Now that we have property to spare, I decided that we should have a garden. I'd like to have the following: Onions, garlic, potatoes, green beans, peas, pumpkins, corn, some squash/zuchs, and maybe a few other things. I want easy stuff first, and then I'll get creative next year.

I have two 25'x50' areas that I tilled with the roto tiller over the weekend. Mixed in about 8 yards of 1 year old horse manure. Right now both areas get sun beginning about 9:30 or 10:00am until 1/2 hour before sundown. They'll probably get sun starting at 7:00am or so come may or June.

Total rookie here. Any suggestions on when and what to plant first. Any other soil prep I need to think about? The soil we have is awesome dark black earthy stuff. Relatively fine without much in the way of rocks.

I'll have water available at each garden site, and I can run a timer out there if necessary to make it idiot proof.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions on websites or books to pick up.

Mr. Douglas (greenacres)

Dog,
You need ta invite Stam over fer a visit. As far as home gardens, he's the king IMHO. I'm in the same process, I gotta throw another Panavegas dinner and have him give me some more pointers.

Have Penelton---he will come!

I wonder if my wife has any single friends? Might have to put them up as an offering to Stam.

All the things you mention can be started in may or june. Maybe throw in some tomatoes. The peas can be started early (late april) as they are frost tollerant and enjoy cooler weather. Carrots, radishes, and cucumbers are easy too. I grow in a little different climate than you wet siders so I would take the local advice.

Make sure you have a plan for pests. Deer, birds, rabbitts, bugs, bugs, bugs. The best thing I done for bugs is to have boundaries of where they can be helpfull and where they are not allowed. I allow them to thrive in my compost but poison the flippers arround the plants. Talk to the people at the local garden center and they will tell you what kind of bugs to look out for in your area. Starlings will eat your corn when the ears get just right. Those suns a bitches got me last year real bad. I had never had a bird problem in 7 years and thought the fricks were eatin the ear wigs. Nope they ate the tips off every ear.

Sterquilinus would be proud, Andy.

Plant corn. Nothing like fresh corn on the cob durning an August BBQ.

Not sure if watermelon grows up here though.

We had a huge pile of 'maters and bell peppers last year. Maybe it was the long hot summer. Chives make a tasty weed. Find a neglected corner that gets some sun and you'll have chives forever. You have to dig 'em up to get rid of them. Grapes do good up here but draw in deer from miles.

I'll be planting some Mossy Oak Biologic for the deer elsewhere on the property, and I have enough 10ft poles left over from the apple orchard we started to make a deer-proof fence on one plot. We do like having the deer around, but I think the new pup will hamper the amount of deer we see on a regular basis.

Oh, artichokes are good too, but don't put out much.

Peas can be planted late april but they do not like frost I lost 20 acres once to a frost , Pumpkins mid may you can start them in a greenhouse earlier Corn late may once the ground warms up, Beans late May also but they do not like too much water They will damp off if too wet

Andy, try and figure out your average "Last and First Frost Date".
This will give you approximate dates to work backwards from what the seed pack says, and a season length which is important to know so that you can choose the proper variety for your microclimate.
One good website is wunderground.com. you can input your location, and find local folks who have a "Personal Weather Station". You can even map them to get a good sense of your local climate if you're lucky. They usually have customizable tables, some graphable over time, which is cool.

Plant what you want to eat and/or preserve.
Dried beans have amazing varieties.

We've found we love to eat beets, collards, winter squash, grilled green peppers and shallots and garlic goes nuts.

Gardening is good stuff, and its been on my mind lately:

YOu can get garlic and shallots in now, and spinach under a row cover (bent pvc with painters plastic is perfect).
Next month plant potatoes and peas every two weeks for 6 weeks.
By then you can probably plant out your tenders (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant) and sow your green beans, cabbages, brussels sprouts, leeks, more beets and greens.
maybe wait til the soils warm to plant your corn and melons.

We have been pretty successful with seeds from Territorial Seed. I would suggest getting a catalog just for the culture information even if you don't buy the seeds.

It will be a real learning process. Our first year in Oly we had a killing frost in mid-May. Oly actually has, away from the water, one of the shortest growing seasons in the state. your micro-climate will be really important. In sequim, we planted the tomato plants inside tires; the black tire really collected heat. Without it, poor results up there.

I planted some lettuce in a cold frame yesterday. The rhubarb is already coming up; can almost taste the cobbler already.

We have had lots of problems with birds, primarily crows but others as well, will pull up the seedlings. Our best success has been to plant the seeds under plastic tents until they get established.

Good luck and good eating.

My lot has too many trees to garden here but when I lived near Boise we had a big garden and had the best sucess with raised beds where we could reach the middle of the bed from either side.

Ditto on the raised beds - makes pest control and weeding much easier.

I have had big gardens for 40 years. I second the advice on Territorial seeds. They are a NW company and try to select varieties that grow well here. A couple of tips:

Grow an extra early super sweet corn but do NOT grow two varieties near each other. Add at last 20 day to whatever maturity date the seed company advertizes. Only grow very early tomatoes. Early Girl and Sweet million are proven producers here. Do not sprinkle tomato plants. They typically need very little water or fertilizer. Too much of either will give you tall plants and very few fruits.

