Lickbranchfarm's 2018 Garden thread

[Nyboy]

Well, more than likely when this wood bed goes down hill, I'll rebuild it with block. Kicking myself now....when I cleared the lot for our new house, I found the foundation of an old tobacco barn, 100's of old cinder blocks, you know the kind that weigh 75 lbs. a piece, gave them to a guy just to come get them.

I done things like that, then almost cry when I have to go buy the same

 

[6884]

Well got out and enjoyed some of this spring time weather this weekend. Got my 1st official sunburn on my bald head too Lol. My son and I broke out the excavator and cleaned all the stumps out of what will become my Chicken Coop/Run. I cleaned off enough to put my garden shed beside the first of several raised beds. I did manage to get the big garden disked, got dark before I could snap some pictures.

This is what it looked like before......

After.....

 

[Nyboy]

Nice toy

 

[flowerbug]

trying to talk about alternatives here and to not to be critical of your efforts there, but i'd like to mention that chickens love diversity and picking apart things. those old stumps could be left to rot and as the bugs get into them the chickens and fungi will work to break them down (partially buried they'll get broken down faster).

free chicken food, free eventual fertilizer, free humus...

 

[6884]

trying to talk about alternatives here and to not to be critical of your efforts there, but i'd like to mention that chickens love diversity and picking apart things. those old stumps could be left to rot and as the bugs get into them the chickens and fungi will work to break them down (partially buried they'll get broken down faster).

free chicken food, free eventual fertilizer, free humus...

I'm a straight and level kind of person, real funny about that. That being said, lots of poles have to go in the ground, wasn't fighting stumps and what not doing it. I have 20 more acres of diversity they can pick apart Lol.

 

[flowerbug]

I'm a straight and level kind of person, real funny about that. That being said, lots of poles have to go in the ground, wasn't fighting stumps and what not doing it. I have 20 more acres of diversity they can pick apart Lol.

haha! Mom is also a razed/bare earth kind of person and it is about as opposite of me as it can be. i want plants/cover and diversity and it doesn't look neat enough to her. to me it just looks dead and sterile. that's how she likes gardens left at the end of the season. i like them covered with something/anything to help prevent wind/rain erosion... nope. she hates that.

my end of season garden clean up now involves me burying garden debris because otherwise it would all get raked away and dumped in one of the weed piles. that's like all the worm food and future garden humus. so if i can get it done and buried she's ok with that. *whew!* the gardens are gradually improving as i keep doing this, but it is a much slower process than what could be happening if i could plant and leave cover crops through the cold season. i thought i found something she could like by planting winter-wheat and winter-rye (the grain, not the grass) and it did look very nice and she liked it, but then she had issues with the chipmunks and mice cacheing the grains and we'd have these spots of grain sprouting and she didn't like that at all. *sigh* so much for that idea...

the end of garden digging is usually only a small part of a garden each season so it is mostly no-till here. i hand dig whatever i need to do. i like the exercise. major garden redos i will do every 5-10yrs or if i have enough things to bury to turn into later humus/leaf mold/etc.

life with others is a compromise and in the greater scheme of things i can live with it. she at least does tolerate my chunks of rotting wood off in the north hedge which eventually get torn apart by the raccoons and other creatures. some friends will bring all their scraps from their wood pile makings, so i will get pieces of bark, rotting wood that they won't burn, etc. sometimes i can find a place for it and other times i just toss it in the north hedge to break down there. again, free humus is always worth it if someone will bring it. sometimes i give my friends extras from the gardens so it all works out.

ok, i think i'm done rambling for the day, thank you for your patience... lol

 

[6884]

Finished disking all 3 garden areas yesterday, will go through and pick out all the rocks and junk, then do it again. Seems like I'm growing rocks on one side, every year I pick up a ton, next year, there's more Lol. Anyway, we got a cold snap coming later this week, nights will get down In the 30's, but after this one I think we'll see warmer days coming.

Silver Queen Corn field......

Peas, beans, Cucumbers and squash........

Yellow corn, Okra, Zucchini.....

 

[majorcatfish]

do wish we could grow white corn.... dang smut every time

 

[baymule]

I'm liking that excavator!!

 

[6884]

do wish we could grow white corn.... dang smut every time

As long as I get it In the ground as early as possible I never have a problem. I planted a bumper crop in June once, bugs got it before the tassels turned. If I get it out the garden before the end of July, it turns out great.