What a great pic. I hope it grows up to be as friendly as mom.

[QUOTE=Cole_Robbie;554686]Thanks. Sugar just had a baby. I took this pic tonight: [url]http://i.imgur.com/UYPmnrI.jpg[/url][/QUOTE]

Very cool picture.Cows are very cute,make me feel bad I love steak so much.Tomatoes right out of the garden with a grilled steak.Sorry I lost my train of thought.:D:twisted:

Sweet! :cute:

testing to see if your images can just be posted in the post...
Editted: and they can! I miss them because they are just little links... can I ask why you don't post them as a imagine instead of just a link? sorry if you've already explained it.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/mOtVyu4.jpg[/IMG]

No till can be nice but vermin that borough can be the downfall of a system around here. For a few years I tried tilling only the row being planted approx 20" wide, then mulching plants and exposed row with grass clippings and mowing between rows on the rider. Each year I would rotate the placement of the rows. It was great. Not Better homes and Garden looking but totally effective and lower labor input. But once things like potato beetle and hornworm lock on you almost have to till to end the cycle? Also I'm not sure if tilling reduces pathogens in soil but seems like it would have to some.

[QUOTE=luigiwu;554761]testing to see if your images can just be posted in the post...
Editted: and they can! I miss them because they are just little links... can I ask why you don't post them as a imagine instead of just a link? sorry if you've already explained it.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/mOtVyu4.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]

Probably to avoid the step of resizing the photo and then having to upload them here.
Versus just pasting a link.

I'm on a 5 GB a month Internet data plan, so threads with a lot of pics eat up my data when they load.

Funny you mention burrowing animals, I seem to have had a mole go through my beds with a tunnel underneath them. I don't think it hurt anything.

Everyone has different bugs, so I can't say that what I do works for everyone. Last year I had whiteflies, which I have read can be drawn to plants grown in very rich soil. It makes sense; those plants must taste better.

My mom and stepdad do everything the "normal" way, which is tilling and dusting or spraying Sevin. They have worse bugs than me. Their plants get less than half the size of mine, and die in August from blight.

Always been a fan of the maligned moles, seem like a natural aerator more ought to embrace. Even tunnels right under plants haven't seemed to harm. Beagles got them thinned out for miles here though.

Yeah, thank goodness people have moved away from Sevin at least.

Backbreaking pic of the day: [URL]http://i.imgur.com/iL9rqqs.jpg[/URL]

Each row has started out as a weed patch, like the last one I have left to do, on the left in the photo. I chop the weeds with a spade, and shovel the sides of the bed to the top. I lay the chopped weeds on the edges of the last row I finished, to act as mulch. One 100' row of that is about a day's work. Then I spade out a trench of sod on both sides of the bed, to give the plastic a place to lay and something for me to weigh down the edges with. That's what is just starting in the pic above. I laid the drip tape and plastic on that row today.

My stepdad came by last night as I was chopping weeds with a spade and asked me why I didn't just till everything. I thought that was funny.

It rained a couple of inches last night. But I'm still gardening. The tilled gardens look like mud pits for 4x4 competitions.

I have worms everywhere. I do chop a lot of them accidentally with the spade, but I pick up the ones I can and put them out of my way. They're in the sod, eating the decomposing grass roots. I'm piling a lot of live plant matter into these beds, but after just a couple of days under black plastic in the hot sun, everything turns to loose black dirt. I sometimes use an old steak knife to chop up the soil when planting, but most of my planting is done with just my hands. I think that's a good benchmark of good soil, being able to plant with just your hands.

Pendleton MudRun is fun, so imagine mud farming can be enjoyable too. Those rows are almost there. How did stepdad's extra tall structure turn out? Happy with result?

It's still a work in progress.

Speaking of works in progress, here's this morning's pic: [url]http://i.imgur.com/H0kSjSP.jpg[/url]

And here's another good reason I don't till: [url]http://i.imgur.com/Od8Y7od.jpg[/url]

Those are Johnson Grass roots; that's what I dug up in one spot just now without moving. Tilling chops up those roots and spreads them around, and each little piece of root will start a new plant. It also wipes out competing weeds. Getting tilled is its favorite thing. I'm starting to think of it as one giant underground octopus.

I still have a row and a half to plant, but the wind is starting to break over some of my plants, so I started on trellising today. Here's a pic: [url]http://i.imgur.com/cTnfLde.jpg[/url]

The posts on the left are what I had left over from last year. They are 3/4" gray conduit, connected with white pvc tees. Conduit tees don't come in fittings like that, which is why I had to use the white pvc plumbing fittings. These posts are suitable for dwarfs and peppers, but not strong enough for large indeterminate plants. I drill holes and run poly baler twine down each side. I discovered today that a scrap of 2x4 makes the best hammer for driving them into the ground. I'll drive one of my 2x2 posts to anchor each end from bending inward toward the row.

The taller wood posts are the same concept, just with treated 2x4s ripped into 2x2s instead of conduit. I'm picking up old scraps of wood to connect them at the top.

That should work well for peppers. It looks good too.

Thanks. The 2x4 posts and twine come in at about 50 cents per row foot of trellising. It is the most economical approach I can find that has a chance of working. I use a lot of twine, but it costs next to nothing. I tried Florida weave, but my plants get too big and collapse everything.

Art, science, and a lot of sweat. This is such a good thread Cole Robbie.