OA 2015 garden thread

[Old plug]

I cannot really relate to you gardeners on here. I am a total ornamental gardener. Do not even like to eat veggies. At one time I had a collection of over 100 species of Hosta , a small collection of Huechera [ corral bells] , planted 2-3 hundred inpatients every year and god only know how much other stuff. It has gotten to be way to much and we are cutting back on several things. I still however relate to the work you go through and the animal problems, building good soil, and about any other thing that relates to the ground.

Wrench---- This is for your lovely wife. Around our area around most places you cannot start a new garden. First off You got to get rid of the rocks. I have a 30lb railroad pry bar I used for that a lot. She is welcome to borrow it anytime. Then you will find out that wonderful looking black soil that is left is so deficient of the proper balance and nutrients it is about useless. What you have to do then is build things up. That is costly and time consuming ,in the case of some things like Turkey compost that I use. Then after that the animals will be after what you have left. I give Ed Bryant a hosta are two every year for his garden host garden. Last year the deer destroyed the whole thing in one night.

[ness]

I envy your gardens. There are just too many other things I like to do this time of year to make me want to spend much time on a garden. Once turkey season is over with, I will start focusing on my garden. Maybe that will change once I get a little bit older. Hard to beat the taste of garden grown veggies.

Nothing at all wrong with waiting until later to get going. My uncle always waits until around May 1 and buys plants for most stuff.

[BilletHead]

Yea Seth,

What Ness said garden will wait and you will have stuff when others are done. Short amount of time when fish are running and turkeys are gobbling. I just have some extra free time to get my stuff started. Should of gardened today instead of fishing. Did not do too well on the river,

BilletHead

[Feathers and Fins]

I'm behind on a few things as I was researching some stuff. Looks like I will be adding Lemon Grass to the Garden in very large posts along with Basil and Rosemary. After work tomorrow my little butt will be getting the remainder of the garden planted and finished off.

[BilletHead]

Well got the tomatoes in the ground yesterday afternoon. They were real tall and I planted them very deep. The plants looked happy today. I checked and the day we started these indoors, March first. That makes them less than six weeks old.

Peppers will go out this week

BilletHead

[ness]

Perfect weather the last two days for bringing stuff out. Put some more onions, leeks and peppers in the ground this weekend, I'm giving the maters a day or two more in pots--they looked a little weak. Weather looks good the next few days, won't be long. Started succesion plantings of lettuce and radish.

[tho1mas]

Anyone have a cure for a mole that got into my raised garden? I put hardware cloth down before filling with the growing mixture but it made it past it. Went rigth down my onion row.

I wonder if moth balls in it's run would harm the plants.

[BilletHead]

Did you get that mole Tho1mas?

Well took a play from Ness's play book and did some hoop work. Did some dressing up with some chicken wire. It will roll up on the sides where I can sit on a bucket to weed or pick maters. I did this for two reasons. First it is still and will be storm season. I figure I can throw on a cheap tarp and protect it from hail. We missed a good hail storm a while back. Second reason we have some fawns from last year. named them the orfawns. I sot their mother during archery season last year. They are yard pets and spend time in the yard. They have got three of my tomato plants already. Guess I deserve that. When it gets hot and dry later this summer the coons, possums and squirrels get the maters too. So here is one of the protected planters finished,

Now my payback from the orfawns,

Some temporary work for trying to keep them at bay,

Pepper are in the ground now too. Mrs. BilletHead getting some lettuce picked,

BilletHead

[jdmidwest]

I put some maters and peppers in the ground yesterday. Planted some pole beans, figured out they may work better than bush in the raised beds due to the vertical space. Also did a row of cucumbers.

Strawberry patches are blooming like crazy. Snow peas are climbing the trellis. Lettuce kinda foundered this year, but may pick first mess next week. Onions and spinach are doing good. Squash just broke ground.

Just talked it over with my neighbor, I will be planting a nice sweet corn patch in his garden plot this year. He is not going to use it.

My surprise came today with the bees. This spring has been great, once it warmed up, bees started bringing stuff in. I opened a hive today to put a super on and was amazed. I opened it 6 weeks ago fearing for their life. I did find an small cluster of bees struggling. Today, it was chuck full of bees and one delivered my first sting of the season. All of the rest are in full flow, flying in and out with rapid pace. The next few weeks will be spent splitting and adding more honey supers. I should reach my goal this year of 25 with some work.

[ness]

Ha! Nice setup, Marty. I wish I had your ambition! I could use the protection this year.

I've got a couple feral cats in the 'hood that have bedeviled me every spring by using my beds as a litter box. So, I got some green wire mesh a few years ago and formed some cages to protect the little plants until they're big enough that the cats don't bother them. I also just lay a square of the stuff over the beds and the cats stay away. Well this year I kept seeing holes dug in there, and the mesh and cages weren't stopping it. But there wasn't any telltale cat doo in there. I was sitting out on the deck the other day and watched a robin hopping around plucking worms out of the beds. He was tearing up stuff pretty good, but not plucking out seeds or plants. I guess I can live with that.