Nothing gives me more pleasure than my fingers in the dirt. Started plotting the garden and expansion and wanted to know who else? This year we will have more herbs. Nothing better than good food, wine and friends.
I always grow a garden and especially like to keep fresh herbs on hand. I keep my herbs in containers, have a small kitchen garden for peppers and tomatoes. The big garden is where we grow the potatoes, corn, cucumbers, squash, onions and greens.
How does the peppers and tomatoes work for you indoors? We have herbs sitting in the kitchen window and does well. 6 inches of snow this morning only adds to the garden fever. Good morning daisy....
It is what I call my kitchen garden it is small garden near my kitchen..not in my kitchen. Maybe I used the term wrong. I have it banked in beds with cross ties. I also have a barrel I use for growing peppers..hot peppers that is, cayenne.. The small area is much easier to keep weed free than the larger garden and the small garden lasts longer. The big garden is for things that only last a few weeks when they ripen. If done right the small garden can last much longer. Keeping itwatered, fertilized, harvested, bug free and weed free that is. The pepper plants can last well into the fall.
Sorry, I just seen south on your location daisy. It would be great to have a winter garden. The veges we get shipped in from CA in the winter is terrible at best. My dream house is nothing but a kitchen with everything else built around it sitting in the middle of a garden.
Here is a mornings gathering of veggies out of my "kitchen garden" The cucumber was from one plant I put in the garden. It didn't like it in the small garden. Below is the big garden.
Without a doubt a beautiful sight. You are living my dream. It is our hope in 4 years we will be sitting on 10 acres.
I have small gardens , I use tables and window boxes and an old set of pool stairs as a step garden , less bending over and I usually get a great yield!
PM me the area. The wife and I will be vacationing (Scouting) 2 area's this summer. If it is a nanny state we will swing by for dinner only
Its hard to keep a garden going up here, winter and global warming really slams it. But we do have long enough of a season generally to get some good tomatoes, squash, and few small egg plants to bloom before the end of the season.
You have a faster growing season than us, it shouldn't be a problem. Nature knows how to handle those things. Check out your local agriculture agent and plant according to what he says. You will be surprised at how well you will do.
Will look into it thanks, but I thought most of the farms are in the deeper south since the weather is warmer year round.
Tell that to all those farmers in the midwest. You see miles and miles of cornfields, wheat, rye, oats, beets and sunflowers. Not to mention the fruits they grow. Take a page out of MO's book and go for the gusto. She grew her garden in the heart of DC, course she probably had gardeners growing hers
Are you in Florida Daisy? That looks like Florida dirt. I have been spreading cow manure on my garden all winter. We have English peas and onions planted and are going to put in potatoes. I ahve strted my brocolli and tomatoes and also some lettuce. I ahve "mixed greens planted where the pig pens was and daikon raddish in one of the cow pastures.
Yes, it is hill soil, we live on a hill and to really have a nice garden the best place is at the bottom of the hill.. Unfortunately there are snakes that like the bottom of the hill too. I let them have the choice spot..
They get cold weather in the midwest that is true, wonder how they upkeep them when it's cold and snowing. The first lady does have a garden in DC, probably in a small green house with heating, instead of in the open that could help.
' Yep that along with the prolific nut grass gave me away didn't it. I hate that stuff it has been my nightmare for years.
Actually it was the color. Where I am at it is mostly red and further south toward Selma it turns into a black clay. The only place in the deep south that has soil that color is near the seashore or in Florida....as far as I know. Nutgrass can be a real problem and the only control I know of besides chemical control is blocking the sunlight with black plastic. But I have seen nutgrass come through asphalt paving.
I've never tried but my parents had a garden.. Tomatoes always.. Every year way more tomatoes, of all sizes.. We'd give entire bowl fulls to the neighbors.. Good times. Well not when they enslaved us to do the gardening though. If I had a garden it would involve growing a more wackier type of plant.
Nutgrass elimination is one plant at a time with all the nuts intact or forget it.. It takes forever to get rid of that stuff..Black plastic for a year or more might work.. Do your goats eat nut grass? If so I might talk my husband into investing in some goats.
Sorry...I got rid of my goats and bought cows and pigs. But when I had goats they were the best land clearing machines a person could hope for. They cleared land that was so thick you couldn't see 20 feet in front of you. I know they eat balckberries, poison ivy, honeysuckle, grass, weeds,roses and just about everything else. They got the land in pretty good shape. We don't have much nutgrass where I garden. But if you choose chemicals you could get a selective nutgrass killer at your local co-op. It will kill the nutgrass and leave the broadleaf stuff. You could spray it right over your plants and it will kill the nutgrass and leave the valuable plants...like strawberries. But make sure you read the directions if you go that route. Make sure it won't kill the plants you want to save and it isn't too close to harvest. PS. Don't buy crop oil...just use liquid soap and vegetable oil...its much less expensive.
Getting my garden beds ready for tomatoes (primarily so my wife can make fried green tomatos and green tomato pies), peppers (sweet and hot), squashes (zucchini, yellow and spaghetti), and maybe some snow peas and/or lettuce. Will plant some radishes and onions around the squashes to hopefully ward off the squash vine borers.
