It’s Father’s Day and I’m relaxing after tending the garden this morning. I have a journal up in the indoor forum growing DTW in coco but figured why not share the organic (ish) vegetable garden as well. The seeds. Organic and Heirloom when available. Here’s what we planted around April 10th The setup. Simple Home Depot shelving systems with two tube T-8’s (I picked up 7 three foot units with about 40 bulbs, and extra drivers for $30. Had to make reflectors out of galvanized roof flashing and add power cords but still only about $50 invested for 7 lights. The expansion. After seeing the the success preparing for the garden, the wife wanted some lettuce, herbs, and strawberries to grow inside. So for Mothers Day, I built her a 4 shelf hydronic system and planted what she wanted. The soil. Just some storage containers from Home Depot, sized to fit on the shelves, 3” net cups, and grow stones. Seedlings in rockwool.
The soil. I’m currently growing all potted plants in a homemade soil, (3 bags each of humus, and ewc, a bail of Promix, and a bag of Precision Perlite) amended with alfalfa meal, kelp meal, feather meal, fish bone meal, glacial rock dust, powdered humic, epsom salt, nitro and phos guano, Recharge microbes, chicken manure. Started my corn under the fluorescents and transplanted into whisky barrels April 27. May 5th Hardening off the stock for the garden May 5th The beans are ready for the ground!! May 13th Transplant day. After tilling in some organic fertilizer, along with years of burying fish carcasses, we weedproofed the garden with breathable liner. It’s time to plant. The garden is watered at 6 am and 6 pm via sprinkler on a timer.
It’s been about a month, maybe a little longer since these plants were transplanted into their final pots. Maybe a bit longer for the corn. This morning Rain barrel. It has only rained once for a little while in the last 23 days here, but the barrel collects the morning dew as well and had enough for me to make a batch of Recharge and molasses tea. I top dressed all the pots with a mix of nitro guano, K-mag, alfalfa meal, kelp meal, humic acid, chicken manure, and Fish bone meal. Watered it all in with the Recharge tea. Knee high by 4th of July? I’ll be harvesting corn by then!!! Peppers, Tomatoes, and Corn
The container garden is fully organic. The vegetable garden is organic(ish). I’ve been burying fish scraps in there for years and tilled in organic amendments each spring. But I’m using my runoff water from the indoor coco grow to fertilize the viney plants (cucumbers, squash, melons) Cauliflower, Broccoli, Beans, Summer Squash, and cucumbers climbing the trellis. Cantaloupe on the left, Watermelon in the right, some Honey dew and a pumpkin in the back
Your garden looks very nice! I've tried amending my native soil but it just is not feasible to get a good rich soil where I am. The soil here is sandy and alkaline desert dirt. So I just make organic soil raised beds and do my thing in those. Growing tomatoes, peppers, herbs, eggplant, squash and some flowering plants to attract pollinators.