It's a late start but better late than never. Usually I can plant my garden vegetables around May 16. This year I had to wait until May 27 to get my garden planted but it is done:) All of my plants are in and acclimating to being outside.
I know a lot of you read this blog and I would really appreciate some feedback. Please leave a comment and tell me what you think. Thank you:)
Starting to plant in my square foot garden:
After everything is in I water my garden:
I did plant some early vegetables and they are doing well. I have spinach, lettuce, mustard greens and peas:
And my strawberries have gone insane. I need to read up and them and learn how to cut back or how to use the runners properly. This year I will let them go:
While checking the leaves on my strawberry plants I found a new bug. It's called a Spittle Bug and leaves what looks like spit on the plants. They are not supposed to be harmful to the plant. Spittle Bug I did not see the actual bug but I did see the spit/foam:
And my pole bean seeds that I planted last week:)
My peas are starting to flower. I use tomato cages for the peas. It helps them stay neat:
The greens are doing very well especially the Mustard Greens:
Some lettuce and spinach:
A walk around the yard.
I came across a tree that i have never seen the flowers on. It has very pretty yellow flowers and I never knew we had this tree. Does anyone know what kind of tree this is:
Little apples on one of he many apple trees:
My blueberry plants are looking healthy:
And my fruit trees are starting to look better than sticks:)
Well most of them, lol, but they are healthy:)
On a great note I got a call from our grader. He told me he has a load of chicken manure and I can take what I want. Now that may be strange to some of you but that made my day:). Chicken manure for the garden is wonderful. Mike won't touch it, lol, but he did take me over with the trailer and my buckets. It is too ripe to use this year but I will save to for next year's garden.
Here I am happily, sell as long as I don't breath, shoveling my chicken poo:)
I hope you enjoyed a tour around my garden and back yard. I will post a follow up in a few weeks as things begin to grow. This is the hard part...the waiting for food to be harvested. It seems to take so....long:)
your flowering tree looks like a gum tree.
ReplyDeletemax from illinois.
(dreamer)
I knew I knew what that tree was but couldn't think of the name of it!
DeleteThank you Max. I will check that out.
DeleteIt might also be a Tulip Poplar (your state tree)... since it looks like the leaves have 4 lobes and Sweet Gums have 5.
DeleteI just have to shake my head when I see everything you two do and how OCD you are on neatness. LOL
ReplyDeleteLooking very good. ;-)
It's a good thing Mike and I are together, lol. Who else could put up with us:)
DeleteThank you.
The garden looks wonderful Lisa!
ReplyDeleteThank you Shelly. I just hope I don't kill the basil...grr!!
DeleteLisa if you want a good green bean try Derby Green Beans. They a bush bean. Grow about 20" tall & produce all summer long. Easy picking & supposedly stringless but we all know better! Theres no such thing as a green beans thats actually stringless. So they are semi-stringed.
ReplyDeleteSTANGF150
SurvialMonkey.com
Thank you. I have never heard of those. Where do you buy yours?
DeleteGrab some of that straw/hay you have down in the barn, and some of the grass you cut when you weed-wack, and add that to the compost pile with that chicken manure. You may want to get some of the cow manure that is out in the fields too. Some chicken wire, and you can make a nice compost pen.
ReplyDeleteYou are smart to wait a year on the manure/compost....I've found all sorts of seeds and then "weeds" that grow in the compost, so you will want to rotate it periodically, so that they don't get started....and work it to keep it HOT.....to burn off the seeds.
The Square Foot gardens are wonderful, and always look so great. You may want to give yourself a larger area for the strawberries.....maybe using some old tires as planters. They will grow out about 2' or so in each direction, so if you put a tire every 5-6 feet apart in a grid (outside your little garden area) you can set up some permanent fruit spots. The tires, like the square foot garden, will allow you to create the proper mix of soil (strawberries like a certain PH, and sandy soil).
You may also want to see about ordering some worms for your gardens....with the SF garden, you will sorta contain them, to get the most from them....and they really help the soil!!
On a funny note about manure....I once went down to the Circus, when they were in town, and asked to fill a trash can with Elephant Manure....they sure didn't care, and I had some "exotic" manure...LOL!! I don't think it made much difference....I do not have a green thumb!! :-(
Thank you for all the information. My stepdaughter uses worms and has them in a bin inside her house. It's a cool idea.
DeleteLOL on the elephant manure. Quite the size difference from a chicken.
I don't have a green thumb either but I try every year. Some years are good and some are so so.
That leaf looked more like a maple.....and when I tried going through the guide at "arborday.org", it came up with Black Maple....but there were a few questions that they asked about the leaves, that I didn't know the answer (such as if it has a milky sap when you break the stem?)....
