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Better Be Planting This Year. 2022+ And Up MEGATHREAD

daveyburt said:
@SpaceCritter and @medicineman (or anyone else):

You guys seem knowledgeable here - what would be a good low growing flowering perennial groundcover that's edible?

I just transplanted some azeleas and need to fill in between them in the beds. - Full to Mostly sun.

Thx!
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What about herbs (thyme, or mint if you're OK with its habit)?

Today's project: finish securing the new greenhouse:

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...and repurpose the (top of the) old one as a cloche over the lower bed by the driveway:

20230322_154234.jpg

The rest of the frame is apart and in the shed for me to use as adult Tinker Toys. [grin]
 
daveyburt said:
Thx - got those established already.
I was reading Lambs Ear, Nasturtium, Fiddle heads.....things like that.

If anyone has additional options, shout.
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Well, nasturtiums are annuals (at least in this part of the country) - but yes, they're not only pretty but tasty, and both the flowers and lilypad-shaped leaves are edible (and nice and peppery), so you should have them somewhere. [grin]

Lambsear I didn't think about but probably should've, since I was standing right next to our patch of them (and the close end of the upper bed by the driveway) when taking that shot of the cloche. So that;s a thought.

Fiddleheads: sounds like your location might be too sunny. (We have a bunch of ferns growing on the bank down to the road, but exposure is westnorthwest so it really only gets the late afternoon sun.)

Anyone else want to offer suggestions?
 
Thanks Critt!
Good call on the annual but, yea - will be planting some of those.

I pulled the azaleas from a spot that was too shady for them - fiddle heads will go there.

So, I've got a small list in case anyone else has others.

thx!
 
Some additional thoughts on those greenhouses:

As mentioned, that's the second. They're both cheapy-Chinesy from the Ocean State Job Lot:

That said, the first one lasted a couple years, and was up year-round. The zippers started getting a little hinky, the Velcro lost its stickiness, but the coup-de-grace was the windstorm the Friday before Christmas that beat the crap out of it and tore one of the roof seams on the cover. (And looking at the other seams, none were in good shape.)

Photo of the new one is up a couple of posts. The old one (when it wasn't cut in half to make a cloche):


It was sufficiently opaque one might contemplate using the greenhouse as a place to, um,
stinkycaveman.com

Simian Spankus Interruptus - Stinky Caveman

Many years ago now, BF (Before Facebook), Guro Ron used to have – as part of the website for the school – a traditional webforum, where all sorts of topics martial arts related and...
stinkycaveman.com stinkycaveman.com
(not that I have).

It was also heavier, not just the cover. When we picked up the new one at the Ocean State, I thought they shorted us a box - surely everything wasn't in there. Except it was. Even though the design was the same, the parts - the tubes and couplers - are noticeably chintzier. Tubes are smaller diameter.

There is only ONE vent window per side instead of two. And speaking of zippers: these are smaller than on the old one, and with tabs only on the outside (which is a pain for me, since on crappy days I like to zip myself inside to do transplanting or whatever). No Velcro - just ribbons. And NO tie-downs or stakes. Securing this thing is ENTIRELY on you. I'm using a combination of railroad spikes, the long stakes I use with the airblown inflatables, and paracord. Not sure if it being more transparent will be better or worse for the plants - definitely NO spanking the monkey in this one, tho. [grin]

Even the "directions" are chintzier - the old one had something like a 11x17 folded in half (so four printed pages), this one has:
GreenhouseInstructions.jpg and that's it.

I'm guessing (hoping) it lasts just this one season - next year with any luck I'll be gardening on the New Hampshire house lot. The old man went to a vo-ag high school and, for a project, built:
so we'll likely build one of those up there. And/or take the old hoop shed frame and cover it in plastic and build some ends for it.
 
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I managed to beat the weather and get the main garden boxes cleaned out... and get my pea plants (that I started in the greenhouse) in the ground. So the main garden is officially started for the season!

[party]

Sixty-four snow pea plants, roughly half Avalanche and half Royal Snow (the purple ones). (Actually a few more Avalanche than purple, but plenty of both.)

Just as I was closing the garden gate and emptying the wheelbarrow the rain started. Half inch to water my plants!
 
Peas, carrots and radishes went in today.
I also threw some cucumber seeds in, I know it's early for them but it's kind of an experiment to see if they pop. Only reason is that the pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin after last Halloween started popping out.
 
SpaceCritter said:
What about herbs (thyme, or mint if you're OK with its habit)?

