| Author | |
MarilynW
Forum All-Star
Joined: June 28 2006
Location: N/A
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 4275
|
| Posted: Jan 18 2014 at 9:55am | IP Logged
|
 |
|
I hope it is ok for me to start this thread.
I am reviewing my last year's gardening - and to be brutally honest, it was a failure.
1. Containers on the deck - potatoes in the smartpot: we hardly got any. Strawberries - hardly any. Basil - ok. Eggplant and peppers - eaten by something.
2. Raised bed garden - not deep enough. It was a square foot garden - the rosemary did ok, the zucchini became monster zucchini and took over the whole bed, but did not yield much. Everything else was killed off by monster zucchini.
3. Once the dog days of summer hit - everyone's interest in the garden waned.
I am trying to figure out how to get excited about gardening again.
__________________
Marilyn
Blessed with 6 gifts from God
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Jan 18 2014 at 11:30am | IP Logged
|
|
|
This year I've been looking at saving seed so going through my wish lists and reducing the number of varieties to help eliminate crossing.. I couldn't quite do it.. I mean.. I still have pumpkin and spaghetti squash on my list.. but I did take acorn squash off. And I still have two types of tomatoes.. but I think there's a pretty low rate for crossing with tomatoes anyway, that if I put them on opposite sides of the garden they'll be ok.
And I also am looking at some recommenations for what to grow for "preparedness". Found out some neat things. The same whole wheat berries and dried beans you keep in the pantry can be planted to grow those items.. But dried corn that you'd buy would be hybrid. I'm thinking about trying a popcorn variety in the garden. I don't normally grow corn.. too much space needed. But maybe for popcorn I can do a couple of small corners of corn. Popcorn can be ground into corn meal.. but you need a mill that can handle it. More mills can handle field corn.. but I haven't found a field corn that can be popped. 
But we're also looking at moving the garden area. And the big thing is I'd like to get a drip system in place. I'm thinking pvc pipe that just lays on top of the ground and you run the hose to it. When we're gone we can have it on a timer. But we can also use the hose for other things.
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Aagot
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 06 2010
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 649
|
| Posted: Jan 18 2014 at 4:17pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
I am looking at putting in a drip system too, Jodie. And I think your description sounds just right. Have you looked at this book At first I wanted to look at this book but the reviews are awful. Unfortunately, it is the one available at the library, so that is the one I will start with.
Marilyn, if you want to be inspired, take a look at this film Also, there are various you tube videos that were taken by people who have personally visited this garden. They are short (about 5 or so minutes) and easy to fit a few in, even if you day is busy.Here are some.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Jan 18 2014 at 4:26pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
hmmm that looks more complex than I want. Because of the winter temps here.. I want it all laying above ground so that it'll be super easy to drain properly for winter storage.
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JennGM
Forum Moderator
Joined: Feb 07 2005
Location: Virginia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 17702
|
| Posted: Jan 18 2014 at 9:07pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
I need to get excited again, too. I can't grow zucchini, as I got squash vine borers two years in a row....I think they can live in the dirt so I am not growing squash for a while.
My husband had great success with a pumpkin this year, and wants to grow more for our Halloween. I had a few tomatoes, but my main success was flowers. I strewed a lot of flower seeds in between veggies and they were so pretty. It as a good thing, because I was just too tired to garden. I'm hoping to 1) start earlier this year and 2) have more energy to do it. I finally have my husband on board that we need to plant much sooner. It's been a little ongoing dispute...
__________________
Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
CrunchyMom
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 03 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 6385
|
| Posted: Jan 20 2014 at 7:26am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Ugh, we put a large fenced in area for growing winter squash and pumpkins and got squash vine borer.  It did not affect the zucchini plants near the house, so I th ink I will still grow some in my potager, but the vining squashes sure take over things (which was why we added the back gardens). We are thinking we might try some bush bean varieties in the back garden.
Funny thing, we had an accidental pumpkin plant in our front two years ago and grew Halloween pumpkins for everyone. We planted severeal in the back last year and barely eeked out pumpkins for everybody. It was a good thing DS4 had grown some little pumpkins in his personal bed.
I think that last year was just a lousy growing year for many. We had a heat wave so early in the season, it was kind of depressing.  It made the dog days even harder to bear. (Never mind that I was pregnant and then had a newborn  ).
What flowers did you strew, Jenn?
I think that I am going to resign myself to the convenience of using canned tomato and only grow a few for fresh eating this year. I got overwhelmed trying to put up tomatoes while pregnant last year. The image in my head has always been spending a Saturday or so prepping, but the reality is a steady influx of tomatoes that rot if you don't put them up readily. I think I am going to focus my efforts on honing my skills for gardening year round. I keep losing steam during the months for creating a Fall garden. Those dog days are not nearly so pleasant for planting and transplanting and such as the early Spring days.
