DW's 2018 Garden

I had hoped to be further along by now but an unexpected free trip to Laughlin, NV convinced me to take a week out of my work schedule to go mindlessly throw money away and stuff myself at the prime rib buffet.

This weekend an unwelcome fire on the horizon drove us indoors and on edge for another couple of days.

Now I'm back and itching to plant stuff since it's 85F outside, however we're still at least 3 weeks away from our official "frost free" date and probably 5 weeks too soon to be safe.

Got the trash cleared out on the one side and the bases for the new wicking beds in place. I'd like to add some more but want to get these completed first. The taller one on the far end will be for my sweet potatoes, still need to cut that excess plastic off the top of the tote.

Will get this one and one more finished this week. If you're wondering how these work, check out my post from a few years back on building one.



Got my first seedlings out enjoying some sunshine and getting hardened off. This is tomatoes, zucchini, lemongrass, spaghetti squash, zinnias, a thyme, some mosquito geraniums I cloned off my plant last fall, and an ornamental sweet potato vine. I have rabbit cage pans flipped upside down on the bed to help cook the chicken coop litter that's in there, and they get hot in the sun so they help keep my seedlings warm on the bottom.


The railroad tie bed is cooked, mixed, and ready to roll. I moved the black barrels over to the coop side bed because it wasn't cooking like I'd hoped under that old storm door. The RR tie bed is shaded now but by May the sun shifts enough that it stays in the sunlight all day.


I still have a mess to clean up but halfway there.

Got more seeds going, this batch is 6 kinds of sweet and hot peppers, eggplant, chamomile, and a delecata/spaghetti squash hybrid. This week I'll set up the net pots and get the salad greens and herbs rolling to go in the stock tank aquaponic system. I need to check with the fish farm too and see if they've scheduled the route for my area yet. Will have to add liquid kelp to that setup for a bit while it's cycling.

 

Wildfires provided entertainment this week so I'm even more behind now. This was from a 1000 acre grass fire a few miles up the road from the high school stadium. Another 700 burned at the cotton gin a mile the other way, and 4500 burned at my step sons back door.


Did manage to get the deep water raft bed set up and planted with assorted lettuces. Rafts are made from 2" foam board I had, and I would have preferred inch-and-a-half but I already had the two inch.


Initially we used hole drill to put the holes in the foam but because my net pots are the exact same depth we needed to countersink the holes a little. I ended up taking a lighter to the edges and melting them down so I could push the cups in further.


Used a 6 foot by 2 foot by 2 foot stock tank which holds a little under a hundred gallons.


The net pots have pea gravel in the very bottom and coir in the rest. I may regret that coir later if it washes all through the tank. I have a water pump for it but I'll mess with that later. For now I'm just using a standard air pump with air stones to keep the water oxygenated and I'll pick up some liquid kelp for fertilizer once the seeds start germinating. Fish truck won't be through until late April early May.

 

looks awesome! you have put in alot of work on this !

i curious about your thinking on the float beds, what were your thoughts on using circulating vs non-circulating raft beds?

I'm asking because I've been playing with low inputs and am set up for using kratky method of gardening ... does use aerators.
So wondering why you chose aeration. I find i discover new things when i have these kinds of discussions with other gardeners as everyone has their method that works for them

 

Not sure I quite understand what you're asking, but eventually that will have fish in that tank so it has to be aerated. I usually rely on the return water off the pump to aerate the tank, but I don't have it hooked up yet so I just threw the air stones in for now to keep the water circulating. No fish or roots right now but I wanted to make sure the pump was working since I left it sitting outside for a year and it's an indoor pump. I figure if it's going to crap out it'll do it in the next few days.

I do know in the winter a lot of times the water pump would freeze on the fish tank and there would be no aeration for 3 or 4 days and my fish were fine. I had bluegill up to a pound and a half in there, it was a bigger tank not this one. But just to maintain the health of the tank, IDK I do it like a fish tank and I put in a lot of aeration. If there were more room I would add bog plants and other biologicals too but that stock tank is kind of limited on space.

 

Got some cleanup done today, even got the Mr to help out
Gone from this...

To this...

Also plants going nuts, am so ready to get them in the dirt and water rafts.

Looks like we may be resurrecting 2 of our old CHOP aquaponics setups. Both deep water raft systems. Depends on if I can find the pumps buried in the garage. More on those later.

 

looking good! I see the dogs are helping againg

 

The pit passed away about a month ago so it's all up to the Dobie to ruin my gardens now. I fear he is more than up to the task.

 

Sorry to hear about the loss of your dog. That sucks.

I see mason jars in the back with plants in them. Do you have a basket or rubber cup that the plants are sitting in?

 

Jealous! soooo much space!

 

They're in 2 inch net pots, will transfer to water rafts when it's warm outside. Jist a few eggplants and habaneros. I have some sweet potato slips in them too for now.


@runswithdogs you're seeing about a 1/3d of the back yard. we on a huge lot for being in town. I keep telling the Mr we have plenty of room for an in ground pool ha

 

Not anywhere close to where I was hoping to be, but I do have most of my seedlings planted by now. Still have 12 Amish paste tomatoes that aren't ready to go out, they've just never taken off. I may have to buy some Roma's to replace them with. The pepper seedlings did a lot better than I thought they would though and they are all in the ground now.