Plant a small amount of lettuce or spinach every two weeks, so you never have too much or too little.

Good luck. Nothing like a fresh garden salad, corn on the cob and BBQ salmon.

i've never had much luck growing corn. didn't think we had the greatest climate for the stuff. i did manage to successfully grow popcorn several years back...until i went outside one day and there were over 20 red-wing blackbirds tearing apart my 10x10 corn patch!

i can usually get squash and beans to turn out pretty well, though. i'll usually plant beans after the last frost, then again sometime in june or july to get a fall harvest.

i really want to get a garden started at my new house, as i've got more than enough room. unfortunately i'm going to have to get some fill dirt and do some clearing since a large part of it is a scrub tree filled swamp.

Sounds like the boys will be pressed into pest control duties with the pellet guns.

You are going to need a deer fence Andy.
If not say good bye to a lot of your crop.

Corn is super easy IF:

Choose one with a maturity of 75 days or less, plant in full sun, three rows minimum. I plant three plantings and have sweet corn from ealry August till frost.

Anyone try Bok Choy? I'm going to give it a go and it sounds like I should plant it now. Love it in stir fry's and such.

Dave this reminds me, we need to get that special scarecrow started

I did Bok Choi last fall and it was easy.
Another easy one is Swiss Chard.

This is a good thread! I am going to have my first garden this year. I have to mend the fences (They are netted to about 10' high) and start rototilling as soon as we move in to the new place. I already have raspberries and a grape trellis that produces okay, but the raccoons are hard on it.

The garden is one that my grandparents had for years, I am going to be re-starting it after about a 6 year layoff. I'm super excited. Really want to grow peppers, zucchini, squash, onions, carrots and tomatoes. Basically, I want to grow anything that I can put on the grill.

Planted Boc Choy in the greenhouse last week. It's alreday up. Report later.

You definitely need some pests protection. My garden is surrounded with an 8' tall wood frame, wire mesh fence, grape arbor entrance. No deer, but raccoons climb the fence for my grapes each fall.

I do two types of corn, early sweet and "peaches & cream". 3 rows of each planted 2-3 weeks apart. Lots of jalapenos, onions, basil. 9 varieties of tomatoes, I plant around Mother's Day weekend. I also use 6 raised beds with indoor/outdoor carpet between to keep weeds down. My raspberries (two varieties) are off the charts.

Vedder has pics of my garden, maybe he'll post a pic of it taken from my deck for a full view. Thanks Dave.

Sorry Snake. I didn't save them. I thought YOU might have.

Don't forget brussel Sprouts. Great on the grill.

I will definitely try to grow brussel sprouts too. They are my wife's favorite vegetable.

I do not have acerage but I do have a couple raised gardens that I grow my veggies in. I also grow potatoes in a garbage can. Drilled holes planted taters then as they grow layer dirt on and late summer dig in ya got tators. I also reccommend Walla Walla's oh and Strawberries. Pretty cool when your working out in the yard and you can walk up and have a snack.

Now if I can keep the neighborhood cats from using them as a litter box. WristRocket!

Coho,

What kind of wood are you using for your raised beds? I was thinking 2x10 cedar cuz pressure treated wood supporting the soil for my organic veggies has got to be a bad idea.

Sg

You can recycle old tires to make small round beds. Seen an old man do it.

Hey, if the Greeners us 'em for artificial reefs and to build houses out of they should be ok, right?

Don't know if you want your yard looking like a Newark tiredump though.

Use cedar or redwood for raised beds. Raised beds are nice because it is easy to pick stuff and you can put covers over them (PVC with painters plastic) to extend growing seasons.

I put my peas out last night. Sprouted them indoors in a bowl with a damp paper towel for three days. Will try some lettuce and other cold weather stuff this weekend. I always try and plant early. If it works... great. If not, I replant. I figure the seed costs very little and sometimes I get an early/extra crop.

Coho, I have been wanting to try the garbage can potato idea. Sounds like a great way to introduce kids to gardening. Something easy for them to do with lots of results.

Dogfish, I am not much of a gardner, I try but I just don't seem to have a reall good green thumb? Something to think about. I used to live in McCleary, and that has a little different growing season than say Olympia area. It seems to be a longer season there? There has been a lot of good advise. Some things can be planted now. I usually follow what one of my neighbors does. And he has onion starts in already. Ask aorund there, for some reason the Elma McCleary area has an earlier start season and a longer end season. The time is at hand. Oh and it sounds like with 1 year old horse manure in there. You should have a great crop. You will get a ton of weeds though!!
God Luck

Buck

Don't use PT wood for boxes.
I use scrap anything to build the beds. You can paint the inside of a wooden box with boiled linseed oil and/or paraffin to stretch its life a few years.
Don't use 1" for beds, it'll rot fast.
Raised beds warm faster, are easier to cover, easier to work on, and more pest resistant.
Staple chicken wire or hardware cloth over the bottom to prevent burrowing critters.

