# New Member's Garden Project



## Locutus

Hello from western Washington State, Puget Sound region. I've been lurking a while and thought I should finally join this great gardening discussion, with an introductory thread of my own.

I have a smallish suburban backyard surrounded by tall evergreens and maples so getting enough sun for the garden is a challenge. I may have to try to persuade the property manager of the condos next door to cut down one of their greenbelt's Maples, which by itself deprives my garden of sunshine from about 2:30 PM until the end of the day. My garden would get about double the sunshine by eliminating just that one tree.

Anyway, over the winter I got my inspiration by a number of classic gardening books, including:
The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It--John Seymour
The New Self-Sufficient Gardener--John Seymour
Square Foot Gardening--Mel Bartholomew
The All-New Square Foot Gardening--Mel Bartholomew
The Self-Sufficient Suburban Garden--Jeff Ball
Mini Farming (Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre)--Brett L. Markham

My goal was to incorporate several of the principles and techniques of these books in my own small garden plot. So over the winter I went about clearing the undergrowth, and pruning overhanging branches as much as I could. This resulted in a stack of firewood, a 5 Ft round x 5 Ft high compost pile composed mostly of chipped brush, and nearly 30 big Home Depot yard waste bags on the curb for pickup.

I bought metal shelving and fluorescent lighting in February and started some indoor seedlings, mostly brassicas, tomatos and peppers, to get a head start on the growing season.

Next came the Greenhouse. This was inspired by plans downloaded from University of South Carolina and consisted of a cedar base frame and north half wall, with PVC pipe to hold up the plastic tarp. Got a nice storm door for it off Craigslist for 20 bucks. Planting beds were dug using the deep bed method.

I'm currently working on the last of four 4x16 Ft raised deep beds, using plenty of bulk compost (by the truckload), peat moss, vermiculite and a bit of chicken manure, steer manure and kelp meal. Hopefully I'll be able to add some SFG raised beds to my deck for strawberries, herbs and additional vegetables before it gets to be too late in the season.

Here are some pictures of my progress so far:

Greenhouse and raised beds









Inside the greenhouse









Brassicas and legumes beds. Note the SFG grids. Spacing between beds is just enough for the lawn mower.









Big compost pile, five feet wide. It's shrunk vertically more than a foot since I started it a few months ago. Haven't turned it yet.









I'll post some more pictures shortly. Right now my son is bugging me to let him use the computer for homework.


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## Kellog

Very nice Locutus! Nice job on the greenhouse and raised beds. Please keep us posted on your progress....especially how square foot gardening works out for you. Looks like you are really following the plan. I have that book too and it has good ideas. I garden in large containers and use a modified French intensive plan in the beds I have. 
Always good to have another gardener on board - welcome! You will be assimilated here.....resistance is futile.


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## Locutus

Thanks, Kellog. Getting the beds in is a huge amount of hard work, doing it just with hand tools: shovel, pick, spading fork and rake. Once in though, they should be easy to maintain, as long as they're not stepped on. That's why they're only 4 ft wide. Only have to reach 2 ft to the middle.

Here are some more photos:

Drying out grass clippings under the deck. I've read that grass clippings should be dried before adding to the compost pile, then moistened as a brown addition.









About 1.5 yards of Cedar Grove brand bulk compost. It's loaded on to my little trailer, then when I get home I have to move it by wheelbarrow to the backyard and stage it in a pile until I'm ready to use it. Which means I have to shovel and move it twice. I think this is my 5th load.









Big pile o' dirt removed from the raised beds. The deeper portion of native soil, if you can even call it that, is a hardpan mixture of clay, rocks and sand, not worth keeping. Since what I do keep is loosened in the digging, and I'm adding compost and other amendments, this is extra leftovers. Looks like a smaller pile than it is. It's actually about 20 ft across and about 4 ft high. Just out of 3 1/2 beds.









Lots of rocks removed from the soil I did keep in the beds.









Raised bed under construction. I do 1/4 bed at a time, mixing amendments with soil from the next section as I dig it down. Since the first 1/4 of this bed has been finished, I'll actually remove about another 6 to 8 inches from the 1/4 just next to it, then use the spading fork to loosen another 6 to 8 inches of subsoil which is left in the bed. When all built up there is a depth of about 30 inches of loosened and/or amended soil. Deep enough for carrots AND their taproots.









