Welcome to my little piece of paradise. \nI have a few different garden areas, some of them are a lot more work than others. The raised beds are full of beautiful, organic soil. Unfortunately, not all of my veggies are growing in raised beds, I have some in containers that are filled with an organic potting mix (which is fine with me). The rest of my flowers and veg are growing in beds that were established by previous homeowner(s). Those beds are very sandy (the unfortunate part), and it's a big adjustment from growing in clay. Although I can't show you all of them, I will share with you what I can. \nAs you may notice, I practice companion / interplanting. I LOVE it, it works for me. I have a variety of tomatoes & peppers, lettuce, beans, onion, carrots, cucumber, squash, cantaloupe, watermelon, various herbs and flowers. \nSo, on with some pics. \n1st bed - tomatoes, jalapeno, thai chili, onion, basil, and planted around the outside of the bed are thyme, marjoram and marigolds. \n2nd bed - tomato, jalapeno, green pepper, basil, onion, green beans, lettuce, as well as herbs and marigolds planted around the outside of the bed. \n3rd bed - just seeded - cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, romaine and gourmet mix lettuce, some onion and carrots - cosmic purple, danvers, and baby finger. Marigold planted around the outside of the bed. \nContainer - romaine lettuce and onion \nCosmic purple and danver carrots \nSandy soil, flowers \n\nThanks for looking. Let me know if you have any questions. \nA special thanks to Yoda for building the raised beds for me; To Chunk for all of the information that he has so kindly shared on gardening and organics, as well as GC's Organic Growers for their contributions to the forum.
Looking good Doin! Nice work on the beds......nothing beats eating veggies from your own backyard and it looks like you've got plenty to choose from. I'm especially liking that salsa garden
Today I spent the day working in the 'garden'. Picked some green beans, tomatoes, a couple peppers, pulled carrots, cut back most of the herbs (thyme, oregano, marjoram, lemon balm, spear & chocolate mints). Hit just about all the veg with an organic mix of fish emulsion, bat guano, and worm castings. On tomorrow's to-do list...a batch of Salsa hahahaha!!!!! Happy Gardening.
Are those San Marzano tomatoes in the second to the last pic Doin? San Marzanos are hands down my favorite sauce tomatoes.
Highya Free! For sure! High Chunk Most of the paste tom's in that pic are San Marzano, there are a few Amish Paste mixed in as well. I love the flavor of San Marzano tomatoes!
Well, I don't know about you, but I think it's time for an update. Zucchini and buttercup squash (both growing in sandy soil). Other than a bit of PM on the zucchini (pic here Let's talk garden pests, plant diseases and other gardeni...), they are both doing rather well. zucchini buttercup squash Empress of India Nasturtium, sandy soil The raised bed that I had just seeded, last update. I'm happy with the progress. Some gourmet mix lettuce Thai red chili's Onion Tom's, Amish Paste & San Marzano. And last, but not least, green beans. Happy gardening everyone! If you'd like to see pics of the harvest(s) you can find them here, Let's share pics of our vegetable & fruit harvest....
My-oh-my, how time flies! I just thought that I'd give you a sneak peak...at a little something...that will be tucked into my garden this winter.
Garlic soaking in a kelp & baking soda mixture to help get it off to a good start. I planted a total of 96 cloves of Susanville & Duganski. I didn't get the garlic in the ground until November (sorry, no pics). Given the Arctic weather that we've had, I'm not sure how much of it will come up this spring. We will see. To tuck the garlic in for the winter I covered it with about 8 inches of mulched leaves, put a 3 inch layer of straw over the leaves, and then covered it with netting to keep it all in place. It's February, and time to get some veggies and herbs going indoors in my neck of the woods. The other day I spent some time planting seeds: four varieties of long day onion (2 yellow, 2 red), shallots, cutting celery & tango, oregano, thyme, parsley, garlic chives, rosemary, mesclun mix lettuce, pyrethrum daisy, and coleus. At the moment, it's kind of hard to imagine that winter is ever going to end. We're getting a mix of freezing rain and snow right now. Did I mention that I'm more than ready for spring to arrive? Don't mind me, I have spring fever! Go away winter! Hurry up spring!
This past winter has been brutal, and temps have been below average so far this Spring. But, I am happy to report that all the snow has melted, and the garden is coming to life. I couldn't help myself, I had to pull the straw and leaves back to check on the garlic. crocus Over wintered onion And last but not least, one of my gardening buddies Hopefully, I'll be able to put onion transplants out soon. Still waiting on night temps to be in the 45'ish range. Really looking forward to walking out the door, to pick fresh veggies.
