Anyone have a garden going this year?

The nights are staying above 45f so things are picking up a little speed, hoping to get a few packs worth of seed off this before the move
The beans aren't looking too bad for sprouts so far

And of course the dogs have decided that the Dwarf Mallows and wild mustard make an excellent bed,,, same day I decided the mallow is as good or better than store bought spinach & that I'm harvesting the mustard seeds to make my own condiment. (Hard to beat free & as no-till as it gets)
The microgreens, baby bok choy, bush beans, broccoli, catnip, morning glories and fish hook barrel cactus all seem happy enough with their "upcycled" planters for now at least.

Still hunting for the motivation to finish the lid on my burn barrel sized charcoal retort (upcycled HVAC duct, it works but the lid wasn't snug enough and only got about 5% of my feedstock back as char).
Maybe I'll post a video once I get it fired up.

 

Don't forget nasturtiums---really good in salads. I like to munch ém right off the plant. Leaves and flowers both. And they look good.

 

I'll head out and grab some seeds, it'll give me a chance to test and see how my creosote bush tincture dipped bandanna works against the superbug.

 

I have made charcoal by digging a hole a few feet deep and starting a very large fire in it. Then I cover it with a "lid" that used to be a saucer style fire pit, I just turned it over put it on top and cover the edges with dirt. 24-48 hours later I uncover it and scoop out the charcoal.

 

I have a bunch of different edible flower seed but haven't started them yet, I have to make sure I save some space for them. I do have violets growing though and they are edible.. and some roses but they aren't blooming yet.

 

I envy you @MoonGodess

Beautiful garden. I live in the city and don't really have space for something like that but I contemplate moving to more rural areas for this very reason. Fresh seasonal ingredients outside my backdoor... heaven. Throw some foraging in there and I could make a big dent in my grocery bill

 

Pit char is great too but I'm looking to slowly tinker this into a system that will allow me to collect wood vinegar / pyrolytic oil to further refine into fuel on a small scale, sort of along the lines of,,,

Main difference being keeping charcoal as a byproduct, not going for full gassification

 

I would love to be in a rural area too but I am trying to do the best I can with what I've got My lot is 50'x125' after you subtract the footprint of the house and driveway it's more like 4500 square feet. Lots of people who I've met that have lived in cities tell me that I have a large yard but I came from a town that was mostly farms and woods (before it got all built up) and grew up with a 3 acer yard, so it seems small to me.

 

Clearing and seeding beds


It's still a mess but you can see the general lay out of this half of the yard. That one garden bed is still full of junk but it needs to be fixed before I plant in it anyway.


Started weaving the clippings from the fruit trees to make dividers.

My nightmare, this pathway is all overgrown with thorny canes from the blackberries, raspberries and boysenberries.


The violets are blooming!

 

Luv and I are now arguing about whether we can have nasturtiums : P
I say yes.
He says oooohhh Nooo they seed everywhere, you can never get rid of them.
I say.. Good I don't want to get rid of them.

 

This was the first configuration of my garden 8 years ago, we have since taken it apart and reused the wood for higher raised beds and used stone for lower bed throughout the yard.


This garden was 18'x40' and it was covered in bird netting because I naively thought I could keep things out, it worked for a little while.


By July the corn and sunflowers where trying to poke through the top, then I just had birds getting stuck in there.


I used an intensive garden method with companion planting to make the best use of the space, might be able to see the carrots and radishes growing between the lettuce near the bottom of this picture, also had beets and kale together, corn beans and squash all together, tomatoes with more lettuce and celery.
This was after we took down the old garage, we tried to repurpose as much of the material as we could hence all the piles

 

I love finding volunteers in my garden but if he is worried just tell him he has to pick and eat all the flowers then it won't be able to reseed. I'm sure he will miss at least a few then you can get more next year

 

No darlin' - I'm not a gardener, never have been, happy to stand out on my balcony and watch others below me toil in the soil, not my scene !!!

 

Maybe this will help change his mind?

Nasturtiums: Salads, Pickled, Tempura and Home Medicine.

 

Cedar used to be good to use because the natural resin in the wood prevented decomposition but the cedar we have today is all new growth and hasn't built up as much resin in the wood as the old growth that people used to use. It may still resist rot but not for as long. I use treated exterior lumber, the kind they sell today is different than the old type that always turned green from the copper. Supposedly, this type isn't toxic like the old copper treated kind. I'm pretty confident in the research I did although I can't remember all the specifics about it. I know that I chose this because it was a lot cheaper, the risk was minimal, and the wood was thicker and sturdier. Dimensions of the wood, on the beds in the pictures I posted were 2"x12"

 

Use it for as long as it lasts and if any areas completely rot out you can take it apart cut out the rotten bits any try to make a smaller bed with what's left, or some smaller planter boxes.
We are at 8 years with the same wood all of it is still good. Only one area of one piece must not have been treated as well as the others because it has some decomposition on it but not enough to make it unusable and it has not seemed to have gotten any worse in the last 3 years. Our biggest problem is that the screws break after a while so this year I am going to have my son, who's hobby is blacksmithing, make me some brackets for the corners and maybe use lag bolts to hold it all together.

 

I'll keep that in mind, thanks