Virgin Gardener

[prepper7]

At long last..... [drum roll please...]

Impressive. You did a super job on those planters!

[prepper7]

<clap clap clap> 700. A good looking number to boot! <more clapping>

Thank you.

[zombiepreparation]

Today I feel broken. Ack! Yesterday I was given a small strip in a plot holder's garden to put in some plants of my own. This is a little community garden. I dug and prepared the soil, planted lettuce, kale, and spinach because that's the seeds I have. A little soreness but some good tired feeling. Outside, hands in soil, sun, surrounded by vegetable and flower gardens kept by some amazing gardeners. Inspiring.

I noticed something had been eating on one of the vegetables of the plot holder and asked if I could take a look to see what's going on and found a little light green cutter worm and another pest and mentioned some solutions I had learned from my square foot gardening days back when I had that other garden (and all the tomatoes I wanted for a summer). Then people started handing me lettuce, onions, cilantro, and dill which I took home and gobbled with glee.

Today one of the other plot holders was having a rough day and didn't feel like working their plot and I offered to do it. I weeded and watered. The entire plot is planted with tomatoes and the owner said they will share the harvest with me after seeing what I'd done. Tomatoes!

Later in the morning the holder of the plot I'm sharing gave me vegetables that will last me a MONTH!

I have eaten freshhhhhhh food for two days now.

Then the plot holder made a gift of three little tomato plants and told me to find a corner to plant them. The plot holder has a long bed of long established asparagus but doesn't care that much for it (planted and tended for years by the previous plot holder) and said to take the corner of that bed. (here's where the 'broken' comes in. )

Ever tried digging up a two cubic feet of asparagus? (there's still another seven feet of the asparagus bed so don't gasp in horror) Well, if you know asparagus you know it is planted deep and is similar to bamboo in its growing pattern, so I was basically digging through a two cubic foot wall of years old asparagus. And digging. And digging. I finally just had to dig the whole 2' X 2' X 2' 'out' and place the soil in containers to make sure I got it all out. My aching back and blistered hands (even wearing gloves).

And you know what I kept thinking while I was doing all this "work"? My god, how did Sissy do this? (Mom's Journal of the Zombie Years) I hand washed five things today, cooked a little food, weeded and watered a ten by fourteen garden plot, and I'm whining about digging two cubic feet of dirt? Man, I'm disappointing myself.

Anyway, to continue my whine: I had to find something to create a barrier to keep those mighty roots and shoots from re-entering (think invading... think of bamboo) what I just dug. Then because the soil was in containers around the big square hole I sat for hours separating the dug up asparagus starters so they could be passed onto new owners and hand breaking and preparing 2' X 2' X 2' worth of soil and filling the hole again.

The plot holder came back later in the day and could not believe what digging up asparagus entailed! The big square hole, containers of soil everywhere, asparagus plants filling buckets, extraneous left over asparagus parts pulled out before returning the soil to the hole, large boxes being cut up and wrapped with that weed barrier plastic for gardens I had left over from years ago. The whole operation looked so bizarre. But the plot holder sat down and helped me clean and prepare the soil as I reloaded it and good conversation and laughter happened, and tomorrow I plant a real tomato plant of my OWN.

And tonight I gorged on fresh vegetables and sit here typing with a fairly broken body, really rugged and raw hands, and a happily satiated appetite.

A majorly eventful two days for this Virgin Gardner.

On another note, my second round of balcony gardening shows none of the containers have mold, the vinegar gnat traps are working beautifully, the two container bush tomatoes are looking strong, and the kale and lettuce are breaking ground.

Upstairs: Balcony garden
Downstairs: In-ground garden

[zombiepreparation]

At long last..... [drum roll please...]

Impressive. You did a super job on those planters!

Wow! tripleryder, how'd I miss your pics? I just now saw them and I ditto what Prepper7 said!

[SCBrian]

Ok, gotta show off a little. First trimming of one of the Basil plants at work (I use my window sill for some of my garden)

[slannesh]

At long last..... [drum roll please...]

24' long, 3' wide, about 11" tall. Took about 1.25 yds of 50/50 topsoil/compost. Got a soaker hose (50') to go down and back for easy, even watering. Then I'll just water extra on those that need it. It does get a bit from the yard sprinklers as well...

Great job! Looking forward to seeing it full! I'm planning something very similar myself. Hopefully photos will be up soon.