The despised sun-eating maple tree. When the leaves fully bloom it will blot out 100% of the sun that would otherwise shine on the garden after 2:30 PM.









More views of the greenhouse beds. Using Square Foot Gardening grids combined with deep beds, I am attempting to grow 24 peppers, 30 tomatos, 24 cucumbers, 10 zucchini and 5 canteloupes, in an area 12 feet square, not including what's on the seedling shelf. One square foot per plant, except canteloupe which gets 2 square feet per plant. Later I plan to rig up some trellises made from galvanized conduit and trellis netting.


















Greenhouse seedling shelving. I could probably add one or two more shelves underneath this one for Winter growing when the sun angle is lower. For now I want to reserve the vertical space for the cucumbers.









Got this nice storm door of a Craigslist ad for 20 bucks. Works perfectly, and even has screen and sliding pane to allow for cross-ventilation with the homemade window on the opposite side of the greenhouse.









I snapped these photos at about 3:30 in the afternoon. You can see that the area is almost completely in shade, all from the aforementioned maple tree.

I'll put up some more photos in a few weeks after more crop growth and build progress.


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## siletz

Great photos there! You've definitely put in a lot of hours of work getting it going, but it will all be worth it when you get your first ripe tomato! :congrat:

We live in Western Oregon and can say that you will absolutely love your greenhouse this coming winter. Ours was full all winter and not only did it give us great food, it was a wonderful place to putter around in when the weather was blowing and raining.


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## Immolatus

Awesome. If only I could get away with doing that in our backyard.
Funny how you go from totally digging trees (ahem, as in liking them) to despising them.
I grew up with dogwoods all over the place in our yard and in the woods as a kid, and now theres one smack in the corner in my garden. She tells me not to touch it, and I slowly but grudgingly chop away at it. I hate to do it, but I cant eat the dogwood, and theres another right next to the garden over the strawberry patch.


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## Locutus

*Update for 5/13/2012*

Took some more pictures on Sunday of my progress so far. Here are a few for your viewing pleasure:

I made some trellises out of 1/2" EMT conduit and nylon trellis netting for inside the greenhouse. I'll be making similar trellises for the pole beans and peas outside. The EMT is cheap but the fittings are expensive. So instead of assembling the trellises with fittings, I welded them together with my little stick welder. Ran out of netting so I'll need to pick up some more before the weekend. In the winter I'll be able to drape plastic over the trellises to create a semi dead air space to keep it warmer inside.



















Also made some welded wire cages with some fencing material I happened to have on hand. I cut out some larger openings for better access. The tomatoes I started from seeds are coming along nicely, considering the cold spring we've had until now. (It's finally warming up around here.)



















Built a little gated fence to keep the dog out of the garden area. Structure is 2x2 cedar, pickets were made by cutting points on sections of cedar 2x4 with chopsaw, then rip cutting 5/16" planks with table saw. The dog is male, so I stapled some plastic to the fence to keep him from peeing on the lettuce through the fence.










Here's my lettuce/spinach/mesclun/onion beds that I added since my last update. These are proper SFG beds, only 6 inches deep, filled with Mel's Mix (equal parts of compost, peat moss and vermiculite). The notches on the left bed enable access from one side only with maximum reach of 2 feet. The lettuces showing in the right bed were started indoors the first week of march. The whole beds are now planted with seeds that haven't sprouted yet.










Potato deep bed. Note the holes that enable deep planting of the seed potatos while allowing some light to reach plants after only a few inches of growth. The extra soil is being stored in the two bags in the background and will be used to fill in the holes after the plants have a chance to clear the tops of the holes.



















All beds coming along nicely. These photos were taken about 1:00 or 2:00 PM. You can see the shade starting to creep across the garden as the sun moves behind the trees.










I interplanted some root crops with the brassicas at the intersections of the squares, with the idea that while the brassicas are still relatively small, there's room for additional fast-growing root crops in between. Here you see radishes, which are also of the brassica family, interplanted with broccoli.










Brassica bed. Broccoli, cabbage and brussels sprouts interplanted with various root crops.










Legumes bed. Pole beans to the rear, peas middle, bush beans front. I left some bush bean squares unplanted last month and will finsh planting those squares this weekend.










