Shanghaisky's 2017 Garden

[Shanghaisky]

Well, it's our first real growing season since we've moved to Zone 5a/b (30min SE Albany, NY), from Western North Carolina, and I've got to admit it's been a very slow start. We've had a long (though not particularly brutal) winter - first snow in the beginning of November, and just now at the beginning of May have the night time temps been steadily in the low 40's or more.

We're on the first floor of a 3-floor 1800 farm house with an enormous pasture out back, butted up against a beautiful creek (or Kill as they call them here..), with a decent sized community garden for the tenants to share. Since at least August (when we moved in), the plot has been under tarps trying to kill off a massive Canadian Thistle problem, and I think it's done pretty well. I just pulled the tarps up last week and started getting rid of the sad little strained weeds in the area we're planting. Not much has grown back quickly, compared to just outside the garden fence where the buggers are bigger than my head!

I got a late start to ordering seeds, too. Picked a few varieties to start and see how things go off of SeedsNow. Should be arriving today or tomorrow. Picked up a couple of sad little Bonnie Romas from Walmart to repot while the soil amendments soak in and everything has the finishing touches before real planting/transplanting, and they're doing much better now with some nitrogen and sunlight.

The ground was at first a little disappointing. SO many thistle sprouts and an incredible amount of rocks. The kids and I (3.5yr and 15 month old) spent two mornings pulling rocks and hand turning the soil to find more, bigger rocks, and we've got several inches of really NICE soil now free of the biggest rocks. Still plenty of quarter sized pebbles, but I've got my sanity to look after, so they're going to stay put for now. Added a few inches of humus/manure mix to the top of the plot, and will be adding some leftover worm castings and mixing it all in.

I wasn't sure about how to plant - I've got it laid out at about 4x12 right now, and I am thinking of doing a grid a la square foot gardening, rather than rows. I've got carrots and beets, the two Romas, spaghetti squash, bush beans, dwarf sunflowers, basil, chamomile, and I'm probably forgetting what else for the spring/summer go. Thinking to stick the climbers/supported plants at one end, and everything else everywhere else. Also have some marigolds to line the perimeter.

Anywho... let's see how this pans out! Praying for a bountiful harvest and not too many unsolvable problems in our maiden season.

[rainbowgardener]

What a wonderful place! We would love it if you would post a couple pictures!

It takes patience. Hopefully you will get some harvest this year, but don't expect it to be huge. The foundation of a good garden is good soil and it takes some seasons of building your soil to get there.

Lee Valley Tools, which sells a variety of garden tools that are very solid and well made for reasonable prices, has a rock rake which should help with getting some more of the rocks out:

http://www.leevalley.com/us/garden/page ... at=2,44821

Do you have a compost pile yet? If not, get started now! It won't help for spring planting, but if you start now, you should have some good homemade compost for fall. Best thing you can do for your garden! In the meantime, keep adding all the organics can. Be sure to keep everything mulched, as soon as your plants are big enough to stick up over the mulch. You can use any combination of straw, grass clippings, pulled weeds, shredded paper, fall leaves, etc. A thick layer of mulch will help suppress all those weeds, will conserve moisture, and will eventually break down to feed/ build your soil.

Keep us posted on how it is going for you. What an adventure!

[Shanghaisky]

Thanks, rainbowgardener! The girls and I have just spent the last few hours digging up some MASSIVE thistles... I know I just severed them at the root and they are going to grow back, but I hope that by continuing to just hack them away they will be manageable. These are outside the garden confines so I'm not concerned with their taking nutrients from the soil - I just don't want my kids getting skewered with their huge barbs! I'll see if I can post some pictures from my phone.. One I hacked out was quite frankly somewhat radioactive looking. Ha!

We also took the bigger rocks we pulled from the soil previously and made a nice little border around our bed. The garden had been used previously but except for the raised bed which the 3rd floor tenant has used for tomatoes every year, the rest has been under tarps for a long time. I think the soil is nice, if not a little sticky (almost like clay.. it is very moist and stuck to our boots in big muddy clumps after a nice rain last night.. sigh). I think I understand the reason for the rocks. Hopefully over the next few seasons, mixing in lots of organics will help to fluff it up.

