Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: puller on March 14, 2014, 09:02:50 AM
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Just finished breaking my garden up...I'm going a little bit bigger this year with it...my plot is about 50' X 30'...I couldn't make it any bigger due to a drainage issue I have to resolve first...of course I'll have okra, green beans, assorted peppers, squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes...If I can't figure out how to divert the water that will most certainly wash away the south side of my garden, I will have to find another spot to break up and turn it into my salsa garden :aok so who else in here has garden, what do you grow and how big do you go? :salute
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I bought a house in august of last year, it has 2 sheds and a greenhouse so it made sense to start using some of my new found land!
So far I've made a strawberry patch, planted out some spuds and sown some veg. Grown some lettuce, beetroot, spring onion and radish from seed and they are currently residing in a cold frame. It has been unusually mild for this time of year in Southern England so they are doing well. I have enough room to try some sort of beans still un-decided on what type though.
and my 4 baby tomato plants are doing me proud they had their first trip outside yesterday and enjoyed it. :old:
I'll have to take some pics at harvest time see how I do. :)
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Being disabled, there are some obsticals.
I farm in buckets. Peppers mainly. I use those big drywall buckets. They are called 5 gallon buckets but that is a misnomer as they hold more than that. once planted there is lottle to NO weeding whatsoever if you keep them up on a deck elevated from ground. Just water when they get wilty.
I have had peppers live 8 to 10 years by bringing them inside when it gets cold in the fall and then again back out in the spring when it warms up. The pepper plants take on an appearance of small trees after the first few years.
Just put a few holes around the bottom of the bucket with a large (ten penny) nail and use gravel in the bottom 3 inches for drainage. That may be a remedy for your drainage problem. Works very well with peppers of all kinds, onions, carrots, herbs, spices.
On the other hand, tomatoes, corn, watermellon, cantelope do NOT work at all in buckets.
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I garden 120 acres :noid
Look up french drains. Lots of ways to do it. Dig a trench with a grade to a area the water will drain or dig a sump type hole to disperse the drainage. backfill one inch with pea stone and grade again. Insert slotted draintile. Fill trench with pea stone. This drain with pea stone to the surface (important) will intercept surface water and ground water to the depth of the trench. Space trenches 5-8 ft apart depending on soil type for draining a area. If a single surface drain is all thats needed you can dig a trench, grade it, insert unslotted drain tile, from the surface, slightly bending into the trench and run the line to your ditch or sump, backfill with soil. If interested I can say more with specifics but the idea is to drain away excess water so the land is usable. Mounding or barriers can be used if the water problem is surface washouts. get some sod or ground cover can help keep the soil stable. yadda yadda :cheers:
Interesting thing about putting course material under fine material is that it wont drain until saturated. aka a perched water table. :old:
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Being disabled, there are some obsticals.
I farm in buckets. Peppers mainly. I use those big drywall buckets. They are called 5 gallon buckets but that is a misnomer as they hold more than that. once planted there is lottle to NO weeding whatsoever if you keep them up on a deck elevated from ground. Just water when they get wilty.
I have had peppers live 8 to 10 years by bringing them inside when it gets cold in the fall and then again back out in the spring when it warms up. The pepper plants take on an appearance of small trees after the first few years.
Just put a few holes around the bottom of the bucket with a large (ten penny) nail and use gravel in the bottom 3 inches for drainage. That may be a remedy for your drainage problem. Works very well with peppers of all kinds, onions, carrots, herbs, spices.
On the other hand, tomatoes, corn, watermellon, cantelope do NOT work at all in buckets.
corn grows roots to ten feet :old:
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Wished I had the space to do it. When we were stationed at Seymour Johnson, we were allotted a 50x50' garden area and we had a blast growing copious amounts of tomatoes, squash, turnips. onions, and the big mistake... watermelons. Yea, watermelons take over.
Here in Germany I grow mostly herbs; sage, rosemary, thyme, basil, mint. We normally have a cherry tomato plant out and both sweet and hot peppers.
