2025 gardens

[sixdogs]

Last year our sweet corn did pretty well... This year I'm trying side dressing with urea to see how the growth compares

Lots of guys here now use slow release N for corn and side dress at 6" tall.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Lots of guys here now use slow release N for corn and side dress at 6" tall.

I heard that I should side dress after it gets some height on it too... ?

 

[sixdogs]

I heard that I should side dress after it gets some height on it too... ?

Some people do that and yes, it is suggested if within the confines of a soil test. Too much not good.

I band 19-19-19 at planting time. That's actuallyy enough for the whole season down here but I band some 21-2-5 w/added iron as the ears start to form. We have dynamite sweet corn every year. Delectable is the variety.



Corn likes nitrogen but too much makes it grow too tall and susceptible to blowing over in a hard wind. That's why I give mine the 21-2-5 just as the ear is starting to form. Straight N would likely be better but I usually have 21-2-5 left over and close enough.

The next year I plant tomatoes on the corn ground and add no fertilizer. There's plenty left from the 19-19-19 the year before and I don't want nitrogen with tomatoes. I want fruit, not 10 ft tall plants.
Before I plant those tomatoes, I turn the ground by hand in the spring (or fall) and an inch of rain softens it up enough. Plus, earthworms live with my shovel technique. Not so with tillers. It's hefty work but is needed cardio. Trust me on that. We get around 500 lbs of tomatoes from 11 plants.

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[masseyrider]

When I put in transplants I water in with plant starter.
Once they get underway I water them with Bullsh-t Tea. I put some good composted manure in a 50 gallon barrel and let it sit a day or two before side dressing all the plants with it.

 

[DJ54]

Got (5) 100' rows of sweet corn in. 15 more to go. And 300 bush beans plantedView attachment 3472143

Any pics of your Phacelia..?? Hopefully mine comes up pretty quick being we got rain within 24 hrs. My seed dealer said I'm pushing it with ground temps, need to put the thermometer in the ground and check it. She showed me some remnants of some coming up off from seeds from what she planted last year.

She did warn me not to plant it around raspberries, as bees will go to the Phacelia, and not the berries. Not a problem here. I have some seed left over and going to give to the neighbor girl and her mom since both have hives at their different properties.

 

[DJ54]

When I put in transplants I water in with plant starter.
Once they get underway I water them with Bullsh-t Tea. I put some good composted manure in a 50 gallon barrel and let it sit a day or two before side dressing all the plants with it.

I made some compost tea out of leaves more than several years ago and used it mainly around some Bid House gourds just to experiment. Those things exploded with growth. Only 10 plants, but they produced like 200 usable gourds. One vine grew to 78 feet in length. Left them hang on the trellis I made to dry over the winter, then in the Spring cleaned the mold off and sold them all within 45 minutes of posting on Craigslist for $2.00 ea. to a woman who decorates them for porch hanging. It was a lot of work to scrub them off but paid for a few years of garden supplies.

After that, I used it around pepper plants and a few other things, and they too grew like crazy. For several years we had wet summers and got tough to water things in when the ground was wet or rained on the 3rd day when it was done. Should have done it last summer after the drought set in but didn't.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Any pics of your Phacelia..?? Hopefully mine comes up pretty quick being we got rain within 24 hrs. My seed dealer said I'm pushing it with ground temps, need to put the thermometer in the ground and check it. She showed me some remnants of some coming up off from seeds from what she planted last year.

She did warn me not to plant it around raspberries, as bees will go to the Phacelia, and not the berries. Not a problem here. I have some seed left over and going to give to the neighbor girl and her mom since both have hives at their different properties.

Failed for a second year. Came in nice and thick, grew to 3" tall, stunted. That was two months of growth. It got tilled under and buckwheat will be planted soon. I won't plant it again.

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

Hadn't thought about the effects a tiller would have to worms. Hmmm. Too much work to shovel 18 125' rows but I like the way you are thinking.

During the planting season I may till up my rows 5-6 times with 1-2 week intervals between to kill out weeds. I can't say the last time I saw a worm out there either...

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Hadn't thought about the effects a tiller would have to worms. Hmmm. Too much work to shovel 18 125' rows but I like the way you are thinking.

That's called "operator error", have you seen how the folks on this site tell people to till their gardens? They tell them to go sloooooow and yes that does grind up the soil and everything in it, sometimes into powder. (including the worms)

If you use a bit faster ground speed and depending on the soil and tiller, adjust the back door opening you so can change the tillage. That's why on my Howard tillers, I can even change the rotor speed, to get the amount of tillage I or my customers want/need.

On this site, folks are worried about "pretty" instead of their "soil structure"!

SR

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

When I am weeding with my tiller I generally only go down about 2" and at a good clip. Unlike the initial tilling I go as slow as 2500rpm in 1st will let me.

Neat feature to change the speed on your tiller. I usually just slow my rpm's down to accomplish that.

 

[walhondingMF]

When I put in transplants I water in with plant starter.
Once they get underway I water them with Bullsh-t Tea. I put some good composted manure in a 50 gallon barrel and let it sit a day or two before side dressing all the plants with it.

This is a regular practice for my father and I. Sh#t tea is great stuff.

 

[DJ54]

Failed for a second year. Came in nice and thick, grew to 3" tall, stunted. That was two months of growth. It got tilled under and buckwheat will be planted soon. I won't plant it again.

