MsDDC
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Location: Washington, DC; 7A by the map but 7B by local urban temps

My 2020 Garden

It begins. First round of seeds started indoors for the brassicas, based on the timeline for the last 2 crops. With normal to slightly warm temperatures (that's what the long-range forecast calls for), I should be harvesting early April - mid May, which is what I was aiming for last year.
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And, update, the indoor tomatoes are doing great. The plants have filled in well, and I have a number of buds and fruits in various stages of development. They should probably start to ripen in a week or two.
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imafan26
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Those tomatoes look really nice.

MsDDC
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Location: Washington, DC; 7A by the map but 7B by local urban temps

The spring veggies have started to germinate. The first set of seeds (out of almost-empty older packs) took longer (more likely because of rainy weather/low amounts of sun than seed age...as *soon* as the sun came out, they popped!), and I added more, fresher seeds, which means I now have 4 each of broccoli, cauliflower, and romanesco sprouted. Oops. I will eventually learn my lesson that Park Seed's seeds always germinate, so I should just plant one (instead of 2 per pot) and sit on my hands and wait if I don't see activity right away! Second round is in, as well.
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My big project over the last couple of weeks has been rescuing my front flowerbeds. I KNOW it's not vegetable gardening, but it's kind of interesting and took me HOURS over 4 straight weekends, so I'm going to post it anyway. :) So...

My neighbors don't do a great job with their yards. I think we've covered this ground before. One side doesn't care at all (I can only get them to even cut by calling the city and reporting them when their "lawn"/front weed bed gets to over a foot!), the other side cuts their yard so short that it goes bare in spots if we have a drought, but it's comprised entirely of weeds, not grass. So, trying to grow things in an orderly manner is HARD. My front beds ended up invaded with bermudagrass from one side and various other tough weeds from the other. Weeding was not going to make a difference.

So, I did a full dig out. Phase one was going through the beds with a spade and digging out the flowers/bulbs. Phase two was shoveling out the dirt down to 10-12 inches, pulling/cutting roots, rhizomes, and etc. of bermudagrass as best as I could, then putting the dirt back in temporarily. Phase three was digging the partially-cleaned dirt out to 6", discarding it, doing a version of a "lasagna garden," filling it in with clean topsoil, and topping it with weed barrier. I enlisted my handyman to help with this! Phase four was replanting it and mulching it.

So, after the dig, with the "lasagna" in place. I also sprayed the long-acting RoundUp around the edges and put a pretty hefty fabric weed barrier (that I've used elsewhere with great success!) around the edges, to just keep the weeds from invading.
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Filled and topped with weed barrier...
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And re-planted and mulched (I KNOW...some of the grape hyacinth already has flowers and it's FEBRUARY 10...winter didn't exist this year!)...
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Hopefully this will be successful in getting my flowerbeds into shape.

If you need to discard up to a cubic yard of dirt (or 3 cubic yards of other, lighter debris), I HIGHLY recommend Bagster, run by Waste Management. It wasn't super-easy to find a spot near my house where there was 18 vertical feet and 5 linear feet of clearance from power lines, but I located one a couple houses down on the other side of the street, we loaded up the bag there, and they came by and tossed it for me. This would be easier if you had a large tree lawn with no wires over it or a driveway. Around $200 all-in (bag purchase + pickup), but that's WAY cheaper than the other options I investigated, and a lot of disposal companies won't take soil. Because it was so spoiled with the bermudagrass roots (you'd have to put it through a pretty fine screen to *really* get all of them), I didn't want to give it away and make the weeds "someone else's problem."

MsDDC
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Location: Washington, DC; 7A by the map but 7B by local urban temps

Based on reading other's posts, I suppose I should add what I'm actually growing. :)

Aspabroc broccolini. I've had EXCELLENT results with this over 2 seasons in one year (spring and fall 2019). I regularly get yields of 2-3 pounds per plant, with lots of side-shoot activity, some even while the main head is in. Because it's broccolini, more of the stem is edible (I usually do a simply roasted, and a good 4-5" of the stem is tender), increasing the edible yield. It also makes for pretty meals!

Charm cauliflower. I got 3-4 pound heads in the spring (largest was 3 pounds, 12 ounces), and it still produced, though smaller heads, with our weird fall weather.

Veronica romanesco. I had to pick them small in the spring because it was warm and they were threatening to bolt (loosening), but they did really well with the weird fall and I got 2 nice heads just shy of 2 pounds and 2 more smaller ones. I would recommend planting this early since it takes a while and seems sensitive to warm temperatures, but if you can time it right, it was beautiful and flavorful.

I'll also be doing various lettuces, spinach, beets, and turnips as the season continues.

