SQWIBS Urban Gardening Adventure 2018

[Hensaplenty]

Thanks for sharing! LOVE the baby turtle, and of course, the garden!

[ddsack]

So glad you found the little guy! Might you keep him inside for his first winter to be sure he makes it? Was that the only egg in the nest?

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Thanks guys.
Only saw one egg in the nest but to be honest I just left the nest alone. My daughter will be taken care of it until its big enough where it can hibernate properly, 3 years or so. It also needs to be a decent size or it will become a nice potato chip snack for a hungry critter.

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September 19th


I like to start my cover crops covered with cardboard for a few days, the key is to wet the soil down real good and cover with cardboard and saturate the cardboard. Overcast days are great during this phase as the sun really dries out the cardboard quickly and you need to water more often ensuring the cardboard stay wet. Pizza boxes work great for this. I decided to add some peas and alfalfa to the beds and watered then in.

• Removed cardboard after 3 days, I usually uncover after 3 or 4 days and I'm good.

• After one week, 3 days covered 4 days uncovered.

• My daughter made up a tank for the Box turtle.

• Rogue Daikon Radish, there must have been a radish seed in with the crimson clover.

• This is one of the hardest things for me to do at the end of the season. Cutting down tomato plants that are still flowering and loaded with tomatoes.

• Everything is cut down, the cages are removed, the drip line is turned off and moved out of the way. Tomato plants, and rogue weeds/plants are chopped up with my Felcos pruners then lightly chopped with the shovel, then saturated with rain water

• My weeds that have been sitting in the bucket of rain water and a bit of urea for a week are dumped onto the bed and scattered somewhat.

• A layer of shredded cardboard is placed on top.

• Cardboard is saturated with rain water.

• I had a bit of spent potting mix left over from when I removed my garden tower and dumped that on top of the cardboard.

• For this bed I'll be using mixed Lentils, Crimson Clover, Alfalfa and Oats as a cover crop. I thing the oats will probably pretty much choke most of the stuff out, well see. Seeds are broadcasted.

• Seeds are mixed in with a needle hose sprayer using rain water.

• The final step is to cover with cardboard, I used some pizza boxes. I will wet down the cardboard each morning and evening and when I have a good germination rate, I'll remove the cardboard and toss in the compost bin. It has been overcast lately but if it gets real sunny the cardboard dries out fairly quickly but the soil always stays moist.

September 24th

• Its been raining most of the month, the yard is like a swamp. The plants in the raised beds on the hill are still producing, Tomatoes, Eggplants, Poblanos, Red Marconi, Giant Marconi, Ruby Red and Jalapenos. I'll let these plants go until they look stressed or stop flowering. The leeks are getting a little shaded out but hanging in there. I also Have a volunteer eggplant by the fence that has set some nice fruit. The plants out front are doing well, although, I'm not real happy with my sunpatients

• Harvested my first Okra ever, I cant wait to grow more of these next year.

• I was impressed with the Okra flower and can see these being grown in front yards where vegetable gardens aren't allowed.

• Drying some Cayenne and Serrano for chili powder.

• Saving some seeds and going through my trays.

• One of the Maypops fell or was blown off of the trellis, It seemed a bit wrinkly and starting to yellow so my kids and I sampled it. It wasn't bad, a bit tart and had a citrus flavor. Sam and Stephen said it had a pear flavor. I took the rest after sampling and put in a few ounces of hot water and a pinch of sugar, strained and sat in the fridge. I tried it later and it made for a decent beverage.

• Oats in the front pots.

• The front hugelkultur bed is growing nicely, I wont touch this bed at all until the spring. Im curious to see what will happen in the spring.

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Oh, and...

And had to make some Garden meals, I try to make something from the garden every weekend.

• Garden Fritatta

• Garden Pizza

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Double post sorry.

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September 26th

• Buffalo Chicken Eggplant Parmigiana Burger

This thing was simply amazing, my mouth is watering posting this.

• Chicken Pattie
• Brandywine Red Tomato
• Leftover 2 layer Eggplant Parmigiana
• American Cheese
• Franks Buffalo Wing Sauce
• Potato Roll

Still Raining

• Removed cardboard

• Everything appears to have germinated, I thought I put oats in here but dont see any, I'll leave it as is and see what happens.

