What did you do in the garden today?

[Lazy Gardener]

Spent last evening renovating the last section of the garden. I dug an entire wheel barrow of mint rhizomes out of that area. The mint went absolutely crazy, spreading like wild fire under the BTE mulch. Still a Lot of bits and pieces of rhizomes left that will plague me for some time to come. However, at least they should be fairly easy to pull as they show up through the sawdust in that section. I'm a slow learner. Some herbs simply must spend their lives confined to buckets!

That area will be planted to Roma tomatoes, and perhaps some sweet potato vines, or some potatoes.

My plans to plant potatoes in the sheet compost area have been thwarted by work on the HK mound. So... I will resort to planting the potatoes under the BTE mulch in the orchard.

Next project will be digging the sod away from the outside of the garden fence, and lining the fence with cedar slab wood. I have about 100 l.f. of fence line to go to complete that project. Will check with my saw mill guy to see if he has any hemlock slab!

Raining heavily now. So... no outdoor work today.

Have been having nice salads, and giving greens away from greenhouse. Garlic is very close to sending up scapes. Pole beans and cukes are sprouting. (finally.)

 

[Britesea]

We ate our first cucumber... shared it onsite, it never made it into the house, lol. Lots of lettuce looking real nice; the head lettuce has little tiny heads nestled into their centers, so cute! I have a mister over them in the hopes that this will keep them from bolting. The winter squash is slowly making a comeback from the snap freeze we had last week; my frost cloth didn't protect them completely, even with 2 layers.
We are about 1/3 of the way through digging up the last bed. It had strawberries in it, but the couch grass overwhelmed it and it's been pretty much neglected for the last several years. We are turning one of our old, broke down plastic trash cans into a container for weed tea-- best thing I can think of to do with all that couch grass since I can't compost it. I think we'll get a spigot and try to set it up for easy of drawing off the tea. I'm just trying to figure out how high up the can to put it.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Be sure to put a net over it to exclude mosquitoes. Or they will consider it to be their breeding ground.

 

[FarmerJamie]

 

[Britesea]

 

[FarmerJamie]

View attachment 11485

The varmints ate all of the blossoms. I have a total of 4 peppers growing now. Lol

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Any idea who did that? I have to use Sluggo to protect my fruit. Otherwise, the slugs will burrow a tiny hole, crawl inside, and eat the pepper from the inside out. I may pick a perfectly fine looking pepper, open it up to find a very happy slug who has grown huge, while sliming, eating and pooping all over the interior of the pepper.

 

[FarmerJamie]

Any idea who did that? I have to use Sluggo to protect my fruit. Otherwise, the slugs will burrow a tiny hole, crawl inside, and eat the pepper from the inside out. I may pick a perfectly fine looking pepper, open it up to find a very happy slug who has grown huge, while sliming, eating and pooping all over the interior of the pepper.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Time for some rabbit stew. I hear it's really good if you add carrots! Is your garden fenced? Are you in a no shoot zone?

 

[Lazy Gardener]

We ate our first cucumber... shared it onsite, it never made it into the house, lol. Lots of lettuce looking real nice; the head lettuce has little tiny heads nestled into their centers, so cute! I have a mister over them in the hopes that this will keep them from bolting. The winter squash is slowly making a comeback from the snap freeze we had last week; my frost cloth didn't protect them completely, even with 2 layers.
We are about 1/3 of the way through digging up the last bed. It had strawberries in it, but the couch grass overwhelmed it and it's been pretty much neglected for the last several years. We are turning one of our old, broke down plastic trash cans into a container for weed tea-- best thing I can think of to do with all that couch grass since I can't compost it. I think we'll get a spigot and try to set it up for easy of drawing off the tea. I'm just trying to figure out how high up the can to put it.

I'd put it about 1/3 to 1/2 way up, and be sure to add some sort of net to prevent it from getting clogged by sucking up the weedy slime.

I just toss the weeds in a bucket, add water... when the water gets dark... when I need to fertilize somewhere... when I see mosquito larvae in it, I use the contents and start again. I think using a bucket of water this way encourages the mosquitoes to breed THERE (instead of elsewhere). If you keep an eye on it, and dump it before any larvae get a chance to complete their cycle, you have effectively created a trap system. Any mosquitoes breeding THERE are doing so in such a way that you are destroying ALL of the next generation.

I need to set up a RAIN barrel. Same concept: use it as a trap system. Either load it with goldfish or float a few mosquito dunks in it.