garden plans for 2012

[StupidBird]

I could've SWORN I posted on this one! Is this thread over on BYC?



I have to admit I now have what's considered a big garden. The latest addition is 75x25. Six raised beds in a kitchen garden beside the garage, with a row of blackberries, lemon balm, and blueberries. Then, 3x25 foot permanent wide rows in the main garden...ten of them, and more being developed. Along with strawberry and asparagus new patches, another 70' row of blackberries. Ooops.

And I'm trying dwarf fruit trees, dwarf for ease of pest and disease control. Just some apples and plums for now.

2012: Rigorous planning for pest and disease control. No going on 3 weeks hiatus midseason this year. I've a roll of old hay to use for mulch in paths and around plants; I use about one roll per year. I have had every disease and insect pest on the UGA Extension service site. Expand the drip irrigation system. I order from a company online in California - their stuff is a little more expensive than the stuff at the local hardware chain, but loads better quality and easier to use. Now, I need to use it often enough...the water bill can be scary.

so lucky, I also have become annoyingly reliant on others for the heavy duty work. Double digging new beds just ain't happening anymore. Going to the no-till method on permanent beds, and low-till on the big areas. At least I can still run the tiller.

I love the seed catalogs! Yay! I would buy EVERYTHING! Hence, the excessive planning, because it's all gotta go somewhere.

 

[so lucky]

I wanted to add: A success of mine this past season was my weed prevention in the garden. I used lots of newspaper and cardboard in all the paths, then covered with straw or pine shavings, as they became available. Then I watered everything down thoroughly. The weeds were virtually non-existent. Only in a few places where the paper shifted did they dare to show their nasty little heads. In the bean rows I did have to do some hand weeding, but after the beans got up tall enough to shade their area, the weeds weren't bad there, either. I think I will leave those same paths for next season and not till there.

 

[kstaven]

But we can't even think about starting seeds indoors till February for the earliest things we'll plant, since our "official" last frost date is the third weekend of May

One of the many reasons I left Alberta for this valley in BC.

 

[BarredBuff]

FarmerJamie wanted me to add on to what I said about potato growing. We are trying a new way of growing them. We are hoping it will work. We tilled our tater ground up (half of it) twice, and layed it with rotting hay, ashes, lime, and maybe some compost. Then took a black mat over it and layed it over the area and tacked it down. Then we have found a recipe for tater bugs

We are hoping for a good crop!

 

[FarmerJamie]

FarmerJamie wanted me to add on to what I said about potato growing. We are trying a new way of growing them. We are hoping it will work. We tilled our tater ground up (half of it) twice, and layed it with rotting hay, ashes, lime, and maybe some compost. Then took a black mat over it and layed it over the area and tacked it down. Then we have found a recipe for tater bugs

We are hoping for a good crop!

What's with the mat?

 

[Dawn419]

Seems like not too many people planning 2012 gardens, yet.

I'm not sure about the rest of the members, Joel, but 2011 was not a good year to most gardeners in the US. Here in Arkansas and many other states, we went from one extreme to the other and none of it was in a good way.

I bought most of my seeds for 2012 already, even though I had hoped to save a lot of them (heirlooms) but you can't save seeds from what didn't produce...and for me that was pretty much nothing. I felt like a complete failure (we're starting new gardens on undeveloped land) until I found out pretty much everyone else in our area had the same problem. We had a wet spring, then summer temperatures came early and the heat was crazy hot before summer ever officially arrived.

Fall season wasn't much better, either. Lots of rain in November and then the weather turned cold after Thanksgiving. We've had an inch and a half of snow here in our area already and we've been lucky if we have snow flurries by Christmas! I've been totally humbled by the weather in our 2 years of living in Arkansas but not defeated!

 

[BarredBuff]

FarmerJamie wanted me to add on to what I said about potato growing. We are trying a new way of growing them. We are hoping it will work. We tilled our tater ground up (half of it) twice, and layed it with rotting hay, ashes, lime, and maybe some compost. Then took a black mat over it and layed it over the area and tacked it down. Then we have found a recipe for tater bugs

We are hoping for a good crop!

What's with the mat?

It will help the plants keep watered, and hopefully deter bug.

 

[Marianne]

1) How big is your garden area? Traditional garden rows / raised beds / pots or containers / combo? Is your garden on your property or do you have a community garden plot (or a combo of both)?

Our garden is about 24' x 40', on our property. Not traditional rows as I plant everything in blocks or large beds and do compact gardening out of habit. My potato patch went across the back of the garden and came out about 5'. I staggered the pieces when I planted them so get more in a smaller area. There's still room to get in between plants to mulch later, but it takes up less space overall.

I'm taking out my raised beds that are elsewhere. In spite of mulch, they still required more water than the garden. I have a seperate area for rasp plants and I got some blackberry starts from Dawn so I'll have to find a spot for them if they make it through the winter. Right now they're planted in a shelltered area but I haven't figured out where their permanent home is going to be.

2) What are your gardening goals? Fresh eating during the season to supplement groceries / preservation for the rest of the year through: canning / freezing / dehydrating / root cellaring or other cold storage?

I always try to grow enough potatoes, tomatoes, onions to last us a year. Tomatoes are the main focus as there are so many things you can make with them. I don't have a cold storage area, so everything has to be preserved in some fashion. We're getting half a beef next fall, so I'm going to try to get an outdoor kitchen area built and do more canning than freezing next harvest....or that's the plan of the moment anyway! When it's 105 outside and I'm supposed to be canning, I might change my mind! But I want to avoid acquiring another freezer if possible.

This next season, I'll plant more of what does well here, and forget about planting then fighting what doesn't grow well.