For flowers, since I posted pics of the beds, right now I have 60-day grape hyacinth tri-blend (multiple blooms per plant, mix of white, mid-blue, and dark blue/purple, supposed to bloom for 60 days...it *basically* did that last year) and white asiatic carpet border lilies (big white flowers on semi-dwarf plants...should eventually grow to 15-18", and last year produced 2-4 BIG flowers per stem, 2-3 stems per plant). I will be planting later this year a mix of Siberian Iris (blue/purple with some other interesting features), some hybridized alstroemeria ("mid-pink" according to the description, but looks more lavender in photos, including from previous buyers), and some blue/purple aster in the beds near the house that you can juuuust see in some of those photos. :)

ETA: what the lilies looked like last year, year one after being planted the prior fall:
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SQWIB
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Location: Zone 7A - Philadelphia, PA

I feel your pain with the neighbor, I paved my front yard for similar reasons and have been working on the hellstrip.

For some odd reason, she thinks this is OK.

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I started the other side of the Hell strip but still need to remove the stump to finish the other side.
The area around the pole always got weeds because the dogs pee on it, I'm ok with that, dogs gotta pee. I designed this with that in mind hoping the dogs pee on the rock.

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This will be a mix of Pavers, Grass and a dwarf azalea.

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She poured a driveway over her lawn and the result was the death of my beloved 25 year old red maple.

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I installed pavers years ago because of the trash and weeds that ended up in the front yard, I put in the rock raised beds years ago also, after the red maple died I started adding different plants and put in a slow growing Japanese Stewartia.

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And it got its first flower last year.

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My neighbor is very nice person, but we definitely have different tastes.

MsDDC
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Location: Washington, DC; 7A by the map but 7B by local urban temps

Jeez...neighbors. Is that tile they just dumped on the tree lawn? Why???

This is the photo I sent to the city to force mine to clean up last year. The three times they cut the yard were all city-mandated... Your eyes do not deceive you, the fence is both improperly constructed ("good side in") and leaning in multiple places.
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Makes it really hard to keep up an adjacent lawn and garden.

SQWIB
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Yeah they are ceramic tiles that she breaks up and places them on the ground, Every so often I grab a bunch and toss them, eventually she will run out of tiles.
I'm guilty of the good side in...again because of neighbor issues. At one point she had a pool with 12" of sludge that was so bad, we couldn't sit ion the deck because of mosquitoes and the smell.

I also had to build up my yard and put a 6" x 6" as a divider on my patio because the neighbor above her and my neighbor never cleaned out their storm drains, so my yard was flooding trying to satisfy draining three yards. I actuality put in a 1-1/2" threshold in my doorway because the water would almost come into the basement.
After I installed the divider and built up the berm, her basement flooded and she started cleaning out the drain.

Click here to see my yard in a heavy rain. https://live.staticflickr.com/video/442 ... LCJ2IjoxfQ



The entire side of my yard that connects to hers has something built to block out her yard.

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behind the shed is 3 or 4 bags of stone, behind the pond where the fence is is built up at least 6 inches.

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I like this much better than the grass anyhow.

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My only open spot is up on the hill, I built a trellis here for mt Hardy Kiwi and store all my firewood and garden supplies here. For some odd reason she built a shed on the deck.

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You can see the 6" x 6" in the bottom right corner.
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Again, an issue arises, after I put in the pavers, and bought a patio set and rug, she decided to stain her deck, and guess where a lot of the stain ended up, yep on the patio, patio furniture, pond, pond rocks. I had to finally call her out on that.
But being the person I am, I came up with yet another fix due to her hi jinks.
When I installed my under decking it goes out an extra 12" to catch shield the stuff below.
When she built a awning over her bar and had it pitched towards my house I said, You have to install gutters on that so Idont get flooded.
You can see the gutter facing my side in this pic.
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I like my neighbor, shes very nice but oblivious, I look at it as a challenge, every time she does something I need to be on y toes to rectify possible issues, lol.

Sorry for cluttering up your thread, but like I said, I feel your pain!

MsDDC
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I get it and it's nice to commiserate! I did a board-on-board fence so that it would look nice from both sides and be legal. My neighbors on the other side (cut their weeds so short the yard goes partially bare) mostly appreciated that (they had their down spout extension on my side of the property line and had to move it to theirs for the fence, which they *didn't* appreciate, but also just asked my contractors what *they* would do with it rather than raising a stink, and my contractors helped them relocate it for free). There just isn't a way to do a 3-side fence (there's not enough space for the 9' nearest the house, and beyond that, weeds would just grow up between back-to-back fences), so my plan is to wait until the "bad neighbor's" side falls down or they sell (they have a kid and I assume they'll move to the 'burbs when she reaches school age) and then negotiate a better solution.
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You also get a nice aerial view of my garden in that pic (this is taken from my second floor window). The two lower beds are where my veggies live, 100 square feet a piece. The top bed is all blackberries, 50 square feet. Most of my friends have said they didn't realize how large it is from pics like this, so I specify the size (the veggie beds are 12.5'x8' each). You don't really want to know how much that cost, but it also reduced (but didn't eliminate, I'll have a story this spring about that!) flooding in the yard.