Hi doin' i heard that the snow is actually beneficial. It keeps the flies down and, it's called "poor man's nitrogen" I was excited about that part- less fertilizin' needed! not that I was going to fertilize much. I wonder if you have experience with beneficial insects? last summer I sprayed my plants with spinosad when I got the gist of some thrips on the weed. Thrips got way worse! because I killed the wasps that were eating them. I looked under a leaf and saw a cornucopia of mites! Just wondering what your take on spiders and that whole pesticide matter is? corky
Hi corky For thrips, if you have access to a garden hose or sprayer, you can spray thrips off the plant with a blast of water. IME, they're easily taken care of this way. I do the same with mites, just spray them off with the hose if you can. You can also use a mix of soap and water to spray affected plants (1tsp of castile soap to 1 quart water). The fatty acids in soap break down the outer coating on a variety of pests, and eventually kills them. You could also use a hot pepper, garlic spray as a pest deterrent. Recipe can be found here. Personally, I avoid using 'pesticides'. I hand pick garden pests that can be handpicked from the plant. Beneficial insects (wasps, spiders, etc...), the hose and wildlife usually take care of the rest. If something is persistent, I'll use the soap mixture. Once the issue is under control, I'll spray with the hot pepper, garlic spray (linked above), if necessary. Hope you find something that works well for you, I know what a PITA pests can be.
mornin lady happy spring!! have you started anything inside this year? this time of year is so tough.. winter is over, everything is starting to grow but just too damn early to put much down yet.. what's on the agenda this year? is that pringles stains on your puppy's mouth?
Good evening AW Happy Spring back at ya! ATM, I have a variety of tomatoes & peppers, onion, shallot, various herbs, coleus, daisies, celery and a few other things under lights. Three raspberry plants are chilling on the porch waiting to be planted. I'm planning on starting cukes, corn, watermelon, marigold, and a few other things in the next week or so. Still need to start carrots, kale, swiss chard and lettuce outside. It's been too cold and windy for me to be outside for any length of time most days. Although, I did manage to get some evergreen bunching onion, and garlic chives seeded about a week ago. Last I checked, they haven't started to come up yet. Sounds like we're supposed to have some nice weather this weekend, so I'll probably take care of outside seed sowing over the weekend. This years plan is quite a bit more than last year. I have everything scribbled on a few pieces of paper, and have yet to type it up. doh! I probably have 20 tomato plants and 25 peppers atm, quite a few different varieties of both. ROTFLMFAO!!!! Why yes, that is pringles stains on my puppies mouth. Do you have any idea how they got there? Who'd have thunk, pringles would leave such a mark?! What about you, do you have any veggies started inside? How'd it go with the turnips?
The other day Yoda finished laying the block for our 4th raised bed, which I call a Hugel bed with a twist. The planting area is 4' x 10' x 12". The squares around the perimeter of the bed can be used as additional planting space. The center of the bed is a bit deeper than the rest of it. There are some pretty hefty, well seasoned, maple logs down the center of the bed. We topped it off with more logs, branches and brush. Some of the wood has been weathered for a couple years, some was rotten wood / fallen limbs that the previous residents didn't do anything with. Yoda pulled a couple of 'sand' colored limbs out of the ground when we were digging the area for the bed. We put those in the bottom of the bed too. Last fall we cleaned up a lot of tree bark around the yard, so we topped off the wood / brush with it. There were tons of worms in the box / bags of bark. About 25 gallons of broken down kitchen / garden waste went over the top of the bark...Ummm...(insert gagging smiley here) :x I didn't get a pic, because we were in a rush to get it covered. We topped that off, with a ton of mulched leaves / leaf mold from last fall's bounty. That was full of worms too. The remaining space in the bed was filled with a 50/50 mix of topsoil and compost. A BIG thank you to Yoda, for putting the raised beds up for me. You rock! I'll be doing another update soon, with pics of the other beds, and some other things.
You always have the nicest looking garden Doin! It's finally sunny here and I hope it stays this way. It looks fantastic in here and I promise to drop by more - bookmarked! J
I'm taking a break from working on the next update. Did another garden(s) check (couldn't resist), finished writing down the info on 'what' was planted, and 'where'. My goal is to have the update together and posted sometime tomorrow (all things permitting). \n Thanks AW! Thanks Jerry. It's nice to have you along this season. Glad to hear that you finally have some sunshine.