Baymule’s 2019 Garden

[seedcorn]

Tell me about the Rosa Bianca eggplants. Not fond of Asian eggplants, back to black beauty.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Love Asian eggplant. Not so much the black beauty ones in the grocery store. Would love some seeds when the time comes.
I love to grill the eggplant with garlic and onions in a grill basket.

 

[flowerbug]

@baymule, when you or a partner are injured or unable to keep after a big garden it can get away from you and for sure it can be discouraging, but to me the bigger and more important thing is the health of the people and so if you have to you let it go and cope with what you must in the mean-time. there is nothing to be ashamed of IMO, not at all...

i had to hear discouraging comments from Mom for a few years before i could finally get the north garden back into shape this year. she did help this spring on that by smothering and redoing the lowest sections that i'd previously spent a lot of hours keeping up, but after years of efforts i knew to finally call it quits there. gravity wins. weed seeds wash or are blown into low spaces and it was just not worth the 20hrs it would take me to weed it again. not when Mom could smother it again with cardboard in a few hours. especially with the horsetail starting to come back again in there (it was never really completely gone).

can you turn that garden into the sheep pen for a season or two to let them take care of it for you and move rest of the garden to another place for next year? it might be easier... use the animals to do the work. i would do that anyways with both chickes and sheep if i had them because they do work so well at clearing up weeds. you can just rotate around an area if you have enough room...

 

[flowerbug]

No matter no till, conservative till or conventional till, one constant-weeds. Just different style of weeds as varieties will adapt to your style.

While you look for your best methods, be proud that your beach property now grows plants. Now you have a base to start with.

My garden (gravel/sand that wouldn’t grow grass) is coming around but has to be bedded with straw to keep roots from burning and weeds somewhat in control-very loosely in control.

rotational grazing and chickens can take care of about anything from what i've seen and if needed a brush hog or loppers for bushes or the bigger woody stems that the sheep or chickens won't take down.

in sandy soil tilling should not be needed at all. a scraper is very quick, but it does have to be used often enough. if an area gets out of control then tilling all those weed seeds around isn't going to be a good result especially if those weed seeds have a long survival time in the soil seed bank. since chickens and other birds will often eat seeds i see no reason to make the problem worse by tilling when you have the solution available. let the birds in and let them clean it up and keep it clean for a while or even perhaps a few years.

 

[seedcorn]

1). No chickens. Done that, don’t want any more.
2). I’m not waiting years to garden.
3). Even ground undisturbed has weeds-some really bad ones.
4). Tilling is of some value-puts left over trash under ground where microbes work on it leaving valuable nutrients and carbon. It’s a huge labor, time and back saving advantage.
5). Birds plant (distribute) more weed seeds than they harvest-at least our Indiana birds do. Maybe they haven’t read the “hand book on bird behavior” or they are out laws....
6). Scraping is of no value with our grasses. Only solution is chemicals and/or hand pulling. Even then, I wonder who is winning...

 

[baymule]

Tell me about the Rosa Bianca eggplants. Not fond of Asian eggplants, back to black beauty.

Rosa Bianca has mild, white flesh and is not bitter. Although these may be bitter, no idea how long they have been there. Guess I’ll pull one and find out. They usually yield more than black beauty.

Why not hijack my thread? Nyboy had a talent for that. A thread could start about tomato seedlings, Alex would chime in and that thread would wander from toilet seats to alligator shoes (kept in the oven)

 

[baymule]

@flowerbug i have a chicken coop in the garden but when the season ends and I can turn chickens loose, that’s when migrating hawks show up. There’s plenty of cover for them now. First thing they did was go after the tomatoes. BAD CHICKENS! I’m taking the coop out this winter.

 

[baymule]

I forgot to post this picture. This is before I started trying to rescue the eggplant, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and kale. Those vines are wild cucumber things with small round yellow when ripe fruit that is sweet. They are invasive, drop hundreds of fruits with strong survival instincts. The fruits immediately begin burrowing into the soil like clams. Step on one, it bursts open, buries itself and releases a million seeds. The vines are like working with fiberglass insulation with bare hands. They afflict the ignorant with thousands of invisible glass-like threads that feel like stinging nettles. They stink. They have a heavy musky odor. A snake smells better. I hate them.

 

[seedcorn]

We call them burr cucumber. Amazing how they can spread 20’ in all directions over night. Give them 2 days and they’ll cover an acre....

They are beyond nasty.... kill them, burn them, nuke them, send them to any country who is hateful to USA....

 

[thistlebloom]

I really feel for you Bay .
Shoveling tons of snow over year round gardening is sounding almost magical now .