OT: posting pictures

Hi All,

If anyone what to know the web site I used to post picture, it is

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-T

Reply to
T
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Giving it a try ... here are some pics of our small garden: Some is raised beds, and some is potted flowers and veggies.

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Reply to
Muggles

On my goodness. A thing of beauty on so many levels! Very good for the spirit!

What are the blue and yellow flowers? Eggplant?

What are the pink flowers?

Reply to
T

The blue flowers with the bumble bee on it are borage flowers, the yellow flowers are Repunzel salad tomatoes, the pink flowers are verbena. We do have some Eggplant that have some pretty bluish/purple flowers, but I didn't put up a photo of those.

One of our 8'x4' raised beds fell apart because of it's age, so we rebuilt it, and that's the part on the back side that has the black shade cloth over it. Since we built the beds, after the first year of fighting weeds knee high, I couldn't keep up with them in the summer heat. So, I laid down outdoor carpet between the beds and don't have to pull weeds much at all. Just some that spring up at the edges of the beds or a few in the beds themselves. I can sit on a stool and it's easier on my back and knees, too! We put up the shade triangles because the heat here is so intense in the summer, and figured it would give the tomatoes some relief and possibly set fruit further on into the summer.

Raised beds are the way to go if you want more control a smaller garden. That's just half of the garden pictured. There's a little more to the left of the photo that has the windmill in the back to the left.

Reply to
Muggles

I just picked my first of two yellow cherries and about fifteen goji's. I shared them with my wife. Both our eyes rolled in our heads.

I thought about raised beds, but with my wife's allergies, I would have to use stone planters and I have not got the money for that. Not to mention the price of the dirt.

Plus, Songbird told me a log time ago that raised beds are a problem is that they limit you as to the space you have to grow things. And I have noticed his words come true as I convert more and more of my back yard over to my garden. On the other hand, I love your garden. Is is both garden and park!

There is actually some evidence that nature does make us feel better:

Why Does Nature Make You Feel Better?

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Do you have any trouble with Mason bees letting you know that you are an intruder?

Reply to
T

T wrote: ...

i'm glad things are coming along there. :)

notice the key phrase she used: small gardens... when you have a larger area and full sunshine use it as much as you can. in an arid environment with limited resources water is your primary limiting factor as the water you get is what can grow all your needed organic matter. whatever you can do to add shade in some places, wind breaks and collect that rain when it does fall and soak it in if you can't keep it in a cistern for later use. the ground is as good a place as any to store it otherwise.

from what i can see you are making progress there. you have things growing and they can provide shade/ground cover. i would not remove any plant that grows if i were not using that space for a garden. bare soil in an arid environment is adding to the problem so let them be if you can and harvest some of the top growth for mulches and feeding the worms.

in our environment any space left bare will be taken over pretty quickly by weeds and then eventually trees. so there isn't any shortage of things to feed to the worms here. i just picked a bucket full the other day and because i got most of them before they reached seed forming stage they can go into the worm buckets and so eventually all those nutrients and trace minerals will end up in some vegetable garden (next spring).

the other day i was pretty blah but a few hours out in the gardens really did help.

they are mostly ground nesting bees here around pieces of bark or flat rocks. i leave them alone if they are not nesting in the house or garage. with this past spring's project of sealing up the walls of the garden shed they are no longer able to nest in those walls. that wasn't fun a few years ago when they did that. they can sting more than once. ouch.

i only knock down nests of hornets/wasps/bees that are on the eves of the house or in other highly travelled areas (near pathways). otherwise i leave the bees/etc alone as they get raided by the raccoons, but they also provide a valuable service in that they go after a lot of the bugs on vegetables and also are pollinators. and they also go after spiders.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

We don't have a very large back yard, plus only a third of our back yard is set aside for a garden because the rest gets too much shade. The raised beds are quite versatile and we companion plant some things, too. If you like herbs, for example, we plant those in with the tomatoes.

The new part of our raised beds that we built is not full of dirt. The

4'x 4' squares in the middle are only half way full of dirt that we moved there when we had to rebuild the back 8'x 4' bed. We planted potatoes, squash, tomatoes and eggplant in those 4'x 4' squares. The rest of the new portion that looks like a keyhole we filled about a third full with garden waste, sticks, and old leaves from the winter. Also, tossed in some night crawlers and some composting medium to get it cooking. After that we still only had that space full up to our knees. We wanted to still use it, so we planted beans, cucumbers, and a variety of peppers in 3 gallon pots we had saved over the years and just set those on top of the compost in that section.

On the very back of that new raised bed area we built a large trellis. That's where the cukes and beans grow up together, all only planted in pots. I added a drip irrigation system to the mix and the biggest part of the garden gets watered automatically.

My take is, I've had gardens where they were just put straight into the ground, and raised beds and container gardens, too.

I saw an episode of Homestead Rescue where this family was homesteading in the desert:

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This is just a short clip, and I can't find the part where the Raineys built their desert garden, yet, either. But that desert garden might be exactly what you need.

The Raineys moved this big Conex in order to re-arrange their assets better for a desert homestead:

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After they moved it, which is the part of that show I can't find on the web, yet, they built this desert garden on the East side of that Conex and it was like a reverse raised bed. Instead of going UP, they dug about 8 inches into the ground and created a number of circular spots where plants could grow. They then added an automatic drip irrigation system to it and actually were able to have a flourishing garden in the desert. I forget what the gardening method is called, though. Digging deeper into the ground for a desert garden works before the ground temps aren't nearly as hot, plus, the water isn't evaporated as quickly. The plants also get some relief from the western sun in the afternoon and a fighting chance to grow versus being cooked from the heat. It actually turned out to be an answer to their gardening prayers and produced plenty of veggie produce for them. I'll keep looking for that full episode that shows the garden itself.

Yes, we have some of those that like to bore into the soffets of our house! We've tried various ideas to get them to leave the house alone, but not all that successful - they keep coming back.

Reply to
Muggles

This reminds me of the other day when a solicitor for pest control came to the door. We have termite treatment and told him we did not need his service. He said there are a lot of other pests like wasps and spiders. I told him that we do have a lot of pests in the neighborhood and many come to your door.

On the picture posting, this was last I posted here:

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Don't recall having to sign up or anything. Just about got rid of that pesky weed too with your help and others that identified it.

Reply to
Frank

Frank wrote: ...

:)

i have an entire garden mostly covered in wood sorrel which will be keeping me busy for years yet i'm sure. the wood sorrel is also around in other gardens too, but not as bad. i have less time for gardens outside the fences as they're not the priority so they're the last to be weeded when i make the rounds.

we had a nice rain today, a long slow soaker for a change instead of downpours.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

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