3) Did you have pest problems in 2011 and how did you deal with them?
Yes! Squash bugs are a huge battle every year. I usually don't spray pesticides, but last year I broke out the Sevin, sprayed often, checked plants, leaves often and still got very little - a few zucchini and ONE yellow crookneck. Sunsaver suggested spraying with strong Dawn/water, waiting 5 minutes then rinsing the plants off very well. Unfortunately it was too late, I wished I would have asked about it on here sooner.

Huge problem with cucumber beetles this past year, too.

Had a couple potato beetles, but the regular Dawn/ water mix took care of them. I also carry a sack with me to take off any suspicious looking leaves.

4) Did you have plant disease problems in 2011 and how did you deal with them / how do you plan to deal with any aftermath in the coming years?

I fought some kind of blight (halo) every year on my green beans since we've moved out here. I tried burning all the debris, one year burned every bit of the garden , moved to different locations, tried different varieties, on and on. The best year was when I picked every single leaf that looked like it was getting it, trying not to touch any other leaves. The plants looked pretty sad some times, but they came back. I mulch heavily, so I don't have to water very often and always water at the bottom of the plants in the morning. This past year I didn't have too many leaves to pick, plants looked okay-ish, and still had a dismal crop. This next year I'm not planting green beans and will focus on what does grow well here - different pepper plants, etc.

5) What is one thing you want to improve about your garden in 2012?

In a perfect world, I'd get a water line run out to the garden area. DH would like it too, but right now we have bigger fish to fry. We have located a big tank for a rain water harvesting system to put in the corner of the garden, so that will help a lot. I did put my new garlic bed in the regular garden area this year. I'm sizing everything down so there's not so much work in dragging garden hoses around, or having to move same garden hoses at mowing time.

6) What specific challenges do you face where you garden and do you have any questions that perhaps someone here can help you with? (This can be anything--water availability, slope, shade, soil, weather etc.)

High alkaline soil! and of course, the same with the well water. Garden soil is gradually getting better with compost, coop litter, etc, and I hope that using the harvested rain water will also help.

7) What is one triumph of your 2011 garden year? (Plant varieties that did super well / a new technique you tried that really paid off / just the fact that you did something new or even began a garden for the first time (yay!) / ways to extend your season / you got some member/s of your family on board for the first time etc.)

A really good tomato crop. It might have been just one or two degrees cooler here that made all the difference, as our neighbor, Muttlycrew, had great tomatoes this past year, too. All of our friends elsewhere got half a dozen tomatoes and that was it. I plant Celebrity only, as that's the only variety that has performed well in my location every year. We had a good cucumber crop before the beetles got ahead of us.

And every year I try to plant some kind of edible landscape plant. Got my first grapes this past year. I really enjoyed all 10 of them.

 

[rd200]

My "plan" is just to keep the garden alive this year!!!

This past summer I felt so bad because i neglected my garden for like a month pretty early on and my tomatoes never recovered. Which really stinks because i love love love canning tomatoe juice and salsa and spaghetti sauce. So.... i only got 10 quarts of tomatoe juice, no salsa, and 5 pints of spaghetti sauce. It was from donated tomatoes from one of my moms' friends who was sick of canning and just watned to get rid of the tomatoes.

My real plan is to get my compost going good so i can do raised beds instead of rows. I would like to do raised beds around the perimitter and then in the very middle i wanted to plant my squash so that it can vine all in and around the raised beds and wont interfer with my other plants. We love squash but it takes up so much room when they swallow up other plants with their vines!!! I really need to get the motivation to weed, water, and tend to it everyday or every other day. Ihave a full time job and 2 kids so the garden often gets a little neglected. But now when its middle of december and im sitting here eating Canned Applesauce, a big glass of cold, salty tomatoe juice, and just had a few canned dillpickles, that should be motivation enough. Soooo tasty!!! Nothing from the store compares.

I want to also start with small plantings spread out instaed of going great guns for one weekend and getting everything in. I think successive plantings are going to be better. And as much as i really really want to try new things etc, i just want to concentrate on the things i do good at and we eat the most. Id rather have 10 good products than 30 half A** products that i dont get around to half of them and couldve done a better job with less.

I feel like im not doing as much as i should be with the garden so this year will hopefully be different now that i have the hang and confidence of canning. Last year i didnt really know much about canning and with a 6 month old baby it was kinda difficult to get a few solid hours to can. I always had to cut everything up, prepare etc on naps and then when they went to bed, make brine, etc and hot water bath.

Any suggestions on seed companies?? Easy shipping, good plants, heirloom seeds??

 

[Gypsi]

Right now I've got a little swiss chard in, broccoli, romaine lettuce, and onions. I want to plant more swiss chard so I'll have plenty of greens to blanch and freeze, but it's cold out and I have to do the computer work some time.

I have 1/12th of an acre dedicated to gardening - that's 1/4 of my 1/3 acre lot. House and front yard get 1/4 - have some oregano, peppermint and strawberries in a front flower bed. Back yard is owned by the dogs, do have a green house to start early spring seeds in.
Front yard of my corner lot is the garden, as well as a drive to park my old chevy. Raised organic bed, the rest are ground level, with a slightly raised bed behind plywood walls for my asparagus. The plants that survived summer best are between shrubs and a pine tree, a little shade is nice. I'm still digging the bermuda off this section, it will be a few years before I'm grass-free.
Back half of the corner lot is the field for my septic, nearly 100% sand. I seed wildflowers, this year added crimson clover and white dutch along the inside of the fence. Will see what they do.

I can't do container, esp with the drought. I had strawberries doing great in the raised organic bed, the august heat killed them all. Will replant in the shady fertile soil between shrubs and pine next year, and NOT raise the bed. Those roots need water.

Gypsi