The Dawg Patch

[GoDawgs]

I was so sore after Friday's bed prep I could hardly move and couldn't even get comfortable in bed so slept in the recliner. I said the heck with planting 72' of peas. It can wait. Time out!

On Saturday the weather folks were calling for a low of 27 coming so I cut twelve more hoops from the roll of 9 ga. wire to support the old bed sheets I use with those wire hoops on small plants. The wire hoops were set in place and the small brick pavers that hold down the sheets were distributed among the three beds.

Yesterday afternoon the sheets were laid over the hoops and secured. The 4' of just barely sprouted Chinese radishes got tented with newspaper and the just sprouted turnips got pinestraw put over them.

This morning it was 28 at 6:30am with frost. Yay for plant covers! Late morning I took them all off and by this afternoon it was 65! And off we go into another warm spell after tomorrow morning's 35. At least I was able to fork half a bed for planting 6 more broccoli plants in half of that strip. Those are the Packman F2 plants. Six more will use the other half of that row later. Easy digging. No harm, no foul! The body feels much better after a couple of rest days.

Tomorrow the peas will get planted late morning and I'll be glad of that. Trellises will go up after the peas have sprouted. Peas and corn are the workiest plantings for me in the prep department. I'll be glad to get at least the peas behind me.

Pics will get posted when I finally take them. I keep forgetting to take my camera to the garden!

[leftylogan]

72' of peas!! wow. Any noticeable segregation in the F2 broccoli?

[GoDawgs]

72' of peas!! wow. Any noticeable segregation in the F2 broccoli?

The fall planting of 12 plants was pretty torn up by Hurricane Helene. There was a little differentiation in size and shape of the plants at the time. They were just starting to show small buttons. I felt that it wasn't a fair trial of distressed plants so I'm doing 12 more this spring. The first six were supposed to be planted out this morning but with a big storm and very high winds coming in around 4am tomorrow I'm holding off planting for a couple of days.

I plant peas in double rows on each side of two 18' long beds. Last year that made 10 lbs of shelled sweet peas, 15 lbs the year before.

Initial planting last year. I have to surround the beds with a wall of netting to keep the deer from eating the vines.

24.03.20 Happy peas.JPG

A tunnel of peas in May!

24.05.08 Tunnel of peas.JPG

[JayneR13]

That's one of the great things about the garden: all of the green to walk around in! You country folk may not notice this as much, but green in the city is at a bit of a premium. Nature being so good for mental health, I really love my Great Wall of "Maters!

[GoDawgs]

The peas are in, two beds with two double rows in each, total 72' of peas. As soon as I see cracks in the ground or the first pea coming up the trellises will go up as well as the netting enclosure around the two bed area. Gotta prevent the deer from nibbling off a whole row of pea shoots! Pic of the two pea beds, pre-planting with furrows watered well. It's been dry.

25.03.05 Pea beds ready to plant.JPG

Here's the north side of the garden, the two pea rows in front. Stakes mark where trellis supports will go.

25.03.05 North side of garden.JPG

I planted half a row of Sugar Sprint snap peas on the right side of the mustard bed. In a couple weeks I plant the other half with tendersweet snaps, a variety I've not tried before. In late April the mustard will be tilled in before the trellised cukes get sown on that side. Hopefully the mustard will deter the root knot nematodes. The next bed to the left has some of the cabbages. More going in Sunday. Two beds to the left of that has the first round of broccoli. More going in on Sunday.

25.02.25 Cabbage (l) and mustard (r).JPG

The south side of the garden; not much to look at right now. Those mustard, cabbages etc are down on the far end. The first bed contains those Heshiko perennial scallions that I had to transplant from one of the pea beds. An evil bed to fork! So I forked just enough for the Heshiko.

25.03.05 South side of garden.JPG

The first Daikon radishes have been really slow coming up and it made me wonder if that 2020 seed was still good so I did a germination test on ten seeds. They all came up in 2 days! They've been planted out, two to each hole, to be thinned later to one each.

25.03.05 Daikon seeds, 100 pct germination.JPG

And finally, another make-it-up-as-you-go-along thing. The iris are popping up so it was time for some hose guides to keep the hose from sweeping over them. I banged in two lengths of old galvanized pipe as usual. Then an old tennis ball goes on top of each as an alert that the pipes are there. This year something different. A very small pair of socks sent in the mail by some charity. Saaaaaa-lute!

25.03.05 Sock-covered hose guides.JPG

[JayneR13]

This is the hardest part of the garden season: bed preparation and planting! Getting the soil turned, everything planted, laying hose-oy! After that it's maintenance, which is much easier! But it's all part of the process, and much healthier than many activities we could name. And we can pronounce every ingredient in our food! Not necessarily cheaper than the store, but much better! But yeah, this is the hardest part.

