Michigan

[Dascountry]

No frost this morning Weeded the green beans and beets tonight. I need to start back weeding the flower beds....but then I look at the veggie garden and think well I'll just spend a little time here. Doesn't work that way, the little time turns into the sore back and tired bones

 

[Bobbiee]

I'm bob from Montague, retired, gardened for years, 77 yrs old. Never thought when Dad forced me to weed in the garden so many years ago that I would spend so much time loving to garden. Found out there is more to it than weeding I guess. Looked at this site because it was recommended by Swampducks, I think, over on BYC Mi thread. Thanks....

 

[swampducks]

Welcome Bob!

Yup, it was me. I like gardening sort of. Started when I was a kid with my older sister, my dad of course, would buy all the stuff we needed but older sis and I were the labor. I've had gardens on and off over the years and every time I moved to a new place I'd start flower or veggie gardens usually making them bigger than I really needed which made upkeep impossible so inevitably they always became weed encrusted. But I keep trying because I love fresh tomatoes and cucumbers and zucchini, etc.

So, it's good to have you here Bob, love the name Bob, btw, that was my dad's name. And my brother's. Just pop in and talk about whatever you want.

 

[Dascountry]

Hello Bob...WELCOME

I didn't start gardening flowers or veggies until after I got married. My folks weren't interested in it I guess. Funny because I can remember my grandmother having a veggie garden and flowers too. So lets see .... been married for 37 years and started gardening about 5 years after...so calculate, think, man its late....I got it 32 years! I've been in the sun to long today :happy_flower
Gunna brag too, my veggie garden is lookin good row Flowers ...not so good. If I had to choose I'm glad its the veggie garden that's doing so well. I may even get cukes this year. Fingers crossed I'll have enough to make pickles. I don't know what it is but since we've moved north I haven't been able to grow decent enough cukes for pickles. When I was in Millington I had wonderful cukes. Hummmmm could be I'm dealing mostly with sand here.

 

[swampducks]

What kind of pickling cukes you growing? I've got Bush Pickle, National Pickler (I think), and Albion is my new one to try this year. There may be another but I can only think of the slicer names at the moment. Dang my memory is just shot. Most of them finally have their first real leaf though. Sure is taking it's time up here.

 

[Dascountry]

I have sumter pickling and a munching long cuke. Mine have their first true and a couple are getting the forth leaf now. Yeah :rainbow-sun According to the weather forcast we could reach 90 tomorrow. Wonderful outside right now...that is if the biting flies weren't around

 

[swampducks]

Dang, I've lost count how many deer fly bites I've got. Living in a swamp you'd think the skeeters would be more of a nuisance. Nope, it's the deer flies, only have 2 months of them though, by mid August they're usually had their season and start dropping off. Yeah, I know, up here, that's the whole dang summer!

I have discovered something. Usually I wear a ball cap outside, sprayed with bug repellent. But I have switched to a hat with a full brim to keep the sun off my neck and the deer flies are too stupid to go underneath! It's great! I hear them dive bombing the brim to no avail. So really I only have worry about the rest of my body! LOL

 

[Jared77]

This is my 2nd year for my big garden but I've had plants on and off all my life. Im 34, but I kept violets and spider plants as far back as elementary school. My father's a biology teacher so I got his green thumb. Its funny though the one thing he doesn't like is gardening. He's got a bunch of house plants and multiple terrariums but no garden. He hates to weed. He still talks about spending summers on my great grandparents farm down in Hudson and how he had to weed this gigantic garden as a kid and it just ruined him. He loves the fresh veggies I send him but he won't keep his own because he doesn't want to weed.

What really got me going and pushed me to have our own garden was when we had our daughter and we made most of our own baby food. I'd always talked about planting a garden but it never got off the ground. Well now I"ve got mine and I couldn't imagine having anything else. I always did flower gardens when I was renting but just recently have I focused on veggies.

While we're on the cukes discussion I've got Straight 8 slicers which did good for me last year as well, and I've got National Picklers and Calipso. The Calipso are a gherkin sized pickling cuke. First year trying them but I've got 8 hills of them going. They are a hybrid and are supposed to be very prolific so we'll see. I had to replant 3 of the hills that didn't germinate but now I've got all of them going good. I just covered the hills in straw so hopefully they won't have to compete so much with the weeds.

Anybody keeping a list of what they planted year to year? I started one last year but I lost it. I wanted to see how many plants produced how many lbs of food including by variety. For example X number of Early girl plants yield ____ tomatoes for a total of ______ lbs. I created a new file on the computer and wrote everything down there so I hopefully won't lose it. This way we have a good idea of what we are producing so we may alter our planting some.

 

[swampducks]

Anybody keeping a list of what they planted year to year? I started one last year but I lost it. I wanted to see how many plants produced how many lbs of food including by variety. For example X number of Early girl plants yield ____ tomatoes for a total of ______ lbs. I created a new file on the computer and wrote everything down there so I hopefully won't lose it. This way we have a good idea of what we are producing so we may alter our planting some.

I don't really have a plan to weigh or count anything, but I have created a drawing showing what's planted where so I can see which ones just do better. It's kind of iffy because I've really got only one of a few of the tomatoes so if something happens to a plant I won't know for sure. Not a good statistical sample. Plus the drawing blew away, found it in a half barrel full of water, dried it out and now I don't know where it is! I need to look for it today.

Cloudy out right now, a little rain on the radar but not enough to do much other than make things more humid. Forgot to reset my thermometer last night so all I know it the temps didn't drop below 65 last night. Been tracking highs and lows on my calender this month. Not very good at that either I guess! Ah well.

 

[Bobbiee]

I have a list of the things I planned to plant, and two or three,( three) plots with planned spacing and plants all in rows. This year I'm renting three garden spaces so thought I would set it all up on paper before planting anything. Plan I did, and in transfering from paper to garden the plan lasted no time at all. The seeds didn't fill the proposed areas so plan was pitched and improvisation was the rule which worked fine since the 4 plots I thought I was renting turned into only three. Communication is not my strongest trait. Stew, owner, and I were on different pages. Oh well.... no probs. Once years ago a friend and I gardened together in his back 40. Actually only 10 acres. We didn't grow anywhere near enough to fill that area. I had asked if anyone on the football team or classes I was teaching then had any spoiled straw or hay I could have for mulching in the garden. One boy said he would check with his dad as they had a whole wagon load get soaked and go bad. I got it free and needed space for it. Charlie, the friend, had space so we got together and planned to store in next to his fence and mulch somecorn and potatoes. I had a 76 f100 at the time and learned that a hay wagon fully loaded contains too much weight to pull, even for a short two miles, with that auto trannie. Don't recall $ cost but the transmission required rebuilding. That's another story.

That experience also provided a lesson in the growth rate of voles in a garden covered with mouldy hay to a depth of more than a foot... Also had a lesson in the kinds and abundance of weed seeds that germinate when spoiled hay goes to growing. Astounding !

Am working on a framework to hold netting to reduce blueberry loss to birds. With only six bushes one can not afford to lose a lot. This year three of those froze out along with the preponderance of the strawberries.

Keep notes but not records of production. I'm no help.

Darn; this site doesn't seem to have a spell checker. Too bad, if I used one it would be eaqsier to read my posts. Spelling bad, typing worse.