Miscellaneous bed. Radishes, beets, carrots, rutabagas, turnips, onions, spinach, chard.










Started building my strawberry and herb planters for the deck. These will also get Mel's Mix. The boxes are constructed entirely out of cedar fence boards, measuring 1' x 4' x 6". For the floor I used two fence boards, but rip cut one of those in half so that not only does it have two spaces between boards for drainage, but the middle (un-ripped) board is the same width as the rail, enabling me to fasten the beds to the rail with zip ties running through the spaces between the boards. 









I also lined each board individually with 3 mil black plastic (from garbage bags) to prevent wood rot and a "cedary" flavor potentially imparted to the produce. Landscape cloth is put in the bottom to keep soil from falling through the spaces between boards. Additionally, I used scrap pieces of fence board (three per box) as spacers between the box and the rail, to allow air flow and prevent rot of the rail.


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## Locutus

*Update for 5/28/2012, Memorial Day*

Highlights for this update:
--Beans & Peas trellis
--Strawberry and Herb planters
--Potatoes peaking up through holes.

Welded together a 10 Ft x 4 Ft Trellis from 1/2" EMT. Strung with nylon trellis netting.



















Strawberry and herb planters filled with Mel's Mix. I put 4 strawberry plants per 4 ft box, will fill in with runners to eventually make 16 plants per box. The small boxes are for herbs. Ten boxes for strawberries, nine for herbs.



















Potatos are peeking up through their assigned holes nicely. Will backfill holes after plants clear the top by a few inches.


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## Locutus

*Concrete slab unearthed*

I was getting rid of the excess piles of dirt and other waste from the back yard and "discovered" this concrete slab:










Actually, I knew it was there but it's been buried by piles of yard waste for nearly 20 years. Since I was getting rid of the the dirt left over from the deep beds construction I thought it was time to clean this up too.

When we bought the house in 1989 this was the floor of a dilapidated shed, roughly eight feet square. We tore the shed down shortly thereafter but left the slab. what I didn't realize were there were the paver blocks in the foreground, which were covered in sod overgrowth.

So now, I'm debating on what to do with this. I'll probably remove the pavers, fill in with topsoil and sow grass. But I have several ideas for the slab:

1. Break it up and remove, plant another raised bed or just grass.

2. Build a new shed on top of the slab. (I have one already next to the house.)

3. Build a chicken coop and caged run for 3 adult chickens (max allowed).

4. Build hutches for 4 adult rabbits (max allowed).

5. Build a pig pen for 1 or 2 pigs. (Not sure if pigs are allowed).

6. Build a pen for 1 or 2 small-breed goats. (Again not sure if city ordinances allow goats.)

7. Build a second smaller greenhouse over the slab for potted plants and seedling trays, or hydroponics.

8. Build an aquaponics setup for raising fish and growing greens like lettuces and spinach.

What do you all think? Is a concrete slab a suitable floor for any animal pen? It would be easy to clean but would it suit the animals? As for housing for the pig(s) or goat(s), I'd build a small hut for them to be able to get out of the rain and wind, either on the slab (with its own raised wooden floor) or adjacent to it. The larger animals I'd have to keep confined to the pen, but chickens or rabbits could have limited acces to the rest of the yard. How much room would the pig(s) or goat(s) really need?

Another thing I'm keeping in mind is waste management. I can compost chicken, rabbit or goat droppings for the garden. But I don't think I'd want to do the same with pig manure for health reasons. So the question then becomes, if I get a pig or two, what can I do with the pig manure, given that I have a smallish yard in the suburbs?


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## Emerald

OH MY!! Everything is so pretty and neat! You are doing such a good job!
You should look into these books too..
Elliot Coleman's 4 season harvest-your set up would work beautifully.
Ruth Stout's -The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book: Secrets of the Famous Year-Round Mulch Method.
and while not a book per say look up French Intensive gardening..
I love your trellising.. so neat and nice.. I am not as neat but then I have over 2 acres to spread out in.


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## Locutus

*Update for 7/1/2012*

The garden has really taken off in the last month. Here are some update photos:

The tomatos in the greenhouse are now over six feet tall. None ripe yet, although there are hundreds of little greenies. I've been harvesting cucumbers regularly for a few weeks. Got our first zucchini yesterday.









