Chronicles of a Noob Garden and Gardener

[Ben E Lou]

Busy day today:

1. Put a bunch more pavers in place
2. Spread the soil acidifier in the blueberry area
3. Covered the blueberry bed with pine straw

(Attached pic shows the current status.)

Also, while on the way back from picking up the pine straw at a location I'd never been before, I passed a small nursery, so I pulled in there to check it out. Locally owned and operated place, and the owner was the only person there, and super talkative. I told him what I did last year, what I'm doing now, etc., and he offered lots of advice, and he also had a bunch of leftover seed packets from spring 2018 and is about to get his 2019 shipment in. He sold the 2018s to me for 25 cents a packet! Several of them were specific varieties that I wanted and already had in shopping carts on a couple of web sites. Score! (And special thanks to those in the thread about seeds I started who assured me that last year's seeds are fine to use.)

 

[Ben E Lou]

@baymule Thanks for all the info there! Much appreciated. No need to shut up!

 

[ducks4you]

I have a soft cover gardening book from the 1970's which has a list of efficacy specific for %'s for older seeds. Some, like onions, you don't even bother with. I once started (but killed off accidentally) tomato seeds that were 35 years old. Best to use the ziploc bag/wet paper towel), on top of the refridgerator method to test your old seeds.

 

[baymule]

@baymule Thanks for all the info there! Much appreciated. No need to shut up!

I love gardening, raising our own food and preserving it. I'll be glad to help you any way I can.

 

[majorcatfish]

Busy day today:

1. Put a bunch more pavers in place
2. Spread the soil acidifier in the blueberry area
3. Covered the blueberry bed with pine straw

(Attached pic shows the current status.)

Also, while on the way back from picking up the pine straw at a location I'd never been before, I passed a small nursery, so I pulled in there to check it out. Locally owned and operated place, and the owner was the only person there, and super talkative. I told him what I did last year, what I'm doing now, etc., and he offered lots of advice, and he also had a bunch of leftover seed packets from spring 2018 and is about to get his 2019 shipment in. He sold the 2018s to me for 25 cents a packet! Several of them were specific varieties that I wanted and already had in shopping carts on a couple of web sites. Score! (And special thanks to those in the thread about seeds I started who assured me that last year's seeds are fine to use.)

ben ben ben, you have way to much lawn, not enough veggie space...<the more you turn , the less you mow> ....trust me

need to get together before next spring... we mid south atlantic growers need to sick together.

 

[Ben E Lou]

ben ben ben, you have way to much lawn, not enough veggie space...<the more you turn , the less you mow> ....trust me

Heh. For now, I want to make sure I am actually willing to do the work to plant the area I have mapped out. It's probably triple the amount I did last year. Give a brutha some time to grow his garden, eh???

 

[seedcorn]

Good luck in trying to find that happy spot where garden is large enough to grow what you can’t get quality wise other places but to where it doesn’t become a pain because of all the work.

After 50+ years, I’m still searching......

 

[Ridgerunner]

Heh. For now, I want to make sure I am actually willing to do the work to plant the area I have mapped out. It's probably triple the amount I did last year. Give a brutha some time to grow his garden, eh???

Part of how much time it takes is what you are going to do with it. Are you just trying to grow enough for fresh eating or are you also going to preserve it by canning, freezing, or dehydrating? If you preserve some you not only have to grow more it can take a lot of time to pick it, prepare it, and preserve it. A lot of times the crops are not going to wait on you. When they are ready they need to be picked and preserved. I froze, canned, and dehydrated enough that we were eating in it all winter and gave some away to family, but I was retired. Some canning days, like corn, were long days. If you need help on how to preserve let us know.

One of the things that can take a lot of time is weeds. They just don't stop. I always have certain areas that just get out of control, many of us do if we have large areas and most of us are honest enough to admit it. I'm a big believer in mulching for that reason alone. If you can get certain crops mulched they pretty much stay weed-free the rest of the season, even after harvest. You can still get a few weeds but if it is mulched they are usually really easy to pull out. It's a lot faster than tilling, hoeing, or getting on your knees and pulling. The problem is that it takes time to mulch. In Arkansas I'd often have a choice to make in Spring. Do I preserve cool weather crops I started in February, plant warm weather crops that need to be planted now, or mulch stuff that needs mulching? Then it would set in wet for a week where I could not get in the garden. Oh the joys of gardening.

Like Seed I never found that perfect spot. But some years I got close.

 

[ninnymary]

I should have know better but I was shocked to see snow! Lol Like Major I too saw too much grass, haha. You could always do walkways, water features, or patio/sitting areas to eat up some of that lawn. I imagine planting watermelons, cantalopes, or zucchini and other squash will take up a lot of that space.

At .25 a package I would have gone crazy! Better get that storage container I have for all those seeds!

Love how you are a planner and already getting your beds ready for spring.

Mary

 

[baymule]

Cardboard does a lot towards keeping the weeds down. At our old house, I gardened in beds. I prepared the soil for planting, then covered it up with opened paper feed sacks, held down with bricks. Then I cut a hole in the paper and inserted a plant. I worked 10 hour days and didn't have time to spend pulling weeds.