2023 veggie garden

[Happy]

Man we have so much going on I don't know where to start! I built a greenhouse 3 years ago. I think its been longer than that since I've posted on here, sorry guys!

Lizzie has like hundreds if not thousands of plants in the greenhouse!

There is a heated nursery inside the greenhouse which is just a modified plant shipping crate wrapped in plastic, a window with sliding shower doors, cement patio stones for a heatsynk, thermostats for heating and cooling, heat pads and ceramic heating elements as the heat source. Its kick ass and a fan to exhaust the excess heat when it gets over 80°F.

Theres a raised bed inside the greenhouse thats insulated and covered with clear roofing. We have had something growing in there all year. Kale just loved it but when the temps came up a bit we planted more kale, Romain, Swiss chard, n a few other things.

We're looking forward to getting all the gardens going this year. We're absolutely soaked right now and in the middle of a heavy downpour, just as things were starting to dry up. Way it goes. Lol

Lizzie started peas in the greenhouse and planted them in the garden a few days ago. There garden is on high ground and they are doing just fine.

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This is a tiny garbage can pond in the corner of the greenhouse with some rosy red minnows in it. There is also a waterfall but it's not on right now. It is really nice though.
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This set-up looks awesome. I would spend sooo many hours in there puttering.

[Ontario Chick]

oh wow!...such a lovely day out today so i went out to the garden to chk on stuff. I noticed the row of over wintered, in the ground parsnips had started to sprout greenery so out came the garden fork. I love springtime parsnips. And, I was not disappointed, so I took a quick photo. I threw my glove in for scale. This was the yield from 7 feet of plants. It is in a raised bed with about 16 inches of growing depth. The carrots are in the same bed but are out in fall, obviously. long beautiful roots. Very few stubbys. 20230408_125759_HDR.jpg

You people with 16" growing depth just kill me,
mine would have right hand angle at 4-5"
Gardening on bedrock has been an adventure, after 40 years of trucked in soil, and compost from horses, rabbits and chickens, it all simply disappeared in to the original 4-5 ".
Glad I am done with that struggle, would be afraid to bring in any new soil after I have seen how they "manufacture" it, adding city compost.
Definitely not fit to grow food in.

[TomK]

oh wow!...such a lovely day out today so i went out to the garden to chk on stuff. I noticed the row of over wintered, in the ground parsnips had started to sprout greenery so out came the garden fork. I love springtime parsnips. And, I was not disappointed, so I took a quick photo. I threw my glove in for scale. This was the yield from 7 feet of plants. It is in a raised bed with about 16 inches of growing depth. The carrots are in the same bed but are out in fall, obviously. long beautiful roots. Very few stubbys. 20230408_125759_HDR.jpg

You people with 16" growing depth just kill me,
mine would have right hand angle at 4-5"
Gardening on bedrock has been an adventure, after 40 years of trucked in soil, and compost from horses, rabbits and chickens, it all simply disappeared in to the original 4-5 ".
Glad I am done with that struggle, would be afraid to bring in any new soil after I have seen how they "manufacture" it, adding city compost.
Definitely not fit to grow food in.

OC, the land here where I have the garden has about 8" of soil before I hit the hardpan. The raised beds are 2 heights of 5/4x 6 deck board and filled with leaves, the soil from the walk ways and my compost and rotted chicken manure. One year I augmented with the compost given out free by the town of Smiths Falls. It was a mistake as I truly don't know what they use to accelerate the process or what the townsfolk actually sent to the site in the first place...never again. Sometime free has a price.
Anyway, that's how I have the depth for the root veggies.

[TomK]

@TomK will try that this year. Didn't realise you could do that in this climate!

Gill..yup...the trick is to get them.out of thw ground as soon as you can...otherwise they can start to grow and go hairy and woody...but the wintering adds a level of flavour that i truly like

[thegawd]

Hey Happy! Thanks, the greenhouse was many years in the making. Were still working on it a bit here and there trying to create more space for plants. Lizzie does spend a lot of time in here and my kids hang out in there all the time. You know I feel enlightened after a few minutes of being in there. It smells amazing and I'm sure the higher level of oxygen helps out. Gardening is therapy, food security and fun. Its a way of life that I'm glad I grew up in and enjoy it very much. I also have a trailer that I converted into a heated grow room that I grow plants in all year round. I have a massive aloe vera plant that bloomed this winter! Soooo cool. Those pics are unfortunately trapped on a phone with a broken screen. Otherwise I would share them. It was pretty darn cool.