[prepper7]

Ok, gotta show off a little. First trimming of one of the Basil plants at work (I use my window sill for some of my garden)

Beautiful plant (I've recently discovered the joy of herbs but my basil plants are still small (I can only take a few individual leaves)! It's awesome that you are growing food in your office, too.

[prepper7]

Wow, ZPrep, what a great story; you're getting a firsthand "Sissy experience" with all of your chores. Congrats on getting space at the community garden and making garden friends. Eating fresh is marvelous. Eating fresh that one has grown one's self? Priceless.

[zombiepreparation]

Chiggers and mosquitoes. Drat. In the balcony garden the gnats are being controlled with the vinegar traps. In the in-ground garden the sow bugs, slugs, and bad beetles are being caught in the beer traps. The cutter worms are being picked by hand. So now the chiggers and mosquitoes fill the gap? Drat?

[tripleryder]

Zprep - may as well start harvesting those bugs... some free range chiggers go great in a fresh salad!

Thanks for the support on the bed everybody. It really did turn out pretty nice, I think. I'm going to stain it to match the fence and it'll be bee ee a utiful. Havent had a chance to get the garden planted this week, but I did soak the soil, and it settled quite a bit, so I may pick up some straight compost to mix in.

[slannesh]

Ok, I got a few things started. This Spring has been full of false starts and I still don't know where i'll end up but I got a line on some free food grade buckets from some of the local grocery stores so i'll be able to do some container planting for sure. I also spent a few bucks the other day to build these on my fence:

Eavestrough planters for Lettuce, Spinach and maybe Strawberries


Detail:


I've got some Herbs started as well. My Basil isn't doing so well but everything else seems to be ok so far.

Rosemary and Basil:


Parsley:


Cilantro and Rosemary:


I've also managed to get a compost bin started. Not sure if i'll produce any for this season, but if all goes well i'll have a bunch stored for next year



I read a while ago about how you can put green onions in water and they'll grow pretty well. I had some that were getting close to use them or throw them in the compost pile so I decided what the hell, and put them in some water a couple of week ago. Here is the result. Anything shorter is because i've been cutting them off and eating them!



I have some seedlings started too. I really don't know if it's too late to be starting this sort of thing or not around here since we're zone 3 and have a pretty short growing season but i've been told it's pretty pointless to put anything in the ground until at least the long weekend (which happens to be this coming weekend) due to risk of frost killing it all.

I've got Green Bush Beans, Zucchini, Spaghetti Squash, Sugar Snap Peas and Yellow Wax Beans started from seeds from last year that I wasn't sure if they were any good due to being in the unheated storage unit all winter.


Apparently they were ok!



More Basil from a kit I bought last year and started a week or so ago



And finally, some stuff I just started today. From the left:
4 pucks of Roma Tomatoes, 2 of Cherokee Beefsteak Tomatoes, 2 Mixed colour Bell Peppers


6 Spinach, 8 Strawberries and finally 2 Lebanese Cucumbers.


I've got 2 yards of topsoil/loam mix waiting for me to get some raised beds going but that might have to wait till later in the year. I also have some compost and a big bag of peatmoss for making some potting mix for my containers as well as a line on the city's composting program which will let me get compost for CONSIDERABLY cheaper $12.80 per cubic meter instead of $6 for a 25 litre bag.

That's it for now, I'll update as the season continues or I have new stuff to report.

[zombiepreparation]

Dude! I'm impressed. You got it goin on there. I relate to the thinking you're doin on this, I like what you've done, and I'm impressed with your hopes vs. what 'may/may-not' happen immediately.

Good job, you. Looks good so far and love the fence trough planters. I want! Thanks for the pics btw. "I" need to see what you guys are doing out there. That is how I get my ideas.

[slannesh]

Good job, you. Looks good so far and love the fence trough planters. I want! Thanks for the pics btw. "I" need to see what you guys are doing out there. That is how I get my ideas.

I'm much the same way, I love seeing everyone's pics and definitely take inspiration from stuff i've seen! I'm just happy that I didn't have to go a whole other year with NOTHING done. It really sucked to get to the point of being ready to put seed in the ground last year only to have to move away just before I was planning to plant.

[curryman]

Eavestrough planters for Lettuce, Spinach and maybe Strawberries

I'm seeing those as 8' sections of gutter. Brilliant.

http://www.homedepot.com/Building-Mater ... =203011118

http://www.homedepot.com/Building-Mater ... reId=10051

I think for $11 it's a great idea.

