GARDENING Thread

[wayoflife]

Because I know there are more than a few of you out there with a green thumb or not but still have an interest in growing things, I thought it would be fun to start a thread dedicated to gardening. It is my hope that everyone can post questions or provide tips and tricks on how to yield a better harvest, share ideas on how to keep pests at bay, let us know what you're planting this year and if nothing else, to post up pics of what your rows are looking like

And, just to kick things off, this is a shot of our Pizen garden from last year.

And, this is one from our Dam House garden.

Looking forward to see what you've got going

 

[wayoflife]

Here's a shot of what our Pizen field looked like about a month ago. Ready to be planted

 

[wayoflife]

To help improve our soil, we bought 4 yards of Kick from our local Full Circle Compost retailer.

 

[Mike Pierson]

Great idea! Hopefully I’ll learn from this thread… good skills to have especially nowadays.

 

[WJCO]

Good thread idea. I suck at gardening but our deer plots worked out great last year. Our soil pH was surprisingly perfect. So we've been talking about doing something small.

 

[wayoflife]

Great idea! Hopefully I’ll learn from this thread… good skills to have especially nowadays.

Happy to help in any way that we can! In addition to being a useful skill, I think you might find it to be fun as well.

Good thread idea. I suck at gardening but our deer plots worked out great last year. Our soil pH was surprisingly perfect. So we've been talking about doing something small.

Awesome that you have good soil to work with. I bet in your neck of the woods, things will grow really well.

 

[WJCO]

Pictures from today.

Clover:



Rye Grass blend:



Just good seed soil contact for this. I fertilized with Triple Ten a couple of times in the fall. If we plant a garden for us, hope it turns out this well.

 

[OverlanderJK]

Good thread idea. I suck at gardening but our deer plots worked out great last year. Our soil pH was surprisingly perfect. So we've been talking about doing something small.

There’s a reason so many tomatoes are grown around here. But it’s also so much clay.

 

[WJCO]

There’s a reason so many tomatoes are grown around here. But it’s also so much clay.

I had a guy move like an inch or two of dirt last week with a skid steer and it was solid clay underneath.

 

[Ddays]

We're at least a month away from planting here - rule of thumb my farmer neighbor told me is Memorial day. We've had frosts up to then several times and when I got impatient I paid for it

 

[wayoflife]

I had a guy move like an inch or two of dirt last week with a skid steer and it was solid clay underneath.

You can definitely till what you've growing under and that will help with nutrients but it sounds like you may need to add in some sand to help with drainage.

 

[wayoflife]

We're at least a month away from planting here - rule of thumb my farmer neighbor told me is Memorial day. We've had frosts up to then several times and when I got impatient I paid for it

Memorial Day is the rule out here as well. Home Depot and Lowes already have all kinds of plants out but even today, they've had to cover what they could and bring the more sensitive stuff like tomatoes inside.

 

[WJCO]

This is a spot in the woods I cleared last August. I actually tilled the ground and seeded with rye grass blend and clover. Again soil pH was great and I fertilized. This is right around seed time:



Unfortunately rain was too sporadic, it never grew much. It grew a little for the Fall. And it was too shady for the clover to do much.

This is the best it got. Late November:



However, this Spring, it went nuts. I also found some Clover that's supposed to do well in the shade so I seeded that last week and raked it into the bare spots and it's coming up great. But this is the result of the seed from last Fall. Picture was just taken less than an hour ago:

 

[wayoflife]

This is a spot in the woods I cleared last August. I actually tilled the ground and seeded with rye grass blend and clover. Again soil pH was great and I fertilized. This is right around seed time:

View attachment 424671View attachment 424672

Unfortunately rain was too sporadic, it never grew much. It grew a little for the Fall. And it was too shady for the clover to do much.

This is the best it got. Late November:

View attachment 424673

However, this Spring, it went nuts. I also found some Clover that's supposed to do well in the shade so I seeded that last week and raked it into the bare spots and it's coming up great. But this is the result of the seed from last Fall. Picture was just taken less than an hour ago:

View attachment 424674

Nice

 

[WJCO]

You can definitely till what you've growing under and that will help with nutrients but it sounds like you may need to add in some sand to help with drainage.

For sure. If we did a real garden, we'd have to do something like that. Colorado had a lot of clay too.

 

[wayoflife]

For sure. If we did a real garden, we'd have to do something like that. Colorado had a lot of clay too.

Will you be able to irrigate the spot or would you just rely on rainfal?

 

[WJCO]

Will you be able to irrigate the spot or would you just rely on rainfal?

Mostly rainfall. But it's close enough to the house that I could get water to it if needed. Our neighbor gardens all the time and usually doesn't water much. They had to last year though. Not a good rain year.

 

[wayoflife]

Mostly rainfall. But it's close enough to the house that I could get water to it if needed. Our neighbor gardens all the time and usually doesn't water much. They had to last year though. Not a good rain year.

That's awesome. And, there's a LOT you can do with just a hose and a timer. We do it all the time.

 

[Mike Pierson]

So we red clay, which I understand is high in iron. Thinking our best option is raised beds, like Adam built, bringing in good black dirt.

What I never understood is what do you do with the harvest? You can’t possibly eat it all. Do you can it?

 

[Ddays]

So we red clay, which I understand is high in iron. Thinking our best option is raised beds, like Adam built, bringing in good black dirt.

What I never understood is what do you do with the harvest? You can’t possibly eat it all. Do you can it?

Blanching and freezing is an alternate to cannng