Gardeners of AW, unite

Chris P

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Um.....too big?

Yanno, you start small. And then you add. And add. And add. And add. And pretty soon you're feeding not just yourselves but all of your friends, coworkers, students, and random people you run into.

The potager in the front garden, with slightly raised beds and fixed paths, is about 7 m x 9 m and is where we grow all the 'single' stuff (tomatoes, courgettes, capsicums, beans, lettuce, broccoli, cauli, herbs etc). The back garden has the glasshouse and four unfixed sections of garden bed, each ~ 2 x 4 m to 3 x 5 m, where we grow the large items 'en masse' (corn, pumpkins, potatoes, and a fixed trellis of scarlet runner beans).

Front garden has 3 apple trees, 4 pear trees, 2 fig trees, 3 feijoa bushes, 3 lemons, 1 mandarin, 2 cherry, 1 apricot, 3 peach, and 1 plum tree, plus a very prolific thornless blackberry vine. Back garden has 2 plum, 1 orange, 1 mandarin, 1 lime, plus what we call the frankenfruit tree: a plum that never even blossomed so after about five years we got mad at it, sawed it down to the crotch branches, and grafted onto them 7 different kinds of peach, nectarine, apricot, and plum. Most took and some blossomed after a year, so we're waiting to see what actually happens in three or four years.

We also have the most amazingly good soil. Plus endless options for fertiliser thanks to the cattle and chooks.

And we're utterly blessed with an artesian bore/well to facilitate watering.

And beehives for fertilisation.

And this is why I want to retire: the day job won't let me keep up with all this!
Nice! And you seem to have maximized its productivity too. 100 kg of produce in one haul is impressive.

I reaaaaaally want an apple tree with several different varieties grafted on, but we're not convinced where I think it should go is the best place, or if we might want to do something else there, like a redbud or Japanese maple. It would also put one of the dogwoods in question, but I think the dogwood is too close to the house (but I'm the only one who thinks so). I'd like to put the apple tree in the former location of a huge (and dying) maple tree we took out last year, and I'm told we should give the ground up-stump at least another year to break down before trying to do anything in that spot (I'm not sure that's really the case, but okay). I'm pretty sure the neighborhood kids would leave the apples alone, but the deer might be a different story. Then again, if we worried about the deer we'd never do anything.
 
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Adding: produce is quite expensive here compared to the US. Especially since COVID. The really excellent and experienced seasonal workers from the islands, who were getting paid ~$17 - 20 per hour to pick apples, asparagus, kiwifruit, courgettes, etc couldn't come in at spring or autumn with the borders closed, so growers have had to hire Kiwis -- and pay $22 - 30 per hour for labour.

I saw in the grocery store last week: $10 for a large watermelon, $1.50 per capsicum, both in peak season. Good quality beef mince (hamburger) is now sitting ~ $20 - 25/kg. Petrol ~ $10/gallon. Fresh honey ~$10/pound; free range eggs ~$8/dozen. So you can see why we're keen to be self sufficient!
 

mrsmig

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Unimportant, your place sounds amazing. I'm so jealous.

Between my busted leg (fell off a stepstool right before Christmas), the punk winter weather and much drama involved in getting my 101 year-old mother into assisted living this month, I haven't been able to tend the plants in my experimental greenhouses. (To recap, this fall I put up a low hoop house in the main garden and planted broccoli, chard, beets and cabbages there. I lined part of my tomato fortress with greenhouse plastic and put containers of lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, peas and parsnips in there. I was late getting everything planted so I had low expectations.)

I went out just now and did a little poking around, since it's quite warm today (although a sharp drop in temps and a little wintry stuff is forecast for tonight). I didn't disturb the hoop house since I can't kneel yet. (I know that the Stonehead cabbages in there were doing well as of a couple weeks back, when I had my husband harvest one so I could make cole slaw.) However, I did uncover the greenhouse, expecting everything to be dead. As expected, the pea plants didn't make it, and the spinach, which never took off, is pretty much a loss. The radishes that were ready to pick back in December had gone woody after being in the ground so long. The carrot tops still look vigorous, although Lord knows what's happening under the soil. The parsnips didn't sprout but I'm going to let them sit and see what happens.

