A henless garden, 2019

henless

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Well, I guess I better get my thread started since I've already been working out in the garden for this year.

Here it is in the beginning. All asleep and just waiting to start growing. I put the large pots at the ends of the beds for planting flowers in this year. Last year, I planted some marigolds in with my asparagus. I had a butt load of seeds scattered all over the bed. I may have a problem with them sprouting this year. I thought the pots might help with that problem. They will give me a place to plant flowers without having to worry about the seeds mixing all in my veggie beds.

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Last year I planted potatoes in a small bed I had in front of the chicken pen. This year, I'm going to plant them in one of my big beds. Of course, when buying my seed potatoes, I ended up getting more than will fit in the bed. So, I decided to dig up my strawberries and put them somewhere else. This will give me another bed for potatoes now, and something else this summer.

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I had about 30 strawberry plants (or so I thought) that I needed to do something with. I decided to put them in some kind of container. There were lots of strawberry towers on line to choose from, I decided on this one, a milk crate.

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Most are stacked up, 3 or 4 to a tower. I decided to use them as singles since I really didn't have any where to stack them. As singles, I can plant strawberries in the top of all of them. I ended up with 31 plants in each crate, making 3 crates. I still had some left. It seems my strawberries didn't put out "runners" last year, they just spread right next to the mother plant. I put 5 plants in 4 hanging baskets. I'll put them out on the front porch.

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I also worked on my asparagus bed. Some of the ones I planted last year never came up, so I picked up some new ones and planted them in those spaces.

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I also got some of my onions planted. I know they are a bit close, but I plan on picking some as the grow giving more room for the others. I have two pots like this, and several smaller ones. I put a few down the middle of my asparagus bed for now.

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What's growing in my garden now.

Garlic chives are coming up.

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My turnips are finally taking off. Luckily I can leave them there for a while longer.

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digitS'

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Looks great.

Organized! With those blocks. I had a struggle with weeds when I had some garden beds surrounded by blocks. Petunias on the house-side suppressed the unwanted. If you can come up with other desirable, easy-care choices, you may want to use them for planting.

I think that I used up my quota of words, italicized. There, I had to get in one more under Organized ;)!

Once again, I am trying garlic chives. They were real tiny things. This time, surviving the winter in a very shady part of the backyard. Real tiny in years past and they were too weak for their environment. We will see if this amount of shade benefits the Allium tuberosum.

The Allium schoenoprasum (had to look up those names :)), is an important part of our harvest season. I was a little surprised that in much of the country, chives can be seriously invasive. They do just fine in the shade of my back fence and carport but don't really show up anywhere else.

I do have to keep the mass of them in check, however. Still, they will be the first thing we harvest in the spring and can be appreciated by the handful, with scrambled eggs and omelets. I should use them in a quiche!

Now, back to the garlic chives ... I'm not sure how dissimilar they could be in their growth. Maybe one can inspire the other this year.

Here's Wishing You a Good Growing Year, Henless :frow!

Steve
 

henless

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Where did you have weeds digitS'? I do have to weed the holes in the blocks. I haven't filled them up with anything yet. If this was going to be my "forever" home, I would pour cement down them. I had thought about putting pea gravel in them, but since DH changed jobs, access to free pea gravel is no longer available. What I really want is to get the flat rectangle patio blocks that would fit along the tops of my cement blocks. Maybe in the future.

I have my chives sitting out in full sun. This is the 3rd year for that particular batch of chives. I harvested a bunch of seeds off of it last year. I really need a herb bed. We ripped off our aging back porch this past year. Plans are to pour a cement patio there. Once that is done, I would love to put up a cement block herb garden out the back door. Here are my chives from last year. Each flower has 4-5 seeds. I love the smell. This will be their first year returning at their current location. I wonder if I will have "extras" show up in the bed?

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so lucky

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We have garlic chives popping up in strange places. You really can't get rid of that stuff once you have it. I think it is worse than regular wild garlic. What do you use it for?
 

baymule

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I like chives, but not garlic chives. For some reason, garlic chives make me belch and I get to "eat" them over and over. Blech.

Your garden is so neat and orderly, just beautiful, even in its winter semi-slumber.
 

henless

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@digitS' ~ The holes are my biggest weeding problem. I hope to find a way to thwart that this year.

@so lucky ~ Anything you would like them in. Soup, casseroles, stir fry, just what ever.

@baymule ~ Thanks! I want to plant some onion chives this year. Love them on baked potato! I also like the purple flowers.
 

henless

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This evening after getting home from work, I cut my potatoes up for planting this weekend. I have Yukon Gold and Red Norland. My RN have much larger eyes/sprouts than the YG do.

Checked my garden on Saturday, and my kale that I have planted in my milk jugs has already sprouted.

@margali ~ Thanks! They were a booger putting them in, but work out really good.
 

baymule

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It has rained a couple of inches, today and tomorrow are clear, but we are busy both days. Then back to blah weather. Great. Just great.

Congrats on the kale! Do you have milk jugs over them out in the garden?
 

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