Fruit and vegetable gardens 2024

[H.A.F.]

On those seed-starter shelves one set of the LED T5's came with 6 individual bars you can daisy-chain. I started with three shelves on both with two lights each, but tomatoes tended to grow up into the lights and I needed another option without buying more shit. One shelf went to being two taller shelves with three lights each.

 

[NoWaistedSpace]

After spending a few years buying cannabis seeds, hoarding vegetable seeds at $1-$5 per pack seems silly. I'm growing almost everything I have and if there's any left it'll mainly be tomatoes and peppers just because those are started inside and I'm not planting to cull. 2-3 seeds per cel and keep one of them after they're done sprouting.

I'm getting off my ass and doing the garden now even though I know I have a few more freezes left. I can start some early root veggies, and I am thinking about a little tunnel (I stopped so I didn't forget. I bought 3 tunnels, 2 were $9.99 LOL) to get an earlier start on some of the frost tolerant stuff.

I'll take notes, and I'll buy fewer, selected seeds next year. Positioned right, I know I can make my entire garden behind the house tomatoes and peppers, then still get enough of everything else to be fine. Everything else including some of the peppers does well around the edge in the shady parts, climbing fences, or growing between the tomatoes and peppers on their racks, like the bush beans. That soil is well worm-worked too so I may stick carrots and other stuff I have laying around in all the empty spots.

Plant in every nook and cranny there's room for something.
I think I've talked the property owner in to letting me dig up the old tobacco bed and use it for my garden this year and maybe sell produce.
I need to build an 8 x 16 or so greenhouse, but I'm not sure where I'll be living in 3 or 6 months from now. Still waiting on brother's estate to close first.

 

[H.A.F.]

but I'm not sure where I'll be living in 3 or 6 months from now.

Yeah, finally owning makes all the difference. I have more sun on my little garden this year with a big oak tree gone but the roots haven't moved. There's just not much I can to to reclaim old-growth forest without being destructive. So I will innoculare all the oak logs I can and toss them in the woods and see what edible shrooms thrive.

I had a large field dozed but only about 30x60 is gardenable without me doing hugel and building up from ground level. It's super mineral rich fungal dominant soil but it's all clay.

I think it's more about being realistic though. I love seeing all the pretty heirloom stuff in the catelogs but it all makes a turd ya know? Hybrid vigor is a thing so at least some of the garden has to fill the grocery bags. For me that's mainly tomatoes and peppers. I can grow a ton of green beans but I dont like eating them all the time. Once you've eaten a few jars of fresh pickles the cucumbers become a pain. So one good cuke plant is all I need, and it doesn't have to produce that well. Looking at the garden from that standpoint makes what you need out of land easier to digest.

 

[pinner420]

Plant in every nook and cranny there's room for something.
I think I've talked the property owner in to letting me dig up the old tobacco bed and use it for my garden this year and maybe sell produce.
I need to build an 8 x 16 or so greenhouse, but I'm not sure where I'll be living in 3 or 6 months from now. Still waiting on brother's estate to close first.

My 10 x 20 is alright and im greatful for it however it leaves ya wanting more.. If i had to do it again id go wallapini style.

 

[NoWaistedSpace]

Yeah, finally owning makes all the difference. I have more sun on my little garden this year with a big oak tree gone but the roots haven't moved. There's just not much I can to to reclaim old-growth forest without being destructive. So I will innoculare all the oak logs I can and toss them in the woods and see what edible shrooms thrive.

I had a large field dozed but only about 30x60 is gardenable without me doing hugel and building up from ground level. It's super mineral rich fungal dominant soil but it's all clay.

I think it's more about being realistic though. I love seeing all the pretty heirloom stuff in the catelogs but it all makes a turd ya know? Hybrid vigor is a thing so at least some of the garden has to fill the grocery bags. For me that's mainly tomatoes and peppers. I can grow a ton of green beans but I dont like eating them all the time. Once you've eaten a few jars of fresh pickles the cucumbers become a pain. So one good cuke plant is all I need, and it doesn't have to produce that well. Looking at the garden from that standpoint makes what you need out of land easier to digest.

