What Did You Do In The Garden?

[digitS']

Does ..

Moeing the Lawn count?

And, does being the first of my immediate neighbors to do so (and posting that picture) suggest that I'm olde?

Steve

 

[Marie2020]

Planted eggplant today; Gretel, Matinik, and Striped Togo (which is orange fruited). The peppers have been germinating, now all are up except Trinidad Perfume, which usually takes over 14 days. All of the growing peppers have been moved to the growing shelf, under 6-bulb T8 high bay lights. I always over-sow, the seedlings will be thinned to one per cell when emergence stops.

We've had a lot of rain, so the ground is far too wet to do anything outside. I did drive out to the rural garden though, to check on the garlic emergence. The garden was much too wet to walk in, so I squeaked & squished across the adjoining wet lawn to get as close as possible. Most of the garlic is up, and apparently only a few need help getting through the mulch (which as you can see, will have to wait for drier conditions).View attachment 40082

That's looks good. Would straw work to?

 

[Zeedman]

What kind of hay is that, salt marsh? It looks so much more fine than the straw/hay that I get.

The hay I bought last year was a timothy/clover pasture mix. It was almost completely weed free - and I've kept the farmer's contact info in hope of buying more of the same this year. Up until now, I've just purchased hay every year from whoever was selling locally on Craigs List. Never from the same place twice, so the quality was hit or miss... some of the worst weeds are not easily visible in a hay bale. Usually I bought marsh hay, with not much barnyard weed seed - but a lot of thistle & yellow dock. I eliminated thistle from my gardens after several years of persistent effort, and am taking great pains to avoid reintroducing it.

 

[Zeedman]

my own experience with some alliums here that are decorative and nice flowers but very hard to get rid of once you plant them is that it can take years of concerted effort to remove them once planted unless you can smother the area completely. since i can't i'm digging and pulling shoots as much as i can and still a long ways to go.

Many years ago, I expressed an interest in a wild allium grown by a forum poster in Texas, and the gardener sent me a few of the bulbils produced on the flower stalks. I planted them in a fairly inhospitable location, under my outdoor faucet. They grew slowly, and took a long time to get established - but now they are VERY established. It turned out to be a strain of Allium canadense... flat leaves, more like a wild garlic than an onion. Fairly pretty when in bloom, with flowers projecting outward from a tight ball of deep red bulbils - reminiscent of aerial fireworks. But the patch has been expanding outward with increasing speed, and there are other domesticated alliums that I want to plant there; so I am gradually digging it out.

As a long-time scifi geek, a quote from the movie Dune comes to mind, regarding the elimination of a deeply-embedded foe..."The process of removal continues".

 

[Zeedman]

All of this year's tomatoes have been planted, and are now under lights awaiting germination. Meanwhile, DW & I took a long drive to a Green Bay nursery yesterday, in hope of finding the hardy pink magnolia DW wants for the front yard, and possibly some hardy kiwi I have been searching for. As we drove nearer, the three cars in front of us all turned into the nursery too - the place was packed!!! It turned out the last pink magnolia had been sold an hour before we arrived. The staff remarked on how unusual it was to have so many customers this early; apparently the increased interest in gardening seed & supplies extends to nursery stock as well. They stated that they are selling out of perennials as fast as they come in, but I was able to pick up a nice healthy peony which had just been potted.

 

[Trish Stretton]

I think I found out why my shalots did very badly last year.
I had mulched them with quite a heavy layer of leaves. After reading one of my daughters books, I learned that this can make the soil too sour for them and that I was better off sprinkling some aged fireplace ash over the bed.
So... The onions, leeks and garlic that are in the ground at the moment got just that, here's hoping for a good and healthy crop this year.

 

[seedcorn]

Spent part of day weeding iris’s along edge of garden. Then planted green beans, onion starts, cabbages & filling in where peas didn’t come up.
I am sore today.

 

[digitS']

Good Luck, @Trish Stretton . Those ashes may well work for you and many others.

The advice from the Cooperative Extension offices in the US land-grant universities is for soil pH to be in the mid-6 range. Apparently, low pH is a problem for many garden plants and much of the US population live and garden where the soil is acidic. I suppose that the home garden beds that receive most of my compost deserve a test and may be neutral or below. Because of the semi-arid climate conditions, that wouldn't be true in most local soils.

Able to grow nice onions with appropriate variety choices, I decided to apply wood ashes to one half of a bed one year. It was quickly easy to see that this was a mistake on our garden soil.

I had reason to regularly test our community water over several years. It was interesting that even water for irrigation would run up above 8 during the months of summer.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

Does ..

Moeing the Lawn count?

View attachment 40188
And, does being the first of my immediate neighbors to do so (and posting that picture) suggest that I'm olde?

Steve

no, it indicates you are a refined gentleman, of good taste, with a need for exercise.

 

[Marie2020]

Painted my chickens coop. The added features haven't been done yet but it's looking good . I want to add flowers baskets next. It's been a very hard month and plus but very rewarding to see my back garden come together