Gardening

Greenhouses are largely planted, and all of one garden is done. The other garden is set up with raised mounds for zucchini, and the winter squash/pumpkin mounds are also partly set up. I was moving compost with the tractor and found that the bottom two feet of the compost pile is still frozen solid! The uppermost layers were more recently active, but the stuff that has been done since last fall has been insulated from thawing by the upper layers. I will probably have to wait until Monday when I hope the rest will be thawed out. Even the tractor with my special compost attachment could not budge the ice.
 
The new little raised bed planters are put together ! Bobby had it done early this morning, and I had a whole garden cart of weeds scraps and trimmings that were ready to go in the bed. I took the cardboard box that it came in apart, laid that down (after weedeating the grass as close to the dirt as possible), so that should stop the grass and weeds from coming up through the bottom.
Bobby used my Mini-Mower and mowed part of the front yard and added two containers of grass clippingings into the top to muclh down with everything else, and then we put a bag of garden soil on top and I added some plant cuttings.

I ordered more bags of dirt to put over what is there, and next I will do more weeding and get ready to set up the other raised bed. By next year, they should have pretty well worked their way down to ground level, and i will take the metal containers and re-use them to start more plants elsewhere.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/sundown45/Uq9BvGvG3V
 
Yvonne Smith said:
The new little raised bed planters are put together ! Bobby had it done early this morning, and I had a whole garden cart of weeds scraps and trimmings that were ready to go in the bed. I took the cardboard box that it came in apart, laid that down (after weedeating the grass as close to the dirt as possible), so that should stop the grass and weeds from coming up through the bottom.
Bobby used my Mini-Mower and mowed part of the front yard and added two containers of grass clippingings into the top to muclh down with everything else, and then we put a bag of garden soil on top and I added some plant cuttings.

I ordered more bags of dirt to put over what is there, and next I will do more weeding and get ready to set up the other raised bed. By next year, they should have pretty well worked their way down to ground level, and i will take the metal containers and re-use them to start more plants elsewhere.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/sundown45/Uq9BvGvG3V
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My challenged daughter was helping me and I had to explain the importance of not wasting dirt. I understand the confusion but I don't buy it. She used to just fling it around but now is one of the best tree planters I know. Put in two more stanley plums. Yum!
 
Mary Stetler said:
My challenged daughter was helping me and I had to explain the importance of not wasting dirt. I understand the confusion but I don't buy it. She used to just fling it around but now is one of the best tree planters I know. Put in two more stanley plums. Yum!
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If we had any good dirt, i would not buy it either; and this is the first place that I have ever had to do anything except shovel dirt to where I wanted it. We have hardpacked clay here, and it is either mud or cement , depending on whether we have rain or not. So, now that I am just doing container gardening, it makes sense to fill the container as full as possible with plants that will add mulch, and then put dirt and some kind of compost in with that, and add more as necessary.
I wish I still had a backyard llama because they make the very best manure for a garden ! (And they helpfully put it all in a nice pile somewhere so it is easy to move where I needed it.
 
My first planing of beans are up but someone nibbled a few of them. Too dry for slugs. I saw a steel grey something scurry under the mint bed. I thought mice hated mint. I improved the fence to keep out my chickens,finally, who dug up everything I planted early on. Who knows what will be growing where this year.
 
Since winter extended far into spring this year, we would have had a late start for gardening, so I planted a bunch of pretty old seeds, thinking that if they were still viable, fine, but I didn't feel like collecting new seeds. I have a few things coming up, but they may be weeds.
 
Ken Anderson said:
Since winter extended far into spring this year, we would have had a late start for gardening, so I planted a bunch of pretty old seeds, thinking that if they were still viable, fine, but I didn't feel like collecting new seeds. I have a few things coming up, but they may be weeds.
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Time will tell. We had a tomatoe volunteer come up next to a water feature. Never use tomatoe seeds and no compost. Must have been our feathered tenants.
 
Does anyone here have any heirloom veggies from which they harvest viable seeds for future plants? That video from @Mary Stetler got me wondering. I know one guy who has some heirloom yellow tomatoes he propagates from season to season. It seems that lots of folks don't bother with gardens because in the long run it's a lot of work and doesn't save that much money, the main reason being that you have to buy seeds & plants every year.

As an aside, I have a friend who owns a greenhouse. He told me that a few years ago Myer Seed Company in Baltimore MD either completely closed or they sold the name, because the current generation is not interested in running the business. Plus--just like farms--the real estate was worth too much money for them to say No to.

Another one bites the dust.
 
My BIL has cabbage collard seeds that his family has kept since hie grandmother's days. They are a lighter green than the ones you can buy at the grocery and a thousand times better. His brother grew them to sell on his farm. People come from miles around to buy them. My BIL gave my son some of the seeds on the condition that he would not give seeds to anybody else. Now that's all we grow.

We are up to our ears in summer squash and zucchini. Dug up potatoes last week. Ummmm, new potatoes. Broccoli is done for.

We need rain badly. Sons are watering from the well. That keeps them living so far but not thriving like rain would.
 
John Brunner said:
Does anyone here have any heirloom veggies from which they harvest viable seeds for future plants? That video from @Mary Stetler got me wondering. I know one guy who has some heirloom yellow tomatoes he propagates from season to season. It seems that lots of folks don't bother with gardens because in the long run it's a lot of work and doesn't save that much money, the main reason being that you have to buy seeds & plants every year.

As an aside, I have a friend who owns a greenhouse. He told me that a few years ago Myer Seed Company in Baltimore MD either completely closed or they sold the name, because the current generation is not interested in running the business. Plus--just like farms--the real estate was worth too much money for them to say No to.

Another one bites the dust.
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SO may have some Jalapenos. They turn a very deep purple almost black.
 
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