Buy/check out Steve Solomon's "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades" for excellent regional-specific advice. And he's got a kick-ass formula for home made "Complete Organic Fertilizer" ("COF" as you'll see it mentioned on many gardening sites). His other books, especially his "Hard Times" book are supposed to be great too.

Another book to consider is Seattle Tilth's "Garden Guide" iirc. Its a month by month planting guide.

You can grow veggies year around with some planning and a greenhouse/row cover system.

Definitely lime your soil, even if you don't add anything else to it. If it rains on your ground, it will suffer from leaching and acidification. Lime balances the pH, which is important for all of the crops listed here. Don't lime blueberries.

Don't plant one big garden all at once. Like others mentioned, "succession planting" is key. Plant your seeds every two weeks or so, and you'll have continuous food.

Learn about cover crops like fall sown cereal rye, winter wheat. Spring sown clover, buckwheat, field peas. These are amazing soil conditioners. Any time you've got an open row, throw some buckwheat seed down.

Consider getting chickens to feed garden scraps too. They'll reward you with excellent eggs and crap to put back in your gardens.

Limit your inputs (stay away from pesticides, non-organic fertilizers, imported soil), maximize your outputs (harvest weekly, trade your neighbors).

Use non-Monsanto seeds (look 'em up). Territorial's selection isn't great in this area. There are many local seed houses which deserve your biz.

If you're really cool, you'll use "OP" seeds and save them yourself.
Growing a garden from seed you've collected yourself is a lot like a DIY trophy elk hunt to me. Satisfying. (I imagine. I've never successfully popped any elk, much less a trophy).

SG--I used the wood you should not. PT. It was an after thought after I completed. So I did add weed barrier that seems to help. Veggies still seem to do fine, if I were to do it again I would use Cedar.

yes Brant the Taters are fun. I cannot recall the type I planted last season, but everytime I dug in I would get enough for a dinner for the 3 of us.

This is the theory of the square foot gardening-This was passed onto me from another fish head. If you are limited on space this works well.
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

Also, plan before you plant some veggies grow better when planted together and some do not do well. JCoho advised me on that.

Supposedly some PT is OK but you need to ask the manufacturer about that. In the old day's PT was treated with cyanide and could even leach into your skin and cause all sorts of disorders.

Speaking of fish head......my home fish cleaning station drains right into the compost bin and receives what I don't save for crabs.

Stam's and Vedder's gardens are legendary.

i like Aunty's planned obsolescence...her own?

Stam (or anyone) do you grow winter squash?
I'm looking for someone who can tell me about curing them in late fall, maybe in front of a woodstove, to store for more than a couple months.

Sodfarmer, do you grow small grains to harvest as grain? I know some local farms are trialing different wheat, barley, etc.
I want to figure out how acres/dollars and time I need to grow a couple tons a year of small grains, corn and/or soy to make my own poultry feed.

Pie in the sky?

I appreciate all of the suggestions. This is what I was looking for, so all of that input is great.

Ordered my seed catalog today and I'll head to the local farm store on Saturday to see what they have for starts.

Looks like right now I just need to work on getting the fences rigged up and work on getting water run to the two spots so I can just get things going in the next few months.

With two different bed sites, I can separate the two varieties of corn by 20-30 yards. Is that far enough away?

Also, once I get the garden in I plan on building a small hen house and having a few chickens. Eventually we'll add on to that and add some pheasants and other birds.

Many thanks.

I have never heard of seperating corn before. I grow two types and they are only seperated by about two feet. Taste fine look fine. Maybe they're compatible types :scratch head:

corn needs time, not distance.
if you want different varieties, look for their maturity days. You''ll want to get varieties with at least 20 days difference.
There's all kinds of corn: dent (for corn meal), flint, sweet, pop...
its an american original.

corn likes to be in blocks at least 16 plants strong (I've read) to get good pollination. I've hand pollinated smaller patches, but it didn't worky too good.

I will also be popping my green thumb cherry this spring. Couple stupid questions here. Can asparagus be grown on the westside here? Also I am taking over a garden that has been going for years its 15x15 or so. It has always had beans climbing up the back, row of corn, punkins, peppers, onions, carrots, squash. Does all of that stuff need to be re planted every year? Not sure about some of it. Probably drop the punkins and squash for taters and cukes. So what do I need to do to get ready to plant what needs to be planted? Pull weeds and till it up? Sounds like I should get a bale of alfalfa to till with. Any help is appreciated.

Looks like a bunch of us like playing in the dirt. This last spate of great weather has been great for getting the ground ready; garden patch spaded, new cold frame build, etc; everything ready for the first of the cool weather crops

Stlhdr -
Asparagus can be grown here on the west side. However it does require a fair amount of space and time - takes up to 3 years to have the plants fully established. My asparagus patch is enough for two. Aunty check my patch today and still no spears up.

Dogfish -
With the space you have you should be able to grow virtually the "vegies" your family needs. With our cilmate here on the west side a number of cool weather crops due quick well. Peas, snow peas (pods); green onions, potatoes (love Potomac reds and Yukon golds, kale, the various lettuce (leaf varities the easiest), brocculi, cabbage, caulifower all do well.