Man I swear I could dig for ever here and not find any bedrock. Instead its all MUD! I might put a sump pump in the garden. I started digging trenches all around and through it to help it drain. What a mess.

[thegawd]

Right on Tom! I always look forward to seeing what you have going on. We found carrots last spring that we missed the fall before. Those get planted in a bed that doesn't flood. They went missing because someone who didn't think there was anything left in the bed, cut it with the lawnmower... wonder who that was. LOL

[TomK]

Right on Tom! I always look forward to seeing what you have going on. We found carrots last spring that we missed the fall before. Those get planted in a bed that doesn't flood. They went missing because someone who didn't think there was anything left in the bed, cut it with the lawnmower... wonder who that was. LOL

Al...funny you mention that..I was out today cleaning up some of the beds and in the other half of the one I had the parsnips in I found 3 carrots...2 orange ones and 1 red one...the red ones we grow for looks more than flavour...I find them tasting a little flat...the orange ones have better flavour ...I usually pick up a pack or 2 of the red ones and white ones to mix in just for the colour variation on my dinner plate.
I have a decent fence around my garden..6 ' high but this winter one of the does in the local herd figured out where to jump over and chk out the offerings under the snow...so there's another fix I need to do...like i need more to do...lol...I gave it some thought about what they did in days past..way past....the deer must have learned not to get too close to the farmstead because if they did they always came home missing somebody...lol...I don't hunt but if this keeps up I just may take it up....

[WLLady]

So any of you have tomatoes on those plants yet? LOL I will be planting this weekend likely-if i do any earlier it seems i'm transplanting full grown tomatoes WITH tomatoes on them.....! So this weekend is the weekend, ironically i have to wait until the greenhouse is NOT 50C with 29C outside and sun. I have NEVER had to put up shade cloth in april, and i just simply refuse this year just to take it down on the weekend LOL. @thegawd your greenhouse looks AWESOME! (jealous! LOL). I swear, if we ever build a shop out here, i'm doing something like that off the south side. I have one of those palram plastic greenhouses, which is taped together and strapped so it doesn't disintegrate in the wind (sometimes it still loses panels....sigh....). Our weather is just too windy here for those, some day hopefully I'll get something more like yours built out of honest to goodness wood and Lexan or glass panelling.

Been kicking around the idea of a pile of raised beds. The back ain't what it used to be.....and our dirt here just eats anything organic we put in-including cedar fence posts! The garden is FINALLY workable, after 15 years of a ton of pure horse/chicken/turkey manure going in EVERY year. Half expected to see the asparagus up already....(not yet).

we had a bad time with deer this year. We moved the one electric fence so now they can walk straight down the field and eat all the fruit trees along the way. I might put that fence back in......just makes it a PITA to get to the beehives. They ate the maple trees along the driveway (just the tips thankfully) but did in all the baby trees i was growing in plot by the greenhouse-all of them except the catalpas. They even nibbled the old dead ends of the russian sage, the grapevines, and the new fruit trees we put in last fall. I am seriously contemplating hunting my yard this year! Then i also discovered the horse ate half the lilac bush! Not sure what she was missing in her diet-probably just didn't like that the alfalfa was gone from the bale of hay....she is NOT starving....sigh. Plane trees are doing great, and looks like 1, maybe 2 of the pawpaws i started last year might have survived.

waiting to see if my redbuds flower this year! they had a few blooms last year and i collected seed and have another 10 baby redbuds growing in pots Also retrying my hand at sprouting woody cuttings...Looks like i might have succeeded with the mulberries, and i have about 100 apple cuttings that seem to actually be callousing this year, so fingers crossed!

[Killerbunny]

My redbuds bloom but don't set seed. ANy ideas??

[WLLady]

@Killerbunny there are some named cultivars of cercis that are sterile and do not set seed. they are still great for bees and butterflies!