[GoDawgs]

The garden is coming along and it's time to plant half of the carrots, the other half of the turnips and a row of scallions. That will happen today. We're supposed to get 1-3" of rain and high winds on Sunday so more broccoli, cabbage and kohlrabi plants will go in on Monday or Tuesday so they don't get torn up. The peppers will be started in cups.

The peas have been planted and the poles that will hold the pea trellises are up and the trellis fencing is ready to go. As soon as the peas pop up (double row on each side of the beds) I will finish the mulching and then the trellis fencing will go up. Once that's done I need to set more poles around that two bed area and hang netting to keep the deer out of the pea patch!. They love 'em!

25.03.13 Pea trellis fencing ready to hang.JPG

There was a tomato cage that had gotten flattened but saved in case it could ever be of some use. And so it has. I had stuck some kohlrabi on both ends of a bed that didn't need a netting tunnel and then realized afterwards that I had to protect them from the deer. The flattened cage got cut in half and then it took a while to bend each half into a somewhat rounded piece to cover the plants. It's not pretty and I'm sure a deer could stick it's snout through the cage pieces and have a munch but they usually don't. You make do with what you have!

25.03.13 Crushed tomato cage repurposed as plant protection.JPG

Little by little things wrecked by Hurricane Helene are getting fixed as time and inclination allow. The 4x4 post that held the hose got shoved over by the big pecan when it fell. Yesterday Pickles reset it in a new location after attaching a new cross piece and brackets to the top. Now I won't be tripping all over the stuff. That's a bed of asters in the background. They're all up as well as some lilies on the far right. The woody mess on the trellis behind the hose is a 'Major Wheeler' red honeysuckle. It has buds!

25.03.13 Hose holder reset in new location.JPG

Some things can't be fixed. This ladder, which used to lean against the big pecan when not in use, will probably be there until the end of time as will the tree. I used to set the oscillating fan sprinkler on the top of it to water the corn. It worked really well for that and is easy to move around the garden. Time to buy a new one once I find one on sale somewhere.

25.03.13 Another victim of H. Helene.JPG

[JayneR13]

Interesting idea about cutting up the old tomato cages for repurposing. I'm going over to the pantry garden to take an inventory and will keep that in mind with respect to the old, unusable cages. That large of a weave won't keep rabbits out but perhaps something else? Hmmm

[GoDawgs]

If you have extra cages, you can put a second half over the first and offset it a little. That would cut the space size in half. Or you can put row cover, an old sheet, plastic (whatever the weather calls for) over it for a mini tunnel.

[GoDawgs]

Yesterday ahead of the rain I got a row of carrots sown along with another half row of turnips and some more daikon radish. We got 1.5" of rain from the storms this morning so they're watered in well! I just hope the rain wasn't so hard that it blast4ed them out of their furrows! There might be standing water at the bottom of the garden but I haven't checked yet. It's an annual spring occurrence.

The peas are coming up! Time to get the trellises put up.

More signs of Spring:

The Carolina Jessamine vines around the area are blooming.

25.03.15 Carolina Jessamine blooming.JPG

And the pines are getting ready to unleash the annual Yellow Menace. They still have some swelling to do before that happens. They like to dump on Master's visitors any year they get the chance. That event is only three weeks away.

25.03.15 Pines getting ready to unleash.JPG

[GoDawgs]

Another planting day in the books. I got the last 12 broccoli out yesterday as well as 5 kale, 6 collards and the other 9' double row of snap peas. Also started 14 peppers and stuck five arugula plants in a windowbox. Love it in a salad!

Speaking of peas, I'm getting worried about the regular peas as one of the two beds isn't coming up very well. Two double rows per bed. Fresh seed too. Maybe they were planted a bit more deeply than than the other row. Pickles planted that bed but I'm sure not gonna mention it!

Pickles is watching the weather on tv and just hollered that we're to have 25-30 wind gusts tomorrow as that front that's hitting Oklahoma today comes through here. Some rain too although I'll believe that when I see it. Today's 82 will change to a 66 high tomorrow. March sure has "come in like a lion" so I hope it goes out like a lamb!

[GoDawgs]

We sure did get some wind! It wasn't too bad yesterday so I got out and about in the garden. And here comes the pollen! The pines are letting loose their stash and everything is getting covered with it.

Stuff has been getting planted. This is the F2 or second generation of collected hybrid broccoli seed just to see what the plants look like. I set six out earlier and put in the final six last week. Today scallions will get planted on the other side and then mulch everything. At the end of April okra will go down the middle. Behind that bed are the two pea beds. The first one has pretty good germination and I need to get the trellises up on that one. Still very little germination in the second bed. A mystery. If nothing comes of it I'll sow cucumber or pole beans later on the trellis in that bed. Might as well use it.

