Gardening 2023

[Chris 1,539]

I moved the houseplants, which are mostly potted herbs, outdoors since I'm tired of looking at them and I wanted to tidy up the windowsill. I successfully kept all the rosemary alive through winter, but next year I'm only keeping one plant. Or perhaps three in one larger planter. 

I can't do much else out there right now since it's so soggy, but the weeping cherry I planted for the wife last year is doing nice:

The peach trees successfully blossomed and the apple trees are starting to show signs of blossoming any day. With any luck maybe we'll get fruit this year. I am down to one 2ltr bottle of cider in the freezer!

I'm gonna stop and spend some money at Banfield Baker this week I believe, to get some soil additives for the raised beds. I also want to see if they have worm castings. I saw an episode of "Growing A Greener World" this weekend and it was pretty interesting. I also wanna see what they have for grapes, as I'm thinking of putting in 2-3 plants for the hell of it. 

[Adam 262]

10 hours ago, Chris said:

I also wanna see what they have for grapes, as I'm thinking of putting in 2-3 plants for the hell of it. 

i can grow you some vines this year if you want free ones. once they are growing out, it takes about 6-8 weeks for them to make root

 

[Chris 1,539]

We got the new garden bed put together and filled. My shoulder is still sore from all the shoveling involved to fill it, but man it looks nice. Kinda makes the old ones look sad. LOL

Eventually we'll replace the other beds with these cedar ones, possibly buying one more this year. We'll see. 

[Chris 1,539]

My father in law built a new raised bed using these stone things he got from Lowes:

As you can see he stacked them and then drove a piece of fiberglass rebar down the center. He said he chose the fiber because it was easier to cut off the excess. I'd say it worked pretty good, though I'm glad I don't have to fill it!

My suggestion was to have soil trucked in, if they can get a truck across the lawn. 

[Hal 266]

Potatoes have been in for a couple weeks and will be popping through with a bit more rain , tomatoes are in the raised beds along with cabbage , Brussels sprouts , rutabaga and Romaine lettuce . Watching Robins snip off the tops of tomato plants … just snip them for fun I guess because they didn’t eat the damn pieces , just snipped out of spite and did I hear that little bastard laughing as it flew off 🤔?

[Chris 1,539]

I went and got a bunch of topsoil to add to the beds, then started planting. I got Yukon gold and a red variety put in as well as some squash, zucchini, and some pumpkins. I put a couple pepper plants in as well as a single tomato plant. And I still have room for more like corn, beans and cukes, which I'll plant in the next couple days. 

I'm gonna put some chicken wire up on the road facing side of our shed and then plant morning glories there. The ground is pretty rough, so I'll likely get more topsoil before planting them. Then if they want to grow there year after year, they can. 

I have a feeling we're in for another dry year, but there's no optimism like a gardner has, so we'll just hope for the best. 

[Hal 266]

Not taking any chances with temps tonite , raised beds are covered just in case ! And I picked up a replacement Cherry tomato plant because the stupid Robin snipped the top out of the other one . 
So this year instead of just two 40’ rows of Klondike Gold potatoes I put in a third row of Red Pontiacs ( no , not Fords … Pontiacs ) and  all are peeking through the ground . We put our taters in the cellar for Winter use and between saving a third for seed and the rest for mashed potato hungry Grandkids we went through about 75lbs last year so another row is justified, which makes me happy as i really do like planting potatoes. 

[Chris 1,539]

Yeah I was on the fence about if it was necessary or not. Glad I did, there was definitely a frost here last night. 

[Kevin 322]

It's supposed to be colder tonight. Mine looks like the survived last night, but I covered them in a nice black plastic for tonight. Hopefully they collect a lot of heat today and survive the night. Luckily I only have about a dozen plants in and the rest are waiting till this weekend or next.

[Chris 1,539]

Fortunately I haven't planted a lot that I can't replace, but I hate to spend yet more money doing so. 

I still have about a bed and a half completely unplanted still. 

[Chris 1,539]

With it being so dry so soon, I think we are in for another crappy year for gardens and growing anything in general.