I have not yet made up my mind as to whether I have time for a garden this year :lol: but I have seed catalogs coming out of my ears, and I so enjoy picking through them. I’ve had good success starting seeds indoors but it’s so hard to time transplanting when late spring weather is so variable here.
I have plenty of space, probably at least a third of an acre I could devote entirely to vegetables, and good thing too - overboard is my middle name when it comes to gardening!
I think I will try to stick to things I can preserve and that will truly get eaten; sauce tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, and corn top that list. Perhaps some varieties of peppers, too. We use a lot of onions but I’ve never had good luck with them. DH bought me the pressure canner I’ve been wanting for Valentine’s day, so now I have no excuses!
This is what I’m doing on my lunch breaks this week! I just started making an effort to turn my manure pile so that it’s composted well some spring. We’re still under snow here, but spring has to come - it just has to! I think I finally have viable garlic - the last few years, I did it in raised boxes on the deck, but the boxes retained so much water with the snow that it rotted the garlic - last fall I put them in my garden and they seem to be doing much better! I need to start my tomatoes and peppers (ghost, carolina reaper, trinidad scorpion, and some kinder chilis and jalapenos). I did san marsazno and beefsteak tomatoes last year, but think I want to toy around with some cherry or heirloom varieties this year. I think I’ll do my squash (zucc, yellow, pumpkins) in pallet beds this year. I have one area that gets great sun and a lot of water from the yard draining - last year I did sunflowers that grew to 10ft, but had empty seed hulls. I think I’m going to try corn in place this year. I also want to do more carrots, maybe multi colored? Potatoes, too! I always just plant them in old feed bags - it’s too much work to mound them in the ground - I’d rather just unroll and fill a feed bag that I can just dump over at the end of the season. Lots of greens, too. I needed this thread today!
Of course! I cut some holes in the bottoms of the bags, just little “x’s”, about 4 on each side of the seam - I might do a few more up the side of the bag, if it’s especially rainy or notice they’re bogged down. Roll down the side of the bag, so that you have enough room for a foot of soil - stick your little seed potatoes (or even chitted grocery store potatoes - I cut mine into chunks that have 2 sprouted eyes) a few inches down. I fit about 8 chunks in each bag. Then, as the plant grows up, once it hits a foot or two, I just unroll the bag and add more soil so the plant is just sticking out a few inches, and repeat until you run out of bag to unroll! I’m in Northern Ohio, and I usually get mine planted in their bags in late April and harvest in October - the plants will die back when they’re ready. The fun part is digging through the dirt to find them! I either dump the bag into a wheelbarrow or the garden if it’s cleared for the season.
I did this last year, it worked “ok” but depending on your feed bags, mine started tearing apart before harvest! So I ordered actual potato bags to use in conjunction with feed bags this year. The ones that did best were the TC Senior bags, hardier plastic and already had a hole from cutting the proof of purchase off the bottom :lol:
@NancyM how do you store your seed potatoes so they don’t sprout while waiting to be planted? I wanted to do two plantings but when I went to get the rest of my seed potatoes out of my dark, coolish (60s?) pantry, they were all sprouted already. Sad! I worry my garage will be too damp? boxes with sawdust? Would shavings be ok? Also, thanks for the tip, ordering the French Fingerlings as well! I already ordered a bunch of blues and reds :yes:
My neighbor gave me some garlic plants last year. I drove around with them in the back of my truck for a couple of hours before planting them (and they were about 2’ tall). They all seemed to die off due to that not really being the way to do it. But, I left them undisturbed, and now they are growing again! They are about 3" high right now. I saw three little spring onion sprouts coming up where I planted onions last year. I also have some kale that survived the winter, but I’ll be pulling it out and starting over. I need to order some seeds, and see what I have left over from last year. I know I have some onion sets in the refrigerator, and I think I have some bean seeds. I always plant my old seeds and see what comes up. I’ll plant them a little thicker, and they usually do okay.
I’ve been intrigued by the feed sack potatoes for a few years but haven’t actually tried it yet. Maybe this will be the year. I’ve planted them in the garden directly some years, but with low yields because my soil is filled with small shale rocks. I’ll have tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, yellow squash, onions, garlic, lettuce, spinach, kale, okra, carrots, radishes, peas, snow peas, and beans. Maybe potatoes.