ReplyDeleteNot sure if the link will help, but this is a good place to start....
http://www.arborday.org/trees/index-identification.cfm
Another thing to think about with the GUM, is that there will be hundreds of "gum balls" (seed pods) about the 1" in diameter, with dozens of points on them.....they are a real pain in the butt!! I use a pooper skooper to pick them up in our yard.
DeleteWhen you have them, you have a GUM Tree.....The leaves do look somewhat similar, but I don't remember seeing those flowers?
I did look up a Flowering Yellow.Maple. That could be it except our flowers face up instead of drooping down but it is close to that.
DeleteWe have so many natural trees and bushes here I don't think I will ever know all of them.
I could see that a GUM tree would make a mess. Our tree is on the other side of our fence behind the shed. If anything falls off that tree it will roll down the steep side hill never to be seen by us again, lol.
Your tree with the pretty yellow flowers looks like a tulip tree. Sweet gum trees have leaves which are more pointy at the end than the leaves on your tree. Tulip trees are beautiful trees.
ReplyDeleteYou are right I think. I did a Google search and the leaves have four points not five.
DeleteI've seen a lot of tulip trees here in Texas but none looked like this one.
Thank you. I just looked that one up and you are right.
DeleteThanks for letting all of us know:)
Seeing as you asked for comments, I really have nothing to add other than to say a big hello to you both from Australia and that I love reading your blog.
ReplyDelete
DeleteThat is nice of you. Thank you for writing in.
I think the tree is a tulip poplar. The flowers are supposed to resemble tulips. We had a huge one in our backyard in South Carolina, and it bloomed about this time of year. Drawback to them is they are a bit brittle, so can drop lots of smaller limbs, or go down in a big wind.
ReplyDeleteThe garden looks great! One thing about the chicken poop - I was given a bunch a couple of years ago, and never used it on veggies. I found out that it came from a commercial chicken grower and was probably full of antibiotics. Apparently, virtually all chickens are automatically fed antibiotics in their feed! It would be ok to use on a lawn, but I would not want to use it on veggies.
Katie
It does seem to be a Tulip tree. It's on the other side of the fence so I don;t have to worry about it "shedding." That's good to know though for someone who might want to plant one in their yard.
DeleteOh no...you burst my bubble but thank you for telling me about the chicken manure. I will ask my friend where he got it from. It's hard enough to stay away from all the chemicals today.
Well, it would still be a good additive for the shrubs and non-edible plants that you have around the place.
DeleteI also wonder what the "shelf life" would be for those chemicals? If you compost the manure, I would think that the heat would cause it to be much less of an issue, even in veggies.
Might be worth asking the folks down at the County Office.....
I think I read about it in Mother Earth News. Poop from animals that were fed antibiotics still had residue at least a couple of years after. Same with the herbicide chemicals. It bothers me some that I really don't know the situation with the bags of chicken & cow manure I bought at the big box stores to make my SFG mix with.
DeleteI guess they would be OK if we stored them longer before we used them?
DeleteI bet you can find some local cow and horse manure by you:)
Woo hoo replies see you got a shout out for some and here they are! WTG! I will go in the camp you have a tulip tree also they grow nice & big put off a lot of shade. Miss my 2 back on the farm. :(
ReplyDeleteI'd put horse or cow manure on my veggies before I put chicken poop down also. It would be great for other things around your place or at the store if you plant bushes. Don't put weeds in you compost that you whack down from the ditches or they will grow like crazy in your pile. Grass or even some of that old hay would be good to feed your pile with. Vegetable peels, coffee grounds work great but food matter does attract wildlife to a smorgasbord.
As always you did a fabulous job girlie proud of you. ;) Jaxson
Thank you for stopping by:) Good advice. I do have plenty of cow manure, lol.
DeleteWhat size is your strawberry patch and what initial spacing did you use? How many berries do you think you get from your patch?
ReplyDeleteI bought strawberry plants from my local 4H last year. They came in packs of 25. I planted about 20 in the little box which is about 2x3(?). I was supposed to cut the runners to let them grow in a smaller space but I didn't. This year I will let them grow and I will change it next year when I move my garden.
DeleteI really have no idea how many berries I will get but I will keep track:)
I have a lot to learn about strawberries.
Thank you so much for the step-by-step, with pictures, of the SFG (and being the guinea pig). I had checked into that and I read some negative and positive things on it. We do not have a yard to "test" if would work or not and we were concerned about the "start up cost", especially if it didn't work the way it claimed to. I also LOVE the pictures!
ReplyDeleteAhh chicken poop! I grew up in Indian River County, FL and the citrus growers would have the spray planes spray the groves with it. The whole county used to be nothing but GROVES! However, it always smelled so much sweeter when the orange blossoms bloomed and the jasmine joined in...takes me back :)
Good luck on the basil. I hope it did well for you.
Carmen