But the lettuce! To my surprise, it all looks great. I have cut-and-come-again crops of baby lettuce in several different varieties. I haven't tasted them but they certainly look nice. And in the main garden, my containers of Chesnok Red hardneck garlic are sprouting.

I've got all my supplies ready to start seeds indoors, and will probably get that going tomorrow. The very thought makes me rub my hands with glee.
 
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I'm so sorry to hear about your leg, Mrs.Mig. Get well. Glad to hear about the lettuce though--I've blown through my seeds with nothing to show for it (few sprouts, they withered and died, although the spinach is doing well enough.)

The raccoon came back last night and rooted through an entire bed. All the bean sprouts and kale sprouts are gone, like that. Mornings like this I feel like pulling out the shotgun. I won't, but I feel like it. I'm so angry. The dang thing had been a no-show for six weeks or so, and i was hoping it had fed a coyote somewhere and would never darken my doorstep again. Now I wonder if it had a litter instead, and is teaching the young 'uns.

Grrr.
 
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mrsmig

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I have raccoons, too, but thus far haven't had much trouble with them (it's white-tailed deer and gray squirrels that are my garden nemeses). I had to fence all my gardens to keep the deer out, and build big cages to protect tomato plants from the squirrels.

The leg is better every day, thanks. Fortunately it didn't require surgery, but I was in a thigh-to-calf splint for two months. That came off at the beginning of this month, although I'm still not supposed to put weight on it for two more weeks. The knee is stiff from being held straight for so long, so I'm still hobbling. It's been a relief to sleep without the splint, though.
 

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Unimportant, your place sounds amazing. I'm so jealous.

Between my busted leg (fell off a stepstool right before Christmas), the punk winter weather and much drama involved in getting my 101 year-old mother into assisted living this month, I haven't been able to tend the plants in my experimental greenhouses. (To recap, this fall I put up a low hoop house in the main garden and planted broccoli, chard, beets and cabbages there. I lined part of my tomato fortress with greenhouse plastic and put containers of lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, peas and parsnips in there. I was late getting everything planted so I had low expectations.)

I went out just now and did a little poking around, since it's quite warm today (although a sharp drop in temps and a little wintry stuff is forecast for tonight). I didn't disturb the hoop house since I can't kneel yet. (I know that the Stonehead cabbages in there were doing well as of a couple weeks back, when I had my husband harvest one so I could make cole slaw.) However, I did uncover the greenhouse, expecting everything to be dead. As expected, the pea plants didn't make it, and the spinach, which never took off, is pretty much a loss. The radishes that were ready to pick back in December had gone woody after being in the ground so long. The carrot tops still look vigorous, although Lord knows what's happening under the soil. The parsnips didn't sprout but I'm going to let them sit and see what happens.

But the lettuce! To my surprise, it all looks great. I have cut-and-come-again crops of baby lettuce in several different varieties. I haven't tasted them but they certainly look nice. And in the main garden, my containers of Chesnok Red hardneck garlic are sprouting.

I've got all my supplies ready to start seeds indoors, and will probably get that going tomorrow. The very thought makes me rub my hands with glee.
Yay for lettuce! But gosh yeah that'd suck to break your leg and have family dramas that keep you out of the greenhouses. All that work for so little reward.

Even if the carrots have gone woody, you can cut out the cores and the rest will be perfectly edible and have a really intense flavour. And parsnip seeds will sometimes sprout after a year or two of winter freeze/summer warmth. They're weird things to germinate.

One thing we really can't grow is cabbages! Our soil is too good and too loose, so the heads don't form. We swap with friends who have shite soil and can grow cabbages but not much else :)

We're lucky with our friends, who are also into being self sufficient for $/flavour reasons. One couple we're kind of mentoring work way too many hours and have three young adults eating them out of house and home, so they can absorb a LOT of my excess produce (and beef!). Another couple who mentor us are quite elderly and after the husband's recent stroke haven't been able to keep their gardens up, so we meet up with them once a week or so and give them 5 - 10 kgs of veg (and steal all of their excess plums to put into mead). We all live in small towns/villages so somebody can always find somebody who can find somebody who's in need of whatever one of us has too much of.
 