Gardening is my second favorite hobby after horses! Just tonight we had homegrown spaghetti squash and homegrown canned tomatoes as part of dinner.
This will be our tenth year in our house, and the vegetable garden has matured to nearly where I want it. I have about 4, 4x12’ beds and several other assorted raised beds, one of which is filled with perennial herbs, one with raspberries, and one with horseradish, strawberries and a few asparagus.
This weekend I started 2 72-cell flats with peppers and a few eggplants. I’ll start greens/cole crops next weekend, and tomatoes probably the weekend after that.
Towards the end of March will be direct-sowing root crops, then the rest of the stuff will go outside around May 1, including squash, cucumbers, green beans and okra. We can grow pretty much anything here, but I’ve given up on spinach and Brussel’s sprouts, and of course it’s too cold for citrus. For fruit, I have the raspberries, a semi-tart cherry, and two apple trees.
LOL sprouting happens, and it’s OK. We still eat them at that time of year, just brush the small sprouts off, and as long as they are good and firm, they are just the same to eat. The key is to stop them from freezing, which will turn them to mush, kill them. When they sprout in storage, you just plant them sprouted, no problem. Just position them accurately, sprouts up. They are just getting started with the next years growth, which is your plan anyway. Potatoes “know” when it is springtime, and have an opinion on when planting time is (they may be a bit previous sometimes, but they can overwinter just fine too, if left in the ground, even in our area!). So listen to your potatoes! Even potatoes that have partially frozen, and are partially mush, as long as they have part of the flesh with some “eyes” still good, and sprout from there, they can still be used as seed potatoes. I over winter mine in my tack room because I keep a bit of heat in there, for my tack and supplies, just above freezing. But this year, it did get cold, like substantially cold, overnight (-35C) and I didn’t have enough heat going. I got some potatoes frozen as a result, those who were not well buried in the sawdust. Those are mush now, dead. But those who were buried better in the sawdust in the bins did survive just fine. The sawdust (or shavings) supply insulation, and is nice and dry. If your garage is OK for storage depends on how cold you get in your area, and moisture in the air, if they freeze, they are ruined. They will sprout, in time, if you don’t spray them with chemicals that keep them from sprouting, like the commercial potatoes are sprayed.
On the subject of commercially grown potatoes, and the spraying that goes on, we drive by a farm who had 100 ± acres planted in potatoes, a commercial crop. They spray with a herbicide (round up?) to kill off green leaves, so that they can use a commercial harvester machine to dig potatoes. Then they are sprayed again, to keep them from sprouting in the store. Yikes. Those “firm and unsprouted” potatoes you see in the grocery store in springtime are NOT in a “natural” state. One potato farmer dying of cancer who was interviewed was SURE it was what he was exposed to in his farming practices. I suspect he was right.
When my potatoes sprout too much, and want to get planted, I eat brown rice instead. And even though I don’t trust what is done to that crop either, it’s better than what is done to commercial potatoes.
I am SO excited about gardening this year as I’m finally graduated and might actually have some time on the weekends to work outside. I have several planting projects including planting as many trees as possible in one acre of the yard, cleaning up flower beds in front of the house, planting some barrier shrubs by the road and along the fence, and hopefully putting in a small veggie garden. Thinking cucumbers, tomatoes, peas, herbs … My husband doesn’t eat vegetables so I really shouldn’t go overboard. I’ve had wonderful herb gardens in the past and would love to have that again. Seems like potatoes might be a good thing to try.
We’ll see, though – my primary goal is planting all those trees and cleaning up the flower beds/adding more native plants for the wild bird populations. I have tons of irises and peonies to divide, also, and I got several packages of bulbs the other day. Finally had the foresight to buy things that bloom in the summer – I have tons of things that bloom early-late spring but come July the only flowers I have are weeds.
This might sound like a really stupid question but what do I need to do with my chicken and horse poop to use it in the garden? I usually just buy soil amendments and compost but I have eight chickens and two horses (one bedded in straw, one in pine shavings) and I feel like I should use it if I can, I just don’t know the proper protocol.
