Dreams of the garden.......

[CathyA]

I have to say, this is the first winter where I actually was looking forward to spring. I usually really like the vacation from all the outside work. Maybe its all the cold and snow and cabin fever, but I'm looking forward to gardening again. Maybe its because DH has slowly began helping alot out there, and it really lightens my load.

So......what are you looking forward to growing?
I'll be doing the usuals:
Rutger's tomatoes
Roma and San Marzano tomatoes
a couple varieties of cherry tomatoes
county fair cucs (no cucumber beetles with them)
Kentucky Blue pole beans
Blue Lake pole beans
Romano bush beans
peppers
And hopefully zuchinni and butternut squash. The squash bugs have been terrible. I was hoping to till that end of the garden a couple times during the winter, to bring them to the surface and have them freeze to death, but there's always been way too much snow.

I half-heartedly tried the straw bale gardening method a little last year, and it was a flop.
I'm trying to figure out an easy way to make a very tall raised bed structure, so I can grow alot of kale/spinach/lettuces.

My excitement about the garden obviously shows my loss of memory on how hard it is to keep it weeded!

So........what are you looking forward to growing?

[Birdie]

I'll grow 6 - 8 varieties of tomatoes, butternut and zucchini and some dried beans and chinese long beans. Also a Rosa bianca eggplant and maybe one pepper plant.

An easy trellis is to use #3 6 or 7 foot stakes (T-stakes) and a sheet of concrete reinforcing wire. The sheets of wire are 4 x 7 feet. Hammer in the stakes measuring the length against the sheet of wire. Zip tie (or use wire) the wire sheet to the posts, usually the 7 foot wide. Start roughly a foot above the soil and zip tie each side first, then the center for stability. It works great for tomatoes or melons too, and you can hammer in the stakes at an angle to make easier picking on each side.

For a taller trellis, turn the wire so it is 7 feet high. We use the taller when we grow Chinese long beans or Trombone squash. Otherwise the shorter trellising works for most everything.

Because all the components are metal you pull them out when done and reuse again when needed.

[Birdie]

You can use that old straw bale as mulch this spring which should cut back on the weeding. Because our our drought situation I will mulch with 4 - 6 inches of straw this spring. That should help retain the moisture in the soil...and reduce the weeds too.

[pinkytoe]

We have had such yo-yo weather; our poor plants must be confused with high of 75 one day and 28 the next. In any case, I have lettuce, spinach, beets and herbs already going. Way too much cilantro and parsley. This year, I decided to try snap peas up against a section of cyclone fencing. They are blooming despite the freezing weather. Not sure what else I will try yet but the window of opportunity is small as it gets too hot by May/June. I think I will try some new varieties of hot peppers as they love the heat. My big effort will be to finish the xeriscape garden in the front so we can call it done. Several of the plants I used froze - we don't usually have so many hard freezes as we have had this year. I get food gardening joy by watching dd tend hers. She can grow anything. Right now, she has brussel sprouts which I had never seen growing before - very interesting.

[CathyA]

I'm all over that concrete reinforcing wire! haha Practically my entire garden is made up of it.
I know I've shown this pic before, but I'll show it again.
This was before the weeds grew! I'm going to rotate the structures around this spring.
I use the concrete reinforcing wire for my cucs, pole beans, tomatoes, and the winter squash likes to grow up it too.
Love that stuff!

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/IMG_8771.jpg

[Birdie]

I guess you do have a lot of trellising already. Nice garden. You have a lot of space too.

I have a small yard so only have 4 raised beds. I rotate my crops so do not have any permanent trellising, and the T-stakes and concrete reinforcing wire work really well for me. I made my tomato cages out of the wire sheets too only 4 feet is not tall enough. So this year I will cut a few in half and spice them onto the 4 feet, making the cages 6 feet tall. That should corral my tomatoes better.

[Gardenarian]

That's a pretty fancy set-up, CathyA!

We just had our first real rain in a year (!) which was so wonderful. I'm still working on the landscaping projects I started last year; I'm really looking forward to the roses coming out in full glory all along our new picket fence.

I'm doing an espaliered pear tree; I'm excited to see how that will come out! I seem to have better luck with fruit trees than anything else, so that's where I'm putting my focus. I also feel more comfortable using greywater with trees than on vegetables (though of course will have multiple tomato plants.)

I'm also going to try planting beans to create some shade on my deck (they'll be in earth boxes with strings running up to the roof edge.) It's very windy and sunny - may not work at all.

[CathyA]

I've been gardening for almost 40 years, so I've had plenty of time to figure out how I like to do things! ........and leaning over isn't anything I like to do! haha
All the trellises are sooooo much easier to deal with. I'm glad I didn't get rid of the kids' swingset frame. It has really been great in the garden. I grow snow peas on the ends, and cucs up the back and in the front, I grow peppers. Oh.....and I grow wrens too. There's a wren that comes back every year to nest in that middle tube, in the center. I can't believe its big enough for a nest, plus it must get soooo hot. Sometimes I put a big umbrella up there to give them some shade.

The fence around the garden is a necessity.......too many bunnies and deer. Although its not high enough to keep deer out, but I don't think they would jump into the garden now because of all the trellises. We had an embarrassingly ugly, old chicken wire fence around it for years and I got used to rabbits rearing their young in the garden. Well, I never got used to it...........so I love this new fence. So far........no bunnies... Unfortunately, too many mice who like to chew.

Birdie.......I wish my tomatoes would grow higher! Even my indeterminates don't grow that high.

Gardenarian........an espaliered pear sounds cool! I can't imagine not having rain for a year. We didn't have it for something like 4 months two years ago, and it was awful.
Good luck with the beans to shade your deck! I'm growing a Dutchman's Pipevine up a couple trellises on my house to help shade it. But I'm growing it for the pipevine swallowtail butterflies. If it's successful, the pipevine caterpillars eat all the leaves.......so if I'm lucky in that sense, it won't be shading the house. haha

There's so much I love to do outside, but my knees and hands aren't doing well. But so far, all the pain is worth it!

[new2oregon]

In one of my gardens last year I used some cheap garden fabric, cut holes for the tomato plants, squash, etc and it worked great. Just staked it down and had a lot less weeding to do. This was before I moved to Oregon. Plastic barrels cut down make cheap raised beds if you can find them. just drill holes in the bottom for drainage.