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Since we have a high concentration of deer, occasionally moose we have much of our garden is protected by 6 foot fencing, its also broken up to capture the sunniest spots available, but even some of those have been encroached upon by our lovely trees so they don't get the all the sun they once did.
So here are the June pics - we do a combination of in ground beds, raised beds, straw bales, even some in fire rings with center posts to support frost covers. Its our first year growing sweet potatoes after WH2 gave me some last year. They haven't yet taken off but since its all an experiment this year I have some in the bales, one in the ground, and the others in a raised bed just for them so we can evaluate which area (if any - not sure I long enough sunshine in any one location) they do the best in. If they succeed, I am experimenting with growing my own starts (called slips) from organic sweet potatoes I purchased this spring.
FYI in the bale garden you can see I have row shelters over my cabbages and broccoli because I have such a problem with the cabbage moth caterpillars - so far so good.
This has been weird start to summer, I am pretty sure once it starts heating up more this week things will treally take off nicely. Fingers crossed!
Happy gardening!
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Wow, your garden is looking great and you already have yellow squash coming on, that is impressive. One question, where you have your sweet potatoes, that appears to be some type of wood chips or mulch on the top, do they go all the way down or is there soil below the wood chips?
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The whole SP box is set on top of an old barked area, then filled with a Miracle Gro In ground garden soil, then I mixed it with some of the straw broken down bales from last year's garden to try to keep the soil from compacting too much. So far, we've found water really soaks in deep even when it almost looks like not too much has happened on the surface, so I think that is just how watering should work, less evaporation, wouldn't you think?
Yes those squash really set early, guess they really liked that heat generated inside those bales!
Our night temps have finally hit 50* last night! Hopefully things will really start growing with the higher temps day/night this week. It just feels to be running a couple weeks behind when compared with last year.
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I guess it depend on it the water is soaking through the Miracle Gro In ground garden soil, not sure how good it would be for the SP if that soil is holding all that water. Did you start those yellow squash plants indoors? Might have to give those straw bales a try next year if the continue to grow that good.
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we don't have that sandy soil that you have, so we had to fill it with the garden soil mixed with old straw to keep it even lighter. We've tried making one of our b3eds more sandy and that didn't work out so this is plan B. It hold the moisture without making it too soggy.
If you do want to give the bales a try I can give you the guy's info where we got our last year, he's just in N Ogden. You'll need to get your bales in late summer or you wont have any start the conditioning of them 2 weeks prior to planting in them. (I can also give you the conditioning schedule to follow) We store ours in detached garage but you can also store them outside in one of your boxes you'll just need to tarp them to keep them dry over winter - our son did this up in cache valley and it worked as well.
The squash, I picked up starter plant from Valley Nursery.
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I'll see how this works out but I'm pretty sure I can find straw bales even during the winter or early spring, right before I need them, I don't like the idea of storing them in my garage or shed, that would make for a perfect mouse condo[  ]. Once I get them, I'll as about the conditioning schedule you use.
Oh you got that one at Valley Nursery, no wonder it is so big. Just got the first bloom on one of our Zucchini today and the other squash are not far behind.
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Yesterday, we harvested our first pea pods. Plan to leave the second pot of peas to actually form some peas. Still more pods to be harvested from the first pot, both are still blooming. Sifted the dirt where the lettuce was growing (looks really nice) and planted another round of lettuce.
We also harvested a little more than 2 quarts of strawberries, there are still a lot more that are still green. We ate half of them for a nice cool dessert, the other half were sliced and put on 2 trays for the next freeze drier batch.
No tomatoes set on the ones in the bales, but the cherry tomatoes are doing well and there are Roma tomatoes set in the ground garden that was under the cold frame when needed.
I think we are going to build a PVC cold frame for use next year on the SPs in the box. If it turns out the SPs don't do well there the spot can be used for other plants. and if need be the plastic cover can be removed and replaced with netting or even a nylon mesh material depending on what is needed for whatever gets planted there.
The squash from Valley was just a small single 2 inch pot when we got it but once I put it in bales, it really settled in fast took off growing. It has already started to vine across the bales - I had hoped it would trail more down the sides, but oh well. it is helping the soaker hose stay more only on the bales and not spraying outside of them. LOL
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Sounds like your garden is really taking off but I'm curious why do you sift the dirt where the lettuce was growing?
My garden is finally starting to take off, with our first zucchini and the butternut starting to vine out nicely. I posted a couple of pics here:
http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gfo...77207#last
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The garden soil, both the original and added stuff, had become kind of clumpy so it makes it hard to tell where you put those tiny little seeds. So we used some hardware cloth (I think that is what it is called) to sift it and break it up once again.
