What Did You Do In The Garden?

Carried out and applied some composted chicken manure to the 2nd planting of green beans. Some gardeners would never think to apply fertilizer to beans but I find that it makes a difference.

The information that I read was that the bean plant goes into its nitrogen-fixing mode only quite late in its life cycle. The information was based on commercial fields where machines harvested the beans all at once, for processing and sale.

Of course, gardeners can leave the bean plants through the season if conditions are right. I'd prefer not to do that since a second picking doesn't amount to a lot on the bush beans I grow and there is a real chance of spider mites showing up in their enormous numbers.

Before and after the shoveling and sprinkling of the compost there was a fair amount of weeding. I kinda missed some areas with the rototiller earlier this week ... missed a lot but that is common. Used a spading fork and the 4-prong cultivator and did a better job than my down-&-dirty technique with the rototiller.

Steve

Well, it was finally dry enough for me to till my (thus far neglected) rural garden plot. I tried... but failed. Over the winter, I had placed my PVC isolation cages over the garlic bed, to keep curious deer from trampling it (as they had in the past). I placed 10' sections of 3/8" rebar over the cages, to keep them from toppling in the wind. A few of the iron rods had rolled off, so as I always do before digging, I inspected the garden & removed any iron left on the ground.

Guess I missed one. Due to the record rainfall this year, one piece of rebar had sunk into the mud, completely buried. It was invisible to the eye, but not to the tiller. Before I could stop it, the 10' of rebar was wrapped 3 times around the tiller shaft, with a couple loops around the tines. Took me an hour & a half to cut it off. While I was doing that, thunderstorms popped up & rolled through... so it was probably just as well, the weeds would have been resurrected anyway.

Believe it or not, I still have a chance to grow SOMETHING there, if I can get it turned over this week. I destroyed all of the trays of transplants intended for that garden except for one - gherkins. Those plants are still large & healthy, and grow quickly... if I can get them in, I should still be able to make a few batches of pickles.

The gardens at home are doing really well, especially considering nothing was planted until the week of July 4th. All of the transplants started at home really took off; only the peppers (purchased locally) have been slow to get started. Some of the pole beans have already climbed 4-5' up their trellis. The squash & cukes have already set a few.

On the pest front, the first Japanese beetles have shown up. I'm experimenting with a couple traps this year, about 100' from the gardens, to see if they can intercept some of the beetles as they emerge. I also found some SVB eggs on the squash, because the rain had prevented me from covering the plants with floating row cover as I usually do. I'm experimenting with Neem this year, sprayed directly on the eggs, to see if it will be effective. Twice while spraying, a couple of the moths appeared - so I sprayed them too. The egg-laying period is later than usual (as is everything else this year), but hopefully ends soon. Time will tell, I'll report back on the results.

Dug out the rest of the weeds, East bed, north of the garage. Retilled chicken run and moved one medium wheelbarrow of dirt for depression in the garage bed. That was yesterday. This morning I planted annuals, including about 10 geraniums, which came in four 6 packs of annuals, $2/each on clearance. Also some vining annuals and wax begonias which got put close to the building.

After torrential rains every other day have pushed augered out dirt back into my holes I realized I can't just auger and take a few weeks to backfill and put the pot in, I have to finish them one by one. So, I spent the afternoon finishing 9 more holes backfilling with horse manure and sawdust / straw to give some extra yummies to the soil. A crapload more to go!

We also went and saw Big Boy!! But not in our garden

D'aww!! Nice family.

ducks4you said:

Planted my potatoes today. I put the chickens in their "Peck N Play" last Friday .

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THAT is adorable!! ... peck n play.. I love it

ducks4you said:

D'aww!! Nice family.

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3 of 5 kids

!!!
YOU have been busy.

Weeded the garden with my Rogue scuffle hoe, my favorite tool (not a paid advertisement) fertilized the corn, watered everything , then followed the walk behind line trimmer for 2 hours knocking down weeds on the property. Good grief! I thought that thing was never going to run out of gas to give me an excuse to stop. It's another one of my favorite tools.

I walked the yard and started making a list of things to work on next week once the heat gives up a little. I picked a handful of tomatoes, a couple of hot peppers, and took the time to smell the roses! I think the birds are going to get all of my grapes this year, I didn't get many this year after a hard prune and they keep picking them off as they start to change colors.

I also broke out my garden planning book and software, to start thinking about next spring now, while it's really too hot to be outside!