__________________
Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Mackfam
Board Moderator
Non Nobis
Joined: April 24 2006
Location: Alabama
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 14656
|
| Posted: Jan 20 2014 at 8:27am | IP Logged
|
|
|
CrunchyMom wrote:
I think I am going to focus my efforts on honing my skills for gardening year round.
|
|
|
I've really been enjoying Year Round Vegetable Gardening by Niki Jabbour. She has some neat ideas. She has a blog here, and her book is available at a great price ($2.99) for this month only! You can get it through Storey Publishing, just scroll all the way to the bottom to see it. My mom got the book for Christmas and then told me about the ebook deal and I've been reading it and really enjoying it on my ipad.
------------------------------
We would really like to move toward more year-round gardening, but this past year of gardening was challenging for us. We were in the same boat as you, Lindsay - pregnant and then newborn. I didn't get anything in the ground until late July!  Crazy thing is, we have such a great, long, warm growing season here that we were able to harvest some of everything we planted - even our corn! And my heirloom tomatoes actually yielded!!!! 
We hope to add more wood chips to our little gardens soon, and I really need to tidy up the berry patch! We had hoped to be adding to our orchard, but I figure we're at least a year behind in our plans...so maybe expand the corn beds and orchard next year?
On an exciting note, we're getting 6 more chicks in the spring to add to our group of girls! The children are thrilled and excited about the new additions! So...we're also working on sprucing up the chicken pens. Fortunately, my two boys can take care of most of that!
Last fall, we really didn't tuck in any of the gardens very well, so I'd love a couple of focused weekends to get everything tidied and readied for early spring planting! It's always exciting to think about isn't it? So full of potential!!
__________________
Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JennGM
Forum Moderator
Joined: Feb 07 2005
Location: Virginia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 17702
|
| Posted: Jan 20 2014 at 8:54am | IP Logged
|
|
|
We didn't get ours in until June or late may! but fall came earlier. My Dh saw that earlier planting would have given us a better tomato yield.
I will have to look back at my seed packets. I'm not sure...and I might have thrown them away. I know a few were from Tasha Tudor's garden, but a few I didn't recognize. They were annuals, but they do reseed if you don't do anything to them.
As I was dealing with heart problems, I really didn't have any energy for my garden at all.
I have never canned, and really would like to do than with tomatoes, as that is one of our regular purchases, and the BPA lining in cans concerns me. But I'm thinking that might not be until next year? I will see.
I haven't done year round gardening, and not sure if I really want to.
__________________
Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
CrunchyMom
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 03 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 6385
|
| Posted: Jan 20 2014 at 10:08am | IP Logged
|
|
|
I try to buy muir glen tomatoes, which are bpa free. I freeze garden tomatoes instead of canning, but I admit it isn't as convenient on the other end as having canned. 
We really adopted gardening as our hobby and have invested a lot into it in the hope that when our boys are teenagers, we'll have a good system going where we are producing much of our own produce. 5 boys already eat a TON (if you count how hungry I am while nursing  ) , and I shudder to think of how we'll feed them when they are all eating more than dh! I don't have time during this season for many hobbies. Had I had girls, I might have been more inclined towards sewing , but gardening is creative, fulfilling, and forces me to exercise outdoors. It is good for the boys to haul dirt and woodchips and such, too. Anyway, trying to go year round is more out of necessity than inclination, but I hope it is a puzzle I'll enjoy solving as well.
We planted blueberries last year, and so far, all the bushes wre still alive, which is a plus. I think it will take another couple of years before they produce heavily, but I'm hoping we have enough to eat some this year. I need to transplant my strawberries. They are hard to get to where they are in a perimeter bed against the fence, and I need to pull out he older crowns anyway. Maybe if we have another freakishly warm day soon... We also ordered fruit trees to plant this Spring. We decided we needed to go ahead and get some in this year since it takes time before you really yield well. We buy pesticide free apples by the bushel, so having our own would be significant!
I'm disappointed that I didn't get garlic in the ground. I had pretty good luck wih onions in spite of their going to seed in the early heat, so I will try to grow enough keepers, too, to get us through winter. I can't actually eat them right now, which means we sre using far less, but hopefully the baby will outgrow this sensitivity soon. I have been growing them in the perimeter block of some beds, and I like how they look, so they will be pretty if I can't eat them.
I also have consistent luck growing romaine in my block, which is pretty. Does anyone have a favorite variety? A packet of seed grows more than we can eat, but it is pretty going to seed, and we try to cut out a bunch to give away before that happens to all of them.
__________________
Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
CrunchyMom
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 03 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 6385
|
| Posted: Jan 20 2014 at 10:19am | IP Logged
|
|
|
MarilynW wrote:
I hope it is ok for me to start this thread.
