2022 Garden Thread

[Dan Freeman]

We got 12 of the 24 posts in for the electric fence today which will be 2 feet out from the physical fence. We hit a lot of shale as we drove the posts, so was grueling work, with some taking over 200 "hits" with the post driver just to get them 24" into the ground.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

My peas are about half an inch tall.

I haven’t planted any outside yet. Only spinach and lettuce in some tubs. They might be under 5-10” of snow tomorrow, lol. I’m going to do my 1st basil harvest tonight.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

That basil looks good. I love how harvesting it makes it bush out even more.

The garden excitement down here today was that I spotted my first green tomato. It’s on a small variety called “Taste Patio” that I’ve never grown before. I have two plants growing in a large (huge) terra cotta pot with cages around them. I have hopes that it will be a good tomato for drying.

I also shelled out okra seeds this morning from dry pods that I saved last season. I put ten in some water to soak. They’ll go in the area where we cleared out some garlic. I’ll do more later in the season after the rest of the garlic is done.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Well, the weather guessers didn’t lie, lol.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Nothing like spotting that first tomato, DuaeGuttae!

Lime, you got much more "slush" than we did. (Not that I am complaining! LOL) Hopefully it will be gone by this afternoon since the ground isn't frozen and it is supposed to go up to 45, with maybe a hint of some sun.

 

[begreen]

My peas are about half an inch tall.

I haven’t planted any outside yet. Only spinach and lettuce in some tubs. They might be under 5-10” of snow tomorrow, lol. I’m going to do my 1st basil harvest tonight.

View attachment 294870

Our peas are about 8" tall. I have held off due to the wild weather we have been having but I think they must get in the ground today.

Well, the weather guessers didn’t lie, lol.

The contrast in gardening environments in this thread is pretty extreme. We had our first tiny cukes showing last year at this time in the greenhouse. This year the greenhouse cuke is only 5" tall and our tomato plants are even smaller. I went to the local Fred Meyer to pick up some patio plants yesterday. Last year their veggie selection was robust. This year it was pathetic. The 12" tomato plants were in shock and sickly olive green. We're off to a late start, more like the 1970s weather this year.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

95% of my gardening is in my kitchen and living room at the moment. Tomato’s are camped out on the fridge, basil and onions on the window sill above the sink, peppers, kale, couple pees, etc are spaced around the living room.

 

[Dan Freeman]

We got the rest of the t-posts in today for the electric fencing and all the insulators attached in addition to filling 3 of the new raised beds with soil. Tomorrow, after fertilizing everything in the food forest, I will start running the wire for the electric fencing. I am running 4 strands at 8", 16", 30" and 45"...about 1600' of electric wire.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

That’ll make the bunnies jump!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I harvested a head of broccoli yesterday, and we ate it tonight for dinner with some homemade Chinese orange chicken and rice. My nine year old got to cut the broccoli into florets for me. She really enjoyed that (though she didn’t like the part where she had to wash some eggs off the underside of a leaf).

We had an abnormally cool day yesterday (high of 68 is quite cool for us these days) with lots of cloud cover, and we ended up having misty rain in the evening that actually amounted to almost 1/4 inch of accumulation. I was delighted to get it (though, of course, we could use more). This at least gave me a couple hundred more gallons in the rain barrels to help me keep the garden alive for longer. I’m so thankful.

The misty rain also gave us a strange power outage last night due to utility poles in the area catching on fire. Everything is covered in dust and pollen at the moment, and the moisture adds just the right element, I guess. Here’s an article I found that explains the phenomenon.

Light rain interacting with dust leads to multiple electric pole fires across Austin

The Austin Fire Department says that the light mist falling across the area Friday is interacting with dust has caused multiple electric poles to catch fire since midnight. Austin Energy says cracked insulators mixed with dust and rain allow for electricity to "track" through the cracks and...

cbsaustin.com

 

[Dan Freeman]

What a nice fresh head of broccoli, DuaeGuttae! I'll bet it was delicious.

That is really strange about the power poles. I've never heard of anything like that.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I love broccoli. I usually buy plantlets though. Maybe that’ll change next year.

 

[begreen]

That's a beauty DG!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Thanks, gentlemen. We did enjoy the broccoli, and the good news is that I have two more plants with small heads. It’s been a bit cooler, so they may even have time to size up without bolting. I only had three plants this spring (replacing the three I lost this winter), so I’m pretty pleased. Only one of my three cauliflower plants has grown, however, and it shows no sign of heading.

We’ve also had some asparagus spears popping up. We’re letting the green fern but are hoping to harvest some purple. There hasn’t been enough for a meal, but we added a few purple spears to store-bought (green) asparagus for dinner tonight. The purple spears were so sweet. Yum! (They weren’t purple after cooking, by the way, but the green was different.)

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Just this morning I was walking across the “barren wasteland” (what we called the part of our property where our garden is when we moved in) with my youngest. I spotted what looked like an asparagus spear.



If a bird dropped a seed there in the past couple of years, would a new plant look like that? I thought they’d be tiny wispy ferny things? Any suggestions on what else this might be?

