2022 Garden Thread

[EatenByLimestone]

I fenced in a new area last night and got all but 3 tomato plants in the ground. I'll plant them at the cabin.

I have some pepper plants left and some squash to go in that bed.

Then onto the last bed.

Getting it all in is tough this year.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Mrs Clancy, how are you making out way over in Colorado?

 

[Dan Freeman]

Especially when you have a regular job! I remember those days of working in the garden after a long day's work. Now that we are retired, except for our home business, we're able to work almost every day the weather allows, get more done, and not feel the "garden pressure" as much. Hang in there.

 

[clancey]

You all are doing just wonderful trying to stay ahead of the work--which is good for it makes one feel more secure.. I love those "bee homes" and what a good idea. I would hate to clean that water holder as well.. lol Everything looks really nice...I think its not working full time in another job as much as it is "ones stamina", especially if we try to keep things as simple as possible.. If things go well you people are going to have some really tasty and nutritious food--yes,,,My three plants are doing well but not in the ground as of yet for we had some snow and cold weather. I have been making a salad or two out of my lettuce---okay but has a slight bitter taste to it and I rather eat store bought lettuce for now...but I mix it in--lol.. I have had some set backs and right now behind with my work in all areas so I need to just catch up as I can but I have been reading this delightful thread "everyday" and trying to keep up on my research as well...Thanks for asking Lime and I am doing just fine for now...clancey

 

[Dan Freeman]

Good to hear from you, Mrs. Clancy. Stamina! I remember when we moved to this property 27 years ago, we used to put in 8-hour days working outside on weekends and days off. Now, I am happy if I can do 3 hours, sometimes 4 depending on the task (with many breaks), and I pay for it dearly with various aches, pains and ailments, but I still love it. I (we all) will garden as long as we can and in whatever capacity we are able. I hope when they find me dead someday (but not too soon!), they find me in my garden.

I watched this short video this morning and thought it might be of interest to some. From what I have read, I thought we had a honeybee problem here in the US, but this video would suggest we have a native bee problem. I found the video enlightening.

Bee extinction: Why we're saving the wrong bees

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Yeah, there are definitely issues with too many, and the wrong ones being killed. The one that bothers me the most, what I miss the most, is fireflies. I used to run around catching them all summer long as a kid. Then we’d sit and watch the jar flash. Now, in the suburbs, I don’t see many. When I escape civilization they’re still all around.


I watch the pesticide industry closely. We’re headed toward them not being available to homeowners. Licensed professionals will have a lot more restrictions too. Overall, a good thing. A lot of the resistance issues we see are due to bad applications made by homeowner and professional alike. I’m all for more education and licensing with pesticides.

The bad thing, is the success of the industry has bread an awful lot of people who freak out when they see an ant in the yard or a bee fly past a flowering bush.

 

[Dan Freeman]

I still see the fireflies here in the country, but not a s many as when I first moved here 27 years ago.

Don't get me started on pesticides. We are killing nature, and as a result, killing ourselves. Our agricultural industry is doing everything against nature and nurture.

Yes, people freak out about bugs, but those bugs are a crucial part of complete cycle. Ashame people don't understand, know, or bother to learn.

We finally got the rest of the perennial flowers planted down in the food forest today (about 36 plants). So glad to have them out of their 2-gallon pots on the walkway in front of the greenhouse. Now, I can get the pots cleaned for next season. That makes about 72 perennial flowers down there (yellow fern yarrow, black eyed susans, Shasta daisies, and forget-me-nots...in addition to about 48 annual flowers). Also finally got carrot seeds planted. It takes over an hour to water all the raised beds. If I water them and all the fruit trees/bushes/vines, it takes almost 2 hours. Have to figure out something more efficient.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Today was one of those days where I got a lot of little things done.