I am reviewing my last year's gardening - and to be brutally honest, it was a failure.
1. Containers on the deck - potatoes in the smartpot: we hardly got any. Strawberries - hardly any. Basil - ok. Eggplant and peppers - eaten by something.
2. Raised bed garden - not deep enough. It was a square foot garden - the rosemary did ok, the zucchini became monster zucchini and took over the whole bed, but did not yield much. Everything else was killed off by monster zucchini.
3. Once the dog days of summer hit - everyone's interest in the garden waned.
I am trying to figure out how to get excited about gardening again. |
|
|
We are going to try potatoes again this year after failing two years ago. Does a smart pot keep things watered? After our potato problems, we figured out that our gutter was draining closest to the potato bed, and we have clay soil underneath our raised beds, which doesn't drain well, and we think that the bed was just too wet. Perhaps the smart pot did too good a job keeping things watered.
Also, do you pinch your basil? It is hard to stay on top, but I find that if I can, I get bigger bushier basil plants with higher yields, ideal for making pesto or mixing sith a salad. This of course only works if we keep the slugs at bay. Slugs are our biggest pest. We got some special slug traps, which help. It is easier to keep them going since they are covered rather than the tuna can method we used in the past and still use for earwigs, which we have our share of.
Can I just say that the thing I dislike the most about gardening is preparing the food. When dinner comes around, it is SO MUCH Easier to open that bag of salad greens than to wash and spin and such from the garden. No one likes finding a caterpillar or baby slug in their salad or broccoli , so it can sometimes get quite tedious. I like growing it, I love the way it tastes, but those extra steps in the middle are a chore, especially when preparing the quantities we larger families consume!
__________________
Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Jan 20 2014 at 11:52am | IP Logged
|
|
|
I bring in lettuce and put it right into a water bath.. so that it goes into the fridge washed.. I find it helps to separate the cleaning veggies from the meal prep. So there's more to doing the gardening but not any more with meal prep. 
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Jan 20 2014 at 11:58am | IP Logged
|
|
|
CrunchyMom wrote:
Ugh, we put a large fenced in area for growing winter squash and pumpkins and got squash vine borer. It did not affect the zucchini plants near the house, so I th ink I will still grow some in my potager, but the vining squashes sure take over things (which was why we added the back gardens). We are thinking we might try some bush bean varieties in the back garden.
|
|
|
Definitely put beans in that area. The "three sisters" are beans, corn and squash.. so if you can't put in squash put in one or both of the others(the corn is the trellis for the climbing beans) and it'll help that space be better for planting squash in the future.
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Jan 20 2014 at 12:06pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
We're looking at moving our garden area. If/When we can get the house added on...it'll invade one end of my current garden and having people working there a large swath of the rest..
That's why we didn't garden last year, that and just the time it takes.. but if I can get a drip system in place (maybe small sprayers rather than drip) then the hardest part for us to keep up with can be solved with a water timer. I want it to be a pvc creation above ground and we just hook our hose into it for watering. And we can unhook it for other uses.. but if we're gone we just have to hook it up and use the timer. Nice when we're gone so many hot weekends for swim team.
We (myself and my 15yo boy) went out to talk about where I wanted things.. and while it's been lovely weather.. the ground is still quite frozen.. we were going to put in stakes just to mark it off and we couldn't even get those in an inch. So here we are in January having nice springish weather and we can't even do prep work for moving the garden. Not that we won't have time. Can't plant here until the end of May anyway.
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Servant2theKing
Forum All-Star
Joined: Nov 13 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1505
|
| Posted: Jan 20 2014 at 12:34pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Try rocks or traffic cones in place of stakes for marking off your garden! You gals are so inspiring and so motivated! Our gardens have been spotty throughout the years, mainly due to family needs. Our best garden of all was the year we cared for my brother following a kidney transplant; the weeds were taller than the plants, but our yield was the best we ever had before or since! Just goes to show that pampering a garden doesn't necessarily produce better crops! Happy planning everyone!
__________________
All for Christ, our Saviour and King, servant
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Jan 20 2014 at 12:42pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Yeah, we ended up using buckets just for discussion purposes..
I'm convinced that sometimes the weeds provide more ground cover and preserve as much water as they steal
We try and keep the worst of the weeds down... but yeah, we're busy, so it's never the beautiful perfectly kept gardens in magazines.. so what.. it still grows good food.
