New and Container Gardening?

[Ridgerunner]

Welcome! Glad you joined us!

I don't do container gardening so I'll leave that to others.

For the compost, you can make that as simple or as complex as you want to. We can help you either way.

Try a few things with gardening. You'll have some success and some failure, but you'll learn from it all. You have plenty of time to get things set up for those chickens, then start thinking more about a permanent garden. There are so many different ways you could go about it. Plant it in the ground, raised beds, containers, we even have a guy on here doing hydroponics.

 

[noahsmom]

Sheesh, I can't even quote you guys... This forum must have really been hit hard with spam!

Anyway, thanks again for the welcomes, I was afraid I would hear something like that, that I would need to be replanting the cucumbers soon...They are taking off so quickly I couldn't believe it. The Tomatoes are just starting to come up now. I'm going to try something a little bigger than a 5gallon bucket for the tomatoes, for the cucumbers I'm still trying to figure that one out. Looks like I will need to figure it out soon though! I will do some more reading and I will share what happens, Maybe it can help others out.
Also, do you stake your container garden tomatoes?

As far as composting goes, what do you guys do? Open to suggestions, complex sounds well to complex lol Simple is ALWAYS good! I'm in college full time , have a 5year old, a boston terrier, a fiance' (my other child lol) and work.. I will take all the simple I can get.
Does anyone know if I can use the wood pellets/horse stall bedding for composting? This is what my chickens coop floor will be lined with, so probably be smart to make sure their bedding can be used in composting to get the most use.

 

[NwMtGardener]

Hi noahsmom! I've done some container gardening, but with things like tomatoes, cukes, peppers and some herbs...not strawberries. The container you mentioned, only being 6" deep, might be deep enough, i'm justnot sure. I think the important thing would be lots of drainage holes in the bottom of it, you dont want soggy strawberries. As far as the tomatoes, the bigger the better. And you probably want to stake or cage your tomatoes, especially if they're indeterminate, meaning they're going to keep growing up and up.

As far as shavings and sawdust from chicken coops, i havent used that personally for compost or in my garden, but from other members comments on this forum, you may or may not want to use it in your compost. The thing is, there's a lot of variability in the size and thickness of the shavings. If its really small bits of wood, then they might compost ok. If they're big huge chunks, it will take a long time to break down. The chicken poo is good though! Oh, walnut shavings might bebad for your garden, i dont know if you know what kind of wood you're getting.

And have fun!

 

[Ridgerunner]

This is my compost piles. I had a lot of old brick available when I moved here. People use pallets, wire, or just pile it up. Some people turn it regularly to mix it up but some of us hardly ever turn it. I remember one member said they used a tiller to turn theirs. If your chickens can get to it, they will turn it but you better have tall sides or theyll scatter it everywhere.

Im probably going to make this sound a lot more complicated than it is. You need a mixture of nitrogen and carbon for composting. It also helps a lot if it is a little damp. You dont want it soaking wet, just damp.

The microbes that do the composting for you eat the carbon and use the nitrogen for energy. If you have the perfect balance of nitrogen and carbon, keep the moisture just right and turn it a lot to keep it mixed up, the process can go pretty fast. If you dont do everything perfect the process still goes, just slower.

The chicken poop is nitrogen heavy. Your pellets are carbon. Wood shavings will be fairly slow to break down. Often with chicken bedding you get a lot of carbon and not much nitrogen. You can help remedy that by using a droppings board or somehow catch the pure poop the chickens produce while on the roost. That will help your bedding last longer too.

I have one compost bin working and collect stuff for the next batch in the other. The stuff in that collection bin is kitchen wastes, stuff from the garden that the chickens dont get, chicken poop, things like that. When I mix a batch to get it started, I take grass clippings, the old stuff from the garden such as old tomato vines or corn stalks, and the stuff in that collection bin and mix it together with a bit of soil to introduce the microbes that do the digesting. Ill dump pure chicken manure on the bin that is working if I feel it needs more energy instead of putting it in the collection bin. Im more of a seat-of-the-pants composter. Some people on here are a lot more scientific about it. Weve all got our different techniques.

 

[bj taylor]

hi noahsmom;
i'm new to this forum too. i found it from byc too. i can't offer anymore from what the others said, but i will offer my two cents regarding placement of permanent beds and chicken coop. i have found having my chickens on one end of my hoop house and my garden out the other end has made moving used chicken bedding to the garden beds and spent produce from the garden bed to the chicken run so much easier. just saying if you give chores & material movement some thought - it will help you in the long run to save on back aches and labor.

hope you enjoy this forum as much as i do. they're alot of people here who know alot.

good luck

 

[897tgigvib]

Howdy Noahsmom!



Your dad's old fashioned way of doing compost works. Another old fashioned one is to bury it a couple feet under your garden beds at the end of the season.

Canesister has the awesomest compost pile she's named Mt. Rotmore, visible from satellite on google map. (They'll be putting ski lifts on it before next winter).

TEG is real good at keeping $#%^#$%# spammers out, plus we fink on them and they magically disappear.

You'll be able to do all the fancy stuff after you do 10 posts, so keep posting. Remember your login stuff.

=====

Strawberries. Each individual plant does not need soil to be very deep. 6" is a good minimum, but 12" will do better. They survive along in some shade, but they really produce best in full sun.

Remember, the most important part of a planting pot of any kind are the holes on the bottom.

We generally have a pretty good time here! Have fun!

 

[MontyJ]

Welcome Noahsmom!

I don't do any container gardening other than DW's hanging baskets and flower planters. I do have a suggestion for the cukes though. If you have a fence on the property, just dig some of the grass away from a small area and stick the cukes in the ground. Train them to the fence and step back! It might not be the ideal growing situation, but at least they will be out of the containers.

 

[vfem]

Welcome sdavid and noahsmom!

You're about to be in HEAVEN with all the awesome pictures and gardening help you get here. I don't know where I would be right now without this forum? Probably still killing everything I touch.

 

[Jared77]

Fink on them? Geez thats a term I haven't heard in quite a while.

You'll have fun on here, there are a lot of VERY intelligent and experienced folks on here. Its really a great site.

 

[thistlebloom]

Hi Noahsmom, and welcome from north Idaho!

What Jared said. I'm the one that makes everybody look smart.

Hey, somebody has to do it! :coolsun