25.03.20 Second half of F2 Packman planted.JPG

The kale and collards from last fall are still hanging in there although a few have been lost along the way. I cut a mess of kale a couple weeks ago and need to cut collards tomorrow. This will become a bed for spaghetti squash later when the collards and kale get pulled.

25.03.20 Bed 6P, remaining fall '24 collards, kale.JPG

The garlic is looking good! Should be ready to pull in May. Lorz Italian on the left, Polish White on the right.

25.03.20 Bed 5H, Lorz garlic (l), Polish (r).JPG

This is a mixed bed. Some mixed garlic varieties along one side, a few kohlrabi on each end and four extra broccoli plants in the middle. There's 6' of room left in the middle and four unplanned cauliflower plants will go there in a few weeks.

25.03.20 Bed 4H, mixed garlic, kohl, broc, leeks.JPG

And finally, I've been working on that huge pecan root ball whenever the urge hits. So far I've chipped away the hard white clay from some large roots on the left side and I need to get out the chain saw and cut them off. The soil from that has filled about 2' of the hole. That's the white area on the left at the bottom. At least I can stand on it. The good thing is that while the bottom of the root ball is hard clay, the top side has about 8" of really nice soil and that will be of good use later in the garden.

25.03.20 Reclaiming 2 ft of rootball hole.JPG

[AdrianaG]

I was so sore after Friday's bed prep I could hardly move

Wow Dawg, I’m new here. Without going through all 1,572 posts, how many beds do you have? They look to be 4’ wide x 16-20’long? Muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatories are your friend.

Best thing I did in my newest house was build raised 50cm (20”) high wicking raised beds filled with a coconut fiber substrate. With the exception of one in-ground Cherokee Purple Tomato bed (and my ornamental landscape areas) this 71 year old does all of her vegetable gardening standing up. I LOVE IT!

[GoDawgs]

@AdrianaG, welcome to the Junction and come on in to da Dawg Patch, so named because I'm a big U of Georgia fan.

I used to have 16 beds, all 4'x18' but the garden stretcher snookered me into making two more so-called beds; kinda raised but no side boards. Actually they're just 3x18' tilled areas used when needed. Then there are two open areas below the raised beds, one 20x18' and one 30x18'. However the lower half of larger of the two is mostly shaded by several cedar trees on my neighbor's side of the pasture fence. I alternate corn and sunflowers between the two areas each year.

This kind of shows the garden last year with the two open areas down at the end.

24.04.17 North side of garden.JPG

This is a winter view from the open area at the bottom looking back toward the top:

24.02.10 Bleak winter garden.JPG

Yes for sure, generic ibuprofen and an ice pack for the knees are at the top of my garden tools list. And like you, this 74 year old does all of her gardening standing up, mainly due to knee replacements. But hey, who needs a gym membership when you have a garden, eh?

[karstopography]

@GoDawgs amen to the lack of a need for a gym membership.

Where I live there have been many 90-100 plus year old people. Their secret, they did their own yard and garden work by hand. Getting outside and getting physical, good for the body—— and soul.

[GoDawgs]

@karstopography, several months ago I was watching one of the Alaska shows and there was a weatherbeaten senior Aleut out with his sons out in a boat, harvesting a huge seal. On shore someone asked him how he can do such heavy work at his age. The senior looked the guy straight in the eyes, smiled and said matter of factly, "Don't sit down too soon." WOW! So true!

[karstopography]

@karstopography, several months ago I was watching one of the Alaska shows and there was a weatherbeaten senior Aleut out with his sons out in a boat, harvesting a huge seal. On shore someone asked him how he can do such heavy work at his age. The senior looked the guy straight in the eyes, smiled and said matter of factly, "Don't sit down too soon." WOW! So true!

I could be an Aleut, lol. I like fishing and small boats. I’d kill a seal if that’s what was necessary.

[JayneR13]

Amen! No need for a gym membership here. I need to repot seedlings at the moment!

[AdrianaG]

Everything looks really nice.
Some sort of winter critter is eating holes in my cabbage.

With all the rain could it be slugs?

Or little green caterpillars from cabbage moths! One of my plants got decimated overnight!

[AdrianaG]

@AdrianaG, welcome to the Junction and come on in to da Dawg Patch, so named because I'm a big U of Georgia fan.
But hey, who needs a gym membership when you have a garden, eh?

And good surgeons! Had my second hip replacement last year and 2 spine surgeries which is why the bulk of my growing is in 20” high raised beds!

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