How do you create a 4 season garden?
ruthie144
16 years ago
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glen3a
16 years agoKrista_5NY
16 years agoRelated Discussions
New 4 season gardener help Yellow Del apple in W. Mass.
Comments (2)Frank: My advice would be to look around online until you find a Goldrush tree. There are some similarities to Golden Delicious, but this variety tastes even better, keeps a lot better, and has inbred disease resistance in the tree. All trees deal equally with voles and moles. Poorly, especially if you have a serious vole problem. Moles eat insect grubs and are arguably beneficial. It will be up to you to protect from rabbits and voles with hardware cloth or some other solution if there are large numbers of these animals in your environment. Mulching is beneficial to nearly all fruit trees, but I wouldn't call it absolutely essential the first year. Yes, fall is an excellent time to plant apple trees. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA...See MoreHow do you keep vegetable gardening groove in the off season??
Comments (15)We have a 12 X 30' hoophouse to extend the fall and spring seasons. When the ground in the hoop house freezes in winter (as is happening today), I cover everything with remay for extra protection and wait for a stretch of warm sunny days to get things going again. It might be next week or the next thaw might not happen until April. Meanwhile, in the house, I've got potted herbs and cut and come again greens (arugua, lettuce, etc.) in all my east and south-facing windows. Tiny onions and shallots can be planted in pots for cutting too. I've found that I can dig up a piece of perennial herbs like oregano, lemon balm, spearmint from the garden in fall and put them in pots. It's best to do it early enough so they can adjust to the pot outside for a while before bringing them in. Tender herbs like basil and marjoram sometimes cooperate and let you dig them and bring them in too. This year I've got a pot of Thai basil indoors -- so far so good. My 20 year old Rosemary is trained as a standard. It goes into the ground in spring and gets potted up and brought in before winter. It loves the dry, circulating heat at a window next to the wood stove. Lemon grass, bay, meyer lemon and key lime plants all live permanently in pots, going out in summer and back in for winter. Scale is a problem with the latter 3 but occasional treatment with neem oil in summer and washing leaves in the sink in winter, keeps them healthy. For years I bought new organic potting soil for all these indoor pots but the last couple years I have dumped all used potting soil into a couple of old whiskey barrels outside and let the rain, air and outdoor micro-organisms, refresh the soil. When re-potting food plants to bring indoors, I add good compost and maybe some perlite if the soil seems too heavy. I add a squirt of fish and seaweed emulsion to my watering every week to keep the plants nice and green and producing new leaves even duing the short winter days. It works pretty well. Also last year I started a small vermicomposting operation in a 5 gallon bucket in the house. It's not an optimal container, but the worms are doing their thing and they create really nice potting soil from leaves/wet newspaper and a little kitchen waste. Amazing. We're going to start another vermicompost container and put the worms to work on our kitty litter (not for use on food plants!). The wood-based kitty litter is much nicer than the clay type and the worms should produce some good compost for use on ornamental plants outside. One more very easy winter harvest tip: grow belgian endive. Grow them as a root vegetable that you harvest in fall. I crowd the harvested roots, leaf side up, into a large plastic pot, put potting soil around the roots, water, and put the pot into a 5 gal bucket. This goes into a perfectly dark place with temps around 60 F. In a couple months you have gorgeous little white heads of endive. I like to exuse myself before a winter dinner party "to harvest the salad from the bedroom closet."...See Morehow do you create hills for gardening?
Comments (5)I do not make very high hills and I generally start the seeds indoors so that when I plant my plants they provide cover for there roots somewhat. The main thing is to mulch one your seeds emerge. I did not check to see what zone you are in and for that I apologize. In the northern part of the state say from Gainesville up you can hill and plant as usual. I have always furrowed my rows so that I had a nice 8-10 inch trough between them. If further hilling was necessary we scraped dirt into a mound and planted the seeds. Of course with Dad being a fishing person we could place the fish heads and guts under the hills to give the seeds a good head start. Fish emulsion works well in today's times. You then plant a few seeds to ensure you have one healthy plant and keet moist until the seeds sprout and once the leaves are off the ground good you can lightly mulch with leaves etc. I have grown many a squah, strawberry, potato, watermellon, canteloupe, casaba,etc this way. Hope this helps, Linda...See More4 season gardening in NM?
Comments (5)Sorry to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but the only plant you mention that will withstand even the first frost in Albuquerque (usually around end of October)is the Brussel sprouts. Or are you gardening in a greenhouse or some sort of structure that can be heated in winter? Winter gardening in the open in the high desert is limited chiefly to very hardy greens such as some types of kale, collards, lettuces, scallions, etc. But what one usually does is plant such things in the fall for an early harvest in spring. However, if you have the means to provide protection with such as bales and row covers, you may be able to eat these types of things all winter, if the winter is not too harsh....See MoreJansgarden
16 years agoshapiro
16 years agotrillium15
16 years ago
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