We also use this method for breaking up our compost more before we store it for tilling it in this fall.
Your garden has really taken off nicely. I bet once you get back in town after being in Idaho it's great to see such progress.
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Yes, it was pretty amazing how much it grew in just one week but that was the week the temps started climbing too.
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We've finally got blooms on the cucumbers and cantaloupes! The bell peppers in bales have been blooming for couple weeks, the ones in the ground are just getting ready to bloom.
The sweet potatoes look the best in the bales and ground garden, but just ok in in special box we made for them. So we'll see how this experiment goes by end of the season. [:/] I still plan to plant one of my own best rooted slips into that box where one of the bought slips really looks the most pizly.
The freeze dried batch came out nice. The strawberries will make good car snacks for when our son takes his vacation with his girls - they don't melt and are very tasty. Also have some nice apple slices for them as well. Looks like in couple days we'll have another strawberry batch so we'll be doing another berry batch soon.
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I finally started to see our cantaloupes coming up after three times of replanting them[crazy], still haven't seen any cucumbers or kale[mad]. Sorry,"most pizly", what does that mean? Very amazing how well your garden is doing.
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[laugh] most pizzly = weak, wimpy, etc....
We've really had to work at our garden this year, covering it when there was any chance of a frost several times.
Are you doing cantaloupe or those Crenshaw melons, or both?
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I saved some seeds from last years Crenshaw melons, so I planted those but because of our limited space I only planted two. Glad they finally came up because those were the last seeds I had for them.
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we did that as well.... also on watermelons. We ended up with a good sprout rates from them.
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Picked a gallon of strawberries this morning. Looks like we should get one more harvest, from them this year. Think I'll make some freezer jam and we can some strawberry short cake for dessert tonight.
We do have blooms on the Armenian cukes, beans and cantaloupe. None on the watermelon yet.
Oh and we see tiny baby fish in the pond. Looks like we'll rescue as many of them we can - this also allows us to cull out the uncolorful ones. but I know we missed some last year cause now we have some grown ones in there that have never colored up. Its really neat to see a lot of color on the fry from birth.
My water Hibiscus (I winter over indoors) did get a little frost damage that set it back but its trying to catch back up, It is setting out some new growth, so hopefully it will get to bloom before the fall frost comes.
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Wow, a gallon, they are coming on strong aren't they. Got down to 54 degrees overnight here, it must have been pretty chilly at your place. Pretty crazy we are getting overnight temps that low in July. It rained and the rain blew pretty hard here yesterday afternoon, pretty crazy storm but it cleared up by the time the fireworks started.
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Too bad there aren't more perennial garden plants available that also will survive here. [  ] But we're learning more and more every year. Maybe its way most people here raise livestock and don't have home gardens.
43* here last night, those storms did get us here on its way over to Wyoming, it was nice to refill our rain collectors once again, but it only sprinkled in Cache Valley.
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Well we've finally started getting night temps into the low 50s.
Today I planted one of my home grown slips into the SP box, where the most pizzly plant was. (see pics, its the leafy one in center of the box) It was very interesting, when I dug into the soil, it is very nice, moist but not soggy at all. Pizzly had only produced a few small root system so far. My slip I put in its place had at least 6 inches of roots when I took it off the SP half, so hopefully this a good sign and it will thrive in its new environment.
On my crookneck squash my squash fruits get to about the size of a large dill pickle, then they just shrivel. Reading online about this, its because they aren't getting properly pollinated! No sign of any insects causing this, the soil isn't too wet or too dry. Well I'm learning stuff this year. So all the fruit I have are likely to shrivel up, those ones in first pictures I posted I have already removed due to shriveling, and I just removed 3 more today and I could have removed even more than those. Guess this evening I'll be out there pollinating the blooms I currently have! sure hate to lose the fruit but glad I know how to fix this problem. Who ever would have thought you'd have to struggle to grow a squash!
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Looks good, I'd say it won't be long before they start vining out and when they do, that box will be full and they will start running out the sides.
I had the same thing happen to that first zucchini that started growing, it totally shriveled up. They are going better now and we picked our first one yesterday, guess the bees finally found them. Could be all those trees you have around your yard that are keeping the bees out but once they find the blooms they will find their way back with no problem. Our first yellow squash are finally starting to grow, should be picking it soon. Got our third picking of snow peas yesterday too.
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