dewdropsinwv
Garden Addicted
I didn't do anything in the garden today, but yesterday I dug some potatoes. I need to get out there when this cold snap breaks and get the rest of them dug.
What Did You Do In Your Garden Today?
- Thread starter 897tgigvib
- Start date
digitS'
Garden Master
I am back to clean-up! But, not in my garden. No, I'm across the fence again and cleaning up beside the tunnel I put together this spring.
It isn't a "tunnel" right now - no plastic film. There had been some discussion about me using the beds outside the tunnel thru the summer. It was apparent in May that Neighbor Ken really wants to have a garden and so those were left bare for him. I guess I'm clearing them again for his use . . .
Oh, he's gonna have to do a better job! Taking over a piece of ground that has grown nothing but weeds for years, tossing down a few seeds, and then never pulling another weed - that don't work! All those weed seeds germinated!
I did realize that they weren't nearly as hard to get out of the ground as the perennials that were there in March. Still, they are the same dang weeds! Amazing how well catnip and St. John's Wort can grow in 5 months in an area only about 6' by 20'! Should I mention the bindweed?!
I've gone into fallow ground and into gardens that haven't been tended for years. It takes "clean cultivation" for several years! This is a little tiny piece of ground! I'm no fan of perennials in with weed seed. Some people like catnip and appreciate that St. John's Wort helps with depression. Still, you can't just leave all that, along with the nightshade, crabgrass, hollyhocks, columbines and fireweed, and expect it not to look like H-E-double hockey sticks!
Two hours of a nice fall afternoon, I was as careful as I could be filling (stuffing!) 8, 5-gallon buckets. More clean-up may have to wait until March. Rain then snow - in the forecast.
Steve
It isn't a "tunnel" right now - no plastic film. There had been some discussion about me using the beds outside the tunnel thru the summer. It was apparent in May that Neighbor Ken really wants to have a garden and so those were left bare for him. I guess I'm clearing them again for his use . . .
Oh, he's gonna have to do a better job! Taking over a piece of ground that has grown nothing but weeds for years, tossing down a few seeds, and then never pulling another weed - that don't work! All those weed seeds germinated!
I did realize that they weren't nearly as hard to get out of the ground as the perennials that were there in March. Still, they are the same dang weeds! Amazing how well catnip and St. John's Wort can grow in 5 months in an area only about 6' by 20'! Should I mention the bindweed?!
I've gone into fallow ground and into gardens that haven't been tended for years. It takes "clean cultivation" for several years! This is a little tiny piece of ground! I'm no fan of perennials in with weed seed. Some people like catnip and appreciate that St. John's Wort helps with depression. Still, you can't just leave all that, along with the nightshade, crabgrass, hollyhocks, columbines and fireweed, and expect it not to look like H-E-double hockey sticks!
Two hours of a nice fall afternoon, I was as careful as I could be filling (stuffing!) 8, 5-gallon buckets. More clean-up may have to wait until March. Rain then snow - in the forecast.
Steve
Smart Red
Garden Master
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Raining a pretty steady drizzle most of today. I spent the day inside putting joint compound on drywall - a new experience for me. Spent evening time shelling beans.
Yesterday I did spend most of the day outside in the garden. Cleaned, took down, and stored my bean trellises and fencing for vines. Cleaned the dead plant matter - tomato vines, melon vines, corn stalks, etc. off the beds and into the burning pile. Picked the crummy sweet corn ears and bagged them for the chickens. Turned the soil in a couple of beds after harvesting the last of the leeks, beets, onions and a couple of missed carrots in them.
Still have a couple of days work out there. . . and lots of mowing before it gets cold. I really need a couple of sunny days to finish up before winter. Sh-h-h-h! I bought a leaf collector today in hopes of being able to save DH the trouble of raking our large lawn area. He doesn't know it yet. DS is putting the machine together and bringing it over. Now I can mow and pick up the clippings and leaves in one fell swoop. I know he likes to rake, but living in the woods means raking and re-raking and re-raking for several weeks. At 76, it can't be all the much fun for him - especially the longtrek carrying leaves to my pile out near the field. I can always leave some lawn for him to tend if he complains, but I don't expect he will.
Yesterday I did spend most of the day outside in the garden. Cleaned, took down, and stored my bean trellises and fencing for vines. Cleaned the dead plant matter - tomato vines, melon vines, corn stalks, etc. off the beds and into the burning pile. Picked the crummy sweet corn ears and bagged them for the chickens. Turned the soil in a couple of beds after harvesting the last of the leeks, beets, onions and a couple of missed carrots in them.
Still have a couple of days work out there. . . and lots of mowing before it gets cold. I really need a couple of sunny days to finish up before winter. Sh-h-h-h! I bought a leaf collector today in hopes of being able to save DH the trouble of raking our large lawn area. He doesn't know it yet. DS is putting the machine together and bringing it over. Now I can mow and pick up the clippings and leaves in one fell swoop. I know he likes to rake, but living in the woods means raking and re-raking and re-raking for several weeks. At 76, it can't be all the much fun for him - especially the longtrek carrying leaves to my pile out near the field. I can always leave some lawn for him to tend if he complains, but I don't expect he will.
bj taylor
Garden Ornament
smart red, I recently saw a commercial about a leaf vacuum. I thought about those of you who have so many to rake & move multiple times a season. hope your dh likes the new tool.
majorcatfish
Garden Master
have been up in conover,nc remodeling the new store, what a nightmare getting everything up to code. i am very surprised that nobody ever got electrocuted in that place. there is just a weeks worth of rewiring the place, and a week of running pipe for the air. the list goes on and on.......
got home late yesterday evening got hugs and kisses from the wife and dogs, while we where walking around the garden the dw told me she got the job at the american legion helping veterans with their paperwork for their benefits
I am very proud of her...