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I'm so sorry to hear about your leg, Mrs.Mig. Get well. Glad to hear about the lettuce though--I've blown through my seeds with nothing to show for it (few sprouts, they withered and died, although the spinach is doing well enough.)

The raccoon came back last night and rooted through an entire bed. All the bean sprouts and kale sprouts are gone, like that. Mornings like this I feel like pulling out the shotgun. I won't, but I feel like it. I'm so angry. The dang thing had been a no-show for six weeks or so, and i was hoping it had fed a coyote somewhere and would never darken my doorstep again. Now I wonder if it had a litter instead, and is teaching the young 'uns.

Grrr.
Oh, yikes. We use fencing to keep the chooks out of the garden and metal cages to keep the sparrows and mice away from seedlings, but I don't reckon there's much that would keep out racoons and their clever, strong little hands :(
 
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All around our largest bed is rosemary, and it is a decent bunny/coon/etc deterrent by and large (although I see that the coon left a teeny bit of damage there, too. Not much. A couple exploratory holes.)

I've thought about fencing the smaller bed, but I'd rather work out some sort of invisible deterrent. Like the rosemary, but I can't use that there (too small of a space). It's a lasagna bed, which means it gets layered like a lasagna with lots of organics. Coffee grounds, compost, clippings, manure, clay to make the proportions right, etc. And those organics means lots of worms and grubs. Big, big grubs (Green fruit beetle) about 4 cm in length. The raccoons feast upon the masses of grubs, and part of me (the circle of life part) is OK with that, but most of me is angry. Don't the raccoons know they are supposed to run off and feed a coyote next? That's how this is supposed to work!

Anyway, I should probably stop layering in the organics, in that bed. The raccoons will find fewer grubs and go elsewhere. But in the meantime I'll need to find something else to plant, something they dislike. They tend to avoid the tomato plants, so I could plant tomatoes there. Maybe a row of marigolds in the front. I wonder if raccoons avoid marigolds.

Unimportant: I always wondered why my cabbages don't form heads. You've inspired me to plant cabbages in a different spot next time around! Thank you for the tip. :) :)
 
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The raccoons feast upon the masses of grubs, and part of me (the circle of life part) is OK with that, but most of me is angry. Don't the raccoons know they are supposed to run off and feed a coyote next? That's how this is supposed to work!
:ROFLMAO:
Anyway, I should probably stop layering in the organics, in that bed. The raccoons will find fewer grubs and go elsewhere. But in the meantime I'll need to find something else to plant, something they dislike. They tend to avoid the tomato plants, so I could plant tomatoes there. Maybe a row of marigolds in the front. I wonder if raccoons avoid marigolds.
Plant something with thorns! Pomegranate bushes are dense and wicked. Or roses. Or raspberries.
Unimportant: I always wondered why my cabbages don't form heads. You've inspired me to plant cabbages in a different spot next time around! Thank you for the tip. :) :)
I'm told they need really firm, hard soil.
 

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:ROFLMAO:

Plant something with thorns! Pomegranate bushes are dense and wicked. Or roses. Or raspberries.
Oh, good idea.

I've tried raspberries elsewhere years and years ago, and they always died. Sadness.

When this lasagna bed went in, only a few years ago, I wasn't sure what would work to grow in it. There'd been several trees standing there and they were damaging the house's foundation, so those had to come out. But the stumps remained in the ground, so the bed got built up on top of them.

What a good idea to try raspberries there, and hope they work (while foiling the critters!) I think I can get bare roots right now. Thanks again! I'll try raspberries. :)
 

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Oh, good idea.

I've tried raspberries elsewhere years and years ago, and they always died. Sadness.

When this lasagna bed went in, only a few years ago, I wasn't sure what would work to grow in it. There'd been several trees standing there and they were damaging the house's foundation, so those had to come out. But the stumps remained in the ground, so the bed got built up on top of them.

What a good idea to try raspberries there, and hope they work (while foiling the critters!) I think I can get bare roots right now. Thanks again! I'll try raspberries. :)
Ask round your mates if anyone has a raspberry bed that has gone rampant and is taking over the planet. You can often get dozens (or hundreds!) of free canes that way, if you're willing to come over with a shovel and a bunch of buckets.