September 28th

Still raining.


Had a funeral yesterday and was home fairly early so I tried to keep my mind occupied by doing some gardening. Just did a bit of weeding, sprayed some neem on the milkweed and my one grapevine. Installed some lights on the Koi Pond Hugelkultur bed and installed another upright.

I received a nice compliment from the neighbors after the funeral, they were saying how serene and peaceful the front gardens are with the plants and Koi pond. Mostly everyone in my neighborhood has a green lawn and a few flowers and shrubs. Some of the neighbors stopped by and I gave them a tour of the herbs out front and told them they were for anyone to use. In disbelief they said, "we can just come up here and grab some herbs", I said, "yep, I tell all the neighbors to help themselves to the fresh herbs".

They smiled and starting calling it the "Greendale Community Garden" Greendale is the name of our street.



One of the neighbors replied, "I was wondering what you were always doing out front dumping stuff all over". Then I told them to enjoy the pond when they come up, we have a bench by the Koi pond and I keep fish pellets on the bench so folks can come by, have a seat and feed the fish as well, a few neighbors come by with their nieces and nephews and grandchildren.


Although we put to rest a Great neighbor and Friend, it was still a good day.

• Maypops are ripening, I'm waiting till they drop before I take them, but it's a race with the squirrels ever since they tasted one.

Messed with the landscape lighting, some bulbs are blown and some connections are bad. Replaced some Incandescent bulbs with LED's.
Got tired of fiddling with connections and ended up splicing directly into the wire and using wire nuts.




October 1st

Today the yard seems a little bit dryer, at least dry enough to get some yard work done. The neem oil has helped the common milkweed plant tremendously, it was flopped over a few days ago, after a good spray of neem oil and dish soap and it has perked up. The aphids have damaged my Concord Grapes, the ends are dead and not growing.

• Got a few more beds done this weekend. The raised beds on the hill were chopped and dropped.

• This was a hard choice to make, some of the plants were loaded with buds. I harvested whatever I could, all these poblanos are from one plant. Hopefully, I will have time to roast and can some. Some of the reds were placed in the dehydrator for chili powder and most of the red sweets (Marconi, Ruby Red) and some of the green peppers (California Wonder) were frozen for the sauce that I will be making and canning when the weather gets a bit cooler.

I still have a pepper plant in one of my Hugelkultur beds and a tomato plant and eggplant plant in my Hugelkultur pots, plus there's a rogue eggplant plant up on the hill that has some fruit on it, I'm going to leave them go as long as possible.

• New toy, now I really look like a farmer.

• Drip line is pulled up and set aside. I learned to do this the hard way.

• Everything is cut down to soil level and chopped with a shovel. The Yard long beans are still growing, I'll let these go till a cold snap then take them down and harvest the beans.

• The yacon and Leeks will stay in the beds. I'm also leaving the artichoke plant alone. The Big Box Store tomato cages are stacked in the corner. Just need to get my buckets and milk crates tucked away and winterize the water lines and take in the valves and timers.

• After the plant massacre, I tossed on a tightly packed 5 gallon bucket of Water Lettuce from the pond. I tried harvesting just enough each time so the water lettuce would recover quickly so I had plenty of water lettuce for the beds.

• Spread out the water lettuce.

• Topped with my compost. Seeded with Alfalfa, Oats and Crimson Clover, I'll water this every morning and evening with some rainwater until everything has germinated and become somewhat established.

• I started playing with my lighting and couldn't wait for it to get dark to check it out.

• Cover crops in the Hugelkultur beds.

• Stacked my Texas Tomato Cages against the play house, need to find a place for them. Burnt up my pallets, cardboard, some yard waste and a bit of a maple tree.

• Ooops! picked up a red coal.

• Enjoyed some Matts Wild Cherry tomatoes from a rogue plant.

Pulled some crab grass and weeds that had gone to seed and placed them in a bucket of rain water, they will sit in here for a week or so then will be dumped in a bed or the compost bin.

• The next day the fire pit is sprayed lightly with water then later it is cleaned out and the Ashes and bio-char are "sparingly" placed in the beds and watered in.

• Breakfast

• Dinner (Eggplant Rollatini)

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• Delivered some Rain Barrels to a fellow gardener.
• Harvested some Eggplant seeds.

