won't keep 2 coops for the winter, she has a week to straighten out or she's soup.

I have one who may end up in the pot, she’s mean to everyone but Elvis

Hey everybody! Happy belated Thanksgiving. It’s been a while... a loooong time actually. I'm still harvesting carrots here though. There's some garlic that popped up recently, it must be bulbs I missed when harvesting. I need to plant garlic for next year still. I need to get on that right away.

Welcome back! Missed you guy, hope all well!

Good morning Gardeners Made coffee in my new coffee press.
It is the blandest coffee we put in it.
Bought some Sumatra beans to try in the morning.

I switched to a press probably 20 years ago and if there’s one thing I found, it’s not an exact science. Don’t be afraid to play around with the amount of coffee of you use and the length of time you let it steep.

I read at first that it should be this amount of coffee for this amount of water, steep this long and it’s perfect. Definitely not the case. I change the amount of coffee I use and the steep time if I switch blends or roasts.

 

[pennyJo1960]

I was a coffee press user from 15 years ago. Had to recall how to adjust use ..
Thanks for the reminders only can help.