Can I share my garden (-ing excitment?!) :)

[gracielagata]

Hello all! 
I just wanted to share my gardening excitement, if no one minded.

I made my garden last year, but it was very simple, unprotected, half this size, and I started too late to get anything grown.
This year my husband helped me extend it and put a fence around it.

Currently, I have the following things seeded behind those little white fences: 
-On the left is sugar snap peas and space saving spinach. I figured the spinach can grow at the base space left by the peas going up the fence? (I hope?! lol)
-On the right side is white half mountaineer runner beans, I think they are called, along with romaine in the spaces, like the sugar snaps and spinach. 
-Then at the bottom is potatoes of some sort. Red maybe?!
- I also have some herbs in pots: various mints, oregano, lemon balm.
-And 4 half barrels of my awesome free to me strawberries.

- I have it all set to do auto watering once things pop up and I get all my started-indoor seeds done and ready to get transplanted. Right now I am just hand watering the seeds in the ground.

Anyhoo, some photos.
Oh, and I thought my dog was cute. They can't come in the garden with me, so she parked herself on the only chunk of sod leftover, about as close as she could get. A new dog bed maybe?!

Feel free to share any tips with this very new gardener, if you like.

[Deleted]

That's a good sized garden, congratulations! And I just love the view from your garden.

The best tip I have for a new gardener is to use compost and mulch. I see you have chickens? Chicken manure mixed with other composting ingredients makes wonderfully rich compost. (Sorry if you knew this already.)

By the way, your dog is really cute!

[gracielagata]

Thank you on the compliments. I love our view too, and hope I can get a good bit out of the size of it. Hence growing beans along fences and greens below beans.

No worries on being sorry! That was probably the only good thing I did since planting the garden!
After my dismal season last year, I took all the chicken poop filled straw out of their coop and put it on my garden to cook under the snow. Then this spring I tilled in in really well. Hopefully it was enough, but not too much. I also have horse manure that as soon as we get a manure bunker built for composting it, that will start going in as well.

This fall, I plan to get the manure worked in in the fall/early winter, closer to after the season is over. I was fairly slack last year and got overwhelmed with not getting anything out of the garden with the late start and screwy weather. Oh, and fighting the animals out of it since it only had a tiny little fence around it.

[Deleted]

Chicken AND horse manure? NOW I'm jealous!   I have to make do with guinea pig poop...   

[gracielagata]

Is guinea pig poop anything like rabbit? I thought I read that rabbit poop was awesome for the garden? I would say you are welcome to all the poop you want from the horses... but it might be hard to get it to Switzerland.

[Deleted]

Yes, guinea pig poop is very much like rabbit poop, I think. The good thing about it is that it can be used directly in the garden without "burning" the plants. I really can't complain, but I'd still love to get my hands on some horse manure. Thanks for the offer, but it might really be hard to haul it to Switzerland. I would love to see the customs officials' faces if you shipped me a box of horse manure. Lol

[gracielagata]

That is what I was remembering, but couldn't remember, lol- that it can be used directly in the garden without cooling it off.
hehe... wonder what that box would smell like?!

When we moved across the country, east coast to west coast, my mare got shipped with a shipping company. [Forgive if you know this stuff, I don't know if you are native to Switzerland, or know American plants any?] On the east coast, there is a plant called Spanish Moss. It is a slightly (very?) parasitic plant that grows and hangs on oak trees and the like. Most horses LOVE to eat it. She was no different and loved when I would lift myself high off her back to reach moss for her to eat. So when she was shipped to me in WA, my barn manager arranged her pick up with the horse shipper, since I wasn't there anymore. Anyhoo, the barn manager shipped her with a huge trash bag full of Spanish moss in her tack tote .... Probably very bad to do, lol. I can only imagine shipping poop internationally! Anyhoo.. you reminded me of that funny story too.

[Deleted]

That is a funny story, thanks for sharing it.
I know, by coincidence, what Spanish Moss is. I got to know it while travelling through the South (Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi) a couple of years ago. I even took some home with me as a souvenir and hung it on my bathroom wall.    (I think I just outed myself as completely bonkers!  

