What did you do in the garden today?

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Blackberry jelly is so good though! My birds love the leftovers of the seeds etc.

 

[LifeSimpleAndSweet]

Even our wild dewberries are slightly tart/sweet but not bitter. I wonder if it's something in your soil there? I was just discussing this with my friend because she said all of her cucumbers are bitter.

I've wondered the same thing.

Is your friend planting 'burpless' cucumbers? Those are the only ones that do not have a bitter note for me. They have low cucurbitacin content, which is the chemical responsible for the bitter taste in cucumbers.

It is naturally found in the entire family of squashes, pumpkins, melons, and gourds. The higher the temperature outside, the more it forms in cucumbers, hence the bitter flavor. The older and bigger they get, the more they have.

 

[LifeSimpleAndSweet]

Here's what I was told about bitterness in blackberries.
I ought to be an expert by now...

It's in the core, for the most part.
That's why raspberries aren't bitter, they are tart when unripe.

• Not enough water.
• Not enough sun.
• Too many berries on one plant stretch resources.
• Not left on plant long enough to sweeten.
• Harvesting during warmer temperatures rather than in the cool of the day.
• Not having soil pH between 5.5 and 6.5 (this could be my problem)
• Not enough fertilizer applied at bud stage in spring.

Wait until the berry is plump and still firm but has become a deep black, dull color and is no longer shiny. Ripening occurs after the blackberries become black. The berry should easily come off the vine when you are picking it. If you must yank at the berry to get it off the vine, it isn't yet ripe enough for consumption and will likely taste bitter. For maximum sweetness, harvest blackberries every four to seven days.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners. Running late today. Yesterday was very busy. DD came over to help with clearing trees and scrubby shrubs and we got a lot done. Today I'm planning on weed whacking the pathway behind the picket fence and putting down weed block fabric to make walking back there easier. Also need to knock down the poison ivy. After that I can fence in the last new garden area and get to work planting corn. We got over 1/2 inch of rain this weekend. It's also been cool and drizzly. Yesterday was 54F, today we should be in the mid 60's. Did a thorough garden walk earlier. Everything that's planted is looking very good. I have confirmed 5 blueberry bushes all various sizes but growing well. My newly planted Keifer pear is getting leaves as are the dogwood tree and forsythia I got from The Arbor Society. I guess I got lucky but my bareroot trees were in very good condition when they arrived and I planted them the day after they arrived. My leeks are doing amazingly well and the first planting of peas is full of blooms right now. It feels good to know that after all the hard work I put into the gardens this year looks like it will be paying off nicely. On the subject of blackberries, I'm not a fan. Those and raspberries are on my, bleh list. However, the sweet wild birds that I feed and house all year gifted me with a blackberry bush last year right next to my frittilaria plant. I was going to cut it out completely this year but I asked DD if she liked blackberries. Of course she loves them, so the bush stays. Hopefully I can get to the berries before the birds eat them. My "fix" for bitter berries: add sugar until it tastes good. LOL! Still a lot of organizing the "pick up sticks" on the back slope but it is starting to look like some intentional gardening going on. After arranging the logs I can plant the perennial wild flowers to keep the grass from growing. OK, time to get back to work now. Have a great day all.

 

[gtaus]

It definitely looks like it will hold up better, but what I really want to say is, it is gorgeous! Alternating the different wood tones on the slats is really attractive, plus the way you matched up the fork cutouts on the 2x4s gives it kind of a Victorian look!

To let people know what we are talking about... here is a picture of the unfinshed pallet wood raised bed new design up on the sawhorses...

And here it is, finished, on the ground with tomato plants in it.

Thank you for your kind comments. I have been building raised beds for the past few years and I have been adjusting my design to make better use of the pallet wood and build the raised beds at even lower costs. The pallet wood was free, and I spent less than $1.00 on the screws and brad nails to put everything together.

I had a bunch of those 2X4's with fork cutouts from pallet breakdowns and wanted to use them in some project. The idea was to use those 2X4's without cutting them and having to remove each and every nail that might still be in the 2X4.

Some pallets it makes more sense to just use a sawzall and cut off the planks from the 2X4's, but that always leaves the bottom half of the pallet nail in the 2X4's with the fork cutouts. In this new raised bed design, I can use those 2X4's with the nails still embedded in the 2X4's because I don't need to cut the wood on my miter saw. That saves a lot of time and effort.

Also, using a demolition blade on a reciprocating saw to cut off the planks from the 2X4's is really fast and usually saves the entire length of the pallet plank. No need to try to remove the partial nails still in the 2X4's on this build.

And thank you for commenting on the alternating dark and light wood pieces for the sidewalls. I think it looks nice, too, but one of the big driving factors for me was that I was able to use more of my pieces of wood in my storage bin. I think it would be next to impossible for me to match up enough pieces to have everything the same color. And I don't want to paint my raised beds. So, I used what I had and used the alternating colors to my advantage.

