Gardening
 

Who's rockin a garden?

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we've got fully organic shit popping up in our front lawn in a raised bed. i hate mowing the lawn.

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obligatory miata shot

Like the guy above I agree with you. I think grass is a waste of water. I'm going to slowly transform the back/sideyard into something like above. Start at min 2 to skip his war dodging comments.

I've been trying to talk myself into growing heirloom tomatoes.

Trey, I'm also starting some grape vines for some grape lightning :)

Make prison wine.

i almost talked the lady into putting up some hops

Sorry, I had to start at the beginning and I couldn't get past his comments about genetically engineered food being bad so I stopped the video. I think people like him should burn for an eternity in hell (subtle enough for you <G>) for the thousands of dead children for whom he is indirectly responsible.

That being said, I would love to have a raised garden. We keep talking about it but have never taken the plunge. Our last garden had horrible pest problems and it seemed like a huge waste of time. One thing we did learn - grow hot peppers next to the other stuff to semi keep the bugs off them.

We have a huge garden every year.

Corn - three varieties
Tomatoes - four varieties
Lettuce
Radishes
Arugula
Peas
Carrots
Beans
Peppers - jalapeno and green
Spinach
Beets
Lima Beans
Onions
Cantaloupe
Watermelon
Zucchini
Crook Neck Squash

We do put up a lot for the winter. Mainly freeze corn, beans, peas and can tomatoes and fresh salsa

Hey, It's Nebraska, what else is there to do?

^Not much. That said, we do live in the country and have a 16 acre lot with pasture and a couple of horses and plenty of room for a large garden. My lot is 600' x 1500', so it's pretty roomy. My wife and I actually grew up on grain and livestock farms so we've been around it forever.

You all need to move to the city. Seriously.

Ever since I moved to TX I wanted to pick up the brisket art, I can smoke the hell out out of an entire pig east TN hillbilly style. We make wine out of blackberrys back home.

Why? To deal with traffic, shitheads, gangsters, and not ever being able to go somewhere without people. I am allergic to cities.

If I had a choice I'd live right out of the city where ever I could pick up 10-20 for a decent deal.

Yes politcal douche, but his urban farm is tits.

Sometimes when it rains alot I get some shrooms in my yard.

all right, all right, all right.

This is what I do for a living.

I have spent a fortune on my yard. So much in fact, that if I did not have it I could probably afford to do a Ferrari motor swap in my car.:giggle:

Everything is native to Florida.

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I have hundreds of plant and wildlife pictures I have taken over the years.

I'm going with no sauce, slicing with the cap, and I'm working hard on seasoning right now and figuring out what I want in my brisket. My initial goal was to copy Black's, but now I feel that's unfair/impossible. It will be interesting to see where I end up and what people think of it.

I have two gardens, each 25'x50'. I usually grow tomatoes, an assortment of peppers, egg plant, squash, zucchini, potatoes, corn, pole beans, cantaloupes, lettuce, other greens, usually collard, and a shit ton of herbs. I eat good all summer long! Now only if I had room to raise cattle, pigs and chickens, I could say goodbye to the grocery store for at least half of the year.

I've noticed. Pay me and I'll do it.

mesquite wood
Jack Daniel's Whiskey Barrel Charcoal Briquets & Smoker Blocks
Are what I like to use for smoke.

Make sure to salt/pepper the meat 1-3 days ahead of time with that big flakey salt. Before you grill wash the salted meat off with a rinse under the faucet then season again. The salt helps break down tough fat, absorbs blood, seasons the meat.

Season with paprika, oregano, garlic, cummin, and cavendars yellow bottle. Very common South Texas way to do it.

without getting too political in the gardening thread...

genetic engineering has been done for millenia in the form of selective breeding to get desirable traits.

the bad genetic engineering is when the super-mega-giant-corporations like Monsanto start patenting breeds of corn that are pest resistant and designed to work with Round-Up ("Round-Up Ready"). Then when these plants happen to float on a breeze over to Farmer Earl's little farm and grow, Monsanto comes and sues Earl's pants off for infringement even though the plants naturally propogated to his farm.

