What Did You Do In The Garden?

[ducks4you]

Yeah, tear up cement, Steve!!

 

[flowerbug]

...
Steve, wishing you luck

thanks, i didn't get every little bit done but it came down to me being too tired to do any more so i had to call it done anyways. a few more square feet of quack grass need to come out of there and some other work along that bottom edge (closest to the big drainage ditch - it's always a mess... i need a barrier down into the ground a few feet to keep the quack grass from invading all the time).

it was cold today, i had four layers on, but thankfully no wind at all so it wasn't bad, once i got started it was plenty warm enough up until i stopped at quarter to 5. the light fades quickly and i need to scrape the mud off things before i come in and it wasn't even on a timer or watch, it was just when my body said it had enough no matter what else i might have wanted to do.

if we get any other breaks in the weather i can do some other projects or putzing around. there's always something i can get into out there...

 

[Artichoke Lover]

About to go toss out some more radish and lettuce seeds. Maybe some carrots. The batch I planted a few weeks ago got obliterated my the cold the week of Christmas. Also going to through out some old snap peas to see if they do anything. I don’t really care if they get frosted as I’m planning on buying new seeds anyway.

 

[ducks4you]

Ya know, carrots just AREN't that easy to grow!!
I am thinking of finding them a spot in one of beds and keep planting until I get a crop, THEN, let them go to seed and acclimate to my property.
Anyway, good plan.

 

[Branching Out]

Ya know, carrots just AREN't that easy to grow!!
I am thinking of finding them a spot in one of beds and keep planting until I get a crop, THEN, let them go to seed and acclimate to my property.
Anyway, good plan.

I picked up a mid-sized insulated ice cooler that someone was getting rid of, and I repurposed it for growing plants. Carrot seeds were sown in March, using a board to cover the top of the cooler until they sprouted. Hubby gave me a little rolling board like the ones that movers use to haul furniture around; I put the cooler on that, so I could roll my carrots out in the driveway on sunny days if I felt like it (you know, like any normal person would do). The carrots did great, and since the surface of the soil was about 16" off the ground no carrot rust flies either (they can be a real pest around here). I think the extra warmth from the insulated walls of the cooler helped a lot. Next time I may try sowing them even earlier-- and I would definitely move the cooler to a shady spot on the north side of the house once the carrots sized up, so they don't need as much watering once the weather warms. I have also started to pay close attention to which carrot varieties to plant in spring vs. summer, because selecting the right seeds seems to be especially important with carrots. Kuroda Nova and Ya-Ya are both excellent spring carrots for our area. And as much as I would love to grow carrots there again I figured I had best rotate my crops, so in November I planted 4 Central Siberian garlic cloves in the cooler, with an inverted nursery tray with a rock on top to keep the squirrels from digging in my planter. They should be sprouting soon!

 

[heirloomgal]

Hubby gave me a little rolling board like the ones that movers use to haul furniture around; I put the cooler on that, so I could roll my carrots out in the driveway on sunny days if I felt like it (you know, like any normal person would do).

Oh boy, have you come to the right place @Branching Out . This is dedication to growing plants! Love it!

The carrots did great, and since the surface of the soil was about 16" off the ground no carrot rust flies either (they can be a real pest around here).

No rust flies after a 16" elevation?! I've had to give up on carrots mostly I

 

[digitS']

I missed these Jan 8th posts.

The only time that I figured it was the flies damaging the carrots - and, they really did a job on them - was when I tried growing some carrots near the south wall of the garage. There was a lot of reflected light and heat. Or, it might just have been in that very sheltered area it was a good habitat for those flies.

It wasn't the "Nova" that I have grown, I don't think, but I have grown Kuroda, @Branching Out . Also the Ya Ya -- those, especially, did real nice.

My big problem with carrots is that DW thinks that they should be looonng things and this rocky ground doesn't allow for much length. Straight is nearly impossible. Gravel and last Summer's dry heat reduced the carrots to scrawny, crooked things.

Steve

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

I missed these Jan 8th posts.

The only time that I figured it was the flies damaging the carrots - and, they really did a job on them - was when I tried growing some carrots near the south wall of the garage. There was a lot of reflected light and heat. Or, it might just have been in that very sheltered area it was a good habitat for those flies.

It wasn't the "Nova" that I have grown, I don't think, but I have grown Kuroda, @Branching Out . Also the Ya Ya -- those, especially, did real nice.

My big problem with carrots is that DW thinks that they should be looonng things and this rocky ground doesn't allow for much length. Straight is nearly impossible. Gravel and last Summer's dry heat reduced the carrots to scrawny, crooked things.

Steve

I feel your wife's dislike for garden grown carrots. My hard clay soil not only give me stubby carrots but for some reason they don't taste all that good. Trying another variety this year. Fingers crossed they will be good.

 

[Branching Out]

The best carrots my friends and I have grown are Sugarsnax and Napoli, planted in very early July. By the end of October they are incredibly sweet and crunchy-- a real treat to munch on. I tried Danvers in a large pot on the deck this summer and when I tasted one last week they were kind of spongy and rather unpleasant. Clearly, growing carrots is part science and part art, with a lot of luck mixed in there too.

 

[flowerbug]

when starting from mostly clay and trying for decent carrots i think you'll need to amend and perhaps even raise up an area to get the topsoil deep enough and also well drained enough. perhaps you may need to blend in sand and organic material and at the same time screen out rocks and lumps of clay which would keep a carrot from growing straight for as deep as you want them to go.

since i do have some sandier soil with less clay that i brought in i'd always meant to try to put some carrots in there but i still haven't done it. something about them likely being groundhog fodder is probably the main reason. i don't want to attract any more attention inside the fence than i already have...

the few experiences i do have here growing carrots (i tried some short and sweets i think was the variety name) in mostly clay and they came out sort of ok, but Mom wasn't impressed and the deer mostly ate everything. none of them survived to get to the 2nd season for seeds.