My Chicago Hardy Fig tree in the backyard that was 6 feet tall died all the way back to the ground this winter, so I cut it down, but I have a ton of shoots coming up. We have wrapped it in burlap and stuffed it with straw a few winters. While some of it survives, we never get the early crop of figs, just the late one, and even they tend to be small. We are right on the border of the growing zone for Chicago Hardy. I figured this is "do or die" time for this fig. I added some good compost and wood chips. If it doesn't do better within the next year or two, it will be history!

I cut down a huge deep purple French Lilac that was consuming the corner of one of my sheds. I love the lilacs, but it was time to take it down. I did leave a few pieces further out from the shed, and I will remove the roots of it that grow closest to this shed.

The shed front had a ton of green mold since it faces North and never sees the sun. So, I got out my bucket and brush, mixed some bleach and Mr. Clean, and now the front of the shed looks nice and white again.

I have one of those Green Dragon Propane torches (weed burner). I went through the slate path from the back stairs to the greenhouse and on to one of the sheds and burned all the weeds growing between the slates and on the sides.

Some days it's just "maintenance" that keeps you busy all day.

 

[begreen]

Asparagus is in full swing. Here is another load of old-growth asparagus heading for the kitchen.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Darn, those are big asparagus!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

When we first moved to Texas, we kept noticing what looked like giant asparagus stalks as we drove around. We finally figured out that it was a flower stalk from the agave plant that folks use in landscaping around here. It’s actually related to asparagus, but it was so strange to move down here and see the huge stalks that looked just like garden asparagus.

Century Plant Almost Two Stories High Is About To Flower in Texas

Century plants are common throughout Texas, although it is rare for them to grow to the impressive proportions that one example in a backyard in Houston has reached.

www.newsweek.com

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Even the asparagus is bigger in TX!

 

[begreen]

Cool weather persists here and I still don't have the heat lover crops in the ground. This is the latest for us in over a decade. Meanwhile, we have been dealing with deer break-ins since last Wed. Each day we repair another section of the 1000'+ of fencing where we "think" they bust in, but then the next morning we see them munching away on the berry leaves. Typically, it's a mother and one or two fawns. Getting the mother out is not too hard as long as she doesn't panic, but getting fawns out over a hillside acre is not fun. My knees can't take much more running up and downhill after them. Yesterday, we fixed what we think may have been their entrance. It was down low and behind a large blackberry. Fingers crossed. We've lost a couple of broccoli, several tomatoes, some strawberry plants, and raspberry leaves to these long-legged rats. Hopefully, some of these plants will recover.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Cool weather persists here and I still don't have the heat lover crops in the ground. This is the latest for us in over a decade. Meanwhile, we have been dealing with deer break-ins since last Wed. Each day we repair another section of the 1000'+ of fencing where we "think" they bust in, but then the next morning we see them munching away on the berry leaves. Typically, it's a mother and one or two fawns. Getting the mother out is not too hard as long as she doesn't panic, but getting fawns out over a hillside acre is not fun. My knees can't take much more running up and downhill after them. Yesterday, we fixed what we think may have been their entrance. It was down low and behind a large blackberry. Fingers crossed. We've lost a couple of broccoli, several tomatoes, some strawberry plants, and raspberry leaves to these long-legged rats. Hopefully, some of these plants will recover.

Begreen, I sure hope that was the spot so that you don’t have any more deer in the garden. We’ve been having baby armadillos and a skunk. Ever since we trapped the skunk, we haven’t had any more potatoes dug up. The baby armadillos were small enough and strong enough to push their way through the 2 x 3 openings we have at the bottom of our fence in the new garden (it’s the fencing that came with the free beds), but I don’t think they could actually get up into the beds in that garden. Unfortunately, they or their mother (whom we’ve not seen) had also managed to burrow a new hole under our shed where I had recently moved a rock, and I guess it gave them an opportunity to dig. Just yesterday when my husband could help, we finally pulled the wooden walkway off the other side of the shed and attached fencing wire/hardware cloth to the bottom of the shed and buried it going down and out. It was a hard hot job, and I had to stop pounding fencing staples when my wrist started burning, but we did get the whole side finished, and it’s a 26 foot shed with another ten foot “annex” behind it. It was a lot of work on a hot day. We have rocks blocking the other side, but we plan in the future to pull those away and put hardware cloth underneath as well.