ETA: if you want to fence (low or high) but also want it to seem an invisible deterrent, put in posts (high or low) and string strong steel wire round them, with the lines about 8 inches apart. Then plant and espalier fruit trees or berries along the wires. It looks really pretty, it forms a living fence (in about ten years the wires will be redundant for fruit trees like apple and pear), it's easy to prune and easy to pick the fruit, and you can make them low enough to step over or as high as you can reach.
 

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Oh also, we have a castor bean volunteering. I should pull it. But the idea that I have ricin growing in my yard somehow fascinates me. (I'll pull it, I will, I promise. But I want to watch it grow first. Maybe even put the bloom into a bouquet for fun.)
 
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Well, the azalea is moved, and I still have internet! It wasn't nearly as hard to dig up as my coworker had said, so maybe I got lucky somehow. As for the cable line where I wanted to move it to, I realized; shoot, it's an azalea. I can plant it two feet over from where I had planned and just trim it to look how I want it once it grows out. So my neighbor still has internet too.
Yeay for moved azaleas and still having internet! Best of both worlds!

I only moved an azalea once as new neighbours pulled out all the azaleas in their back garden with heavy machinery and piled them on the streets. (A crime against gardening really, they must have been old plants.)

My dad who can not say no to any plant or sad looking root picked the best looking one and it has been in our garden ever since. It took years for it to overcome its ordeal but it definitely was worth trying it. It's a lovely bush now.

Oh also, we have a castor bean volunteering. I should pull it. But the idea that I have ricin growing in my yard somehow fascinates me. (I'll pull it, I will, I promise. But I want to watch it grow first. Maybe even put the bloom into a bouquet for fun.)
Be sure to check your local laws. It is forbidden to keep in some places.
 

Chris P

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Oh also, we have a castor bean volunteering. I should pull it. But the idea that I have ricin growing in my yard somehow fascinates me. (I'll pull it, I will, I promise. But I want to watch it grow first. Maybe even put the bloom into a bouquet for fun.)
Back in college I took a course called "Natural Toxins," aimed mostly at veterinary students to understand what might kill a farmer's animals. I briefly considered having a "poison garden" with all the nasty things growing.

The story of Warfarin, the rat poison and blood thinner: One day, a farmer showed up at a vet college with a dead cow, a bucket of blood, and a truckload of moldy hay. The cow had been eating the hay, got cut on a barbed-wire fence, bled out and died. In the end, it was determined that the mold on sweet clover hay produced an anticoagulant that caused the bleeding. The structure was eventually worked out at the University of Wisconsin, and hence the name: WARF is the Wisconsin Agricultural Research Foundation, which held the first patent on the molecule.
 

Chris P

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Yeay for moved azaleas and still having internet! Best of both worlds!

I only moved an azalea once as new neighbours pulled out all the azaleas in their back garden with heavy machinery and piled them on the streets. (A crime against gardening really, they must have been old plants.)

My dad who can not say no to any plant or sad looking root picked the best looking one and it has been in our garden ever since. It took years for it to overcome its ordeal but it definitely was worth trying it. It's a lovely bush now.
Thanks for letting me know about the azaleas. I expect a slow first year or two in the new location, so it seems I might need to be even more patient than that.

I did some research and found we can grow rhubarb here if you provide it with afternoon shade. I got just the place! Two crowns of Crimson Red will ship in mid-March. Green does better in warmer areas like mine, but nobody sells green rhubarb crowns that I could find. While I was at it, I ordered some raspberry roots and asparagus. They too will arrive in late March.
 
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Back in college I took a course called "Natural Toxins," aimed mostly at veterinary students to understand what might kill a farmer's animals. I briefly considered having a "poison garden" with all the nasty things growing.

The story of Warfarin, the rat poison and blood thinner: One day, a farmer showed up at a vet college with a dead cow, a bucket of blood, and a truckload of moldy hay. The cow had been eating the hay, got cut on a barbed-wire fence, bled out and died. In the end, it was determined that the mold on sweet clover hay produced an anticoagulant that caused the bleeding. The structure was eventually worked out at the University of Wisconsin, and hence the name: WARF is the Wisconsin Agricultural Research Foundation, which held the first patent on the molecule.
Cool story! My PhD program began on a WARF fellowship. :) I was in Fred hall up the street from the creamery and not too far from the ag part of the campus.