Also when pharmacrops are grown near regular crops and you end up with high levels of whatever their crop is designed to produce cross breeding with Budweiser's beer rice and you end up drinking beer with carp growth hormone in it. wiggity what?

(my wife is a scientist who works on food production and ag practices)

Go ahead and cross peppers with heirloom tomatoes to get spicy tomatoes. that's awesome.

Actually, I picked my first Morel mushroom today off of the cabin island. It was about the size of a twinkie. Mine aren't up yet at home. Probably 1-2 more weeks.

Is a Morel mushroom edible or 'medicinal'.

I have a few mushrooms growing that I have heard are edible, but I just do not have the balls to try it unless an expert can identify them. I love to eat wild edibles, but I am scared shitless of mushrooms. Some of those can hurt you in a bad way.

Yes, these are wild edible. We usually end up with a couple of half grocery sacks over the two weeks or so that they are around. They sell for about $12-15/lb here.

ever use the miata to roto-till for a garden? ;) makes a mess but lots of fun

... feed millions of starving children. Look up golden rice and read about the estimated 124,000,000 children in the world who are vitamin A deficient. Golden rice saves lives but the hippies in Seattle don't like it for some reason and fight against it. Makes me want to scream.


I'll keep my comments out of the political realm on this subject from now on. Just wanted to get my point across. Sorry for the hijack...

I will have my wife get the lowdown on golden rice to satisfy my curiosity. She said she didn't think it was available yet but wasn't sure. But it does raise the question: why not teach people how to grow carrots or some other food rich in beta-carotene?

....

speaking of roto tillers, has anyone used one of the tiller attachments that fits on a standard weed whacker?

like this:
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curious if it's good for breaking up non-compacted soil.

NSFW:

I have a Mantis for the small tilling jobs. I can't see how the weed whacker attachment will work that well. Seems to get good enough reviews though.

I've got tomatoes growing this year in Topsy Turvys off my deck. Got some flower beds and am doing rock border when I get back from vacation in a couple weeks. I spent the last two weekends digging up overgrown shit in my back yard.

Bunch of gay Miata owners with flower beds and gardens. :greddy:

Anybody think selling fresh herbs would be profitable in a farmers market sort of setting? (no, not that herb) I can never help but notice how "fresh" basil in a small plastic package at WalMart costs something like $4, and you only get maybe 6-8 leafs. Just one of my Sweet Basil bushes last year was around 5' tall and probably had well over a thousand large leafs on it. Surely one could sell fresh herbs by the quart size ziplock bag for maybe $5 a bag, to be used right away or dried for future use. Also grew shit tons of Cilantro/Coriander, Oregano, Parsley and Rosemary. I found them to require almost no maintenance, and they grew like crazy with no fertilizers or attending. Easy money if one could sell the stuff. At a busy market, if you only sold 20 bags at $5 each, thats still $100 simply for a few hours of "work".

Post up pics guys.

I am not a fan of those. You never see pros using them. Quality hand tools will do just as good a job, with the same amount of labor. Different story when doing a big job. We use tractor driven rototillers.

When I talk about gardening or landscaping, I always give this advice. Buy two tools first.

The first is a simple scuffle hoe that you can get at Lowes and Home Depot. A traditional hoe drags soil along with the weeds, so there is an additional step in grading the soil back. The scuffle hoe (or action hoe) has a thin metal strap that cuts in both directions. It also allows soil to stay in place. You just lift out the weeds that are cut from the roots. There are a few pro versions, but I never buy them.

The other is a pony shovel. It is a very heavy shovel that has a cast cutting blade that you can sharpen, and a solid fiberglass handle. The weight does all of the cutting work, and it is also easier on your joints. Try stabing a regular shovel in the ground with your arms, it hurts. I am fond of the Kenyon version. They are expensive, but can last for years.

