Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are planting.

Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

jasonb47 said:
For clarification: yes, sawdust is typically bad for soil since it is a "brown" compost meaning it consumes nitrogen from the soil/and or plants. For clay though, it is excellent for adding texture, and reducing the "stickiness" of the clay. Of course, you have to counter the effect of the nitrogen depletion by adding more fertilizer. I should stress that this should be done in late fall, and long before you start planting so the fertilizer can break the sawdust down. In effect, it is "in-ground" composting.

Hay: same as sawdust, but not quite as aggressive.

Chicken manure: My experience with it has been fantastic, especially for tomatoes. Again, it has to be added well in advance of planting so it has time to "cool down". Otherwise it will burn up your plants. Not to be added directly to a planted garden unless composted first.

I also maintained a three bin compost pile which helped a lot, but took awhile to get going, and I could not use it until the second season. It is amazing to see a compost pile get over 100F in the middle of winter if you really work it, but it takes a lot to achieve that. The resulting mixture will really do the clay well though.
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I agree, Compost is awesome. I have 90 gallon compost ball i use in the summer and then my plan for this winter is to just compost directly into the garden ... We will see how it works
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

why not just use mulch as a permeable substance so the clay has the ability for better water flow?

people love to compost out here but i can't figure out why...we don't get enough rain to allow for quick composting action. it seems like it'd be smelly and take forever....i suppose the heat is great but again, there needs to be some moisture too...or is it that the compost creates its own?
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

Kristie said:
why not just use mulch as a permeable substance so the clay has the ability for better water flow?

people love to compost out here but i can't figure out why...we don't get enough rain to allow for quick composting action. it seems like it'd be smelly and take forever....i suppose the heat is great but again, there needs to be some moisture too...or is it that the compost creates its own?
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I am using mulch this year to prevent weeds between my plant rows... It is working great so far and I plan to till it under at the end of the season to break up my clay a bit... Fortunately on the side of my yard I planned the garden on the clay isn't rock hard... Mulch works but the only reason I used it is becasue I can get it for free at the county convience center around the corner from my house... they fill your truck or trailer with a front end loader and you are on your merry way. If I could get sawdust for free instead of mulch, so long as it wasn't from treated wood, I would have used that. You have to add fertilizer either way because the mulch will soak up Nitrogen as it breaks down too.

As for compost, If you do it properly it shouldn't smell. You can break everything down into two groups; Browns- rich in carbon and dry, require nitrogen to break down, and greens, rich in nitrogen and usually wet. You can look up what qualifies as what online but in TN I use tree leaves as my brown in the winter and then in the summer when brown is hard to come by I bring home the old release, TLR, and landing paperwork that would be thrown away on flights and shred it, then I add it to my compost. Now that in it self will take a long time to break down for two reasons, no moisture and no nitrogen. So what do you do, add things like grass clippings, any type of fruit peel or cores, old veggies, pretty much all kitchen scraps that are non meat based... Those are all green and provide the nitrogen to break the browns down. The also all contain moisture and just the right amount if you do half and half.

When peoples compost doesn't break down quickly it is usually because there is not enough Nitrogen in the mix. If it gets clumpy, sticks to things and smells, there is too much nitrogen and moisture. Its all about the mix of things. I like to take old chicken bones and bake them on 400 to 450 for about 20 to 30 minutes, enough to dry them out, then I crsh them and add them to the compost, I also add egg shells. Things like that dont add a lot of carbon or nitrogen but add other trace elements like calcium that plants need to grow.
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

Kristie said:
why not just use mulch as a permeable substance so the clay has the ability for better water flow?
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This is why Pilotforhire587's post appealed to me so much. It seemed from his OP that his gardening venture was running on a penny budget. Full disclosure: when I first started gardening, I was so poor it was almost a necessity to garden. It was the only entertainment I could afford, it produced food, sawdust was free for the taking at a local lumber mill, and chicken manure was free from the farm down the road. I had a beat up old rototiller that I purchased a roadside sale for $25 and had to fight with every time I used it.

Mulch would have been a luxury then, but I would have put it on top of the soil, not in it. Nowadays, I simply add bagged lime and fertilizer to get what I need out of the soil and till it in with my 6HP rear tine w/reverse Troy-bilt tiller. I am not in clay anymore either, or I would still add sand at least, and compost. My gardening has come a long way in 12 years. :cool:

Sad to say I am not composting right now. It was a lot of fun, and really incredible to see how hot you could get it. The hotter it got, the more aggressively it would decompose the components so it was cool to watch stuff break down essentially back to soil, a la "dust to dust".
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

Pilotforhire587 said:
I like to take old chicken bones and bake them on 400 to 450 for about 20 to 30 minutes, enough to dry them out, then I crsh them and add them to the compost, I also add egg shells. Things like that dont add a lot of carbon or nitrogen but add other trace elements like calcium that plants need to grow.
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Ok, so I am not the only compost geek here. Nice. Composting proteins (i.e. meat and bone) is near the apex of composting, just below composting human waste. Not that I would ever consider doing the later, but a forray into composting will really give you some perspective on the food chain, where we come from, what we are made of, and how it comes full circle.

