describe your spring garden
 

I only have a modest garden, a bunch of elevated beds, today I weeded out my onions and plucked some ones with nice greens up for big spinach salad we made for guests with cranberries and pecans and and boiled egg.

I also stirred up a bed that had laid fallow most of last year and seeded it with spearmint. this bed is in te most shady spot but I recall seein spearmint growing in the shade before. it gets a few hours of direct light a day though so it should take. I know when spearmint takes it really grows like crazy. I would be ok to have the whole bed go green with it. Lots of food uses and applications. Not the least of which are tea and "mojitoes" too bad Ponce aint here to tell y'all what those are.

I planted two varieties of lettuce and some radishes. I stirred up the mulch and stuff I'd laid in a couple more beds last fall and tossed in some more dirt. Gettin those ready but I only had seeds today and I need asparagus starts for one. I used to have a whole acre of asparagus when I lived in the country but now I'm in a suburb. It wont be as good as that but better than none.

I'd like to hear some from you guys, clearly some of you have significant agricultural exerience. I am working on my third year of gardening not including what I did when I was little.

Re: describe your spring garden
 

I have one elevated box so far. I am using it to learn what not to do. So far I have learned a lot about what not to do. ;-) and killed most of my sprouts.

Right now I am learning how NOT to plant each plant too close together. ;-) which I have done unfortunately, but I am seeing how things turn out anyway.

So I have 1 strawberry, 3 tomato, 3 peppers (bell) 3 lettucy type things for soups and about 5 things I did from sprouts which could be any number of things. Probably celery.

So far so good. I have been able to eat some strawberrys and getting ready for the lettuce shortly.

Oh, I also learned that my cats think the elevated box is their litter box which was not helping me. So I had to build a chicken wire fence around the top. I have yet to see what the urine will do if anything. I caught it before it got too bad.

Re: describe your spring garden
 

Gosh, I wish I could grow asparagus here! It's a great vegetable and I understand a well-tended bed of asparagus can be productive for years.
It won't do well in my sub-tropical climate.
I mostly grow tomatoes and some cooking greens, like mustard, and there are my pole beans producing food at the moment.
Other odds and ends, and lots of citrus.

Re: describe your spring garden
 

Don't have much of a garden. I haven't had an actual garden for years. I do, however, have two cherry trees that are starting to blossom, two apple trees, and 5 grape vines I harvest every year to make home made grape jelly. I may do the garden again next year.

Re: describe your spring garden
 

I've got some onions, hot peppers, and cilantro in the ground.

Re: describe your spring garden
 

got about 1/8 acre of barley to try making beer 1/4 acre vetch for soil
improvement (much more growing wild) about 1/4 acre pumpkins plowed and ready for planting which are good for greens,seed,and summer pollen for bees.


cherry tree, pomergranit,fig,plum rasberries,blackberries

live in fairly harsh area for growing most plants. poor thin soil hot summers
cold winters so am trying to encourage some usefull survivor plants to
fill specific niches around the property
like blackberry, prickly pear,wild rose,dandelion,miners letuce,cattail,
willow and oak.

Re: describe your spring garden
 

This is my third year of gardening. We bought our home about three years ago with a three fourths of an acre. There was an above-ground pool that occupied the sunniest spot of the yard - that we promptly removed.

I started making 4x4 raised beds out of untreated lumber. I used 2x12 lumber which has now begun to rot and sustain termite damage. Because of this discovery I have now switched to using Port Orford Cedar raised bed kits that I purchase here: http://naturalyards.com/raisedbeds/ .

The are very high quality and very very expensive, but they are thought to last perhaps 30 years. We are building this garden now, so that we may continue to use it as we get older without killing ourselves making beds all the time.. so it is worth it to us.

The first year I think we built 6 beds and last year we added 2 more. Just this week we created 4 new ones -- so we now have a total of 12 of these. My plan is to end up with 16 arranged in a 4 x 4 square garden. I like the symmetry of it, and 16 is about what we need to keep from having to make those difficult decisions such as I only have space to grow more lettuce or more tomatos but not both.

We are going 100% organic gardening starting this year. I have never used any pesticides at all, but we were using chemical fertilizers, but now I understand why that is not good so I mix up our own fertilizer using blood meal, bone meal, phosphorus(?), and another trace nutrients mix.

Last year I discovered the wonder of growing cayenne peppers and they did very well here. I just grew them in some 18 inch terra cotta pots. I enjoyed them so very very much that I'm planning to grow a lot of them this year. I harvest them and then string them up using a needle and thread. They dry nicely and are good with just about anything. I put one in my smoothy every morning, that's how much I like them, and they are said to be very good for one's circulation.