ETA: RE: "bad neighbor," at least those wildly overgrown trees are Crepe Myrtles, so they're pretty in the summer and fall! They did actually prune them a little this fall after I pruned the one hanging over my stairs (I'm only 5'5 and it was bopping me in the head, so I cut back what I could reach to give about 8' of clearance).

ETA 2: I also feel you on ANYTHING "better than grass." My lot is large enough that *some* is necessary for aesthetic purposes, but I majorly reduced it when I re-did the yard. When I bought the place, there was about 1500 square feet of "lawn" (my lot is 2500 square feet, and 600 of that is the house and 400 parking). With the terrace, stairs, and flower beds, that's down to ~600. I'm going to put in a walkway from the patio to the stairs this year, in conjunction with the drainage project, knocking another ~100 square feet of grass out, and put a small tree with a ring in the front yard, taking out another 30-ish there. Next winter, I'm going to put some smallish trees in the back yard, knocking out a little bit more. Grass is just wasteful and a PAIN to maintain.

MsDDC
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This is the before of my back yard. First pic is just how nasty is was, second is how bad it used to flood with the sheer hills with scrub grass.
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And this is the kinda hilarious, kinda terrifying thing that happened when we had a CRAZY windstorm back in 2018 (gusts to almost 80 MPH, my power was out for almost 30 hours, including at the time this pic was taken). Good thing I was planning to remove that shed anyway!
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SQWIB
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OMG, That shed.
Its funny how similar our yards are.
Your yard is long and narrow, my yard is narrow and short lol, we do have 20' between each twin and I'm grateful that I'm on the south side facing breezeway.
The houses are on a hill and the yards slope down to the next yard, I added insult to injury when I built the side retaining wall and fence, and made matters even worse when I installed the hugelkultur beds. I had to do it though because of the kids, it was unsafe. One time I was cutting the lawn and slipped down the slope and got caught up under the fence.

I also had to put a retaining wall up on the back.

The neighbor in the back had some type of awning pitched into my yard, a few times it iced up and the ice slid off and destroyed a few arborvitaes.I finally gave up and put up a fence.
I installed the Allen Block Retaining wall 21 years ago.

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upper retaining wall '98

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new upper retaining wall.

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Lower wall '99

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The yard has gotten a lot of use over the years.

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My neighbor attached is level with me but the neighbor at the breezeway is about at least 2 feet lower. I eventual put pavers and the beds here.

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This is a shot from my Sons Bedroom.

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Everything looks nice when its green, the winter is another story, lol.

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This photo you will laugh at, see where all my nutrients are going, lol,

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Are you still having water issues like the photo shows, does your patio get water?

I'm watching this thread closely to glean some ideas from you!

MsDDC
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Sprouting continues...two rounds of brassicas are up! The first round is a little leggy due to the dreary weather over the last 2 weeks (it's February 14 and we're already +1.5" of precipitation for the MONTH), but they're young enough to recover. We are supposed to get several days of full sun over the next week, so that should shape them up nicely.
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The tomatoes are starting to ripen. I repeat, the tomatoes are starting to ripen! They're yellow, so some are almost there.
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This weekend's work is removing the fall plants and weeding the veggie beds. Next weekend, if the weather does well, I'll till the one that needs it. Then a few more weeks to planting time!

As far as flooding goes, putting in the terraced beds and getting some real grass growing MASSIVELY improved it. This is about as bad as it gets now, and it dries out within 12-24 hours, instead of multiple days like before. The end of the patio is 14' from the deck, and 23 feet from the back wall of the house (edit to clarify: my back yard is 71' feet from the back fence line to the back wall of the house...REALLY deep! (91' including the parking pad) It's about 1/3 "sitting/entertaining" area (deck & patio), 1/3 grass, and 1/3 garden at the moment), so there's no risk of water getting *inside.*
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Final project to fix it will happen relatively soon (as soon as I get my act together, get a couple more quotes just to make sure, and pull the trigger). There will be french drains at the low spot and where the downspout ends, and a storage tank underground. The storage tank is the kind with holes in it so that the water just slowly absorbs into the ground. I wanted to put in a rain barrel, but there's no way to attach it to my downspout because the downspout currently comes down next to my basement stairs (only 9" of ground available between the property line and stairs), and there are windows and wires and my A/C in the way of moving it to the other side. The downside of attached houses... ETA: If I absolutely hit the lottery (at least a small one :) ), I WILL put in Rainwater HOGs, which can go under the deck. But they're like $250/each AFTER subsidy from the city (edited to correct: they're $300/each before subsidy, $250/each after subsidy...still an easy $1000 for the whole project), plus additional cost for connectors and stuff, and I need at least 3.

