Gardenhacker.com – Page 8 – Tips and Tricks for Busy Gardeners

“Spruce”d up Strawberry Pyramid Using Pallets

Posted on June 21, 2011 by

Pyramid of banana boxes, with pallet wood sides

Taken at dusk, it’s difficult to see but this is the pyramid of boxes of soil. A well seasoned (left in the elements) pallet cut into quarters the long way create a more appealing look for what will be a “strawberry hill”. Mulch grass masks the rest. Pallet parts are pegged in place (say that five times fast!). Often times the pallets you find have a plank/space/plank/space configuration. These will work, but they don’t look as good as the heavier duty pallets that are a close succession of planks. The heavier duty pallets can be found where heavier equipment, such as copiers and milling machines have been delivered.

Day 48 – Add Yet Another Bed

Posted on June 18, 2011 by

APerkins Posted in 30 Min., Container

Added another two banana boxes with a wicking option underneath. Dug down four inches, layed down plastic, sifted the soil I had dug out and put the gravel and rocks onto the plastic. Added a pipe and wood chips, then a perforated sheet on top, then the banana boxes on the top. Put the screened soil into the boxes, voila! – one hour later I have another two spaces for tomatoes! Added more grass mulch around the existing beds (another 30 minutes), and planted a box worth of carrots, hoping that these will mature past their first initial leaves. Four days worth of thirty minutes. Without doing the math, I think I’m back to “par” for the thirty minute challenge.

The beans and peas are showing progress, the patty-pan squash are doing well, too. Potatoes are not a problem and the girls are eating the strawberries as they become ripe. So far, so good!

Day 46: DIY Strawberry Hill

Posted on June 16, 2011 by

APerkins Posted in 30 Min., Container, Raised Bed

With the rain, and the rain, plus the thunderstorms, unexpected downpours, not a lot has been happening in the garden other than the routine slug hunts, but all is not lost. Now that it’s drier (for the day), I’ll be making up the time creating a strawberry pyramid. Here’s the plan, and we’ll see how well it holds up over the season. I may have to plant something other than strawberries, since they are fruiting now – but companion plants can be harvested and the transplants will be moved after June:

Create a “pyramid” out of double corrugated boxes (banana boxes), add the irrigation, fill with soil (from the old garden, or you could buy/make your own mix), fill around the sides of the boxes to keep the soil in place, then plant. More pictures to follow – no hieroglyphs: they take too long.

Tagged with: strawberries

Myth Busted! Slugs Prefer Cukes with a Light Mist

Posted on June 16, 2011 by

APerkins Posted in Tangents

Tried out the “method” I had described earlier using cucumbers on an aluminum pie plate – where, according to legend “the cucumber on the aluminum reacts and creates a smell that drives away slugs…”. Well, as you can see in the picture, the slugs find the cucumbers to be quite satisfactory, and prefer the light mist and 100% humidity. So here’s one way NOT to drive away slugs. NEXT!

Tagged with: slugs myth

Day 42 – Strawberries Thriving on Neglect?

Posted on June 11, 2011 by

APerkins Posted in 30 Min.

Strawberry plants with tall stems, thanks to neglect. I didn't cut back the grass surrounding them until they started to flower.

Tall strawberries - will this keep the slugs at bay?

…and rain, followed by more rain… Moved the second set of tomatoes out to harden off, as well as the coveted cucumbers that have started, and the rain is pelting them pretty badly. While it’s raining, though – you can always start the next set of seedlings, which is what I’m doing. Started a batch of bush beans to fill in where they did not sprout initially, and will poke them in when they show up.

The strawberries I haven’t relocated yet are looking very good: managed to neglect the tall grass around the plants until they started to flower, then cut back the grass and layed it down next to the plants to give them a little more nitrogen as it rots – made the strawberry plants grow very tall, hoping that this will keep the slugs off of many of them. This took some time and care, but I am hoping it will pay off in the long run. About 30 minutes of careful clipping around the strawberry plants. The last few years with my careful cultivating and keeping the weeds at bay never yielded as many strawberries as I have seen here. Hoping I get to eat a few before my daughters gobble them up! They have both been helping me find the alpine strawberries that are (thankfully) taking over the side yard. This has been going on for quite a number of years, and I’m always happy to see them proliferate. I avoid several areas of the yard when mowing so the wild flowers have a chance to bloom. Along with these flowers come the wild or alpine strawberries. The berries are about 1/4″ in diameter, and are packed with flavor. Attempts to move them and cultivate them have failed in the past, so I let them grow where they may.

A better solution (which I may implement in the transplanted strawberry patch) is to plant bush beans along side the strawberry plants. They are good companions, and it makes for more productive soil.

Day 40 – Garden Wildlife and Carrots and when Cucumbers Go Bad

Posted on June 11, 2011 by

APerkins Posted in 30 Min., Hugelkultur, Lasagna Bed

Garter snake testing the air with it's tongue - was found in the compost heap under some grass.

Wear gloves and shift the compost materials by hand before using a pitch fork, please!

More rain, more slugs, more salamanders! We have these orange salamanders that show up in the tall grass and in the marshy areas, and sometimes on the road (I pick them up with wet hands and transport them across if I find them). The kids love them. They’re extremely gentle with them and let them go where it’s damp and there are no cars going by. The slugs – they’re another story. Ducks are an option I can’t work with, since the garden is not fenced in, and the dog would be wanting to do the “fetch and shake” that he was wired to do. Sluggo is an option I’ve used before, but I am trying the old tried and true methods of scoop and drown when they’re in the garden, as well as an interesting one (since I had a cucumber that was going bad): cucumber slices on an aluminum pie plate is supposed to drive them away due to a smell we cannot smell. Is it true? We’ll find out. Wish we could harvest them and ship them someplace where they eat them.

