Feeding the Tribe (Gardening thread - Off Topic)

[Tiny]

My dog died just before Christmas... so we have a new pear tree in the garden. Digging a massive hole in the garden in the rain and cold was taxing, physically and emotionally.

Other than that my garden has gone to shit over the last year of neglect. Need to get back to it this year.

have pictures...but dont want to flood the gallery here with non-mini pics and too lazy to self host.

If you use the "insert image" button in the options you can upload an image without putting it in the gallery.

 

[Space Truckin]

Oh man. So sorry to hear about the doggo.
Was this the same dog from previous post romping thru the mud?

 

[Tiny]

Yeah, same guy. Was super sudden due to a heart problem. Jumping around one minute, gone the next. Thankfully no suffering.

 

[Heart of Storm]

We're in the process of moving house so garden work is mostly clearing up storm damage and working out what we take with us, what needs taking to the recycling centre and whats worth leaving - so far the latter list is very small

 

[almic85]

We are looking at putting in a pool at the moment so likely will be redoing most of the garden to suit that.

Hopefully we can safely relocate the orange, fig and pomegranate trees that are in a garden bed near the proposed pool location. Might try and transfer them to large pots so we can drag them around a bit in the future.

Other than that we really need to do a major overhaul of the whole garden and stop it falling apart any more.

 

[Stoof]

I need to thoroughly dig through our raised bed and get some new compost and soil in it. Hopefully with a better soil-to-rocks ratio this time!

I want this year's crop to consist of more than just a dozen onions - everything else was a bit of a flop last year.

 

[Spazzmolytic]

It is amazing how many hobbies one can collect over the years. I've been into growing hot peppers for about 30 years but never thought of myself as a gardener until my more recent move. I moved further north from my hometown of Toronto into I believe growing zone 5b so for many of you non Canadians, May 24 (Two Four) is not only a national holiday (Victoria Day except for our French brothers) a weekend full of drunken debauchery when we are younger ( we refer to a 24 case of beer as a two four), in my parts usually means no more frost so the gardening world goes crazy (again in my parts). Moving further north usually adds a week or two to this, so from early June till end of September (usually) we have our growing season. Covid kinda kicked the gardening craze into gear with me as I'm a Hunter/Fisherman and the seasons open to those activities leave a lot of off time, so I filled it. When I'm able to post pictures I'll pop a couple in here as it is a small garden but I'm quite happy with it. Growing Potatoes, Garlic, Tomatoes, Green Beans (bush and pole), Peas ( 2 types I forget right now), of course Peppers ( Ghost, Choc. Scorpion, Scotch Bonnets, normal bell as the wife can't take anything hotter than ketchup) , Lettice & Herbs. Also a spinach type of plant that has a Hungarian name I can't pronounce or spell but very sour, I quite enjoy it in a salad, wife thinks I'm crazy. Anyway enough rambling, sorry to read about you loosing your dog man, we lost one of our cats this past spring, hits hard!

 

[Biggle_Bear]

A previous owner of my allotment had ground water installed. The pump works but a neighbour said that it’s only a two year set up and has likely plugged up with kalk. Does anyone know of any cheap fixes? I don’t want to have to save up and get a contractor.

 

[MedMos]

Coca Cola (don't know if all brands of cola) works, and doesn't poison your water supply. But have no idea if it could work on your setup...

 

[Spazzmolytic]

A previous owner of my allotment had ground water installed. The pump works but a neighbour said that it’s only a two year set up and has likely plugged up with kalk. Does anyone know of any cheap fixes? I don’t want to have to save up and get a contractor.

Sorry I don't understand the "two year set up" , it took him 2 years to set it up therefor its not very good?? Anyway I had to look up kalk (limestone) as its a term I'm not familiar with, if this is a large set up it might not work on the whole without accessing different points in the system but Lactic Acid works really good for removing build ups. Depending on where you live and the different laws it might not be easy to get in natural form or come in a ready made format like a product around here called CLR. It's a fairly benign acid in the dose needed to remove build ups but that said it is still a acid so caution is needed. It is a organic acid and I believe the farming/gardening world uses lactic acid to help break down soil deposits for better nutrient absorption but that is something I'm not familiar with so don't take my word for it.

