The annual gardening thread

[Mr. DS]

^ Jack, you need to teach that cat some manners. 

[Jack]

^ I'm afraid us humans exist only to serve the cat.  If there's any teaching to be done, he's the one doing it   

[Andrew]

All of the raised beds are built now, and over half have been filled with soil and addendums (some lime to counteract the peat moss, bone meal, manure).  We planted 3 beds with a fall crop of beets, carrots, spinach, and buttercrunch lettuce.  The results have been amazing.  The beets are easily over a foot in height, with big healthy leaves.  I've been thinning them out and we've been eating the greens in salads along with the lettuce and spinach.  The lettuce and spinach are doing so well that I'm striving to give it away and cannot do so fast enough.

The main garden is beds 8'x3' by 12" deep and beds 3'x3' by 12" deep.  They are lined up in twos, alternating pairs of square and rectangular beds.  The small square ones are intended for herbs and flowers.

I filled most of the beds with a mixture of screened topsoil, peat moss, and bagged garden soil (Scotts and Miracle Gro).  The bed for the peppers is only topsoil and organic garden soil, because I was told peppers hate peat moss.  We'll find out how accurate that is next year.

I did some research on the blueberries since they were doing mediocre in their present location.  Blueberries love acidic, well-drained soil.  I made a 4'x4' by 12" deep bed for them.  Filled it with topsoil, peat moss, sand, and pine bark mulch.  The blueberries love it.  Even though I moved them in August, they didn't appear to go through any transplant shock and put on new growth before the weather turned cool.  Also built some mounts into the bed so we can easily cover them next year with netting to keep away the birds.

[Mr. DS]

I have to pick and dry peppers this weekend.  Hopefully that will go well. 

[LilCerberus]

put down some Pennington's fall mix where that mole killed off my lawn.
Got some oregano seed from work, several years old now, & put em in the planters out front.
The other day, I stole some seed pods from the mimosa tree at work, & keepin my fingers crossed.

[Jack]

Our herb garden is looking a little past its prime.



I think gardening season in Minnesota may be nearing its end   

[Trevor]

I cut my grass on Saturday..... 

[Andrew]

I cut my grass on Saturday..... 

Darn you in the Southern Hemisphere!  When is it our turn in the sun?

We did pick a number of carrots on Sunday for Katie to use with a roast she made.  The carrots, lettuce, spinach, and beets are all still alive and kicking.  Some of the carrots were short (7" long) but fat (over 2.5" in thickness at the top).