Want a tour of my garden? Photos

[garden5]

I think one reason Jal doesn't have the disease problems that we do with overhead watering is that he has far less humidity.


Poor Jal, he just wanted to show us some pics of his garden and here we are picking apart .

Make no mistake, Jal, your garden is just great. Keep up the great work (and don't stop with the pics, either ) .

[jal_ut]

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.

Here is a problem Eric. My lot is 165 feet wide and it takes three lines of sprinkler pipe to cover the width. Of course there is some overlap on the runs. I could drip the veggie garden, but there would still be quite a bit of overspray when the other runs were on. I still need to water the rest of my lot, so to do the garden one way, I should do it all the same. The rest of my lot is taken up with an orchard, a hundred or so shrubs and trees, some perennial beds and some large grassy areas. If a garden was all I had to water, I would consider it. What I am doing works very well. Why fix what ain't broken?

[garden5]

Are you a farmer or a gardener jal_ut?

Yes!

I am thinking back to 1980. If you are interested, [url=https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/Hungry.pdf]here is my story.[/url]

Great read, Jal. You really learned your stuff out of necessity, didn't you. I'm glad to see that you kept on gardening long after you really had to.

[specgrade]

Wow, have you wrote a book yet?? You write very well. What a life. My wife and I are raising two kids and gardening is a mere hobby to us. You did what it took to survive raising 13. God bless you and your family!

Thank you for sharing your story with me

[jal_ut]

Poor Jal, he just wanted to show us some pics of his garden and here we are picking apart .

Not to worry. This dialog is great. Isn't this what its about, the exchange of ideas?

[kgall]

I second the request for a book!
It would be great!

[DoubleDogFarm]

Not to worry. This dialog is great. Isn't this what its about, the exchange of ideas

I hope so, that's why I'm here. Now if they allowed politics and religion, what a heated dialogue that would be.

Jim,

With a pile of cash, even your 100 trees could be on drip irrigation. It's all based on the number of zones and size of pipe. My 60 plus trees and bushes are on drip. 3/4" mainline and 9 different zones. 2 of these zones are in my vegetable garden. I just have converted them, or you , to drip. The ain't broke part, Well

It's much easier and cheaper to install overhead sprinkler. I would recommend that your sprinkler heads are spaced head to head. In other words, the diameter of one should reach the head of the other. Kind of like the Mastercard emblem.

Jim, I hope it's all good fun. I think one learns more from constructive criticism, then always being polite.

Eric

[jal_ut]

Eric, my field lines are 4 inch pipe 40 feet long. So that puts a rainbird every 40 feet. Depending on the day and the pressure those birds will shoot from 35 to 45 feet. So I get 100 % overlap in the line of the pipe and maybe 80 to 90% overlap from line to line. My garden is about centered on my lot, so it gets hit some with the two outside lines too. I have enough pipe to solid set the lines and only move them in the fall and spring.

I finally got the area around the house and the orchard covered with underground popup sprinklers. I did a little each year for 5 years. It is nice to just turn a valve and water. I didn't put them on a clock because there is not always enough pressure to run right and a clock wouldn't know that. The pressure varies depending on what else is running on the line, I mean besides my stuff. It is a shared line.

Since this is irrigation water and comes several miles in an open canal, the water carries all sorts of stuff along. Its interesting sometimes what you find clogging up the system. I put a filter on the underground stuff, but no filter on the field lines. Yep, you guessed it, put on a filter then you have another job to clean it. You would need a filter with a drip system.

[jal_ut]

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/ss_aug_6_2010_%232.jpg[/img]

Sunset August 6

[DoubleDogFarm]

Thats a nice

[jal_ut]

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/sprinklers_1.jpg[/img]

In the background you can see a farmers field line running on an alfalfa field.
All of this area was dry farm before the irrigation project I told you about, including my lot. This picture taken this morning just after sunup.

[garden5]

Poor Jal, he just wanted to show us some pics of his garden and here we are picking apart .

Not to worry. This dialog is great. Isn't this what its about, the exchange of ideas?

You absolutely right, Jal; I was half-kidding when I said that.

Love the pics by the way. They waterbirds may not be the best for some gardens.....but they sure do make for a nicer picture than do drip-lines .

