Your 2015 Garden, what are you doing?

So, planting time is just around the corner (about 8 weeks for me) so I'm curious what everyone is doing. Expanding your garden, shrinking your garden, new plants, also I'm curious for a post season report from last year.

For me. Garden is staying the same size. 4 4x8 beds and 2 1.5x8 beds. I am doing something different in that I'm going to focus more on what we'll actually eat or preserve. In the past I've been using up some of my heirloom seeds and planting stuff I had no idea how to eat/store. That usually meant if I harvested anything it ended up going bad before we ate it.

This year I'm focusing on the basics. Tomatos (San Marzano (roma style), beefsteak and Arkansas Pink Traveler), Peppers both sweet and hot, bell, jalapeno, & banana (oh, have some Ghost peppers started in the garden tower as well), leafy greens and a few root veggies (Turnips, Rutabaga, & Parsnips). I'm also planting a couple of cucumber plants, yellow squash and zucchini.

In addition to these plants I've got some herbs and other companion plants that I'm trying out. I LOVE fresh basil from the garden.

1st things first though, have to get a fence up to keep the chickens and dog out of the garden area. Over the winter I think the chickens have dug up every bed and spread the soil everywhere. At least they left behind some good fertilizer, can't really say that about the dog (though she did get another mole out of the ground).

 

I just recently set tomatoes, cabbages, spinach, sever varieties of leaf lettuce, green onions, and kale in my aqua[ponics greenhouse, the strawberries are doing well too.

 

Just completing Aquaponics System

 

Have my tomatoes started and more chicken wire and scrap wood to keep the rabbits out for a garden expansion.

 

I'm planning on putting out several Muskedine vines for starters.

 

Already harvesting bunches of my early crop of radishes. Also have 1015 y onions in for a while to see how they do. Going to grow pico de gallo theme this year. Mostly tomatoes, peppers, cilantro with a few other things mixed in like bee balm nasturtium and cow vetch for pollenators n nitrogen fixation. Loaded up with heirloom tomatoes that I am going to a new technique of growing them on fence panels rather than cages. Garden is the same size but I added a few big containers of lemongrass and I am going to plant some comfrey in spots around the house.

 

Has anyone here every grown reishi?

I was thinking of getting some oak logs, putting them under my oak in the back, burying them half way then drilling them and inserting reishi spawn plugs. I can't ever grow veggies in the shade and thought maybe mushrooms would be the ticket. Reishi is supposed to be some really good medicine.

Any opinions or ideas welcome.

Also does anyone here grow comfrey?

 

Anyone use micorrhizae with any success?

 

Nothing special here... will be adding a couple 4x8 raised beds to the existing lot, and if time allows, a couple more apple trees to our mini-orchard. I want to add different varieties than I already have; my goal is to extend the apple harvesting season by planting varieties that ripen at different times.

Will probably try to implement some kind of rotation in the raised beds; we've had good luck with them for the most part so far, but it's time to start thinking about soil health if we want to keep up the positive results we've had so far and make it more self-reliant.

@kckndrgn - how tall are your 4x8 beds?

 

finially starting one i hope

 

I've been growing uber hot peppers since last September. Most are in 6" or 8" pots by now. I've got 8 different varieties, from 500,000 Scoville units to over 2,000,00 Scoville units. Gonna start a couple or four of heirloom Cherokee purple tomatoes and some onions, gonna plant indoors when the moon is right, start indoors and move outdoors about April 15. Gonna move my peppers out about end of April, leaving them in pots. Got a heck of a grow-light system in my "Manly Room" that's got the peppers going good.

Kajuno

 

I used 2x8's when making them, so 7.5". Dug down and turned the soil underneath them a bit.

 

Working on what to order from nurseries this year. Think will go more for plants than seeds, got plenty of seeds. Got to figure out where to put them all of course, and manually till the soil and add the fertilizer from our equine lawn mower, plus chicken coop and compost pile. Also got to transplant the strawberry/rhubarb rows and the herb bed. Oh wanna move the lavendar, blueberries, walking onions, oregano, chocolate mint, and horseradish as well.

 

Got one of my beds covered with plastic to make a small "green house". Going to use that to get a few things started early.

One of the things I NEED to do this year is to get more trees planted at my BOL. So much to do, so little time!

 

Moved into a new home a couple of months ago. It's on an acre, and there was already a 40 x 40 garden out back. It was pretty overgrown, so it's taken quite a while to pull the crap out of it. Then I ordered a dump truck full of a rich garden mix and have been shoveling it into a cart & moving it back to the garden (and oh boy! hasn't that been fun!)

I've never been a serious gardener. Never had the time or the space for it. Now I have plenty of both. So I'll be planting all the normal culprits; various peppers and tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, spinach, a variety of lettuces, leeks, kale, onions, Kentucky wonders, Swiss chard, and Texas cream peas. Also got some 2nd year Mary Washington and Purple Passion asparagus, some everbearing and June bearing strawberries, some Issai Kiwi vines, and various berry bushes.

I also got some Cherokee White Eagle corn, and traditional Cherokee dipper gourds from the Cherokee nation this year, so I'll be trying my hand at those.

And I also made a separate herb bed where I'll be planting a variety of culinary and medicinal herbs.

Hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew.

 

We are town in the winter/spring for a few more years, so container growing is it. Cherry 'maters, gonna start a few heritage plants too, scallions, peppers (JEEZ! Did they go through the roof to store buy!) Country friends let us take home from their garden in trade for a little help in it now and them.

 

That's a great thing!

I added some lights to my tower garden to help with my indoor growing of leafy greens. May try a container variety of tomatoes on it. But for now it's greens and herbs.

My tomatoes have sprouted and almost ready to be potted. Borage is coming in nicely and I've got some cold weather tolerant plants that will be going to my mini green house soon, maybe this weekend.