Want a tour of my garden? Photos

[jal_ut]

Getting Watered


Beans and Potatoes


Broccoli and Cabbage


Carrots and Broccoli


Corn and Squash


Dill


Kale


Lettuce


Lettuce for Seed


Tomatoes and Pole Beans


Onions for Seed


Big Turnip


Zucchini

[BP]

Very nice! You have a very nice garden and amazing view. I look forward to your pics

[sassyjvg]

It looks magnificent, but technically, when I think of garden I think of maybe 1/4th that size. Isn't that considered raising crops or farming? Whatever the technical term is, it looks truly dynamic. How much help do you have maintaining this?

[Ozark Lady]

Wow, nice garden and view.
I think it looks like an estate!
How do you have time to do anything with such a large garden to keep up?

[tomf]

NO deer problems? You will be eatting well with that much of a garden. I bet you have a tractor.

[rainbowgardener]

Fabulous as always, Jal!

Have you thought about drip irrigation? I would think in your dry climate, throwing water through the air like that would lose a lot to evaporation.

[specgrade]

That's it! I quit!! How can I keep up???

Just Beautiful, jal_ut.

[Gary350]

Wow that is "NICE"! You must have a tractor to take care of that much land. I would love to have a garden spot that size. I love big sky country the view is great.

[rkunsaw]

I'm jealous.

[crobi13]

Beautiful!!

I, too am jealous of the amount of beautiful land & great view

[applestar]

The sky is so big! No wonder your vegs reach up so high and so wide
The night sky must be spectacular, too.

[Zapatay]

How much fun I'd have walking thru those rows.

You are very talented and gifted Jal As always thank you for sharing

[RyanDe680]

That turnip is huge!

[farmerlon]

wow Jal !!! ... that is a big and beautiful garden ... great job !

Are you sure that is a turnip, and not an organic Bowling Ball ?
(huge!)

[jal_ut]

Call it a farm if you like. To me its just a garden. Where I grew up a farm was acres of hay or grain. A garden was where you grew some corn, peas, squash and potatoes.

My lot is 1.5 acres. I have another place with 90 acres, mostly mountainous.
My veggie garden is 7500 sq ft. Then there is an orchard and perrinial beds of strawberries, asparagus and raspberries. I spend from none to 3 hours a day in the garden.

No deer problems. The mountai lion got the deer.

Drip irrigation is out of the question. The sprinkler system works very well and is the standard way to irrigate all over the West.

Yes, I do have a tractor.


Here is a sky shot from July 18

[hockeymom519]

Absolutely Stunning. I'm in awe of your garden. I love seeing your pictures.

[Ria]

Lovely, lovely, lovely is all I can say. Makes me seem to be playing in a dirt box though . Wow, to think I am so excited about my spindly looking plants in my little tree filled space. I would have so much fun walking through your "farm", and harvesting (Looks like a farm to me ) Do you take care of this all by your self? Great job.

[jal_ut]

Yes, I do take care of this by myself. I am retired so have plenty of time. I enjoy helping things grow. Here is a few more pictures: Click Here!

[tedln]

Beautiful Jal,

Wish I could grow kale, cabbage, lettuce, turnips, and broccoli in the summer.

Ted

[Shoontok]

This post is misleading. That aint no garden. Looks like a farm to me.

[Shoontok]

no matter what ya call it. Garden or Farm. U done good Jal and you live in a beautiful place in these here United States.

[garden5]

Do you do a lot of hoeing, Jal? Your garden looks very well weeded.

Also, do you do any mulching (leaves, hay, straw)?

[jal_ut]

Yes, I do lots of weeding and hoeing. When the plants are small, I run the rototiller between the rows a couple of times and this gets the majority of the weeds. It is an on going battle with the weeds.

Weeds = mulch.

I usually mulch with newspaper and grass clippings around the tomato plants. I haven't got it done yet this season.

[cherishedtiger]

So beautiful, makes me want to pack up and get the heck out of the city! Also puts my little 6'x6' garden to shame!!! But boy does it make me want to do so much more!!!

Yup thats my goal, move out of the city get some land and plant! Hey I bet you see stars at night! We get one or two little specks in the sky here!

Well done Jal, I love seeing pics of your garden!

[Avonnow]

Well I am now truly depressed - I would so love to have that much space. It is absolutely beautiful - I am sure you are proud of what you do. I bet it is a wonderful feeling getting out there and working it. I would love to know how it feels to bring in all that produce. Thanks for the wonderful pictures.

From Hot Bug infested Florida. - Not great for gardening - but I do love the beach view!

