The Garden Thread

[peejman]

So, when to start in mid Tn? Now, a few weeks from now? What say you?

Thanks, Mark

 

 

http://www.almanac.com/gardening

[monkeylizard]

Between now and a few weeks will be good. I start my leafy greens for a fall crop in mid August. If I cover them for light frost, I'll still be getting some lettuce and swiss chard into December.

Edited August 6, 2015 by monkeylizard

[gregintenn]

I broke my garden last Saturday, which means it's about time to revive this thread! Grab your hoes and let's go. :no1:

[Mark A]

So glad to see this fire back up...we've got a ton of romaine, spinach, kale, and Swiss chard in the ground. Also about 100 tomatoes and 100 pepper seeds started. Wife stomped her cute foot and said strawberries or else so we got 25 plants and 50 starts rolling.

We finished our first greenhouse last fall. Mostly all I've done with it is kill a bunch of stuff.

The thing I'm most excited about is we have 2 large wicking beds under construction. They will hopefully be complete this weekend. I will try to get pictures of the various stages of construction.

Mark

[musicman]

Sweet!

Mark, that all sounds awesome! I've never heard of wicking beds before... guess I know what I'll be googling as I fall asleep tonight. :-)

I'm just barely getting to the novice stage of gardening, and this will be my third year. I have no soil to speak of in my yard, unless you count a thin layer of dust the weeds hold onto on top or rock. :/ I have two small 3.5'x8'ish raised beds and use some containers as well. I plan on making one more raised bed with some logs I have from some trees we had taken down last year. I'm also going to try some hay bale gardening to see how that works out.

I don't grow a whole lot, mainly just a bunch of different kinds of hot peppers. Last year I had about 25 plants and 9 or 10 varieties. This year will probably be about the same. I have a small patch of strawberries, but between the bugs, birds, and squirrels, I usually only get a couple dozen strawberries for myself by the time it's all over. I'm going to do a couple yellow squash as those worked out pretty well my first year. They'll go in the new bed. I'm also going to try some orange watermelons. My neighbors didn't have any success with watermelon last year, but they didn't really tend to their garden and gave up around July. Of course, their jalapeños didn't care and looked better than mine, haha!

I also do your basic herb assortment and some green onions. I haven't put anything in the ground yet, but have about 20 seedlings of pepper plants: 7 pot jonah, bishop's hat, early jalapeño, aji limon, some yellow and red scorpions, moruga black, and a few others. The one I really really wanted to try this year was the orange rocoto, but only 3 of 20 seeds germinated, and none of the could shed their seed husk. Two died, and I tried to help the third by gently pushing/pulling ever so softly at the husk, and the plant snapped apart. :/ Maybe next year for those. They're supposed to be a challenging plant... they are so far!

Granted, I'm not doing things the "right way." I don't have a grow light, I don't have a heating mat, or anything else you're "supposed" to have. I have a 36 hole seed tray, a Lowe's misting bottle, and a window.

I'm strictly low budget, even more this year than last. Someday I'll spend more and do things right, but a 1911 beckons!

[peejman]

I turned mine about a week ago so it'll hopefully dry out enough to till effectively.  When I tilled it last year it just turned into baseball sized clods of dirt.  I'm thinking about putting some sand on one part of it to help with the drainage/clay.  I'd like to have already planted the cooler weather stuff like spinach and broccoli, but life keeps getting the way. 

[MemHeli]

Urban gardner here, I've got around 80 4" pots going to sprout seeds here.  Beans, tomatoes, squash, peppers, Okra and such.  Along with a bunch of flowers.  Hoping we're done w/ frost at this point, but it's not mid-April yet...

[Raoul]

Well I looked this morning. Onions, radishes, and swiss chard are all up. My 2 rows of garlic weathered the winter well so it's going good. I need to plant carrots this week.