For me, it completed an understanding of those pictures they showed us in grade-school science class, e.g.:

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I never quite understood the connection between detritivores and soil until I composted. LOL
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

You guys all need one of these to do you planting. I use it for green beans, peas, sunflowers and corn.

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Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

Here is a crappy pic of mine that I took the other day. It extends about 6 feet behind where I was standing and beyond the shovel there is 6 rows of corn about 20 feet long.
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

I'm debating taking out my tomatoes....they're not going to produce anymore (they won't produce above 95 degrees) until probably October and I could use the land to get some more squash or even a pumpkin in....

if you had a plant that you knew wasn't going to produce for 3-4 months...would you transplant it and bring it indoors then re-transplant when weather is right or would you just chuck it and buy new transplants in the fall? I'm thinking about transplanting it and bringing it indoors but it still won't be a productive plant with shade and 70 degree weather.
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

Kristie said:
I'm debating taking out my tomatoes....they're not going to produce anymore (they won't produce above 95 degrees) until probably October and I could use the land to get some more squash or even a pumpkin in....

if you had a plant that you knew wasn't going to produce for 3-4 months...would you transplant it and bring it indoors then re-transplant when weather is right or would you just chuck it and buy new transplants in the fall? I'm thinking about transplanting it and bringing it indoors but it still won't be a productive plant with shade and 70 degree weather.
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I have never tried to transplant a fully grown tomato plant into a pot but if you did I would sit it outside during the day in the sun. Water it half way through the day to cool the soil down, and then bring it in at night. I don't think the temps being above 95 matter as much as them not getting well below 70 at night. My peppers and eggplants are finally starting to take off. First few flowers on them now. About half of my tomato plants are producing fruit now, none were about 2 weeks ago, just waiting for them to get big and ripe. My basil is taking off but my other herbs aren't going so hot. I think the robins got most of the seeds before they germinated. I just planted squash and cucumbers last week, it has all germinated. Looking forward to seeing it take off
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

In recent news my first pepper plant is starting to produce its first peppers, the rest look like they are about to flower. My eggplant has finally taken off, first plant has flowers on it now, I can't wait to get the fruit, and last, my tomato plants are HUGE... They all have tons of fruit on them and with all the rain and wind we have had are all falling down. The String across the rows is working but not aw well as I would have likes. I think that next year I will either run wire across the rows for extra support of try to run to strings, one on either side across the rows.
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

Kristie said:
if you had a plant that you knew wasn't going to produce for 3-4 months...would you transplant it and bring it indoors then re-transplant when weather is right or would you just chuck it and buy new transplants in the fall? I'm thinking about transplanting it and bringing it indoors but it still won't be a productive plant with shade and 70 degree weather.
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I cannot say for sure if bringing the plants in will help or not. A couple of years ago, I transplanted several full grown tomato plants when the area they were planted in was flooded and would not dry out, which was killing them. I had about a 75% survival rate. If you bring them in, you may have to prune them when you take them back out to stimulate growth. Might be an interesting experiment to help plan next year's crop.
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

Anyone else notice there aren't as many bees this year as there usually are or is it just in the Nashville area. My garden is doing really well. My biggest problem is the flowers on the eggplant and Brandy boy tomatoes. The romas and all of my peppers are doing fine but I can't seem to get the brandy boys or the eggplant to accept hand pollinating, You guys have any tricks up your sleeves?
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

Just found this thread and have not read through it all. But want to share the square foot gardening book. We have been working this method a few years now and with 2 4x4 foot garden we produce more than we need, and my wife is a vegan.

I created a snow cover/green house for one of my gardens here in Utah and planted it in late October. Gave up on watering it and keeping the snow off of it and let it go. Huge snow year collapsed it and I just left it alone. Somehow the seeds I planted has turned into a huge salad buffet that has been feeding me since May. I can't even keep up with its growth and salads constitute 20 % of my meals.

One more note: beware of squash it will take over your yard and you will be stuck with 3' long zukinis that even your coworkers will get sick of.
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

Harvest time!

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The first several went into salads and pasta sauce...

Today's (along with a bit of mint) went into this, which was the goal:

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:D
 
Re: Vegetable Gardens, sharing tips and what you are plantin

very nice Bob!

Most of my stuff is now dormant....I'm still trying the squash and cukes but nothing seems to be pollinating them...strange!
 
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