What did you do in your garden today?

[tortoise]

I would take them up on the offer to help start another garden. If your current garden can be salvaged, you can share excess produce. Win-win?

 

[Hinotori]

What would eat my rhubarb? Deer? Never in 15 years has anything eaten it! What can I do, net it?

My chickens ate the leaves on mine. Stems are toxic to chickens.

 

[Messybun]

I got 32 1 yr strawberry roots planted this morning as well as whole packages of MN Midget, Buttercup, and Golden Jenny seeds

Hold up, how do you get one year old strawberry plants? Do you pull them out of the ground and replant or what?

 

[Hinotori]

I was told it was opposite for birds. I went looking and you're correct.

 

[CrealCritter]

Old timers are smart people 👍. Up the road there's a garden. What they did is take 55 gallon drum lids glued pieces of mirror to them and strung them up by a rope to the garden fence. The mirrors catch the light from a yard light and the dance in the wind. It's 120 acres away. But it looks like a discotheque over there.

We have a heavy population of wildlife, including deer. No shortage of deer around here that's for sure. These mirrors reflecting light from a yard light is one of the more smarter things I've see a gardener do to keep munching deer away. 👍 yard lights are on dust to dawn. I guess some people call them street lights.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[Messybun]

. Remember she's in southern TX...where they see ground all winter. You traded that for snow all winter. 😊.


On a whim, I stopped at a local hardware/feed/plant nursery yesterday, where I haven't gone in a while....yeah, they sell it all! 😁. Wonderful young trees, too. But...they had some nice tomato, pepper, eggplants for $4.29 a six pack -- healthy and hardened off. Lots of other stuff like herbs, flowers, etc. But decent prices. They bring some things in, also start some types in their greenhouse. This is truly a small town, you name it & we probably have it, type store. Saw a lovely cherry tree for $60 that I'm wanting. 😊. Even had fruit set! Already 6' tall. I'd leave in pot until fall. Looking hard at my planting area here and goat protection. So far I've got sets on my two apple trees. They're in the back side of a fenced chicken area, roughly 1/4 acre.....plenty of room! I'll pay for the maturity, don't want to wait 3-4 yrs for them to start producing. Tiny orchard.👍🤗

Yay! What variety?

 

[flowerbug]

Check your information, the stems are not toxic. The high oxalic acid content in the leaves is the toxin.

after any near freezing weather the oxalic acid can move down into the stems too.

i was eating way too much rhubarb sauce at one time and it was making my feet hurt so i backed off quite a bit. i still grow it but only eat it a few times a year. it makes a good border planting

 

[frustratedearthmother]

When did you plant them??

Sorry - I totally missed your question. Fall 2021, lol. Don't remember exactly but most likely between Halloween and Thanksgiving.

 

[tortoise]

I'm skipping a day or two of gardening because of chilly wet weather. I'm aware the weeds are loving the weather and growing continuously.

DS15 replanted trays of broccoli, cabbage, chard, kale. I think we will try direct sowing them in a couple days too. I don't usually have good luck with direct sow, but waiting for seedlings to get big enough to transplant will set these crops back too. IDK. %&$* chickens! Chard should grow just fine through mid-summer so no worries there. I could try a fall planting (except for broccoli) so I should still get some produce.

I need to start on getting chicken tunnels in my garden. I'm so swamped with work and 4-H I can barely think about it. Well, really there's not change in my workload and it would be fine if I hadn't had COVID (6 weeks ago) trigger my chronic health problems that had been well-controlled. 😖 I don't really have a plan for constructing tunnels. I might just need to go as cheap and easy as possible (bend chicken wire and stake into the ground) and save a nice permanent/modular system until a different year. I could maybe buy chicken wire today. IDK how I would stake it into the ground. Tent stakes would be easy and it's about all I can think of. I'm sure it's not the most economical choice.

 

[tortoise]

I bought 2 6-packs of broccoli, cabbage, and kohlrabi. Not much, but better than no brassicas at all. $#&% chickens!
Also got pots of thyme and rosemary because they're hard (for me) to start from seed. These will probably be houseplants o at least bring indoors in winter since they can both be grown as bonsai.