2025 Garden Thread

[EatenByLimestone]

I need to do a retaining wall this summer too.

 

[begreen]

I did the new retaining wall 3 yrs ago. It's holding up well.

So far it's too cool for most plants outside. There are garlic, potatoes, onions, and lettuce out there, but the rest is just starting in the greenhouse on a heat mat. I started the seeds on the first day of spring. It's the usual suspects, tomatoes, peas, more lettuce, cukes, peppers, and some red onions.

As an aside: We are still using last summer's crop of onions. The Patterson and Rosso di Milano onions are great keepers. We are growing them again along with Ringmasters. The Ringmasters are a large, sweet, white onion like Walla Walla but we find they grow better and keep longer.

 

[EbS-P]

Do you have gravel underneath and behind it?
Otherwise water pressure may ruin your wall.
Put the downspout on the other side of the wall too.

It’s all 100% sand. It will probably pour out of the cracks for a few years. Spout will get re routed likely to a rain barrel.

 

[Montanalocal]

Peas can be seeded directly outside during the very first part of the spring. They are among the most hardy plants.

 

[begreen]

Peas can be seeded directly outside during the very first part of the spring. They are among the most hardy plants.

I can't do that here. The sparrows and robins love the tender babies. What they don't demolish, the slugs get. Instead I start them inside until they are 4" tall, then transplant. The row gets covered by a 1/4" hardware cloth tunnel until they are well rooted. By the time they start climbing, the birds leave them alone. I have to do the same for other tender starts like spinach and lettuce. We love the birds so this is a compromise we live with.

 

[EbS-P]

I need to do a retaining wall this summer too.

I’m so glad I live 4 minutes for the orange big box and 6 from the blue. I made four trips for blocks so far. 40 then 50 then 40 this morning and 40 more this PM are in the back of the van. Like most things. Prep takes the longest and if you lay the first course the rest is about a 75 minute project with the kids bringing the blocks to me at the wall. I’ll glue down the top course so climbing kids won’t knock them off.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I’d planned on kid help, then she got injured wrestling. We get an MRI on the 1st. It looks like I get to move all the blocks myself. They’ll weigh 70lbs each. It’ll be 3 pallets worth. They just got their stone in. I’ll be doing it at the end of April hopefully.

 

[EbS-P]

I’d planned on kid help, then she got injured wrestling. We get an MRI on the 1st. It looks like I get to move all the blocks myself. They’ll weigh 70lbs each. It’ll be 3 pallets worth. They just got their stone in. I’ll be doing it at the end of April hopefully.

Moving 70#ers would put me in bad shape in short order. I’m glad this project isn’t that large.

 

[EbS-P]

This is my kind of garden. It stayed outside all winter. I did keep water in it most of the time. It only ran dry twice. But I didn’t always add fertilizer. Several might down into the teens, but I didn’t always add roll it oner the porch.

Swiss chard, curly kale, Dino kale, and giant Italian parsley. If it can withstand this neglect and look this good anyone can grow it!! The scarlet kale didn’t make it.

 

[Montanalocal]

It’s great to grow over winter in places that do not get too cold. You could probably also grow most of the other cole crops such as cabbage, brockley, brussels sprouts, turnips and rutabagas. You could also try carrots and lettuce.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I’ve had Dino kale last through winter just fine until the snow got high enough that the bunnies could jump the fence, so it probably can handle down to 15 or so without issue. Probably much lower, but those are our most common winter highs and lows. It just doesn’t grow at those temps. So it has to be leafed out there before it gets cold. I’ve never had any volunteers pop up the next year so it doesn’t survive the winter due to age or cold killing it. I’ve never seen it go to seed either so there haven’t been surprises like tomatoes popping up.

 

[30WCF]

Looks like the one Chestnut I planted early is doing fine and starting some leaves. The others I just planted are sprouting tiny little shoots.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Nice! I hope the American Chestnut comes back. It looks like it was a huge food crop at one time. Supposedly it was very fast growing also!

 

[walhondingnashua]

Nice! I hope the American Chestnut comes back. It looks like it was a huge food crop at one time. Supposedly it was very fast growing also!

Rural King had a bunch of the Dunstan chestnuts last fall. The day I went to buy 2, a guy had bought the entire lot. I am planning on getting my hands on them early this year.

 

[walhondingnashua]

Anyone big gourd growers? I want to start growing gourds like birdhouse gourds and I am looking for growing ideas. Thanks in advance.

 

[begreen]

Nah, I'm already out of my gourd. 🤪

 

[Pinesmoke]

Anyone big gourd growers? I want to start growing gourds like birdhouse gourds and I am looking for growing ideas. Thanks in advance.

Back in the day I had about 20 cords of 1/2 rounds from 3' hack berry trunks., big stacks. I planted gourds along the base and let them cover the stacks. Looked good, comparatively speaking.

 

[Max W]

I did the new retaining wall 3 yrs ago. It's holding up well.