[gixxerific]

Amazing as always. Everything looks so lush and healthy. Mine is bordering on drought conditions. Not so pretty here.

Hard to believe the variety you still have growing. there. Lettuce, broccoli etc. Those have long been removed here but it's getting time to replant for us.

Your doing great James waiting for your harvest pics to come around. I'm sure you will have quite the haul.

[jal_ut]

The harvest is on going from May when the spinach comes on, there is always something to harvest. The lettuce is done now. Still getting side shoots on the broccoli. Beets, turnips, onions, carrots, green beans, cabbage, kohlrabi, summer squash all coming now. No cukes yet. No tomatoes yet. No corn yet. I have some impressive watermelon vines, but no melons growing yet. Hoping they will come. There are two green pumpkins big as basketballs. They will grow much larger I suppose. I have pumpkin vines going all over. If the size of the vines mean anything I should have a good pumpkin crop.

[garden5]

Looking at your signature line, your growing season is a month shorter than mine. You really bring in a good harvest in a small(ish) window of time.

Being in a desert climate, do you suffer from powdery mildew and septoria like the rest of us?

[gixxerific]

Looking at your signature line, your growing season is a month shorter than mine. You really bring in a good harvest in a small(ish) window of time.

Being in a desert climate, do you suffer from powdery mildew and septoria like the rest of us?

I believe he is in more of a mountain climate than desert. But if you are meaning no humidity yes that is what he has and no he doesn't suffer from those kind of disease much. Oh to have no humidity, wouldn't that be great.

I can't complain too much I have two months on Jal even with the high humidity it all comes around full circle.

Just to further this I'm not dissing Jal AT ALL with his shorter season he'll still trump me in total harvest by a landslide.

[jal_ut]

Being in a desert climate, do you suffer from powdery mildew and septoria like the rest of us?

No. The relative humidity is pretty low. Today 23%. That is higher than it was all through July. We don't get nearly as many of the fungal diseases as in areas of higher humidity. Nor are we bothered with snails and slugs much.

Our harsh winters kill lots of bugs, so we probably don't have as many pests as you at lower elevations. The insects that winter at lower elevations head this way as the weather warms up, but some years they don't get here before frost. Many years we can grow squash without any significant problems. No vine borers, cucumber beetles, Mexican bean beetles, and Colorado potato bugs, and such. I have seen these critters at times, but it is not every year.

We always have grasshoppers, aphids and cabbage moths. Some years the corn earworms get bad, other years they don't show up.

This climate is considered a high mountain desert. With annual rain fall around 15 inches. The daily temperture will often vary 50 degrees. Perhaps our main pest is "Jack Frost".

[DoubleDogFarm]

Jim,
Nice posting, pictures and scenery.

I keep looking at your small scale farm thinking how much more you could be growing. Tighter rows, closer plantings, less monoculture. It would be more labor intensive and probably couldn't use the tractor after planting. I know it works for you, just thinking out loud.

Drip irrigation is out of the question. The sprinkler system works very well and is the standard way to irrigate all over the West.

Would you like to elaborate on this statement.

I 'm also using overhead sprinklers, but I'm well aware of the water wasting, weed encouraging, dease spreading and erosion it causes. T-Tape is also used all over the West. I will be converting next year.

Eric

[applestar]

I just wanted to interject with a comment that in the past, when watering practices and tips were discussed, it always became very apparent that humid regions and arid regions have completely different watering needs. Overhead watering is one that I remember as being necessary for arid area to hydrate for foliar health.

[garden5]

I'm going to have to make the switch to either soaker hose or drip irrigation. I'm thinking that switching over to this instead of the usual overhead watering will go a long ways in reducing diseases.

[jal_ut]

I keep looking at your small scale farm thinking how much more you could be growing. Tighter rows, closer plantings, less monoculture. It would be more labor intensive

More labor intensive? Like I need that. I ain't gettin any younger.

Would you like to elaborate on this statement.

Perhaps you would figure out how much T-tape I would need to cover 1.5 acres? Don't forget the head lines and fittings to hook it all up, and the labor to install it and then move it everytime you want to do something on the yard. When you get that all figured out, you will have answered your own question.

but I'm well aware of the water wasting, weed encouraging, dease spreading and erosion it causes.

That's a lot of hype. I see none of the problems you note.

[DoubleDogFarm]

That's a lot of hype. I see none of the problems you note

I will just quote my mother on this, "I'm sorry you feel that way"

I'm sorry I don't always play pat-a-cake.

[jal_ut]

This is dry Utah. You must know we can't grow many crops without irrigation. The exceptions are very early planted grain crops like wheat and barley and alfalfa, which is a very deep rooted plant.

