What Did You Do In The Garden?
- Thread starter digitS'
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Gardening with Rabbits
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I still have peppers in the freezer and gave so many away last year. I probably have 60 this year that I will plant or more. Most are looking pretty good and ready to plant.
Beekissed
Garden Master
Got sweet and hot peppers planted today, as well as all my greens, carrots, broccoli, more cukes, even a few watermelon. Need to plant more root crop in the left side of the right hand raised bed...want to plant more carrots there and also some turnips.
This hay is even easier to plant into than the chips...planted everything with an antique silver spoon, that's how soft the soil is under the hay. Rich from the wood chips but also soft due to the worm activity under there....tons of worms, tilling that hay into my topsoil.
Hope to call about some square bales of mulch hay on Friday...$1.50 per bale. Will keep some of them out in the garden so they will get good and soaked, starting their breakdown process and making them easy to plop down on weeds.
Planted my peppers into landscaping fabric laid over the hay...hoping that will heat up the hay under there and keep the peppers roots warm enough for a good crop. Usually this mulch layer keeps the soil too cool for good growth this early in the year, so if I get peppers to grow at all it's usually not until August when it's hot day and night, then I get a crop in Sept. or Oct. but not a good one as they stood there all season doing nothing but being a victim to disease and pests.
I'm really disappointed in the germination rate of the half runner beans. The Fortex all sprung up like they were on steroids and the bugs aren't eating them up, but any of the HRs planted that did come up~and those are few~are all eat down to a nub by bugs. Don't see any on there but definitely eaten up by something. I'll presoak these HR beans prior to planting next time and see if that helps them germinate. Never had to soak a bean before...usually they germinate quickly and always for us. Could be bad seed....never got it there before.
Zinnias, lettuce and marigolds planted into trays the other day are up and now transferred to the growing table...will soon be able to set those out in the beds and into garden.
Still need to plant yellow squash, succession plantings of greens and the flowers, but for the most part, the garden is hereby planted.
I'm really pleased with how well my peppers germinated and grew...I set out some really healthy peppers today, but time will tell how they fare in this garden. Peppers haven't been doing so well for me here.
This hay is even easier to plant into than the chips...planted everything with an antique silver spoon, that's how soft the soil is under the hay. Rich from the wood chips but also soft due to the worm activity under there....tons of worms, tilling that hay into my topsoil.
Hope to call about some square bales of mulch hay on Friday...$1.50 per bale. Will keep some of them out in the garden so they will get good and soaked, starting their breakdown process and making them easy to plop down on weeds.
Planted my peppers into landscaping fabric laid over the hay...hoping that will heat up the hay under there and keep the peppers roots warm enough for a good crop. Usually this mulch layer keeps the soil too cool for good growth this early in the year, so if I get peppers to grow at all it's usually not until August when it's hot day and night, then I get a crop in Sept. or Oct. but not a good one as they stood there all season doing nothing but being a victim to disease and pests.
I'm really disappointed in the germination rate of the half runner beans. The Fortex all sprung up like they were on steroids and the bugs aren't eating them up, but any of the HRs planted that did come up~and those are few~are all eat down to a nub by bugs. Don't see any on there but definitely eaten up by something. I'll presoak these HR beans prior to planting next time and see if that helps them germinate. Never had to soak a bean before...usually they germinate quickly and always for us. Could be bad seed....never got it there before.
Zinnias, lettuce and marigolds planted into trays the other day are up and now transferred to the growing table...will soon be able to set those out in the beds and into garden.
Still need to plant yellow squash, succession plantings of greens and the flowers, but for the most part, the garden is hereby planted.
I'm really pleased with how well my peppers germinated and grew...I set out some really healthy peppers today, but time will tell how they fare in this garden. Peppers haven't been doing so well for me here.
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digitS'
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@Collector , you must have about the same situation as I do with your new garden. I will blame him: the tractor guy always spreads weeds around. This year, I didn't just allow him to bring in the weed seed.
The new part of the garden extension has not grown anything except weeds the last 4 years. Before that, this entire field was orchard grass and cut for hay but then, it was tilled each spring and ... nothing was planted in that section. Every square inch has weed seed sprouting!
I think @thistlebloom must be very busy. She didn't comment on me posting her toy tractor picture on @flowerbug 's weed thread. Well, I'm just behind a Craftsman tiller but I will feel like that tractor driver with blooming weeds surrounding me!
Hauled out bags of composted chicken manure and I have "some" fertilizer on 100% of the plantings as of yesterday afternoon. Today, I really need to decide if I take the rototiller back to level the paths.
