What did you do in the garden today?

[Appalachickens]

15 pages behind!

Harvested first batch of Asparagus yesterday and ate it with dinner!

I put in a raised bed with asparagus last fall, but I know I can't harvest for a couple of years. I read strawberries are a good companion plant, so I added three of them. What kind of asparagus do you have?

 

[akroberts1085]

For anyone that can't stand to drink the water out of the faucet, I feel ya. Our water has a funky taste and it feels greasy. I have to buy bottled water to drink because that's how bad the taste is. I sent a pitcher of water through a Brita and I had to do it 3 times and it was still too yucky to drink. I want to have it tested but 300 dollars plus, the bills have to be paid first.

 

[WthrLady]

Who likes shotweed? They are my nemesis, along with the rest of the weeds. What is your worst weed?

Bindweed and ragweed. It's a tie. One is tenacious and unrelenting, the other is a force in plenty.

 

[Smokerbill]

Canada thistle is a pain here. Thorns that have some kind of irritant on them that causes painful swelling when they stick you. Roots that travel underground for yards that send up new plants.

Because I won't use herbicides in my garden it took three years of chopping down every plant I saw to finally kill the root system. I still see a few in other areas, but the garden bed that was infested is now pretty much free of them. I saw a few tiny ones last year, but maybe they were from seeds?

 

[Appalachickens]

For anyone that can't stand to drink the water out of the faucet, I feel ya. Our water has a funky taste and it feels greasy. I have to buy bottled water to drink because that's how bad the taste is. I sent a pitcher of water through a Brita and I had to do it 3 times and it was still too yucky to drink. I want to have it tested but 300 dollars plus, the bills have to be paid first.

Greasy! That can't be good! I wonder what's causing that? We have an artesian well, and the water has a crisp taste I like.

 

[Smokerbill]

I screwed up by transplanting my tomato seedlings too soon. And I tried to cheap out by using poor quality potting soil. The seedlings haven't grown at all since I moved them to the larger pots a week ago, and they look a sickly yellow-green. Live and learn what you can't get away with.

I'm starting over and planted 24 seed cells with tomato seeds this morning, 3 varieties, three seeds in each cell. I'll thin each to the best plant. They'll be small when I put them in the garden in June, but I think they'll do OK.

 

[igorsMistress]

I'm so jealous of all you guys with neutral or acidic water and soil. My native soil pH is 8.2. water is 8.2. water hardness is 560ppm. Keeping my gardens pH below 7.8 is a constant chore. Compost, sulfur, peat, iron. All year.

Our water is neutral but our soil is alkaline. I have to add amendments as well.

 

[igorsMistress]

The corn seems to be struggling a little bit. A few lower leaves are looking droopy but the soil was moist when I checked it. Might be time to put up the shade, I’m going to check the soil temp of that bed at the point it has been in the sun the longest today.

Melon that I’m growing on the trellis in front of the shade garden. I put a piece of row cover around it so the chickens can’t get to the leaves.

I put a couple of inches of compost in this bed, topped with a couple inches of mulch and then the row cover to keep the wild birds from digging in there. I have a cover crop I’m going to put in next month

Tassels on corn

 

[Acre4Me]

I put in a raised bed with asparagus last fall, but I know I can't harvest for a couple of years. I read strawberries are a good companion plant, so I added three of them. What kind of asparagus do you have?

This is the third year (maybe 4th?) for the bed. Planted 11 Millenium asparagus. At least that’s what I recall as the name- it’s supposed to produce more of the desired stalks (male? Female?). First year we just let it grow tall and bushy, we supported the stalks. Then last year harvested for maybe 1.5-2 weeks, then left it alone to grow tall and bushy. Supposedly this year we can harvest for about 6-8 weeks. We have them planted in an 8x4’ x12” raised bed which gets all day sun.

Pic a few days ago

 

[Acre4Me]

For anyone that can't stand to drink the water out of the faucet, I feel ya. Our water has a funky taste and it feels greasy. I have to buy bottled water to drink because that's how bad the taste is. I sent a pitcher of water through a Brita and I had to do it 3 times and it was still too yucky to drink. I want to have it tested but 300 dollars plus, the bills have to be paid first.

Our well is deep, in limestone…but lots of iron. We have a whole house filter - which is the type you replace the entire stand up unit at some point - it hasn’t told us to replace it yet (it has a digital readout). But, faucet water is still not awesome (not terrible either), so we added a deionized water system with two 2-gallon storage tanks under the sink. Makes for great coffee and tea, and just plain drinking water.