Fruit and vegetable gardens 2024

[Fiddler's Green]

Trying to propagate this Lilac by rooting them in deep mulch.




I transplanted it into a bucket and mulched it deep last year and will see what happens in fall.

 

[Fiddler's Green]

Found this section of apple root and shoots while i was flipping sod and threw them in a pot to see if I can get a few sections of rootstock to graft on to next spring with the pruning scraps.

 

[H.A.F.]

I got my current veggie garden mowed around the bush beans where all the tomatoes will go. I think I got the last woodchuck taken care of. 2 kids showed up a few days apart and were nosing around the exact same area where I got the big one. Instincts can be bad

I don't play the tax return game. My federal return was $0 - since I adjusted my withholdings so they only take what I owe them during the year. Can't do that with State but I got back everything of what little I paid in. It bought me two 43' fences that are in 32" sections. With a coupon it worked out to about $6/panel including 4 gates (2 with each). Not sturdy at all but it'll keep out bunnies and woodchuck. I had two other fences that had eight 2' panels permanently hooked together that I stuck in the back. Now I know what I have for area I'll figure out how many mounds I can fit for the 3'sisters mounds.

Everything in the fence looked like the barren wasteland in the foreground. That is the result of one year just a few mounds that took off and made lots of beans and birdhouse gourds. Only planting food type gourds/melon/squash/pumpkin this year. That green tarp is a heavily mineralized pile of assorted soil stuff to mix in with each mound. Compost, castings, some new peat, and some forest stuff. The blue one is nothing

I am going to let the sparse barley there go to seed (maybe a few weeks) then hit it with a tiller if I can. that area has brick and mortar clumps everywhere that got covered over. Probably end up just scratching it with a rake and then laying heavy mulch. I want to plant an assortment of seed-grasses in little patches. In Fall I'll wire that area in and do the leaf mulch thing on a large scale.

A 100' garden hose from the house gets to that hose-rack on the right. From there to the middle of the garden is another 50'er. All the flowering stuff around the edges is blackberry. They got huge last year getting the excess from the garden water.

The other thing I can do this year with a fence is put all my potted peppers here and stick them in the ground eventually. Off in the sunset is a lake maybe a 5 minute walk. My wildlife is very unpredictable. This is 17' at the skinniest but 18' mostly, and 40' long. Once I get the soil established I will have an area to do row crops.

I got a blueberry picker basket to try and harvest a bunch of clover flower (and others) without a lot of hassle. I have half a dozen large patches established. I dug up a clump that was in the wrong spot in my other garden and the roots were covered with the nitrogen nodules.

I tried to get a closeup of the golden clover, but everything else came out clear. It's cool, but really thin and doesn't really cover the ground. Would be perfect in places where you want taller stuff to grow through easy.

 

[H.A.F.]

Here's a half-ass garden update. I built this temporary greenhouse on the back porch 5 years ago LOL I have plastic siding so it's not rigidly attached to the house, just the deck and the beefed up rails and a single pole inside against a wierd eave thing. Screened in with a homemade door. shitty pic tho.

On that center support I hung the birdhouse gourds I grew then dried out all winter. My dumb ass hung them all together but the birds that like them are territorial and move in to the area for life. I would move the two unused ones but I don't want to disturb the one being used. It's a carolina wren pair and they are vicious. They prowl the garden fence picking bugs off my peas and they chase off the chipmunks if they come on the deck.

My asparagus is still like watching paint dry. but the chives are settling in. I got my first harvest of them and dried a jar full. The ramen tray is sorghum I started inside and it's going into the ground somewhere next time I am planting stuff.

But the reason I posted is that these are still available at Baker Creek, and I have never been able to grow strawberries worth a damn. These are easy. I cut and paste the name because I can't spell that shit STRAWBERRY PLANTS PANTAGRUELLA (5 PLANTS). I got them started in individual pots but then had no clue where to put them permanent so I went with this for the first year. I already picked two and they were delicious, then BAM!

 

[treefarmercharlie]

I’m going to get shit going this week now that it’s warming up and the local meteorologist is saying they don’t see any signs of another frost coming. My strawberry bed is already taking off though.

I’m going to pick up some cattle panels from tractor supply today to build some arches for m cucumbers and squash to grow on this year. Things got way too crowded with those last year so I’m hoping they will make things easier.

 

[Fiddler's Green]

@treefarmercharlie how big is that bed and how many strawberries do you have in them? They are looking vigorous.

 

[Fiddler's Green]

A couple years ago the sand was half the shovel spade deep. Not bad.


I think I found a soil building ornamental to plant below the fruit trees, calendula.


Check out that tap rootand with tight planting it might suppress weeds

 

[treefarmercharlie]

@treefarmercharlie how big is that bed and how many strawberries do you have in them? They are looking vigorous.