Lettuces, spinach, mesclun, garlic and onions. We've been getting all our salad greens from this and the other spinach section since May.









The broccoli is going to flower before I can use it. After taking this picture I cut off the flowering heads and threw them on the compost pile.









The cabbage is starting to form heads, the peas are starting to produce pods, and the pole bean runners have reached the top of the trellis. I removed the broccoli raab (foreground, left) to the compost pile because they've gone to flower.









Thinned the turnips, harvesting a big armload. Blanched both greens and roots for the freezer. Carrots should be ready within a month. Of more interest are the potatoes. Remember, they were planted 18 inches deep. When they were about a foot tall above the soil surface, I cut holes in the bottoms of large black trash bags and slipped them over the growing plants, then filled in the spaces with straw, adding more straw as the plants grew. Now some of them have reached the tops of the bags. That makes them about five feet tall from the seed potato to the tops of the plants. I'm hoping they'll grow spuds inside the bags, and that the bags and straw will prevent them from turning green.









These are some potatoes I'm growing strictly in bags (holes cut for drainage, filled with about 5 or 6 inches of Mel's Mix) I used grocery store red potatoes and they're coming up through the soil now so I covered them with straw today. This is an experiment in both the trash bag method and using regular potatoes rather than certified seed potatoes.









A closer look at the pole beans. The runners have reached the top of the trellis but it's hard to tell from this photo because they still need to fill in with leaves.


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## neldarez

I'm absolutely in awe! Wow, I've never been that organized in all of my life...beautiful garden...you've created an incredible work of art....:2thumb:


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## Locutus

*Update for 7/21/2012*

Three weeks since my last post. We've been harvesting a number of items from the garden: Yellow tomatoes, peas, carrots, beets, green onion, broccoli, cabbage, radishes, salad greens, spinach, chard, mesclun.

Tomatoes we've been harvesting regularly since July 4th. Only the Yellow Pear tomatoes so far. Here's a big bowl of them I picked this morning. From just ten square feet and ten plants.









Peas are ready. We've been picking them for a couple of weeks now. I decided to pick the rest today and clear the spot for something else. Probably more bush beans or pole beans.









Using Square Foot Gardening, this is what I harvested from 16 square feet (4 x 4). Doesn't include what I harvested from the same spot over the past couple of weeks.









The potatoes are really getting tall. I wonder if I should slip another bag on top of what's there.









The Trash-Bag-Only potatoes are coming along nicely too. I planted these much later than the ones in the raised bed, in warmer weather.


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## piglett

Locutus said:


> I was getting rid of the excess piles of dirt and other waste from the back yard and "discovered" this concrete slab:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So now, I'm debating on what to do with this. I'll probably remove the pavers, fill in with topsoil and sow grass. But I have several ideas for the slab:
> 
> 1. Break it up and remove, plant another raised bed or just grass.
> 
> 2. Build a new shed on top of the slab. (I have one already next to the house.)
> 
> 3. Build a chicken coop and caged run for 3 adult chickens (max allowed).
> 
> 4. Build hutches for 4 adult rabbits (max allowed).


I'm building a new chicken coop at my place & i'm planning on having my rabbit hutches rite in the coop.
1st the rabbits drop a bunch of food which the chickens will eat.
2nd if i wish to i can put worm beds under the rabbits & grow a bunch of nice big worms which are great for gardens & the chickens can eat them too.

busting up that slab will be a huge job & you don't know how much steel is in it. any amount of rebar in the thing will make the demo job twice as hard.

how much land do you have?
if it's just some little 100' square lot a pig is probably out
unless you muck em out every day there will be some smell & the people in the area will not like you very much.:gaah:

not sure about the goat
might be ok might not

good luck:beercheer:
piglett
wolfeboro,NH


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## PamsPride

I vote for a combination of rabbits and chickens! Eggs, meat, and fertilizer all in one small spot! 
Your gardens look beautiful!! It just goes to show that people really can grow a lot of their own food on a small piece of property if they put their mind to it!


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## CapnJack

Locotus, wow. That is such a great set-up you have going there, and everything looks wonderful! Very nice work.


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## webeable

Another method of growing spuds that my garmpa used was growing in 5 gallon buckets, he would pour out on screens to harvest. He said best way he ever did.


