Garden is now tilled.

[chris09]

My garden has to be Fort Knox against the critters at all levels, ground, sides, and top. In this forest there is no shooting like that allowed. Dogs have to be on a leash. But there is no rule against having a gophergitter Abyssinian! He goes in the garden if the gophers get through, has his own dog carrier turned into a garden cat house, door removed, warm old pillows and blanket and old sweater. Took him a few months, but he's really good indoors now too.

You are lucky to be able to do it unfenced!

It took about a year to get things under control but between the 3 truck farms and me I think there somewhat under control. I have to send the wife's Rat Terrier down a whole after a ground hog now and then and the 2 outside dogs chase a deer off about once a month but we don't have much problems.

The only time a dog has to be on a leash here in when it is off your land.

Chris

 

[chris09]

I thought I would do a update on this years garden.
After the soil test I did I found out that I needed to add some fertilizer, the soil was about dead on for pH at around 6.5 the P and K was a little low but the Nitrogen was way low so I'm adding some triple 12 [12-12-12] and Ironite to the soil.

I did get a row hilled and some Peas in today, were planting two types this year and will see how they do. The first type of Pea is Improved Laxton's Progress and the second is Liberty Pea OP.

Chris

 

[skeeter9]

That's just beautiful, Chris! Happy gardening!

 

[SweetMissDaisy]

I am envious of all of you who have traditional gardens like this. I appreciate my raised beds, but I'd love to have a garden like this. Our soil is just TERRIBLE -- clay, hard, mess in the summer. And if we were going to live here 'forever', I'd take the time to condition a nice sized plot. Ooooh, I miss the pacific northwest!!

 

[897tgigvib]

The organic method would have been to add Bone Meal for the N and P, and Kelp for the K, plus a heaping helping of well made ash and worm castings.

To keep those nutrients there, compost your garden waste along with your kitchen waste, and use a little bone meal and kelp in with the compost pile. Lawn clippings, fresh on the compost pile heat up fast, finishing the compost, and the uncomposted grass then raked off to make the start of the next pile. In time you'll be gardening in 20% compost one year, 35% another year.

Just sayin...

 

[kmoranjr1]

I just emptied my compost heap into the garden and are preparing to till it in. Thought you would like to see some pics.

My best compost by far was this year.

Heres the bin all emptied out.

And spread out over my garden.

 

[897tgigvib]

Yea!



That's the way to do it!

:tools

I hope those wheelbarrow loads were not as far each trip as mine! I have to go an eighth of a mile each way!

 

[Southern Gardener]

Beautiful plot Chris! I'm going to work on expanding my garden area as I don't have room to plant everything I want.

kmoranj - that is some beautiful compost! What have you got growing in the corner area of the bed?

 

[kmoranjr1]

Luckily my heap is only a short distance from the garden

I have mostly perennials in the beds around the main garden.
dayliles
irises
sedum
columbine
several types of daisies
peonies
poppies
lupine
hardy mums
I like to keep flowers around to attract pollinators to my veggies

Here are the daylilies, irises and sedum coming up.

 

[chris09]

The organic method would have been to add Bone Meal for the N and P, and Kelp for the K, plus a heaping helping of well made ash and worm castings.

To keep those nutrients there, compost your garden waste along with your kitchen waste, and use a little bone meal and kelp in with the compost pile. Lawn clippings, fresh on the compost pile heat up fast, finishing the compost, and the uncomposted grass then raked off to make the start of the next pile. In time you'll be gardening in 20% compost one year, 35% another year.

Just sayin...

I always add Green, Brown Manure, and Compost to the garden (compost is mostly chicken, goat, rabbit and cow manure, grass clippings, dried leaves and garden waste) and our soil here is mostly sand and composted plant matter since most of this area was all swamp land. The problem is that my garden being 3200 sq. ft. takes a lot compost to replenish the nutrition that the plants uses in a growing season.

I use the triple 12 fertilizer as a quick boot of nutrition to the soil until the more natural fertilizer start to break down and add nutrition to the soil.
As the plants grow I will side dress them with some natural type fertilizers (Fish Meal, Soybean Meal, Alfalfa Meal, Blood Meal, Rock Phosphate, Sul-Po-Mag, etc.) along with the convectional type fertilizers (10-15-15, 12-12-12, 20-20-20).

I don't like using Bone Meal in the garden unless I need to raise the pH. of the soil because Bone Meal is 22% Ca. and can/ will alter the soil pH..


Chris