2018 gardens and plots

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sonny580

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Anybody thinking about the ole garden for 2018??? We are starting to get seed orders in, and have onion and sweet potato plants on order. (the plants ship at planting time in this area) . We also are testing the germination of our home saved seeds too.
What are your garden plans, and what equipment do you use?---Always interesting to hear how different areas, regions, do as to tillage, planting, varieties that did well for you in the past, etc.!
Jump in and lets do a season long thread, if possible!---I like to compare notes and share what works for us! thanks; sonny580
 
I have a small vegetable garden due to both living on a steep mountainside and the need to have it concealed.
As the room is so limited I tend to focus on what I know my family will eat: tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, salad, aubergines and parsley (I honestly doubt my family could live without parsley). I wish I had more room to grow more, especially space-consuming crops such as beans, potatoes and true onions, but I am beginning to fear I will die in this miserable place, so I have to be realistic. I always set aside a little room to experiment with either different vegetables or more cultivars.
I am afraid you will find my equipment limited to hand tools, a huge pile of manure I buy in February just as the soil is thawing and an arsenal of fertilizers and pesticides.

What does well here? The weather is so rotten I am tempted to say rocks, but what seems to do slightly less worse are.

Sweet peppers: Sheepnose (I don't grow it anymore) and Shishito
Hot peppers: Habanero Chocolate and Jalapeño M
Aubergine: Clara
Courgette: an unnamed varied from the Donbass I got on trade
Tomatoes: Sasha's Altai and Kosmonaut Volkov
Parsley: Titan and Italian Giant

I have a bunch of Russian and Ukrainian tomato seeds to try out this year, both commercial varieties and almost unknown ones, but I don't know yet what will be grown and what given away, traded or stockpiled.
I have also ordered a brand new LED full spectrum grow light which I hope will be here in time to try out when seeding in a month or so. If successful I will buy a bunch of them to replace the present setup.

The rest of the garden has already started to morph into a more "wildlife" style I have finally found time to implement. In February I'll place a good order with a top nursery I have already bought from for a few trees and bushes.
 
I really don't start doing to much until March when I till up the small garden plot by hand. Usually tomatoes,green peppers,squash,cucumbers,oriental egg plant and Korean not peppers. Hopefully this will be a good year.
 
Same here. Not much garden doing right now.
I'll get the peppers (sweet) started indoors near the end of this month (February). Tomato plants, and other indoor stuff from seed, will be started mid/end of March. Okra, eggplant?, have not decided on eggplant yet.
Onion sets, seed potato, and sweet potato slips will be purchased locally, and started when it's time.

Cheers.
 
Just thought I would post a few garden equipment pix. bike garden creeper--homemade tato digger/rock picker,--future crawler creeper.
FrontView--SonnysGardenCreeper.JPG
TatoDigger5.JPG
PictureL056.JPG


This is just a few things I have had to make to be able to garden due to 4 spinal surgeries .--The crawler is still in construction stage.---- the bike is one that I made 16 years ago and still use it .---The tato digger was made 6 years ago and it gets used every year to dig the regular tatoes, have dug the sweet tatoes with it , but founr the fork on the skidloader work better!

2017 Sweet Potato Digger Copy.jpg


Have more for later!!!
Got any pix. of your equipment that you would like to share????--- Please post them!!! thanks; sonny580
 
Well, the new Chinese grow light arrived earlier this week and I must say I am very impressed with it: apparently it's a new model that will be available for "rebranding" in the new future but right now is sold directly under its Chinese brand.
Very well made unit, full spectrum including UV and IR, and very close to declared power... a quality item as far as I can tell.

Late next week I will start testing it to incubate a batch of "experimental" tomato seeds. If it's satisfactory, holds up well, power consumption is as good as it seems etc I will fully replace my lineup with these lamps.
 
Just thought I would post a few garden equipment pix. bike garden creeper--homemade tato digger/rock picker,--future crawler creeper.View attachment 631802 View attachment 631803 View attachment 631804

This is just a few things I have had to make to be able to garden due to 4 spinal surgeries .--The crawler is still in construction stage.---- the bike is one that I made 16 years ago and still use it .---The tato digger was made 6 years ago and it gets used every year to dig the regular tatoes, have dug the sweet tatoes with it , but founr the fork on the skidloader work better!

View attachment 631807

Have more for later!!!
Got any pix. of your equipment that you would like to share????--- Please post them!!! thanks; sonny580

I like your tater digger. Did you make this design up? What machine do you use to pull it? For a few years, I've been dreaming about finding or making a contraption for tater digging. However, I'm constantly adding composted leaves into my soil, and that's making it much easier to dig them out by hand.
 