We’re having so much heat down here that it makes for an exhausting and at times discouraging garden season. I think we’re going to try to put up our shade cloth to see if that helps because I have tomatoes dropping their blooms, others getting blossom end rot, and my pole beans just aren’t setting pods. I’m watering diligently, but the plants still get stressed when it’s 98 degrees with intense sun.

On a different note, my okra plants are growing, and I’ve just started some corn seeds. I haven’t put in most of the corn, though, or my sweet potatoes, because I still have onions in those beds. It’s later than I expected it to be, but my long season gives me time. The sweet potato slips are trying to take over a good portion of my deck, though, and I’m needing to water them a lot since they’re not in the ground yet.

Despite my not having as good of results with the garden as I would like, there are still some successes. We have a few tomato plants that are putting off some nice fruit. “Taste Patio” is bearing nice egg-sized tomatoes for us, and they have good flavor. We are really pleased with this variety. We also picked our first small cucumber and a handful of Shishito peppers in order to add to a lettuce salad for last night’s dinner. The lettuce is from the store because it’s too hot here for it.


I am going to give a try to growing a pot of lettuce indoors again this summer. I have a wooden plant cart that was given to me a few years ago when my master gardener neighbor moved away. I’ve used it often for seedlings, and my planter of ginger lived on it all winter. I’ve long wanted to waterproof the top in some way in order to have more freedom with what I put on it, and I recently found an extra large boot try that fits on top perfectly. I think I’m going to try to start more za’atar inside as well as some lettuce and maybe even a zucchini (to try to get a head start on the vine borers).


I somehow couldn’t capture all the flowers on this plant in the photo, but I have a couple of Balsam Impatiens that I grew from seed and put in pots on our front porch. They’ve branched out nicely and are flowering along those branches, and I’m very pleased. Little things like that can be very cheering.

 

[Dan Freeman]

We had a busy day...

We pruned all of the fruit trees, and we finished planting the rest of the berry bushes.

With the fruit trees/ berry bushes/vines, perennial and annual vegetables, and perennial and annual flowers, this is what we have now planted in the food forest...1 year and 6 days since we started it.



Thought I would throw in a picture of our garlic which is growing in the backyard. Once we harvest it in late July, we'll move these two raised beds down to the FF.



A couple of pics taken this afternoon as we finished today's work in the FF.



Peppers, eggplants and Tiny Tim Tomatoes doing well in the greenhouse.

 

[begreen]

Begreen, I sure hope that was the spot so that you don’t have any more deer in the garden. We’ve been having baby armadillos and a skunk. Ever since we trapped the skunk, we haven’t had any more potatoes dug up. The baby armadillos were small enough and strong enough to push their way through the 2 x 3 openings we have at the bottom of our fence in the new garden (it’s the fencing that came with the free beds), but I don’t think they could actually get up into the beds in that garden. Unfortunately, they or their mother (whom we’ve not seen) had also managed to burrow a new hole under our shed where I had recently moved a rock, and I guess it gave them an opportunity to dig. Just yesterday when my husband could help, we finally pulled the wooden walkway off the other side of the shed and attached fencing wire/hardware cloth to the bottom of the shed and buried it going down and out. It was a hard hot job, and I had to stop pounding fencing staples when my wrist started burning, but we did get the whole side finished, and it’s a 26 foot shed with another ten foot “annex” behind it. It was a lot of work on a hot day. We have rocks blocking the other side, but we plan in the future to pull those away and put hardware cloth underneath as well.

We’re having so much heat down here that it makes for an exhausting and at times discouraging garden season. I think we’re going to try to put up our shade cloth to see if that helps because I have tomatoes dropping their blooms, others getting blossom end rot, and my pole beans just aren’t setting pods. I’m watering diligently, but the plants still get stressed when it’s 98 degrees with intense sun.

