Posted in In the Garden
I bought a rain gauge this year to keep track of how much I should be manually watering the garden. Well, there has been absolutely NO need for manual watering this year, but unfortunately, it is TOO much water. For the month of June, we got 4.49 inches of rain. I went out to the garden yesterday and the corn was standing in water in one corner. There was standing water between the hills of potatoes and in the rows between the raised beds. Every time I took a step, water squished out from around my boots. We have had ENOUGH. This is completely opposite of last year when we were in near drought conditions. I watered almost every day. I am off to take a look tonight at the water situation. Hopefully it has gone into the ground more. My sump pump in my basement actually ran yesterday. It NEVER runs in the summer. The bad news is that we have 100% chance for rain tonight and tomorrow. UGH! I hope you are all having a balanced gardening season. Blessings, |
Posted in In the Garden
These first two pictures are a general overview of the whole space. The first picture is a northeast view and the second is a southwest view.
These are the potato plants. I am still trying to figure out how high I have to hill them, but I am sure they are not high enough.
More potatoes and some peas behind them.
I made a little 4x4 bed of strawberries.
That is it for now. I did plant corn in the big open space. As you can see I am not a purist on the SFG thing. I don't have any grids. I planted my peas in rows. I am liking how the rasied beds define my space. This helps to have a place to walk and a place to plant. Blessings, Jennie |
Posted in In the Garden
We did manage to get the potatoes planted. My wonderful husband and son got the second raised bed made this morning. The larger bed was constructed last night by hubby and myself. As promised, here are the pictures.
Blessings, |
Posted in In the Garden
The rain should reach my house in about an hour. So, we need to get moving. We are building our raised beds today and FINALLY planting potatoes. I am pretty late on this, but I am hoping for some good results. I decided to not plant my potatoes in potato bins as it seemed that such planting yielded mixed results. Some people felt that they did not get many potatoes. Others felt they did well. I can always try bins next year. So, even though I have a largish garden plot in my backyard, I decided to add the raised beds. I did this for two reasons. First, I felt that the garden would be more appealing visually especially to my neighbors who have to look at it all the time. The way our property is situated means that we have seven neighbors along the eastern property line. So my garden is actually closer to some of my neighbors homes than it is to mine. Hubby is here and ready for me. I will post pictures later. Jennie |
Posted in In the Garden
Raspberries fall in the category of brambles. They are almost weed-like. This is my first experience working with raspberries, so I have not fully grasped everything related to these plants. My understanding is that the cane is the plant prior to the leaves being grown. Most of mine already had some foliage growing. So, I guess you could say I planted a combination of plants and canes. The PVC pipe holds the mesh. Right now the mesh is large just to keep the deer away. My friend's mom told me to get coarse mesh from JoAnn's to keep the birds out in the summer. It isn't a fool-proof system, but it is better than nothing. We only had enough PVC pipe for one row. My friend's parents gave us what they had. We need to buy more PVC to make another row. Their rows were shorter than ours. I hope that helps clear some things up. Blessings, |
Posted in In the Garden
Saturday was a beautiful sunny day here in WNY. We finally got outside around 10 AM. I had laid down cardboard, newspaper, peat moss, soil, and dry leaves in the fall. This made the sod MUCH easier to turn. I thought I would be able to do this without the help of the Mantis, but I did need it. So, David came down with the tiller. He tilled. I raked and dug. Around 11:30, I took Jonathan and went off to get the raspberry plants. We were so very blessed to receive free plants from my friend's mom and dad. Jonathan and I dug the plants with the help of my friend, Kathy's mom. After a quick lunch we got to the business of planting. David took the tiller and tilled me a trench. Jonathan and Carolyn helped me plant the berry plants. Here are a couple of pictures of the berry patch.
Have a blessed day! |
Posted in In the Garden
CatherineAnn asked about the potato bins that I mentioned in my last entry. I have to preface this by saying that I have never tried them before, but I may give it a shot this year. Here is a link to the article on potato boxes. If you click to the second picture then you will find the instructions for making the bins. Now my friend Debbie attempted to grow hers in tires last year without much luck. I am considering trying one bunch of potatoes the old fashioned way in rows and another in a box and then compare the results. My garden is definitely a work in progress. Each year I learn a little more that I can apply to my future gardens. The first year we gardened at this house all I harvested were onions because the deer at ALL my other plants. I have learned that we have a VERY heavy deer population. Last year I put up an 8 foot fence. I have also learned something new that I am going try this year. Apparently, deer will not touch plants that are grown in horse manure. It is only horse manure that they will not go near. I have ample access to horse manure since two of my daughters have started riding lessons. So, if I can just figure out how to transport it back to my house I am going to use it. Oh, and the last big excitement is that my seeds did indeed arrive yesterday. Now I just need to get my other seed order made, and we should be well on our way. Blessings, |
Posted in In the Garden
I mentioned in my last entry that I had ordered my seeds for this year. Well, actually I made my first order since Seed Savers did not have everything that I wanted. I still need to get my order for Johnny's Select Seeds ready. Last year was the frist year that I started my own pepper and tomato plants. I had wonderful plants. I still had to buy tomatoes from the farmer's market to make sauce. This year I know better. I will bag up the tomatoes as I harvest them, freeze them and then have one big sauce making day. Live and learn, huh? So, this year I am planning to start my tomato and pepper plants form seeds again. I also planted broccoli last year and really enjoyed that. So, anyway, without further ado, here is my Seed Savers order: King of the North Pepper Also, I ordered Carola and Yukon Gold Potatoes. I am going to grow them in potato bins. This will be the first time I have ever done potatoes. I hope it goes well. I just got notice that everything has shipped, so I should be in seeds by the end of the week. Blessings, |
Posted in In the Garden
We worked our collective tails off today. I took full advantage of that fact that David was home for the holiday. We filled in one bed at the back of the house with soil that we had delivered last Thursday, and the remainder went into the big garden. we are one tired family. Together we got the pool opened as well. Soon it will be as nice as it is in the header picture. I did manage to get one bed planted last week. This one has peppers, basil, flat and curly leaf parsley, some baby thyme plants, two grape tomato plants, chive, sage and some alyssum for color. Next time I'll take a closer picture. Soon there will be another bed just to the right of the open door in this picture. I plan on working on that tomorrow. Blessings, Jennie
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Posted in In the Garden
In addition to my big garden, I am planning to put in a small kitchen garden near the house. My big garden is too far away from the house for a quick bit of chives or gathering some grape tomatoes for the dinner salad. In my search for information on kitchen gardens I came across In My Kitchen Garden a blog by Farmgirl Fare. It is an offshoot of her original blog Farmgirl Fare. I hope you can glean some good information from it or just enjoy looking at the picture of the yummy veggies. Blessings, |