What did YOU do in your garden today :P

Well I learned something new today. I didn't know there is a southern and northern Idaho with different soil types. Do you know anyone in southern Idaho that has a much easier time growing potatoes than you?

Mary
 
I know someone in s. idaho who grows anything and everything, my MIL. Ugh, the most beautiful flower beds ever.
 
I was busy and didn't do much in the garden.

There were 3, 5-gallon buckets of compostables to bury in the compost pit. While I was doing that I realized that I was "stealing" out of a pile I had already begun to set aside for mulching the potatoes. Yeah, I needed some of that to cover the 3 buckets of material!

I had better have the needed compost to cover those potatoes in a couple of weeks! Save compost for essentially 12 months and not having enough is nearly unthinkable!

Then I ran the little tiller awhile. Once again, I have some leafy greens in the dahlia beds. There's no spraying weedkiller in those paths! The tiller is not the best for getting them out but I'm counting on a delay! The dahlia will outcompete anything pretty soon, that includes the veggies so they'd better not be long!

;) Steve
 
[QUOTE="baymule, post: 181654, member: Out of 2 small leaf/horse manure beds, we got 68 pounds of potatoes! [/QUOTE]

What does this mean, 2 small leaf/horse manure beds, how big, what is it? Wow, 68 pounds!
 
I have noticed about 2 score butternut squash seedlings poking through my bean bed. (Remnants of the trench of goodness one makes for them in late winter). I'm thinking of transplanting them over to a nice spot on the patch. I hear they are fussy with conveyance, but perhaps I can persuade them? :)
 
Michael, I also use a "trench of goodness" in the garden. Careful, I hardly communicate outside of cliches. I will be transplanting Americanisms with cliches from the British Isles!

Transplanting winter squash? I began doing that about 5 or 10 years ago. But, that is out of the greenhouse. I have to be careful with volunteers that grow out of trenches of goodness. Squashes cross pollinate so readily. Butternut is a good choice, however. It is from a species (C. moschata, link) that is mostly unrelated to what else may be growing around.

Out of well-soaked containers of potting soil, squash transplants fairly well. Upended, everything just drops out of the container, easily. I think I'd use the same technique in the garden - moving the plant, its roots and mud, on a trowel . . . to an already prepared hole, elsewhere. Moving very young plants would be best.

Steve
 
[QUOTE="baymule, post: 181654, member: Out of 2 small leaf/horse manure beds, we got 68 pounds of potatoes!

What does this mean, 2 small leaf/horse manure beds, how big, what is it? Wow, 68 pounds![/QUOTE]
I made a chicken wire bin about 3'x4', put cardboard on the bottom (grass and weeds) and layered bags of leaves with horse manure about 2 1/2' deep. I also made a pile of leaves and layered horse manure and leaves, it was about 6 or 7 feet long and maybe 5' wide. I planted in mid February, which is the time to plant here. But we had such weird weather, after I planted we got ice and freezes and the potatoes didn't come up for almost a month. After they came up, we got another freeze, so I covered the sprouts with leaves and upside down flower pots. I figured the harvest would be sparse because it gets so hot so soon here and they didn't even grow for a month, but I was pleasantly surprised. The potatoes were big, blemish free and beautiful. The leaf pile on the ground did better than the raised chicken wire bin, maybe because the raised bed got colder....dunno.
 
My grand daughter and I dug potatoes today. Out of 2 small leaf/horse manure beds, we got 68 pounds of potatoes! We cleaned up the duck pen, ducks are in the freezer and we ate one tonight. Let the chickens in the duck pen yesterday and today, they have plowed it up! I'll let them in it again tomorrow, then water it real good and maybe Monday plant corn in it. The duck pen must have 40 bags of leaves in it.
You certainly make the most out of what you have available. Truly impressed!
 
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