Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Anybody at the fire that likes to garden?

My garden the last two years looks like an Aushwitz reproduction. Outer wire is three strand electric, inner wire separated by 3 feet is rabbit wire 4 ft tall. My blueberry's were outside the wire and got et, but so far nothing has penetrated the perimeter for the main garden-knock on wood. I wonder where I could get some claymores...?

I have been in tomatoes for a while now. Applewood smoked bacon is my favorite with tomato sandwiches. The heat and lack of rain are about to do them in though. I have heard arguements at work over which is the best horse or cow manure. My BIL has a couple of horses and the manure is free, so that is what I go with. I have a couple of pecan trees with a ton of hulls underneath, hmmm. I was doing good on my pinkeye purple hulls and have put up several quarts. The drought has slowed them down and now the deer are mopping up the rest. I have watermelons that came up on their own on the edge of the patio and I transplanted them to the garden. There are 2 on the vines that would run about 20lbs a piece.

Deer love watermelon so be on the watch for them. The pecan hulls I use are from shelled pecans, not the husks that cover the pecan shell itself. If you mulch well you'll be amazed at how much less water your plants will need.

I feed my tomatoes with a tomato food that you mix with a gallon water and I feed each plant a gallon a week. My tomatoes were looking bad until I mulched them and began feeding them. Now they're rebounding beautifully.

Here are a couple of pictures showing the pecan hulls. This is the trailer load I just got:



and this is a closeup showing how they break down into great humus:

I had a compost garden for many years. I laid railroad ties around the area to be gardened and dumped my grass clippings in it. At the end of the season I'd till them under.

During the growing season, the grass clippings hold the moisture in the ground and keeps the weeds down. They also add huge amounts of nitrogen to the soil.

After doing this for a couple of seasons, you wouldn't believe the results. Plants grow to enormous size out of the composted soil.

My garden was about 300 square feet. 6 tomato plants would grow to a size which would cover the entire area. The regular little wire tomato cages that you see for sale weren't anywhere near big enough to contain them. I bought some sturdy fencing,..shaped it into hoops about 3' in diameter, then staked them into place around the plants with a length of 1/2" electrical conduit on each side. The hoops were about 4.5 feet tall. The totamo plants would completely fill the inside of the hoop and get to about 6' tall before they would collapse and crawl all over the ground.

One side of the garden was bordered by a chain link fence which ran the length of our yard,..an 80' distance. Once, I planted a 15' long row of half runner beans along the fence in the compost, and the beans grew runners that extended the entire 80' length of the fence. That one row of beans produced enough beans for us and the two people who lived on the other side of the chain link fence. I mentioned to them that they were welcome to any they could get to from their side and I'd see them out there picking some for their dinner every few days.

Every year I would try something different just to see how various plants would respond to the compost. One year I set out a few sunflowers and before the frost got them their stalks were about 5" in diameter at the base.

I had a lot of fun experimenting with that compost.

The squirrels leave plenty of shells and husks all around my trees. My compost pile caught fire a couple of weeks ago. I could smell smoke and went out and saw a small burnt spot on top of the pile. I got the hose and soaked it down. I raked it back and it had been burning underneath for a while. I have Bahia grass in my yard and I will have the pile built back up in no time.

One thing I miss about Long Island vs Northern Florida is the ease of growing tomatoes. You pretty much just had to clear an area and plant your seeds, water as needed, and you'd have big beautiful red ripe tomatoes all summer long. Just had to watch for one bug, and that was a big green worm that looked like it had big white eyes on it's head, but it was just a color pattern, but they could be plucked right off and you'd be fine. Never more than two or three of those bugs a season, and they only went for the leaves.

Here in Florida, the stink bugs destroy the tomatoes before they can ripen. They just go around and puncture them here and there. Once punctured, they're ruined, and they generally get them all before any can ripen.

We've already started canning and freezing.

Doubled the size of the garden about a couple of years ago. Deere Tractor made that much easier. Almost a half acre now. Might expand even more with all the offspring popping up. Our God-given bounty feeds 19 family members each year

TRH - those tomato worms are a bugger. One of them can make a plant look like it got hit with hail just overnight. Sevin curls them up right quick if you can't locate them. One time I stomped on one and it was more impressive than stomping on a ketchup packet.

My "orgasmic gardening" trick is to plant marigolds between my tomatoes. Tomato worms HATE marigolds, and I haven't had such a worm (or any other garden pest) in 20-some years.

that's what we do as well Rock.....looks purtyyyy too!

Gardening is pretty big in my family, more or less. My pap gets pretty crazy with his stuff, especially about tomatoes, onions, and zucchini. My mom's garden is starting to look pretty good, and mine is as well. I started my plants a little late this year, so it'll be a pretty late harvest. So far it has been a cold growing season for us, with night time temps into the high 40's, about 25-30 degrees below average.a

Mickey, as far as I am concerned, the only way to go about it is doing a raised bed. I built one for my mom a few years ago and it's great. My garden this year wasn't raised, as I have pretty good soil where it's planted, though next year I will be making raised beds. A lot easier to manage and providing you do it right, a higher yield is possible. Something else you may be interested in taking a look at is square foot gardening.

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/index.php/The-Project/how-to-square-foot-garden.html

Have heard that chicken schit is great for compost piles, though it can't be put on the plants immediately, as it will burn them. It's real rich in ammonia and must age a bit before using.

we use mushroom compost....

One danger in using chicken litter from poultry houses is that it's usually full of pigweed seed and it will take over your garden. If you use chicken litter it's best to compost it first.

Flowers, Sakatoons, and raspberries is about all we grow - LOTS of flowers.
The scent of the lilacs, roses, and such almost knocks you down in our backyard.
We live on a corner lot, but in town, so we don't have a lot of room....
Cat

You can start early by not using the indoor toilet.. Place that outhouse right over the garden..

Mike

Where did you get your Russians? They're supposed to have better grooming traits than other bees which should reduce the impact of Varroa on the colony. I'm interested in knowing if you've found that to be true. Are you doing mite counts? Do they have a good disposition?

I'm running one hive of Italians and one of Cariolans. Both hives are very gentle and easy to work with. May have to add a colony of Russians next year...

Very nice Scott. Two honey supers! I'm jealous. What kind of bees do you have?

Good idea! I'll be shipping you some veggies......