Neighbor gave me a huge compliment yesterday. Said my garden looked like an Amish garden.

It is looking very nice.


80 feet of taters and onions, 60 mater plants. 300 corn, 10 bell peppers, 3 jalapena, 270 feet of string and lima beans,5 cucumber and a few watermelon for good measure.

All grown from seed with the exception of the 3 jalapenas and of course the taters.

Impressive!

Nice, what is your water source?

I hope to have one like this some day, need the space for corn and Sweet taters.

Very nice. Someone will be doing a lot of canning this year!

Looks like a 4' high fence or so. Does it keep the deer out?

And also looks great!!!!!

It's deer/wildlife netting 7 by 100 foot rolls. It's about 5 foot tall and keeps the deer out. I used tent stakes on the bottom to keep the rabbits out. They are a bigger problem.

Water source is rain and occasionally I must run a sprinkler.

The pantry will be filled this year. Tomatoes, tomato sauce, spagetti sauce, pizza sauce, tomato paste, tomato juice, corn, beans and some taters in the root cellar.

In the late summer I will rotate in some beets, Kale, spinach, more onions, carrots, cabbage and some brussell sprouts. I will can a lot of that too.

It's nice being retired and having the time to do it.

Thanks for the compliments. Lotsa work in it. Lots to come.

If everything goes well this year, I will triple the size next year and set up a stand by the driveway with a sign. And also go to the local farmer's maket with fresh and canned goods, along with my farm fresh eggs.

Here's missouridave's first picture:

Yep, very nice. Too neat, too well organized. I couldn't eat stuff that came out of a garden that is picture-perfect....don't taste the same.
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2800 square feet? Sunil, ain't that about the same size as the shed that you make JHAP and me stay in when we visit?

We live in a community that is 70% Amish, Brettski.



I have to keep up the standards and show them that we can have great looking gardens with a bountiful harvest too.

Besides some of them Amish girls are cute.

With the direction food prices are headed... Very smart idea! My whole back yard isn't as big as that garden. HAHA

we better not catch you usin' a gas powered roto tiller, Mr Yoder

That's why it looks so well Brettski.. I used my 46 Ford 2N to plow it and then disc it. The tiller is to till and cultivate. Although I get quite a bit of time on my knees too.

That depends on the district deacon. Some are progressive, some not very much.

Here in Indiana, it varies from allowing gasoline powered homeowner implements like rototillers, lawn mowers, etc. to not allowing rubber tires on tractors and other things.

I'm seeing more and more solar panels on Amish houses in the Nappanee area.

They are no-tech here. No gas, no rubber, no electric, no phones. Horses and buggies only for family use.

However, for the business some things like gas saws or phones or electric is allowed, but only for the business.

It's strictly separated.

Your garden is very nice! We used to have a huge garden too.

We have adapted and now have a no-bend garden.

Tools = the way we got out of caves.

Very resourceful Dwight, but I'd need about 2,785 more than that. and a whole lot of dirt.



Do you get good results with them. I've heard good things about gardening by the foot.

So far so good with the barrels. This is the first year.

They are half full of glass bottles with several holes drilled around the outside near the bottom for drainage purposes. It doesn't take near as much soil with that approach. The barrels sit on plywood so after mowing around them there is no trimming required.

I did a variation of square foot gardening for 15 years with great success. My variation was four foot square boxes made out of 2 x 10"s with 3 foot walkways between the boxes. There were 12 of the boxes. When they rotted away the area was cleaned up and planted with grass.

Our three favorite fresh from the garden items are tomatoes, green beans and Yukon Gold young taters.

That is brilliant, the boss and I have been discussing building raised beds as you say a no bend garden. Never considered trash cans but that is a great and cheap idea.

Dwight,

My taters are half Pontiac Reds and the other half are Kennebuc Whites. I too love the new potatoes. I don't care for the Yukon Golds. Don't like the texture of them.