Edit: You can see the sheer amount of rocks in the un-bordered part. We did a ton of digging and pulling rocks, and I'm afraid we may have left too many under our bed. Ours is the bordered one with the nice fluffy bagged stuff on top. It is a few inches deep, and under that about 2-3" can be easily pushed into with fingers, but then it gets compacted and very sticky/clay like. Will growing some root crops in these spots help to loosen things up? -- The second picture is the biggest thistle I chopped out. It broke my shovel handle. Albeit an old, wooden shovel handle... still...!!! Glad these babies are under better control in the garden plot itself.

[Shanghaisky]

Tonight the girls and I planted everything! Trying to plant with a 15 month old who wants to pull up all the markers and stomp across the soil is a challenge.... But we got it done! Just need to transplant the maters and a couple sad looking marigolds. We did:
Genovese Basil
Noble Giant Spinach
Dark Green Romaine
Swiss Chard
Boltardy Beets
Danvers Carrot
Landreth Bush Beans
Wando Peas
Emerald Giant Green Bell Peppers
Red Burgundy Onions
Spaghetti Squash
Crackerjack Marigolds
Sungold Dwarf Sunflowers
Roman Chamomile
and we will transplant two Roma tomatos soon

All on 4'x12' with a generous 4'x2' empty plot for re-sowing any greens or whatever may find its way in. Everything just fits. I hope it all works.... watered from the creek it sits next to... gotta say it's a nice little "rustic" addition to the whole process!

Now we wait...

[rainbowgardener]

Wow! that sounds like a LOT of plants for a 4x12. You may find it getting over-crowded once things start getting bigger. But since you have other space, you can just dig things up and re-plant them else where. I did that with a row of broccoli that came up too crowded. Turned it in to two rows of broccoli, the second being in the middle of my potato patch.

[Shanghaisky]

Wow! that sounds like a LOT of plants for a 4x12. You may find it getting over-crowded once things start getting bigger. But since you have other space, you can just dig things up and re-plant them else where. I did that with a row of broccoli that came up too crowded. Turned it in to two rows of broccoli, the second being in the middle of my potato patch.

Yeah, I am thinking so. However I am hoping that by having limited the big ones like squash, peas, and beans to one or two plants once they come up and I can thin them, that the rest will be alright. After the season's over, I'll be tilling everything in and working out another bed or making this one longer. I did find it a squeeze to plant in. I'm not sure what will even come up this time around, as it's been laying fallow for who knows how long, with a big Canadian Thistle problem... I'll be updating for sure!!

[Shanghaisky]

A quick update with some photos from the front porch containers. A megabloom from one of the Romas, and the tiny little starts of some Sweet Basil and Roman Chamomile. I think the Chamomile needs to dry out a bit - it's been raining this week so far, and I am pretty sure chamomile likes it a little less soggy... ? Going to see if anything is up yet in the garden later today (doubt there is, though I did see what I think may be a marigold starting already.. we shall see).

Edit: lots and lots of little marigolds everywhere (including outside the bed.... oh well) and a few carrots were up. Unfortunately the carrots were rebels who escaped into the greens patch so they got plucked. Also, something came along and scratched up my bean seeds, but spit them out on top of the soil. I hope they didn't steal anything else. So I replanted the beans, and hopefully I won't need to put up netting/row covers yet, but we will see.

[Shanghaisky]

I think we have a couple of sprouts! Maybe a world record, it looks like POSSIBLY the peas are sprouted.... maybe some birds dropped some thistle seed in my garden... LOL. We will see when they get bigger. Also lots of marigolds and possibly some romaine starting up, as well as maybe one little basil? It's been much cooler, and the crust of the bed is dry while 1/2" down and beyond is still damp and cool. I'm sure my peppers and hot weather seeds are keeping cozy under there while the weather is cool, and they will pop up sooner or later.

Very interesting, some kind of enormous beetle was buzzing around and burrowed into the top of the soil. I tried to poke it to uncover it and get a good look but it flew off. Akin to a scarab, but brown. About the size of a nickel. *shrug*

I tarped up the exposed ground in the rest of the garden as the thistles were popping back up. Girls had fun splashing in a puddle while I carefully inspected all the tiny little pieces of green I could see, and pulled some of the weeds. A nice morning

I also made a Garden Tracking spreadsheet copied from one I found online. I have it as a numbers spreadsheet and printed it out so I can fill in germination and harvest dates on the go. A fun way to garden inside

[Taiji]

Love the backdrop in your landscape photo. Reminds me of my home state: WV.