My best advise is that don't be in rush to get the warmer weather crops (corns, beans, various squashes, cukes, tomatoes, peppers, etc.) in the ground. They do best when they can grow more or less constantly and a period of cold nights really slows down their development and ultimately the yield. I try to hold off until the latter half of May to play those crops. Once experimented with 3 plantings of bush beans (all the same type); one in late April, one in mid-May and the third in early July. The earliest and latest ripen about 10 days apart with the later planting yielding roughly twice as much.

You might also think about putting in some perennials. Rhubard, the various berries, horseradish, asparagus, and fruit trees are all good. While my space is somewhat limited (live in town with a lot of only 1/3 of acre) we do manage to squeeze in a fair amout; in addition to 1,400 space feet for veggies I have 3 fruit trees( "drawf" varities), 4 rhubard plants, a 4 x 10 apsaragus patch, a 4 x 10 strawberry patch, 30 feet of raspberries, 10 feet of blackberries, 9 blue berry bushes, and lots of flowers. All in a fenced back yard shared with two labs.

Careful; gardening can be addictive.

Curt

Corn like bananas have been domesticated so long they don't grow naturally, and need sowing. Bananas are so domesticated they're extinct in the wild and have to be cloned. Have been for like 2000 years. Matter of fact, the entire genus is going the way of the dodo due to virulent mycosis, same as pollenating bees and amphibians.
(Wanna see a world-wide clusterfvck, wait until bananas disappear.)

Someone mentioned Monsanto seeds.

Stay away from those poison pills.

+1 on rhubarb. this will be your first harvest in coming years, not including the greens you've overwintered.
what kills asparagus on the west side is too much rain.
plant crowns, about 3-4 per person you want to feed. It'll take at least 3 years to get reliable harvests.

cover the patch for winter, but water occasionally.

Stam, why alfalfa? If your ground needs organic matter, wouldn't bagged compost be better?
I've just seen my ground not be productive when adding a bunch of uncomposted green or brown stuff. Takes a year or more for that to break down.
I'm actually paying $200 for a "permaculture" dude to come out and tweak my plan a bit so I can harvest something year round.

now you need a root cellar, pressure canner, and wheat grinder, home drilled well with 12v pump...
you'll have all the modern preppers current faves.

My Asparagus does well year after year and I just let it go but yield versus the space it needs has me tempted to do away with it. Plus the ground is so fertile it's tough to keep up on the weeds.

In addition to the veggie garden, consider an investment in a couple of fruit trees - Pays dividends over many years and they aren't that much work once you figure things out. I've got fresh peaches, summer and winter pears, apricots, 5 kinds of plums, etc. to go along with all of the veggies. Raspberries, blueberries take a while to get established, but then you are set for many years. Fresh fruit and berries run from June through Christmas. I used to have apples too, but the maggot made that impossible...

I grow Reliance peaches - Blooms after frost but requires a spray program for curl. There are some new peaches that are resistant to curl I've been wanting to try - The old frost peach everyone sells now doesn't seem to have the best flavor. Peaches do great on the west side if you have a hot sunny spot, they are so much better than anything you by in the store.

Corn - Plant in a square, one variety, and wait til late May.

I have 7 apple trees already, but I want other trees.

I have 2 huge cherry trees and 4 nice apple trees. The birds get 90% of the cherries. How do I remedy that?

I'm thinking about planting a Rainier Cherry tree with a Bing for pollination. Anyone done well with one west of the mountains?

And don't forget nut trees either. I have a Filbert that does really well and it's about twenty feet tall now.

The only thing I've seen that works for cherries is to let the trees get really big and settle for what you can get from the lower branches. I've tried dwarf varieties with netting, flash tape, even hanging a dead crow in the tree. All the dead crow did was bring all of the crow's relatives over to my tree to pay their respects. The only cherries left on the tree had maggots and rotten crow juice dripping down on them from the dearly departed. Nothing works for keeping the birds in my neighborhood away from the cherries, so I cut the suckers down. Too much hassle.

My general rule of thumb is to focus on stuff in the home garden that you can't get as good quality-wise in a store. Corn - definitely better from the home garden. Also artichokes, greens, chard, rhubarb, tomatos. Fruit - Peaches especially. Raspberries for sure. Winter pears -Comice. Bartlett for canning. Nothing like a good fresh plum from the tree on a hot summer day. Also the clams and oysters I plant on the beach - fresher than you can get at the store, and no limit on how many I take.

Can't wait for summer.

So what about Ed Hume or Lilly Miller seeds? They had a number of the varieties that folks talked about.

Dammit Stam, give it up! Not Territorial, not Ed Hume, not Lilly Miller; then who?

BTW, I always buy Bodacious corn at the Farmer's Market, but they didn't get a booth last summer.

So peaches are a possibility around here? Thought ya' had to go to Yakima for those.

I want to plant an Italian prune tree and get a new food dryer; the ex got the really nice one I built.