So far it's too cool for most plants outside. There are garlic, potatoes, onions, and lettuce out there, but the rest is just starting in the greenhouse on a heat mat. I started the seeds on the first day of spring. It's the usual suspects, tomatoes, peas, more lettuce, cukes, peppers, and some red onions.

As an aside: We are still using last summer's crop of onions. The Patterson and Rosso di Milano onions are great keepers. We are growing them again along with Ringmasters. The Ringmasters are a large, sweet, white onion like Walla Walla but we find they grow better and keep longer.

Our onions have sprouted and are under the grow lights. We have enjoyed how well Pattersons keep but have been growing Talons the last few years. They are a very large long day onion. Last summer’s are still keeping well. We’ve had them keep through May. Trying some Red Mountain as well this year for something a little different and smaller.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Looks like the one Chestnut I planted early is doing fine and starting some leaves. The others I just planted are sprouting tiny little shoots.

View attachment 338002

I'm responding to this mostly because "talking" about chestnuts will help me remember to take pictures of the huge Chinese Chestnut trees that my mother grew five decades ago from chestnuts she sprouted. Those trees were ones I climbed in my childhood, and I have memories of roasting chestnuts on our wood stove. I only learned just recently that my mother planted them either before I was born or when I was too young to remember. I only remember trees, not even just saplings.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I haven't been posting much on the gardening thread, but I've been busy working. I started seeds earlier this month, some cooler weather crops and some herbs, and I've been busy preparing a site for a new garden.

Back in February, I think, when we were expecting a major snow storm, I put down all the broken down moving boxes I had been saving in our basement to make plans for a new garden area. We planned to build rows with arched trellises in between, so we used cattle panels and t-posts to hold the cardboard down after the snow disappeared. My husband and I have been shredding brush piles to mulch the area as well, but we have lots more brush and work to do on that.

My husband and I started building the trellises a few weeks back, but then some things came up that kept us from making the progress we were wanting to make. I had spring break this week, so my husband took off last Friday and helped me get another trellis almost done. Then my mom [who is about the most amazing eighty-eight year old I've ever met] helped me over the course of the rest of the week to finish the trellises, put bamboo in place for beds, move compost I had had delivered, and mostly get the garden fenced in.

The last part of the fencing and the gate are not done. I'm just using old bits of livestock panels to make a gate, and I needed a wooden post for attaching it. My mother picked out a cedar tree to cut down for the post, and she went and felled it this afternoon while my husband and I were working on other things around the house. Right now I think I have the gate area blocked enough to dissuade bunnies and deer from entering. I sure hope so, since I planted out some brassicas and lettuce yesterday evening.


I've had both my Aerogardens starting seeds inside, but it has become clear to me that the water distribution system in the older garden [one I got already used probably about ten years ago] is having problems. I neglected it this week when I was busy in the garden and with houseguests, and it ran low on water. I noticed when my smallest herbs up and died, and some better established ones started looking bad. I refilled it at the time, but I unplugged it today and potted up my herbs as a rescue mission. I'm using silicone pots that I got for seed starting, but I just needed to fit more in less space for now. I also potted up a few tomatoes and peppers as I need to make room in my one remaining Aerogarden to start more tomatoes. I didn't finish with that one, though, as most of the egplant and peppers are just at the seed-leaf stage
.

Potting up is not my favorite part of the gardening process, but I really enjoyed working in the compost outside today planting some carrot and beet seeds. The soil underneath the garden area is rocky red clay that was compacted by construction equipment, but years ago it was part of my mom's orchard. I know it's going to take a few years to get things really going in the garden, but we're trying to give it a good start with lots of compost, and I'm excited to be planting in my own space again. [My mom is also excited to have her own garden to herself again, too, I think.]

 

[begreen]

Looks like a great start. But, no deer fencing?

I will be staring to transplant starts to 4" pots this week. If things warm up, some will be ready for the main beds by May 1st.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Definitely deer and rabbit fencing!

My mom and I spent Thursday moving compost and getting the external t-posts in place. We spent Friday putting up two sets of fencing around all but the last section of the garden where we need to do something different for gate access and where we need to cobble together the last bits of older fencing to finish. I don't have a good photo of the whole outside, but I do have one of the unfinished part, and you can perhaps make out a row of fencing down the side toward the back.



We couldn't finish the gate today as my husband and I had other really pressing yardwork we had to do, but I think I have a good temporary barricade there to protect my little plants. I sure hope so, at least.

 

[begreen]

There ya go! Well done.

 

[30WCF]

Mr McGreggor would be proud.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Thanks, folks.



Here's a picture of my mom's two Chinese Chestnuts [the two trees just the other side of the driveway] that she grew from chestnuts that she sprouted. Both are quite large, though the one to the right is larger. The angle of the picture makes it look like more of a discrepancy than there is. The trees are beginning to leaf out now. They'll have huge catkins later in the year. Those make for some good garden mulch.