As weed control - accomplishing next to nothing. Right now, the seedlings will just be replaced by the seed multitude in that ground. But, I was doing things "down and dirty over there and, after laying out areas for the paths, did no tilling of that ground. Two foot wide, some paths have 1 foot deep tractor tracks in them! This points to a problem with both the tractor guy and me cutting corners
.
The female marmot is in the ground, permanently. I caught her just as I did her mate, in the same location. I was better prepared from the sad experience with him and she didn't escape. After the trauma we went through a few days ago, too bad she didn't have enough sense to never be seen running from my garden as an olde Dodge pulls up.
Steve
The new part of the garden extension has not grown anything except weeds the last 4 years. Before that, this entire field was orchard grass and cut for hay but then, it was tilled each spring and ... nothing was planted in that section. Every square inch has weed seed sprouting!
I think @thistlebloom must be very busy. She didn't comment on me posting her toy tractor picture on @flowerbug 's weed thread. Well, I'm just behind a Craftsman tiller but I will feel like that tractor driver with blooming weeds surrounding me!
Hauled out bags of composted chicken manure and I have "some" fertilizer on 100% of the plantings as of yesterday afternoon. Today, I really need to decide if I take the rototiller back to level the paths.
As weed control - accomplishing next to nothing. Right now, the seedlings will just be replaced by the seed multitude in that ground. But, I was doing things "down and dirty over there and, after laying out areas for the paths, did no tilling of that ground. Two foot wide, some paths have 1 foot deep tractor tracks in them! This points to a problem with both the tractor guy and me cutting corners
.The female marmot is in the ground, permanently. I caught her just as I did her mate, in the same location. I was better prepared from the sad experience with him and she didn't escape. After the trauma we went through a few days ago, too bad she didn't have enough sense to never be seen running from my garden as an olde Dodge pulls up.
Steve
ninnymary
Garden Master
Steve, good job on getting that varmit!
Bee, even though the wood chips are a pain I'm glad that they at least produced lots of worms for you. I can't wait to see how your garden does. I hope everything grows hugh! and pest free, haha. Keep posting updates, even if they are minor, on your BTE thread. I love that thread!
Mary
Bee, even though the wood chips are a pain I'm glad that they at least produced lots of worms for you. I can't wait to see how your garden does. I hope everything grows hugh! and pest free, haha. Keep posting updates, even if they are minor, on your BTE thread. I love that thread!
Mary
Gardening with Rabbits
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The first year here I planted peppers and they looked great and then started looking bad. I looked it up and it was lack of sulfur, so after that I always transplant my peppers with sulfur sprinkled in the hole. The first year ones, I put it on the leaves and they recovered.
ducks4you
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Not much yesterday. My two push mowers were in the shop and the grass grew up VERY TALL overnight. You can't get a riding mower everywhere. Mowers were done and I got them back to mow in the evening.
I wasted 45 minutes looking for my spade!!! I broke my own rules and didn't put all of my toys away. It's not that I couldn't have used a tine, which I had where it was stored, but I didn't know if I dropped it in the grass, and I didn't want to ruin a mower running over it.
Found it! It was flat in a flower bed and safe from the mowers.
I did plant 8 beefsteak tomatoes and I moved the other beefsteak tomatoes up from the basement. The grow lights and heat mats are now off until later in the year. The tomatoes and sweet peppers are now on the east shelf of the front porch so that they can gradually get used to full sun. In a week they will move to the south shelf for full sun and breeze through the screens, then I can plant them.
I wasted 45 minutes looking for my spade!!! I broke my own rules and didn't put all of my toys away. It's not that I couldn't have used a tine, which I had where it was stored, but I didn't know if I dropped it in the grass, and I didn't want to ruin a mower running over it.
Found it! It was flat in a flower bed and safe from the mowers.
I did plant 8 beefsteak tomatoes and I moved the other beefsteak tomatoes up from the basement. The grow lights and heat mats are now off until later in the year. The tomatoes and sweet peppers are now on the east shelf of the front porch so that they can gradually get used to full sun. In a week they will move to the south shelf for full sun and breeze through the screens, then I can plant them.
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seedcorn
Garden Master
Every year makes me mutter about Adam/Eve...... weeded more time day as that is now a daily need.
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digitS'
Garden Master
I remember the greenhouse head grower where I worked mixing fertilizer for outdoor gardens and including quite a lot of sulfur.
I had imagined that Mt St Helens should have taken care of deficiencies.
Steve
Beekissed
Garden Master
Now THAT'S interesting! I'll have to give my peppers some sulfur soon to give them a little supplement.
Got some more seed today...needed fresh yellow squash seed as the seeds I bought earlier won't germinate at all~first time I ever had THAT happen with a yellow squash seed, no matter the source. Got some turnip, more carrots, some sunflowers.
