April 15th cometh

[Terry Coombs]

  And I'm not talking about tax time , that's the date of our usual last frost here . So today I dug out all the seeds , mounted the shelf in the window and hung the grow light on it , and ordered some seedling starter cells on eBay . When I talked to our nursery manager she says the seeds they are a-comin' and should be here by mid-week . I'm shooting for the last week of Feb to have all the stuff I want to start early in starter cells . I'll be going a different direction this year in regards to mulching for weed control . I've been using a heavy layer of straw , and that works to keep weeds down . What it doesn't do is prevent blight spores from being splashed up onto the plants when I water . So this year I've decided to lay cardboard down around all my seedlings as I plant . It too will decompose and enrich the soil and slow evaporation just as the straw has - but - I don't think it will help lighten the texture of the soil (clay/silt/rocks and gravel) so I may put straw down too . Last year just as my tomatoes were hitting their stride and producing well , the blight struck . And to add insult to injury , the damn squirrels ate everything on the plants , right down to the smallest green tomato . I have a plan for that too ...

[Frank]

Thought you might get a kick out of this:

[Terry Coombs]

  Loved it !

[T]

We can't plant until the last week in May. Zone 6c

:'(

[Pavel314]

We're in Zone 7a. My wife has already started a lot of seeds in the greenhouse and has moved some flats out to the cold frame. She'll probably start moving things out sometime in April.

[T]

Greenhouse! THAT'S CHEATING !!! Wish I had one. :-)

[Muggles]

We're already thinking about putting out a cool weather garden using the French Intensive method.

[T]

What is that?

In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language. -- Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

[Pavel314]

I built the greenhouse on the south wall of the house. It's a simple 2x4 frame covered with double-walled polycarbonate panels. About 10 feet by 14 feet, with a 220 line from the main circuit breaker board to run the heater in the winter.

[Drew Lawson]

I've been dreaming of a greenhouse since the '60s. I suspect that isn't happening.

But I have the grow lights in the basement. I was supposed to start the tomatoes last week, but life happened. Definitely this weekend.

[Muggles]

It's an organic gardening method where you amend the top 10" +/- of the place you want to plant with a truckload of cow manure mixed in with the top soil, and then space everything half the normal distance you normally would plant them.

For example, we had a raised bed about 4' deep and 6' long that went the length of one section of our back yard fence.  We dug the dirt loose about 10 inches deep, then tilled in a truck load of composted cow manure. Next, I put heavy duty black plastic on top of the dirt and secured it with gardening U-wires in the ground, poked holes in the plastic and planted a dozen cabbage plants half the distance apart that you'd normally plant those seedlings. We did that with broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage in 3 separate beds. Once everything was planted like that we spread pine bark mulch in between each seedling about 3 inches thick and made sure we poked drain holes in the plastic in between the seedlings.

We grew cabbages so big they were hard to carry and ran out of people to give them away, too.  The cauliflower and broccoli produced so much more than we could ever use and didn't quit producing until it got hot in early summer. Best garden result ever!

NO weeding - Rarely had to water because when it rained the water didn't evaporate because of the black plastic and mulch on top of it. PLUS, cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli are heavy feeders and had no problem getting everything they needed to produce a larger than normal harvest in half the space.  :)

[Pavel314]

My wife uses the black plastic garden cloth method on some of her rows, cut ting holes every so often to put the plants and leaving the plastic intact elsewhere to prevent weeds. One year, I decided to try that in the pumpkin patch and they all died early! I realized later that pumpkin vines put down roots every so often to get water for the far ends of the spread-out plant s; when the roots on the extremities tried to get into the soil, they were stopped by the plastic.

Paul

[Muggles]

Learn something new every day!

[songbird]

Pavel314 wrote: ...

yeah, that would be an issue for some varieties of squash/pumpkins. some are more bush type and don't do that (we've not grown any of those here yet).

songbird

[Muggles]

I don't have enough space in my garden to plant pumpkin vines.  I can only go so far UP with vine crops, and sometimes that still isn't enough space.

[Pavel314]

, cutting holes every so often to put the plants and leaving the plastic in tact elsewhere to prevent weeds. One year, I decided to try that in the pum pkin patch and they all died early! I realized later that pumpkin vines put down roots every so often to get water for the far ends of the spread-out plants; when the roots on the extremities tried to get into the soil, they were stopped by the plastic.

A couple of years ago, one of the pumpkin plants ventured out of the patch and sent a vine up a small tree nearby. I was very surprised to see a pumpk in hanging off a tree about five feet above the ground.

Paul

[Muggles]

I've never had much luck growing any type of melons.

[Pavel314]

ws, cutting holes every so often to put the plants and leaving the plastic intact elsewhere to prevent weeds. One year, I decided to try that in the p umpkin patch and they all died early! I realized later that pumpkin vines p ut down roots every so often to get water for the far ends of the spread-ou t plants; when the roots on the extremities tried to get into the soil, the y were stopped by the plastic.

tch and sent a vine up a small tree nearby. I was very surprised to see a p umpkin hanging off a tree about five feet above the ground.

My wife could never grow Blue Hubbards, but I produce a lot of big ones. On the other hand, I lost the ability to grow cabbage and potatoes several ye ars ago then she took over with great success.

Paul

[Muggles]

We might try cabbage and broccoli again this spring.  Kind of gotta see what the weather is going to end up doing, first.

[Drew Lawson]

Likewide, but I'm going to try again this year.

Several years ago, I discovered a fool-proof way to know when watermelons are ripe. I just need to pick them the day before the deer stomp on them and break them open.

This area could do with some wolves.