[gracielagata]

Haha. Possibly! I could see hanging Spanish Moss as decoration... I assume that even though it was humid and warm in the bathroom, it didn't continue to grow for you?
When my daughter has diorama projects for school, the first thing we do is go to the pasture for stuff: small mossy branches make great corals and tiny trees. She once used pelleted chicken feed glued down as sand (see the need for coral as well, lol). And we have LOTS of rocks and stones. I think she has also employed chicken feathers and horse hair.

[Deleted]

It didn't continue to grow, but it didn't die, either. It still looks exactly the same as it did when I hung it there three years ago. The idea was that it could feed on the humidity in the bathroom, but that might not be all it needs.  

Yes, I imagine lots of things found in nature can be used to make beautiful dioramas.

[Callie]

If I had that view while I gardened, I'd be out there all the time- maybe a people bed rather than a dog bed? Hammock? I hope your garden does better this year. Many first-year gardens don't produce well so don't worry about last year. With all that poo...It's HAS to do better this year!

[wolfmom]

May 1, 2015 18:11:25 GMT gracielagata said:

 I also have horse manure that as soon as we get a manure bunker built for composting it, that will start going in as well.

This fall, I plan to get the manure worked in in the fall/early winter, closer to after the season is over. I was fairly slack last year and got overwhelmed with not getting anything out of the garden with the late start and screwy weather. Oh, and fighting the animals out of it since it only had a tiny little fence around it.

remember - you've got to let horse manure "age" for a year or two to make sure all the seeds are killed before putting in your garden. You have a nice sized garden, I'd hate to see you have to make more work for yourself.

[gracielagata]

May 1, 2015 19:40:33 GMT @gardensmurf said:

It didn't continue to grow, but it didn't die, either. It still looks exactly the same as it did when I hung it there three years ago. The idea was that it could feed on the humidity in the bathroom, but that might not be all it needs.  

Yes, I imagine lots of things found in nature can be used to make beautiful dioramas.

Yeah, that was my thinking- moisture great, lack of tree to suck from, not so great.

[gracielagata]

May 1, 2015 19:48:22 GMT Callie said:

If I had that view while I gardened, I'd be out there all the time- maybe a people bed rather than a dog bed? Hammock? I hope your garden does better this year. Many first-year gardens don't produce well so don't worry about last year. With all that poo...It's HAS to do better this year!

I know huh?! The view gets better as you shift to the right as well. And when I spin quite a bit to the left, I get to see my purdy horses.  
Hmm... I am liking the hammock idea. My husband had a temp one in the pasture... wonder if we can get it near the garden...

I am hoping it will be better as well! I started waaaay too late last year, and that is what got me the most, I think.
Having it all fenced in as a real garden that I can organize, I think will help a lot. Before we fixed it this year, I don't know if you can see it, but there is an incline to it (our entire property is an incline lol)... but my husband dug up a bunch of the dirt and moved it to the bottom to make it more level for me, which makes it easier I hope. so far it has. Along with using the old short little outer fence to divide up my plantings so I know where I am.

[gracielagata]

May 1, 2015 22:04:29 GMT wolfmom said:

May 1, 2015 18:11:25 GMT gracielagata said:

 I also have horse manure that as soon as we get a manure bunker built for composting it, that will start going in as well.

This fall, I plan to get the manure worked in in the fall/early winter, closer to after the season is over. I was fairly slack last year and got overwhelmed with not getting anything out of the garden with the late start and screwy weather. Oh, and fighting the animals out of it since it only had a tiny little fence around it.

remember - you've got to let horse manure "age" for a year or two to make sure all the seeds are killed before putting in your garden. You have a nice sized garden, I'd hate to see you have to make more work for yourself.

That is why I want to get it bunkered, so we can get it turned and whatnot. Right now I collect up their manure into 4 or 5 big piles, where I have potty trained them to go. Now we just gotta build the bunker and get all that poop put in it.
Do you know anything about pasture chemicals? We obviously have to use weedkillers on the pastures, then they graze a couple of weeks or so later... Does that somehow pass into the manure, then the compost? Or does it go away by the time it is composted properly?
And thanks!  Yes I want less work too.

[wolfmom]

Not sure why you would want to use expensive weed killer on a horse pasture unless it's full of weeds the horses won't eat. Even then, can you rotate your horses to another pasture, turn it under or over seed with something like pasture grass? 