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I garden 120 acres :noid
Look up french drains. Lots of ways to do it. Dig a trench with a grade to a area the water will drain or dig a sump type hole to disperse the drainage. backfill one inch with pea stone and grade again. Insert slotted draintile. Fill trench with pea stone. This drain with pea stone to the surface (important) will intercept surface water and ground water to the depth of the trench. Space trenches 5-8 ft apart depending on soil type for draining a area. If a single surface drain is all thats needed you can dig a trench, grade it, insert unslotted drain tile, from the surface, slightly bending into the trench and run the line to your ditch or sump, backfill with soil. If interested I can say more with specifics but the idea is to drain away excess water so the land is usable. Mounding or barriers can be used if the water problem is surface washouts. get some sod or ground cover can help keep the soil stable. yadda yadda :cheers:
Interesting thing about putting course material under fine material is that it wont drain until saturated. aka a perched water table. :old:
I haven't decided if a French drain will work or not...that was my first thought, but my problem is I have about 80 acres that drains down through where my garden is :noid the land above me is about 15 to 20 foot higher than my backyard so all the runoff from that hill comes right to my backyard hits a belly on the south side of my garden then runs down the belly to another small rise (which is my horseshoe area) then turns into a delta that is my chicken yard (btw my backyard is a full acre) I fought water all last season digging various ditches trying to divert water away from my yard...at the fence line separating my property from the hill above me I am planting cane grass so I'm hoping that it will divert the water for me...if not that is where I'm gonna put the French drain :)
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I get my plants as big as I can indoors in smart pots. Then set out early April /May. Let them veg a little longer outdoors. Then depo (cover and under cover) tricks the plant into thinking that it is autumn by blacking-out the light for a period of the day, which forces them to flower early.
It's a real commitment to do twice a day, but you end up with some really nice stuff done in early August and avoid mold and rain and frost. In normal planting my plants finish off in October.
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We used to grow a pretty good size garden (can't remember the exact measurements, but I know it was about 50 yards long and about 20 yards wide). Of course, we grew the usual stuff: tomatoes, squash, okra, purple hull peas (the largest portion of our garden), green beans, butter beans, cucumbers, peppers, and green onions. I always enjoyed tilling the garden as a kid. Now, I enjoy it even more because I bring out the big boy toys. I went from tilling all that with an 18" walk behind tiller to a 6' tiller and a tractor! :D
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Okra, the food of the gods. Nothing better than mix Okra and potatoes till the okra slimes then add flour then fry in about an 1/8" of peanut oil. About two thirds of the time with the lid on.
I have a garden but quite a large home orchard, and smaller banana and citrus grove. My summer apples are already in bloom.
Waiting on the Yukons to come up. The okra will go in place of the potatoes. I grew Vidalia onions but found buying them just as good. Watermelons are my favorite.
Have you thought of raised beds in the runoff area?
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I plant in pots :old:
I planted sweetcorn to see what colonials eat :old:
I was amazed to see that they grew by not at the top but the sides of the plant, it amazing what colonals eat :old:
Bruv show us a picture of your garden
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Just finished breaking my garden up...I'm going a little bit bigger this year with it...my plot is about 50' X 30'...I couldn't make it any bigger due to a drainage issue I have to resolve first...of course I'll have okra, green beans, assorted peppers, squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes...If I can't figure out how to divert the water that will most certainly wash away the south side of my garden, I will have to find another spot to break up and turn it into my salsa garden :aok so who else in here has garden, what do you grow and how big do you go? :salute
Same size garden as mine.
For my tomato plants, I grow early-girls, beef steaks and cherry tomatoes.
I also put in some bell peppers, squash and cucumbers (straight eights)
Coogan
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any of you ever tried growing tomatoes upside down? I have a friend whose family owns a farm and his dad grows what he calls a cornmatoe, has a corn plant on top and the tomatoe grows upside down. it produces more and bigger tomatoes than his other mater plants do, not sure if its coincidence or not.
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I tried it. Bought a planter made to do it, followed the directions, and the plant didn't produce well. I got a few tomatoes but nothing like advertised
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any of you ever tried growing tomatoes upside down? I have a friend whose family owns a farm and his dad grows what he calls a cornmatoe, has a corn plant on top and the tomatoe grows upside down. it produces more and bigger tomatoes than his other mater plants do, not sure if its coincidence or not.
I know a few that hang tomatoes, but I don't know what their yield is compared to conventional planting--I'll have to ask them.
