My Garden 2012

Grow some food and stuff!

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Re: My Garden 2012

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Fri May 25, 2012 12:22 pm

Oh you can't just tease us like that Matt. What is the big News???? Do Tell, Do Tell, :))
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Re: My Garden 2012

Postby matt walker » Wed Jun 06, 2012 4:56 pm

Well, Guy, hopefully you saw my post in Heating that was the big news.

I've been doing everything but gardening lately, including almost a week down with an awful flu, but I'm almost back to better now. It's been a terribly cold couple of weeks here, down into the 30s again last night, so my garden is just sitting there looking sad, but still getting plenty of food. I need to go weed down there once I get my strength back, but for now I've been puttering around in the greenhouse. I got the roof on day before yesterday, and while it's not quite 50 outside this morning at 10:00 am, it's almost 75 in there, which thrills me. I am planning on starting on the cob walls this weekend if I'm feeling better. I hope so. How are everyone's gardens doing?
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Re: My Garden 2012

Postby GrahamB » Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:28 am

Sorry to hear you have been sick Matt. I always feel worse with summer flu and cold than I do in the winter. But with the temperatures you just quoted, I would class that as a winter flu. It's been up in the low 90s at times here lately, but we had a few nights of thunderstorms this weekend and it saved me watering everything for a couple of days. I've been attacked by Japanese beetle on my fruit trees, and something else that ate all the leaves off my potatoes. None of my vegetables are covered but I plan to remedy that with the next crop. The fruit trees have all received a spray of soap and that has fixed the Japanese beetle for now.
Something has also been stealing the caps off my mushrooms but leaving the stalks. I may have to set up my trail cam or sit in a dark corner of the barn with my shotgun :evil:
I've been busy in the field cutting hay. I am using a trimmer with a brush cutting disc at the moment. I did buy an old scythe but I need a new snathe and to peen the blade before it can be used. I built a hand baler and we made six nice bales last weekend. This will be useful for when I get the chickens and goats.
I started picking blackberries this morning. This will become part of my daily morning walk as we have literally tons of them around the fence line.
A couple of weeks ago we enjoyed some shop bought honeydew melons. I prefer these to water melons and mentioned that it would be a good idea to grow some. Well it fell on deaf ears and the rinds and seeds were dumped on the compost heap. Guess what we found growing out of the compost heap this morning? About eight little melon plants! That must be some good compost we've made.
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Re: My Garden 2012

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:48 am

That sounds Great Matt. The green house is a wonderful project. It has been cool here too. Last week was in the high 80's this week highs in the 60's and lows of 50 at night. No danger of frost, but it is June for goodness sake. The 6 tomato plants I bought are growing well and are over 2 ft tall now. The 6 I grew from seed are about 1/2 as big but doing well. Been picking 3 kinds of lettus and spinich for weeks now. Also alot of onions, the potatos have filled in the rows I planted them in and they look great. Zuccini has some blossoms starting as do the green beans and the peppers. The asperigus is growing well but several of the ferns have fallen over. All 3 gooseberry plants are growing, so I am a Happy Camper. :lol:
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Re: My Garden 2012

Postby Lollykoko » Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:14 am

Take care of yourself, Matt. Spending time in the greenhouse might help bake that cold out of you.
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Re: My Garden 2012

Postby matt walker » Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:01 am

Thanks everybody. I'm feeling better and better as the days go on, but am still waking up feeling like I can't do much. It seems my garden is a ways behind. Guy, you have zucchini blossoms already? Mine keep coming up and dying from the cold. I went down tonight and it looks like the bush beans got too cold last night as well, their leaves are all black. Oh well, I will have too much food from the garden again this year I'm sure, just maybe some different stuff. I think I can still start summer squash and get a good harvest, as our best weather is often September.

