Getting ready to garden

rkunsaw

rkunsaw

Well-known Member
Location
Clarksville, Arkansas,USA
The past few days have been a bit nicer weather wise so I've been busy outside. I bought some landscape timbers to surround a couple of my wife's flower and herb beds and got them in place and fastened together. Then I hauled two trailer loads of compost to fill one of the beds. That was the last of the finished compost so I'll have to buy a truckload.

I also have broccoli and cauliflower seeds sprouted and growing in the window.
 

Down here in Texas, we are still in a drought!! We have given up on both veggie and flower gardens!! With the drought we also have a grasshopper problem!! They devour everything!!
.
06-19-2012 002.jpg
.
06-19-2012 004.jpg
.
06-19-2012 003.jpg



 
I have made a new garden spot and am planning on planting a flower garden with a least one flower from each letter of the alphabet....from azalea to zinnia.......but today its 20 degrees frozen and snow covered.....
 

Pappy said:
Ken. Do the grasshoppers come every year or is this a every few years thing? Like the cicada which comes around every seven years.
Click to expand...

In the past, they would come every 7 years or so. With drought conditions they are here for the past 5 years!! 2014 was not too bad, previous years they stayed for 5 months!! My neighbor lost 5 peach trees, omg.gif they ate even the bark off the tree and killed them. They ate onion plants right down to the bulbs!!

Hopefully we will get our normal spring rains to kill off the pests..
 
rkunsaw said:
The past few days have been a bit nicer weather wise so I've been busy outside. I bought some landscape timbers to surround a couple of my wife's flower and herb beds and got them in place and fastened together. Then I hauled two trailer loads of compost to fill one of the beds. That was the last of the finished compost so I'll have to buy a truckload.

I also have broccoli and cauliflower seeds sprouted and growing in the window.
Click to expand...

What other types of veggies do you plan on having??
 
Ken N Tx said:
What other types of veggies do you plan on having??
Click to expand...

I'm not sure yet. We have so many beets, peas, green beans, sweet potatoes and other things in the pantry and freezer I'll have to see what we need. Our potato crop wasn't too good last year and I didn't plant corn last year so those two for sure. We have dedicated four new raised beds to strawberries. We also have a permanent asparagus bed. Garlic was planted in the fall. We always plant onions, tomatoes and radishes. We usually plant okra but our freezer is full and the neighbor who always took half of it died a few months ago.

Jalapeno and Tabasco hot peppers and Red Marconi sweet peppers. Dill, cilantro, sage and other herbs too. My wife grows most of the herbs in with her flowers.
 
It will still be a few weeks before I get the working-in-the-garden fever. Well, unless we get some unseasonable spring-like weather. Then I'll probably do like I've done before and get all gung ho to get started, only to be slapped back into the reality of winter when the fake spring is over. I envy those of you who can get started already. Ark, it sounds like you're far enough south in the state that planting is just around the corner.
 
I usually wait until Mothers Day....around the 10th of May...before I plant anything in our garden. The ground is usually so moist...heavy clay...that just getting it dried out enough to till, can be a waiting game. I'm going to try something different this year. I have been putting some of the ashes from our outdoor wood furnace in the garden, and will till that in when Spring arrives...hopefully, that will help lower the acidity of the soil. We usually get so many vegetables that I wind up giving half of them to the neighbors, or the Senior Center up in town.
 
Can't plant anything here now until April. Having a fairly 'easy' Winter up to now, but cold with a few light snow showers at times.Nice to see the Spring bulbs coming through, snowdrops are out and the primroses, with a few shoots of the daffodils and iris showing.We can only dream of growing citrus fruits here [even in Summer.]
 
We had grasshoppers here in 2014, and it was the worst infestation I can remember. I hate the things -- for the damage they do and the fact that they creep me out when they jump right up on you. For a while every time I went out they'd be jumping alll around --yech!
 
rkunsaw said:
I started some Red Marconi pepper seeds today. Got to get potatoes and onions planted if the ground ever dries out.
Click to expand...

I hear ya on "the ground dries out". We haven't had that much snowfall this year, but the yard is like walking on a sponge, and the garden is a sodden swamp. It seems like, most years, it's early May before I can get anything in the ground, and this year will probably be the same.
 
We can't really get started until sometime in April. Cold weather tolerant crops such as cabbage, radishes and lettuce go in around then. We're finally starting to get some nicer weather so the planting itch has started.
 
I planted potatoes, onions, some radish and carrot seeds, and planted cauliflower and broccoli I had started from seed in January.

The raised beds are fine but the main garden is still too wet and more rain expected tonight.
 
How about okra? I remember when we lived in AR we tried growing peanuts and they did pretty well despite the high clay content of the soil (how do you spell the adjective formed from the word clay?)
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top