On a different note, my okra plants are growing, and I’ve just started some corn seeds. I haven’t put in most of the corn, though, or my sweet potatoes, because I still have onions in those beds. It’s later than I expected it to be, but my long season gives me time. The sweet potato slips are trying to take over a good portion of my deck, though, and I’m needing to water them a lot since they’re not in the ground yet.

Despite my not having as good of results with the garden as I would like, there are still some successes. We have a few tomato plants that are putting off some nice fruit. “Taste Patio” is bearing nice egg-sized tomatoes for us, and they have good flavor. We are really pleased with this variety. We also picked our first small cucumber and a handful of Shishito peppers in order to add to a lettuce salad for last night’s dinner. The lettuce is from the store because it’s too hot here for it.
View attachment 295872

I am going to give a try to growing a pot of lettuce indoors again this summer. I have a wooden plant cart that was given to me a few years ago when my master gardener neighbor moved away. I’ve used it often for seedlings, and my planter of ginger lived on it all winter. I’ve long wanted to waterproof the top in some way in order to have more freedom with what I put on it, and I recently found an extra large boot try that fits on top perfectly. I think I’m going to try to start more za’atar inside as well as some lettuce and maybe even a zucchini (to try to get a head start on the vine borers).

Yes, we each have our challenges. The deer have been kept out now for 2 days. Fingers crossed, we have them kept outside for the rest of the season now. I remember your critter wars last year. It's always something it seems.
Shade cloth really works. I would definitely try that. In the opposite direction, I just ordered some UV resistant, 6 mil greenhouse plastic to put over our heat lovers. Remay works, but it blocks a lot of light.
Good idea on growing the lettuce inside. Our only problem when we grow it inside is that the leaves are quite delicate. One has to be more careful when washing and drying them. Still, homegrown is better than store-bought.

 

[Dan Freeman]

So, you all know we used to have this large 8x10 chicken coop and 10x16 run that we built in 2013 for 16 chickens.



We used to lock them up at night, and we had "poop trays" under their roost. We used to get a lot of good chicken poop for the gardens.

Eventually, we turned this chicken coop/run into a garden shed/garden area and didn't have chickens for a few years.

Then, in 2020, we built a much smaller 8x8 run with a small coop incorporated inside.



We got 3 chickens. However, they don't sleep in the coop. They only go in there to lay eggs. Year round, they sleep on the outside roosting bar.

Collecting chicken poop is harder now with the coop, two hanging buckets, a plank up to their coop, and their roosting board. If not careful, it's easy to get injured, covered with poop, or easily frustrated.

So, today, I started on a new project I am calling the "compost factory". It is an "add on" to the back of the run, elevated off the ground, and accessible to the chickens. It will have front doors where we can load in leaves, grass clipping, food scraps, etc. The chickens will "work it" leaving that wonderful poop in it, and the compost will fall down into the old poop pans on the ground where we can more easily collect it, and compost it while it is still "hot". I think this will make collecting good chicken-poop-inoculated-compost much easier for us.

I got most of the framing built today. I still have to build the doors, put the roof on, and attach the wire.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I can’t remember his name, the Back to Eden guy, just shovels the compost from the yard in front of his chickens. I couldn’t tell you how feasible that is since I’ve never kept them, but I thought it was an easy system.

 

[Dan Freeman]

I was just watching the Back to Eden documentary the other night. Paul Gautschi does just shovel it to the chickens, but if I remember correctly, he has a large chicken run. My chicken run is only 8x8, has a small coop in it, a roosting bar right in the middle that stretches from side to side (not in the picture above), a long plank up to the coop entrance, and two hanging stations (one water/one food). It's a bit cramped in there for me to collect compost, so this will eliminate that.

 

[begreen]

I fenced in a new area last night and got all but 3 tomato plants in the ground. I'll plant them at the cabin.