Bathtub has jalapenos, zinnias, Texas 1015y onions, and a tomatillo that I will let hang off the side since it gets pretty big.

Banana peppers, Anaheim peppers, basil, thyme, onions, and 1 cayenne pepper.


Left bed has Brandymaster tomatoes and Jersey sweet potatoes. Right has red Marconi peppers, Jimmy Nardello peppers, 2 eggplants, and a mosquito geranium. Also have a strawberry pot on the back edge.


One of the spaghetti squash in the hugelkulture bed by the chicken yard. Also have zucchini, butternut in here, along with beets and carrots and crimson clover


Aquaponics tank going now with goldfish and some liquid seaweed. Have banana peppers, Anaheim peppers, strawberries, and assorted lettuce just starting.


Still a lot to get planted in the next few weeks.

 

Is that a high heeled flip-flop in that picture?



It's has finally warmed up here in so. central Ohio. I got the gardens tilled and are ready for planting. Our early garden has been in a while. Potatoes are the only thing that was slightly effected by the late frosts. They got their early leaves burned back but are coming along fine now.

Wife got a section of the garden ready yesterday to plant tomatoes. Not sure if she'll plant them or let the daughter-in law plant them. We don't use near as much stuff anymore, just the two of us, but son and DIL next door have 3 children, so need more. Probably plant some corn and beans too. I do the tilling etc., while the women do most of the deciding what will be planted, when and where. I try to get them to plant so I can cultivate, but they never seem to understand how to do that, as I usually end up having to weed by hand.

 

I found out where she planted her shoe tree....

 

May 10th is our normal 'last frost' date, but we put out about 100' of sweet corn anyway, along with 400' of potatoes and 100' of pea. Trying some cane sorghum this year too...put 200' of it out at well. Supposed to get some rain this evening, but not looking good, so I went ahead and put the sprinkler on what part of the potatoes/corn it will reach....run it a few hours, then move it on down the row.

Chickens are wearing out the cover crop of winter wheat I planted last fall in garden spot #2

 

What kind of tree is that in the last pic there? It looks like it would make some kickass carving wood.

 

Just a quick update, not posting pics of everything tho everything is doing pretty well. My Amish Paste tomatos crapped out on me so will have to pick up some Romas at the garden center. Of course no one sells damn 6 packs any more, it's all 1 plant in a 4" pot, for more than the 6 pack used to be.

This is the little bed next to the house. The guinea pig house used to be here but I decided to plant it this year. The potatoes are coming up quickly, dumped dirt and straw over them after this pic. Zinnias in the far back corner, lemongrass growing up along the wall pallet. Mosquito geranium in the middle with marigolds just now sprouting down the right hand side. There's a Brandymaster tomato in the tube inside the cage.



Another wicking bed almost ready. So behind this year. I tossed wood ash down on top of the mulch, and will add dirt to the top tomorrow. I used some scrap foam pipe insulation to pad the edges and hold the landscape fabric in place. Will put tomatoes, more basil, and maybe some oregano in here. I think.


Hugelkulture bed. It's been a little tricky to keep from drying out. My bad, I did not mix the compost with the peat with the dirt so the top layer wants to repel water. The spaghetti squash in the right corner loves it tho. The other little ones are zucchini, butternut, and another spaghetti squash. The two pots are some forsythias I started last fall from cuttings off one of my shrubs. There's also crimson clover sprouting in between the squash. And I stuck a couple of onions in there just for grins but I think they're gonna die. Also a row of beets front right side, not doing too bueno. Just need to keep the water on this one, and mulch it soon as well.


My original wicking bed is off to a good start with onions, banana and anaheim and cayenne peppers, thyme and basil.


I planted this little tub just for grins. Got off to a rough start, that bigger lettuce came up all by itself a few weeks ago, but everything is coming up now. Beets, more lettuce, and some onions.

 

Another Jerry rigged deep water culture set up. Pump sends water to black tub, into small diy filter, and then back to bed. Helps filter the water as well as aerate it. Got peppers, a strawberry and a squash in there... that squash was doing crappy so I just stuck it in there rather than plant it somewhere lol. Right now I have some liquid seaweed in the water for fertilizer but as soon as the fish truck comes, if it ever does, I'll get bluegills for that tank. In the black tub or some more forsythia shrubs I started last last fall. I figured that was an easy way to keep them watered while I figure out where they're going to go LOL



Some tomatoes plus a zucchini and a bush butternut


An espaliered apple tree that I really need to trim a bit.


Grapevines


Robin nest in a grapevine


Need to thin the future grapes a tad..


Raspberry bush

 

Wicking beds all set up. Got Rom a tomatoes, a habanero, oregano plants in. Carrot, marigolds seeds... and I tossed in 2 Howden pumpkin seeds in the middle one on the fence edge. I am going to try to pull them through the fence when they come up and then grow them on the other side so they're not taking up space in the bed. This may be a disaster but I want to see if it works

Strawberry pot doing pretty good! Picked it up at the Goodwill store for $2 LOL
Spaghetti squash leaves getting big.
New plants in new wicking bed.