What Did You Do In The Garden?

[lcertuche]

@PennyJo what are saltless pickles like? We eat too much salt.

 

[PennyJo]

never had no salt they had to nuke my thyroid having Graves so do not
use much salt now

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

@Gardening with Rabbits what kind of bedding do you use. I tried composting pine shaving I use for bedding, turned into a cement like mound.

Well, I have been told I do it all wrong. We made boxes in the back of the hutch. There is pine shavings and a little hay on top. Some of them sleep in their box and others use it for a bathroom. The front part has a board to sit on and their food and water sits there and then there is a wire floor which was made some the droppings would fall to the ground, but they mostly spend their time up in front by the door and use the box for urinating in, which does keep the area not smelling bad because we change the boxes. In front we put straw in the winter. I compost the straw, sawdust, rabbit droppings in bins. In the summer it cooks pretty good with garden waste, weeds, coffee grounds, etc. I try not to mix so there is not too much of the pine shavings at one time. There is hay in there too and leaves in the fall. It only cooks if we stir it and keep it moist. I think just pine shavings would take forever to compost down.

 

[ducks4you]

The ONLY way to do it wrong is bc YOU want to change the way you do it.

 

[digitS']

Finished in the neighbor's garden with the first (or second) step.

It was sprayed with round-up about 3 weeks ago, there is little that was green over there. I did this repeatedly thru the growing season 2 years ago. Last year, paid help came in and "shaved" the weeds off - leaving bare dirt. Slowly and steadily, the weeds came back through the warm months. The cheat grass formed deep mats! I had fairly well killed the bindweed that thoroughly infested the ground 2 years ago but this grass was amazing after a half season of growth. One could shovel down about a foot and the short, fine leaves and seed stems would be attached to a mass of roots holding the soil. Removing it too soon would have resulted in removing about 6" of top soil with the roots.

I went over it first with a spading fork in 2 directions. A day or 2 passed and I was out there with the long-handled, 4-prong cultivator pulling the weeds loose. In the first part finished, after about 4 more days with just a few sprinkles of rain, the weeds are just "filaments" lying about. The soil has almost entirely separated from the roots. I've dug one of my semi-subterranean compost "pits" down about 8". The weeds will greatly overfill it but there is plenty of soil to cover the pile and let it decay. Next year, I can move the material into one of the beds.

I feel strange growing veggies there. I grew and tended them entirely by myself one season and made it clear that they were intended for the neighbor to use. He very nearly failed to harvest a thing. Taking them off for our use seems selfish, since he has no other garden. Besides, I'm averse to using veggies the first year on ground that has been sprayed with weedkiller. So, of course, we will grown flowers .

I've done this before, reclaimed a neglected garden in this fashion. That time, it was quack grass that just about filled the space. After a year of growing flowers, I was willing to plant veggies. By no means were all the weeds gone but the rhizomes of the perennial quack grass were long dead. I think I'll just continue to grow flowers in this neighbor's garden. I'm almost sure that he will like that since the presence of poppies, lupines and hollyhocks in that mess is one reason he has so much trouble with going into it and killing the dang weeds! Dahlias should give the weed seeds good competition. Maybe after a few years of growing the big plants, most of the weed seeds will be gone.

BTW - we had a 79°f afternoon on the 10th. Sixty hours later, I was scraping ice off my windshield this morning! Of course I had heat on in the greenhouse and hoophouse but there are 2 hoopies in the yard. One has tomato plants in it and several had damaged leaves where they were touching the plastic film .

In the open garden, most everything planted so far can take a light frost. I sure hope it didn't amount to more than that.

Steve, in alpine conditions at the moment

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I am starting to just get interested in stocking up on firewood, sitting by the fire and crocheting.

 

[seedcorn]

@digitS' want roots to break down faster? Mix up 1/2 water and 28% and spray on the dead folage. Spray on every couple of days. Feeding the microbes who are trying to break down the fiber.

 

[digitS']

I will feed this compost pile with the usual 16% fertilizer that I use in the flowers. You are right, @seedcorn , I used to use a higher N fertilizer in the compost - especially if I hauled in horse manure with lots of sawdust bedding. Yes, I could have commented on that in the various threads recently but going to these guys who clean their stalls too regularly isn't something I do anymore. I also haven't had a compost pile dedicated only to flowers in a long time. I could relate that story about a sawmill in the forest near my one-time home. How the buildings had fallen and all but disappeared until you walked right into the midst of that little place ... and realized that you were standing in sawdust! I mean, the piled stuff takes centuries to decompose!

@Gardening with Rabbits : Everywhere I've ever lived or visited or just heard about - if local weather is discussed, folks will say, "You don't like the weather just wait a few minutes and it will change." It's a cliche, mostly true but it was only really, really true for me when I lived on the coast of northern California. Storms would move in and out so quickly over that broad, flat Pacific! There was a general consistency to the coolness and near-constant wind.

Here, it's for a couple of weeks (or months) it will be like the typical Pacific Northwest and cool and rainy. Then, it will be like the typical Wild West and dry, hot and windy. Then, it will be Alpine, at most anytime!

I don't really live at such a high elevation for hereabouts. It's almost exactly 2,000 feet. @aftermidnight lives a few degrees further north but at a much lower elevation. The upper Midwest of the US isn't nearly this northerly (about 48°North) but they are likely to have much more severe winters. @buckabucka has those more severe winters even tho I am further north than any place in the state of Maine. Hibernating thru the winters in recent years, I'm mostly interested in Growing Season Climate. The Climatologists say that this is a "Continental" climate but what about the Growing Season?? Just into southern Washington State, it's a Mediterranean climate zone. I'm borrowing that idea for here. Look at worldwide locations for Mediterranean Growing Season climates. The northern mountains of Spain has nearly the same Growing Season weather as here ... altho I've not visited to find out . Burgos, Spain (link) Spokane, Washington (link)

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Actually, I am lucky to be having this cool weather. I have DH and his doctor appointments, DS finishing school and graduating and DD and getting married. Went to her bridal shower yesterday. I have tons of crazy things and just have to keep my plants going until it warms up. It is getting ready to rain and I think tonight is the last night in the 30s. I live close to 2200 feet and I know if I go up the road north it will rise to 2300 and they will be buried in snow when we have none. Then, north of that is Sandpoint and they are a lower elevation than the Coeur d' Alene, Post Falls area where I live.

 

[thistlebloom]

I'm at 2473 right in the driveway. Yep. We are always a bit deeper in snow.