My Quaint Garden. - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Aquaticedge · #1 03-19-2015, 02:05 PM

thought the garden thread duxthe1 was pretty neat, so I thought that I'd post my own so I didnt Hijack the thread.

I am pushing over 1300Sqft of garden if my math is correct,

Cucumbers, Watermelons, and I think Squash, and a purple pepper plant

Various Tomatoes

strawberries, there's 10 plants this row, and another row 20 plants total

not too much to show for it really. I hope they get going soon though

3 Raspberries and 3 blueberries

duxthe1 · #2 03-19-2015, 07:26 PM

Well done, and I would have been fine with a hijak. I'm jealous of your zone. I'm worried the cold will cause my brassicas to bolt before the season gets off to a start. Meanwhile you're planting tomatoes and I haven't even started my tomato seeds.

barry12345 · #3 03-19-2015, 09:41 PM

I do not know about The United States but most provinces in Canada offer free soil testing. I think it is a good thing for gardeners to have done.

Sometimes a small addition of some sort can make a major differance to the growing ability. These soil testing places are usually set up by governments to assist farmers.

For some reason my parents encouraged me to plant a small gardens when very young.Results where so so until I found out how to improve soils. In general.

I live in a class two soil area now. Cheap ground limestone powder treatment gets the PH of the soil into much better shape than otherwise here. Since soil even in a class two area will vary.Soil testing especially free is a good ideal first.

Some municipalities also give away well rotted compost but it is usually very heavy. Generally almost any soil can stand improvement.

There is no comparison to how a garden performs on average soil compared to really good soil.On a small home garden it usually is pretty inexpensive to modify the soil as needed.

We have not planted a garden in forty five years. The wife has been lightly agitating for a raised garden at the beach. I will try to get it together this year.

We have an old property up the road that had a pig barn on it until 60 years ago. It has a lot of extremely rotted down pig manure still available. I will take a dump truck load of it out to the cottage to mix in with the local soil out there. The weather over the years has not leached the real goodness out of that manure.

I could legally sell it by the bag to grow an illegal plant in it easily enough. Someone went on the property and planted a few seedlings in it. I accidentally found them after they had grown up.

Spectacular size and quality for our area. No I am not a cheek and chong type of person.Still I have seen the average size of plant in our area and those ones exceeded them in size and quality. I did figure that the properties value or worth was suddenly and unexpectantly increased though.

I just put a small sign up that there was to be no more weed grown on this property after whoever you are have harvested this. I figured I was looking at plants worth perhaps a thousand dollars each locally.

That is how I figured out that the old pig manure was the growth medium. Obviously someone else must have know it was there as well.

The manure was so old it did not burn the plants even in concentration. Unfortunatly that day I also found the old barns slab as well pretty much intact but covered up over all the years.

We had a escavator tear down a much smaller barn on the same property only a year ago. It easily dealt with breaking up it's slab.

That one was obviously used for cattle in it's day. It was a shame to ruin the old beams it was constructed with but it was too dangerous to try to salvage them. They were all pegged together but I think they were reused beams to build that barn. Square timbers by hand judging from the marks on a lot of them.They must have really put in a days work originally when they were fabricated. I have a few long pieces left that I may try to treat and use for the better halfs raised garden. Used railway ties have gotten pretty scarce locally in the last few years.

Aquaticedge · #4 03-19-2015, 09:50 PM

The soil here is pretty good, the backyard has been lovingly neglected for years, so once you get the top leaf litter off it's pretty much compost. Other than finding some unusual items (See: Glass, Chain, car parts, (AC Compressor, Alternator) Various broken yard items... etc) but i did spin in some Milorganite to boost the soil. I've been saving my ashes for the tomatoes when the fireplace was working, it works well as a fertalizer and insect repellant, Tomatoes like a more acidic soil.

The next couple pictures show the big plat, there's another 20'x20' area I have to till, but I want to see how much seeds I have left over from I think 2 years ago's container garden.

(the tiller broke down in this one... damn primer bulb... Stole one off of a busticated leaf blower)

(The rows complete, mostly straight. about 13 inches between the rows, enough room for some fun trellises I'm goin to build out of a whole whack of bamboo I am going to cut)

SwampYankee · #5 03-20-2015, 08:18 AM

Looking good, J! That's a nice size space.

Hope you get enough sunlight!

SwampYankee · #6 03-20-2015, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by barry12345

I do not know about The United States but most provinces in Canada offer free soil testing. I think it is a good thing for gardeners to have done.

Sometimes a small addition of some sort can make a major differance to the growing ability. These soil testing places are usually set up by governments to assist farmers.

For some reason my parents encouraged me to plant small gardens when very young.Results where so so until I found out how to improve soils. In general.

I live in a class two soil area now. Cheap ground limestone powder treatment gets the PH of the soil into much better shape than otherwise here. Since soil even in a class two area will vary. Soil testing especially free is a good ideal first.

Some municipalities also give away well rotted compost but it is usually very heavy. Generally almost any soil can stand improvement.

There is no comparison to how a garden performs on average soil compared to really good soil.On a small home garden it usually is pretty inexpensive to modify the soil as needed.

We have not planted a garden in forty five years. The wife has been lightly agitating for a raised garden at the beach. I will try to get it together this year.