Since I got the plastic barrels for free, very cheap.

Actually I haven't known a bad tasting new garden grown potato unless there was a creature living in their.

The Pontiacs and Kennebecs are on the top five list here too.

I have one more week before I grab the salt shaker and start picking tomatoes out of our garden. Good stuff. What variety of maters did you plant? Heirloom seeds?

I put out 25 Big Boys, 25 Early Girls and 10 Roma. I will be going with all heirloom veggies next year.

A SHTF garden?

Great looking ground and container gardens, every family should have a SHTF garden, or SHTF pond, or at the minimum a SHTF food stockpile.

I'll keep this post updated and let everyone know how many cases of veggies and sauces I put up this year.

Besides my time, I have about $50 (seed, gas, fence, potting soil peat containers, etc.) invested in this so far, but that's not counting the $50 I spent on two shop lights and four bulbs to get the seedlings going. But they will get used every year.

And yes, I do believe in preparing for the worst.

The garden is a good match for my array of guns, pond, timber, pasture, fruit trees and soon to come sheep, and until that tragic boating accident ... the 400 ounces of silver and gold I used to have.

My wife and I are also very close to being completely debt free to boot.

Nice garden, wish I had one similar and the space for it. The wife did not take to kindly to my idea of plowing up the backyard with my miniature Kubota; so I am experimenting this year with square foot gardening in raised beds. My daughter got a kick out of eating some Adirondack Blue fingerling potatoes fresh from the garden the other night.

The garden is in our front yard, Wife doesn't mind at all, but was a little concerned at first. After seeing the results, she likes it, so all is well. But then we live in the county, so it's not really unusual. Thanks for the compliment.

My wife and I are also very close to being completely debt free to boot. [/quote]

Surely you all are going to call in to the Dave Ramsey show and scream "WERE DEPT FREEEEEEEEEEE" Congrats that's sweet.

We're also close but we have been for a long time.

I just paid the house off.

Being debt free has become an abnormal state of affairs. Unless you are old, you have probably never even heard of it.

Have garden, stocked pond, gravity water filter and fire pit…what more do ya need if SHTF

Guns, and lots of ammo and people who know how to shoot those guns and who are willing to kill to protect all that... There will be lots of hungry people looking to take it!

The reality is…you are correct. I've been in the SHTF biz for 12 years now.

My SHTF location is a peninsula surrounded by water. Only one road in and the land on each side of the road is swampy nearly impenetrable thicket. Doesn't matter how much stuff you have stockpiled, how nice a garden you have or how packed full of fish your pond is... If you cannot protect all that, it's a waste of time when SHTF.

Y2K all over again! I know a bunch of companies and people that lost their butts on that fearful Apocalypse

I'll sleep good that night

Well, I feel pretty good about where we are. This part of Missouri is sparsely populated and visitors stick out and are quickly noticed. Most people are pretty independent as well as well-armed.

The county seat only has a population of 4425 and the entire county is only 12,500 people in 597 square miles. Less than 5,000 households in all. Lamar is the county seat, birthplace of Harry Truman and the only town in the county with a population greater than 1,000.

A man after my own heart.

Yesterday was my 49th birthday. I worked around the place. It's been 7 weeks since my original post and thought I'd do an update.

We really have not got much out of the garden yet, other than some new potatoes, some cucumbers and about a dozen or so jalapeno's, but she is shining. I'm going to be busier than a one-legged man in an a$$ kicking contest in august.

The corn is over 6 foot, tasseling and setting ears. The 60-65 tomato plants are loaded. Taters are doing their thing Bell peppers are looking good. Beans are all blossuming and starting set. It's hard not to be happy.

Life is good and retirement and doing what you love is even better.

GPS coordinates?

LOL.

It's right out my front door within the sights of my M-1 Garand. (I am a qualified "Expert Marksman" according to military requirements.)

Pillage at your own risk.
Ask nice, and I'll give you some.

(I really would mail you some.)