[jal_ut]

July 4, plenty of room for that squash......... right?
[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/squash_7_4_2010.jpg[/img]

[jal_ut]

Well, I ain't so sure! August,8
[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/squash1_aug8.jpg[/img]

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/squash2_aug8.jpg[/img]

Crookneck Leaf
[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/squash3_aug8.jpg[/img]

That is a yardstick.
[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/squash4_aug8.jpg[/img]

[gaberdeen]

Absolutely amazing. someday I dream of having the space to garden like that ! Kepp the pics coming.

[garden5]

I love the squash pics!

Is this the circular-seeding method that I've heard you speak of? Then method where you plant several seeds in a circle with circles 5 ft. equidistant?

Do you weed/cultivate in there? How is when it's time to harvest; do you break a lot of leaves walking through?

I like the yardstick photo.

[jal_ut]

Is this the circular-seeding method that I've heard you speak of? Then method where you plant several seeds in a circle with circles 5 ft. equidistant?

Yes.

Do you weed/cultivate in there? How is when it's time to harvest; do you break a lot of leaves walking through?

The area is cultivated and weeded until the vines take off. After that just stand back! The vining squash doesn't get harvested until the leaves freeze. Then it doesn't matter about stepping on vines/leaves.

I have to go with care to pick the summer squash. I should have put them away from the others, it would have been easier to pick them. I didn't expect the pumpkins to get so wild. They have grown right through the summer squash and clear over into the corn patch. Vines about 15 feet long and still growing.

[garden5]

Is this the circular-seeding method that I've heard you speak of? Then method where you plant several seeds in a circle with circles 5 ft. equidistant?

Yes.

Do you weed/cultivate in there? How is when it's time to harvest; do you break a lot of leaves walking through?

The area is cultivated and weeded until the vines take off. After that just stand back! The vining squash doesn't get harvested until the leaves freeze. Then it doesn't matter about stepping on vines/leaves.

I have to go with care to pick the summer squash. I should have put them away from the others, it would have been easier to pick them. I didn't expect the pumpkins to get so wild. They have grown right through the summer squash and clear over into the corn patch. Vines about 15 feet long and still growing.

I know how you feel. I think I'm going to keep my bush plants separate from my vining plants next year as well, or at least try to .

Do you find that you get a bigger harvest if you grow fewer sqash spaced farther apart rather than more squash crowded in? I planted mounds of summer squash really close this year and I'm thinking that they competed for nutrients too much. I think I'll give 'em more room to grow next year and see how that goes.

[jal_ut]

Do you find that you get a bigger harvest if you grow fewer sqash spaced farther apart rather than more squash crowded in?

I have taken to planting melons and cucumbers in rows with a seed about every six inches on cukes and cants, and a foot apart on watermelons. They do well like this, and when the vines get developed the leaves will cover every inch of available space.

I plant the summer squash and vining squash in hills, 5 seeds to a hill and space the hills 5 to 6 feet both ways. That seems like plenty at planting time, but as you can see it soon turns into a jungle. I get plenty of squash planting like this, and have never really tried spacing them out more to see what would happen. I am sure though that if you wanted a giant squash or pumpkin, you would get larger if you had only one plant and gave it 400 square feet of space. 20x20. I can say for sure, that plants benefit from having their own space and enough of it.

It is not evident in my pictures, but there is already some pretty good pumpkins in that patch. I will have enough for the grandkids.

Here is a pic of my watermelon patch taken Sunday August 8. Ya, I turned the camera funny to get it all in. You can see what I mean about the leaves covering all the space? There is a few little melons set on. I am hoping they make it.
[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/watermelon_patch.jpg[/img]

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/watermelon_small.jpg[/img]

[applestar]

Just as a "for instance" -- couldn't you plant some bush beans in the open spaces in between and get at least one harvest out of them before the pumpkins and squash move in? You could knock down/cultivate the bush beans after harvest just like you would the weeds.... Until then, you would have less area to weed.

I realize you have no need to -- you have the space to grow the bush beans elsewhere. Also, there's a nagging question in my mind that perhaps the "weeds" you hoe and mulch with might be putting entirely different set of nutrients back in the soil that the squash/pumpkins need, that replacing them with bush bean "hay" -- so to speak -- may, in fact, be not as beneficial....

[jal_ut]

applestar, Not enough time for the beans. I plant squash and beans the same day. My beans are still producing, and you can see the squash has completely taken over every available inch of territory.

