Spring 2019 garden plans

[catlady]

Hi everyone!  Since JillRod’s fancy garden beds generated some thread drift, Coconut Flan reminded me that we have the garden club.  

So what are you planning on for this season?  

What grows well for your area and your skill level?

What kind of fencing will keep deer away?  And how high should it be?  

What are your other critter deterrents?  

I’m replenishing the soil on my vegetable garden this year.  The last two seasons were pretty poor because the dirt has gotten depleted.  I’m putting down compost and planting the whole thing in clover this year to let it rest.  I will probably end up with a couple of patio tomatoes, because it’s just not summer without them.  

My focus will be on the perennial flowers.  I have a lot of maintenance to do.  The queen anne’s lace got out of control last year, so I need to take care of that and get the general weeding reined in.  I mulch every other year, so this is a mulch year.  Then I have some hostas that I want to split up and move around; those do well in my region, so I have many.  And I will put in some basil; I have a dedicated section for that in the one flower bed.  

 

[PumaLover]

Hi! I posted in the JRod thread that we aren't going to be able to do our whole garden this year like we had planned, but I'm hoping we may be able to get at least a couple raised beds going. Gophers are a huge problem and I'm learning from my mistakes at our  last house. I had the most beautiful garden and the gophers literally pulled all my plants down into their holes and ate them, one by one! So I want to make sure to predator proof the bottoms of all the beds. We also have ground squirrels and I think they can climb, so I'm not sure what to do about them.

I am also curious about any kind of weedblock that has worked for other members since the kind we got at Home Depot sucked. 

I'm posting a pic of the part of our property where we're hoping to eventually build our garden. The old owners had goats and you can see the outline of the fence. That's about how big we would like to make it. I love the idea of putting gravel in between the raised beds. Someone mentioned that on the JRod thread.

I am hoping to grow different kinds of heirloom tomatoes, squash, peppers and strawberries. Oh, and basil!! I'm not sure if I can grow anything in the wintertime because of the ice and snow but I would like to grow kale and cabbage and lettuce if possible. 

The chicken coop took priority this year so I'll have to live vicariously through the pics of other people's gardens for now. I'll post updates if we're able to get anything planted after all!

Spoiler

pics of future garden site, chicken and wildflowers

My chicken came over to say hi!

At least I have wildflowers to enjoy!

 

[catlady]

On weed blocker:  I have had mixed results.  If I’m getting rid of a section of grass, the brown fabric type is good, but go for a wide roll, because grass will get between the panels unless you have a lot of overlap.  If you have newspaper in large quantities, wet it down and it can go under mulch.  Use 2 or 3 pages at a time layered together, and overlap.  

The drawback that i’ve had is that after a couple of seasons, new weeds grow in the mulch/dirt on top of the weed blocker.  Especially the damn Queen Anne’s lace, which has very shallow roots.  

@PumaLover, what breeds of chickens do you have?  I have an australorp and two silkies, but they’re aging to the point that they’re not laying anymore.  The silkies are nine this spring and petered out a couple years ago.  The australorp was the queen of the egg-layers, because until last year in late summer, when she was 7.5, she laid an egg every single day from late February to Thanksgiving. Her legs have been bothering her for about a year and a half now, she sits down a lot and doesn’t wander the whole yard like she used to, but she still runs when she’s begging for treats.

[PumaLover]

Aw, we have an Australorp too! We just love her. When she free ranges she'll come up and knock on the front door with her beak! We have a mix of Americaunas, a gray silkie/sizzle, a Columbian Wyandotte (one of my faves), a tiny banty Welsummer, three regular sized Welsummers, a Cornish... and a Muscovy duck. Only a few of the birds lay consistently but I couldn't see getting rid of them even after they stop laying (despite what my husband says!). We only got them last summer but I just love them so much. I work from home so on my breaks I go down there and hang out with them and take pics.

I'm going to start a topic in one of the pet threads to post pics. They are just so much fun!

Thanks for the info about the weed block. When we were working on the new chicken coop, we had to dig some of the hillside out and it was just jam packed with earthworms. My brother in law told me that's a great sign that we have very good and fertile soil. We would need to bring in some dirt/mulch for the boxes but I'm hoping we can use some of our natural soil too.

[Terrie]

Late spring here, with a snowstorm in the middle of April. So I've just started on prepping. Got the raspberry canes thinned, with all the old one removed. Set up a new "fencing" around them, to try to keep them from flopping over. Wire lines, not string. We'll see how it holds up. I bought some seeds a couple weeks ago. Lost the seeds. I have no idea where they went. Will need to get more. Keeping it simple this year. Lettuce, carrots, beans. Big plant sale, will get some dill, basil, maybe some chili peppers and tomatoes.

I have one flower bed that had raspberries that I ripped out (I get more than I can ever eat from the one bed I left). Might pick up some more wild geraniums for that spot. They're pretty. I like native wild flowers. Get the right ones, and they just need occasional weeding.

[Coconut Flan]

I added a new chile to the mix this year:  Dragon Cayenne.

This morning I picked the first one.  It lives up to its name.  It's supposed to be twice as hot as a regular cayenne and it is.