Today's project: finish securing the new greenhouse:

View attachment 734766

...and repurpose the (top of the) old one as a cloche over the lower bed by the driveway:

View attachment 734765

The rest of the frame is apart and in the shed for me to use as adult Tinker Toys. [grin]
Click to expand...
Nice idea to use the train to transport the veggies to the garage, Looks bigger than HO
 
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Expanded my garden this year. Took the fence down and used a borrowed tiller. You can see the expansion, the soil makeup id different and a different color. Also adding a raised bed. Still I filled until I decide on final orientation. Raised bed I’m gonna try carrots. Fence will go back up in coming days but didnt want tiller hitting it andI expanded.
Also started some seeds today. A little late but should be alright.
Zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, couple types of tomatoes, three types of peas, pole beans, butternut squash and pumpkins. Probably forgetting something else too. Didn’t have any pepper seeds this year so I’ll buy them already started. Have some lettuce in a planted on the back porch as well that I bought about 4 inches tall. Coming along nicely

2AF2D77A-0F9B-48A7-8FC1-98E307F2D320.jpeg
I also have banana fingerling potatoes, another potato maybe katadhins, two types of onions and shallot from the maine potato lady courtesy of @enbloc ’s recommendation. Miss ya buddy

Gonna get stuff in ground this weekend and as seeds start coming up. A busy, but exciting and fun time of year for sure.


🍻 cheers
 
This weekend's progress:

20230507_173902.jpg
20230507_173757.jpg

With the exception of the south side (reserved for chilis) boxes 8 thru B are done for spring. Boxes C thru F will be done within the week. I'll probably plant corn in the Three Sisters (north side of the garden - left side of top image) next weekend.

And yes, I garden in hexadecimal. [grin]
 
SpaceCritter said:
This weekend's progress:

View attachment 750469
View attachment 750468

With the exception of the south side (reserved for chilis) boxes 8 thru B are done for spring. Boxes C thru F will be done within the week. I'll probably plant corn in the Three Sisters (north side of the garden - left side of top image) next weekend.

And yes, I garden in hexadecimal. [grin]
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Wow! You are not screwing around. Looks awesome!

We are starting small. Trying to figure out what we can grow here, and how much. We have two bags with potatoes growing, lettuce from seed, peppers from seed, tomatoes from seed, garlic is in the ground. We also planted a dwarf apple tree. We may graft a local tree onto it that we started from seed. We have three types of currents planted as well. We have to bring plants inside still because nights are cold.
 
I test charged the drip system today. Like a CHAHM it voiked! Pretty impressive since I overwintered it in place. (Dripworks says you can do that. I hadn't before, and had my doubts.)
 
Getting Drippy... 🚰







Another test run for a few minutes. With the exception of the boxes that have been planted, the drip lines really aren't in place yet - they're just sort of lying there. Incidentally, those plant marker sticks are nothing more than good ol' tongue depressors. I buy them by the case for use as plant markers - they degrade nicely, so can be dumped into the compost at season's end with everything else.
 
We found the soil moisture sensors!

We have two: one for the main garden, and one for the bed by the driveway. At the end of last season, they were Put Away(TM). Except nobody could remember where they were put. Well, today the nozzle on the hose broke and knowing we have a couple of others, went looking for one. Didn't find the nozzle, but DID find the sensors.

They be these:


The main garden sensor is out now; the other sitting on the desk in front of me. I can have Ambient send me an alert (which I do for too high / too low temperatures in the greenhouse... or the fridge or freezer or house or air handler room in the attic). It also communicates with the Hubitat, so I COULD have it trigger a home automation control, e.g. opening the valve on the spigot. I won't - just the alert is fine - but I DID have the greenhouse temperature sensor control a relay out there such that if it got too cold it would switch on that little heater. It was nice waking up to 25 degrees, but it's 45 in the greenhouse!
 
I just bought a peach tree, about 5' high, never fruited, and transplanted it into my backyard. I added some fruit tree fertilizer and lots of water, but do I need to spray it with insecticide/fungicide now, or wait until after fruiting?
 
ridleyman said:
I just bought a peach tree, about 5' high, never fruited, and transplanted it into my backyard. I added some fruit tree fertilizer and lots of water, but do I need to spray it with insecticide/fungicide now, or wait until after fruiting?
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I don’t have any fruit tree experience - but personally I would not spray it at all. See what happens this year. Then if you have losses try to find out exactly what is causing it and treat for that specific thing. And try to stay away from chemicals if you can.
 
