2014 garden

[dgmj10]

My wife and I have been since we have been married (I think this will be our 10th year) I grew up helping both set of grandparent's to some extent.

At our current location we have 3, 8x8 beds 2 , 4x4 beds and a 24x4 for 2 rows. We also have apple, peach, plum, pear and pecan trees. I dont consider the 8x8s raised beds they start as lined beds. That after a couple years worth of amendment, they fill.

I am a landscaper, and have access to lots of organic material. I know what yards in the maintenance division, get treated and with what chemical. You don't want to use clippings for your beds that have been sprayed recently with somthing like pre emergent. Not that I don't use chemicals, I use insecticide as needed. I dont however use much chemical fertilizers. Building the soil the way I do, has worked out well.

Tonight I started my second round of romaine, iceberg, and spinach. The first round was started on the 3rd. I just use the jiffy expanding mini pots for these. I do however cut the net off before planting. I still find them from three years ago.

I will put some pictures up when things get interesting. Depending on weather I can post up pictures of the strawberry beds.

[rice paddy daddy]

My wife is in charge of the garden. She is getting ready to prepare for the year.
Our garden is 40 X 75 feet and she wants to double the 75' dimension to 40 X 150
We have three horses and mucking out the stalls every couple days gives us wheelbarrow loads of manure, hay leavings, and sand (we buy sand by the dump truck load and use it in the bottom of the stalls).
We also keep chickens, but only 15 at the moment, so the time/effort involved in collecting their manure is just not worth it.
Several years ago we let the garden go fallow and used the stall debris to build raised beds. She was out of commission for a few years when her knees got so bad they both had to be totally replaced (big bucks!).

[RWalls]

Right now my gardening consists of apple, pear, plum and peach trees. I also have blueberry, black berry. 2013 was a bad season for fruit trees, too much rain. Hopefully this year will be better. Also I keep honeybees, but the black bears like to destroy them. Its hard to keep a full garden in Roswell and I dont live on my property so it sucks a bit, maybe soon..

[dgmj10]

Wow 40 x150 will grow a lot of food, I wish I had more space here. Our last garden was 40 by 60 but a large chunk 20x 25 was dedicated to corn. How do you water? I am a huge fan of drip with micro spray heads.

RWalls my fruit trees did poorly last year except the plum and pear, every thing else had fungus issues. The apples and peach have required extensive pruning do to the previous owners neglect. I have taken a 4 year approach and this is the third pruning I should have them back to a central vase next year.

[rice paddy daddy]

Living in Florida the rain usually takes care of most watering. When needed the wife waters by hand with a hose or uses a lawn sprinkler.
At one time we had a type of soaker hose that is a black porous material that the water seeps through.
We have not had good luck with corn, and last year she was still not feeling good so it was just tomatoes, potatoes, water melon and honeydew melons.
This is the year she gets going full blast again and gets the pressure canner out. I hope.
I might even put some habanero peppers in for myself.

[dgmj10]

So everything planted from seedlings is doing well. The last cold drop did burn the newest growth on the broccoli. The lettuces, cabbages and alliums did fine. This cold spell I covered the broccoli and younger cabbage. I promise pics soon

[1moretoy]

Getting our first stand of asparagus this year. Always loved it but always bought it. Never really new how it grew until now. And man does it grow fast.

[etkd]

I am sooo ready for a homegrown tomato.

[new guy]

Started some seeds the other day indoors, going to start more today. Cant wait till its warm enough to transplant. I tried sweet potatoes last year for the first time with the excessive rain we had turned out ok.

[RWalls]

My raised bed lettuce isn't doing so hot. I probably jumped the gun and planted too early. I hope this year isn't the constant downpour like last year.

[Old Soldier]

We're beginning our harvest, so far we've put up Green Peas, Beets (still more of those to go), 35 pounds of cabbage shreaded and in the crock for sauerkraut. The meat of the garden is yet to come as this is the early stuff, we're hoping for a good harvest this year.

[Imaexpat2]

I guess I will jump in here with my little bit of gardening. I have three raised beds I have built using cinder bricks stacked two layers high and then filled with cow doo-doo and compost. One is 20 x 4 ft and the other 2 are 8 x 4 feet. I used the Square Foot Gardening technique this year, which I was pretty much doing before anyways and just didn't know it, and I am cranking out quite a bit of produce already. I should be able to get more if I can refine the process a bit more and get things perfected. I am already pulling in a lot of Cherry Tomatoes. I have a few Roma Tomatoes starting to come in now as well. Been picking a good bit of Yellow Squash, Zucchini and egg plant. I got a little bit of a late start on the Honey Dew Mellows but its looking really good now. I have some Okra, Carrots and Kentucky Wonder beans on the way as well. The Bell Peppers are going great and I should have another bumper crop this year of huge bell peppers. For fruit didn't do too well this year...we had a very mild February with several hard freezes in March that killed off most of this years blooms on the Pear, Apple, Plum and Peach Trees. The Tangerine trees took yet another pounding this winter. Got a lot of die off and had to majorly trim them back but they did survive. Just wont have any fruit again this year. The last two winters have been very hard on them with all of the ice caused by Global Warming here in Texas. If we can get back to typical winters here I should see some fruit from them again!

In the squares of the cinder bricks forming the walls of the beds I have planted a ton of herbs to use fresh for cooking. I will undoubtedly again get several qt size mason jars of fresh ground seasonings to use all winter long and should be able to share a good bit with friends and family as well.

This fall/early spring I am planning to replace the summer growth in the beds with Broccoli, Snow Peas and Spinach.

Having such a small area to work with, I am concentrating on growing the things I use often that don't store well and things that are costly at the grocery store in order to make good use of the limited space I have. As a full time RVer on a small lot, there is only so much I got to work with, so I have to make every inch count!

[dgmj10]

472here's is a pic of three of my beds, so far this year we have harvested about 30 pounds of squash ,20 pounds zucchini , 15 pounds of cucumbers, tomatoes havent done well at about 25 pounds 7 pounds of straw berry. 15 heads of cabbage 10 romaine heads and 4iceberg heads and finally about 40 pounds of of beans. Sweet potatoes seem to be doing well. Onions 15 garlic 12.