I bought two raspberry plants and they're now in the ground, along with a few other new plants. (Including rhubarb, heh.) I hope those varmints leave them alone.
 
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Thanks for letting me know about the azaleas. I expect a slow first year or two in the new location, so it seems I might need to be even more patient than that.
All azaleas we have in out garden (on a quick count about five different varieties) are very slow growers. Not sure if they will behave the same in your climate but yeah, patience is a necessity with azaleas. The benefit is that they barely require pruning but the downside is that shaping one and have it look pretty is a work of years.
 

Chris P

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Cool story! My PhD program began on a WARF fellowship. :) I was in Fred hall up the street from the creamery and not too far from the ag part of the campus.

I bought two raspberry plants and they're now in the ground, along with a few other new plants. (Including rhubarb, heh.) I hope those varmints leave them alone.
I love Madison! I never got to study there, though. They had an amazing dairy retail outlet with the best cheese curds I've had (not that I need to inform you of them, I'm sure).

You've reminded me that I'm going to have to invest in some bird netting for the grapevines and raspberry plants, as well as the dryer vent. I don't think we have many bunnies around here (I don't see them, anyway) but the foxes (dozens of them!) are probably eating more than the trash, so there have to be some around.
 
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Thanks for letting me know about the azaleas. I expect a slow first year or two in the new location, so it seems I might need to be even more patient than that.

I did some research and found we can grow rhubarb here if you provide it with afternoon shade. I got just the place! Two crowns of Crimson Red will ship in mid-March. Green does better in warmer areas like mine, but nobody sells green rhubarb crowns that I could find. While I was at it, I ordered some raspberry roots and asparagus. They too will arrive in late March.
I've had a green rhubarb for some years now. It's not as pretty as the red varieties, but it's tasty and has done extremely well over the years. I think I got it from Merrifield Gardens, just a hop and a skip away from us (Chris and I live in the same suburb of DC.)
 
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Yeah, I thought of them but if they put their inventory online they hide it very, very well. I get it a lot of places don't have their supplies yet. I got my grapevines from there almost exactly a year ago, so I'm sure they have some stuff. Maybe more than I realize.
 
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Yeah, I thought of them but if they put their inventory online they hide it very, very well. I get it a lot of places don't have their supplies yet. I got my grapevines from there almost exactly a year ago, so I'm sure they have some stuff. Maybe more than I realize.
They never put their inventory on line. I usually call, or just go over. There's always plenty of other things to tempt me!
 

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Y'all need to suck up to people who have gardens like mine. We're forever splitting rhubarb, digging out stray berry canes, chopping at strawberry runners, whacking out herbs that self rooted in the middle of the lawn, etc, and we give them away to all comers. (I even deliver to friends and colleagues).

And we hardly ever buy seeds because friends buy them for us in the happy knowledge that a proportion of the resultant veggies will in turn end up on their doorsteps :)
 

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All of my digits (fingers and toes) are black. I do like reading about all y'all's gardening adventures.

MM
 
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Lessons from this year:
1. Don't plant cucumber near trellissed climbing roses. Cucumbers also climb. And climb. And climb. You don't want to have to go up a ladder and reach through heaps of thorny rose branches to collect your cucumbers.

2. Don't plant scarlet runner beans along the fence with espaliered peach trees. Scarlet runner beans and peach leaves look an awful lot alike. You won't find the beans till they're has-beans. Happily, cows will eat oversized beans.

3. Check the seed packet before buying. Don't assume that all marigolds are the pretty little ankle-height French marigolds. They also come in the giant nearly-three-feet-tall variety, which don't do well if you plant them under your tomatoes.

4. No matter how many swan plants you plant for the monarch butterfly caterpillars, you will never have enough.

5. Beans will double in size overnight. Plan to pick beans every day during bean season. Every day. NB: bean season lasts for approximately ten weeks.

6. People look at you weird when you offer them tomatoes that are any colour but red. Orange, yellow, striped, maroon-and-green, black -- they taste better, actually, but too many people have never seen anything but an anemic red tomato from the grocery store.
 
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