The carrots are starting to sprout! two beds were planted with about a 1’x3′ area on each, next week the second batch will be planted, and so on, every two weeks ’til I run out of room.

Thirty minutes were spent yesterday and today chopping down some of the comfrey so they wouldn’t shade out the strawberries (about 10 minutes, including running over the stalks with the lawn mower and setting them in the compost bin where the garter snake had taken up residence), weeding (10 minutes each day, mostly around the periphery), setting up a “strawberry pyramid” (a post to follow), and adding a drip line to the hugelkultur bed ’til the plants get established (I’ll leave it there all season, just won’t use it unless it’s necessary).

Day 38 – “Container Bed” Done, Compost all wet.

Posted on June 7, 2011 by

APerkins Posted in Container

I was thinking of dressing up the sides with ornate sea shells or my kid’s giant Lego blocks, but I decided to keep it more natural looking to our surroundings. I can easily take away the logs and add more boxes (and probably will). These are just some examples of the ways you can make a banana box garden, a “garden in a bag” or a container garden look less – er, less like an abandoned tag sale.

Two banana boxes filled with garden soil, regular soil mounded up

"Containered" garden with various "dressings" so it doesn't look like an abandoned tag sale.

Managed to wash away what creatures there were growing in the “No Manure” compost bin: may have added too much water. It was 80 degrees Farenheit today, and the middle of the compost bin was at least ten degrees cooler. I’ll let it dry out some and see if it heats back up. If not, I’ll set up another bin next to it, add more grass clippings and start again.

The thirty minutes consisted of

finishing the Container Beds ~ 20 minutes
weeding around the lasagna bed ~ 5 minutes
watering the carrots ~ 5 minutes
tucking the tomato starts under the comfrey to harden off ~ 5 minutes

More signs of life can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/scrimshaw/

Day 37 – What if…

Posted on June 7, 2011 by

APerkins Posted in Container, Raised Bed

Watching “Over the Hedge” with my daughters about a month ago reminded me why I am glad I don’t live in a “community” where the by-laws strangle any creativity. We do have our laws out here in the foothills of the Berkshires, but we don’t have meetings every time someone wants to grow something different in their yard. Thinking along those lines though, I can imagine committees taking offense to some of my practices – like the banana boxes or containers for instance. You can disguise the banana box hack fairly easily with soil, stone and/or hay. You can even grow low-lying secondary crops on the outside of the boxes (lettuces, etc.) and have the main crop in the middle. A couple of crude examples are below:

Container - side view showing the "dressing up of the sides

Container buried discreetly and decorated with hay.

Day 35 – Experiments in Composting

Posted on June 6, 2011 by

APerkins Posted in 30 Min., Lasagna Bed

Seems the 30 min/day is going to be more of an “average” than a set in stone scheduled time for me. With young children’s schedules for acro, ballet, etc., along with work, trips to the “transfer station” (where we bring our garbage/recyclables), freak tornados, etc., we just have to be flexible.

Started experimenting with a no manure compost pile. Only food scraps, grass clippings, weeds and wood chips from the local highway department (they chip trees that are in the way of power lines and dump them in an easily accessible pile near our transfer station). It is starting to heat up, but I believe I need more water. One of the nice things about the wood chips is that they were already starting to decompose – had a lot of white “spiderwebby” fungal growth inside.

Weeded for about five minutes, watered for ten, transplanted a couple of patty pan seedlings that were doing well (for a great recipe look here). Overall took an hour, as there were other things that took priority. Also set up a soaker hose on the lasagna bed, to further reduce my time spent.

Tagged with: compost, lasagna, patty pan squash

Day 33 – Williamsburg Farmer’s Market

Posted on June 2, 2011 by

admin Posted in 30 Min., Container, Hugelkultur, Lasagna Bed, Wicking Bed

Meekins Library on Route 9 in Williamsburg

Meekins Library, Route 9, Williamsburg, MA Photo courtesy http://hilltownfamilies.wordpress.com/tag/meekins-library/

I’d dropped by the Williamsburg Farmer’s Market last week and seen several people who had nice healthy plants for sale. Hoping to get a head start, or at least move things along, I went down there again this Thursday. The gentleman I’d spoken with was no longer there, but a couple of others were offering some beautiful cucumber plants as well as several varieties of tomatoes. Ah, I couldn’t resist the tomatoes, and I got some good information as to why my cukes didn’t sprout: seems cucumbers like warm moist soil, not cold rain drenched to the point of floating away soil, which we had when I planted them. Gotta love farmers markets! There was bread, fresh veggies, free range turkey and more right on the Meekins library lawn. The Williamsburg Farmer’s Market is on every Thursday throughout the summer, so if you travel Route 9, it’s worth stopping by and seeing the sculptures and the market too.
So, with four tomato plants in hand, I went out this evening and took all of five minutes to plant them – one in each garden bed. Will be going out a little later to replant the beans that aren’t showing up, and see how my cukes inside are doing.

Tagged with: farmer's market, tomato, tomatoes, williamsburg, williamsburg ma