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2020 How does your garden grow

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Well it's that time of the year again. I got a good start, if a tiny bit late, but the heat and wind have been fighting me this spring.

Still. . . .

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Tomatoes
Okra
peppers
beans
squash
corn
Cucumber
Potatoes in the big tubs
and under the board I'm sprouting Carrots (The only way I have found to sprout them in the heat & wind)

The orange Fence is just to let the chickens pass by & get into the easement without stopping to snack in the garden. 😉


So hows your garden doing?????
 
So hows your garden doing?????

Had a really slow start this year but it's looking really good now.

Got
potatoes
onions
peppers
tomatoes
celery
lettuce
spinach
carrots
cabbage
kohlrabi
turnips
bok choy
tatsoi
pole beans
scarlet runner beans
beets
parsnips
garlic
cucumbers
dill
cilantro
diakon radish
carrots
leeks
peas

I think that's everything, some items have multiple varieties and I didn't include the perennials.

under the board I'm sprouting Carrots (The only way I have found to sprout them in the heat & wind)

I too have found the board method to work well for carrots.
 
I put in some boxes this spring and planted them, 3 boxes 3’ x 16’. They’re doing great so far and if it works out I’ll add some more next year. We put in tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, spinach, lettuce, green beans, onions, beets, and carrots.
 

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After 10 plus years trying to rehab tight clay soil i had 14 yards of river sand hauled in.

I've gone the other way, incorporating lots of compost and organic matter. I also use raised beds where soil is really bad.
 
I tried the compost method for close to 20 years. I even have a nice compost pile the neighbors hate...The city gives away compost 2xs a year, but I work my butt off keeping my garden weed-free, then i haul in a load of free compost and spread it. It smells hideous, but its all good. I water it in, and a few days later I have the nicest garden of WEEDS you've ever seen. Then I spend every spare minute chopping weeds trying to get ahead of them. My ground was soo tight NO root crops would grow, and when it got wet it stood in water a week, drowning my plants, and was slick as snot on a doorknob. I grew up farming, mostly row-crop, we have a 20 acre truck farm an hour away, but no one is using it now.

So trust me when i tell you compost and organic matter wasn't going to cut it on this little slice of heaven.

BTW, is that a Garden Hoe or a Squeegee?? I'm still trying to wear out the I-hoe I got 20 odd years ago.
 
So trust me when i tell you compost and organic matter wasn't going to cut it on this little slice of heaven.

BTW, is that a Garden Hoe or a Squeegee?? I'm still trying to wear out the I-hoe I got 20 odd years ago.

I believe you, and I know what you are saying.

Yes, it's a garden hoe, similar to a dutch hoe. It works very well, fast and easy, much more so than a traditional hoe, I've wore out or broke the handles on at least a dozen of them, they get used for other things like mixing concrete or mortar.

One of my gardens is fallow this year because it needs some rejuvenating, It's always been hard shallow rocky clay, and I will admit I thought about adding some sand to it. But it is on a slope.
I may still.
 
Red clay rocky mix on hilly property here. Struggle to grown anything that looks like grass, though weeds thrive. Put a raised bed on a slight slope this year. Was thinking about using some oak logs (have some 30” diameter oak ‘phone poles’ on the ground), but after all the digging, stump pulling and burning, decided to use retaining wall bricks on a gravel base. 24” deep (needed that depth to level off the land), just over 4’ wide and a little under 12’ long. Filled with what I’ll call an organic mix topsoil. As I transferred in some of the plants I had started, it took the local woodchuck population less than an hour to pretty much destroy most of the Romain lettuce (usually grow in planters on the deck) I put in. A few of them won’t be back. Have a temporary wire fence in now, putting posts in for an electric fence. Figure if I run wire at 2”, 6”, 18”, 36” and 60”, and with any luck, that will keep most of the critters out, except for the ones that crawl. Hope it’s not a wasted effort. Some around here have what looks like screen houses over their gardens, but I would be hard pressed to consider that.
 
Here's something you guys might be interested in...My winter garden.......Nov-Mar


Cobra 6
 

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We had an excellent year for oak and hackberry leaves this year. I raked up and put 40+ wheelbarrows of leaves in between rows of veggies. Makes for a good mulch to keep the weed population down and moisture retention. Good for stepping on too. Then when the garden is done just till them all under and the organic matter "mellows out" the garden for next year. And I imagine they got a little nutritional value also.
 
The city gives away compost 2xs a year, but I work my butt off keeping my garden weed-free, then i haul in a load of free compost and spread it. It smells hideous, but its all good. I water it in, and a few days later I have the nicest garden of WEEDS you've ever seen. Then I spend every spare minute chopping weeds trying to get ahead of them.


One thing I do to help manage weeds is to employ crop rotation and Allelopathic cover crops like wheat. When a crop comes off, I plant a cover crop behind it.
 
We had an excellent year for oak and hackberry leaves this year. I raked up and put 40+ wheelbarrows of leaves in between rows of veggies. Makes for a good mulch to keep the weed population down and moisture retention. Good for stepping on too. Then when the garden is done just till them all under and the organic matter "mellows out" the garden for next year. And I imagine they got a little nutritional value also.

I think leaves like oak or maple make a great addition to the garden. Most of mine are used to cover my fall planted garlic.
 
Well, after burn out from my acreage of weeds and taking last year off, I've waddled back in. Hand weeding 2400 garlic every week will convince most sane people to go fishing instead. Always had a tendency to over reach things. Then they pay you back in weeds. And that's with crop rotation and green manures.
I am looking forward to the pepper low tunnel. 140 of them, mostly Big Jim and Hatch, for our own use. Yum!:thumb:
 
OK guys, I'm convinced on the Fiddle Heads. Went out and bought some off of Greenwood in Tennessee. This could take some time.



Cobra 6
You might need about 100 more! You can only take about half from each fern once established. You leave the rest so the plant can live. But at least you get to taste them next year!
 
Well, after burn out from my acreage of weeds and taking last year off, I've waddled back in. Hand weeding 2400 garlic every week will convince most sane people to go fishing instead. Always had a tendency to over reach things. Then they pay you back in weeds. And that's with crop rotation and green manures.

I have almost no weeds in my garlic. As long as I cover the garlic with leaves in the fall, the leaves suppress the weeds all the way to harvest. I also leave room between rows for tilling if necessary, but it usually isn't. I till to incorporate the leaves and loosen the soil a month before harvest.
 

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