@firefoot – fresh manure can burn. Manure that I dump on the garden right now, is either in a pile to be distributed later, or spread out and I will rototill it in later. But, I am in Oregon and we get plenty of rain, so the manure will get pretty diluted before I plant anything.
The rest of the time, just pile up fresh manure and let it sit to compost. There are some “compost maker” products you can put in there – you’ll find those at a garden center, I think lime works well too. By the time your garden is done in the fall, go ahead and spread all your manure out and let it sit for the winter. By next spring, till it in, and you should be fine.
ETA: the straw, when it’s dried out run your lawnmower over it so it gets mulched, then till it in.
If you want to do it right, you need a bay, preferably at least a double sided bay. Put manure in one side to fill. Then start to fill the other side, and let the first side start to cook. You can add other things too, grass clippings etc, if you want to. Then, when it has cooked, you “turn” it. You can turn it several times if you like, over a year. I do this with a tractor bucket, just scoop it up, and turn it over, mix it up. Then leave it again. In a year, it’s ready to use, and your other side of the bin is ready to turn. Some people have 3 bays all made of concrete, that is a “fancy” and super nice arrangement! Mine isn’t fancy like this. You remove the cooked compost from the first side, and use it in your gardens. When the second side of your bins is full, and your first side is empty again, you start to fill the first side again with fresh manure. I try to NOT put a lot of sawdust or shavings into the bay, manure only is best IMO, but straw is good in the mix. But then, in my situation, I don’t use much bedding anyway, so this is easy for me. You may or may not have to cover the pile to protect it from too much rain… I don’t have to, but it doesn’t rain much here. By the time it is ready to use in your gardens, the volume of your pile will be much reduced. I spread it on top of my garden, then run a rototiller over it all to mix it into the top layer of soil. Then plant.
It can all get quite complicated and involved if you want it to. Other things can be added, and care of the piles can vary. But that is the basic system for you. If you don’t want to build the bays, you can do it that way too, but it is easier to turn with a tractor if you have the walls of the bay to contain things when you do your turning. If you don’t have a tractor, turning can be done by hand, but more work, obviously. If I get any weeds growing on my resting/cooking pile, I pull them to reduce introduction of weed seeds to my garden. There are no “hard and fast” rules to composting, it happens naturally, and you can do it your way, what works for you. Chicken manure is very “hot” (high nitrogen), it must be fully decomposed to be good to use, but if fully decomposed, it would be a great addition to your mix.
Like @NancyM said, make bays. If you couldn’t tell with the feed bags, I like reusing (cheap/ free) things - I made my three bin/bay system from free pallets by standing them on their sides and just screwing them together. If you stay on top of turning your piles every day or two, I’ve gotten horse manure (no chickens yet - those are coming this summer!!!) to decompose in about two months. Even less if it’s raining. I have another bin for food waste, that eventually gets mixed into the main compost once it really breaks down, but I find certain veggies and egg shells take longer than manure.
I put my chicken and horse manure in compost piles. In the fall, I’ll put it directly on the garden, then mulch the whole thing with old rotting hay. Come spring, it’s ready to be planted. The old hay is mostly composted, but it also makes a great mulch. My whole garden is fenced off and wrapped in chicken wire, to try and keep the buggers out. They are disastrous once they figure out the bounty of veggies and the joy of digging for the worms, which are so numerous in the garden!
Are you me?? :lol: I also plan on getting chickens this year, and I want to make a three-bay system as well (not with pallets tho, rains too much here and they would likely get rotten in a year or less). Right now all my manure goes to a friend’s and he composts it and uses it in his 100’ greenhouse. I bought bagged farm mix this year for my garden, yes it hurts to buy stuff my horses are making for FREE, but I tried to compost a pile and after a year, it was still manure balls throughout. I think it didn’t get or stay wet enough through the summer, or maybe didn’t get hot enoough?? but a compost system should work better.
I might try a couple of tomatoes and peppers in pots again this year. I’ve got one spot left to try to see if I have enough sun, but my yard is pretty much all shade. Good for temps, but terrible for vegetables.
