Garden preparation

[Daron1965 644]

What do you guys do to prep your garden?

Have anyone started with any preparation?

 

I winter fertilized with a basic 10-10-10 fertilizer. Started some pepper seeds indoors.

 

Also trying to decide what all to grow this year.  

[ebinmaine 64,074]

We're coming up on the second season for the new garden space. 

Still a good 3 months  away for us. It's winter time in Maine. 

 

Prep this year will be several stages.

Creating reating another drainage ditch with the @wallfish built Wally Digger Backhoe. 

Using the Single Ripper Tooth to remove rocks and sticks. (That'll likely be once or twice a year forever)   

Adding more loam/topsoil. 

Mixing in manure. Likely bovine. 

 

Not sure if Trina plans on extending the fence(s) or not. 

 

 

 

 

[Pullstart 60,696]

We have plenty of fresh chicken manure, mixed with bedding.  I dump that in piles, let it break down, and spread it around the garden, or food plots.  It helps to do deep litter bedding for them now, to let them help mix the poop around in the wood chips.  It stays dry longer inside the coop, and makes it easier to handle once disposed of.

[Ed Kennell 36,467]

I just started some squash and blue lake string bean seeds this week.

My garden got a layer of horse manure last fall and a layer of lime last month.  I also deposit all my wet garbage and some wood ashes.

After the last snow threat, I'll remove the snow plow blade from the 312H and install the front tiller on the plow frame.  Then till it all in and install the rabbit fence.

 

[ebinmaine 64,074]

19 minutes ago, Ed Kennell said:

wood ashes

Ed what's the ashes do?

[JoeM 7,797]

Back in the day when we planted, lime in the fall and 10-20-10 tilled in the spring. 

I talked to a local guy and he recommended this based on how is ground responds. It made a world of difference. 

If you can talk to local farmers they know the ground. 

I suppose you can do the soil sample thing too. 

 

Oh and he said, we have sandy soil, quit over tilling the ground just loosen it up. 

[Ed Kennell 36,467]

21 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

Ed what's the ashes do?

Hardwood (all that I burn) ash is a low grade fertilizer containing potassium and calcium.  It has a liming effect raising the Ph and neutralizing the acidic horse manure.

[Skwerl58 648]

I am working on a better and permanent fence to keep the deer and other animals out of one of my plots, about 1000 square feet. Have added manure, ashes, leaves and will lime in the next couple of weeks. Around St. Patricks Day I will disc the garden plots. I will set onions around the end of March and start radishes a couple of weeks later. 

[ebinmaine 64,074]

6 minutes ago, Skwerl58 said:

keep the deer ******* out of one of my plots,

 

In my area we have enough deer to start a petting zoo.

 

They

 

Don't

 

Care

 

 

Who's around. Animals or people.

 

Because of the advice on this site and someplace else, we shaved out some Irish Spring soap around the outside edge of the garden and also put some loose hanging bright orange landmarking tape because they don't like things that move around and the slightest tiny little breeze will shake that stuff. Shiny mylar also works really really well.

[Skwerl58 648]

I have used Irish Spring and the only thing that totally prevents it is the deer netting with  high tensile wire. I am thinking of swapping to 4 ft. wire fencing (used) and one strand of high tensile at 5 ft. I also have 2 ft. chicken wire around the base for added protection. I was going with solar electric but with grand children  and my clumsy self, I will try this first!

[SylvanLakeWH 24,528]

There are permanent solutions to the deer population problem and I might add, they taste quite good...

 

 

I have deer in my suburban back yard every day, even with a 100 lbs labrador... who they think is a friend... 14 pointer an 8 pointer and their 6 girlfriends...

 

Can't hunt them here, and there is no way to keep them out of a garden... unless it's a greenhouse...they walk over 5' fence and easily jump 6'.

 

Here's Denali chatting with the 14 pointer...

 

 

 

[Achto 26,904]

39 minutes ago, Skwerl58 said:

I was going with solar electric but with grand children  and my clumsy self

 

You all can learn the same way the deer do. Touch it once - lesson learned.  When I was young it was great fun to talk my younger nephews & nieces into touching the fence, the same way my older brothers did to me. Ahhh yes, good times. 

[ebinmaine 64,074]

33 minutes ago, SylvanLakeWH said:

There are permanent solutions to the deer population problem and I might add, they taste quite good...

 

Can't shoot em here either... unless it's a legal hunting season harvested animal. Private property damaged or not.  

Larger farms  can do something about it with permission.  Difficult for small acreage folk to get permission.  

[wallfish 16,264]

3 hours ago, ebinmaine said:

We're coming up on the second season for the new garden space. 

Still a good 3 months  away for us. It's winter time in Maine. 

 

Prep this year will be several stages.

Creating reating another drainage ditch with the @wallfish built Wally Digger Backhoe. 

Using the Single Ripper Tooth to remove rocks and sticks. (That'll likely be once or twice a year forever)   

Adding more loam/topsoil. 

Mixing in manure. Likely bovine. 

 

Not sure if Trina plans on extending the fence(s) or not. 

 

 

 

 

Glad to know that beast is getting used

[wallfish 16,264]

27 minutes ago, Achto said:

 

You all can learn the same way the deer do. Touch it once - lesson learned.  When I was young it was great fun to talk my younger nephews & nieces into touching the fence, the same way my older brothers did to me. Ahhh yes, good times. 

