Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Ralphy wrote:I enjoy seeing pictures of other peoples' garden setups - hope you'll keep us posted. Wishing I had planted strawberries this year.

I also love seeing other gardens. I'd love to see what people here do on a budget.

I'll start. We decided to expand the garden. I didn't have time to do everything from seed this year because we had so much clearing and building to do. Hopefully next year I'll be able to start everything from seed again. We added more raised beds for vegetables, fruit trees, berries, and I'm slowly working on expanding the herb garden.

The strawberries are doing well.


The new beds--tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and eggplant.



Raspberries and Blackberries


I don't have many flowers, but I planted some roses several years ago when my mother died. Without fail, they always bloom for my birthday.

6/1/14

Everything is from seed except the tomatoes and peppers.

Overview, from lower in yard:


Overview. Can see everything except a flower patch, and the patch against that garage is not visible


Left: Greens - salad and spinach
Right: Cabbage, Broccoli, Carrots, Swiss Chard


Closeup of the greens. They are very dense. I'm eating a lot of salads but not making headway so I think I'll freeze some for smoothy use.


Bell Peppers:


Tomato section.



Sunflowers (for use in the flower section that isn't visible in the pictures)


I think these are squash and zucchini. Those are wildflowers along the garage. Too dense (they came in a huge bag and I sowed a lot)

I am loving it too. We took all the good topsoil off and put a shed over our garden. Just not enough time!

Makes me want a garden, but the apartment isn't exactly conducive. Though, at least I don't have a lawn to mow.

Nice! You guys are giving me plant size envy. I started everything from seed this year but procrastinated due to global climate change shortening the spring planting season to about two weeks in my neck of the woods. I also had to put up an extra layer of fencing because a creature I have named the Cookie Monster munched down all my broccoli last year (but, oddly, did not even touch the cauliflower. ) and the neighborhood is rampant with Eastern Cottontails. So, my vegetable patch pretty much resembles a prison camp filled with premature infants at the moment.

On a brighter note, I looked up my location on the USDA Web Soil Survey site and determined that my urban/suburban backyard is prime farmland with a potential depth of > 200 cm. I also have no shortage of compost material or water since I am a short walk away from a good river and my main challenge besides the varmints and erratic weather is too many shade trees.

My expenses so far were:

Vermiculite: $15
Seeds: $14
Sturdy stakes: $5 (at estate sale)

Mine is nowhere near as nice as y'alls, but it's going in tomorrow. I think I'll add a raised herb bed close to the cabin (the garden's about a quarter mile away).

Chad wrote:Makes me want a garden, but the apartment isn't exactly conducive.

Have you thought about balcony gardening (if you have one)? My MiL is doing that quite successfully with tomatoes, onions and peas. I'd like to try, but I don't stay home long and often enough:)

henrik wrote:

Chad wrote:Makes me want a garden, but the apartment isn't exactly conducive.

Have you thought about balcony gardening (if you have one)? My MiL is doing that quite successfully with tomatoes, onions and peas. I'd like to try, but I don't stay home long and often enough:)

Unfortunately, the one issue is it doesn't get any direct sunlight do to the positioning of the building and the roof covering the balcony. This is why I really haven't given it a try.

ffj wrote:Oh, and chickens.

Nice hens! I think about keeping chickens, but honestly I don't want the responsibility now.

My wife and I keep a garden in our urban back yard. I built 5 raised beds which we filled with 3 yards of soil supplemented with peat moss, vermiculite, compost, and fertilizer. A timer triggers a sprinkler and drip irrigation system each morning. Between the good soil and the regular watering, the plants thrive.

We also compost kitchen scraps and yard waste.

This is our second year gardening at this scale, and we are very happy with the results. The output to work ratio seems good.





This year we are growing: Lettuce, Kale, Spinach, Carrots, Onions, Garlic, Peas, Green beans, Tomatoes, Cherry tomatoes, Bell peppers, Gypsy peppers, Superchili peppers, Banana peppers, Jalapeno peppers, Corn, Squash, Cucumbers, Asparagus, Strawberries, Blueberries, Blackberries, Sunflowers, Dill, Basil, Sage, Thyme, Oregano, Rosemary, Chives, and a Banana Tree.