Just plowed and harrowed some of this year's garden. Before long, I'll be planting a few things that are frost resistant. The only seeds I have in the ground so far are the sugar snap peas. On the right of the pics are three rows of 6 foot fencing set up to be trellises for the sugar snaps to grow on. I found out the hard way that you need something tall to support the peas, in rich soil they get tall and if they have no support, the vines just fall over. After pea harvest, I use the trellises for pole limas I harvest in fall.

plow 2018.JPG
plow 2018_1.JPG
 
The digger is just something that I threw together in a hurry from scrap pile of stuff!---(most of my builds come from there).--I started out pulling it with a farmall cub, last year I used a Allis wd tractor.--For the most part spuds here stay near the top, BUT still hard to dig by hand, so I just started with the nose piece and worked back from there. The digger is quite heavy, can also be used for rock picker!---I tried it on some old fill stuff and everything 1" or bigger stays on the bed and can be picked off and tossed into the garden tractor wagon. (just like diggin spuds!!) If you go deep, ( like 18"), it will stop the wd in its tracks!---found that out diggin sweet potatoes with it.---last year the loader forks dug the sweets! I still would like to add a chain ( like manure spreader style), to drag the dirt over the rod cleaning bed, and possible up a rear incline section to dump into a garden trailer or wagon.--That would make for non stop diggin!

I LOVE your garden area,---I could have a field day in the woods behind your garden !!! LOL!!!---Do I see the handlebars of a troy-built tiller in the left of the bottom pic.???---In your location, the climate is way ahead of us here in Illinois.--Our onion plants will come in mid./late March and that usually kickes off the planting for us.--taters follow shortly!

I don't have big huskie's, but have a little 235 that is one of my fav's.!---stihl is a ms250 that has the barker on it.--echo's are a couple evl 650's and a cs 8000 with 36"bar.---The poulans are a 1950,--3316 and several others in that size. thanks; sonny580
 
The digger is just something that I threw together in a hurry from scrap pile of stuff!---(most of my builds come from there).--I started out pulling it with a farmall cub, last year I used a Allis wd tractor.--For the most part spuds here stay near the top, BUT still hard to dig by hand, so I just started with the nose piece and worked back from there. The digger is quite heavy, can also be used for rock picker!---I tried it on some old fill stuff and everything 1" or bigger stays on the bed and can be picked off and tossed into the garden tractor wagon. (just like diggin spuds!!) If you go deep, ( like 18"), it will stop the wd in its tracks!---found that out diggin sweet potatoes with it.---last year the loader forks dug the sweets! I still would like to add a chain ( like manure spreader style), to drag the dirt over the rod cleaning bed, and possible up a rear incline section to dump into a garden trailer or wagon.--That would make for non stop diggin!

I LOVE your garden area,---I could have a field day in the woods behind your garden !!! LOL!!!---Do I see the handlebars of a troy-built tiller in the left of the bottom pic.???---In your location, the climate is way ahead of us here in Illinois.--Our onion plants will come in mid./late March and that usually kickes off the planting for us.--taters follow shortly!

I'll be planting taters soon when dark of the moon arrives in March. I used to plant them here in mid april, and that's too late. Taters don't like it at all when it starts getting hot later on. Only problem with real early planting is when the plants are up and making leaves and a late hard freeze damages them. I'm finding that the more compost and organic matter I add to my soil, the bigger crops I get and the easier it is to dig 'em out. I was looking into building a digger contraption a lot smaller than yours that I could hook up to an old Simplicity walk behind tractor. I've seen ones that you can attach to a three point hitch behind a regular big tractor, but my tater patch is too small to be running a tractor around in it. The tiller handle you see is a heavy old Ariens tiller. I've found that all the new tillers being sold nowadays are too light weight to dig very well. The older ones made decades ago have much heavier and thick steel and cast iron construction.
 
I have a digger for a wards, (walk behind) that I have used to dig a few spuds and it's a simple sweep design.--I will get a pic. of it and post.
Right about the "older is better made" !!!!---Homemade is not too bad either!! LOL!!!
The more compost you add will make the ground much better!--looser, AND richer, also better quality produce! thanks; sonny580
 
Started planting onion plants yesterday, got 9 bunches in, that made 2 rows, have 30 bunches total to plant. temps. at 30 degrees or less makes the job slow!--Cold on fingers, but gotta push on to get them in the ground! thanks; sonny
 
Love some fresh lettuce. Planted this a few weeks ago when sets were first available here in N GA - Romaine.

20180322_164907.jpg


It's located on the south side of a building. I think that's why the ones closest to the building are bigger - staying warmer at night from the block. Should come in right on time for the warmer weather when I start craving salads.
 
Here is a today pic. of the onion plants!...

I think I see one.

I'm guessing you must grow them commercially with that many onions. Do you grow several varieties or concentrate on a particular onion that does good in that region?
 

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