[monkeylizard]

My Kale and Swiss Chard (and some Spinach) survived the winter and are coming in strong already. They're cool-season crops so they can handle any frost we may get, just maybe not a hard freeze. I have been looking for some kohlrabi plants at Home Depot, but haven't found any yet. I could start some from seed, but I should have done that about 4 weeks ago if I was going to do it. It's cold-weather tolerant too. The rest will go in the ground the week of April 15th or after, depending on the 7-day forecast by then. If the forecast from the 15th out 7 days looks good, you're almost 100% in the clear from frost in Middle Tennessee.

 

Oh, I picked up a Garden Weasel to till up my raised beds. It works pretty well. It's a nice workout for your arms, but for busting up some small plots it's quite good. I wouldn't want to do more than about 100 sq. ft with it though, and even then I'd plan to space that out over a few days. The wetter the soil, the easier it is to till.

[MemHeli]

Well I looked this morning. Onions, radishes, and swiss chard are all up. My 2 rows of garlic weathered the winter well so it's going good. I need to plant carrots this week.

 

I"m going to plant some garlic today.  Can't believe I'd forgotten to.  

[Dirtshooter]

This is our 2nd year of raised beds, wished I would have done that about 40 years ago. Best garden last year ever. 3-5-16 planted 2 lbs of onion sets 1 white and 1 red. 3-12-16 planted sugar snap peas and carrots, 3-15-16 planted 8 cabbage and 8 broccoli plants. 3-18-16 the peas were sprouting and 3-24-16 carrots started sprouting. 3-26-16 planted lettuce mix. For those that don't know Sow True seeds in Asheville, N.C. has lots of heirloom or non-hybrid seeds. We also have tomatoes, peppers, and 2 types of squash started inside. I went the cheap method for the beds, I have access to wooden crates from a tractor dealer and I just knock the bottom out we put cardboard down on the grass, some black plastic a foot or so all around and we filled with topsoil and mushroom mix which is horse manure that has composted about a year. Wishing ya'll some good wholesome veggies.

[musicman]

I don't have much of a garden compared to most of you all, I'm sure.  I'm in my 3rd year (I think) now.  I started with containers only my first year, then some raised beds I built.  This year I also added hay bales to the mix and they are working out well so far.  If they last throughout the entire season, I'll definitely expand on this method next year.  

 

Just thought I'd share a couple pics of the progress this year:

Starting out

[Omega]

7 minutes ago, musicman said:

I don't have much of a garden compared to most of you all, I'm sure.  I'm in my 3rd year (I think) now.  I started with containers only my first year, then some raised beds I built.  This year I also added hay bales to the mix and they are working out well so far.  If they last throughout the entire season, I'll definitely expand on this method next year.  

 

Just thought I'd share a couple pics of the progress this year:

Starting out

They will last a season or two, friend of mine has his in frames using the hay as filler to raise the height then some garden dirt on top of that.  Me, I went the 55gl barrel direction last season, all I got out of them was jalapenos though, squirrels got all my tomatoes.  This year they are coming in well, but now I have a plastic owl, a blow up snake and if that doesn't do it, I have electric lines on the top...heh heh, fried squirrel.

[musicman]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, uploads on the phone are a pain the butt to post.  I tried to get them in chronological order.  

 

[musicman]

Ugh, I despise squirrels too, Omega!

I've found a few a new home in my garbage can so far this year.  :/

As for the hay bales, I'm glad to hear your friend has gotten good use out of them.  I only plan on using them a season at a time.  They'll make excellent cover for reseeding the lawn this fall after the growing season is over. If I see continued good results, I'll probably go for about 20 bales next year.

 

And as you can see, I obviously need to space things out more!  I honestly didn't expect such vigorous growth!  I'm going to lose some pepper plants to the zucchini and squash this go around. :/

[Omega]

You have a nice setup, I may expand mine a bit just for S&G, right now I just plant salsa

 

[musicman]

Thanks :-)

Haha! "Plant salsa"  xD

I mostly do the same thing.  This all started because I love peppers and then I added more and more stuff.  I'm shooting for the stars and trying a small watermelon variety this year, too.  But, like with the zucchini, I just don't think I've given it the space it deserves/needs.  We'll see what happens.  :/

 

I like that raised setup!  I'm fat and lazy, so that would really reduce my stress at harvest time!