[paquebot]

May 1, 2015 22:04:29 GMT wolfmom said:

remember - you've got to let horse manure "age" for a year or two to make sure all the seeds are killed before putting in your garden. You have a nice sized garden, I'd hate to see you have to make more work for yourself.

Aging alone will not kill weed seeds.  It would have to go through a prolonged heat cycle of 160ºF to kill them.  I am hauling horse manure from a bin which is at least 3 years old and no longer recognizable as manure.  There hasn't even been a decent rain since spreading it and there already are lambs quarters everywhere and that was totally eradicated years ago in my gardens. 

Use of horse manure by age depends upon what it will be fed to.  If carrots, potatoes, or some other root crops, must be aged.  If tomatoes, peppers, alliums, brassica or beans, fresh can be tilled in.  (Fresh being when it's still in "apple" form.) 

Martin  

[gracielagata]

May 1, 2015 23:18:08 GMT wolfmom said:

Not sure why you would want to use expensive weed killer on a horse pasture unless it's full of weeds the horses won't eat. Even then, can you rotate your horses to another pasture, turn it under or over seed with something like pasture grass? 

Because we don't have tons of space to truly do a rotate and feed off the pastures for time on end.
There also are too many weeds that they are starving out the grass currently.
And our ground is very, very rocky, so actually turning under or over is nearly impossible in almost all of it, unfortunately. Or so my sorta new to this experience says. 
And yes, it is full of weeds they won't eat. Or ones they shouldn't eat. 

[gracielagata]

May 2, 2015 1:35:34 GMT paquebot said:

May 1, 2015 22:04:29 GMT wolfmom said:

remember - you've got to let horse manure "age" for a year or two to make sure all the seeds are killed before putting in your garden. You have a nice sized garden, I'd hate to see you have to make more work for yourself.

Aging alone will not kill weed seeds.  It would have to go through a prolonged heat cycle of 160ºF to kill them.  I am hauling horse manure from a bin which is at least 3 years old and no longer recognizable as manure.  There hasn't even been a decent rain since spreading it and there already are lambs quarters everywhere and that was totally eradicated years ago in my gardens. 

Use of horse manure by age depends upon what it will be fed to.  If carrots, potatoes, or some other root crops, must be aged.  If tomatoes, peppers, alliums, brassica or beans, fresh can be tilled in.  (Fresh being when it's still in "apple" form.) 

Martin  

Thanks for the info on what likes what type/stage of manure.  
So in addition to aging, it needs to reach critical temp, I don't know if I realized those are 2 different concepts. That is why I want to make a manure bunker, and get it turned regularly (and all the proper things to reach 160), in hopes of getting it aged and temped well.

Aren't lamb's quarters considered to be good eating? (Asks the lady who just eradicated bajillions of supposedly good eatin' dandelions that were evidently trying to take over the world, or at least rural WA. )

Also what is an allium- onion I am thinking right? 

[paquebot]

There are weed seeds which nobody knows how long they may remain viable.  Velvetweed may be centuries.  Redroot amaranth (pigweed) and lambs quarters last decades.  Only heat will kill seeds in a compost or manure pile.  The manure that I am getting now is in a large bin which was set up right beside a town road.  Used to have a sign "Free Compost" but got lost somewhere.  I think that people stopped getting it when it was a bit of a hassle to clear the weeds off first!  I don't care as most of what I'm hauling is going to a community garden complex and every possible weed is already there.  The core material may have reached temperatures high enough to kill the weed seeds but it was never turned.  Therefore the outside seeds remained safe.

Lamb's quarters and dandelions may be good eating but not when I am hoping for a few quarts of tomatoes instead.  I've got 4 or 5 different lettuce not too far away from enjoying.  If I wanted lambs quarters, I would not have invested in the lettuce seed!

Although many would only have mentioned onions in that sentence, that would have not covered the garlic and leeks which are also alliums.  No different than using brassica to cover broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and a whopping lot of other good family cousins. 

Martin   

 

[gracielagata]

Exactly, on the plant families, Paquebot! I was using onion to cover everyone else as well.

Yes, I quite like my yard grass, and even clover, instead of the bajillions of dandelions that tried to take up residence. I would completely allow them and not care if only they didn't get the gnarly floaty seed heads! We get a good bit of clover, and pineapple weed as well. I love to leave those for the chickens and horses to munch.