When I was younger the irrigating was done by diverting the streams into canals, then smaller ditches then the water was diverted onto the fields. This was called flood irrigation. Now you want to talk about wasteing water and erosion? Those streams of water often left the fields carrying soil with it.

Row crops had to be ditched between rows, which was usually done with a cultivator that had a ditcher blade on the rear. To get the water to run down each row was a full time job for someone. There was also the problem of getting the water onto the entire field. You always had high and dry spots. Water was appropriated on "turns". You got the water for a couple of hours every 6 1/4 days. So you had to be up at odd hours to irrigate on some weeks.

It was early in the 1960s, that farmers and engineers got together and designed and built a reservoir and a canal system and designed sprinkler irrigation systems to replace the flood irrigation. The resultant canal was at a higher elevation than the earlier canals and the sprinkler systems could be powered by gravity. The result was that now you could sprinkle irrigate the entire field, not missing any high spots, and there would be no run off. The systems were carefully designed and the pipes sized so that each land owner could water as needed without taking "turns" . There was of course guidlines about orifice sizes, number of rainbirds, and duration of sprinkling on each set. It had to be so that the system could handle the demand.

This was a boon to the farmers. The new system put thousands of acres under irrigation that had previously been dryfarm. Now they could raise 3 crops of alfalfa a year or boost yeilds on grain crops, or raise other crops. All this with the same water that had been available before, but mostly wasted.

Perhaps this will help you understand why I really like my sprinkling system? I really love to drive around and see that water coming out of rainbirds and turning the countryside green. (No farmer I know uses drip systems.)

[specgrade]

Are you a farmer or a gardener jal_ut?

I'm sure after all these years you and only you know what's best for your situation. Looking at the results, I wouldn't change a thing

[DoubleDogFarm]

Jim,

You are preaching to the choir, Eastern Washington history is the same. Have you heard of the Columbia river, Columbia Basin Project. It was finished in the earl 1940s.
http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/Columb ... roject.asp


http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/Irrigation.asp
The federal Reclamation Act, passed by Congress in 1902, authorized the government to aid the development of irrigation for agriculture and allowed settlers to own 160 acres for the purpose of irrigating crops. In the Columbia River Basin, the Reclamation Act led to an increase in irrigated acreage from 500,000 acres in 1900 to 2.3 million acres by 1910 (irrigated acreage grew to 2.9 million by 1925, 6.6 million by 1966, 7.6 million by 1980 and increased through the 1980s at about 53,000 acres per year). By 1928, some 3.5 million acres of farmland in the Columbia River Basin were being irrigated.


Being this is a gardening forum, I was talking about irrigating your garden. I, being in the landscape business, cold easly hook up your garden to drip irrigation. I've done many. T-tape is easly rolled up for tilling or plowing.

I will stand by what I have said earlier. There is less weeding, deases, erosion and I have read higher production, with drip irrigation.

Eric

[jal_ut]

I keep looking at your small scale farm thinking how much more you could be growing. Tighter rows, closer plantings, less monoculture.

I have to giggle at this DDF. If I want to grow more, I will just plow up more ground. Fact is, I don't need more, I grow enough for six families as is and much of it ends up worm food. I grow because I like to, not necessarily because I need to. There was a time when I needed to, but things are at a much slower and relaxed pace now. In those years that I really needed the food, I did learn how to produce it.

If you have followed my postings, you will know that I believe in giving plants room to grow. To be at their best, plants need room for leaves to catch sunlight, and room for roots to go out to gather water and nutrients, without too much competition. Most plants will have root systems which are as bulky as the above ground plant. The roots will be as wide spread as the canopy, or maybe even reach farther. We don't see this and forget that the roots themselves add loads of organic matter to our soils each season. My thinking is to advise people to give their plants more room, not less.

Close plantings are OK for those who do not have much space and want to get as much as they can into a limited space, but the plants suffer from competition. You may think that my plantings are spaced too wide, but I will guarantee you that every square foot of that soil space has roots in it, and most of that above ground space is covered by the canopy. There is no wasted space. The plants thrive with the space and reward me very well.

I am also lazy. I can't see fussing with all kinds of gadgets and procedures that make little or no difference in the amount or quality of the harvest. It is my goal to raise a bountiful crop with a limited amount of effort. Give the plants room, water as needed, keep the weeds, critters and insects under control, feed the soil, and you will be successful. (and have plenty of time for fishing)

Have a great day!

[jal_ut]

Are you a farmer or a gardener jal_ut?

Yes!

I am thinking back to 1980. If you are interested, here is my story.