Ha,that's funny stuff.

I had 2 older brothers growing up so the same type of thing. I even did the grandkids with the garden hose. "Hold this and look inside there so you can tell me when the water starts coming out".

[ebinmaine 64,074]

1 hour ago, wallfish said:

Glad to know that beast is getting used

 

 

Oh you bet it will be Mr Fish.  

[JoeM 7,797]

3 hours ago, Skwerl58 said:

I was going with solar electric but with grand children  and my clumsy self, I will try this first!

I had my fence on a timer 9pm to 7am. solved all the issues including myself forgetting to turn it off. Nice

 

Had one strand 4 inches off the ground for the hogs, one at 18 for the smaller dear, and one at 36. Ran an additional ground in between the 18 and 36 inch hots. This was the only thing that worked. 

Edited February 8 by JoeM

[Skwerl58 648]

Venison is great, high quality  protein. I have neighbors around so for safety only a bow can be used. I use a trad bow but only saw them once the three month bow season. Had bear get my corn two years ago,  they ate well.

[ebinmaine 64,074]

3 hours ago, Achto said:

touching the fence

 

Back in ellie-meh-tary skool there was a horse pasture bordering the VERY large not well watched playground.  

One o'  the more adventurous young "dudes" (yeah I made a horse pun) decided to test the old wives tales about ummm... relieving one's self on an electric fence. 

 

I'd bet everyone can imagine just precisely how that went.  

 

 

[Ed Kennell 36,467]

4 hours ago, Achto said:

 

You all can learn the same way the deer do. Touch it once - lesson learned. 

The deer must also pass this lesson down to their younguns.

For many years, corn and soybeans were grown on the farm next to me and there were always deer in the fields.

When the Amish bought it for a truck farm 6 years ago, the first spring he put up a single tape like electric wire about 3 ft. off the ground and placed a dab of peanut butter on the tape about every 4 ft.     It was only up a couple months.    I have never seen a deer in his fields of sweet corn, melons, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower.   

The groundhogs required a different plan.    He asked for my help and I removed around 20 every spring for the first 3 years he was here.  Now I only trap 2-4 per year.

 

[Andy N. 1,946]

I had my soil tested last year. I figured I should see where it's at since it's been 5 years of the garden. I took samples to my county farm bureau. It was $23 cheaper for members and $20 to become a member so I joined and saved $3. Plus my dad was a dairy farmer for 1/2 his life and hobby Hereford beef farmer for the other 1/2 so I thought joining would make him proud. They do have some discounts at local stores and restaurants and do have good way to get locally grown and processed meat. 

 

Anyway, my soil was actually about 1/2 a point too neutral or base and they recommended adding elemental sulfer in the fall to get it a little more acidic. I heard it's more difficult to go from neutral to acidic than the other way. We shall see. I don't plan on testing for another 5 years or so. 

 

I also planted garlic in the fall and am trying to start a strawberry patch. Garlic is covered for the winter with fallen, mulched leaves and strawberries are covered with chopped ornamental tall grass that basically looks like straw after i run it through a chipper. It's been such a mild winter here except for those 5 days about 3 weeks ago that the garlic is starting to poke through the leaf mulch. I've had good luck in past years growing garlic this way, but if it hard freezes again I may lose some this year.

 

For the rest of the garden, I planted 3 to 1 mix of winter rye grass and crimson clover. I've never really done cover crops before, but these are good nitrogen fixers and am hoping it does well for the soil. I will weed wack it probably 1 month or so before I plan on planting and and plow it under. Here's some pics from around the end of October. It did grow a little taller before the cold temps set in. An added winter bonus is I can look out my back window and see green when the rest of the lawn isn't so green. 

 

 

[Tonytoro416 961]

If you have 21-0-0-24S also known as ammonium sulfate available to you where your at you can side dress or do a few applications of that throughout the growing season to start bringing it down. Has some nitrogen and sulfur in it 

[Racinbob 10,563]

This is my hands down favorite. Buckwheat. It works wonders for loosening up heavy clay soils as well as improving sand. It smothers weeds and doesn't allow them to reseed themselves. It's very easy to till in. The soft, hollow stems break down quickly and there's very minimal wrapping around the tines. You can let it bloom so the bees can get their fill but till it in before it seeds. If a few seeds get past you they pull very easily. I always did wide row planting and when a crop tuckered out I would broadcast some buckwheat over that section and lightly till it in. 

 

 

Unfortunately I no longer have a large garden. I haven't had a tiller since we moved back here and the critters would eat everything unless I did some serious deterrents like you guys mentioned. I like to plant specimen trees around the yard. I was about to give up since the deer would kill every one but I finally found a repellant that actually works and doesn't have to be reapplied every couple of weeks. I stumbled on to a product called Plantskydd. I started using it about 6 months ago and so far it's been doing its job. 

 

[Handy Don 11,016]

On 2/9/2024 at 7:58 AM, Racinbob said:

the critters would eat everything

 

PICNIC! Smorgasbord! What’s for dessert?!

[Andy N. 1,946]

Winter rye grass is coming along nicely. There's some garlic coming through the leaf mulch as well.  

 

 

 

 

Lots of tomato and peppers plants getting ready. And marigolds for my end caps. Still probably 1 month out from actually planting the garden here.