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I hated gardening so much I paid some gypoes to tarmac the lot. :old:
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Upside down maters are just as weather and strain dependent as those in the ground, gonna have good years and bad years.
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I plant in pots :old:
I planted sweetcorn to see what colonials eat :old:
I was amazed to see that they grew by not at the top but the sides of the plant, it amazing what colonals eat :old:
Bruv show us a picture of your garden
Corn was one of the first genetically manipulated plants. Native americans bread the plant from something almost incomparable to what we know today. They then introduced the plant to the colonials.
Truly a amaizeing feat of early man that helps sustain life today. Traditional Maize is a awesome plant and grows much taller than modern varieties. :old:
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If there's too much water, a kiwi plant might be the solution. My aunt lives in Alsace halfways of a hill and she had problems with water in her cellar until she planted that kiwi. Now it also shadows her south porch nicely.
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I garden,infact Gman posted a pic of my garden in this forum awhile back.... :devil
:salute
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I garden,infact Gman posted a pic of my garden in this forum awhile back.... :devil
:)
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Just finished breaking my garden up...I'm going a little bit bigger this year with it...my plot is about 50' X 30'...I couldn't make it any bigger due to a drainage issue I have to resolve first...of course I'll have okra, green beans, assorted peppers, squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes...If I can't figure out how to divert the water that will most certainly wash away the south side of my garden, I will have to find another spot to break up and turn it into my salsa garden :aok so who else in here has garden, what do you grow and how big do you go? :salute
You were just complaining about winter ending and you're already tilling your garden?? :headscratch:
Yeah, I feel sorry for you.
:)
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I have had peppers live 8 to 10 years by bringing them inside when it gets cold in the fall and then again back out in the spring when it warms up. The pepper plants take on an appearance of small trees after the first few years.
This is great MrGeezer, do they produce any fruit in the off season?
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Posted this in a thread we had on gardening last year, reposting here as I'm a bit of an aquaponics fanboy :)
I don't have a conventional garden, I do have an aquaponics system however, growing fish and vege's together in my backyard.
Here's a pic of the actual system :
(http://users.tpg.com.au/steelyj/AP/System.bmp)
Basically a large fish tank below a grow bed for the plants, water is pumped from the tank to the grow bed, and returns to the tank through a siphon type device, the fish waste feeds the plants and
the plants clean the water, all I add is fishfood and the occasional top-up of water when evaporation takes a toll.
Here's a couple of trout we pulled out last year :
(http://users.tpg.com.au/steelyj/AP/trout.jpg)
Beans and pumpkin growing :
(http://users.tpg.com.au/steelyj/AP/healthy.jpg)
corn and tomatoes that are growing at the moment :
(http://users.tpg.com.au/steelyj/AP/corn.jpg)
Last years harvest of silver perch :
(http://users.tpg.com.au/steelyj/harvest/result.jpg)
It's a great way to grow healthy food at home, this is just a small system as we have a small yard, but it can scale to any size, have even seen people running tiny ones using a normal goldfish bowl
some small system examples here
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1617
and large ones!
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1619
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That's pretty cool Steely! :aok
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It's pretty great, no weeding, everything is at waist height, so no bending over, can grow anything, at the moment, I have a passionfruit in there, it's going great guns, has fruit all over it, just waiting for it to ripen.
Also, no chemicals involved at all, purely organic, I'm not a hippy or anything, but I have to say, I can't eat hydro tomato's anymore, mine taste about 500% better :)
Currently I have about 12 foot long tandanus catfish in there, I have to borrow a deep-fryer so I can cook em up properly ;)
(http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0006/319227/eel-tail-catfish.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/IcmAAZZ.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Tt5olY7.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/9easnp0.jpg)
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Fish plants :)
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It's pretty great, no weeding, everything is at waist height, so no bending over, can grow anything, at the moment, I have a passionfruit in there, it's going great guns, has fruit all over it, just waiting for it to ripen.