Graham, I'd love to see that baler. I have too much grass, the animals can't keep up, and I was buying bales of alfalfa for them last winter at $22 a bale. :shock: Even if I could only make a few bales that would certainly offset some costs. I think the challenge here is going to be a dry enough stretch to get it up and into the barn without moisture, but I'd love to learn your process just in case.
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Re: My Garden 2012

Postby GrahamB » Thu Jun 07, 2012 9:45 pm

Matt, we will be baling on Saturday, so I'll try to remember to take some photos of the operation. It's not one of the pine straw balers that appear all over youtube. It is based on a design that a project used in Tanzania about twenty years ago.
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Re: My Garden 2012

Postby matt walker » Tue Jun 26, 2012 12:48 am

It seems like forever since I've updated here. I apologize for that, I've been exceptionally busy with some major dirt work here and just life in general, but I finally got back in the garden today for the first time in a while. Weeds are everywhere, but there's a lot of food too, and I'll get the best of the weeds before they win. I did prep some beds for new sowings, and sowed more carrots, brussel sprouts, artichoke, broccoli, cauliflower, onions and shallots, and greens and radish today. My pole beans are just about to start climbing, and I'm just about ready to harvest the second round of broccoli this season. My tilted beds seem to be working well, and I've started to pull the cover crops of oats and buckwheat I sowed early and plant stuff in it's place. Overall, I'm off to a fairly good start for the garden, but I do think I need to remember to leave enough room for my scuffle hoe between plantings as weeds and weeding are a bigger task than they have been in the past. Perhaps due to my exuberance in mulching with straw and hay this year. I know I brought a lot of seeds into the garden, although I don't mind weeds too much as long as they aren't choking my plants.

We still haven't gotten much out of the 50s for daytime temps, and it's been raining and grey for a while, so I'm hoping things are set to take off once we get into the 60s for any amount of time. I know, it probably sounds crazy cold to most of you, but I am really close to the ocean, and it never gets too warm here.
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Re: My Garden 2012

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Fri Jun 29, 2012 12:52 am

My garden is doing well so far this year, but we need the rain badly. Like George down south there we have had little or no rain in June. I think about an inch total for the month. This is normally when we get alot of rain to help the garden grow and send down deep roots for the Aug dry spell. I have been picking zuccinni and cukes for awhile. Picked some green beans the other day and have green peppers and bannana peppers ready to pick. The lettus is about done and is bolting from the heat as is the spinich. The potatos look like they are starting to show signs of dying back from lack of water. The cukes are wilting as well. Beets and carrots still look good, tomatos are setting fruit but not much size yet and nothing turning ripe at all. The egg plants have not grown at all since I planted them and the cabbage is totally gone from the cabbage worms. Onions are a very nice size this year, been picking some nice ones, and the garlic is doing very good for me this year. I had not grown garlic for many years but I am getting a great crop this year. Picked one to use this week and I was very pleased with the size of the clove. All in all I can't complain with how things are doing concidering the dry spell we are haveing. The wood chip mulch had worked GREAT at holding moisture for me. I had never used it befor and I like it alot. I need some more for next year. The grass clipping and leaves also work well for me, but I think the wood chips are holding moisture better than the other 2 have in the past.
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Re: My Garden 2012

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Mon Jul 23, 2012 6:23 pm

The Garden is in full swing now. Picked a bunch of red tomatos today, as well as onions, yellow squash, bannana peppers, green beans,cucumbers, potatos, and a Purple pepper. The red peppers are starting to turn red, there is 1 small egg plant on the very tiny plants. The 1st zuccini plants are dead, I have replanted twice, the cuccumber plants are dying, and the potato tops have all died back, so I could pick the potatos any time now. I pulled up the garlic last week, it is up there drying in the garden now. I was very pleased with the size of the cloves. Most of the onion tops have fallen over and the onions could be pulled out as well. Beets are getting to be a nice size to pick, the carrots need to grow a bit more befor picking. The asperigus ferns are doing very well for this 1st year and are between 4' and 5' tall. All in all I am happy with the garden especially with the limited rain we have had. I was given a Niagra Grape plant that I through in the ground last week up by a walnut tree, It was just put in there temporary, you know, permanate but sub-standard, :lol: My grape arbor fell over low these many years ago, I have been meaning to fix it, but a bunch of Jaggers have grown up in there as well as an apple tree and some other stuff, it will be a job to clean it out and find the 2 grape vines that had survived in that mess. [ For those of you Not from Western Pa, a Jagger is any plant that has a thorn on it to jag you with, a black berry, a rose bush, multi floral rose, raspberrys etc ] We have alot of Jagger bushes around here, ;) The Jaggers that are growing around my grapes are Multi Floral Rose bushes. I hate that stuff, it is hard to kill, hard to dig out and the Jaggers really hurt when they get you. It is not native to Pa, the State Game commission brought it in as wild life habitate many years ago.
Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
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