Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Yeah, ivy's a problem around western Oregon, but not so prevalent on the coast and I don't have any. Much more prevalent in the Willamette Valley. The former house had some that we kept in check, but never managed to eliminate.

Japanese knotweed is along the waterways, but hasn't taken hold on our property... we get one or two plants starting a beachhead because they drift downstream from other patches, but I always yank them before the establish themselves.

I planted a few of my beds this week with peas, spinach, chives, parsley, arugula, onions, and several types of lettuce. Now I have to dig out the tarps because we're supposed to get 3-6" of snow on Sunday.

Some of my strawberries came, but I'm not putting them out until after it snows.

@ Papers of Indenture: You could create a swale and berm system going down the slope and then you wouldn't have to worry about either watering or drainage. Plants don't mind being planted on an angle, they will just reach for the sun, but water will seek the path of least resistance and pool. If you just try to step terrace, you will eventually have soil erosion. A swale is basically a trench that you dig out on the contour (follow the elevation of your land marked out with an A-frame level) and then refill with something like woodchips or stones. The soil that you dig out you use to create a berm right at the edge of the swale going down slope. Then you have larger more permanent plantings on top of the berm and use the ground beneath for beds for vegetable annuals or similar. How wide and deep you make the swales depends on your expected rainfall and the steepness of your slope. Basically, you want the geometry to work out so that the water sits in neutral flow in each swale and seeps out under the soil of your lower planting bed.

Wet week ensues after a dry, sunny week. Something that may not be obvious about my gardening style is I dry garden as much as possible. Sowings often occur just before the next rainstorm and my plant spacing during summer is greater than the intensive gardeners use. It's certainly easier to dry garden here on the coast than it is in the Willamette Valley.

First clear night last week produced a frosty morning. The spinach was looking a little unhappy, so I'll probably have to think about row covers for early sowings of spinach.

In the espalier orchard, all the little trees are budding, if not actually showing leaftips. Pink Lady trees are definitely first to show leaves. Gave them a little fertilizer yesterday after breaking up the ground some more. The groundwork has two functions, first to promote root growth and second to provide the opportunity to reprofile the soil to avoid having trees in low spots.

Despite having owned this property for 4 years, this is the first I've noticed a native cherry in the thicket outside the garden fence. Cherry blossoms gave it away. I think it was too small to bloom in prior years.

Daffodils have been blooming away for nearly a month. Thought the blooms were about done in the sunny days, gradually wilting, but they perked up during yesterday's overcast.

My onion seed finally sent shoots up. The onion sets/transplants that were drowning now appear to be recovering. Fortunately this week's rain will not be enough to drown them again.

It's been fun finding critters in the soil as I work it. Several big grey spiders and a couple big black beetles. The moles became very active last month and pushed up many mounds while they cleaned out their tunnels, but seem to be staying out of the garden. So far, I'm not seeing any slugs in the garden... did I manage to destroy their eggs & hiding places?

7Wannabe5 wrote:@ Papers of Indenture: You could create a swale and berm system going down the slope and then you wouldn't have to worry about either watering or drainage. Plants don't mind being planted on an angle, they will just reach for the sun, but water will seek the path of least resistance and pool. If you just try to step terrace, you will eventually have soil erosion. A swale is basically a trench that you dig out on the contour (follow the elevation of your land marked out with an A-frame level) and then refill with something like woodchips or stones. The soil that you dig out you use to create a berm right at the edge of the swale going down slope. Then you have larger more permanent plantings on top of the berm and use the ground beneath for beds for vegetable annuals or similar. How wide and deep you make the swales depends on your expected rainfall and the steepness of your slope. Basically, you want the geometry to work out so that the water sits in neutral flow in each swale and seeps out under the soil of your lower planting bed.

I've thought about this. Building a swale and berm is a bit intimidating. My entire 2/3rds of an acre property sits on a hill side. I would have liked to terrace but all of my slopes are uneven and nothing is level...making it an very big chore. I am situated at the lowest part of a river valley slope (http://gunpowdervalleyconservancy.org/). The edge of my front yard marks the end of the hillside and the beginning of the flat river valley. The river is about 85 yards past my front property line. My house is on the western slope of the valley, facing east.