 

[Biggle_Bear]

By two year set up I’m mean a system that is cheaper and expected to have a life span of two years. I tried putting in the stuff that I use for my kettle but that doesn’t seem to work.

 

[Biggle_Bear]

When do I need to start planting my veg? I feel so far behind stuff in the allotment and the growing season hasn’t started yet

 

[Punktaku]

I started a bunch of stuff inside in little planters so that they’re already sprouted a bit when it’s time to plant outside.

 

[Ben_S]

When do I need to start planting my veg? I feel so far behind stuff in the allotment and the growing season hasn’t started yet

This depends what you're growing and where you are. Most seed packets have a guide on as to when to sow (indoors or out).

 

[Arnulf]

Bought a house for the wife and kids a year and a half ago. A plague of cicadas in late spring/early summer killed any hope of a vegetable garden in our first year in the house. I settled on planting some stonecrop, hostas, daffodil and tulip bulbs in the front. Th squirrels ate the tulips, but the rest are coming up.

Putting in a vegetable garden behind the garage on the southside, and a pair of flower beds on the northside in two weeks. Planning on using a rototiller to break up the soil. It's never had anything grown in it before, the soil is practically virgin as it's sat fallow for over seventy years with nothing but clover and creeping charlie growing on it.

Bought a set of plastic garden tiles from the hardware store to make a path. I still need some chicken wire and metal stakes to keep the deer out. Thinking about making a net over the top in case the varmints get frisky and jump the fence. Have mostly written out the number and kinds of plants I need. In short I'll have tomatoes, peppers, onions, beans, peas, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers and maybe a few other kinds. Will be planting a set of raspberry bushes too.

The flower beds will have black eyed susans, columbine, impatiens, wildflowers, sunflowers and some others my wife likes and I can't be bothered to remember. One bed is in the sun, the other in the shade with the flowers sorted to where they grow best. Some of the flowers are sprouting from seed in pots right now, but the wildflowers and sunflowers do best when dropped directly in the ground. Praying for a good crop of sunflowers so my son has something to chew during fall baseball season.

Also bought about 100 pavers earlier this week and laid out a footpath to the garage with an attached landing for our bins. Later when I have time in the summer I'll dig down to put six inches of gravel and an inch of leveling sand beneath them so they don't move. Long term plan is to build a patio surrounded by flower beds between the house and the northside of the garage. Can't wait to show pictures!

I didn't mean to write an essay, thanks for reading.

 

[Stoof]

Last year was a flop for the vegetables - our carrots didn't grow at all, the pea crop was poor and the strawberries all ripened when we were on holiday and were rotting by the time we returned.

The answer? Poop, of course. Specifically, lots of chickenshit and new compost now mixed though the soil. The onions are going well so far, still no sign of this year's attempt at carrots though.

I might need to save the offshoots of our strawberry plants this year as the current ones are three years old now - I've read their crop will drop off from year 3 onwards.

 

[MedMos]

Our vegetable patches hasn't been a great success either... So right now we're planting berry bushes en masse. And fruit trees as well. MrsMos has a plan to transform our garden to be almost exclusively edible plants and trees, whereas the previous owner had focused on flowers and apparently poisonous and/or thorny bushes and trees...

 

[Punktaku]

Our cats decided to have a fight on the seedlings we were attempting to start indoors…. I don’t think they destroyed them all, but time will tell.

 

[Arnulf]

It's been raining a lot this past week — I had to abandon my initial plan to rototill our patch. I got a good chunk of gravel out with a rake and shovel but needed something else to fill my weekend. Luckily the hobby butterfly can strike the hobby farmer as well as it can the hobby general.

So I built a compost bin with some reclaimed lumber. The lumber used to be a friend's ice rink, but he's moving to another country and I took it instead of him burning it. The compost bin stands 4 feet tall and has three bays. Each bay is 40" wide (a little more than 3 feet) and 6 feet deep. Already gathered up the leaves and sticks from around the yard for one bay. Need to get something sealable for the wife and kids to put tablescraps in. I'll take some of the extra dirt from my garden-to-be and then I'm good to start composting.

A few more posts and I can post pictures.