 

[begreen]

It sure resembles an asparagus. They get wispy as they get bigger.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Looks like asparagus to me too. They have well developed root systems and can go for generations untouched. I've walked through the woods and found them. 150 years ago there was probably a homestead there.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Today, we got the 4 Magnolia vines planted at the 4 corners of the pergola, and we dug a trench almost 40 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 1 foot deep in order to plant our 20 asparagus plants. We'll fill the trench with the 50/50 mix of topsoil/mushroom compost. Also, got every plant in the food forest fertilized with its "favorite" fertilizer. Exhausted!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Whew! That trench work alone sounds exhausting enough, but it will be a great start for your asparagus.

I’ve been pondering our mystery asparagus shoot today off and on, and I think I have a reasonable idea of where it came from. It’s under a large oak tree near the trunk, not a place I think likely for a crown to have been planted by any previous owner. I’m not sure about old homesites in the area. Originally our whole subdivision was ranch land, but the owners sold off the part of the ranch on one side of the road, and it got developed in the 1990’s. I believe that that family still ranches on the other side. Asparagus can grow here, but it’s not known for being as long-lived as it is in colder areas.

I think the most logical explanation I have is that a bird took the seed, sat in a branch, and then dropped it by whatever means. Last summer was unusually wet, so it could have germinated more easily. We don’t mow in this area (there’s no need), but we do pull problem plants. If I haven’t identified a plant as being harmful (the hit list right now is horehound, a couple varieties of thistle, and bindweed), it gets to live. If a ferny plant grew there last year, I would have left it. It probably grew last year but never got very big like the jungle of asparagus in my garden, so I never recognized it, and so this must be a second year shoot. If that explanation is correct (and it seems the most likely to me), I’m pretty impressed with the plant. I suppose that even though we’re in drought, the shoot would come up from the reserves in the crown that the plant made last year when the weather was more favorable.

It’s a beautiful, almost pink color. We do grow “Purple Passion” asparagus, and it goes to seed. I wonder if this is an offspring of that, just lighter because it’s more stressed than the garden plants. I’m almost tempted to put a cage around it.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Today we decided the 40-foot x 2-foot x 1-foot trench was not big enough to plant the 20 asparagus plants, so we made it about 8" deeper and 6" wider. The ground in that area is all clay. Figured we do it right the first time! We will back fill the trench with a 50/50 mix of topsoil and mushroom compost just above the crowns. As they begin to grow, we will keep adding some of the 50/50 until the trench is filled.

We also got the 12-gauge wire strung for our grape vines (1 Concord and 1 Niagara) and planted them and attached the insulators for the electric fence to the two entrance gates.

Tomorrow, maybe begin to plant the asparagus, and plant the elderberry and 2 gooseberries. After that, we have 3 Hazelnut, 2 plums, and 2 cherries to plant.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Careful with clay, it can make a bucket due to its small soil size and drown the plant. Are you in a low spot where the water is going to run to?

I’ve also had instances where the roots run around the curve of the hole and don’t bite in. Roughing up the edges was the advice I was given and it seems to have worked well.


I finally got to work on the garden! I raked out 2 beds to pull the debris off and started pulling fence off to replace. I think I found the hole that the bunnies were using last year. That’s going to disappear, lol.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Careful with clay, it can make a bucket due to its small soil size and drown the plant. Are you in a low spot where the water is going to run to?

I’ve also had instances where the roots run around the curve of the hole and don’t bite in. Roughing up the edges was the advice I was given and it seems to have worked well.


I finally got to work on the garden! I raked out 2 beds to pull the debris off and started pulling fence off to replace. I think I found the hole that the bunnies were using last year. That’s going to disappear, lol.

I don't have much choice with all the clay. That is why we are digging down almost 2 feet and will be replacing the clay with good soil. The area can get quite wet but it takes a few days of heavy rain to happen. I am also considering digging a swale to the side that can collect water to lead any buildup from heavy rains further back and away from the area.

Glad to hear you got to work in the garden today. Feels good, doesn't it?

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I’ve got clay too. It’s one of the reasons I went for raised beds. At some point you have to work with what you’ve got!

I needed it! The weather has been so cold this spring. I feel like I’m half a month behind, but there’s no way I could have planted when I wanted anyway.

 

[Dan Freeman]

There are other areas in the food forest we could have planted the asparagus where there is less clay and better run off, but I got out-voted by my better half! I just hope this is not a mistake. I had even suggested we plant them in a few raised beds to keep the crowns up off the ground. We just bought 10 new raised beds back this past winter and have others we are going to be moving down there.

Same here about the cold Spring. Our daffodils didn't bloom until the 2nd week of April and the buds on most trees have just started cracking open. Every day I tell my tomatoes in the greenhouse to stop growing so fast since it will be another 3 weeks, at least, before I can plant them outside. They are in 3.5" square pots, and I really don't want to up pot 40+ tomato plants.

 

[Dan Freeman]

I thought I read somewhere that Elderberries are self-pollinated, so I just bought one. This morning I found out that their self-pollinating properties are poor, and I will need another variety for good pollination, so I just ordered a York Elderberry to go along with my Adams Elderberry.

To keep track of the 30+ trees/bushes and vines, I put together a list. This is what we have planted so far or will be planting within the next week. We will also be planting all kinds of annual vegetables and flowers along with other annual flowers that are not listed here.