flowerbug
Sustainability Master
i'm going to have to pick peppers if there are any. we may have had frost last night. tonight is forecast to be even colder so today is the time.
What did you do in your garden today?
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FarmerJamie
Mr. Sensitive
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Glad I got the gardens cleaned up last weekend. Frost tonight
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
no frost in our forecast for tonight but last night and the night before pretty much did the job on any remaining veggie plants out there.
today i got a part of a garden cleaned up. plenty more to do. nice thing was that i got a few bags of bean pods and half a bucket of pods, plus veggie scraps from the fridge i'd been keeping to take out to bury and also a bucket of scraps i'd set to the side in the garage for this purpose. so cleared up some space in my room (very much needed!) and in the garage (also needed). just the right amount of exercise for me (a few hours is enough).
Mini Horses
Sustainability Master
So I like cardboard for weed control due to biodegradable....I can get boxes from jobs, so free. Chemicals are not used
BUT -- its a PITA to use. Last yr I planted and laid landscape fabric between rows, then mulched. Good results, not perfect. Looking into bigger, commercial rolls.....then, there's the clean up, eventually
. No good answer. Who's got a better system? What's worked for you?
I do some containers, some fence climbers -- mostly not raised beds due to what & how much. I like tractor to work it. Seems always a small hand till machine after initial plant is needed/helpful. Many of us face this challenge. Let's brainstorm.
BUT -- its a PITA to use. Last yr I planted and laid landscape fabric between rows, then mulched. Good results, not perfect. Looking into bigger, commercial rolls.....then, there's the clean up, eventually
. No good answer. Who's got a better system? What's worked for you?I do some containers, some fence climbers -- mostly not raised beds due to what & how much. I like tractor to work it. Seems always a small hand till machine after initial plant is needed/helpful. Many of us face this challenge. Let's brainstorm.
akroberts
Almost Self-Reliant
I'm going to be doing containers for some of my vegetables and some fruit. I have bought 2 raised beds that are metal from Temu for less than $100. I have a tiller and husband has a tractor so I hope I can use the tractor to push a lot of the ground to expose more of the roots so that I can put down cardboard then add heavy duty landscape fabric. I'm also thinking about trying electro culture. I have 2 different drip irrigation sets so I won't have to water for hours at a time and trying to keep moving the hose around. I don't know that it's going to work, but it's worth a shot.So I like cardboard for weed control due to biodegradable....I can get boxes from jobs, so free. Chemicals are not used
BUT -- its a PITA to use. Last yr I planted and laid landscape fabric between rows, then mulched. Good results, not perfect. Looking into bigger, commercial rolls.....then, there's the clean up, eventually
I do some containers, some fence climbers -- mostly not raised beds due to what & how much. I like tractor to work it. Seems always a small hand till machine after initial plant is needed/helpful. Many of us face this challenge. Let's brainstorm.
Mini Horses
Sustainability Master
I think I need a robot hoe! 
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
So I like cardboard for weed control due to biodegradable...[...]BUT -- its a PITA to use. Last yr I planted and laid landscape fabric between rows, then mulched. Good results, not perfect. Looking into bigger, commercial rolls.....then, there's the clean up, eventually
...
clean up? i just bury it all with any garden debris. since Mom can't stand mulches being left on the surface any thing i've used to mulch and anything left from the garden has to be buried and raked smooth enough.
per garden i dig a trench (so i'm not disturbing the entire garden so my method is probably technically called low till) and bury everything in there. worms love cardboard. by next spring it's mostly gone. the next year's i try to remember to bury stuff in different areas so eventually the whole garden does get amended with the debris. the other part of this is that as i'm digging the trench i'm also trying to get down deeper in the clay to bury stuff to help with drainage and to give the worms some organic materials down deeper to hide in from the dry spells and the cold, etc. i also bury stuff in layers with some dirt in between if there is that much so it works as a in place composting setup too, which only gets turned a few years later. in clay it is interesting how much stuff you can bury and then find it years later as a layer of what looks like peat moss. one time i dug open a spot of buried debris and if i'd lit a match it would have probably burned or exploded. the clay held in the methane of decomposition.
it's efficient because i'm not tilling an entire garden. i can put up a garden or two a day.
