How is your garden doing so far?

[karanleaf]

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers for my Sister, so far she is doing ok, well for someone that can't get out of bed. ( it's making her crazy) She has tests tomorrow to see if the clots are dissipating.

To answer some of the questions: On the boots and shoes: no nothing put inside except wood chips in the toe areas for good drainage, the potting soil and the plants. :watering

AS for the fence garden: yes there are drian holes at an angle from the bottom about every 4 -6 inches, and the end has drain fabric in it. I think DH did a fine job on it. He now has plans on improving on it. :tools


Well I finally got a start on my straw bale gardening. It has been raining today but it broke about 4pm. So off to the duck shed I went with extra bailing twine in hand. Took 2 bales restrung them and got them wheel borrowed to the garden area. And here is how they came out.
1st I put down several layers of newspaper then the feed sacks. The bales and proceeded to make room for soil and Asparagus bean starts.

I started running twine from the bale to the lattice for the bean vines to grow to.

The flower pots are there to help keep the feed sacks from going anywhere. It is raining again now, so wet feed sacks don't go very far. Here is with all the twine done.


There are 10 bean plants per bale. :watering :tools
I am please how it looks so far. :coolsun

Well I am beat So off to bed I go



:happy_flower Karan

 

[Southern Gardener]

Well, I guess all that rain we had didn't hurt my garden - it's actually doing better this year than last. My squash plants are huge and the cukes are taking over. My beans still don't look that great, although I picked a few last night and the tomatoes also look better this year.

 

[2dream]

Thanks for the info on the shoes. Now instead of throwing all those old shoes out I will recycle them.

I love your pics - especially the strawbales. I just wish I had enough time and space to try everything that everyone does different than me. (I know if I start one more project DH is going to either kill me or commit suicide himself. )

 

[karanleaf]

Thanks for the info on the shoes. Now instead of throwing all those old shoes out I will recycle them.

I love your pics - especially the strawbales. I just wish I had enough time and space to try everything that everyone does different than me. (I know if I start one more project DH is going to either kill me or commit suicide himself. )

You are most welcome They make cute gifts too :rainbow-sun I just place care instructions on a card with them

My DH Does roll eyes at me sometimes when I bring up another idea or show him something from TEG or one of my magazines But then again He has several ideas and plans he is working on also, wind generator, solar panels, rain barrel collection, moving a wood furnance, hooking up the new wood furnace, finishing a fence replacement, moving chicken and duck buildings. and that's just the top of his list

The shoes are simple and east to do. So is the straw bale gardening there is a thread on it here some where. But you can do it

:happy_flower Karan

 

[Hattie the Hen]

I'm in the process of filling my last raised beds with soil -- it's been a long slog to do this by myself but by being sensible (at long last, in a long life ) I've managed to do it without damaging my back again. For this bed I am sifting the soil through a coarse riddle to get rid of as many bits of stone & weed roots as I can because I want to grow my carrots in it (plus other root veggies). It should be OK for me to plant them now because it is in the least sunny position because it has a little shade in the very middle of the day. I shall pop some slips of lavender in there as well.These I will move the after they have rooted as I want them to make a hedge in my front garden. I will also put spring onions in & cover with floating fleece -- all to keep the carrot-fly away, we get it badly here.

Later this afternoon I will pot up more of my trailing tomatoes "Tumbling Tom" & the "Pygmy Yellow" ones. The big ones are going in the earth, with as strong a stake as I can manage. !!!! (I'm growing "Japanese Black trifile" (sp?) & "Brandywine"). Various friends have done a tomato-plant swap with me so I have the odd single plant of lots of variety which is fun.

Now I have had lunch, a quick sandwich, I am off to the chickens & the garden again. The 5 new chicks are doing very well -- full of life. "Julia" is a great mum but she has given up on the other eggs; she rolled them into a corner overnight so I have removed them. I've been chopping up chives very finely to add to their food -- I have always done this with all my chicks. In a couple of days I 'll add chickweed & chopped dandelion leaves (young ones). All these make them very strong & healthy & they gobble them up.

It is VERY warm & sunny today ; the forecast says it will get even warmer for the next few days. :coolsun


HAPPY GARDENING !! :tools :tools :tools




:rose Hattie :rose

 

[obsessed]

So if some of you remember I had some early season pollination problems. Since then the bees have arrived and I am now getting cukes out my ying yang. I might make relish with all these monster cukes. My zukes never did grow.