Curryman

[slannesh]

I'm seeing those as 8' sections of gutter. Brilliant.

http://www.homedepot.com/Building-Mater ... =203011118

http://www.homedepot.com/Building-Mater ... reId=10051

I think for $11 it's a great idea.

Curryman

They were actually 10' but only about $7 for the gutter (I had to cut about 3" off the end to get them to fit between the posts). The end caps were $8 and the 3 supports on each one were $3.20 so total cost after tax was about $27 per. Not great, but I think they'll be ideal for shallow rooted stuff like lettuce and I have a LOT of fence on my property.

The real piss off was I was going to put them both at about 5' to keep little fingers out of them but the brain surgeon who installed the fence apparently didn't own a tape measure, some posts are exactly 10' apart, some are 9 1/2' and some are different again. I was not impressed by the lack of uniform distance, but ah well live and learn.

The other reason for my late start, I live in Canada, the weather can be how shall we say... unpredictable.

Today, it's snowing. Thankfully I didn't have anything that hasn't been hardened yet outside and it doesn't seem to be sticking around, but yeah. Snow on May 18. Happy long weekend hahaha.

[tripleryder]

The Canuck chimes in with a wealth of good tips! Green Onions grow in straight water!! Zip-tie ID stakes!!!
and GUTTER PLANTERS!!!!!

Nice work, sir.

Random thought if anyone else is doing the gutters. Black vs white may heat the soil better (black attracting the sunlight vs white repelling). May not make a difference...

[Gregory Merlon]

I've been watching this thread with some interest over the while, and I would like to thank some people for their inspiration. It finally got me to do some gardening of my own. I haven't gardened much, except for helping my mom out every once and a while back in high school.


Our little garden on the back stairway of our townhouse, which primarily consists of basil plants. The front row are mostly new seedlings and other young plants, as well as my wife's cactus, so there's not much to show. We usually keep it covered with a sheet of plastic to prevent overwatering (a bit of a problem in our area), and I think it might give the plants a bit of a greenhouse effect as well.


A couple of basil planets.


A oregano plant and a pot with multiple basil plants.

Currently, I'm also fiddling around with a small aquaponic's system which hosts a tomato plant, a spinach planet, and a couple more basil plants, but it's not quite yet perfected...

[slannesh]

Unfortunately my weekend plans got a bit curtailed. It's a beautiful day out and I was going to go buy lumber and start building at least one of my raised beds today. Then I did something to bugger up my back. So instead i'm sitting around like a useless sack of crap sitting on a heating pad drinking coffee while my wife is working to get ready for a trip out to the lake later today.

Frustrating.

Anyhow, when I walked into my kitchen today I said "Holy shit!" when I looked at my seedlings so I thought i'd share since this pic is only 3 days from the last ones I posted.



Guess i'll have to split them up and get some stuff potted and staked asap.

I also did the rounds yesterday and scored 4 or 5 3 gallon food grade buckets and a dozen or so 1.5 gallon buckets so it's a start for my container planting.

[zombiepreparation]

Our little garden on the back stairway of our townhouse, which primarily consists of basil plants. The front row are mostly new seedlings and other young plants, as well as my wife's cactus, so there's not much to show. We usually keep it covered with a sheet of plastic to prevent overwatering (a bit of a problem in our area), and I think it might give the plants a bit of a greenhouse effect as well.

This is quite interesting. The overwatering refers to a lot of rain in your area? And I'm intrigued by the plastic & greenhouse effect and wondering if this would be beneficial for other gardens. Maybe balcony, maybe in-ground? This is clever. You guys thought of this yourself? Or maybe a common practice in your area of the planet? Terrariums have been coming to my mind for months but I don't see how to adapt for veggies, but after your post I'm thinking not terrariums, maybe plastic?

But we have too much wind for plastic without a proper structure which I do NOT see me affording or engineering myself. Never mind.

Currently, I'm also fiddling around with a small aquaponic's system which hosts a tomato plant, a spinach planet, and a couple more basil plants, but it's not quite yet perfected...

Keep posting about your work with this (set backs and all for edification purposes) if you are interested in doing so. Nice pics and nice to have you drop in!

[zombiepreparation]

Unfortunately my weekend plans got a bit curtailed. It's a beautiful day out and I was going to go buy lumber and start building at least one of my raised beds today. Then I did something to bugger up my back. So instead i'm sitting around like a useless sack of crap sitting on a heating pad drinking coffee while my wife is working to get ready for a trip out to the lake later today.

Frustrating.

Yup. A quite unenivable turn for you. Dang.