Optimal Solution:
- What are those tall plants on the left in the second picture? Your tomatoes are way ahead of mine! Your plants are looking great.


ffj:
- Is that your house in the background? (the small, dark one) Looks great!
- What kind of fruit trees are those in your other pictures? Pears? Apples? ???

@ffj

Yes, those are mammoth sunflowers. We grew one last year and it reached about 10 feet.

There is a tree in front of the house that we could replace. I'm contemplating a peach tree.

Here comes the fruit. (sorry, I keep forgetting to take horizontal pictures )







Does anyone know why the peaches would be falling off the tree too early?

Nice looking gardens. we as well have a garden. DW likes to grow flowers, me vegetables. I have a small greenhouse maybe 1 m2. I grow cucumber, chili peppers and melon in there. I have tomatoes and a few plants with raspberries. We have a vine plant with no grapes on it (yet). I also grow potatoes, onion, red beet, squash, radish, peas and rhubarb. I will try to take some pictures later.

This year I've been experimenting with onions. So far, onion sets have proved very reliable and reasonably inexpensive compared to the price of grown onions from the store. Onion seeds sprouted, but did not take off. Seeds for green onions (and I've tried a few varieties) will sprout in the spring, but then never gain any size until fall...

The other experiment, in general, has been finding out what plants the invasive domestic bunnies are eating. Potatoes and onions both proved to be safe, so I'll not keep them under chicken wire next year. Green beans were mildly attacked (50% survival), but hard to tell if it was slugs or the bunnies and the bunnies have left them alone once they're adult plants.

Edit: forgot to mention that slugs mowed down all the carrots shortly after they sprouted.

The GF and I finally started our paltry garden. I was too lazy/indecisive to decide which part of my lawn to dig up for garden beds, so we just planted some stuff in the flower beds surrounding the house, and some herbs in pots. We don't have any idea what we're doing but stuff seems to be growing. I'll try to get some pics of it later.

Ups and downs in the garden this year. We lost one of the fruit trees. I'm transplanting all of the herbs into pots so I can take them inside for the winter.







I had to buy the veggie plants you can see in the background because my $*%@# dog dug up what was there.

I love what this guy has done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifH04n4lpvY

Great posts....and inspiring..

I'm looking for advice. I'm starting from scratch. I live in an apartment and i have a back porch i can use with a tiny yard. I can't dig into the yard.

What do you recommend I start with? I want something I can start growing and eating.....

Simple is better....I live in Boston. It's hot of course now because it's July.

I welcome some ideas. I want to start planting something soon. Could I plant kale, romaine, or any kind of leafy greens right now to use in my green smoothies?

thanks

tylerrr - get some pots and soil. You'll probably want to start with pots that have a hole in the bottom to let excess water drain out (or if you get some without, make some holes).

The normal planting times for most leafy greens are earlier in the spring, and some you can plant again later - like in August? Those are the recommendations though.. I'm sure there are some that could work but you may need to do a bit of research on temperatures and sunlight.

If you don't mind spending a bit on plants rather than starting from seed, you could get a sizable tomato plant (i'd recommend cherry tomatoes), and that will make you some tomatoes fairly quickly. It's probably too late to plant tomatoes by seed.

The most important thing is just to get started. Get some containers, dirt, and seeds and try it out. It doesn't take a big investment of money or time to get started and you can learn as you go.

C40 wrote:tylerrr - get some pots and soil. You'll probably want to start with pots that have a hole in the bottom to let excess water drain out (or if you get some without, make some holes).

The normal planting times for most leafy greens are earlier in the spring, and some you can plant again later - like in August? Those are the recommendations though.. I'm sure there are some that could work but you may need to do a bit of research on temperatures and sunlight.

If you don't mind spending a bit on plants rather than starting from seed, you could get a sizable tomato plant (i'd recommend cherry tomatoes), and that will make you some tomatoes fairly quickly. It's probably too late to plant tomatoes by seed.

The most important thing is just to get started. Get some containers, dirt, and seeds and try it out. It doesn't take a big investment of money or time to get started and you can learn as you go.

excellent! You recommend any particular dirt/soil ?