The "compost" our town gives away is pretty crappy stuff, lots of plastic and detritus mixed in (they still vacuum up leaves curbside so some litter invariably gets into it). Ideally you have to dig in deep and screen it to make it worthwhile. Some municipalities do offer some nice stuff, mine just isn't one of them.

Most state extension services/ag experiment stations here offer soil testing for free or very little money. I recommend it to every customer that comes through our door, whether they're a garden or a lawn customer. Homeowner or lawn care operator.

Some random person comes in off the street and asks how much pelletized lime do I need for my lawn? Knowing our soils are naturally acidic, I tell them at miminum 50 lbs. per 1,000 sq.ft. if they need to change the pH but it could be anywhere from 25 lbs.-175 lbs. A soil test will tell them exactly how much.

It takes all of the guess work out of soil management. In addition to pH levels, the test results will let you know what nutrients are deficient and which ones are already at adequate levels eliminating the application of unneeded fertilizer components (saves money and better for the environment).

Aquaticedge · #7 03-20-2015, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SwampYankee

The "compost" our town gives away is pretty crappy stuff, lots of plastic and detritus mixed in (they still vacuum up leaves curbside so some litter invariably gets into it). Ideally you have to dig in deep and screen it to make it worthwhile. Some municipalities do offer some nice stuff, mine just isn't one of them.

Most state extension services/ag experiment stations here offer soil testing for free or very little money. I recommend it to every customer that comes through our door, whether they're a garden or a lawn customer. Homeowner or lawn care operator.

Some random person comes in off the street and asks how much pelletized lime do I need for my lawn? Knowing our soils are naturally acidic, I tell them at miminum 50 lbs. per 1,000 sq.ft. if they need to change the pH but it could be anywhere from 25 lbs.-175 lbs. A soil test will tell them exactly how much.

It takes all of the guess work out of soil management. In addition to pH levels, the test results will let you know what nutrients are deficient and which ones are already at adequate levels eliminating the application of unneeded fertilizer components (saves money and better for the environment).

We have that here. its a mix of old garbage composted down (40 years old) Horse and Cow manure from the Federal Prison and police stables and rabbit jellybeans from a few schools who have them and the chips that are with the rabbit beans (pine/cedar) that composted down for a year... this stuff is pretty potent. I have 5 buckets of it to fill a planter I am installing on the back porch for herbs.

@Swamp, Yes! plenty of light. I spent a week doing timelapses of the yard seeing where the sunniest places are and mapping out where certain pants needed to go and where others can be planted... this is about 2 months of planning and finally got to the execution part

barry12345 · #8 03-20-2015, 09:55 AM

I look at your backyard and see at least spring. It has been a bad winter here in eastern Canada with lots of snow and abnormal cold temperatures.

Basically the first day of spring with eight foot banks of snow drifts blown up close to the house. With more coming tomorrow. The only good thing is it has to be basically the end of winter weather in the next week or so. I got a slight new hint yesterday as the wife was listing what she was going to plant in the new raised bed garden.

SwampYankee · #9 03-20-2015, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aquaticedge

We have that here. its a mix of old garbage composted down (40 years old) Horse and Cow manure from the Federal Prison and police stables and rabbit jellybeans from a few schools who have them and the chips that are with the rabbit beans (pine/cedar) that composted down for a year... this stuff is pretty potent. I have 5 buckets of it to fill a planter I am installing on the back porch for herbs.

@Swamp, Yes! plenty of light. I spent a week doing timelapses of the yard seeing where the sunniest places are and mapping out where certain pants needed to go and where others can be planted... this is about 2 months of planning and finally got to the execution part

TnBob · #10 03-20-2015, 04:56 PM

I hope you have some Cherokee tomatoes going. If not ebay is great for seeds.

You very well should consider some companion planting too. Super way to help with critters of all kinds.

ramonajim · #11 03-20-2015, 05:00 PM

Yesterday, there was a 25'×65' freshly tilled plot there. First day of spring snow changed its appearance slightly.

kerry · #12 03-20-2015, 06:24 PM

We drove thru Newfoundland a few years ago. People up there put their gardens alongside the highways miles away from any town. I think it must have to do with the lack of availability of good soil. You'd see a fenced in plot alongside the road 50 miles from any town.

Aquaticedge · #13 03-20-2015, 06:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ramonajim

Yesterday, there was a 25'×65' freshly tilled plot there. First day of spring snow changed its appearance slightly.

Yeesh! thats yuck! Hope it melts soon!

Aquaticedge · #14 03-20-2015, 06:58 PM

I am no artist... Please excuse the rather crude drawing. but it's the garden map.... I still have about 80' of unused space that is not allocated surprisingly

SwampYankee · #15 03-21-2015, 08:39 AM

J, I can't tell from your exceptionally crude drawing

but it looks like you're planning a single row of corn, planted in 2 weeks stages.

Since corn is wind pollinated you'll be much better off planting the corn in blocks with at least 4 rows across, even if they're shorter in lenght. 4 x 10' rows will give you a much better chance for complete pollination than 1 x 40' row.

Are you planting the same variety in 2 week stages? No problem if you are, but if you're not some varieties need to be isolated to avoid cross pollination.