2023 veggie garden

[Killerbunny]

@WLLady in theory these shouldn't be sterile but who knows. Maybe it'll be like the hazelnuts, darn things , no nuts and then V looked up closely! Lots of nuts and amazing flavour.

[labradors]

Calamity here the other day. All my tomato plants (for the garden) were sitting in a container in their 3" pots on a table beside the window. I decided that they would get more sun on the windowsill. It was gone 7 pm when our lab, Amber, spotted something outside and felt the need to jump up at the windowsill and bark. The container did a somersault, but luckily, all the pots had a soft landing on the dog bed beneath. I'd planted 2 or 3 to a pot, but ended up with just one plant per pot. I've put them all in the basement under the lights where they are safe!

I couldn't resist potting up my container tomato plants the other day in the glorious weather. I have four, in flower, in their 3-gallon pots, enjoying the sunshine outside. Of course they will have to come inside when the temps plummet, but it's been so lovely :). with any luck we'll get edible tomatoes by mid-June.

Linda

[WLLady]

the seed pods on cercis are really flat and about 2-3 inches long and exactly the same colour as the bark and dead leaves and seem to be very clustered together....maybe just being missed? the ones on my tree fell with leaf fall too....

[thegawd]

Thanks Kathy! I can't believe how warm it gets in there sometimes. We have an exhaust fan and an intake fan which usually stops the temp from rising above 38°C. I put lattice on top of the roof before I installed the polycarbonate roof, I wouldn't want to know how hot it could be if I didn't do that. We don't have any other sunshade in there. Last summer I said... I'm guna install ac in there! Then use the condensation in some sort of auto water system to help relieve and offset the cost of running it. LOL yeah right.

No we don't have tomatoes yet but if it doesn't warm up soon were guna have to up pot them and then maybe. Their like 8" in mostly clear solo cups so I can see the roots and they are not root bound yet but getting floppy.

Frigging snow the last 2 days! Grr

[thegawd]

So I have this pot of micro-clover, its the same kind you would find in a yard. I use it for a cover crop since its a nitrogen fixer but the seeds are kind of expensive. Any ways I found this 4 leaf clover a few mins ago. I'll take it as a good sign.

[WLLady]

Well i got around to planting some of the seed last weekend, and am waiting holding my breath on sprouts! lol. i've had to put a heater in the greenhouse the last few nights, -3 last night. at least it's sunny today, hopefully that will get the seeds going. plus it's only been 4 days, i'm a tad impatient i know. Our cover crop we spread last year in the corn finally sprouted 2 weeks ago. clover everywhere! LOL. at least we'll get some nitrogen fixed before the new crop goes in. Reminds me, i need to call about the buckwheat seed. Need to get that in soon.....early may. @thegawd we got crimson clover for cover crop from the local agris mill-cheapest seed we've found, but need to buy a 50# bag minimum (we needed 7 bags for the field if i remember correctly)....places like dam seeds will sell smaller quantities at a reasonable price

[Killerbunny]

@WLLady is that red clover?

[thegawd]

My feed mill sells cover crops and I have alfalfa, red crimson clover and a white clover I can't remember the name of right now. It's super cheap by the Lb. Thankfully. I grow this micro clover as a living mulch in potted plants. Its like $10 for a tiny packet from OSC. Only place I could find it but I didn't look very hard. Obviously the micro clover stays short when its cut and works great as a living mulch/nitrogen fixer in pots.

The crimson clover is really pretty and the white is all right. A garden with those and alfalfa looks like a short wild flower garden. Pretty cool.

[TomK]

Its really intereating reading about all your gardening adventures. I learn a lot in those moments when i either stop laughing or try to get the 'aghast' look off my face. Everyone does stuff differently. I may have mentioned that the main outdoor project for me this year is to get a greenhouse built. Where I want to put it has at the moment a huge pile of garden waste accumulated over the past 10 years. It, technically, was my compost pile. I now have a three bin setup using pallets and it is doing well. But to build this greenhouse i need to move the pile of waste material elsewhere and without making a huge mess all about using the tractor. The top is all covered with wild growth of all sorts. So i took a shovel and scooped off some of that growth and HOLY COW!!!...soil....a whole pile of compost soil. It has, of course, a lot of the woodier bits all through it from sunflower and corn stalk and some twig and gourd shells etc so i need to sift it all and get it on the garden. I am a guy that always imagines how they might have done this in the old days when machines weren't available or even in existence. So I built a frame out of a few 2x4 and stapled some 1/2" hardware cloth to it and set it up at a slant and just shoveled the material to the topside and let it rumble down the screen sifting itself....Voila!....soil.....and oh my what beautiful soil it is too...point is, composting works many ways but if you have the time to wait, you don't have to do anything really...it might make it easier in the end to not have put the woodier type stuff in it, so i learn as I go, but i just piled and piled and piled......this 3 bin setup I have now requires turning and mixing the ingredients properly but the compost is ready the same year...I can do that but i do like not doing anything like before and using my time for other stuff because i don't really NEED the compost. Oh well...my ramblings on a beautiful Friday morning

[thegawd]

I found this really cool seed business called Yonder Hill Farms out of Nova Scotia. They grow all the seeds they sell and its a small family run business.

They have a pretty good selection of seeds available but I was looking for hulless oats and tartary buckwheat. I ended up also purchasing some Dutch popcorn and some perennial veggies, bunching onions, scallions and shallots. Plus they gave us a free gift... Lutz green leaf beet, the greens are good to eat and it stores very well.

We have a perennial garden with chives, ramps and a couple other herbs and I thought it would be nice to have a few more that we won't ever have to plant again.

I can't wait to plant these as soon as the weather stabilizes n warms up a bit. Plus its raining right now, which is better than snow but the ground is still to muddy to work.

After I made that order I found a nice seed collection that they offer, can be ordered in an ammo can or in a buriable pvc pipe for safe keeping. Lol I like this company even more now.

https://yonderhillfarm.ca/product/basic ... luxe-pack/