In Your Potato Patch

[shadetech]

Planted Kennebeck and Yukon Gold back in mid May. They got damaged a bit by rain and I put up "handrails for gnomes" around them to help out. I have tons of bamboo I just don't know what to do with soooooo......

The cukes in the background have topped the 7.5 foot trellis and there seems to be a major battle going on between the Patty Pan squash and my various beans. Hard to tell who's winning.

henry

 

[digitS']

I put up those guard rails (bailing twine) for the bush beans often.

It is a little difficult to get between those 2 beds of potatoes now and will only get worse. That's okay, I should be able to prowl the perimeter because there are mostly onions, on both sides of them. Now, they'd just better not dally until the zucchini closes off their world.

A weed-whacker is an acceptable tool for spuds that have reached senescence, by the way. Just in case the need should at some time arise .

Steve

 

[shadetech]

Yeah, my beans seem to want to wander over and converse with the taters. The pintos especially, they seem to be the talkative ones. There are places you have to kind of "shuffle" to get down the path to get through. Next year I think the beans will get their own bed.

Potatoes are so nice for conditioning the clay I have here and really does wonders on beds that are in need of "fluffing up." Even double digging as I do, doesn't do nearly as nice a job as the taters.
Probably doesn't have the same effect on your rock garden though Steve

Live and learn. I just hate to give up productive space to walkways. I don't have raised beds so much as lowered walks. Don't want to give up all that good dirt to just walk on, take the top 8 inches or so and add it to the bed. Nice topsoil. So much to do.........

henry

 

[lesa]

Looking real good, Shadetech!! Can't believe those cukes climbed that high!!

 

[digitS']

Exactly as I do, Henry. But, I probably only take off about 4" of soil and pretend that I've got 24" wide paths - there are no paths that are actually that wide, tho'. Since plant starts are crowded along the paths, the soil is pulled out farther on the beds.

I have never had a garden around here where there was more than about 8" of top soil . There might have been some fertility to the soil below that but the appearance changed so much, that it sure didn't look like it. Rocks were consistent . . .

With the soil added from the paths, I can cultivate to the depth of the spading fork tines, 11".

Cabbage and that family sure leave the worms happy after the plant roots die. It is probably the amount of carbs in the roots. I have thought of just growing turnips to see what benefit they would have as a green manure.

Steve
believer in permanent paths

 

[lesa]

I start out with paths- I swear I do!!Now, I can just barely get from one end of my garden to the other... it is like walking through a maze! Things seem so far apart when they are small!

 

[Greenthumb18]

I start out with paths- I swear I do!!Now, I can just barely get from one end of my garden to the other... it is like walking through a maze! Things seem so far apart when they are small!

I can relate with your situation lesa. You have all this room at the beginning of the season, then boom in no time you have a jungle growing. No room to walk, you have to jump over plants so you don't step on them .

 

[shadetech]

Can't believe those cukes climbed that high!!

Started with a 5 foot trellis and had to add another 30 inches and they are still reaching higher

The "Pickle Palace" will be a busy place this year

And I lay my paths out to be 18 inches between 3.5 foot beds. but like Steve says, they just seem to get smaller and smaller as the season goes on.

henry

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Yup, every year I say I'm going to widen my rows and widen my paths but when I plant in the spring I tell myself there's plenty of space. So I end up with a crowded garden every year.

shadetech - I sure wish I had access to the bamboo that you have. There are hundreds of things I could use it for.

 

[shadetech]

shadetech - I sure wish I had access to the bamboo that you have. There are hundreds of things I could use it for.

As long as you don't have to put a shovel in the ground. I cut a bunch of it down last year to reclaim some more garden space. My daughter stopped by and said the "little stumps" looked like ham bones. I'll tell ya', as many ham bones as I've dug up I think I'm fighting a "millipig" These things have a root system that is incomparable to anything I've ever seen. They say the only way to get rid of it is to remove the top 3 feet of dirt and use napalm on what is left.

Don't get me wrong, I Love my bamboo, but think long and hard before planting any where you might actually want to use the land.

This stuff grows 30 feet tall in a year and travels as deep as 3 feet and at least as far as 20 feet underground.

Makes nice tomato stakes though.

the wire you can barely see is 5 foot. The bamboo poles stick out of the ground 7 foot.

henry