Back to Eden Gardening Thread~Note: pic heavy thread.

His garden looks amazing, Bee! Sorry to hear you had so much issue with bugs in your garden :( I know they have to live somewhere and eat too, but goodness…
 
That does look amazing! Lovely to see gardens in town, it makes me smile! I've actually been thinking maybe I need to downsize, make a productive small garden, and then get bigger. Instead of biting off more than I can chew and having a big, sorta productive garden.
 
I love the mix of flowers in his garden! It reminds me of when we lived in town and I gardened in the front yard. People stopped to admire it all the time. Strangers would stop and ask me for gardening advice LOL.
 
NH Homesteader said:
make a productive small garden, and then get bigger. Instead of biting off more than I can chew and having a big, sorta productive garden
Click to expand...

We all start out too big.....excitement, then reality of the work!
Smaller, then growing each year. Once you get to my age, you want to downsize anyway. Well, you want to downsize the WORK part.

It would be ideal for me to have 2 other families use my land to grow big gardens and I just got part of the produce and they got the work along with their share. :p In town, years ago, I rented a plot. Farmer plowed an acre or two...rented plots and many planted really nice areas. Often we'd see each other evening or wknds . Sometimes we'd share what was producing.
 
I would love to start a community garden, but not in my community, lol. The liberal yuppie, self important group of locals would try to take over. Not worth the battle!

I think next year I need to think hard about how to have a more productive garden, even if it means downsizing.
 
I agree! Smaller, more production, easier to tend. That's what Mom and I did when I started this BTE...we cut about 25 ft off the end of the garden and later used that space for apple tree saplings with taters planted around them in compost rings.

The SS peas I planted the other day are up about 5 in. (planted those 5 days ago) and the Fortex beans are blooming like crazy, despite being chewed to death all along the top by the JBs. I think we'll have plenty of beans from those plants, if the first picking is any indication. Wish I had a taller trellis for them but I just can't....maybe next year I'll be able to do an arching CP trellis for them or tall TP structures like they used to do for pole beans.

I'm thinking a row of these BOSS sunflowers would be perfect! This single volunteer is HUGE! Only problem is that it had to be staked early on or it would have uprooted by now. Taproot plants don't root deeply in this clay bottomed garden.

Got two cukes from the lonely survivor and more coming on.

The tomatoes are looking great, spotted a small mater on one of the beefsteak varieties. I'm going to try and be steadfast in trimming them when they get to the top of the trellises this year so they can set more fruit below. Last year I had pruned off all the blighted branches up so far that I had no choice but let them grow up further than the trellises.

The lettuce seedlings under the small temp tunnel are doing great and I really need to get some frames for the larger tunnels done so I can set them out there.

The yellow squash are making a comeback from squash bug predation. Brought home some of the same from Joel's BTE...his plant is healthy and producing fine. His cherry tomato is loaded and his Fortex beans are setting on too.

Strawberries are producing, though I never seem to stay on top of them well enough to harvest them as they come on. Raspberry canes are getting TALL...need to trellis those this next week.

Though the bug counts are high, this third year in the BTE gives me hope for this method...things are growing well and seem to have a good balance of nutrients. Some things are growing VERY well.
STARE.gif
 
So, due to the lack of a chip source and the resulting high weed counts this past season, I'm switching over to something more readily obtained around here~hay. Not straw...that stuff is uber expensive in these parts. Hay it not, especially old round bales of mulch hay. Heading towards the Ruth Stout method, I suppose.

Now that the garden is cleaned up and out, I need to put out feelers for some hay to put down for the winter. Could be I could find a source of hay wherein I could also afford to cover the orchard too.

Gotta get on that...spring comes quicker than we realize.
 
Spring will be here before we know it
I have alot of work to do as well.
 
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