Time to think about the summer garden???

Just curious, but as the holidays are now behind us I've noticed that the seed catalogues are showing up in my mailbox and that got me thinking about our garden . . . anyone else into gardening?

We didn't plant anything last year because we spent a good deal of the summer in the UK traveling, this year I have plans to go back to planting about an acre. But doing it much differently than I have in the past. While I tend to garden on a much larger scale than some, I know others who have gardens that make mine look tiny.

But even city dwellers with balconies on their apartments can do container gardens, suburban dwellers on 1/4 acre lots can actually stretch their food budgets a VERY LONG way by putting in a modest size garden and inter-planting edible shrubs into their landscape. Blueberry bushes, bush type cherries and 'dwarf' fruit trees can easily be planted in small yards adjacent to your wife's roses, petunias and marigolds.

Container gardens can be tiny, but still very productive and provide bushels of tomatoes, piles of strawberries and baskets of peppers.

If you have a spade, a garden fork, a hose and some ground it is very inexpensive to get a garden started. In fact it is IDEAL for those folks on limited incomes or who may be at risk of losing their jobs in an economic downturn because the cost of seed packets is usually about $1, often less, sometimes a bit more, but a packet of seeds can produce a crop that is often more than a family can eat over a couple month time span.

So, anyone else into gardening from the 'practical family' or even the 'survivalist' point of view? What crops do you plant? Do you practice organic gardening? Do you practice beneficial co-planting (carrots & tomatoes, etc)? Does your family 'can' your harvest? Anyone market garden? What size is your garden? Etc....

I've been on a 25 year quest to develop the "least sweat garden". I've never made it to the "no sweat garden".

Like you, I wasn't going to put in a garden last year until I noticed the price of produce at the store in the early spring. I went home, picked up the tiller and went to work. I have 2 gardens. There is "my" garden and my "wife's" garden. I seem to do the bulk of the work in both. I got my fence up around my garden last year because the previous two years the deer absolutely decimated it. It was a strange gardening year in East Texas last year. Most things grew well, it was a bumper year for tomatoes, but the peppers didn't grow worth a flip. The plants were big and beautiful but the didn't really start to set fruit until the beginning of November??????? By then it was too late. Frost got them.

I tend to grow the stuff that we use the most of. My wife plants all the leafy things for salads and I plant the toms, peppers, eggplant, carrots, onions, peas, etc. I usually try to grow one exotic veggie but I don't know what it will be this year. We use most of the produce fresh from the garden but my wife does fire up the dehydrator during peak picking time. There are only the two of us at the house so in a good year friends and family tend to hide when they see us coming 'cos we give away so much stuff.

I'm going to try something new this year. A friend gave me an old book for Christmas by Ruth Stout called "No Work Garden Book". He knows me so well. The basic philosophy is to mulch everything. I'm going to use some old hay from the farm that was baled wet. It's ugly stuff and the cows would need to be pretty desperate to eat it. I'm going to bring it to the house and roll it out in my garden. It should be 4'' to 6" thick. According to Ruth, you just pull the hay apart, plant whatever and you never have to weed again. We'll see. It should be fun and interesting.

The gardening catalogues are one thing that makes this time of year tolerable. OK, back to planning.

I started two years ago. Had some good success with potatoes, cucumbers and peas. Tomatoes, Sweet Corn and anything else didn't do so well. Last year my sweet corn again had 7 foot stalks nice and green but really small ears that didn't produce anything. For some reason I get these big healthy looking plants that don't produce. Two years ago I planted 75 potato plants and had so many potatoes I couldn't get rid of them all. Last year I planted 100 potato plants and got 10 potatoes. The Potato Bug I could not control not matter what I did. I tried every chemical in the book and even found some stuff that was actually illegal for garden plants and it didn't touch them. Best I could do was pick them off and kill them but after a while I couldn't keep up with them. I did have some success with sunflower seeds this last year.

I have had my soil tested by the University of Minnesota and every thing checks out ok. I bought a kit myself and the tests show ok also. I bought a John Deere Flex Corn planter last year and am now wondering if it is worth planting a garden for the 3rd year.

Things were pretty crazy for the cowboy household last year and my gardening was the only thing that provided me any sanity for the most part.

last year I used a product I had picked up while living in Fla. It's called the "Earthbox" . I needed the flexability of container gardening as well as practicing with different vegatables so as to determine which could withstand my farming technique (neglectful growing). Great little system. I even figured I could make some of my own.

I grew 3 different types of tomatos, 4 types of peppers, squash, zuchini and pumpkins. I also grew strawberries but in different kind of pots. They all turned out pretty well.

The maintenance was nothing more than watering and thinning mostly.

The plan was to move into raised beds but the current job situation won't let that happen, this year anyway. I was also wanting to start some of my own plants from seeds this year. I built a small greenhouse behind the potting shed with old windows much like Al is doing with his doors.

Oh well, maybe next year.

Last year I had a small area fenced off from the goats and sheep in preparation to dig a garden in small beds with a grass area (to be easily mowed) between each bed as paths. The plan was fine, but that was as far as it got as the weather was so awful with lots of rain that it was not possible to do any more. The plan is still there - perhaps this year we will have some 'summer' and allow things to happen. Wales is a terrible country really, no summer and no snow in winter - why do I live here?

We are both looking forward to gardening, tho it will be quite a change for us w/ the move going from 5800' elev. & 43* latitude to 1800' & 31* lat. I built Linda a small(6' x 8') seed starting house w/ south and west walls of clear corrugated fiberglass. She has 4 shelves and a workbench. She's experimenting strings of Christmas lights under her seed starting trays to furnish heat. She read about it on one of her gardening forums, so we'll see how it works. It's already time to start some seeds here.
I've been gathering up leaves w/ my lawn vac and tilling them into the garden all winter so that should really help the soil. It hasn't been gardened for several yrs. It's about 1500 sq ft.
Mike

Well I would like to try some of the techniques they are using in Disney World at "The Land" exhibit.

Here is a link to a video that shows the ride through their tourist greenhouse.

http://www.simply-hydroponics.com/96/hydroponics-at-walt-disney-world-mickey-mouse-pumpkins/

At about 4.40 into the video you will see some interesting tomatoes. I'd like to try some of those!!!

Here is another site that also has a video of the inside of greenhouse.
http://features.csmonitor.com/envir...hydroponic-gardening-at-disneys-epcot-center/

I've actully taken that tour twice. It's a pity that you can't get off, wander around and talk to the people that work there. Now, that would be interesting.

The friend in Dallas who sent me the lazy man's gardening book was into hydroponics in a small way. He always intended, on retirement, to expand his little system and become a semi-serious market gardener. Unfortunately, just after he retired, he had a stroke and though he has recovered he says he just doesn't have the same interest in it any more. It's a pity because I saw the plans he had drawn up and it would have been some thing special.