I saw a deal on Discovery about their seeds and it said that the hybridization benefits decreased with each iteration.

I'll stay away from the poison pills.

Thanks Stam, but yer damn hard to follow, first bashing Territorial then saying it's your first choice, kinda' like following you through a run. You can make trees out of suckers? Or do they just grow more suckers?

BTW, it's Italian prune (freestone); plums are clingstone. At least that's what I was taught. KK might know about this kinda' details.

Lesbian's city window box? I'll have to remember that line. Pretty funny tho it makes no sense. I suppose salt and pepper (pre-ground black) is the extent of your food seasonings? Don't tell me your taste in food is as bad as your taste in beer.

KK, if I play the Dead on my outdoor speakers, how will my garden grow?

Sg

AM - I saw the Deer Cr. nursery was all cleaned out! I missed the bargains - They had some awesome stuff there. Hope the fruit stand stays.

I had two 40 year old Italian Prune trees I tossed away more fruit than I could eat, dry, or give away for many years. Now I have one left - Still too much fruit to deal with, but there's no other tree I have that is lower maintenance or more productive. The oriental plums are fine for eating fresh, but tend to be clingstone. European plums (and Italian prune) require very little maintenance after they get mature and no spray. Oriental plums tends to sucker badly and needs a lot of pruning.

Stam - The Frost peaches just don't seem to work as advertised. But don't give up. Talk to Raintree about the new varieties of curl resistant peaches. I had two old Reliance peach trees that produced 10-30 full size shipping sized boxes of peaches every year - bigger and better than whan you get in the store. We canned and ate and gave away as much as we could possibly handle for many years (Tacoma area). Problem with peach trees is that the have a relatively short life, need some pruning, and curl spray program unless you can find a good curl-resistant variety. I've started over with two new trees - Just coming on for good production after 5 years . Cut the last old one down last weekend - rotten through the core and about to fall over. Fruit wood for the smoker now.

i planted a rainier tree over at my folks house about 15 years ago. it still isn't very big(about 10-12 feet tall) but last year i did finally get a decent crop of cherries. i did plant it in sort of a marginal place, though, and it would have produced better if it wasn't in the shade half the day!

cherries generally grow fine over here as long as you've got really well drained soil. that rainier is damned near growing in sand so it's never had any cracking problems.

and just what the f is wrong with that!

Stam--can I be on you list fer a prune?

Holy crap! Where do I get seeds for a window box lesbian?

So I'd get the "butch version" from territorial seed?

Do you have that not-so-fresh feeling Bucket?

So what do I grow to make hair pies? An Early Italian Prune or lesbian window box doesn't sound good for pies.

herbs are good - mature fairly quickly - easy to grow - but seed selection is key

That's what I've heard, too. Need good seeds. I hear some of the very best come from B.C.

rockwool

How about some advice on Raspberry cultivar selection for the Puget Sound region. I would like to start a raised bed with these berries only because the soil here is glacier till and hard as a rock.

Found this bit of info., http://www.red-raspberry.org/cultivars.asp

I grow Chillawack - Good variety if you have somewhat wet soil. Comes on strong the 4th of July and last for 3 weeks or so. No disease problems so far (18 years).

I haven't had good luck with the everbearing varieties - But some people like to have berries late in the season. I like to get them all at once and deal with them in July.

Make sure you leave plenty of room between the rows (if you are planting in rows) - You will be surprised how much space they take up. I wish I'd left 5 ft between the rows.

Butternut squash is da bomb and it grows good on the west side. I train mine to grow vertically so it doesn't take up much space.

I finally got rid of my Rasberries. Needed the room for a new shed and was tired of it trying to spread almost as bad as blackberries do.

Seeds? Heven't seen one in quite some time.

No stems, no seeds....

Anyway, we will not be doing any of that "horticulture" here.

Started onions, Walla Walla's and Yellows today, using those little peat tray dealies. 72+ of each variety. If every seed grows an onion, we're gonna have a metric buttload of onions on hand. If each seed grows more than one, well, there will be A LOT.

Told the wife we built a sun room, so I was going to use it for more than a place to feed the cat. She was pretty okay with it. Ryan helped plant the starters.

You've made the mistake of showing me where you live. See you this summer to pick up grub and ride minibikes.

Do they still make Phototron's?

Yup.

Nope, not buying one.

AuntyM, my wife has grown massive numbers of plants in her Aerogarden. That thing can really do a job, but having a good understanding of hydroponic gardening helps. Biggest problem is those little CFL lamps don't give much light penetration, so growing anything more than about 18" tall is tough, especially if you expect it to fruit out.

I'm in the process of building my wife her dream indoor garden. It will be on a 2'x4' table, and have 8 of the 4' long T5 lamps in 2 fixtures. She has fibromyalgia, etc. so it's a tough time for her working in the garden outside. This way she is inside, and working at waist height.

Phototron? Now that's some cool, old-school technology right there... (old school ain't bad though..)

Not too efficient compared to the new Roto-Growing machines. A 1KW HPS in the middle and trays that rotate around it like a ferris wheel. You can do a huge number of strawberries in a system like that.