I am installing some raised beds on the 5 degree slope front of my house. I want to install a food forest at the bottom of the front yard. I should be able to plant dwarf varieties without shading my vegetable beds due to the drop in elevation. There is an uneven slope between the raised beds and potential food forest location that could possibly be swaled.

I am still researching and trying to overcome tenativeness. I am concerned about microclimate/frost pockets due to my slopes and being in a river valley. The good news is that being situated low in the valley a surrounded by trees eliminates severe wind. I am on the fall line of the Piedmont Plateau and straddle zone 7a and 7b. Here's a quick sketch of the property. Any comments/suggestions are welcome.

I would be tentative if I were you too! How is water currently traveling down the hill and into the river?

7Wannabe5 wrote:I would be tentative if I were you too! How is water currently traveling down the hill and into the river?

The upper slope behind my house is wood lot dominated by large Tulip Poplars and a good amount of brush. Water doesn't really travel down the hill in any noticeable manner. I don't have any serious signs of erosion so my property seems to do a good job of soaking rainfall in. Once you cross the street in front of my house you enter forested State Park property. The topography on that side of the road is a flat, wooded floodplain. It's about a 250 foot walk through the woods to reach the River bank.

I've finally dug in my first leveled raised bed frame. Put some gopher wire down and now i'm ready to sheet mulch. I'm hoping to get another one in on Saturday.

My strawberries have arrived. What was I thinking? LOL

At least it's warm enough to fire up the tiller so I don't have to turn over the new bed by hand.

The Easter Bunny brought me a whole bunch of little green babies : ) My early outside sowing was a success! I'll be eating salad quite a bit earlier than usual this year. Of course, I'll do even better if I ever get my greenhouse properly up and running. It's funny how time flies when you are gardening. My ex-mother-in-law was telling me that her gooseberries have aged out of production after 20 years, and it just seems like yesterday to me that she was planting them because they were her favorite pie filling. One of the reasons I was determined to buy my own land to garden was that I never wanted to have to abandon a tree peony I established again.

The dead cat I found and encased in concrete mix due to squeamishness has become partially exposed again, although reduced to just fur. I found an extremely dirty dollar bill while picking up random litter, including a toaster somebody had run over with a vehicle, off my lots. My daffodil planting is hanging on the verge of display.

> Of course, I'll do even better if I ever get my greenhouse properly up and running.

Just finished erecting our aluminum frame greenhouse. 17 hours with two people (34 manhours), 120 sq ft. Directions were substandard and parts were fiddly, so can't really recommend that model. On the other hand: "we have a greenhouse!"

Some carrots are popping up. The kale and spinach and radishes are coming along nicely, but the lettuce is struggling and not many survived. First two planting of peas are about 6" tall. Third planting last week has already sprouted. Onions are hanging in there. The old established blueberries are probably not going to have a bumper crop this year, but the ones we brought here 4 years ago are going gangbusters.

Bees zipping around, really enjoying the native huckleberry bushes. Swallows are zooming around gathering whatever flying no-see-ums they find.

Of all the fruit trees we have planted, only the tart cherries and plums have bloomed in previous years.

Now we can add in the peach trees. Hundreds of blooms are forming on each of our three year old peaches. I can't believe how loaded they are. I'll be happy with one peach. They are going to be first to open, they are ahead of even the plums which are early.

We are still having frost here in Yorkshire, I am jealous of all you who already have seemingly active gardens! The weather has been great up to now, lots of sun and no need for hats and gloves when out with the dog at night. Cycling has been a joy and all the extra light of spring has been lifting my spirits somewhat.