anyway dw told me that there is only chicken and nothing else out, during our walk pulled some carrots, bunching onions,bok choi,spinach,radishes,parsley and a head of bibb lettuce sauteed the chicken with some shallots and garlic from this year and had a big salad.. dang that was good sat down to watch a little tv and the next thing i know it was 4 am and nola sleeping on top of me<thats daddys little girl> she has not left my side all day.
the girls <ava and nola>woke me up this morning letting me know that the coffee was ready and it was time for their walk, so we went out they chased the leafs falling they treed a squirrel thought for a second nola was going to climb the tree..think she might be part billy goat...
looked at the beets and garlic everybody is up but a few of the elephant garlic and the weeds were coming back, so grabbed a shower loaded the girls into the truck and drove down to lowes and picked up 20 bags of black kow compost
and gave all the garlic a good covering and hilled up the beets.
will be so ready when winter truly comes and the raised beds go to sleep.....< think the dw will be just as happy so we can clean the carpets>
got home late yesterday evening got hugs and kisses from the wife and dogs, while we where walking around the garden the dw told me she got the job at the american legion helping veterans with their paperwork for their benefits
I am very proud of her...
anyway dw told me that there is only chicken and nothing else out, during our walk pulled some carrots, bunching onions,bok choi,spinach,radishes,parsley and a head of bibb lettuce sauteed the chicken with some shallots and garlic from this year and had a big salad.. dang that was good sat down to watch a little tv and the next thing i know it was 4 am and nola sleeping on top of me<thats daddys little girl> she has not left my side all day.
the girls <ava and nola>woke me up this morning letting me know that the coffee was ready and it was time for their walk, so we went out they chased the leafs falling they treed a squirrel thought for a second nola was going to climb the tree..think she might be part billy goat...
looked at the beets and garlic everybody is up but a few of the elephant garlic and the weeds were coming back, so grabbed a shower loaded the girls into the truck and drove down to lowes and picked up 20 bags of black kow compost
and gave all the garlic a good covering and hilled up the beets.
will be so ready when winter truly comes and the raised beds go to sleep.....< think the dw will be just as happy so we can clean the carpets>
digitS'
Garden Master
I was back to clean-up in that little 6' by 20' piece of ground on the other side of the fence. Tuesday's 2" of snow had melted and the sun came out this afternoon. A half inch of rain after the snow can't make this kind of ground too wet 
!
Another 2 hours on that patch - this time, I was after the roots. Shoot. I could have done half of the little veggie garden in the time it's taking me! And, no way am I getting all of the roots. The weed seed scattered throughout the summer is a guarantee that, without care, it will look the same in November, next year.
My neighbor grew quite a few sunflowers over there. I hope I didn't suggest back in March that they might have some weed-suppression qualities. Purported sunflower allelopathy aside, those new jimsonweed seedlings in the big veggie garden I reported - those were under the sunflowers. I only found 1 of those plants elsewhere. I know that sunflowers can suppress other plants but it isn't easy to see how they did much of that in the neighbor's garden.
Once again, I don't want to squeeze him out. Everyone should have a chance to experience the joys of gardening. Heaven knows that I appreciate having that shed and tunnel over there to catch overflow from my greenhouse! Still. I shouldn't have to do this every year! But, I might . . . & it really isn't much rent to pay :/.
Oh, and the other side of the tunnel in his boxed beds - I think he did well enough with keeping weeds down in those. Now the other side of that, in the raspberries - I ain't crossing over that boundary!
Steve
who plans on carrying a load of weeds to the dump tomorrow
!Another 2 hours on that patch - this time, I was after the roots. Shoot. I could have done half of the little veggie garden in the time it's taking me! And, no way am I getting all of the roots. The weed seed scattered throughout the summer is a guarantee that, without care, it will look the same in November, next year.
My neighbor grew quite a few sunflowers over there. I hope I didn't suggest back in March that they might have some weed-suppression qualities. Purported sunflower allelopathy aside, those new jimsonweed seedlings in the big veggie garden I reported - those were under the sunflowers. I only found 1 of those plants elsewhere. I know that sunflowers can suppress other plants but it isn't easy to see how they did much of that in the neighbor's garden.
Once again, I don't want to squeeze him out. Everyone should have a chance to experience the joys of gardening. Heaven knows that I appreciate having that shed and tunnel over there to catch overflow from my greenhouse! Still. I shouldn't have to do this every year! But, I might . . . & it really isn't much rent to pay :/.
Oh, and the other side of the tunnel in his boxed beds - I think he did well enough with keeping weeds down in those. Now the other side of that, in the raspberries - I ain't crossing over that boundary!
Steve
who plans on carrying a load of weeds to the dump tomorrow
majorcatfish
Garden Master
here it is november the 17th and still watering the raised beds.......
while out there tilled the main garden a tossed out some calcium and greensand definitely going to amend the soil this winter all that rain that we received this spring/early summer took its toll
and while there gave the asparagus it's annual haircut covered them in straw and put the ferrell cat fence down.
did look at the 10 day forecast looks like next saturday the weather in definitely going down hill, good time to pull more up just in time for a wonderful thanksgiving dinner...
while out there tilled the main garden a tossed out some calcium and greensand definitely going to amend the soil this winter all that rain that we received this spring/early summer took its toll
and while there gave the asparagus it's annual haircut covered them in straw and put the ferrell cat fence down.
did look at the 10 day forecast looks like next saturday the weather in definitely going down hill, good time to pull more up just in time for a wonderful thanksgiving dinner...
so lucky
Garden Master
Wow! your fall garden looks terrific! All I have still growing is some herbs and a short row of curly mustard.
