Your Garden and Garden Advice Thread

[Macrobius]

20220523_073952

⁣Foxy v soaker hose. She's interested in the bird bath but smarter than her brother and refuses to drink from it. I dumped the water and set it up to catch drips from the soaker hose so it would double as an irrig

whigdev.com

⁣Foxy v soaker hose. She's interested in the bird bath but smarter than her brother and refuses to drink from it. I dumped the water and set it up to catch drips from the soaker hose so it would double as an irrigation gauge and a bird bath.

In the background we are experimenting with some strawberries, and in the foreground I cut out a strip of sod that was failing anyway and filled the hole with 3 cu ft of garden/fertilizer mix. The substrate is this godawful mix of sand clay and smooth stone I suspect was dredged from some seashore location like Oyster Bay (just down the hill).

I'm going to try a small garden, half carrots and radishes (love sand) and half sand-tolerant herbs like sage, rosemary, and thyme.

I suspect we will spend years amending the soil here, one strip at a time... make a garden, then cut out the sod and move to the next strip.... SLASH AND GROW.

NOTE:

The downslope in the background is the best sun on the property except the front yard, but it is a north-facing slope so if we don't terrace it at least, it won't be worth bothering with. Because Solar Elevation. [1]

[1]: http://whigdev.com/white/index.php?threads/digital-prepping-when-will-the-sun-rise-or-set.3348/

 

[Macrobius]

The OP is also an example of how to manually embed MacroTube vidz. I'm working on an easier solution.

 

[Macrobius]

The heap in the middle is what I dug out to make the garden bed. Pretty sure it would be great for extending concrete.

The downslope in the backgroud is shredded bark and the 'river rocks' are a level bed. Strawberry plant at right side is showing trefoil leaves worthy of a starving Marquess.

Looks like someone dredge mudflats at low tide to me. Or at best a river bed but it's really sandy. I see why they used it -- such a sandy soil provides *excellent* drainage and will soak up any water you can give it. Except for the 'hard as clay bits' but I guess you can put sod on top of it and it won't *immediately* die.

 

[Grug Arius]

I was gonna ask why there was a pile of see-ment in the middle .. HA

Looks pretty challenging to grow anything there that I am used to... I think that given the apparentlyly poor soil, I'd be considering raised-bed or container gardening instead. Any thots on this?

 

[Grug Arius]

http://whigdev.com/v2/macrotube/watch/tomaters-and-yapalenoes-2022_vH2CifvTUuTYH7U.html

 

[Grug Arius]

The OP is also an example of how to manually embed MacroTube vidz. I'm working on an easier solution.

I cant figger it out

 

[Nikephoros II Phokas]

OW is right - elevated beds are the way to go. You're looking at striping very significant portions of the top and subsoil and hauling in truckloads of new soil to correct things. Maybe rock and sand were added because soil drainage is poor.

 

[Macrobius]

I cant figger it out

You have to wrap the IMG tag you want with the URL you want in BBCODE. I'll likely make a web app that does this if you paste the link, as a stop gap. Long term solution is to create an extension for XF2 and VB5 that you can install.

Click image for (((

Tomaters and yapalenoes 2022 )))​

[url=<put the URL here>]ATTACH AND PASTE YOUR IMAGE HERE[/url]

If you don't want to attach, you'll need a link to the thumbnail or use an image hoast. Then an IMG tag will work.

 

[Macrobius]

OW is right - elevated beds are the way to go. You're looking at striping very significant portions of the top and subsoil and hauling in truckloads of new soil to correct things. Maybe rock and sand were added because soil drainage is poor.

I was thinking of having a truck drop a quarter tonne of topsoil off and just redoing the backyard[1], but Ima go with container gardening like you say for now -- it's the only thing that will work in the front yard anyway because HOA, but thanks for confirming OW's suggestion. I dug that bed to 'see what was there' and now I know.

My basic question is what to do with that north facing downslope to increase resale value -- I'm thinking maybe a rock garden with shade tolerent plants.

