Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Garden Time

I know this is the start of fish season, but the garden we wanted took priority. We're trying both hybrid and heritage tomatoes this year and hope to save the heritage seeds.

We've been doing the raised bed deal in town for years, and wanted to do the same here. I've waited 13 years to play with the pond every day, and now I have the urge to check the garden before I head out each morning. Tomatoes are blooming, potatoes are poking up, and all the seeds are peaking through.

I put in flower beds, and we've filled those with herbs. The rosemary we love, and the Lavender attracts butterflies.

I see now why few farmers have trouble sleeping. Between fun projects, my garden, my fish, getting the pastures ready for hay season, and fixing leased pasture fences for cattle, I'm gassed!

I tilled mine up today got alot of work to do in it tomorrow before Thursday chance of tornadoes..

Al, come on up here in a month and you can do it all over again.

esshup, magic 8 ball says "Outlook not so good".

I have a early 80's troybuilt that has been an absolute workhorse. A shot of Deep Creep and it runs like a champ. But, I got a Mantis several years ago, and the troybuilt is just about retired. I forgot what I payed for the Mantis, but if it crashes, I'll go buy another one. They're perfect for raised and flower beds. After a year or two, we'll just use the broadfork. No reason to turn the soil over once it gets settled in.

Al,

Looking at putting raised beds for a garden either this spring or next and was wondering how you constructed them. They look like a 4x4 every x feet (maybe 8) and a 1x8? Did I guess right?

Mark

Made some for Mom by using two 2x12's with posts every 8 feet. Wanted to get it higher so she wouldn't have to bend over that much. 4' wide so the middle could be easily reached from either side.

Those little mantis tillers are awesome, especially for raised beds. Pull em' backwards and they'll dig forever!

By the way...Mantis, and Echo are one and the same as far as mini-tillers.

Al, are you going to high fence the garden?

Looks good, Al!

Lookin good amigo - don't forget to fence those beds like Dave says.

My uncle uses a motion activated water sprinkler to keep deer out of his garden. Been the most effective measure for him ever.

lassig, that's basically it. We have a runoff area just outside the raised beds, so I had to get creative with the layout. But, I used 2X10's 10" long for the sides, and 4X4's 8" long for the posts. This left me with as few cuts as possible. I built the sides in the shop, then just carted them out and laid them out upside down before I drilled the post holes. That took any measurement errors from hosing me. It was much easier than drilling holes and then trying to put it all together in the mud.

Yeah guys, I think a fence will be up soon. Critters don't worry me as much as the huge grasshoppers we'll get in a few months. Momma has some type of homemade Tabasco cocktail that works great in town on the hostas. We'll soon see how good it really is.

TJ, you and you're damned camera thread! Now we sit out every evening and watch the birds. I'll have to drag the real camera out soon now. Right now, the bluebirds are nesting in the houses we set up for them on dead oak stumps, and we love watching them.

Our favorite birds are the killdeer. If you haven't watched them nest, then you've really missed something cool. They're shore birds, but somehow have adapted to our asphalt parking area.

killdear faking injury

Killdeer will lay eggs pretty much anywhere. I have seen in gravel, concrete, and in wheat fields.

I built a fence around the garden to keep the deer and rabbits out, only to discover that the local squirrels like to destroy tomato plants. First, they pick all of the green tomatoes off and chew a hole in them, then they chew through the plant's trunk, a few inches above the ground, killing it.......... I guess they ain't called squirrels for no reason.

Got 6 rows of taters in and all the fresh greens you can think of. All the greens are sprouting rapidly with the recent warm up. Hope you all have a great season.

There are killdeer that nest at the edge of our stone driveway every year. Nearly impossible to spot their nests....camouflage is dead on.

Me and the wife watched these little guys hatch. It was awesome. We ended up staking the area off because they were so hard to see even though we knew right where they were.

I had every intension of transplanting my tomato and pepper plants from the indoor growing room to the garden yesterday, but ran out of daylight...good thing though, we were hit with a hail storm last night. The window folks are going to be busy for a while.

That's very true. We put out markers so we wouldn't run over them. Very hard to see.

I have Kildeer nest lining my driveway every year.. Pretty much turns into a buffet for the local owl that hangs out on the light post... Picks them off one by one every year kinda sad..

Also my garden aspirations have been washed away literally at this time.. I bet were pushing 4 or more inches of rain since I tilled it..

So the question on wood to use for the raised beds, treated or Cedar?

Understand the wetness, 1.5" inch here in Schuyler County.

Cedar isn't available locally for a reasonable price so I used treated.

Personal taste here, I'd use whatever that lasted the longest.

Pulled out the broccoli and added tomatoes...in one bed

Gonna do one last harvest on the greens and then rip them out and plant sweet datil peppers this weekend....

Hot datil pepper over wintered again, of coarse only the roots so it is cut back and just starting to re-sprout now from the cut back trunk.

I've never gave much thought to it but they say don't use treated because of the treating chemicals.. you know what would work great but are hard to find is old barn flooring that stuff that's like 2 1/2" thick..

I use deep raised beds with no sides works great and no limitations I can expand a bed or make a bed skinnier very easily..

Also I just tilled Tuesday night and it proceeded to dump 4.89 inches of rain since then..

Thought I had some better pics but here's one of my onions last year