Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Any hardcore Gardners here??

I am not familiar with modern irrigation equipment in orchards, but I would look into a subsurface irrigation system and make sure it can be winterized easily. I have not done orchard research for over 25 years.

If you are going the herbicide route for weed control in vegies, follow label directions.

http://msucares.com/lawn/garden/vegetables/weed/index.html

Underground irrigation hose between the trees black poly..

TJ, sorry I must of missed your post.. Yeah I'm over the roundup I won't use decided against it pretty well as soon as I really thought about it, the whole reason for the garden was organic.. I'm going with straw over the weedmat..

Thanks guys. Black poly it is, with cleanouts. I can run air thru the system pretty easily to blow the majority of water out of the system. I'll make sure that it's sloped to allow for the water to accumulate in the lowest area, and make sure there is a clean-out there.

BGK

Good to hear you're shelving the roundup idea. I suggest saving all your shredded leaves from this Fall and put them on the beds over winter. The snow thaw freeze back and forth helps break them down some more, and they serve as great mulch/weed barrier that also helps the soil as they break down into compost. When your leaves are fully decomposed hopefully you'll have a nice batch of grass clippings saved over Spring/Summer to add to your beds as needed. I like a nice 4" layer. This too decomposes into a nice soil additive and I rototill the whole thing after our first hard freeze and start all over again. Turned 100% hard tack clay into a sweet loam in about 4 seasons that way. 100% natural and super effective.

I used to be really into raised bed gardening.

My first raised bed.





Anaheim Chili, Revolution F1 Pepper, Sweet Basil, Oregano on the west, and a few onions.

Anaheim's got to about 42" tall, produced a bunch, as with everything else.

I watched a Martha Stewart show on stuffing Anaheim Chilies, and the ones she got were despicable compared to what this bed produced. Excellent pork recipe she had for stuffing these things

I think they should make cologne, or at least deodorant out of Sweet Basil

Well I had a couple fatalities to the frost the last 2 nights.. I covered everything with the extra weed mat and my tomatoes with buckets.. Almost all my peppers are dead along with all my tomatoes all my corn, brocolli, cauliflower, sprouts, cabage, onions, potatoes made it.. The tomatoes looked horrible anyways when i bought them they were purple from phosphorus deficiency then I read online when it gets cold they can't absorb phos so went from bad to worse now they're totally mush.. Peppers were in great shape kinda stumped on why they croaked, I'm chalking it up too coldness in general.. Any suggestions..?

Try to to resist the urge to plant early. You may get lucky some years but over the long haul you will just be replanting a lot.

I had to scrape ice off the windows of my truck this morning.

Way too early to put stuff in the ground, even tho the bug is biting

@ Bluegiller...How cold did it actually get? Tomatoes and peppers are warmth loving plants. Corn is in the grass family, and can tolerate colder temps. If it got cold enough, your corn will probably develope white streaking in the leaves.Depending on how cold it actually got, it may be ok. Just keep your eyes open for streaking.

The Broc,cauli,cabbage, onions are a cool season plant, they most generally can handle some cold weather. Lettuce is best grown when the seed is sown in the snow.

Mid 20's this morning. I do not have anything outside, and probably won't for a while.

Big happenings going on with the MI Cherry crop. Darn, I love those fresh picked Black Cherries

Believe it or not, no frost at my house. Apple blooms still hangin in there! And my 3 peaches.

Are you showing us the garden, or the gal in the bikini?

It got down to mid 30's.. I think it was more my fault than the weather.. Te weedmat made contact with the peppers and fried them.. I don't regret the early start just from that little incident, I still have plenty of peppers growing in cells I started in February and the tomatoes were 50¢.. Really I planned to plant the 20th of this month so I got about 20 days early, next year I'll stick with my original 4/20 start date.

Generally here in Central Oklahoma, we do not plant tomatoes until April 15th.

BJK, Sorry so much got zapped. We are just about 25 miles east of you and we had frost on windshields this morning. Don't let this get to you, I know it is a pain to replant, but you have such a great setup I know it will be worth it for you.