Soil drainage is indeed a key problem in the PNW and I don't blame the builders for how they solved it.

[1]: only the strip close to the slope is worth bothering with, because sun.

 

[Macrobius]

I was gonna ask why there was a pile of see-ment in the middle .. HA

Looks pretty challenging to grow anything there that I am used to... I think that given the apparentlyly poor soil, I'd be considering raised-bed or container gardening instead. Any thots on this?

SEE-meant pond.

BTW, our hardiness zone is the same as Atlanta's. Not quite the same as Todd's [ mid FL ]. But because of the latitude, our growing season is WAY shorter. Ima buy me one of those Canadian Light Tents and start seeds in February next year in the darkest back corner of my pantry. Then containers and raised beds for however long. That's what will work here.

The PNW is to the American South as Ginger Rogers is to Fred Astaire. We do everything the South does, but backwards and in Russian Tundra conditions.

Sage is an EXCELLENT plant for Southern Indiana and I suspect where you live as well. I supplied my whole extended family with turkey spices out of a single raised bed in Bloomington, IN, back in the day. If Slagmaster were here, he'd back me up on that area of the world.

 

[Macrobius]

Karl from the Tunis version of this thread[1] writes:

Mushroom compost from the dirt aisle repairs any soil. Better than manure. If the area has hardly any loam, then I'd also add some top soil with the compost. You don't really to amend to grow weedy herbs that like drought and full sun. I'm not well versed in produce gardening, though, just botanical and landscaping. I have multiple mini prairies just for the ecosystem and the beauty of it.

I also have the exact same cat with white feet.

I'd trow some IRONITE on that lawn. Makes it deep blue green.

[1]:

The Bronze Age Gardening Advice Thread

http://whigdev.com/v2/macrotube/watch/20220523-073952_HiN2lXWRao1ONEN.html ⁣Foxy v soaker hose. She's interested in the bird bath but smarter than her brother and refuses to drink from it. I dumped the water and set it up to catch drips from the soaker hose so it would double as an irrigation...

tunisbayclub.com

Moar thots on Mushroom Compost in the PNW:

What is mushroom compost?

Commercial mushroom growers in the Willamette Valley grow tons of mushrooms in an elaborate mixture that gardeners love - mushroom compost.

extension.oregonstate.edu

 

[Macrobius]

Me responding to the bit above about prairie home companion gardens:

Back when I worked at Fermilab (last millennium) I loved the 'restored tall grass prairie' -- mostly inside the ring (3.141... miles around but a nice walk at lunch) but also many acres towards the northwest of the main ring.

They used to send a guy out with a flamethrower every so often to burn it down and keep the non-native invasive species in check. Utterly amazing seeing what the pairie was *originally* like -- so tall you couldn't see anything but stalks of 'grass' in front of you, six feet high.

They tried raising buffalo and whooping cranes initially but found that endangered species, left to their own devices, LOVE corn raised by Illinois farmers, who had enough of a lobby to ditch the 'whooping crane restoration idea'. There was no practical way to keep the cranes from leaving the square mile eco-reservation, or stopping the farmers from killing them when they did. It probably would have turned out ok for all concerned, but no government bureaucrat likes the optics of losing X% of their game stock via killin'. Reverse Poaching? The Saxon-Gamekeeper-for-Frog-Gentry mentality runs deep in our middle classes.

They ended up raising the buffalo for meat as well, at an onsite cattle farm, because well the project was successful and the Buffalo herd went all Malthus on them. Government funding to buy land progresses arithmetically.... and & cetera.

 

[Grug Arius]

I grew up next to a few hundred acres of woodsland and meadowland; the meadow (which I suspect was a long-disused farm) is how I imagine the prairie looked, very tall grass with an occasional pioneer tree here and there

 

[Macrobius]

I grew up next to a few hundred acres of woodsland and meadowland; the meadow (which I suspect was a long-disused farm) is how I imagine the prairie looked, very tall grass with an occasional pioneer tree here and there

It's hard to find images that show the scale of 'tall grass prairie' -- you almost have to include a person for scale. This prairie was restored from two 3acre remnants of the original, contenent sized one.