I'm in clay and shale myself.
Clay is highly valuble in your soil. Packed with minerals. My comp plants are in soil from my yard and a sand mix I got from across my driveway,
I mixed with my garden soil. I just started more cuttings in it last night.
You have to be extra careful about watering in clay soil.
Damp is good enough.
You should maybe try canning. It's not hard to do.
All you need is a big "pressure cooker", jars and lids and a little bit of reading.
My grandma made the best "pickled corn".
I'd give anything to taste her corn one more time.
Our food today isn't fit to eat anymore.

 

[H.A.F.]

Clay is highly valuble in your soil.

Right, except the part where roots can't thrive in it. I love having it under there so that roots can always get down to it, but not trying to grow a pepper plant in solid clay.

I'm both a hermit, and rural - so if I want something there's a good chance even the local walmart won't have it. Or if they do there's no selection. So if I want something I hit the internet. I'll find what I want on amazon, but then look at who makes the best whatever and see if they have a better deal or promo code on their site. Most of the time the shipping cost direct from that company will eat up any savings you might get from a promo code. Since prime covers that shipping so it usually wins out - but I'll buy the name brand if they have a storefront. Like, Build-a-soil has stuff on amazon. Their products direct are cheap, but only if they have the "free shipping" tag. If not their shipping is outrageous.

Anywayyyy, I use the hell out of shredded cardboard. I can lift up a mat of half-decomposed cardboard just off my back porch and see red wigglers, fat earthworms, and fungal hyphae that look like plant roots. Lots of granit boulders and quartz rocks. My soil is legitimately awesome, and now that I know the living soil stuff it's getting better. All that dirt that went through the fence onto the sidewalk is worm castings. There's a century of old-growth hardwood mulch and soil, what hasn't washed downhill over the years. It's very rocky/rooty soil, but the dead tree in the background used to be growing where the bare spot is. There's a 10' diameter oak trunk under the flat-ish all-leaf area lower right that was ground flat. So there is about a 20x30 area that's not gonna get any bigger. What I have learned is that I have all the minerals I need if I can get the biology going to release it. So building up a terrace is really my only option. Got rain for a few days so I am stuck inside.

 

[NoWaistedSpace]

Right, except the part where roots can't thrive in it. I love having it under there so that roots can always get down to it, but not trying to grow a pepper plant in solid clay.

I'm both a hermit, and rural - so if I want something there's a good chance even the local walmart won't have it. Or if they do there's no selection. So if I want something I hit the internet. I'll find what I want on amazon, but then look at who makes the best whatever and see if they have a better deal or promo code on their site. Most of the time the shipping cost direct from that company will eat up any savings you might get from a promo code. Since prime covers that shipping so it usually wins out - but I'll buy the name brand if they have a storefront. Like, Build-a-soil has stuff on amazon. Their products direct are cheap, but only if they have the "free shipping" tag. If not their shipping is outrageous.

Anywayyyy, I use the hell out of shredded cardboard. I can lift up a mat of half-decomposed cardboard just off my back porch and see red wigglers, fat earthworms, and fungal hyphae that look like plant roots. Lots of granit boulders and quartz rocks. My soil is legitimately awesome, and now that I know the living soil stuff it's getting better. All that dirt that went through the fence onto the sidewalk is worm castings. There's a century of old-growth hardwood mulch and soil, what hasn't washed downhill over the years. It's very rocky/rooty soil, but the dead tree in the background used to be growing where the bare spot is. There's a 10' diameter oak trunk under the flat-ish all-leaf area lower right that was ground flat. So there is about a 20x30 area that's not gonna get any bigger. What I have learned is that I have all the minerals I need if I can get the biology going to release it. So building up a terrace is really my only option. Got rain for a few days so I am stuck inside.
View attachment 135143

Straight clay would be a bear for roots to flourish in. But once you get roots established in those clay gobs, you will play hell pulling the roots out. You turn the soil over in spring, bringing the clay particles to the top and with every rain, the clay leeches through, buffering and feeding the soil during the growing season, ending up right back in the bottom.
I've been loading "browns" leaves, sticks grass , egg shells, coffee grounds ,food wastes, bio char, etc,
plus bales of Pro Mix for 15 years in this little garden. I wanted to plant my 6 legal plants in it,
and plow up the old tobacco bed that had been in use for over 40 years for the new garden.