ISO

A root celler would be cool.

I have a 4ft tall crawl space with concrete floors and lights. The root cellar part is covered.

What are you guys doing for watering systems on your raised bed's?

I build two last year out of fir. Thinking that when they rod out I will have a better idea of what I want. Last year I was carrying the can to water, I would like to "automate" a little more. I have considered a soaker hose and putting in a simple drip hooked up to the hose with a timer.

KK, is there an irrigation supply place you recommend around Duvall/Monroe?

KK, are these irrigation systems adaptable by folks who have reasonable handyman skills? I would want something I could break down each year and allow me to rototill at will without worrying about hitting the system. My guess is that I would store each row of irrigation system, hanging along the fence of the garden. Make sense?

Great info KK...thanks!

You can also order a lot of that material online. One site I've used in the past is Dripworks.Com. They've got anything and everything you would ever need to set up a righteous drip irrigation system.

ISO

I thought this KK dude mowed lawns?

KK,

What kind of beer do you like? (we also have some good wine) I might need to invite you over for a nice lunch or dinner some time. It would be nice to get a second opinion on not only the garden, but also some landscaping ideas. Lots of property, where some of it we would want really nice, and the other sections just a basic field. Looking at some Kwanzan cherry trees to line the driveway, etc. A mixture of hick and sophistication. (sophistHICKation)

I did get my 4 corner posts set in concrete today for my deer fence on the first garden. Had a bunch of 2x6's that were left out and got weathered, so I doubled those up into 4x6's, trimmed them off at 10'. Any deer that gets in there is either a bruiser, or sausage. There are elk in the area, so it should hold up to them as well. I'll set the posts for the entry door supports tomorrow, and then dig in a few posts for intermediate fence supports. Actually measured the two garden plots, 25'x35' each. 1,700 SF should suffice for now. Looks like I overestimated the other day.

Out of pocket costs right now was just $25 for 10 60# bags of concrete, $6 for onion seeds, and gas for the rototiller. Mom & Dad are getting me a gift card for Territorial Seed for my B-day tomorrow. Dad's B-day is Tuesday, and he asked for some really good bacon, the man's 76 years old, so I got him 4 pounds of the "good stuff".

Happy Birthday, Andy!!

Tell your dad I said "Happy Birthday" to him, too.

Bacon for your birthday. Now that is living.
I'm going to have to remember that one.

We grow, and eat, a lot of spinach. It grows very fast and is super easy. Last summer I planted some on my deck and the wife really liked the ease of picking it. Late in the fall I planted some just to see what would happen. Well, we are now getting spinach. Not much. It's so cold still it grows quite slowly, but we are beginning to get a few leaves for a salad.

Tip for you new gardeners; you can plant spinach in late April, but plant just a couple of feet, then replant every few weeks. That way you can have nice fresh spinach all summer.

I do succession plantings of beans - three, corn - three, lettuce and spinach- 4 or 5, carrots two, and cucumbers 2.

If you plant in late spring, you can expect picking sized leaves within 40 days.

Thanks for the B-day wishes. Passed that on to my Dad as well. He enjoyed the 4lbs of great bacon I gave him. Busy day today, as I dug in teh remainder of the posts for my deer fence. This getting old thing is getting old fast.



4"x6" posts dug in 24" and set in concrete. They should hold.

The plot to the left behind the soon to be fenced in area is where I'll plant the deer food garden. It is a Brazillian Brascia, so it is kind of like a kale/clover/broc type plant. The deer are supposed to love it.

Must have taken a food plot tip from stam. Keep the shootin' iron by a window this fall. Just not the bathroom window....

Good looking Popeye food Dave. My love planted some winter hardy stuff in pots this past August as an experiment. We've had fresh beets, kale, salad greens and chard over this winter. May have to get more organized about winter greens now that we know they can make it through a cold snap or two....

What you don't see is that the shop is 25 feet from the garden.

Spotted your place passin through last Friday Dogfish, beautiful looking buildings......love the shake and color contrasts

Call ahead before you go through the gate NOFISH.

A heated ground blind with fridge? I love it when a well conceived plan comes together. Hope it bears much fruit of the protein kind....

You don't have to tell me JG, a person would have to be BLIND and STUPID to not read the signs and just pop on in

You liked my warm & friendly signs?

I did, and would like to do the same at my place

Bees are a great thing to have by the gardens. My GF and I started 2 hives last year, and in the fall the little ladies provided us with almost 5 gallons of the best tasting honey I have ever tasted. And I have tasted a lot of diff. honey.

This year we hope to add 2-3 hives.

With the hives around we get great pollination in the garden.

LOL. My dad keeps his hives around my place so maybe I will get good pollination, of course I won't know the difference between good and bad pollination so I have no frame of reference.

I have three young Peach trees , 3 year old they have been producing for 2 seasons.

Other trees, 10 cherry trees 4 apple trees.

I have been trying to garden with the curtains up 100+ firs on the South and West side of my lot. They are coming down, as soon as it dries out enough.

