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I like my 5 gallon buckets, but some of them break into tiny sharp bits that are difficult to completely remove from the soil.
I use cardboard produce boxes as disposable planters.
May
June (5 weeks later)
You can see one of the boxes at the top of the second photo.
I did the boxes three years ago, had great results with melons. Last two years I planted them in a raised bed, used trellises, not as good results. I decided to try them in the boxes again, as it's much less work, no digging! They won't care that they're vining over clay clods, as long as their...
I have a freshly cleared area where trees grew, and it's mostly clay clods. I dug large holes for my blueberry bushes and the two elderberries, mixing peat moss and compost to make a good base for them to grow.
When I recently cleaned out the front portion of my hoop coop I dumped a Gorilla...
We lived in Spartanburg SC, that's where we ran into Red Clay. No rocks there, either.
When I lived in Connecticut it was a trial trying to get rid of rocks in the garden. We swore the stones were reproducing every Spring!
When we moved to South Carolina we encountered Red Clay for the first time. The rototiller bounced off the surface of the ground, we had to borrow a friend's TroyBilt "Pony". My dh said it was as hard as adobe brick.
Just outside our front door I was trying to make a small flower garden but was...
Louis L'Amour wrote about the desert, said you could not fight it and survive, you had to learn to live with it. (paraphrase)
The ocean is the same. If you get caught in a rip current you go with it until it lessens and you can swim in to the shore. If you fight the current you will exhaust...
Thank you for the feedback. I was considering just that, digging a shallow base to hold wood below the raised bed.
It'll be a couple years before I see any fruit.
The elderberry is in the pot on the right.
The local Cooperative Extension suggested it, as elderberry roots are shallow, but they like well drained soil:
https://burke.ces.ncsu.edu/2020/01/lets-grow-some-elderberries/
I was thinking shallow raised beds, not 14" tall as I have for my vegetables.
I'm tentatively planning on making raised beds for a couple elderberry shrubs. I've been doing research and apparently they do better in that setup. I can do something simple, maybe cement "cinder" blocks. And perhaps incorporate some Hugelkultur, too.
Hi! I've been gardening for almost 60 years.
I think I was five years old in this photo. I helped my mom in her gardens. I was paid for picking insects off the plants, so to this day I am not squeamish about smashing pests in my fingers. ;)
At seven I got my own 3'x3' area within my mom's...