April 20, 2008

new fence – day 1

My new community garden fence is looking good. I had super helpers. We bought posts, fencing and door materials, moved rocks from the perimeter, pounded in posts and attached the fencing all around using tie wraps. Its a green vinyl coated fence with 2 by 3 inch openings. 5 feet high. I’ll dig in chicken wire about 4 inches deep and 1.5 feet tall all around the bottom later. (This is because of the very aggressive woodchucks all the gardeners tell stories about.) The door posts are 4 by 4…

April 10, 2008

turning the soil of my raised beds

My spring routine is to turn the soil of my garden beds. Today I turned three of my beds. I use a standard garden shovel and flip the soil over onto itself – the way my dad showed me years ago. If I have a cover crop, this gets turned under. This year I have a light cover of winter ryegrass. I like the wait a week or so, but sometimes right away, I smooth the soil level with the backside of a metal rake. Finally my irrigation lines get…

April 7, 2008

bulletin board

I’d like to set up a forum where backyard vegetable gardeners can communicate with each other. It would be nice to have a local forum. (Is this available anywhere – am I missing anything?) Here’s my previous post on this topic. 1. The first reason is to see if and when other local gardeners want to arrange to share extra spring seedlings and meet each other. We could set up a site, like Rock Meadow in Belmont on a certain time and day … 2. Other reasons, to encourage information…

April 2, 2008

pea trellis (on a windy wednesday)

I like to get the pea trellis up before the peas sprout. This year I made a zig-zag trellis from poles and sticks and tie-wrapped a white plastic net to it. It seems a bit wobbly and I may need to reinforce it with more poles later. The pea trellis is in the sunny part of my garden, right up against the house and under the windows where my seedlings are growing. (As an aside, the trellis assembly was a bit of a struggle. I thought for a while that…

March 26, 2008

raised bed design and construction

While I wait for more sprouts and planting, I’m posting some information on my raised beds. My husband made the beds about 10 years ago from boards of 2×6 pressure treated lumber (oops! Don’t use pressure treated lumber for your gardens, although the newer types may be safe. I’ll add a link soon about the hazards of this in gardens). They measure 3.8 ft by 9 ft. I have five adjacent beds. Between each is a pathway that ranges from 15 to 17 inches wide, but you might want to…

June 9, 2007

tomato tepees

It seems like a real garden now that the tomato tepees are up. The posts are 1x1x 10 ft poles cut from pine 2×4’s. Most of them are 10 or 15 years old now, but a few were freshly cut last year. I like this tepee structure because its very strong and easy to assemble. Its also completely removable each year so I can rotate the planting location. This year, I am growing my tomatoes against the house. I took these pictures early in the morning when the only sunlight…

May 2, 2007

constuction of pea trellises

Last year I used a V-frame structure for my peas, which did not like. It was made from six poles arranged as three Vs, with green plastic mesh stapled along each side of the frame. I found it was hard to pick peas that grew in the center of the frame, the back half didn’t get enough sunlight, it took up too much space and it didn’t look nice. This year I have planted three types of peas and needed three trellises. So I tried three different types. My son…

March 26, 2007

new fence

I am experimenting with this new fence. I need a way to keep the dog out of the garden. Sorry Skip! It just doesn’t work to have him using it as a litter box. I need a fence that I can easily step over. Also it shouldn’t interfere with my sprinklers. This fence is 28 inches high and quite sturdy. I was able to get two of the four posts into the soil – its still a bit too frozen where the other two need to go. The fence is…

July 13, 2006

cucumber trellis

Lots of bright yellow flowers and little baby cukes.

July 3, 2006

Compost bins

These are my compost bins. The resident carpenter built them for me many years ago. Two side-by-side units with removable fronts. Each year I empty one two-year aged bin-full of compost into the garden. I turn the one-year-old contents of the other bin over into the empty bin so the half-done compost gets mixed and turned over. They work great. This year some potatoes I threw into the front bin are growing a garden of their own. I wonder if I will get new potatoes from them? Solanum tuberosum my…

weeks and counting until my last spring frost

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31