What Are you Going To Change Next Year?

[catjac1975]

You really want pictures of dirt? I will take some tomorrow. Here are photos of beds from last summer.

Cat, this sound kind of weird, but can you post a picture of those beds. I would love to see them even if they're empty. They sound beautiful!
growing bed

Mary

 

[catjac1975]

Here's the seedling bed. The new one runs parallel to the one you see.

Cat, this sound kind of weird, but can you post a picture of those beds. I would love to see them even if they're empty. They sound beautiful!

Mary

 

[catjac1975]

Cat, this sound kind of weird, but can you post a picture of those beds. I would love to see them even if they're empty. They sound beautiful!

Mary

 

[journey11]

Cat, those are gorgeous!

Curly_Kate, I've had no luck with cauliflower either. Couple of years ago, I got so far as to have nice big heads forming on my plants, but they got black rot before they matured. Literally rotted to a squishy, slimey mess like overnight. I was so bummed.

Next year...whew, I don't know if I can think that far ahead right now.

I have realized that I don't need quite so many tomatoes, even for canning. I can't believe how many I canned and froze off of just 7 plants.
Beets, beets everywhere! I can't get enough beets. Need enough to pickle maybe 2 doz. quarts.
Raspberries. I need several more plants. I have just one right now.
I am going to hoe more faithfully. Get those weeds before they get ahead of me.
Sweet corn, in rotations, for hubby.
Plan a little better, just in general. Try to really assess what/how much we'll eat and need for canning.

 

[Carol Dee]

I have been saving egg shells and plan to work them in hte soil before planting the tomatoes. I will also find taller supports for them. This year the fell over the tops and broke stems when the fruit started to get bigger. I also plan to keep better records of what was planted and the yeilds. problems, etc...

 

[Smiles Jr.]

There's lots in the growing process that I will do different, but the biggie, and the one thing that everything else relies on, is to find a way to lower the ph of my soil. It's so alkaline that the plants can't pull the nutrients from it, even though the soil itself is loamy and nice. I see a truckload of amendments in that garden's near future.

I had one 1/4 acre garden that repeatedly tested alkaline. I finally tilled in 6 pickup beds full of pine needles and 6 pickup beds full of pine bark mulch. It lowered the ph about 3 points and the soil has tested pretty neutral ever since. I selected the pine needles and bark because I knew they were high in acid and they were free. I really did not see a big change in veggie performance though.

 

[baymule]

I am going to put in 3 new beds. One will be for the beautiful Voilet's Multicolored Butterbeans, thanks for the post and pictures SMOAK!!!!! It will be next to the driveway where the greenbean garden is and it will be 1 foot wide and 12 feet long. One will be 4 feet by 10 feet against the side of the house, and the other one will be on the other side of the yard and it will be 4 feet by 8 feet.

I am going to try 2 varieties of squash, Lebonese White Bush Marrow and Zunicchino Rampicante, in addition to my several yellow squash and zuchinni plants. I am also going to try chard for the first time. I have never grown or eaten chard, so bring on the fun! I also ordered quinoa and amaranth seeds to plant. And I am going to plant more new potatoes in tubs as well as the garden beds.

For this winter, I have planted tomatoes under a PVC frame that we will wrap in plastic. We run an extension cord to a small heater to turn on on freezing nights. Nothing like fresh vine ripened tomatoes all winter!

 

[nittygrittydirtdigger]

From what I've read, wood ash would make it more alkaline. From a few of the knowledgeable folks on here on TEG, I've learned that I need to add sulphur. My plan is to strew the sulphur on soil that has been watered and covered with grass/leaves, then water again. A week or so after that, I'll put down a 2 inch layer of compost, fir tree bark, forest humus and sandy loam, a blend offered by my local nursery by the truckload that they say is about 6.5 ph. Lots of work and money! BUT! I intend to spend the rest of my life tending to that garden space, so it will be well worth the cost and energy to get it into a good state. I'll have to add sulphur occasionally as it gets used up, but that shouldn't be a big deal. And of course I'll be adding my own compost once I have enough to make a difference.

I used a mix of vinegar, organic Miracle Gro, fish emulsion and epsom salts this summer for a short term fix, and it worked great on the plants I tried it on. (raspberries and a peach tree) It wasn't really practical, tho, as the vinegar got used up by the plants almost as fast as I applied my little magic elixer.

If anybody has more advice or suggestions, I'm eager to learn.

 

[digitS']

Beautiful pictures!

Actually . . . and of course . . . I wrote 3 paragraphs of where I want to go with the gardens next year. Then, I realized I was using the word "neighbor" in every other sentence and deleted the paragraphs! If'n I want to make some big changes, so much depends on what the property owners are interested in. That is a "problem" with growing on other people's property. Except. I don't really have much proof of that. I've been at some places so long they are making jokes that the earliest settlers found me there when they first rode over the horizon .

Old as the Hills . . . sorta. I have reached a time in my life when my health is a determining factor. I told a neighbor that when I started this year, I had trouble just climbing in the back of the pickup :/. Yeah, if I can't actually harvest anything, better not grow it. On my way to just driving around all day and being too pooped to do more than roll down a window.

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

Digit brings up 2 things. Make that 3 things. The third thing is about being as old as the hills, well, that's the second thing too, but when a person was a kid during the second ice age, ya get to knowing a lot of things during the interim. That second thing about being as old as the hills is that designing a garden with trickery to make it easier to do becomes a main thing. The first thing though is about GOOPP gardening. I suspose that after working a vacant lot for so many generations, pretty soon folks might start thinking it is your lot, then they might start calling it yours, but watch out. Next thing ya know, ya might be the one paying the property taxes on it!

Wait. That'd mean it's GOYOP, gardening on your own property. It might become a full circle, if after that, some young kid only 14,573 years old comes along to garden on your property.

I kind of miss Detlor!