It's a 4' x 6' bed. I have no idea how many plants are in there now because it's grown in so fully. I thinned it out some at the beginning of spring but this started out as one 4" plant 2 years ago.

 

[Fiddler's Green]

Let the hardening process begin!

 

[Slowdrawl]

A couple years ago the sand was half the shovel spade deep. Not bad.
View attachment 137209

I think I found a soil building ornamental to plant below the fruit trees, calendula.
View attachment 137210

Check out that tap rootand with tight planting it might suppress weeds

When I had outdoor crops I would usually plant Calendula in a lot of open spots!
Beneficial plant in many ways!
My daughter would harvest the flower and make a topical salve!

 

[Slowdrawl]

Let the hardening process begin!
View attachment 137211

What's that long tap root looking thing?

 

[Fiddler's Green]

What's that long tap root looking thing?

The trunk of an old Christmas tree. We'll slice it up and make ornaments out of it.

I dig the trellis amigo. I have some fencing on standby for the same thing later down the road.

 

[H.A.F.]

The trunk of an old Christmas tree. .

I think he meant the weed in the previous pic LOL

You know, the one where you talked about the tap root?

 

[Fiddler's Green]

I figured that's what Slow was talking about since he mentioned calendulas in that beautiful weed bed picture lol. Lest we forget the demographic of this site

But the plant in my hand was a calendula I was transplanting.

 

[Slowdrawl]

What's that long tap root looking thing?

Duh....What can I say I was super stoned!

 

[Fiddler's Green]

Finally plugged the blueberries in


Checked on the cover crop on the new bed I flipped and wouldn't you know...


Something ate a robin egg next to my garlic


All that's left is transplanting the ''seedlings'' and direct sow stuff like herbs, corn, sunflowers, beans, etc.

Still waiting on the strawberries to show.

 

[treefarmercharlie]

I just put up cattle panels for the cucumbers and squash to grow onto. I tried two different methods to see which works better.

 

[H.A.F.]

I figured that's what Slow was talking about since he mentioned calendulas in that beautiful weed bed picture lol. Lest we forget the demographic of this site

But the plant in my hand was a calendula I was transplanting.

I was thinking it looked like a plantain. The ones I have here only get that tall, then put out tall spikes of little flowers that go to seed quick.

 

[treefarmercharlie]

Just got everything in the raised beds.

4 Juliet Grape Tomato, 3 Early Girl Tomato, and 4 basil plants.
4 Iceberg Lettuce, 4 Romaine, a row of Romaine seeds, and 6 Cabbage


2 Black Beauty Zucchini, 2 Grey Zucchini, and Marigolds.


3 Boston Pickling Cucumber, 3 National Pickling Cucumber,


Half of this bed is seeded with Carrots and the other half is seeded with Detroit Red Beets

And my Strawberries are flowering like crazy now.

 

[H.A.F.]

I dropped a little cash on a 4cuft bale of pitt moss to get a jump start on the mounds in my big garden. I already have a tarp full of heavily amended soil from outdoor pots, some forest gathered stuff, a tub of wom castings and an assortment of Down to Earth minerals. When the pitt moss shows up I do the big garden. For anyone getting into new territory trying to make soil - THIS!

It has a notched bottom so it carches and cuts roots instead of sliding off. Workably sharp but broad blade so it's not getting dull from use. I got a handheld version for potting the plants in worked soil.

Also pictured is a worm bin experiment sucess that will also get added to the mounds (for pumpkins corn and beans). I sifted five 5g buckets of rich wormy compost to get the sticks and major food bits out. I lazagna'd it in 6" layers with shredded cardboard. All on a plastic drip tray so no roots grow up in it. I added minerals and top dressing type stuff like malted barley, and have just kept it moist letting the worms do their thing. It is now half the volume with castings just dripping out the bottom. I'll get pics as I get all that garden together.

For now I have 30 tomatoes, 6, 6, 6, 6, 8 and 4. I left the back side of that upper rack empty for now. It might get more tomatoes or peppers. I have most of my bell peppers out, there's a rainbow of them from canary yellow to lilac purple around the boulder, a few at the ends of the upper racks, a regular Cal Wonder bell to the left of my dumb-asses shadow and a few more right above it where there was bare ground. T

That barren strip to the left was gonna be more garden but I put a fire pit there because there were already remnants - and I started getting into tons of melted broken glass. I took down a peach tree that didn't make peaches to the right of that raised bed thing so I'll expand the garden that way instead. As the peas play out fences will move and beans get planted. I've startes dumping yard clippings and mowed leaf litter around the outside where I'll be expanding.

I have 27 peppers left to put in the ground. I want this to be pasta sauce/salsa jungle. I am looking at each remaining pepper and seeing which stay small, and I'm planting a hedge of them up front. The chipmunks tear that area behind the pots up, but those mesh sacks are 100% so far. All the tomatoes have been in the ground since Sunday.