This year I was sent some mushroom plugs from Puget Sound Exotic Mushrooms going to try out home growing some Pearl Oyster and Shitake shrooms.

For info you can check out http://www.fungi.com/ I have the plug spawn

Pathway to the garden rocked, and added a door. Might need to get that fence up.

NYCE!!!!

looking at that cedar tree in the background tells me you need a few hundred pounds of dolomite spread on your plot unless you plan on growing blueberries in there
50-60 lbs of seaweed and 10-20 bales of alfalfa would be some good eats for your soil as well

just my 2 cents

oh, and a night vision scope for your air rifle for bunny management

All you with green thumbs out there, have you tried to grow and eat Salsify. Salsify stew a great substitute when the real is out of season.

FD

Part of the fun in gardening is try new crops or methods of growing the tried and true crop.

In that vein I'm thinking of growing my cukes and maybe winter squash on trellis. Anyone have any experience in doing so? Seems like the cukes should be a slam dunk but wondering if I were to try winter squash do I have to worry about the squash betting too heavy to be supported by its stem. I have really enjoyed butternut and playing with the idea of try them.

Curt

I think I'm going to try training cukes and zukes this year too.

Anyone have opinions on tillers/cultivators in the $300 to $400 range? My ground is so fertile that even the weeds reach gigantic proportions and the older I get the more my back takes a beating with hand tilling. Seems this range is only good for what is really just a cultivator not much for true deep tilling?

Along the lines of this thread. I noticed that there is a new store in Downtown Oly that sells all kinds of gear for interior gardening. They have quite a set up in there. All kinds of tubes, and lights, and etc.

I walk by it every day on the way to the gym. It is called the Garden Gnome. You should go look at it in the next 3 months or so, that is about how long new businesses last in Downtown Oly.

Website

Looks like a pot grow supplier.

Heavy mulching doesn't cut it for me. The weeds just wait for the mulch to be removed or find their way through. I used to mulch with seedless hay until you could no longer count on it being seedless. Even planting a ground cover it grows larger than it should and needs to be tilled.

Here they come! Grilled the first batch and they were great.

Forget the upside down deal. Bucket works.

HOW do I get rid of that nasty wild morning glory? I have read somewhere that it's roots grow ten feet deep.

If so, prolly really smart about growing in contained conditions.

Update.

Father-in-law bought us 10 yards of top soil a month or so back. I had worked it into the other enriched soil, but hadn't set out my rows. Yesterday I got the garden reasonably level. Today I set my rows.


I'll get a few things in the ground over the next week or so, peas and a few other things I've started and have been conditioning to the outside. Peppers are doing well in the sun room, but those will live forever in the sun room. Perfect place for them.

Anybody else have things they are putting out yet?

Peas, broccoli, califlower, lettuce, spinich, carrots, peppers, cabbage, walla walla's, tomato's, zucchini. I think that's all I have in the ground right now??

Whats the best way to enrich last years soil? Compost? Fertilizer?

Do I need to?

Got my asparagus in last night, thanks to a friend. Also added were artichoke, carrots, celery, 20 bodacious corn starts that are 2 weeks old (early I know, but we have a few good days of weather ahead), a few green beans, a few pumpkins, and I got all of my Mossy Oak Biologic deer feed in the grounds as well, about .25 acres of that in different spots around the property.

Items beginning to show include 3 varieties of potato, sugar peas, walla walla, white and yellow onions.

Green pepper starts get transplanted into pots for grow out in the sunroom in the house tonight. They'll stay inside the whole time.

Starting 144 starts for cukes, zuchs, bodacious corn and pumpkins tonight. They'll hit the dirt in about 2 weeks and have a head start.

After that, toss in the rest of the pumpkin seed and a new batch of corn every two weeks.

Wife gets to start tomato plants shortly.

I added 10 yards of year old cow manure earlier in the season to enrich my soil. Other than that, no fertilizer has been added. I will probably help things out a bit with a bit of AK fish fertilizer.

We try to grow a variety of things each year, and we are expanding our operation this year, and all this great advice has really got the wheels spinning. Great thread, for sure.

Washington is a great place to grow all kinds of stuff. If we had longer growing seasons, I don't think there would be much we couldn't grow here. As I said, we have grown a few different things over the years, and we have been more successful with some things than others. Tomatoes, peas, peppers, carrots, herbs, and squash seem to be our best producers. The most important crop for me has always been tomatoes, and I have learned a few of what seem to be "truths" regarding tomato horticulture in this region.

As has been mentioned, the small varieties (cherries and Early Girls) tend to be the most productive and the most resistant to rot, blight, etc. Slicers, especially beefsteaks, are generally a waste of your garden space around Western WA, in my experience. It seems the weather starts to turn before they can really get going, and the slugs seem to be especially fond of the bigger fruit. That said, we did have great success with a slicing variety from Oregon last year. I think the extra heat made for the best tomato growing I have experienced in my 11 years of living in WA, so we will have to see if those are as productive this year.

If you do try slicers and slugs seem to be getting at your fruit before you can, don't be afraid to harvest tomatoes while they are still green. Once they reach their mature size, just pick them and put them in a window sill. They ripen nicely every time.