Also, no chemicals involved at all, purely organic, I'm not a hippy or anything, but I have to say, I can't eat hydro tomato's anymore, mine taste about 500% better :)
Currently I have about 12 foot long tandanus catfish in there, I have to borrow a deep-fryer so I can cook em up properly ;)
(http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0006/319227/eel-tail-catfish.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/IcmAAZZ.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Tt5olY7.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/9easnp0.jpg)
This could be the single greatest idea on the internet. wow :salute maybe add some rocks, crayfish, and snails
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Hippy
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Does cultivating fungi in the underpants count? :noid
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It's pretty great, no weeding, everything is at waist height, so no bending over, can grow anything, at the moment, I have a passionfruit in there, it's going great guns, has fruit all over it, just waiting for it to ripen.
Also, no chemicals involved at all, purely organic, I'm not a hippy or anything, but I have to say, I can't eat hydro tomato's anymore, mine taste about 500% better :)
Currently I have about 12 foot long tandanus catfish in there, I have to borrow a deep-fryer so I can cook em up properly ;)
(http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0006/319227/eel-tail-catfish.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/IcmAAZZ.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Tt5olY7.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/9easnp0.jpg)
Dude that is frickin awesome. Both the wife and I are looking into this.
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This could be the single greatest idea on the internet. wow :salute maybe add some rocks, crayfish, and snails
Not my idea, but certainly a good one, had crayfish in there for a while, but the last one (winner of all the territorial fighting) climbed out one night and disappeared :(
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Hippy
hey Man, let's just keep it peaceful and groovy ok? ;)
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Dude that is frickin awesome. Both the wife and I are looking into this.
Awesome, I started reading up on aquaponic systems about 2 months ago. I've been gardening in raised outside beds for about 10 years, 8 beds of various sizes in an approximately 20'x50' plot beside our house. I happened upon an article on aquaponics and thought "holy crap... that's great!" We (wife and I) had been talking about digging a small pond in the back yard (we've got a couple acres) to stock with fish, but now that we're onto the idea of aquaponic farming we're scrapping the pond idea and gonna quit the outside garden (or reduce the size of) in favor of a greenhouse, probably 16'x24', that we can grow in year round and set up several aquaponic systems.
Not hippy at all, just smart IMHO. Nothing better than getting as self sufficient as you can, and growing your own food, fishies and chickens included, is unbeatable.
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Awesome, I started reading up on aquaponic systems about 2 months ago. I've been gardening in raised outside beds for about 10 years, 8 beds of various sizes in an approximately 20'x50' plot beside our house. I happened upon an article on aquaponics and thought "holy crap... that's great!" We (wife and I) had been talking about digging a small pond in the back yard (we've got a couple acres) to stock with fish, but now that we're onto the idea of aquaponic farming we're scrapping the pond idea and gonna quit the outside garden (or reduce the size of) in favor of a greenhouse, probably 16'x24', that we can grow in year round and set up several aquaponic systems.
Not hippy at all, just smart IMHO. Nothing better than getting as self sufficient as you can, and growing your own food, fishies and chickens included, is unbeatable.
I think I've hijacked the thread, my apologies, I just gotta spread the idea, as you mention Reaper, it's just a smart idea, I think your greenhouse should be built so it's easy to expand, because you will want to expand the system, trust me :)
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Gardening is awesome :old:
I saw some japanese scientists growing plants only in water sidewards
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You were just complaining about winter ending and you're already tilling your garden?? :headscratch:
Yeah, I feel sorry for you.
:)
:lol when you live off the land weather effects you very differently than living in the city...I needed good weather to start getting ready spring planting season...I got several days of good weather I took advantage of it...I am by far wealthy so I rely on my garden and hunting and fishing to feed my family...so before you "feel sorry" for me maybe it should be me that "feels sorry" for you because most of the time I know exactly where my food comes from :salute
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Sorry, apparently living off the land makes ya a little sensitive. Was just busting your chops. :)
P.S. I don't live in a city and it still would take dynamite to break up my garden. :salute
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I have had peppers live 8 to 10 years by bringing them inside when it gets cold in the fall and then again back out in the spring when it warms up. The pepper plants take on an appearance of small trees after the first few years.
This is great MrGeezer, do they produce any fruit in the off season?
Absolutely! I plucked off 3 hot thai and 5 sport peppers yesterday to make a hot & spicy Asian soup with. During the holidays my father-in law looks at the green plants with red peppers and calls them "hot & spicy Christmas Trees".
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Does cultivating fungi in the underpants count? :noid
I believe, technically, that would be producing Fromunda Cheese.