I just haven't found the time to start planting yet. SO is keeping me busy with her weekend long birthday plans, spread out over 3 weeks... for some reason I am struggling to get over the inertia that set in last Autumn. However I have finally dug a second and third patch recently, I need to add a fourth this weekend. I have promised to increase my yield significantly this year and try grow right through the seasons. The cognitive dissonance of wanting to be self sufficient but still buying most of my veggies is starting to manifest itself into some sort of anxiety again, I really need to get going this weekend. If only I wasn't so burnt out after work to get some digging done.

I also need to dig an extra trench or two for my mass of seed potatoes. It is a daunting task without a rotavator or extra hands. The seed potatoes are chitting nicely now, SO is itching to get them out of the house. I just need somewhere to put them

vexed87 wrote:It is a daunting task without a rotavator or extra hands.

Hey you're young. Get off your ass and dig some grass...that's my motto. In fact I'd like to put a big advertisement out front that says that as all the neighbors actively cultivate grass. All that digging does wonders for your upper body btw. I bulk up every spring when I turn everything over.

Every time I've planted a peach or apricot tree, they die. Usually that black leaf blight, when there's any cause I can identify. Maybe a hundred inches of rain a year is a bit much for them. Wimps.

Gardening miracle!!! After mentioning my long-lost peonies in my above post this morning, I went to do some more lopping of miles of tangled non-productive grape vine and clearing away of archaeology of litter and debris, and guess what I found when I finally hit earth level? Peonies!!! Oh, the goddess always gifts me when I do my best

Venting. Just venting!

LOL, but that's all about the greenhouse. Sunny day, 60F outside, and the greenhouse is hitting 85F inside. Googling says 70-80F for most of the warm crops and 70-75F for sweet bell peppers. So... will have to learn the routine for venting.

vexed87 wrote:We are still having frost here in Yorkshire, I am jealous of all you who already have seemingly active gardens!

Oh, make no mistake, we've had frost 3 out of the past 4 mornings. Marine layer moved in last night and this morning was a touch warmer. The mean last frost date is May 1 here, but the plants that tolerate light frost have been doing well since February because we don't get much in the way of hard frosts after Feb.

I'm not moving until May 1st (afterwhich there hasn't been any frost in recorded history). Call me conservative or lazy, but I'm not going to take the worms out of the basements before survival is guaranteed. Also, it seems that seeds in the ground are just gonna stay dormant if the temps are too low anyway.

I'm mostly motivated by laziness here.

@jacob: The problem with the region in which we both garden is that there are at least two ways you can fail with spring-planted cool crops. It sometimes snows in April, but we can sometimes have scorching heat in early June too. Seeds are cheap. Labor is expensive. I am almost certainly 10X as lazy as you (witness Burpees challenge thread.) This is what I did.

1) Do not disturb soil that remains from previous year in raised beds or planters because too cold, wet and heavy.
2) Scatter seed of early leaf crops that can be eaten at any size, as thinned or harvested only leaf by leaf, such as spinach, red oak leaf lettuce, arugula and black seeded simpson lettuce in random fashion on top of soil.
3) Deposit or poke/cover seeds of early crops such as radishes and peas in more regular pattern in same beds.
4) Cover all with shallow layer of any sort of standard potting soil.
5) Cover with any sort of sheet of whatever if it is supposed to get seriously cold (like tonight.)

That's it. The brief period of warmth we had last week was enough to trigger germination/sprouting. So, now it's just a matter of watching over my Zone 1 plantings with about the degree of vigilance or effort I give to remembering to cook or eat food I purchased before it goes to waste. If the whole planting dies or never germinates I am only out maybe $2 in seeds and an hour of my time. If the early planting succeeds, I am maybe getting $2 worth of produce every day for an extra 30 days, say $60. So, if chance of complete fail is 50%, I am paying myself around $30/hr for making the attempt.

I wanted to mention that we're still eating the sweet potatoes pictured earlier. They keep really well. All we did was throw them in a cardboard box in the laundry room unwashed. They get tastier the longer they sit there. I'm definitely going to grow more of them this year. They are so easy to grow and store, and cook faster than regular potatoes.