Your 2024 Garden

[Dough Hill]

Probably do the same as last year but rotated zucchini and cucumbers. I don’t put a big garden out anymore since I’ve had Covid Pneumonia and my lungs are damaged I can’t take the summer humidity anymore. Here’s last years in the beginning of Summer.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I just scatter ever how much I have over the area I'm planting and till it in. I don't depend on it for plant nutrition because each variety of vegetable has different needs and compost unless make in many separate piles is a one size fits all thing. I use compost to add soil aeration to the root zone and it helps with drainage on clay soils.

I'm mainly looking to make more 'dirt' for my stuff if that makes sense. I can't buy another hundred pounds of soil again for my new bins and our dirt here will not do anything but kill roots that try to grow so we have to combine a bit of ours with better stuff for each pot.

 

[Nomadicus]

Probably do the same as last year but rotated zucchini and cucumbers. I don’t put a big garden out anymore since I’ve had Covid Pneumonia and my lungs are damaged I can’t take the summer humidity anymore. Here’s last years in the beginning of Summer. View attachment 3707380

Completely understand about the lung damage. Same with myself and much worse with my wife who is on oxygen 24/7 now. We still do a little at a time. Best wishes with your garden no matter how small.

 

[Nomadicus]

I'm mainly looking to make more 'dirt' for my stuff if that makes sense. I can't buy another hundred pounds of soil again for my new bins and our dirt here will not do anything but kill roots that try to grow so we have to combine a bit of ours with better stuff for each pot.

I wanted raised beds but my dirt has to much clay for that and the cost of filling the ones I wanted will buy good food for a long time for the two of us. That is what makes sense to us now. We will try to grow a few things we cannot buy like guinea beans for sure. Our main crop will be tomatoes for canning as well as fresh and this is the year for okra.. We plant okra every other year. Purple hull peas also as they are $50 for a bag of local grown shelled peas. We can sit and shell for that kind of money.

 

[Debbie292d]

Have some seeds ordered that should shipbout soon, planning to place another order hopefully soon.

Trying to figure out composting. Every site I look at has different ratios and lists and instructions

We just got a list of what can and can't go in our bins to learn initially. We weren't sure at first if this was going to be too complicated too, but learned the basics and went from there.

In spring we add the sawdust and dehydrated chick poop from the coop (we use horse bedding pellets) and put some of that in with yard waste which has grass and dead leaves. How moist is our only issue, as sometimes it seems drier and sometimes it seems wetter.

We wind up with 3-4 five-gallon buckets of awesome potting soil in the spring. If we get too much, we just make a pile of it somewhere and cover with a tarp.

It really is easier than it seems once you know what you can and can't put in there. Ours has a lot of coffee grounds and egg shells in addition to all the other stuff.

 

[NanaK]

Trying to figure out composting. Every site I look at has different ratios and lists and instructions

I don't worry about ratios and ingredients. I think it all works out in the end. I have a corner of my garden that I just layer stuff in sort of like making lasagna. Yard trimmings, leaves, chicken manure, bean hulls when we are shelling beans, vegetable trimmings, whatever I have. Sometimes I work in shredded paper. Once in a while I take a fork and turn it a bit. Nothing scientific about my method. It's always worked just fine.

I do try to keep any diseased plant material out.

 

[NanaK]

Purple hull peas also as they are $50 for a bag of local grown shelled peas. We can sit and shell for that kind of money.

Wow! How many quarts for that?

You can grow a lot of peas for $50! I haven't bought any in many years because they are easy to grow and save seed. Do you can, freeze or dry? I mostly freeze them.

Curious, what variety do you grow? There are so many. I grow a bush type called Top Pick Pink Eye Purple Hull. They are easy to pick and shell and very tasty.

 

[tripletfeb]

I wanted raised beds but my dirt has to much clay for that and the cost of filling the ones I wanted will buy good food for a long time for the two of us. That is what makes sense to us now. We will try to grow a few things we cannot buy like guinea beans for sure. Our main crop will be tomatoes for canning as well as fresh and this is the year for okra.. We plant okra every other year. Purple hull peas also as they are $50 for a bag of local grown shelled peas. We can sit and shell for that kind of money.

We have a city not too far from us that takes the residents leaves every fall and composts them. Then they give out that compost for free, for anyone willing to shovel it. We have used that every year, to help fill our raised beds. Our raised beds are on the ground so I guess they aren't really "raised". We outlined the garden with wood and put cardboard down to kill the grass. Then we filled in the garden. With the free compost(which we call black gold), chicken bedding, and top soil that we have bought over the years. Here is a good picture from this past spring, when we doubled the garden

 

[Debbie292d]

We have a city not too far from us that takes the residents leaves every fall and composts them. Then they give out that compost for free, for anyone willing to shovel it. We have used that every year, to help fill our raised beds. Our raised beds are on the ground so I guess they aren't really "raised". We outlined the garden with wood and put cardboard down to kill the grass. Then we filled in the garden. With the free compost(which we call black gold), chicken bedding, and top soil that we have bought over the years. Here is a good picture from this past spring, when we doubled the gardenView attachment 3707447

I could ditto what you said as that town nearest us does that too. Every year hubby goes and gets a trailer full for our garden as the compost we make is for my barrels, pots, and seedlings. The only thing is one year, not sure what they threw in there but we had a lot of weeds from it.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Think we decided on a composter. It's a bit small, but if I like it, I can always get a second one next year too