• Stupid dog in one of the Hugelkultur beds

• Saturday and Sunday night I was tweaking the Outdoor lighting, everything has been converted to LED lights. I still have a bit of tweaking to do, messing with positioning, uplighting, wattage and color temperature.

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[Nan_PA_6b]

Squibb, you do so much in so little space! Beautiful!
Nan

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Originally Posted by Nan_PA_6b

Squibb, you do so much in so little space! Beautiful!
Nan

Thank you


Having a small yard is tough when you got big ideas, there's a fine line between looking nice and looking crappy.
The cafe lights are on the border of that philosophy so I am going to put them on a switch and only use them when were out and about on the deck or yard.


Another thing to consider is that the yards need to look decent when everything has died back or the Mrs's would give me an earful. Our front looks great when in full swing but after the die back I need to stay on top of it with cleanup and mulching,, the lighting also helps out a bit. The back beds I pretty much can put them to sleep for the winter anyway I want.



Not to offend anyone but I draw the line at Garden gnomes, duck decoys, flamingos and especially those bent over wooden figurines lol.

[JRinPA]

duck decoys lol, I remember a house up the road, country house, they bought a couple of bigfoot goose decoys and left them out a few years by their front door. Bigfoots are not really lifelike to begin with, they are made to fool geese, not people. They were still out after a couple years and were all faded from the constant UV.

Another thing I see up here that is not just ugly but almost dangerous is people putting out groups of ceramic deer out near the road in their yards. I honestly think they should be fined for that. It is no laughing matter to hit the brakes suddenly on a windy road because you think you see deer about to cross, and end up getting rear ended or skidding in bad weather.

[Nan_PA_6b]

Here some folks put out fake geese and then dress them up.

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Originally Posted by Nan_PA_6b

Here some folks put out fake geese and then dress them up.

Yeah, I see them shopping around in my area!

[Nan_PA_6b]

LOL, That's adorable!

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October 6th

• Some cleanup, I removed the trellis and will be using these for sweet potatoes in the raised beds on the hill next season.

• I think I'm gonna try a few Okra plants where the trellis was next season

Getting some plants in for my 2019 season

• Sacrificed my Artichoke plant, there just wasn't enough room to grow this plant and I have no doubt that this would have come back next year!

• My plants came in from, FastGrowingTrees.com. I was extremely impressed with the packaging. I was informed that these are pruned when shipped out but I'm not too sure.
  

• Spaced them 26" apart, I did notice that there were roots on the scion that was grafted to the root stock so I just brushed off the tiny roots and made sure to plant with the graft 3" above the soil level.

Green Columnar Apple Tree
Malus 'North Pole'

Red Columnar Apple
Malus 'Scarlet Sentinel'

• Celeste Fig. I'm most likely going to put this in the basement bathroom this winter then may up-pot, the following year.
  

• My ginger seems to have grown, now I'm not sure If I should pot this and bring it in during the winter or plop in in some peat and put in the basement.

• Some of the fall plants I put in are blooming, this is one of my goals for next year is to have more native flowers in the Butterfly / Hummingbird garden.

• I have been very careful with removing flowers this year, I have been trying to leave as much as possible for the wildlife to enjoy. Funny thing, a lot of the flowers blooming now were plants that were tossed in the trash at one of my daughters events.

• During work today, I liberated a "Roadside Goldenrod" Common Goldenrod, Solidago canadensis for the butterfly/hummingbird garden.

October 8th

• Tried a batch of my Cowboy candy. I'm really happy with how these turned out.

• Roasted and canned 5 pints of Poblanos.

• Tore out my yard long beans. The hardy kiwi was all tangled up in them so I wanted to get the hardy kiwi vines untangled and start training them. The neighbors hedges or whatever they are are becoming a bit of a pain. I had to climb up on top of the fence and cut a lot of the hedge back.

• Going to harvest the beans from these. I may grow these again next year and pick them immature and make "dilly beans" again. I made a batch a few months ago and we just tried a jar at my parents house and they were pretty darn good.
  

• A few red Marconi's that I picked last week and some Jimmy Nardello's from the pond. Saved some seeds from the Jimmy Nardello's and made a batch of Fried peppers with Burrata cheese.

• Was at my parents house Saturday and I seeded their Hugelkultur bed with oats and crimson clover.