2025 gardens

[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.