26.6°F here yesterday morning, 25.5°F this morning. Dunno if any of the fruit trees that had bloomed made it, all the asparagus froze and is mush.

BGK, look at Remay Cloth. I've kept Oranges alive down to 17°F by making a frame of PVC to keep the Remay off of the tree, and stuck a 60 watt light bulb on an extension cord under the tree. Keeping the fabric off of the plant is a biggie.

I trash bagged all my bushes and small fruit trees.. I knew trash bags were a big no-no but it was all I had.. Everything under trash bags did great FIGURES.. what sucks is the peppers were grown indoors for almost 3months they had a good jump.. Now all I have left is 4-6week olds.. Tomatoes I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and spend a little more than 50¢ apiece..

PS- could be lost of rain in the forecast I'll keep everyone posted.. And how is everyone else gardens lookin.

we had a frost back in late february, lemon tree had started to bloom early, kocked them back....Its up and runnign now ..
Gotta hate those late unexspected frost......

It was the only photo I could find without working at it. That is Gail in the background washing her 1989 Dodge Daytona Turbo ES T-topper. The photo was taken in the mid 90's.

So far so good here. We've been in the mid-20s quite a few nights in the last couple of weeks.

I've got several 4'x4' raised beds where I installed 10-foot pieces of 1/2-inch PVC pipe over 18-inch long re-bar pounded into the ground. I put 4-mil plastic over the PVC to make "hoop" houses that are about 3-foot high. They've worked great, and so far, no losses there.

I have one of the little $150 6x8 foot greenhouses that I bought at TSC a number of years ago. It is filled with shelving and big "Rubbermaid-type" containers. During most days the inside gets into the 90s. Even on cloudy days, it will get into the 70s when the air temp is in the 50s. At night, it pretty much follows the outside air temp. I've put cheap tarps around the outside to keep air from moving through where the greenhouse sides should meet the earth. I have a little 750 watt oil-filled "radiator" heater that I turn on when we expect frost or freezing. At 7:00 AM this morning it was 28 outside, and 49 in the little greenhouse. So far, my beets, carrots, bunching onions, onion sets, potatoes, strawberries, and multiple kinds of radishes, spinach, and lettuce are doing great. My "flats" with many kinds of peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, okra, spices, and cutting flowers -- you name it, all are doing fine.

I also have a bunch of other raised beds, which are actually my worm breeding boxes. My 35 year old son looked at them last week kind of puzzled, and asked "why do you have air vents in in your worm beds? They aren't air vents. They are 1/2-inch PVC pipe with 90 degree elbows on the top. They support tarps extremely well without damaging the tarps, and without crushing the veggies growing below.

It is time to go build a bunch more raised beds to go on the pond dam. When we bought this place seven years ago, the dam was covered with small pine trees that the previous owner was very proud of. He said they prevented erosion. Ever since I cut them out, I've had little success growing decent vegetation on the dam. I'm now going to put a series of raised beds on the dam that will be watered with a solar powered pump. The first three sets of beds will be 4' x 12', and 5-1/2-inches high, and made from pine salvaged from some shipping boxes/pallets. These three beds will be filled with seasoned horse manure, sand, and worm castings. They will be planted with strawberries. My plan is to let them get established this year and next. I'm figuring the pine will rot in the next couple of years, but that part of the dam will then be covered with strawberry plants. If I get berries, fine. If not, fine. These 50-or-so plants were pulled from an old strawberry patch.

Last week I started more horse radish in one of my "wetland" areas. It is a place that gets sun all day long and starts to get pretty wet by October, and doesn't dry out until late June. I'm going to let them go "invasive."

Well last 2 days had good rains.. Sun and wind today.. Potatoes are popping up, onions are growing like mad, green beans grew 4" since last night,sweet corns about 3-4", cabbage, sprouts going good.. Broccoli and cauliflower are getting hammered by some kind of bug any suggestions guys?

Carrots going in tomorrow and a bed of leaf lettuce greens mix..

Possible frost here again tonight............

BGK: Great update. Did you have any frost damage at all? We aren't gardners but did have some frost damage on the lower leaves of daylily plants.