I also planted popcorn. It grew tall and pollinated. i made sure to shake the stalks. Now I am supposed to let the "corn dry on the stalk". Which I am not sure if that means cut the corn stalk from the field and let dry or leave it alone. I am going to go with the leave it alone. I planted sweet dumpling squash in between the rows of corn and that didn't work so well. There was just not enough room or sunlight. But two plants are growing and we have a couple of little squashes. The beans that I planted up the corn had the same problem. Only the beans on the outside of the corn is growing so I won't get many beans this year.

I had three cherry tomatoes and they are producing great. I have two burpee big boy tomatoes but they don't have a lot of fruit as in other years. I have not been able to harvest one. I do have two heirloom tomatoes which have not flowered yet and are not nearly the size of the nursury tomaotes...


My potatoes, well, we shall see...............


I also have 3 watermelons and a couple of cantaloupes.

Next year I want to skip the tators and go for peanuts or soybeans... focus more on the winter squash and probably skip the corn.... I will also make sure I have enough room for the beans... and hopefully a trellis to keep the cukes in check..

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Got my first little patch of sweetcorn in today (started inside) but I will direct sow more over the weekend. I need to get a lot more plants out of the mini greenhouse & into the earth as they are beginning to fight each other for space in there. It has been a life saver this spring.

I think I am going to have a bumper crop of raspberries this year. You should just see all the :bee :bee :bee at work. It does my heart good to see so many again! I keep adding more & more plants that attract them. At least I can do my little bit!

I keep looking around my garden, barn & workshop for stuff I can use to plant in or support plants. It's great being able to put stuff to good use rather than buy new rather badly constructed goods which wont last anyway.

Tomorrow (it's Friday night here now) I hope to get an early start with potting up tomatoes, peppers & egg-plants which I want to stand around the central feature of my raised-bed veg area. I have got a column with a statue on top -- it makes a good feature ( I put it together from various bits I had). I think it will look rather good surrounded by my lovely collection of pots but it is a lot of work emptying the old earth out & refilling. I put the old soil into the new raised beds with lots of my mature compost to help bulk it up.

Bed-time for me now! I can't stay up all night chatting........ although I am tempted....!!

Have a great weekend everyone. :coolsun :rainbow-sun :tools

:rose Hattie :rose

 

[karanleaf]

My garden looked like this Sunday morning....
the 1st of 2 straw bales planted with Asparagus beans

The Southern raised bed before I harvested lettuce for wilted lettuce.
Then the bed to the north is now uncovered and bare.

Well as of 7pm that evening we finished the straw bale planting. ( Well I have been wondering about planting cabbage or brussell sprouts in the sides ) 41 Asparagus bean plants and 1 Sweet Banana Pepper at the east end.

And just 2 1/2 foot south of the straw bales, My new planters. Chief Deputy brought me some mineral tubs. Sure hope he has more these are great. :watering We planted 2 Zucchini & 2 cabbage in 1, sugar Baby & Moon & Stars watermelons in a 2nd, and Black Diamond watermelon and Cantaloupe in the 3rd.

And that Bare Raised bed is No longer bare. cabbage, Acorn Squash, Butternut Squash, a couple of Big Jim Jalapeno's. Egg Plant, 4 Golden Orange Bell Peppers. And Cucumbers with the tomato cages I think we are Done


Unless DH builds another raised Bed.

I just love being this kinda tired

:happy_flower Karan

Well that was until this morning when I found I still had my Sweet potato plants to put out also I guess a true gardener is never done ...
I have more minerial tubs coming for the sweet potato plants

I took photos of my Iris I got through the swap last year I just don't recall whom I recieved it from and it is beautiful I would like to know it's name though. and it is already putting out new shoots I will post a photo tomorrow. Going to bed very tuckered out Good Night all.

:happy_flower Karan

 

[karanleaf]

Here is my Iris it is also sending up new shoots so there will be more next year


And we had our 6 riding mowers at work in the back yard. 3 of them here Rocket our Colorado Paint, Kendal our 2yr old, and her Momma Iowa Star aka Big Sis.


Here Kendal helping DH just after feeding the chickens. She is such a good girl.


Well need to go see how much rain we got last night and get some of the plants back out of the greenhouse. check in later.

I hope everyone has a Great Day :coolsun

:happy_flower Karan

 

[sparkles2307]

Our gardens are slow this year, it took so blasted long to warm up here in the new north pole... but pretty much everything is up now besides the leeks, peppers, and watermellons. that black MN dirt really warms them up and the germinate almost overnight if you water them good at planting and they have a warm day!