Northern gardens

catjac1975

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ok, here's two views of some of the gardens... and one pic of cucumbers.

to give you an idea of the scale of things the tomatoes in the back corner are about 4ft tall.

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You really are weed free! What is the mulch that you are using? Or is the the color of your soil?
 

flowerbug

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You really are weed free! What is the mulch that you are using? Or is the the color of your soil?

there's no mulch in the veggie gardens. Mom doesn't like stuff on top of the soil, she thinks it doesn't look very tidy. i can't grow cover crops usually either. so i just work around here and bury stuff as much as i can. the soil is actually not bad, but looks bad with the clay in it which forms a light colored skin at the surface. this could be the look the same day it's watered if the sun is out, but scratch that soil and it's pretty good under there.

almost all of the veggie gardens inside the fence are in pretty good shape now compared to when i started. only the tulip gardens need more compost/worm compost added to them. i always bury as much as i can in them to stock them with organic materials and to lift them up above the flash flood level, it also gives the worms someplace to hide when it gets really hot a dry. later on when i need those stashed organic goodies i dig them up and mix them in.
 

catjac1975

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there's no mulch in the veggie gardens. Mom doesn't like stuff on top of the soil, she thinks it doesn't look very tidy. i can't grow cover crops usually either. so i just work around here and bury stuff as much as i can. the soil is actually not bad, but looks bad with the clay in it which forms a light colored skin at the surface. this could be the look the same day it's watered if the sun is out, but scratch that soil and it's pretty good under there.

almost all of the veggie gardens inside the fence are in pretty good shape now compared to when i started. only the tulip gardens need more compost/worm compost added to them. i always bury as much as i can in them to stock them with organic materials and to lift them up above the flash flood level, it also gives the worms someplace to hide when it gets really hot a dry. later on when i need those stashed organic goodies i dig them up and mix them in.
Tha''s some perfect weeding!
 

flowerbug

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Tha''s some perfect weeding!

between the two of us we can get it done in those gardens. i have other gardens right now that are almost completely full of weeds. a lot of it is creeping wood sorrel, there seems to be several versions of it growing here. i finally have been able to get back to the worst of the gardens and starting to get it back into shape, or at least nudge it in the right direction. it will take me a few weeks to get through it all. the other large chaos garden is being mowed for now until i can get back to that some year... it has a pretty large patch of thistles i need to dig out of there. i started on it last fall, but didn't finish and was hoping to have it done this summer. no luck there...

the highest priority gardens are those inside the fence and to keep them weed free can be a challenge because Mom cannot see that great, so she'll scuffle hoe in the rows and then i'll try to come along and get what she misses. i know there's plenty of weeds in there, but you can't see 'em. :) there's some that are very hard to ever eradicate because they hide so well, are very small or when they manage to get seeds to drop they have a lot of them. and then there's weeds we've introduced via wildflower mixes which i think i've finally almost gotten all of them out of the fenced gardens at last, but one big rainstorm can wash a whole fresh batch of weed seeds in from uphill so it's more like a temporary lull in an everlasting battle. :)
 
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Collector

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Collector here AKA 47* 32’N. At elev,2730’ above sea level. Here are some random pics of our garden so far.this is a pic of the garden log, it is a 56’ Black cottonwood log that is left over from the 100’tree I fell this spring. Think it is going to go this fall, it was not a very well thought out plan.
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this is some of our golden bantom improved corn that is just starting to grow good.
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This is a picture of one of our Roma tomato plants ,one of twenty plants. It barely to the top of a small tomato cage but has a lot of fruit and a lot of blooms on them. So we will see.
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pretty sure this is a pink polish that we are growing this year. We will also see what becomes of these this year.
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This is a radome pic of our pepper patch, DW planted some of her left over petunias amongst the peppers and they kind of took over lol. Believe it or not there are a lot of pepper plants in there with lots of peppers on them. Not sure why our plants never grew much this early summer, I think it was the cool temps here along the 47th parallel.
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this picture is from outside the fence, kind of what the deer now see lol. I still have 2 walk through gates to build and one drive through gate. The garden project is coming along ,though still have a long way to go with it.
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digitS'

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Very pretty homestead, @Collector .

2700 feet!!!

When I was at 2500 feet, I grew Polar Vee sweet corn and Sub-Arctic tomatoes! Really came to not like those varieties ... Choices! There weren't all that many x# of years ago (70's).

digitS'

PS, have heard good things about Polish tomatoes
 

flowerbug

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@Collector everything looks good there to me, yes the peppers may be small but if there are fruits on there then they're doing what you are aiming for. could be lack of sunlight or a lot of cloudy days? our first flush of tomatoes come in a few more weeks yet.

love the mixed in flowers. :)

the log will break down eventually one way or another. i can't tell if it is running north south or not, but if it is casting shade on veggies you want to move it (hahahaha, maybe not :) ) to the north edge.

or if you cut it in chunks or slabs you can use those as temporary edges or for whatever need you may have, or even a pathway of steps. buried the worms and bugs will happily turn it into humus for you. i bury a lot of woody debris any chance i can to get more elevation. you've got no need for that there by the looks of it.

good to see pictures.
 

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