Also, there's a nagging question in my mind that perhaps the "weeds" you hoe and mulch with might be putting entirely different set of nutrients back in the soil that the squash/pumpkins need, that replacing them with bush bean "hay" -- so to speak -- may, in fact, be not as beneficial....

About all I can say about this is that I feel all organic matter is beneficial to the soil. Be it beans or weeds, I don't think it makes any difference. Any weeds can be considered mulch, and it is going to take a while for it to be converted to plant food. It will be of more benefit to next years crops after the microbes have their way with it.

I like to do soil amendments in the fall. Add leaves and manure then till it all in along with what is left of the garden plants. My philosophy is to put more on than I take off. Some call this sheet composting.

[garden5]

So, I'm assuming that you don't trellis your cukes at all. Also, from you pic, it looks like your rows (melons) are about 3 ft. apart. Is this right?

From the size of that melon, It looks as if you'll be enjoying some watermelons this year :0.

When you till in leaves in the fall, are they aged, composted, or just fresh after they fell off the trees?

However you amend your soil, it sure seems like it's working .

[jal_ut]

So, I'm assuming that you don't trellis your cukes at all. Also, from you pic, it looks like your rows (melons) are about 3 ft. apart. Is this right?

I don't trellis cukes. Let them run on the ground.

That is one row of melons. There was about a 9 foot wide space left so I planted the melons up the middle of it. Now they are over into the beans and out into the grass. I hope I get a melon. There is maybe a month left before frost.

When you till in leaves in the fall, are they aged, composted, or just fresh after they fell off the trees?

Fresh off the trees. By spring they are mostly decomposed.

[applestar]

My father makes supports like the ones you make for beans (tripods connected at the top by cross pieces) out of sturdy branches for cukes.

I always "trellis them" in the sense that I plant them near a fence. I do have string trellises hung on the picket fence. This year, some of the cuke vines have decided that they don't want to climb up and are sprawling on the ground. I tend to forget to look on the ground so I keep finding overgrown cukes nestled in the mulch. So far, they have been discovered just in time. This morning's find is a bit close. I won't know for sure until I cut it up. But overgrown cukes past their prime are still delicious cooked. I usually put them in pasta sauce. My mom likes them in soup.

As you may know, the HGGF Book Club is currently reading about "natural farming" in One Straw Revolution. In the intro, the Editor Larry Korn talks about "kicking something hard" in the apparently overgrown undergrowth in the open spaces in the citrus orchard and finding a large cucumber....

[gixxerific]

A bit OT but than again. I do trellis my cukes as I don't have enough room to not.

Talking about finding the hidden ones. My neighbor tells me I have a cuke in his wood pile. I'm like what? SO I go out there and an errant vine has gone through the fence, they do that you know. But there is a cucumber (a big one) that has grown into and through the wood pile. Half outside the pile half inside. They kind of go where they want.

[jal_ut]

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/garden_2010.jpg[/img]

I got up on the shed for this shot showing the whole veggie garden. On the left, you can see one strawberry bed and some asparagus ferns.

[lakngulf]

What a beautiful picture jal. Looks like a postcard. You will have to start a bed, bread and breakfast so we can all come visit, at a reduced rate of course.

[gixxerific]

Very amazing James. Everything is so lush and green. I don't know how you do it.

[Ozark Lady]

I am still reeling from the comment on August 15th, about a month until frost?
Yikes! Short season!
I am still planting, transplanting and amending the beds!
In about a month I will begin construction of new cold frames.
And I will have lots of time to get them going before I need to use them.
I notice less bugs already, so soon, I will be able to get this garden going, now if it would only remember how to rain!

It rained the other day, for about 10 seconds, there were splatters on the topmost leaves, but not enough to hit the ground! You had to look fast or you wouldn't have seen it.

[applestar]

What a beautiful picture jal. Looks like a postcard. You will have to start a bed, bread and breakfast so we can all come visit, at a reduced rate of course.

I was thinking a bus tour across North America, picking up members along the way -- stop at jal's, maybe marlingardeners' too, tomf's, take a ferry over to DoubleDog's.... Oh, DEFINITELY stop at Ozark Lady's so we can help her out with all that milk....

