If you have gardened for awhile, you keep learning what NOT to do, and even learn new stuff to try....
I cover the garlic with chopped straw after planting the first or second week in October.... I built a straw chopper when I
grew garlic for the market....
I had this 4x4x8' bale of straw I was aging so it would start to break down.... while chopping it into 4" pieces, I noticed the
mice had a nest in the middle of it.... (thought pigs only built houses of straw).... well I finished the chopping and covered the garlic for the winter.....
Winter here is hard on all critters... coyotes foraging for food is the norm.... quail, chickens, mice !!!!!!... MICE !!!
Well they found my straw covering freshly tilled earth, (garlic in it), and decided there was an abundant supply of mice in it...
with the straw chopped, the scent was spread all over.... the coyotes dug and dug and dug looking for the mice.... none to be found but they came back trying to find them......
The earliest variety, Blossom is coming up nicely.....
I burned the winter growth of weeds..... manure will be added soon..... this bed will be "Bodacious" corn...
I bought a new lawn mower... it has a double bagger.... finally a leaf gathering machine.... this bed was covered in leaves about 6" deep last fall..... also I added all the ash from the pellet stove.... copious amounts of ammonium sulfate will be added to break down the leaves and acidify the alkalinity of the wood ash..... hopefully the nutrients that were locked up in the pellets will do wonders to the veggies..... Chicken manure will be added also.....
This is the first series in bed preparation... after last year and the cold weather lasting into June.... I "raised bed" the whole garden... hope it heats up earlier than last year....
the wood boxes are for onions, shallot, etc.... sometimes weeding takes a back seat to other stuff....
at least we know where to weed..... enough fertilizer and the weeds won't compete with the veggies....
This is my design for building raised beds..... It works really well....
If all goes well, there will be an update in the near future......
Yesterday while doing all this work, the thought of Pineywoods and his trellis system, auto watering, auto feeding, no bending, no weeding, growing stuff year around, did pass through my mind.... maybe more than once.....
Thanks for looking.......... Dave
I cover the garlic with chopped straw after planting the first or second week in October.... I built a straw chopper when I
grew garlic for the market....
I had this 4x4x8' bale of straw I was aging so it would start to break down.... while chopping it into 4" pieces, I noticed the
mice had a nest in the middle of it.... (thought pigs only built houses of straw).... well I finished the chopping and covered the garlic for the winter.....
Winter here is hard on all critters... coyotes foraging for food is the norm.... quail, chickens, mice !!!!!!... MICE !!!
Well they found my straw covering freshly tilled earth, (garlic in it), and decided there was an abundant supply of mice in it...
with the straw chopped, the scent was spread all over.... the coyotes dug and dug and dug looking for the mice.... none to be found but they came back trying to find them......
The earliest variety, Blossom is coming up nicely.....
I burned the winter growth of weeds..... manure will be added soon..... this bed will be "Bodacious" corn...
I bought a new lawn mower... it has a double bagger.... finally a leaf gathering machine.... this bed was covered in leaves about 6" deep last fall..... also I added all the ash from the pellet stove.... copious amounts of ammonium sulfate will be added to break down the leaves and acidify the alkalinity of the wood ash..... hopefully the nutrients that were locked up in the pellets will do wonders to the veggies..... Chicken manure will be added also.....
This is the first series in bed preparation... after last year and the cold weather lasting into June.... I "raised bed" the whole garden... hope it heats up earlier than last year....
the wood boxes are for onions, shallot, etc.... sometimes weeding takes a back seat to other stuff....
at least we know where to weed..... enough fertilizer and the weeds won't compete with the veggies....
This is my design for building raised beds..... It works really well....
If all goes well, there will be an update in the near future......
Yesterday while doing all this work, the thought of Pineywoods and his trellis system, auto watering, auto feeding, no bending, no weeding, growing stuff year around, did pass through my mind.... maybe more than once.....
Thanks for looking.......... Dave