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## kejmack

Good job on the garden! I use raised beds, too. They are a pain to install, but they pay you back for years to come. We have very poor soil where I live so mine are 12" tall. 

Chickens and rabbits is the easiest combination for meat and eggs. A pig is a big mess.


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## Locutus

Thanks for all your great feedback, folks. I'll definitely use some of your ideas next Spring. I've not posted for a while so now I'll bring you up to date.

Potatoes:
The trash bags and straw around the potatoes idea was a bust. All that did was make creeping vines out of the stems and probably reduce the number of potatoes below the soil. I did not find even one potato growing above the soil line. However, the grocery store red potatoes that I planted in bags of Mel's Mix did well. Lessons learned: Ditch the straw, build up with soil instead. Grocery store potatoes work fine as starters, especially the reds. Next Spring I intend to open a new section of raised beds for the potatoes: 3x3 or 4x6 boxes that I can stack to add layers and additional seed potatoes as they grow. Still debating whether to place them on the concrete slab or use that space for chickens/rabbits.

Tomatoes:
The yellow plum tomatoes were prolific producers, but the early girl and red cherry tomatoes disappointed. Plants grew tall with lots of foliage but fruit was stunted and sparse. Will keep trimmed back next year to about 4 FT high. I noticed that any fruit above that height were stunted. May need to add phosphorus, potassium and calcium to the soil. I'll plant the yellows again next year but will replace the others with different (heirloom) cultivars. May try planting some outside the greenhouse too to see how that goes. Got some blight towards the end of the season that also affected the peppers. Will look for blight-resistant cultivars next year. 

Peppers:
Meh. Waste of greenhouse space. Only got about one large bowl of peppers from 24 plants.

Cucumbers:
Okay results from the slicers, not so much from the picklers. Will only plant slicers next season and keep them trimmed to 6 FT high.

Greenhouse zucchini:
Total bust. Will not attempt next year in greenhouse. May try a few outside.

Minnesota Midget cantaloupe and sugar pumpkins:
Only three tennis ball size melons from six plants. Six pumpkins from six plants, enough for three pies. Couldn't tell the difference from the canned pumpkin in taste test so will nix the pumpkins next year in favor of better producing plants. I did notice, however, that the seedlings languished in the greenhouse until I transplanted them outside. Then they became more robust and grew faster. I think the same might have happened with the cantaloupes if I had given them that chance. So I may try them again outside next year, but a larger cultivar.

Brassicas:
Good results--Cabbages
Poor results--Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts
Lots of aphids from about July until first frost. Used an organic insecticide to fight back.

Root crops:
Good results: Carrots, beets. No pest issues.
Poor results: Radishes, turnips, rutabagas. Wormy. Applied beneficial nematodes last month to hopefully combat these critters for the next year or so. Also the "radish test" indicates a deficiency in potassium an phosphorus. Will amend soil this winter.

Peas and green beans:
Pretty good yield and no pest issues, except maybe some squirrels chomping the tops off of the sprouting plants, preventing further growth. May use a protective net next season.

Greens:
Four varieties of lettuce did well from the early spring seedlings I started indoors, then potted in greenhouse, then transplanted in raised bed outside. At some point in the warm summer weather, they grew bitter so I pulled them. Replacements from seed, planted in the same bed never took off. Don't know if it was the warm weather depleted soil. Will amend soil and start all lettuces indoors from now on (in trays under fluorescent lighting).
Chard did well, spinach not so much. Perpetual Spinach (a chard cultivar) is still producing.

Strawberries:
Once they started fruiting, we got a nice bowl of strawberries every few days until late September. And that's with half of them being June bearing and half ever-bearing.

Winter cover crop:
Currently have a winter cover mix in the four main raised beds slowly growing. Will till up in February to let soil rest before the Spring planting.

Compost:
I'm up to two big piles now. A lot of that is the leaves from the maple trees and the four bales of straw I used with my potato experiment. Lots of rain lately made the compost too wet to heat up inside. I've ordered some earthworm vermipods to add to the compost and raised beds. Hopefully that will help.

