What Did You Do In The Garden?

[nanets]

It is a new season. What did you do in the garden today, yesterday, last week ?

Two backyard beds have been covered with the temporary hoop house. Seed for Asian greens and escarole has been sown; bok choy transplants have gone in. The flower beds around the house have been cleaned up.

I have now begun in the little veggie garden by leveling a few beds cultivated last year, fertilizing, and planting some seed potatoes, onion sets and pea seed.

What did you do in your gardens ?

Steve

I live in Wyoming, here the wind blows really bad . So I want to change up my garden some. So I have a rock garden with plants, planted in the rocks. I had to do this because of the wind. It blows the soil away plus if you put mulch down it blows the mulch away. So I put rocks on top of the soil. So next year I want to change it up some. I have Syed my seeds of the plants, because they are going to sleep now because of the weather. Now I'm removing the rocks to add more soil and rocks for next year.

 

[ducks4you]

Got my tomatoes harvested and the few cucumbers And some rhubarb and the surprise 12 pumpkins from the volunteer.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Trimmed back a huge wisteria and trumpet vine. The deer have been blocked all season from getting to the trumpet vine it has grown out very well since the deer almost totally caused it to disappear. Hard to imagine …but true.
No deer around yet. I think the young bobcat I spotted early in the spring has persuaded the deer to move on.
Even the rabbits and quail have gone.
Pine needles were everywhere from the rain/wind storm . Cleaned up and corraled the needles on the garden beds as mulch. More leaves to mulch later.

 

[digitS']

Carried the celeriac off to the carport fridge after a good trimming and rinsing. Pulled some cucumber vines, dismantling the little trellis I built that didn't work all that well. I've never grown cucumbers on a trellis. A gardening neighbor used a cattle panel bent to just fit over a bed for them. I kinda went with that idea but they weren't as well  corralled and still wanted to sprawl.

Pulled some lettuce that survives the cold but cannot grow. All this, finally left a bed clear so I could do some double digging. What was pulled and trimmed plus bringing a lot of tomato vines and such from other parts of the garden along with several buckets of nearly-finished compost, went in the trench and was re-covered.

This bed received only the soil from one path after the Spring tilling and loosening with a spading fork. I appreciated that deep digging went fairly well although some of this ground was driven over 30+ years ago. That area will especially benefit from the organic material and it needs to continue annually.

Elsewhere, clean-up exposed lawngrass that hasn't been mowed in about a month. Crowding the tomatoes, while having a good tomato year, meant that they also sprawled beyond their trellis in an outrageous way. A little drying and I should finally be able to run the mower and trimmer to clean up.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

was fun. was good. got things done. some that three days ago i'd not planned on doing at all.

the guy plowed the south field yesterday and today he was out there early with this 8ft tiller hauled behind a tractor and i caught him to tell him that the flags i moved could be ignored and please just get as much of that grass that you can get?

we talked a bit. he tilled and i watched and i really wanted him to get a few more feet tilled than what he was doing so i asked him to please get closer and i would be happy to get the flags out of his way and he could have the flags back by that point.

note, this is all not our propery so they could do what they wanted. i was happy for them to grind it all down and reseed it (the less i have to mow the better). so i mentioned that it was really ok if he got close to the trees, it wasn't going to hurt them any worse than what the deer have been doing for 25+yrs...

yippee! it still needs to be smoothed out but it sure is an improvement for the moment.

ok, i'll stop gushing here about this finally happening and go gush in my thread because there's more i can write about yet this is already long...

 

[SPedigrees]

Finally we got the hard frost I've been waiting for, the night before last. I emptied out flowerpots and containers yesterday, brought metal garden structures into the barn for winter. I left a few pots of geraniums on the front porch that survived the frost because I didn't have the heart to dump them out while still living and blooming. Still haven't taken down the tomato plants and dead squash foliage in the raised garden bed. Need to bring in the solar lights and garden hoses, but plan to give Mabel one more bath with the warm water hose before winter sets in. They are predicting 3 days next week with temperatures in the 70s (21.1 C) so this will be my opportunity. (I hate washing her in the bathtub indoors almost as much as she hates it. Cleaning the bathroom and towels of wet dog hair and dirt is worse than washing the dog!)

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Light frost early am pastures grass hay stopped growing.
Autumn leaves are taking their time falling. Every day leaf is duty. Berries are forming on te holly trees and cones with massive pollen on the cedar trees.

Huge shield bugs attack the west -sunny side of the house , outbuildings and barn. UGH.
Spraying all the window door frames to keep them from squeezing thru inside.
They get in everything to over winter, inside garage , She Shed, barn and storage .

 

[SPedigrees]

Light frost early am pastures grass hay stopped growing.
Autumn leaves are taking their time falling. Every day leaf is duty. Berries are forming on te holly trees and cones with massive pollen on the cedar trees.

Huge shield bugs attack the west -sunny side of the house , outbuildings and barn. UGH.
Spraying all the window door frames to keep them from squeezing thru inside.
They get in everything to over winter, inside garage , She Shed, barn and storage .

Oh Ick! That must be horrible.

 

[ducks4you]

I live in Wyoming, here the wind blows really bad . So I want to change up my garden some. So I have a rock garden with plants, planted in the rocks. I had to do this because of the wind. It blows the soil away plus if you put mulch down it blows the mulch away. So I put rocks on top of the soil. So next year I want to change it up some. I have Syed my seeds of the plants, because they are going to sleep now because of the weather. Now I'm removing the rocks to add more soil and rocks for next year.

First, Please put "Wyoming" with your Avatar bc I won't remember where you live once you start posting for a few months.
Secondly, you probably need to fence in your garden area, probably 6 footers. MANY gardeners in housing developments with 1/4 acre lots get enough sun, yours will too, but fencing will stop the winds.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Oh Ick! That must be horrible.

The shield bugs or stink bugs are invading Oregon. They have affected a major export crop hops one of the major ingredients for beer breweries.
They are noisy when they fly , a clicking sound worse than grasshoppers. Drives the cats and dogs nuts.


The county has hired helicopter pilots to spray the crops early spring which helps a little. Then they all come to surrounding towns in area like where I live . They have sprayed here before and many of the residents have complained that the spraying has also killed all the bees , butterflies and all good bugs, and now we have fewer birds.
So far no luck with the county to stop spraying. But the shield insects still come.

I power wash the evergreen tree growing along the front of the garage doors which is a weeping Blue Atlas tree , helps keep the shield bugs out of the garage. We call the tree ‘The Car Wash”.

Pic of hops in my garden.