What Did You Do In The Garden?

[digitS']

Dismantled the hoop house.

This may be the earliest that I have done this in the seasonal structure's 25 year history. There appears to be absolutely no need to keep it in place either in recent temperature history or official forecasts. Unharvested plants inside are in robust growth and many will need to be turned under. Hopefully, I can find adequate space in the bed that wasn't amended last fall.

Some of the compost from the grass sod with the expansion of the outdoor garden will also need to find a home. It's wonderful to have all of this material, as it was in 2024, but our urban-size lot doesn't have space for adequate sized compost bins to provide the time for more complete composting and storage. Not, that is, with the desire to have as large of an annual vegetable garden and lawn space as possible .

 

[digitS']

Two hours of rather tiring mostly shovel work made up my 30 minutes of cardio exercise, today.

A wheelbarrow load of pulled Asian greens and other plants were pulled from the hoop house beds. There was an area in one bed where they could be buried but I wanted the grass sod moved out of the bins first and the green veggies could go in the bins. Four buckets of kitchen trimmings were also waiting to be composted.

The best compost was mounded up around the potatoes, which have made a good start. The problem was that, after 2 full months of being in the bins, it was almost necessary to screen the material to separate out grass roots still living. I did a lot of  banging the sod against the shovel. For hilling the spuds, I was selective. For burying in the garden bed, I was less so. Hopefully, there won't be any Kentucky Bluegrass growing in either location . Anyway, the first round of spent garden veggies has been cleared and the kitchen compost buckets are empty .

 

[Anniekay]

Today it was very stormy so, while it was raining I put my new composter together. It's the Miracle grow model, 18 cubic "something" on each side. (I'm not good on measurements) and I am going to put it in an empty spot in my raised bed garden for convenience. I used to use a large garbage can for composting but turning it isn't easy . I also do the trench method for composting but only for burrying legumes for the nitrogen. This eliminates my having to do the turning myself. Then I picked some eggplants and made a big batch of eggplant parmesan. I intend to split it up into portions and freeze most of it.

 

[ducks4you]

Friday, I assessed the garlic, which was yellowing and determined that ALL of my weed prepping wasn't healthy. So, I removed it and moved the straw somewhere else. I cut the scapes, pruned off badly yellow leaves and left bare earth for them to "breathe."
I weeded that area, then weeded the next one south with the German Red Garlic which has yet to grow scapes, but looks ready. It looks healthier. I didn't know that full sun on the north side of my garden wasn't the best place to grow garlic.
I still expect a good harvest end of next month, first time I can get out to the garden after my surgery.
I will take what I can get...
I saw that one lettuce seed grew to maturity. ALL of my spinach has gone to seed, and I expected the lettuce to do the same, so I dug it up and we had a nice salad from it.
I weeded around my purple potatoes and shoved straw around them to keep the potatoes from greening.
All of them are up and most have flowers.
My potatoes in the water tank next to the house got dry, so I watered them yesterday and they have perked up.
I don't think that they are ready for harvest. The tank sits under the eaves and doesn't really get rained on.
Today I spent a few minutes in my wildflower garden. I have had a lot of fine grass grow in it, which I will leave some of it--better than weeds!--larkspur is up and another wildflower, which I have forgotten about.
@heirloomgirl should know how I can get the seeds from another volunteer flower in another bed.
It puts out parachutes for seeds, and they look like miniature versions of dandelion seeds.
It could be:

Chrysopsis mariana (Golden Aster, Maryland Aster, Maryland Golden-Aster) | North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox

I will take pictures of it today.
What I NEED TO KNOW is how to harvest the seeds from this, bc I would like to establish it in my wildflower garden.
I am afraid that if I dig it up to move it I may kill it.
I will post pictures of this soon for assessment. The flower in the link blooms in the Fall, so I'm not so sure that is it.

 

[flowerbug]

if you have just a little grass i would remove it because once it gets going it really gets a lot harder to remove. sod busting is a PITA, the best way of dealing with sod so far has been to dig a deep enough hole that you can bury it and still plant what you want on top and put few layers of cardboard over it which makes it harder for the roots to resurface. pretty much almost any of the common lawn grasses will not be able to come back up through the cardboard plus a foot of topsoil. yes it is a lot of work.

the exceptional grass that sometimes this method is not a one-time deal with is quack grass - that one can resurface and need more efforts to get what doesn't die from being buried, but you must remove it as soon as you see it before it can send energy back down to the roots. dig up as much of the roots as you can and leave them in the sun to dry out before putting them on the compost or weed pile or before burying them again...

i've been dealing with this quack grass for 20+ years. it works for the application it was used for (to keep the bank of the large drainage ditch stable) but it's a booger for any gardens, pathways, etc. nearby...

 

[ducks4you]

Good advice!!

 

[digitS']

Pulled the garlic –– it had lost color and was beginning to dry. @ducks4you , you were wondering when we do this in our gardens ...

The section of the bed can be replanted with green beans for a late harvest. I will also take out the peas and, usually, the beans would follow them but they are in a shady location (afternoon) that is probably not suitable for the beans.

I got the first half of the garlic hung earlier and dug out and refilled the bed. It was a hot afternoon on Sunday and I'm not sure if I'm up to the 2nd part of the task today. Foxglove stems are to be buried along with a couple of buckets of compost. Also, there will be a big armload of pea vines but ... I haven't cut string and pulled those vines. It would be a place to start before going on to that 2nd part of the garlic bed. Let's see if I feel up to it. One step at a time ...

 

[digitS']

Accomplished everything but refilling the bed with soil. Oh, and I will dump the kitchen trimmings in there. Didn't want to do that yesterday yesterday and leave them uncovered.

It was just too hot, 91⁰f (33⁰C) the official high but there was a 25+ mph breeze. So, I was on my way to being jerky.

It's a cool 59⁰f (15C) at sunrise and I should have an easy time moving that soil between sprinkler changes. Give that soil some water, allow it to settle, and it can receive some seed .

 

[Branching Out]

Yesterday I mulched a large bean and pepper bed with straw, filled some extremely large containers to plant three Mountain Magic tomatoes, spent time crushing dry brassica pods and winnowing seed. The brassica seed is from about ten different cultivars and is likely all crossed up, so it will become a mustard mesclun mix for the seed library. That seems like a good way to grow greens. I will try growing out some of the seed myself too, to see just how diverse the result is.

 

[flowerbug]

today i hope to get back to some weeding in the higher garden spots that won't be too muddy.

the garden i'm working on needs several yards of dirt moved and i have a good spot for that garden soil to go, but i need to weed that other spot before...

one project always gets into others. gladly none of the weeds in the one garden are not also present in the other but i will not move dirt from the one to the other in reverse because it is worse for how many chickweeds are coming up in there and the field pennycress, etc. yet, that garden is also where i'm growing the creeping thyme that i want to use to line all the edges (to keep the weeds down but also to prevent dirt splash and to filter flows of topsoil from rains).

the unfortunate part of the current design is that the lower elevation of some pathways and the drains that remove the extra water they collect also means during really heavy rains (like what we had the other day) that the neighboring gardens do overflow and carry some of that superfine clay silts, etc away. i hate seeing that whenever it happens but i can't see how i could design the gardens to accept that much rain in a short period of time and still have them functional as annual vegetable gardens. having the lower pathways not being gravel i could set up long cages under organic mulches to filter the water before it gets into the drain pipes but then that means maintaining yet another pathway anyways and i already have to do that with what is there.

getting more of the edges covered with anything growing will help a lot no matter what else i can get done. i am happy with the bit of a start i've already managed to do there's just a lot more feet to go of transplanting.