I eat mostly fresh green leafy vegetables, mixed with a lot of tomatoes and other fresh fruits and veggies, so my diet demands a great deal of greens. Therefore, I named this year the year of the greens. I decided to grow what I eat and therefore have a lot of space dedicated to mesclun which is a pre-mixed mixture of various loose-leaf lettuces intended to all be eaten together as a salad. I've also tried a few strange (to me) things this year to see how they work out (like bok choi, and kohlrabi). I skipped the potatoes this year in favor of the green thingies. A pity because potatoes are wonderful to watch growing, they look so happy.

So, right now we have going the following: Snow peas, mesclun (a lot), spinach, kale, cucumbers, zen (a hybrid green said to grow all summer), kohlrabi, bok choi, some garlic volunteers, english thyme, cilantro, basil, basil, basil, (3 kinds), 16 tomato plants, (half purple cherokee, an heirloom, and half Roma which we have enjoyed before), and we are growing 2 kinds of french marigolds with the tomatoes. I have 2 smaller beds away from the garden where we let grow Jerusalem artichoke or Sunchoke which would be decent SHTF food (thanks, jerry).

We don't have space for the peppers, yet, but we might add a few more beds if we have time this spring. I do have 4 containers for the peppers so we won't go without. I have used both the 18 inch terra cotta pots as well as half whiskey barrels. You can make some fairly attractive arrangements in the whiskey barrels and still have room to grow a pepper plant or cherry tomatoes.

We have a couple of rosemary bushes, a small herb garden with lemon balm, sage, peppermint, and some other stuff.

And I feel like we are just getting started with this stuff. I live for springtime. :emotions16:

Re: describe your spring garden
 

wow gpond that's impressive

lars I have had plenty of home grown jalapenos, up north there is less hot weather and I think it makes them milder

damoc very interesting

greenspirit urine is high in nitrogen so it will serve as fertilizer in small amounts but cause burn in high concentrations, if you ever had a dog and a lawn you know what I mean-- but be wary of anything touched by catpiss or scat because of parasites, especially dangerous to pregnant ladies-- google this topic for more, I think the key word is toxoplasmosis

Re: describe your spring garden
 

Been working hard to grow some food this year , but the weather here has NOT cooperated. Anyhow , as it stands now I have 4 Blueberry bushes, 3 Red Raspberry- both just planted this month. See how it goes. I had hoped to expand veggie garden but weather and time constraints are not helping , so this year go back to the standard tomatoes, green squash and pole beans. Am looking to put in some fruit trees , dwarf- maybe couple apple , a pear , a cherry in Autumn , but I have very little land. Like to have some grape vines maybe- gonna look into that now.

Re: describe your spring garden
 

in the midwest lots of forest areas have abundant natural red and black raspberries as undergrowth. thorny critters!

Re: describe your spring garden
 

I have a few small raised beds near Phila PA - under 40 sq ft total. Squash, cucumbers, and pumpkin always die quickly on me, their vines get some pest in them, then all die. Tomatoes do very well. Peas and broccoli do well in cool seasons, but little happened on the broccoli until fall... I'm going to try onions, garlic, potatoes and more (once again) this year. Made the mistake last year of potatoes in a huge pot with inadequate drainage - they drowned and rotted. Hopefully while I'm away in May and merely developing a compost pile, my relatives a few miles away can get seedlings started for me. No point starting seeds myself when I'll be away 2 weeks plus in May.

Re: describe your spring garden
 

well here in philly, you have to worry about the thugs stealing your rose bushes. we lost two that way last year. i have about 6X8 feet of yard...maybe less.
it's too early to plant here. the sage advice from the old folks in the neighborhood is "wait till after fathers day." the old lady next door is never wrong. my guess is that we still have a couple cold snaps coming our way.

i'll be planting over a dozen jalapeno plants and a few of those red squishy things the GF likes. last year, i went with 5 jalapeno plants and 2 1/2 came up fine. i had more peppers than you could shake a stick at well into october. good way to make nice with the neighbors. bring em stuff you grow.

Re: describe your spring garden
 

I live in Missouri and have tomatoes, five varieties of peppers, lettuce, pole beans, bush beans, cucumbers, swiss chard, onions, carrots, a basil patch, and oregano patch, and a mint patch in so far. I grow my tomatoes cucumbers and pole beans up netting on a conduit frame. Very productive and saves space. So far all we have harvested is lettuce and spinach