Anyhow, when I walked into my kitchen today I said "Holy shit!" when I looked at my seedlings so I thought i'd share since this pic is only 3 days from the last ones I posted.

Dang, Dude, do you have a green thumb or what to go with that buggered back!

[Gregory Merlon]

This is quite interesting. The overwatering refers to a lot of rain in your area?

We live close to a coastal area, so weather can be a bit unpredictable, and with the shifts I work (12 hours a day a hospital), I don't always have time to react to the weather. Typically, we have to worry about the basil plants getting too much water, less than they drown in one of our semi-frequent downpours. The pots have drainage holes, and gravel to keep the area around the holes clear, but the soil we use is rather heavy and retains water a little too well. Here's a bit more about overwatering plants....

And I'm intrigued by the plastic & greenhouse effect and wondering if this would be beneficial for other gardens. Maybe balcony, maybe in-ground? This is clever. You guys thought of this yourself? Or maybe a common practice in your area of the planet? Terrariums have been coming to my mind for months but I don't see how to adapt for veggies, but after your post I'm thinking not terrariums, maybe plastic?

It was more an improvisation because of my odd work schedule than any sort of scientific plan or common area practice. I'll probably experiment more with this when I have the aquaponics system somewhat stabilized. The greenhouse-like effect by this is somewhat limited by not being a fully contained unit (though it can become pretty close to that if you fold a larger piece of plastic the right ways), as air still flows from two separate openings in the structure, but I figured that the plants would still need some fresh air, nor did I want to make it complicated with things like vents and fans.

But we have too much wind for plastic without a proper structure which I do NOT see me affording or engineering myself. Never mind.

How much wind do you have in your area?

I too briefly considered making something with more of a structure, and I considered lashing together tent poles from a broken tent, to make such a structure. I don't believe they're terribly expensive, even if they bought new specifically as replacement tent poles. The weight used to keep the plastic taught and the structure stationary could possibly be the plotted plants themselves.

[tripleryder]

Sounds like Slannish and I are in about the same boat... Friday, I got six bags (1 cubic foot each) of chicken manure from Walmart (3.28 each I think), and mixed them into my garden soil. All ready to plant, right?
Then, I decided to have a fantastic minibike crash at my buddy's house (not even any alcohol involved!), and dislocated my shoulder, cracked a bone in my foot, and badly sprained my ACL. Actually, it's all healing up fairly well, but it's gonna delay the whole kneeling-in-the-dirt-to-plant thing.

HOWEVER, I didn't entirely waste my weekend. I went through all my seeds and starters and a list of companion plants, and planned out the entire bed.

Here's the bed, again, looking relatively north:


And here's my layout:


Bed is 3 x 24

Starting at the upper left corner of the picture, which is the back left (Northeast) corner of the bed: First will be a solid block of corn plants (Corn does best in blocks, rather than rows, so I'm told). They are supposed to be about 6" apart, so I should be able to go a square of 5 x 5 cornstalks, making 25 plants on a 3 x 3 square at the northmost end of the bed.

Going along the back (against house, on trellis/twine) will be an early variety of green beans, followed up the trellis by a late squash. Immediately south of that is a late bean followed by an early squash (zucchini actually). My theory is these will help each other out and allow easier harvesting. In between the two squashes will be a couple dill plants, mainly for pest repellant, although I may do some pickling.

South (right) of that I have a sugar pea and brussel sprouts up the trellis, followed by cucumbers (english, rocky, and a burpee variety with extra antioxidants) Cucumbers are all heirloom, from starters, and will grow on their own trellis things (the round ones for tomatoes)

South of that are pineapple tomatoes, which are a late variety, and silver fox, which are early. Then the end of the bed is two cherry tomato bushes. In front of the tomatoes are three varieties of peppers--big guy (jumbo jalapeno), sweet heat, and an italian pepper. Also next to the peppers are Onions (depending on room, I may do a couple rows of onions along a fence somewhere, rather than in the bed, or forego them entirely. Onions are not particularly important to me, as I live in Walla Walla sweet onion territory, and can get them ridiculously cheap.

Scattered throughout the base of the corn stalks, trellis, etc will be lettuces, spinach, broccoli, carrots, and cilantro.

Ambitious? absolutely. But, I think it will work. Of course, I am not planning on using the whole seed packets of each... [how best to preserve seeds for next year?]

[tripleryder]

And just for fun... here's my little garden troll helper (niece):

[prepper7]

So sorry to read about your back, Murphy is clearly stalking you...

Wow, green thumb much?