Tag: Gardening

Decoy Garden

We’ve had a lot of trouble with deer eating our veggies — corn, beans, lettuce. All very good deer munchies. We had a little luck playing talk radio all night long, but I think they get used to it pretty quickly. Then eat all your not-quite-ready-to-pick sweet corn. This year, we put in a decoy garden full of deer’s fav foods. There are brassicas, beets, radishes, oats, and rye grains. Scott tilled up a big area where our garden used to be, I raked it out to level the soil, and then I spread a bunch of seeds. We did it in three sections — the north-east quarter was finished first. The south-east quarter and west strip were done second, and the strip in the middle was done last. The first section is coming in quite vigorously. The second section is just starting to come in, and the final strip is pretty much dirt. We’ve been lucky to have a few heavier rains since the seeds were spread, so everything is watered well. This should be really cool. My next adventure is to replace some of the lawn with a wildflower seed mix so we’ve got plenty of bee chow available.

Hop Greenhouse Redux

So we’re supposed to get five or six inches of snow tonight, and tomorrow night will get down to 28 degrees or so … which means the hop greenhouse is back! It’s sturdier this time so it’ll handle the snow load. There are two logs on each side, both with a long 2×6 board run across. Shorter 2×4’s were laid across the long boards to provide support for the roof. There are additional boards diagonal from the “roof” to the ground. The whole thing is covered with greenhouse plastic, and 4×4’s (and a few large logs) weigh down the edges.

I’ve also got plastic bags over the blueberries, raspberries, elderberries, baby pawpaws, garlic, and baby black walnuts. There’s a tarp over the part of the deer garden that’s actually sprouted. Hopefully everything fairs well. The hazelnuts aren’t protected — they’ve gotten quite large, but they should have plenty of energy in the root system. The kale isn’t protected either, but it survived the winter already … so that should be fine.

Temporary Hop Greenhouse

We’re in for a drastic temperature drop this week — 70 degrees one day, 27 the next night. We’ve covered our hops before; but, as the plants spread out, they get harder to cover.

This year, we built a quick (temporary) greenhouse over the entire hop bed. Rebar and longer metal poles are pounded into the ground at an angle, and the 1″ PVC that I had for the low tunnel greenhouse is mounted to the poles. A large sheet of greenhouse plastic covers the entire bed, and a lot of bricks are (hopefully) holding it all in place. This should keep our new hops from freezing.

2021 Garden — Seed Starting

It’s almost time to start seeds for this year’s garden. I’ve got about two weeks to get some pots ready — we’ll get the peppers, asparagus, celery, and verbana started. There are a few herbs that we can start too — oregano, rosemary, and thyme. I’m not growing any eggplant this year.

 

Plant Indoor Sow Date Start Indoor Sow Date End Transplant Start Transplant End Direct Sow Start Direct Sow End Action Date
Bell Peppers 17-Feb 6-May 17-Feb
Celery 17-Feb 6-May 17-Feb
Oregano 17-Feb 29-Apr 17-Feb
Rosemary 17-Feb 6-May 17-Feb
Thyme 17-Feb 29-Apr 17-Feb
Asparagus 22-Feb 21-Mar 28-Mar 16-May 22-Feb
Eggplant 22-Feb 7-Mar 16-May 30-May 22-Feb
Verbana 22-Feb 21-Mar 16-May 30-May 30-May 22-Feb

2020 Garden Update – Late July

It’s almost time to plant the broccoli, brussle sprouts, and kale! We’ve gotten a few harvests from the bush beans (and I planted more seeds a few weeks ago), and the wall of pole beans is covered in flowers. Anya and I have been snacking on pea leaf microgreens (and macrogreens!) — and rabbits apparently love pea plants above any other plant. The little bed of microgreens seems to have saved the rest of my garden from nibbles. The corn is almost as tall as I am, and the cucumber plants are covering the A-frame. Tiny peppers are starting to form on the plans

And I’ve got dozens of green tomatoes

It looks like moving the garden to a sunnier spot has been a huge improvement in production.

Next year,I want to adjust the planting schedule:

March: Start the peppers, tomatoes, watermelon, pumpkins, squash, and cantaloupe indoors. Plant snow peas outdoors.

Late April: Start the corn indoors.

Mid/late May: Plant the plants that have been growing since March. Sprinkle carrot seeds around the tomato plants — that worked quite well as I’ve never had carrots grow before. Plant the bush and pole beans outdoors.

June: Plant the corn outside. Start the broccoli, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and cauliflower indoors.

July: Plant second round of bush beans outdoors.

August: Plant broccoli, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and cauliflower

First Harvest – 2020

There are green tomatoes ripening, the beans are growing on the bush beans … and we’ve got cucumbers! I knew there were flowers with little proto-cucumbers growing. Anya and I were grilling dinner tonight, and I noticed a large diameter end of a cucumber nestled in the center of the plant. Pushed aside a few leaves and wow, that’s a large cucumber. I held Anya’s hand so she could lean over into the center of the plant and she found four more! There are still a lot of flowers and cucumbers starting too.