I had high hopes to get started much sooner this year, but that didn’t happen. My wife is 8 months pregnant with twins so that has taken some time too…

Compost came out well again this year. I got the garden tilled and one bed planted 2 weeks ago. But germination doesn’t look great so far. My pea seeds are a year old so I am going to germinate another batch inside to give them a better chance.

I do have lots of seedlings. My five year old helped a lot so that he could try to sell them. I planned to bring him to a farmers market or something but didn’t have the time. His mom managed to sell most of them through Facebook. I’m going to try to get the rest of the garden all ready this weekend before the babies come.

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Boarder700 said:
I don’t have any fruit tree experience - but personally I would not spray it at all. See what happens this year. Then if you have losses try to find out exactly what is causing it and treat for that specific thing. And try to stay away from chemicals if you can.
Click to expand...

I covered it with netting to keep the birds and squirrels away. I tend to agree with you on chemicals.
 
The germination in my first bed was very poor - especially the peas. So I germinated some more peas in a paper towel inside. Almost all of them sprouted and I planted them in a new bed. Come back today and it looks like something dug most of the new peas up and ate them. I have an electric net fence around the garden which kept all the little critters out last year so I didn’t know what it was. But then I remembered that rats love to live under my silage tarp which was still covering most of the garden. I left the fence on, pulled the silage tarp off and this guy cornered himself for me. Hopefully there are some pea seeds left.

Note to self for next year - make sure your fence is keeping pests out, not keeping pests in your garden.


IMG_2262.jpeg
 
I cleared and cultivated a 10x20 plot and planted about 2 weeks ago. After a year of careful observation, this spot gets the absolute most sunlight of anywhere in my yard, about 7 or 8 hours a day. I cleared this with a hoe, shovel, wheelbarrow and cultivated with the hoe and manual cultivator. Our ancestors were a hardy bunch to do this, it was a sh#$@%^&* of work, and took me about a week, especially since this spot was about 50% rocks and roots (an exaggeration but not by much!). Hoping I broke up the soil enough. Things are coming along nicely, corn, okra, cucumbers, peas are moving right along, and the carrots, beets, beets and peppers are also sprouted.

photo_2023-05-30_13-29-52.jpg photo_2023-05-30_13-30-00.jpg
 
APFSDS said:
I cleared and cultivated a 10x20 plot and planted about 2 weeks ago. After a year of careful observation, this spot gets the absolute most sunlight of anywhere in my yard, about 7 or 8 hours a day. I cleared this with a hoe, shovel, wheelbarrow and cultivated with the hoe and manual cultivator. Our ancestors were a hardy bunch to do this, it was a sh#$@%^&* of work, and took me about a week, especially since this spot was about 50% rocks and roots (an exaggeration but not by much!). Hoping I broke up the soil enough. Things are coming along nicely, corn, okra, cucumbers, peas are moving right along, and the carrots, beets, beets and peppers are also sprouted.

View attachment 757975View attachment 757976
Click to expand...
I will be doing the same next year, didn't plant this year, just too much to do being the first spring/summer in the new house.
 
Would like to see an official gardening thread. But this thread seems like it's next best.

Today is 9th day of June and roses have Zero Green.
Roses were perfectly healthy last year.

We had a very short frost on May 18th in Merrimack Valley.

I don't have lots of sun to begin with, it's a bit shady area that gets partial sun.


2 different rose bushes , both no action yet .

also, I have 10 azaleas and 8 have lots of green and 2 more have nothing yet, 1 looks like it's about to start growing.
My concern is the 4 roses bushes I have and 2 hydrangeas I have, that have not come out of dormancy yet. I'm afraid they could be dead.
20230609_123015.jpg 20230609_122938.jpg
 
PioneerHD said:
Would like to see an official gardening thread. But this thread seems like it's next best.

Today is 9th day of June and roses have Zero Green.
Roses were perfectly healthy last year.

We had a very short frost on May 18th in Merrimack Valley.

I don't have lots of sun to begin with, it's a bit shady area that gets partial sun.


2 different rose bushes , both no action yet .

also, I have 10 azaleas and 8 have lots of green and 2 more have nothing yet, 1 looks like it's about to start growing.
My concern is the 4 roses bushes I have and 2 hydrangeas I have, that have not come out of dormancy yet. I'm afraid they could be dead.
View attachment 761688View attachment 761689
Click to expand...

There be enough folks in this thread with much more knowledge than I that may be able to help.

I grow things that I eat. Nothing pretty about my garden.
 

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