 

[Macrobius]

Reminder: Liberals raising their own food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest

 

[Grug Arius]

That was real lulz

Calories expended: over 10,000

Calories harvested: less than 500

And some poople wonder why communism leads to famines

 

[Macrobius]

I'm afraid to even introduce earthworms at this point... I'd expect earthworm reviews of my lawn to read like critics discussing _The Martian_...

'It was horrible. We were left on this strange planet to die. We had to raise potatoes in our own shit just to survive'

 

[Macrobius]

I grew up next to a few hundred acres of woodsland and meadowland; the meadow (which I suspect was a long-disused farm) is how I imagine the prairie looked, very tall grass with an occasional pioneer tree here and there

I grew up next to some woods in North Carolina. Being outside and tramping about is nearly all I remember from that part of my llife. I'm firmly convinced that all boys develop a connection to the land they are raised in, that marks them for life.

Raising children, especially boys, is really really easy... you say 'SHOO!' and kick them outside. If they come back at dusk, feed them.

Taking care of Nature is not just a hobby... it's DIRECT ORDERS from above.

 

[Macrobius]

From the Tunis variant of this thread...

The Bronze Age Gardening Advice Thread

http://whigdev.com/v2/macrotube/watch/20220523-073952_HiN2lXWRao1ONEN.html ⁣Foxy v soaker hose. She's interested in the bird bath but smarter than her brother and refuses to drink from it. I dumped the water and set it up to catch drips from the soaker hose so it would double as an irrigation...

tunisbayclub.com

Karl saith:

Big bluestem can get 8 or 9 feet tall with when it flowers. It's also called turkeyfoot. This is probably the king of the prairie across the continent wherever the land is naturalized. I have just one plant by itself at the front corner of my garage. It was mistakenly included in a tray of plugs of little bluestem, and last year when they all grew in the big bluestem was easy to see. I don't want a 7 foot tall sweep of prairie grass, rather more like 3 feet, so I use little bluestem instead.

Here is the turkeyfoot in probably August. A month or so later when the weather cools, it develops subtle hues of red as it approaches dormancy. Most of the height is the inflorescence. The main clump is probably at most 4 or 5 feet tall.

Little bluestem in probably late September after a few cold spells, with lots of rough goldenrod still in full bloom. It is quite red and easily identifiable by the cottony seedheads, which remain on the stems well into winter.

If I had multiple acres of lawn I would make a larger grassland like this. I wouldn't get rid of all the turf, because it's nice and looks orderly, but ecologically it's pretty useless and a drain on resources.

The occasional person will replace the entire lawn with prairie and that can make it look like a crazy person lives there, as below. But you could devote portions of any property to native plants and have it really aesthetic and semi-formal.

Little bluestem changes its appearance quite a lot throughout the year. Some ecotypes are quite blue, some are only slightly bluer than lawn. This below looks like a cultivar that was bred to be more colorful, but emphasizes the differences.

It remains erect through winter, at least until the plow dumps finally crush it, which usually doesn't happen where I live until January. When the seedheads are at their peak around October, the cotton glows in the light and is really stunning to look at.

Most of my front grass stand is little bluestem and purple lovegrass. I'll add a few forb species as time goes on. Purple lovegrass is shorter, maybe 1.5 feet when it blooms. It grows well in the worst, driest, leanest soils, and like the bluestems is unaffected by high amounts of road salt.

Before blooming, the blades are easy to see by the pale green color and tinges of pink.

- 30 -

 

[Macrobius]

So... you have a new build and an undernourished lawn? Fertilizer is unobtainable due to Supply Chain Logistics Issues?

Problem solved. Nitrogen source, comin' through... Voof.

I hope my neighbour names him Ironite, the Dog of Steel.