Of course, those of us who have lived in or spent any time in the South will tell you that you need not ripen all those tomatoes either; fried green tomatoes are delicious any time of the day. Just slice some green tomatoes, marinate them in buttermilk overnight, season with salt and pepper, roll in corn meal, and fry in a light oil until golden brown (olive oil is great, but don't use extra virgin for frying/suateing - the low smoking point makes for bitterness and a waste of expensive deliciousness).

Here's wishing you all happy gardening in 2010!

Is it possible to keep the slugs away from raised bed gardens?

or your wasted neighbors....... make a ring or crushed filbert shells, crushed clam/oyster shell, or carpet. they hat the texture

Fuggin slugs... keep the slug killing ideas flowing. They're making my rhubarb look like swiss cheese...

KK... best way to kill slugs?

Ducks like to eat slugs.

Fill a Jerry Can 1/2 full of diesel, mix it with a couple gallons of used motor oil, pour it all over the slugs and anything they might want to eat and set the whole mess off with a blowtorch.

Then go down to the store and buy a sack full of veggies.

Seriously though, there's that grey goopy stuff that comes in an orange bottle. You can squirt a line around your garden and any slugs coming across will turn to goo.

Abu is correct; 79% of the time, beer works every time.

Funny story (well, maybe someone will think it's funny):

A couple of years ago after Halloween, my wife got really tired of looking at and dealing with slugs, so she dumped half a beer in one of our jack-o-lanterns. A few days later, we had what might have been the most disgusting cocktail of rotting pumpkin, stale beer, and drunken-to-death slugs you would ever want to see. Naturally, the job of disposing of the foul concoction fell to your's truly. I made it about 20 feet before the bottom of the pumpkin gave way, dropping the full volume of beer/slug swill all over my legs and feet. Few feelings I have known have been anywhere close to as disgusting, and the smell was worse.

After a series of dry heaves and a profanity-rich cleanup session, I calmly asked my wife to use something other than jack-o-lanterns for future slug traps. She laughed at me, but later complied.

I will have to try the alternatives suggested; seems they might produce less ungodly by-product.

I don't care if I have to pet a slug as I feed it my damn veggies one at a time...I'll never stoop to owning, supporting, cheering for, wearing the colors of, or befriending a duck. Ain't gonna happen.

Since the little bastards don't like sliming over sharp scratchy stuff...I've often wondered about laying a few dried branches of blackberry around the garden perimeter. A la keeping the lions out of your camp in Zimbabwe.


Or I 'll just go with cheap beer, and my size 12's in the morning...

Junuary has officially left us, so I thought I'd recap how the garden was growing.



My sugar peas rock. Potatoes, baby reds and Yukon Gold, are growing like champs. White and yellow onions are champs, Wally's not so much. Broccoli is doing well, corn is sucking wind, and my peppers that I have been growing in the house are doing okay. Radishes are moving along, carrots are slow. Got a metric buttload of starts for beets, 9 types of lettuce/cabbage, and a bunch of beans that are doing pretty well. Artichokes are really growing well.

I've used no pesticides, AK fish fertilizer and cow manure have been my only fertilizers, and we have had no heat to speak of for any duration.

How are your gardens growing?

My sister gave me two blueberry bushes in large plastic pots for Christmas. They were sitting on the south side of the house and looking pretty good. But after I returned from Alaska, those few days of hot weather killed one of 'em. I may be in trouble if I can't find a replacement. That's the sum total of my gardening this year.

Sg

Give it lots of water and put it in the shade. They can actually be pretty hardy. It might just come back on ya. May take awhile though. . .

I have a source for blueberry plants if it doesn't recover. One of the oldest blueberry farms in Washington. They told me that as long as you don't drive over them, they'll pretty much take any abuse you dish out. It may also just be the canes, not the main plant that are damaged.

Aunty, if you want more strwaberries, try the native alpines. They are much smaller, however mine have been producing for 2 months now and will keep going most of the summer and into the fall. The blonde ones are especially sweet . . ..

Kidney stones are fun aren't they.

I never got to put my garden in this year. I was stuck on "house stuff" as I lovingly refer to my remodel project when someone sends me a text asking to go fishing, waterskiing, windsurfing, etc....

I did get some strawberries out of our plants we have in these rubber tubs, and some rhubarbs. I have a bunch of grapes that are not quite ripe on a trellis, but I got a feeling they will get picked by a critter.

Apple trees are looking pretty decent, especially the one in the back of the garden. I don't know what makes it different than the other trees. Different brand fruit I s'pose. We have these huge cherry trees which are just bird feeders. The cherries are great, the kids love them, but the lowest fruit is about 7' off the ground.

Tried a new, to me at least, red tipped head lettuce. It's doing fine and tastes great.

Now thats a scary raised eyebrow you got there Vedder!

So...what's the secret for growing monster sized lettuce anyhow?

Been tilling incover crops, and adding lots of compost for 30 years.

Someone should photoshop that schit and send it into High Times.

1 zucchini plant is 1 too many.