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Becky Parker
Forum All-Star
Joined: May 23 2005
Location: Michigan
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2582
|
| Posted: Jan 21 2014 at 7:08am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Has anyone ever ordered seeds from Baker Creek? I've got the preparedness/sustainability bug and I would really like to make our garden more of a serious food supply for our family instead of just a hobby. We used to grow quite a bit but then the babies started coming and the garden was reduced to small plots for the kids to grow various vegetables and weeds and my own herb garden. Now that the baby is 3 and the older kids are old enough to help out, we want to go back to serious gardening. I would like to use heirloom seeds so I can then save them for the following years.
__________________
Becky
Wife to Wes, Mom to 6 wonderful kids on Earth and 4 in Heaven!
Academy Of The Good Shepherd
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Becky Parker
Forum All-Star
Joined: May 23 2005
Location: Michigan
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2582
|
| Posted: Jan 21 2014 at 7:19am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Jodie, we just snake soaker hoses through our garden and in the late fall, we lift them off, till a bit, lay them back down and cover with leaves. Come spring we can pretty much just plant. My husband put in raised beds for me about 8 years ago. he drilled holes in the corners of each raised bed so the soaker hose can snake through from one to the other without going up and over the edges of the beds. It works great. The only downfall is that our garden is pretty far away from our outdoor faucet so we have a hose laying in our yard for most of the season. If I unhook the hose, I often forget, or get too lazy, to go back and hook it up again so it defeats the purpose of having the soaker hoses all ready to go.
I would love to use rain barrels this year, but dh isn't quite so enthused!
__________________
Becky
Wife to Wes, Mom to 6 wonderful kids on Earth and 4 in Heaven!
Academy Of The Good Shepherd
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Pilgrim
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 28 2007
Location: Wisconsin
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1286
|
| Posted: Jan 21 2014 at 8:25am | IP Logged
|
|
|
We have, and we have recommended them to other's as a good place, especially when we may not carry something that they do. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds was actually the inspiration for our business 5 years ago. Dh was at work one day thinking about how Jere Gettle started Baker Creek, sitting on his bed in his parents home packing seeds, and he thought "Why can't we do that?", and the rest is history. We were getting more heavily into heirloom seeds, organic growing was important to us, along with the concern over GMOs, and it all just seemed to flow. Baker Creek has a HUGE selection of seeds, they receive many positive reviews, and are a great force for good in the seed industry.
Another place we highly recommend is Victory Seeds. They have a very nice selection of seeds, and what we have always been impressed with most is the helpful information they post on their website, to help your garden be a success.
Just thought I'd share, too. Last year we decided to up our coupon code for 4Real members(or homeschool families you may know who are interested) to 15% off. We want to do what little we can to help those who are raising families for the glory of God, and thought this may help a bit. If interested in our coupon code, please feel free to PM me. We don't post the code publicly anymore, as others were finding it in search engine results and using it.
Also, if anyone knows of a family who could really use some free seeds, even yourself, if finances are tight please PM me within the next couple of weeks, as we are getting ready to send out our seed donations of last years seeds(which are still perfectly find), and we'd love to help out in that small way. Donations are my favorite part of having a seed business, it feels like a small way we can give back for God's many blessing on us.
__________________
Wife 2 my bf, g14,b8,g&b6,g4,g3,g1 1/2,4 ^i^
St. Clare Heirloom Seeds coupon 4Real 20% off
St. Clare Audio
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Kathryn
Forum All-Star
Joined: April 24 2009
Location: N/A
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1520
|
| Posted: Jan 21 2014 at 9:31am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Oh Marilyn...I love to be outside, in the dirt, planting and planning and enjoying beautiful Spring weather. But alas, I have absolutely ZERO interest in even thinking about it right now. I think I always tend to feel that way and then right when we start getting a bit of warmer, spring weather the urge returns.
We are having to revamp too b/c last yr was our first garden in this new place and it was overall, not much of a success. Then we got chickens and had this beautiful broccoli growing and they ate every.single.leaf! So, now gotta get a fence for the chickens before we even think of doing more planting and need to bring in some good soil and raised beds too. I'm still in hibernating mode though but won't be long....
__________________
Kathryn in TX
(dd 16, ds 15, dd 8, dd 5)
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Jan 21 2014 at 11:18am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Yes you should check out Pilgrim's St. Clare Heirloom Seeds
I've also used Baker Creek. And Pinetree Garden Seeds they don't have all heirloom seeds but they're usually labeled well so it's easy to get heirloom varieties.
My problem is because of looking for short season and cold hearty plants that I have a hard time finding those all at one place. It does make sense. If you're going to have a seed business it does seem likely that you'll want to live where it's easier to grow things than somewhere like I do.
We also fence the garden. We haven't had to many difficulties with the wildlife (those deer are always a possibility) but we fence also to help small children to remember that it's a garden not a giant sandbox, and to keep the big ones from accidentally running through while paying more attention to the lacrosse ball than their feet.
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: Garden Planning 2014
