The 90% ers

I have a mountain of cardboard just waiting for the garden. I wish I had been smart enough to collect last year so I could have put it down last fall. BUT, I am determined to make it work with the bedding/waste hay/old hay I pull from the barn.

I refuse to spend all my garden time weeding. It's too big for that crap!

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“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson.

With potatoes, beans, pork and chicken, I could keep the family going as long as it lasted. Throw in some onions and garlic and would be a lot better.

A few greens and tomatoes and we would be feasting. And I grow all of that in quantity.

Deep mulching is my plan for this year. along with cardboard from work.

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" Do or do not, there is no try. " - Yoda

Interesting! I tried growing a 14' row from store bought potatoes--they were sprouting and weren't good anyway, and I cut the eyes like I learned from my dad as a kid-I ended up with about a quart of potatoes they were good though..do I need seed potatoes instead?

What do you anchor your cardboard with? I have never used it as a mulch. I do get a lot of newspaper from my office and make nice thick layers with it and then top with grass clippings. We mow often so we have minimal seeds in the clippings. I also usually burn off the grass, newspaper mulch at the end of the growing season.

B

I think I've decided I will do as follows:

Scoop out the barn as soon as ground can be worked. Till in as much barn bedding as I can fit. Wait. Plant everything, then cover the surrounding ground with cardboard and top with loads of old hay, bedding, compost, grass clipping, whatever I can get my hands on.

I plan on using three layers on cardboard. "watering" each layer until it's wet enough to stay down, then adding the next layer. From what I understand watering it down is the trick. Keeps it in place during the process, and also gets the composting started. So, throughout the growing season all of that loveliness is going to be composting into my soil and smashing out weeds. I do believe this will effectively get my permanent beds started.

At the end of the season I am going to do a traditional sheet mulching to go into the winter to really get my beds going.
I have a source for free wood shaving mulch that I am going to put down in my pathways with gusto.

Can you tell my main goal this year is ending the weed battle?

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“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson.

Our potatoes, are ansestors of potatoes just like you did. I get plenty and what I have sprouting in the spring gets planted.

A word of advice for useing cardboard and newspapers,both of which I do- When the grass clippings I put on top start to rot ,it can become very slippery when wet. Be real careful walking on it, I've wrenched my already bad back too many times.

Thank you for the tip. I wouldn't have even thought about that, but you're totally spot on.

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“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson.

How big is your garden? My last "real" garden 2 seasons back was 35 x 65 and I struggled with having enough mulch. This season we are planning 32 x 80. It will require a huge amount of mulch.

Mine is 50x110. Yes, I am going to cry as I load, transport, unload, and attempt to spread all that mulch in the pathways.

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“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson.

Hannah are you sure you need the cardboard?
I dump all the waste hay right on the soil. The worms won't be able to get to the hay to break it down through the cardboard. The act of the hay breaking done nourishes your garden and the worms going up and down aerate it and keep it loose.
I put hay 6 inches thick, no weeds and you can push your fingers down into the soil no need for a spade.
I have three gardens the largest is about 70 x 100, the smaller is about 50 x 70 and the smallest is round about 300sq ft.
I do thick hay on all three. I put it on all year round. Now I am putting it in piles in th garden till the snow melts.

I grew potatoes successully for the first time this year. I loved potato growing, but, I realized that I needed a large area to grow enough potatoes to last the year. I grew 20 potato plants this year. I think I would need to plant 600 to have a good chunk of food.

One thing that popped into my mind when 7 was talking about meat and potatoes as opposed to rice is that if one wants to grow most of their food then they have to eat what they can grow on their land. Rice does not grow well up north, so potatoes are better to grow. Grains to grow up north to replace rice would be wheat, oats, and rye. You can use them the same way you use rice. Rice is kind of exotic.