I also made some pallet wood planters for Dear Wife with the same alternating color scheme. She likes them. So, it's a thing now in our yard.

 

[LifeSimpleAndSweet]

To let people know what we are talking about... here is a picture of the unfinshed pallet wood raised bed new design up on the sawhorses...

View attachment 3529840

And here it is, finished, on the ground with tomato plants in it.

View attachment 3529842

Thank you for your kind comments. I have been building raised beds for the past few years and I have been adjusting my design to make better use of the pallet wood and build the raised beds at even lower costs. The pallet wood was free, and I spent less than $1.00 on the screws and brad nails to put everything together.

I had a bunch of those 2X4's with fork cutouts from pallet breakdowns and wanted to use them in some project. The idea was to use those 2X4's without cutting them and having to remove each and every nail that might still be in the 2X4.

Some pallets it makes more sense to just use a sawzall and cut off the planks from the 2X4's, but that always leaves the bottom half of the pallet nail in the 2X4's with the fork cutouts. In this new raised bed design, I can use those 2X4's with the nails still embedded in the 2X4's because I don't need to cut the wood on my miter saw. That saves a lot of time and effort.

Also, using a demolition blade on a reciprocating saw to cut off the planks from the 2X4's is really fast and usually saves the entire length of the pallet plank. No need to try to remove the partial nails still in the 2X4's on this build.

And thank you for commenting on the alternating dark and light wood pieces for the sidewalls. I think it looks nice, too, but one of the big driving factors for me was that I was able to use more of my pieces of wood in my storage bin. I think it would be next to impossible for me to match up enough pieces to have everything the same color. And I don't want to paint my raised beds. So, I used what I had and used the alternating colors to my advantage.

I also made some pallet wood planters for Dear Wife with the same alternating color scheme. She likes them. So, it's a thing now in our yard.

View attachment 3529880

They are really pretty.
I hope you get a few years out of them, because they are lovely!

Pallets are harder to come by for me than they were before the pallet craze hit.
But I got a few projects in before they disappeared, at least. LOL

 

[gtaus]

I have been sifting chicken run compost this past week, mixing it with topsoil 1:1. I use that mix to top off the last 6-8 inches of my raised garden beds. It really works well for me.

I snapped a quick picture of me dumping grass clippings into the chicken run.

The chickens will scratch through all those grass clippings looking for bugs to eat. And, they eat some of the grass clippings as well. It seems like it takes them less than an hour to have that mound of grass clippings leveled out and mixed into the other compost litter in the chicken run.

Having said that, we have been going through some really hot days here and I found that some places, with maybe 6 inches of grass clippings in a layer on top, that the grass was heating up and cooking. When I flipped over some grass clippings, it was actually ashen white underneath from cooking off.

That's hotter than I like for my chicken run compost system. I don't think bugs and worms could live in something that hot. So, for the past few days, I have been spreading out the grass clippings from the mower bins when I take them to the chicken run. The grass clippings are drying out fast in this heat, but when spread out at the very start, they are not cooking as hot.

I let my chickens scratch and peck the compost litter, which usually gives it enough of a good mix. But in this heat, I have considered going in there with my mini tiller and tilling in the fresh grass clippings with the leaves and other litter already in the chicken run. Also, I put the sprinkler on part of the chicken run yesterday because I have a grazing frame with new grass growing in there, and I don't want that to dry up and die out.

I normally am hands off on all the composting going on in the chicken run, but really hot days with no rain has me looking at the process and wondering if sometimes I might need to pay more attention to the chicken run composting system and intervening with extra water and tilling if required.

Fortunately for me, we are getting rain today, so the chickens don't need any help making good compost for my gardens. But I thought I should post how a normally hands free operation might sometimes be improved with small interventions. Especially if you go through a period of hot weather with no rain - which is not normal for me.

 

[gtaus]

They [pallet wood raised beds] are really pretty.
I hope you get a few years out of them, because they are lovely!

Thank you. My oldest pallet wood raised beds are now 3 years old and still holding up well. I don't know how long they will last in my climate, but I can easily rebuild them if required with new pallet wood.

 

[CNJ]

I've been trying to figure out how to put in my next bush bean crop without planting where they were last year.

Then I thought about the planters that were lying fallow, that were full of fire ant nests.

I dumped the dirt onto a tarp and let it sit for a week. When I checked today the dirt was ant-free, yippee!! I filled my little cart with fully-rotted compost, then added it and last year's dirt back into the planters.

Your planters look like they were designed to wick water from a bottom reservoir but your filled planters doesn't look like you are using that function?

 

[CNJ]

My sweet potato slips should have arrived last Thursday. They didn't. UPS said there was an "exception," that my address was wrong. It wasn't.

I planted sweet potatoes from my local Super Market and also from Walmart and they grew and produced sweet potatoes. I don't think you need to buy slips, unless you want a certain variety that's not available at your grocery store.