 

[Fiddler's Green]

@H.A.F. and @NoWaistedSpace Have you tried using radishes to help break up and feed the soil?

 

[H.A.F.]

@H.A.F. and @NoWaistedSpace Have you tried using radishes to help break up and feed the soil?

A broadfork works better. Hard packed clay can kick a radishes ass.

 

[NoWaistedSpace]

@H.A.F. and @NoWaistedSpace Have you tried using radishes to help break up and feed the soil?

Radishes are good to eat.
My advice on using clay in your grow,
is toss some "golf ball" size chunks of (mineral/nutrient infused) bio clay in the lower 1/2 of your 5gal> mix.
Allows the roots to encircle the clay to extract what the microbes are after.
Pretty easy.
Now... it will throw your container weights off, making you question the proper watering times and how much to water.
Not sure about making a dissolved clay solution to water, might choke the soil up in some way causing some moisture issues.
I'm not a scientist, but sometimes I feel like one. lol
Clay is a benefit, if used correctly.
Makes peppers hotter so might do something similar in weed.
No worries, it will be discussed in a future pot cast as soon as one of them reads this.
Great subject, that no one talks about.

 

[NoWaistedSpace]

I thought I would grow something different.

By the way, that's not opium in the containers.

 

[NoWaistedSpace]

Here's what my soil looks like on the property when I arrived.

Difference after all these years.


How I done it. lol

 

[H.A.F.]

My advice on using clay in your grow,

I'm not even worried about incorporating it in my inside stuff, just making veggies grow in it outside.

I had bare red clay that had all the topsoil scraped off when it was being cleared. I have been tossing lawn stuff and cover crop seeds at it regularly.
Last spring I dug up and worked half a dozen mounds for pumpkins and melons and stuff - more bio-mass.
I have it to the point that I can get a decent grass crop out of it like wheat or barley, but there's no depth to it in most spots.

I have been treating it like eating an elephant. One bite at a time.

I have also started transitioning my mow-trash-land (worthless grassy yard) into clover and vetch and whatever wild stuff grows and doesn't have thorns or some other bad habit.

I am starting little islands of garden using a wire fence to corral a bunch of leaves and sticks and let them rot in place to kill grass in chunks. I am planting trial pots of herbs or peppers or tomatoes that I have extra of directly in the leafy piles. Like planting in hay bales. I already have barley and winter wheat growing in them and I add coffee grounds and cardboard and stuff to attract the worms and get them busy.

The oak tree I need to dispose of is gonna be amazing since I hadn't considered doing hugel style stuff much. I wasn't gonna take down trees just to turn them into dirt.

It's shit like this that keeps a retired dude under 60 from going insane.

 

[pinner420]

Gonna find mu soil blocker and get ready to get ready!

 

[NoWaistedSpace]

I'm not even worried about incorporating it in my inside stuff, just making veggies grow in it outside.

I had bare red clay that had all the topsoil scraped off when it was being cleared. I have been tossing lawn stuff and cover crop seeds at it regularly.
Last spring I dug up and worked half a dozen mounds for pumpkins and melons and stuff - more bio-mass.
I have it to the point that I can get a decent grass crop out of it like wheat or barley, but there's no depth to it in most spots.

I have been treating it like eating an elephant. One bite at a time.

I have also started transitioning my mow-trash-land (worthless grassy yard) into clover and vetch and whatever wild stuff grows and doesn't have thorns or some other bad habit.

I am starting little islands of garden using a wire fence to corral a bunch of leaves and sticks and let them rot in place to kill grass in chunks. I am planting trial pots of herbs or peppers or tomatoes that I have extra of directly in the leafy piles. Like planting in hay bales. I already have barley and winter wheat growing in them and I add coffee grounds and cardboard and stuff to attract the worms and get them busy.

The oak tree I need to dispose of is gonna be amazing since I hadn't considered doing hugel style stuff much. I wasn't gonna take down trees just to turn them into dirt.

It's shit like this that keeps a retired dude under 60 from going insane.