I started two flats of seeds today:
36 cells of de cicco broccoli
18 cells of calabrese broccoli
6 cells of cimarron red romaine lettuce. I plan to start more every 10 days.
and a mass planting of white lisbon bunching onions

It may seem a little heavy on the broccoli, but we are out and are having withdrawals.

Some of these items will be transplanted into the greenhouse beds while others will go into the garden and covered with protective plastic when necessary.

I still haven't posted my list yet because it keeps changing!! Anyone else have that problem?

Belle

Since we're moving, I'm just starting small. Paste tomatoes, one or two regular tomato plants, banana peppers, more broccoli, romaine lettuce, beets and green beans, then the trees, gala apples, some kind of peach. The mints of course will come with us, plus hopefully some herbs.

I have one garden 40x80 fenced. Another aprox. 40x40 we plant corn and most vineing crops in, usally 4 diffrent sweet corn diffrent ripening dates for an extended season. 9 raised beds each 4x8. I also have large areas mass planted with crops like J.Artichokes, Grapes,Herbs,Blueberrys,Rasberrys(Golden and Red) Flowers. These are closley planted, which keeps out weeds. I just topdress with compost in the spring and remove young new plants to share.I consider the area arround the house my garden and plant all over. Tho we have 40 acres,the rest of the land provides feed for our livestock,but the "yard" supplies much. One dosen't need acerage to provide the bulk of their food.

Steff, if I thought I could cover the whole thing with that much hay I would. I just don't think I am going to have enough. So, I am collecting the cardboard as a safety net. I was miserable in garden season 2012. Mostly because it was probably the worst dadgum year to ever start gardening.

I had someone telling me we couldn't DO mulch because it was too hard and it didn't work. So, I weeded the whole cotton pickin' thing by myself. Of course, said person didn't see me doing all this work. Ya know, I would much rather work hard in the spring when it's nice and cool, scooping, hauling, spreading bedding and hay and using cardboard than weed such a large area (for one person) all summer long.

I was out in my garden every morning by 5 just to beat the sun and the heat. I usually stayed out there until 10am. Weeding was what I mostly did. I think I weeded more than I harvested. Finally, by august I went and got some black landscape plastic and put it down in bad areas.

Ok, moral of this story is . . . Do not let someone tell you what to do when they aren't even going to do it themselves. This year, the only opinion that matters in my garden is mine... and you guys, because you have good ideas

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“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson.

Working on some exchanges of fruit tree cuttings today. So far, I've locked in a swap of scionwood from my two plums, an asian pear and autumn olives for a new type of fig, apple, cherry and a prune type plum. Hopefully more to come...

I would rather buy a large round bale than use cardboard but I am a bit fanatic about what goes on my garden, ink and chemicals and the like.
If buying a round bale is an option they work great, they unroll in thick sheets.

Steff,

I considered that when I was thinking about cardboard. I decided I would use it for this year since hay prices are so high. I have my own hay field, and I had a bale set aside for this purpose, but I got stuck over wintering an animal that I didnt plan for.

So, I'll go ahead and use it this year and let it compost into the ground and plan for a couple round bales this fall. I wish I could get into the position to get my own straw. All these things are so expensive these days.

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“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson.

You can grow olives in our zone? WOW! That's good to know, thanks. I am like you, and I am researching perennials and focusing on putting those in first. But I am including edible flowers etc... in that list.

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"Relish your reading. Make note of the melody of the phrases, the architecture of the page. Let the joy of discovery soak right down to your bones!" Dr. George Grant (paraphrased)

Hi Cindy

Here is a place with quite a bit of olive cultivation info that may not be too far from your area:
http://www.oregonolivetrees.com/

The links on the site are a bit touchy on my browser, but it's worth poking around on there for awhile to read their story and some of their pictures are excellent.

Glad to hear you are working on the perennials - let me know if there is anything I can send you re: cuttings/scions. I have a post in the barter sub-forum that I need to update...

Edible/medicinal flowers and herbs are wonderful additions to the homestead