I have more pics that I will post later. I do not have much in the way of edible gardens. Some of the wild natives I plant are used as edibles, but usually for the die hards.

I roll big. We have a $25k 4WD Kubota diesel to do two 25'x50' gardens. The tiller attachment kicks ass though. Five quick passes each way and it's ready to go. :giggle:
My family is a bit crazy. We have 3 tractors, and only about 1.5 acres of land total.

I have chili pepper plants. Well just one right now and it is indoors.

I disagree, I've used an attachment just like that one and it worked great. Granted it didn't do so well in the hard red clay, but it tore up the normal top soil just fine.

The last time I tried to take photos of our operation, my camera got smashed so you'll just have to trust me. It's pretty legit.

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Everything is coming in good.

I got some bad news, fellas:

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lol, they got your "crop"

I bought some blueberry plants earlier this year to plant in the yard. Two varieties of native plants, and a few hybrids. They are still sitting in my nursery. The hybrids were like WOW this year. I picked a fist full from them this morning. I can not believe how much fruit one little plant can produce from them.

Jacob, looks like you will have a nice crop soon. In for the results.

I have 2 blueberry buishes, 2 fig trees, 2 grape vines, and 2 banana trees on the way from an auction on ebay. They were cheap like 60 to my door so we will see how mail order fruit does.

question about starting seedlings pre-spring...

do you guys use just grow lights or do you also maintain a slightly warmer than room-temp climate too?

I was water sprouting larger seeds like avacado and mango. There are lots of vids on youtube for propagating

BUMP!

Let's see some current pics!

It's still early here but stuff us up, harvesting some things. Radishes are done, lettuce has been going for weeks. It keeps growing back after we cut it so it looks a bit shaky.

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Peas are rolling nicely. Picked the first ones today.

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Already have harvested some epic sized broccoli.

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Picked the first carrot today. We will have way too many carrots. Karla got a bit carried away.

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Green onions are JUST starting to be ready to pick.

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Cabbage has finally started forming heads. It will be a while for them.

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Tomatoes are very small yet, as are cucumbers and cantaloupe

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Green beans and corn are small but doing fine.

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If you look carefully you can see the yellow four wire electric fence. Keeps the deer out of the gardens. Transformer is under the white bucket.

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So, how is everyone's garden coming?

I have some humongous cucumbers, a squash that is growing up, and lots of tomatoes. Also picked a red onion today. Pics to come. Tomorrow.

In for heirloom tomato crew mailing me stuff.

it's a little early for those. and i'm sure there's a farmers market within 5 miles of you that will have them. and shipping tomatoes is part of why most tomatoes taste like chewy white garbage instead of flavor bombs. Get off your ass!

Also I just took this pic. My lawn is OUT OF CONTROL. Seirously, I am waiting for a notice from the county.

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In the box:
tons of
Kale
Arugula
various lettuces
basil
foot-tall tomato plants
cilantro
beets
parsley
jesus I dont even know it's all so big.

Stein: I think most lettuces can be re-harvested if you only take a few leaves at a time. Except that I love the delicate little light green butter (or is it bibb?) and like to pull those out by the roots.

In a nutshell, what's the reason for raising the garden?

why not mow it?

because the compacted topsoil needs to be amended anyway and digging down 12 inches in your yard pretty much sucks balls.

rain
vacation
etc

bro I'm sure you wouldn't accept excuses like that from your girl

get to work!! :loser:

I got to work. I went on angieslist and found some yard contractors.

I wish I could find some contractors to come to my house and remove my full-body pubic hair suit.

look forkface, I cut the grass.

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I'm sure you can find someone down there who does brazilian waxing for mens.

please tell me that's your wife's car :giggle:

Too busy with this:
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for gardening.

We may do a raised bed, but our flowers always die, I don't see why vegetables would be any different.

it's both. want a miata for a fair price?