[Omega]

10 minutes ago, musicman said:

Thanks :-)

Haha! "Plant salsa"  xD

I mostly do the same thing.  This all started because I love peppers and then I added more and more stuff.  I'm shooting for the stars and trying a small watermelon variety this year, too.  But, like with the zucchini, I just don't think I've given it the space it deserves/needs.  We'll see what happens.  :/

 

I like that raised setup!  I'm fat and lazy, so that would really reduce my stress at harvest time!

Vine varieties do ok in small spaces, they'll seek out the room.  I once "lost" a watermelon that went into the underbrush, but once I found it it was ready to harvest.  I planted three varieties of tomatoes, Roma, Sweet 100s, and early girl, and of course jalapeños.  I also put in 4 cauliflower and 4 broccoli hoping to get them to grow this year.  No vine stuff, I don't know how well it would work in the raised planters, not to mention the electrical wires.

[monkeylizard]

9 hours ago, musicman said:

But, like with the zucchini, I just don't think I've given it the space it deserves/needs.  

Use some thin plywood or lattice to block two sides of it and let it grow out of the box/bale towards the ground. Maybe about 2' high. It will climb the lattice/plywood some, but for the most part it will grow along the path of least resistance. Every week or two, move the vines off the board/lattice to keep it away from your other stuff.

Edited May 25, 2016 by monkeylizard

[MemHeli]

I'm going to get a few bails of hay and put some squash on them, maybe a cucumber too.  Have never seen this done before till the post above.

[musicman]

Do some reading on it first, the bales need some prep and a few weeks' time before they are ready for plants.  If you get them and plant immediately, the plants will burn to death in a couple weeks during a heat spike as the bales go through a stage of internal decomposition. 

Also, hay/straw provides little to no nutrient, so fertilizer and amendments must be added regularly.  If I had a good yard/soil I wouldn't have tried this.  However, it seems to be working out very well so far.

Here's a good link to start

http://modernfarmer.com/2013/07/straw-bale-gardening/

[Mark A]

12 hours ago, musicman said:

If I had a good yard/soil I wouldn't have tried this.

Musician, nice start and I like the different methods you are trying. Not sure how long you are planning on being in your house but have you heard of chip drop? You can sign up and tree companies will come drop chips from trees they've cut down and shredded. They don't pay to dump and you get free stuff to build up soil. Just a thought.

 

My experiment this year was wicking beds using stock tanks. I thought I did a good job of documenting it for a post but the pics were terrible. I will probably doom one more before this fall and will be sure to get proper documentation. I'm super pleased with the results so far.

 

Mark

[Omega]

1 hour ago, Mark A said:

Musician, nice start and I like the different methods you are trying. Not sure how long you are planning on being in your house but have you heard of chip drop? You can sign up and tree companies will come drop chips from trees they've cut down and shredded. They don't pay to dump and you get free stuff to build up soil. Just a thought.

 

My experiment this year was wicking beds using stock tanks. I thought I did a good job of documenting it for a post but the pics were terrible. I will probably doom one more before this fall and will be sure to get proper documentation. I'm super pleased with the results so far.

 

Mark

Do they tell you what kind of trees?  I found out that black walnut will kill other trees and plants.  I had to cut one down, and the roots still killed an apple tree I planted a couple feet away from the stump.

[Mark A]

It is true that black walnuts are aleopathic. They produce juglone which can be death to certain things. Apple trees, tomatoes and peppers along with potatoes are particularly sensitive to juglone.

But, there are lots of plants that are not bothered by it at all. Peaches, plums, pears are not bothered. Some berries like raspberry are tolerant. Pretty much all the squashes are ok.

The main thing is that in a mulch or compost the juglone breaks down in about 6 months of exposure to sunlight. So as a general  soil building method I wouldn't hesitate at all to spread thin layers on the ground and let it start breaking down.

 

Mark

Edited May 28, 2016 by Mark A

[musicman]

Just figured I'd post an update again.  I'm super happy with the hay bale method so far!  Stuff is pretty much just exploding out of these plants now.

I didn't think to take any pictures of the garden area overall, maybe next time.  I was having too much fun watching the bees at work!