One of these days, we'll have to do a group tour to Ecuador to visit Lorax.

[LindsayArthurRTR]

I am SO IN!!!

[garden5]

Wow, really like the whole garden pic. Any blueberries?

[jal_ut]

Sorry no blueberries. They don't like our alkaline soil.

[Ozark Lady]

Some days, it would surely be nice to be able to fly, or like on Star Trek, just beam over here or there. That way we could all meet here or there.

Jal, you have gorgeous scenery. Do you ever take it for granted, or do you each time you look at it, go... awww!

Speaking of milk, it is too hot outside, so I guess I will go make some cheese, and get the pressure canner going with a load of milk. There is cheese to slice and freeze (frying cheese), and a cream cheese to flavor and mold, hmmm... what do you guys like for flavoring cream cheese?

The Kefir culture looks done, I have never before tried Kefir, I have Kefir grains enroute, but for now I have a culture only.

[BP]

I belong to various hunting/fishing forums and then we have a few private ones too. Last winter we had a member travel from upstate NY to Michigan to ice fish Saginaw Bay and a couple other lakes. A few of us may be going to see him this winter. Last summer a couple from Wyoming made it for an event too. So I don't see why there couldn't be a gardeners meeting.

[BP]

Hey Jal, I've read somewhere here that you keep bees. How far from the garden do you keep them? Just the latest of my researching.

[jal_ut]

Jal, you have gorgeous scenery. Do you ever take it for granted, or do you each time you look at it, go... awww!

I am constantly in awe of the beauty of our area. "Nature is awesome in its majesty, and marvelous in its detail." JAL

I lug my camera around everywhere I go. I have lots of pictures of this area. Some are on facebook. search for jaloft at hotmail dot com.

The bees are not far from the garden. 100 feet at most. I never need to worry about the zucchini getting pollinated.

[SECRETGARDEN]

To: Greener Thumb -- You've done a fantastic job on your garden! (...and so nice and neat too! I love to see gardens well taken care of.) This may sound a bit naive...but is the drip irrigation just too cost prohibitive for 1.5 acres? I have been doing some planning for the future (possible purchase or rental of acreage) and was wondering about the drip irrigation issue with between 1 to 3 acres. (I live in n.e. Wisconsin also with a growing season from mid-May to sometimes early October.) Thanking in advance for your comments.

[garden5]

Sorry no blueberries. They don't like our alkaline soil.

Aww, too bad . Although, I'm wondering if heavy additions of compost and some sulfur couldn't fix that .

[SECRETGARDEN]

Sorry I didn't read all of your other posts before I wrote mine. That makes a lot of sense why you're watering the way you are (instead of the drip irrigation). (2 yrs. ago I planted a garden on the so. side of a home where I was temporarily housesitting. (Now I just plant tons of pots on my large patio.) I only used a water hose at the house & watered about every other day or so. The plants produced like crazy in Sept. but then got hit with blight in October. (My local extension has ways of preventing that so it was a learning lesson.) Anyway, I keep reading about watering tomato plants only below their foliage so that's what I do for my plants in the pots. I have no disease and no pests so far. (I DO, however, have earwigs living in my tomato pots & in my bell pepper pots. They were only eating the bell pepper plant leaves (& not too much damage) but now they're working on the peppers which are growing beautifully ...boring their way inside the pepper (with a perfect cylindrical hole) (only 1 baby pepper got damaged like that so far but I'm afraid there will be more). (I have not used any treatments on my plants so far. Any suggestions 2.5 mos. into the growing season?) I've heard that "Garlic Barrier" (Gempelers sells it online) -applied right in the beginning when plants are small is a great natural preventative for many pests but that it couldn't hurt if applied now when plants are 2-3 ft. high. Any opinion on that? (I've also tried putting clean metal tuna cans into the soil with veg. oil in them to trap the ugly little buggers but no luck so far w/that. The oil killed lge. dark moths & a few wasps but that's it.) Even though this isn't the "pest" part of the forum, I just thought I'd throw this part in there since I like your approach to gardening! Back to your garden, I TOTALLY agree...that since you have a garden that is SO healthy, don't change a thing!
I have been having a hard time understanding all this marketing hype in recent yrs. about packing more into less space. Your post hit the nail on the head. Plants need room for multiple reasons! I'm with you 100%! Keep on...keeping on!