Let your burn piles smolder, then rake the hot coals out. Then reburn to smolder again and again. Leaves bio mass instead of complete ashes.
The more you do now, the easier and deeper it will get.
I'm down 2 or 3ft to the sticky Clay layer now.
The roots latch on to that and they are set.
Clay is an interesting material.
It's Everything.
A tiller is completely worthless at this point.
It's close to Aztec/Mayan "terra prada" minus the dead bodies. lol

 

[H.A.F.]

Let your burn piles smolder, then rake the hot coals out. Then reburn to smolder again and again. Leaves bio mass instead of complete ashes.

I'm burning nothing. I could do a little bio char, but it's low on my priority list.

A tiller is completely worthless at this point.

That's where the cover crop roots and the broadfork come in. You don't even turn the soil, just loosen it up with deep spikes. You stomp them in, wiggle it a bit then move it a few inches. If nothing else it gives the rotting mulch holes to rot into and places for the roots to start. But if there isn't something to go down in there it melts back into a solid plate next rain.

But the hugel bypasses that back work.

 

[H.A.F.]

Caught this just as the sun went down. This is my "fuck mowing" bed #1. Whole leaves blown into the cage then bunched up. It was near the top late fall. I have added coffee grounds and cardboard, extra plant water when it has biology in it, old milk, and that's winter wheat growing in just that. It's compacted but I don't think anything has decomposed much

This one has deadfall sticks that were rotted on the tree, mullein trunks, some cardboard and the wheat, but this one had the leaves mulched through the mower first. It's also where I toss any mushrooms I find. This one is right on the edge of the forest and I can move my giant pumpkin somewhere nice before it gets too big.

I left these because they were in the new garden

This is the plowed area, and all the younger grass is wheat too. but the older dark green is barley. I choppedd the heads for a sprouted seed tea and let them go. Towards the back is another leaf mulch corral. The baren area up close has all the buried masonry under it. That os gonna be a hugel spot, and it's big enough to get creative. The green area is roughly 30' x' 60' of good potential garden with just soil amending and such.

And oh, look! The lyin' muthafucka flowers are out!
"hey! look at me! it's spring! plant stuff!"

 

[Fiddler's Green]

I wish I had Oak leaves to pile up like that. I look forward to seeing what those pumpkins come up with.

 

[H.A.F.]

I wish I had Oak leaves to pile up like that. I look forward to seeing what those pumpkins come up with.

I just plan on one there, After I see how it does I may do more next year, and Ill have seeds. I'll make sure those sticks get all covered up and the pumpkin will probably set there for the duration. Nice and cushiony. And it can rot there after I get my seeds and make soil for more next year.

I didn't do the mounds good enough last year and all I got was beans and birdhouse gourds in that big garden when I was hoping for assorted pumpkins and melons. I have the first two of 6 birdhouse gourds drilled and hanging, 4 are still green-ish but getting there. It takes a while. But I'm not interested in growing any more and I have a ton of seeds from two. The shit part is that the only fruit get saved and don't end up as bio-mass worm food. All the vines and leaves were gone in no time.

Since it's year two I know what to improve. I'll have the soaker hoses in my main garden so I don't have to use the sprinkler. Eventually I'll get the big garden to that.

 

[H.A.F.]

Here's the lower edge of my back yard garden. At the top we have -lazy fucking cement dude! Just move the fucking boulder maybe??? LOL
Below that is one trunk-root-limb of the ancient oak still laying on its side above my garden. Lastly, a few hundred pounds of rocks from an area 2' by about 20'.

I have been pretty busy over 5 years in this one little spot, but last year was the first time terracing it instead of raised beds. The main issue is also the only reason I have such a nice plot of tree-less garden area. Big oak was in charge until removed. In this one you can get an idea of the scope of the trunk. It was ground to cement level for a few feet, then is a foot taller in about a 8' diameter circle with a hollow core. This year I am using 5-7g pots as a retaining wall that I'll fill with the soil I shoveled out. But I still need to incorporate a rabbit fence so I have to actually plan a bit.

I got curious, so I dug up a picture from 2019 getting ready to 'mater it up. I ai'n lyin about the diameter. I planted a pepper in that hole in the trunk first year.