I have some pepper plants left and some squash to go in that bed.

Then onto the last bed.

Getting it all in is tough this year.

Yes, I am still shuttling peppers and eggplant in pots out of the greenhouse on sunny days. May plant them tomorrow, but only when nighttime temps are in the 50s or higher.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Yes, we each have our challenges. The deer have been kept out now for 2 days. Fingers crossed, we have them kept outside for the rest of the season now. I remember your critter wars last year. It's always something it seems.
Shade cloth really works. I would definitely try that. In the opposite direction, I just ordered some UV resistant, 6 mil greenhouse plastic to put over our heat lovers. Remay works, but it blocks a lot of light.
Good idea on growing the lettuce inside. Our only problem when we grow it inside is that the leaves are quite delicate. One has to be more careful when washing and drying them. Still, homegrown is better than store-bought.

I’m so glad to hear that the deer have been kept out for two days. Hurray!

My husband and I moved all our rock barriers away from the shed today, dug what we could, and installed some hardware cloth all along the long run. We then moved soil back and the bigger rocks. (A lot of the smaller rocks we put under the shed.) It was definitely hard work.



After dinner tonight (yummy tabbouleh with parsley, onion, cucumber, and tomato from the garden), we went back out and installed some shade cloth over the two arched trellises in the garden. I got a clearance roll a couple of years ago and divided it into seven pieces, I think, that can cover the whole garden area. We only used four tonight, but they should provide some good shade for the pole beans which have lots of flowers but aren’t setting, and four the tomatoes that show the most heat stress in the late afternoon. As a bonus, it also covers one of my rhubarb plants. There is okra in the square beds in the middle of the garden. Right now that is still uncovered.



The white stuff in the garden is shredded paper that was just put down today. My nine year old wanted a job this morning, but helping with the shed work would have been too much for her. I figured we had a big pile of papers that needed shredding, and I wanted to mulch my tomatoes in particular. I don’t love the look of it, but it was a good way to get that child a job she could do, and she did it pretty well. She had to shred the paper, carry it to the garden, put it around the plants and water it in so that the wind wouldn’t carry it away. There was a lot of wind today so it was dry by the afternoon, but it seemed to be staying in place.

@Dan Freeman, your chicken run addition looks very nice. I hope it works well for you.

 

[Dan Freeman]

I got the rest of the "compost factory" behind the chicken coop framed out today. Just waiting on the welded wire to arrive. Once that is here, I can attach it and put the Ondura roof panels on.

Very hot today in the low 90's. I spent over 1 1/2 hours watering.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I hope you got that watering in before the heat of the day. It’s miserable otherwise.

My youngest helped me water a little bit this morning because he wanted to wet down the paper mulch. I really need to do a full watering on the garden, but I’m waiting for the temperature to drop a little more, and the sun to get a little lower. It’s still 91 right now after a high of 96. If I can, I’ll do both gardens this evening after planting out some sweet potato slips. If I can’t manage all that after dinner, I’ll get out early in the morning to do the rest. I usually water in the mornings just because that’s when I have more energy, but I wanted to plant sweet potatoes in the evening, so that’s why I didn’t haul out the pump this morning.

 

[begreen]

Finally, nighttime temps are over 50º. We had 85 hours above 70 in May last year. This year only 5! I moved most of the peppers and eggplants outdoors. Squashes are now also in the ground. I planted one of the cantaloupe plants outdoors, keeping a spare in the greenhouse. Picked our first cucumbers. This is a pic from Sunday. The greenhouse plant is now over 6’ tall. The outdoor sibling produced a cuke too but is growing much slower. This Poniente variety doesn't need a ton of light, but it likes heat.

 

[Dan Freeman]

This morning I built the door for the compost factory (to load in debris), and I was going to move to something else when UPS arrived with the welded wire, so I got the bottom, top, and front wire attached. I just need to do the sides and put the corrugated roof on now.