All in all, a pretty successful first gardening season. Had to buy a new freezer to keep the extra produce which we're enjoying this winter. I also picked enough blackberries around the neighborhood for eight pies, which I've premixed and frozen in pie pans. Easy to just roll out a crust, assemble and bake.

Planned new additions for next season: 
--Stacking raised beds for potatoes
--Raspberries, and maybe blueberries and currants, perhaps more strawberries under same (from runners).
--MAYBE a barrel aquaponics setup for raising food fish
--MAYBE a chicken coop / rabbit hutch combo on the concrete slab.
--Also looking into "super cuy" (over-sized guinea pigs bred in Peru for food, nearly the size of rabbits. Can't seem to find live ones here though. Anyone know where I can find them?


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## piglett

well Locutus i can tell you that my grandmother always planted the zucchini in a low damp spot in the garden
they need a ton of water & her's got to 3' long if she just let them go
next year we will plant a bunch & also large squash, should be great food for the chickens
i'll be able to stretch my store bought feed a long ways


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## Locutus

Thanks, Piglett. Since I'm considering raising a few chickens some big zucchinis would be a big help for feed. Can you feed chickens the rest of the zucchini or squash plant also? (Leaves, stems.)


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## goshengirl

Thanks for the update, Locutus. I think it helps all of us to see what other folks are doing and learning (and I need all the help I can get ).


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## piglett

Locutus said:


> Thanks, Piglett. Since I'm considering raising a few chickens some big zucchinis would be a big help for feed. Can you feed chickens the rest of the zucchini or squash plant also? (Leaves, stems.)


 not sure about the stems & leaves however i have found that they will eat pumpkins & squash but they like it if you cook it for them
if uncooked they only like what is in the middle of the vegtable.
so we get a big pot & put it on top of the woodstove & cook some up for them. i have also found that if you cook onions & green peppers they will chew those rite up. :2thumb:

next year the new bigger garden will have a large section just for the chickens,trying to think of other things that i can plant for them

also planning on building some shelving up under the house for the their food that came from the garden, it's nice & cool down there so some things should last for months, maybe till spring?

thanks
piglett


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## Locutus

Here's a photo of some pretty typical Early Girl tomatoes from the greenhouse last Summer. The Early Girls weren't early. They were the last tomatoes to fruit, and note the small size and blemishes. Can anyone tell from this photo what is wrong with them, and perhaps how to improve things this Spring?


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## siletz

Not sure what's wrong with the tomatoes, but here's a couple of links that have pictures and such of various tomato diseases. You might be able to find it there. Did this affect all of your tomatoes?

http://www.mtvernon.wsu.edu/path_team/tomato.htm
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/ptlk/1442.html
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/vegetable/tomato-problem-solver/


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## piglett

our corn was bad , looked to have some kind of mold on with it
even if you cut out the few bad spots the flavor way way way off
took it all up to the dump


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## Locutus

I decided to go with raised potato beds on the concrete slab, and hold off on chickens, at least for this year. Just too darn much work on my plate to worry about taking care of critters.

Here are my experimental potato beds. They're made out of cedar fence boards, and cedar 2x2's in the corners. At two boards high (11 1/2 inches) they use four boards, one 36" 2x2 and a few galvanized fence nails. That's about $12.00. I cut the fence boards exactly in half, so the boxes are 3x3 feet. Then there's the soil. I'm mixing Cedar Grove Veggie (3-way) bulk soil mix plus peat moss at 3 to 1, plus a little triple phosphate and muriate of potash. That's probably about $5.00 per box at two boards high. The nice thing about this design is that it's easy to make more squares and stack them, adding more soil mix as the potatoes grow. At two boards high I planted three layers of cut and chitted seed potato chunks, about 36 chunks per layer per box. I don't know if that's too many or not. We'll see. The photos show the boxes in various stages of fill. The Russets box shows the third layer of seed potatoes just before covering with the final (for now) layer of soil. Before I added soil to the boxes I first lay down a bit of straw and a sheet of landscape cloth, to help with drainage. The 2x2's hold the box up off the concrete about 1/8 inch and there is a 1/8 inch gap between boards. This also helps with drainage, I assume. The boxes are without wood bottoms, that is, the frames sit on the concrete, and at harvest I can simply lift off the frames from the soil and rake out the potatoes.


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## Grimm

I am jealous of your set up! Care to 'adopt' my daughter and I?