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flowerbug
Sustainability Master
after opening my big mouth above (hehehe) i got half a garden done today (not a whole garden or two). in my defense the ground is pretty hard (no rain and mostly clay) even if this is one of my better gardens it still was coming out in chunks larger than the blade of the shovel. i was hopping up in the air to come down on the shovel enough to get it to break through to the softer ground below. sometimes i was having to do this more than one time per shovel blade dig. i got two blades wide and perhaps larger than that in spots and a blade and a half deep.
i enjoy digging because it gives me an idea of how well the garden soil is doing. it's also interesting to see the amendments i've put down in spots through the years and some i find many years later. today i found some spots where i'd used the worm compost to feed tomato or weed plants the previous four years and then down deeper i came across an older trench where i'd buried garden debris and any other organic stuff i could put in there. it was all dark and peaty looking. perfect for that garden which would soak up all the organic stuff i could find to put on and in it.
so i mixed some of that peaty stuff up and made sure it was spread along the bottom of the trench somewhat, piled in six of the tomato plants and their leftovers and debris and called that good enough for the day (a few hours of what could almost be called breaking rocks
). then i needed a break myself and felt done for the day but then i decided to check out the bean patch for dry pods to pick and also to sample the back part of that patch to see if the beans that are in there are going to be worth picking any more or not. i haven't had a chance to shell them out yet and probably won't touch them again until Monday since i'm scheduled for tomorrow with non-gardening stuff. grr! lol life goes on...
cleaned off the house earlier of spider webs and some egg sacs. needed to be done weeks ago but today was the day.
felt good to get a few items off my list at last. finally!
i enjoy digging because it gives me an idea of how well the garden soil is doing. it's also interesting to see the amendments i've put down in spots through the years and some i find many years later. today i found some spots where i'd used the worm compost to feed tomato or weed plants the previous four years and then down deeper i came across an older trench where i'd buried garden debris and any other organic stuff i could put in there. it was all dark and peaty looking. perfect for that garden which would soak up all the organic stuff i could find to put on and in it.
so i mixed some of that peaty stuff up and made sure it was spread along the bottom of the trench somewhat, piled in six of the tomato plants and their leftovers and debris and called that good enough for the day (a few hours of what could almost be called breaking rocks
). then i needed a break myself and felt done for the day but then i decided to check out the bean patch for dry pods to pick and also to sample the back part of that patch to see if the beans that are in there are going to be worth picking any more or not. i haven't had a chance to shell them out yet and probably won't touch them again until Monday since i'm scheduled for tomorrow with non-gardening stuff. grr! lol life goes on...cleaned off the house earlier of spider webs and some egg sacs. needed to be done weeks ago but today was the day.
felt good to get a few items off my list at last. finally!
akroberts
Almost Self-Reliant
I feel ya with that. I'm saying I'm cleaning the house nothing else aand as it goes (blow raspberries), it don't happen, EVER! Wish I could just wiggle my nose or snap my finger and make it so that everything is where and how I want it to be.after opening my big mouth above (hehehe) i got half a garden done today (not a whole garden or two). in my defense the ground is pretty hard (no rain and mostly clay) even if this is one of my better gardens it still was coming out in chunks larger than the blade of the shovel. i was hopping up in the air to come down on the shovel enough to get it to break through to the softer ground below. sometimes i was having to do this more than one time per shovel blade dig. i got two blades wide and perhaps larger than that in spots and a blade and a half deep.
i enjoy digging because it gives me an idea of how well the garden soil is doing. it's also interesting to see the amendments i've put down in spots through the years and some i find many years later. today i found some spots where i'd used the worm compost to feed tomato or weed plants the previous four years and then down deeper i came across an older trench where i'd buried garden debris and any other organic stuff i could put in there. it was all dark and peaty looking. perfect for that garden which would soak up all the organic stuff i could find to put on and in it.
so i mixed some of that peaty stuff up and made sure it was spread along the bottom of the trench somewhat, piled in six of the tomato plants and their leftovers and debris and called that good enough for the day (a few hours of what could almost be called breaking rocks
cleaned off the house earlier of spider webs and some egg sacs. needed to be done weeks ago but today was the day.
felt good to get a few items off my list at last. finally!
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
I feel ya with that. I'm saying I'm cleaning the house nothing else aand as it goes (blow raspberries), it don't happen, EVER! Wish I could just wiggle my nose or snap my finger and make it so that everything is where and how I want it to be.
i spot clean. that means i clean in spots. also means that i am spotted and clean and also if there is a dog named Spot i'm also probably going to clean that too... if i can get started on it then i will go about a half hour before finding some reason to do something else or get called away to help on something else or whatever other distraction that i can drum up.
on the whole though, i am not a tidy person but when it comes down to doing dishes and cleaning up i really hate it when it isn't done well and in the proper order. Mom puts everything in the sink and i end up taking it all out of the sink again because i like doing things in a certain order.
OCD stuff i guess. lol it's good we can laugh about it most of the time. 
