2014 Garden

[jdmidwest]

A electric fence does wonders.

I killed a doe once in season that had a load of shot in her ham from a shotgun. That was the poorest, toughest doe I ever put a knife into. Many pellets under the hide and many in the meat too. She was not limping either and had healed up. I would find something other than a shotgun to keep them out. If you are going to shoot one, just kill it, clean it, and eat it. Poaching is not any greater offense than harrassing, shooting, or maiming a deer. And then you solve the problem for keeps.

[jdmidwest]

Cleaned out the strawberry beds today. They were covered with oak leaves from the trees in the yard. I usually wait until the new greens come out and use a small rake to remove the oak leaves, old vines and strawberry leaves. They were already up about 3 to 4 inches today. This warm snap has really started things hopping.

Strawberries always put out runners and there are several rooted plants growing in the yard outside of the beds. I dig them up and fill in the holes in the beds with the new/younger plants. All of my beds are second and third season. Past experience, third season plants produce less and will be replaced next spring with new starts. We will see if that holds true this season.

I looked over my horseradish and debated on digging up roots and expanding that also, but ran out of daylight. I willl probably move that into a richer, loamy soil in a raised bed to get them to perform better also. They have not done much the last few years, just little thin spindly roots.

[Old plug]

somebody shot her with than a in 410 with a load of 9's in it. thats bot even a field load it is a target load. I seen one one time that somebody used a 12 ga on. If you found shot under the skin that is what is sounds like to me.

[ness]

Things are lookin pretty good in the garden so far. Picked lots of lettuce, spinach and radishes. Succession planted some radishes and carrots. Gooseberries, strawberries and black raspberries are forming. It's always kinda fun to see them coming on.

Gooseberries

Black raspberries

Taters in tainers

Lettuce, carrots, beets and pole beans

Spinach, lettuce, radish, bush beans and snap peas

Garlic scape

Lettuce, shallots, garlic, peppers, onion, collard, cabbage, maters (honest)

Parsley, radish, onion, bush bean, collard, cabbage, maters.

[Wayne SW/MO]

A 410 has about the same velocity as a 12 ga., some have higher velocity. They have less shot, but it doesn't take much lead to make anything sick.

[ness]

Toooo much lettuce!

Seems like this happens every year, even though I try to plant things so it doesn't all come on at once. This cool weather has it all in high gear. I never seem to have much luck with spinach, so I usually don't plant much, but it's doing great this year and I wish I'd planted some more. Salad anyone?

[REDSOXWSCHAMP]

Toooo much lettuce!

Is that even possible?

[BilletHead]

Great looking gardens everyone! Again the BilletHeads have ours going. Started plants indoors early tomatoes, peppers and some lettuce. Tomatoes did not do worth a darn and peppers did great. So we had to buy some tomato plants. Did one of the larger beds with all lettuce. Like you Ness we had greens coming out our ears. Finally picked the last of it and tilled it under to make room for more tomatoes. Had some problems with critters eating the tomato plants. Did a bit of fencing for the ground dwellers (bunnies) and since squirrel season has opened I have picked off five. I have a 10/22 with a full floating fluted bull barrel on a Hogue stock. Tack driver. Fife for five head shots and then I messed that up trying a longer shot. So much for my streak of not missing. Mrs. Cooked the first two grays that were young. Some olive oil heated up hot and then she threw in some fresh rosemary and got that toasty. Added the tree rat and browned it then covered and let it simmer in the juices. I will tell you it was the best tree rat I have ever had. Ok now to pictures, hope to not bore you all but we like to share as you all do.

First time trying broccoli ,

Some views of maters and peppers,

After about four to five years our asparagus is doing well for the poor ground we have. Between our patch we planted and the wild we pick it has been a good part of our meals. Here is a purple variety the size of my thumb,

I made a blackberry patch last year. It has and is going crazy!

Gooseberries doing good too. A couple different varieties. I know my thumbnail is dirty, been working in the dirt,

As if we don't have enough trees on our two acres I planted more. Have a friend who gifted me some chestnut seeds. A blight resistant and Chinese types. I planted the seeds in 4" galvanized flu pipe to protect from tree rats and mice. I did 14 plantings with 100% sprouting. Two years later I dug up some and transplanted around the yard. Here is a couple from the original bed planting. Some over 4 feet tall now in the blight resistant ones. I need to do something because the deer are browsing off the tips and leaves. Cages I suppose but that's a lot of cages?

Last but no least the flower garden. We like mostly native stuff. Around and under a dogwood in the front yard we have butterfly milkweed, pale purple coneflowers and coreopsis. Mrs. dug just a few of the coreopsis last year and look how they took off this season!

Finally some of the orange butterfly milkweed getting ready to burst out, A pale purple coneflower starting to show and a foxglove for the first time, may have to buy more of these. We like,

BilletHead

[ness]

Nice! Got a lot going on there BH.

Did you stipple the foxglove?

[BilletHead]

Can you just imagine a coffee grinder in the foxglove color?

BilletHead