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## AuroraHawk

Me too! Me too! I want to be adopted too! I'll even help in the garden as much as possible.


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## cqp33

Locutus, wow great job! You have a great setup that would make a lot of people drop their jaw! All done in a short time too, can't wait to see what you have planned next I am intrigued!


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## OldCootHillbilly

That there be a real nice set up. Should put a fair amount a vittles in yalls pantry.


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## Locutus

Thanks for the compliments, folks.

I also have an indoor seedling rack setup. I set this up last year and it's where I give a lot of my plants a head start in the late winter. Right now I'm starting tomatoes, onions, peppers, cucumber, cantaloupe, chard, spinach and lettuce. The rack is from Costco and the light fixtures are from Home Depot. Each fixture has one warm white and one cool white fluorescent tube. This gives a broader spectrum of light than either cool white (leans blue) or warm white (leans red) give by themselves. They are connected to a power strip, which in turn is plugged into an outlet mounted timer, giving 16 hours of light and 8 hours off. I installed three fixtures (6 tubes) per lighted shelf.


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## Neec0

Amazing setup.


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## piglett

good looking setup Loc


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## Locutus

Let's have some fun. See if you can guess what this new raised bed will be for. Hints to follow!


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## Wellrounded

Could they be this years potato beds? :flower:


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## cqp33

What ever those beds are for it is for something with deep roots.


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## siletz

I was thinking potato beds as well. I've done that several times with a new bed to plant the potato first, then fill the bed as the season progresses.


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## piglett

the question i have is why raised beds?
the soil is no good where your at?
looks like a bunch of extra work


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## Locutus

Good guesses but no. The potato beds are the four small square ones in the background of the last photo.

First hint: Perennials.

Piglett: Yes, our soil is no good. Thin layer of sod over hard pan. It's raised beds or nothing here. Deep beds are even better if the hard pan is dug out and replaced with good soil.


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## Grimm

Locutus said:


> Good guesses but no. The potato beds are the four small square ones in the background of the last photo.
> 
> First hint: Perennials.
> 
> Piglett: Yes, our soil is no good. Thin layer of sod over hard pan. It's raised beds or nothing here. Deep beds are even better if the hard pan is dug out and replaced with good soil.


Asparagus?


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## cnsper

I am thinking the berries that you mentioned in an earlier post.


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## Locutus

Grimm said:


> Asparagus?


Nope.

Second hint: EMT and wire.


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## cnsper

> Second hint: EMT and wire.


Aloe plants and solar chargers for the electrical shock treatment. Aloe is for the burns.


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## Locutus

cnsper said:


> I am thinking the berries that you mentioned in an earlier post.


We have a winner! Raspberry plants I dug up down at the community garden in Woodinville.

I used a frame built of 1/2" EMT galvanized conduit and strung with 16 gauge galvanized wire. The plants are tied to the horizontals, while the "X" pattern gives the frame rigidity. I'll mulch with a bale of straw I have left over from last Summer.


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## piglett

Locutus said:


> Piglett: Yes, our soil is no good. Thin layer of sod over hard pan. It's raised beds or nothing here. Deep beds are even better if the hard pan is dug out and replaced with good soil.


we had an area what was nothing but sand
we just added 8" of good top soil
then i tilled the whole garden & started planting
i was just wondering about the beds :beercheer:

please save me some berries


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## siletz

piglett said:


> the question i have is why raised beds?
> the soil is no good where your at?
> looks like a bunch of extra work


If I remember right, he also lives in Western Washington. We live in Western Oregon and do a big portion of our gardening in raised beds of some sort or another because our springs usually stay pretty wet into June or so. The beds being raised gets the plants out of the water earlier, so we can plant earlier than in the ground directly.


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## piglett

siletz said:


> If I remember right, he also lives in Western Washington. We live in Western Oregon and do a big portion of our gardening in raised beds of some sort or another because our springs usually stay pretty wet into June or so. The beds being raised gets the plants out of the water earlier, so we can plant earlier than in the ground directly.


our garden has a slope to it because it's on the back side of a large hill
i have seen many raised beds but couldn't for the life of me figure out why anyone would go through so much trouble. :cheers:

so now i know that they do have uses in some places:thumbraise:

thanks
piglett


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