[Shanghaisky]

Love the backdrop in your landscape photo. Reminds me of my home state: WV.

I agree. It reminds me quite a bit of the Appalachians, though we are in the Mohawk Valley of NY. We lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains of NC for many years before moving up here. WV is a beautiful place, too!

[Shanghaisky]

Girls and I went out "early" this morning in between rain showers to go check things out. We have one pea for sure (what I thought was peas before must be more marigolds... I don't think we spread this many marigold seeds ALL OVER THE PLANET, so I am really hoping these are not a bunch of lovely invaders popping up... I don't think they are, but we will see...)... looks like most of the greens are starting to pop up except the Swiss chard. We have one happy little sunflower coming up.. maybe some beets.. and about 849503 metric tonnes of marigolds. Marigolds everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I have learned my lesson. Assuming that's what these are, I will thin them out as I need to. I figured a lot of them around will be good in lieu of any fencing I could put up in the mean time...

Neighboring corn field + the creek running high and fast this AM

A little list of what I think may be coming up (again, it's hard to say because there are SO MANY MARIGOLDS everywhere.... :
Basil (Genovese)
Spinach (Noble Giant)
Romaine
One sunflower (Sungold Dwarf)
Roman chamomile
Maybe beets?
One pea (out of only a few)

I'm guessing the peppers and beans will be taking a while, as well as possibly the onions(?) and spaghetti squash, while the temps are a little cooler. We'll be around mid 60's for the 10-day forecast with rain many days. If it starts getting too mushy out there, I'll have to figure out what to do so my seedlings don't float away down to the Hudson...

Also saw lots of little curious friends roaming around. Older daughter found a big crow feather and planted it in the neighbor's raised bed. Found a tiny little snail on a border rock (please stay away, slugs..).

Little snail

Saw a bunch of little crawly bugs that look like some kind of potato bug relative(?),

Crawly guy?

as well as possibly some kind of little centipedes. Many ants... I'm just hoping the marigolds will bloom soon and bring in some beneficial predators to keep the bugs at bay. Saw the second squirrel of the season in the side yard today, so hopefully the little fluff stays away from the garden. I think I'm going to have to do some research and planning today about what kind of protection I'm going to need to keep things as safe as I can.

[rainbowgardener]

The little crawly bug has a bunch of names: wood louse, pill bug, sow bug, roly-poly, etc. It is a detritovore, part of the process of breaking down dead organic matter back into nutrients. They are very common in compost piles and in soil that is rich with organics. As long as you don't have an infestation of them, they will not harm your plants and are good for the soil.

It is not actually a bug, not at all related to potato bugs, not even an insect (note 14 legs, not six). The wood louse is a crustacean, closer related to lobsters than to potato bugs.

[Shanghaisky]

It is not actually a bug, not at all related to potato bugs, not even an insect (note 14 legs, not six). The wood louse is a crustacean, closer related to lobsters than to potato bugs.

There are trilobites in my garden! Who'da thunk! Well, that's good news. There were several of them. Now if the snails and slugs will just stay out, I'll be pleased. Looks like I may need to pick up some PBR

[rainbowgardener]

It's quite an interesting little creature. It is called pill bug or roly-poly because if you touch it, it will roll up into a nearly perfect sphere, with all those little armor plates on the outside. Its family and genus names are Armadillidae Armadillidium for the resemblance to armadillos which also roll themselves up.

From wiki: " A female woodlouse will keep fertilised eggs in a marsupium on the underside of her body until they hatch into offspring that look like small white woodlice curled up in balls. The mother then appears to "give birth" to her offspring. Females are also capable of reproducing asexually. Despite being crustaceans like lobsters or crabs, woodlice are said to have an unpleasant taste similar to "strong urine"

I wonder who ate enough pill bugs to know what they taste like

wiki also says "Living in a terrestrial environment, woodlice breathe through trachea-like lungs in their paddle-shaped hind legs (pleopods), called pleopodal lungs."

Amazing little guys!

[Shanghaisky]

Well now I'm a little confused. I'm used to potato bugs/roly poly bugs/ pill bugs being more armadillo shaped -- all round, one color, etc. These little guys were also roly armor guys but with flattened out edges of their armor, and a design on them. Also bigger than most roly polys I have seen. I'll add pics when I'm home for clarification.