Well darn, I was really hoping it did well. Mine may not do so well either as the ground temps are well up into the 70's. Lady I got mine from who now runs the seed company her Dad started showed me some she had come up off of seeds from last year's plants. Said it did well and works real well for attracting bees. If it doesn't come up, I'll work some ground late this year and make a spot to get it out when soil temps are cooler. I know you did, but what a shame it didn't do good for you.

I also got some Buckwheat to sow after taking early garden stuff off for a cover crop. Ought to keep the neighbors bees fed for a while.

 

[sixdogs]

Hadn't thought about the effects a tiller would have to worms. Hmmm. Too much work to shovel 18 125' rows but I like the way you are thinking.

During the planting season I may till up my rows 5-6 times with 1-2 week intervals between to kill out weeds. I can't say the last time I saw a worm out there either...

I flip the ground with a shovel and let it get rained on a little bit. For corn, I then set a string, hoe just next to it and run my hand seeder down that narrow hoed line. Works great.

For tomatoes, I dig a hole and set the plant while leaving the surrounding ground a little broken up. It takes all summer to settle out and all the rain goes deeper.

Flipping soil with a shovel is not hard with leather gloves on and give you the cardio needed to try to stay alive till next year. Plus, I have worms like you can't imagine.

Bigger amount of corn get planted with a unit planter. The ground is subsoiled in the fall, lightly cultivated in the spring and then planted with fertilizer banded next to the row.

 

[DJ54]

Hadn't thought about the effects a tiller would have to worms. Hmmm. Too much work to shovel 18 125' rows but I like the way you are thinking.

During the planting season I may till up my rows 5-6 times with 1-2 week intervals between to kill out weeds. I can't say the last time I saw a worm out there either...

I made this tail wheel for mine for shallow tilling. Originally made for my other Honda tiller, and for tilling through the leaf mulch I use. We had a wet Summer and thousands of Maple leaves sprouted on top. I knew the drag stake would just bunch up the leaves, so threw this together in a couple hours. Had to extend it for this larger tiller. Works pretty slick and makes it very easy to steer.

I normally cultivate but this was just a test run after updating it for this machine.

If I do use this, it's only when certain plants get too tall for the David Bradley to straddle and try to get weeds when they are very small so I don't have to run over 2" deep to kill them.

 

[MossRoad]

Our tiller has a little foot to adjust the depth. Works pretty well.

Just harvested our first batch of everbearing strawberries from our 55 gallon drum planter yesterday. Boy they were tasty.

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

Here are a few garden pics. Harvested our first romaine this week. looks like squash will be soon. Taters are blooming so maybe a month out? You can see we plant our garden rows in between the blackberry rows. Eventually those will become additional blackberry rows.

Also we are trying something new this year. Figs in an in espalier row. Essentially I had a weedless grape section that didn't do so well. Tried replanting a few times just not cutting it. Sooo. I am trying some figs in the espalier fashion of planting. In a nutshell they are planted in the trellised row, the limbs are woven to encourage flatter growth. Any limbs that grow towards the middle row are cut or bent into the trellis. The idea is it will become a unique (for around here) type of planting/harvesting. The 4 figs here are brown turkey and LSU gold. The first are some my wife started from some cuttings off one of our tree/bush.

 

[Engineer42]

Fluffed it up from the end of week rains. Will hoe later today.

 

[sixdogs]

Planted some tomatoes today. I do it a little different and the way I learned when I lived in Maine and had a short growing season. This works for me.

We started our plants from seed and are now ready to plant. Some got too big but that happens. I shovel flipped the garden last week and rain has softened it up a bit. It's still kind of chunky so that will let water down deep. See earlier posts. I almost never water plants.

Here's a plant and the hole I dug to put it in. I will bury the plant and just leave maybe two or so inches above grade. As they grow I snip a few bottom branches off so they don't hit the ground and spread bacteria. I don't bury the root ball sideways as shown and we straightened it before back filling dirt. Photo is not real accurate but it's all I've got.

. .

Here's what I leave sticking above grade.
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I trim the side stems off before burying and hump a little dirt around the plant to keep the wind off. Plants get covered with a bucket at night, if severe weather is coming or when the crops around me are sprayed.

Soon, I'll drive a short post in the ground and zip tie my metal cages to it. Plants do well in a cage. Most are wire; some wooden. We're putting in 14 plants this year and since we normally get 500+ lbs from 11 plants are hoping for a blowout.

 

[sixdogs]

Here's a side commentary on tillers and soil structure that others have mentioned. Hope I'm not being too forward. I've used tillers plenty because they are easy and give good results. But in clay or Midwest black dirt they leave a "hard pan" compaction at the bottom of the tine's travel that will impede water flow and root growth. Actually, so does a shovel or disc harrow.

So, if you use a tiller or turn ground by hand, it's important to sub -soil, rip or cultivate below that pan. Every fall or every other fall is good.

This is a typical ripper, in two shank form. One shank is fine and cultivators will work but you need several passes with those. You rip during the fall when the ground is dry and fractures better and go just below the compaction line which is usually maybe 6".


In the spring, you can just smooth things out and plant. No-till if you want. Plants love ripped ground. Worms flock to it.

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

I bought a chisel plow to dig deep in the fall/winter just for what you described. That tiller sure does pretty work though.