ETA2: SQWIB, our homes are also about the same width, 22 feet outdoors (20 indoors). Which is nice, since the standard sizes in the city are 14 and 16'. Those bonus feet make both the indoors and outdoors more "livable." My house was built in 1960, vs. 1800's-1920's for most of the 14-16' wide houses.
Last edited by MsDDC on Fri Feb 14, 2020 7:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.

MsDDC
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Keep forgetting to say what things are. Know your audience, right?

The tomatoes are "patio choice" from Park Seed. They're a compact determinate, specifically meant for planters. They're supposed to be heavy fruiting, which, so far, they seem to be living up to. Those are 14" (wide, of course) pots. I would estimate the plants are about 2' tall. I'm keeping them "in check" by putting some of the stems through the supports for the hangers, so they may need a small cage to keep them in place in a planter, but otherwise seem like an excellent choice for anyone who wants to grow tomatoes in a container.

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applestar
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Both of you have a nice rectangular defined space to work with so that allows creativity within that definition/frame, you know? I’m enjoying the show and tell :wink:

@MsDDC, why did the previous owner have that fence/gate in the middle dividing the space? Looks great now with all you’ve installed.

Our property is very odd shaped, partly due to living in a “court”/cull-de-sac with a circular bulb at the end. First 10 years or so we didn’t have a fence and let neighborhood kids play in our expansive front/side yard, but when I decided to get serious about gardening, and we installed a fence to define our front/backyard spaces/areas, we took back our side yard and got a lot of snide comments from the neighbors as if we were the villains....

Try to give the seedlings good light especially in the beginning as they sprout — it makes a big difference in growing sturdy seedlings. But brassicas need to be planted to the base of their true leaves anyway or they flop, so you can fix them later.

So exciting that the tomatoes are almost ready to taste!

MsDDC
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@applestar...that black fence in the middle of the yard was actually mine. The chain link at the back (between the parking pad and yard) had been partially ripped out, and what was left was falling down, so that's actually an outdoor dog playpen, set in a linear way rather than an octagon. I was using it to keep the dog (s...I dog sit sometimes) in the yard until I could get a real fence put in. Unfortunately, the toppling shed took it out in that wind storm! Fortunately, enough of it was salvageable that I could put it around my front door after I had the chain link removed out there (and the retaining walls in the pics of the flowerbeds put in), but before I got the black metal fence around the whole front yard put in. The Google Street View of my house actually shows it in place around my front door. :) Kinda makes the neighborhood look low-rent, but oh well! :lol:

That window usually gets excellent light (south facing and a bay that gets sun for all available hours), but it's been crazy rainy! Fortunately, 7 of the next 10 days are supposed to be VERY sunny!

MsDDC
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I don't know if I've mentioned here before, but my house was a short sale (the bank was going to foreclose, but gave the owners a chance to sell it before doing so) that hadn't been well-updated ever, and hadn't been taken care of AT ALL for about a decade before I bought it. As such, EVERYTHING has been a project. You can see how much of a project the yard was (and I posted pics of replacing the deck and putting in new awnings in my fall garden thread), but there is so, so much more.

Before I moved in (all done in 57 days after I bought the house!):

New furnace and water heater
Some new bathroom plumbing fixtures (faucets, toilets, etc.)
Replaced the back doors, first floor and basement
New kitchen cabinets, fixtures, and appliances
New washer and dryer including some electrical work due to some insane things the prior owner did
Repainted EVERYTHING (there were *9* different paint colors in the house, most extremely bright/rich)
Refinished the hardwood floors
All new light fixtures (do not read if you get grossed out: the house was so infested with roaches that every time we took one out, dead ones would fall out, so we replaced them all!)
Some new drywall (a bathroom leak damaged part of the first floor ceiling and it was never fixed right)
Other miscellaneous small repairs like a few roof patches, replacing closet doors, touch-up brick pointing, etc.

Shortly after I moved in:

Installed solar panels!

Spring after move-in:

All new windows except the bay (that one is only ~20 years old, vs. the rest of the windows which were from the original build in 1960!) and a new front door

Summer after move-in:

Replace A/C (the ONE thing that worked at inspection and it went kaput the next spring!)
All that hardscaping work which was:
2 retaining walls out front (3-sided)
3 retaining walls for the garden (3-4 sided)
Backyard stairs
Patio
Fence
Sod in back
Re-graded and re-graveled parking pad

Fall after move-in:

Front fence
Scalp front yard and re-plant grass
Install flowerbeds next to walkway and near house, removing existing plants that hadn't been maintained (there was a rose that was over 15' tall!) as well as edging and such

Last year:

New deck
New awnings

This year (upcoming):

Fix ducts (hopefully just sealing)
Insulate attic crawl
Backyard drainage
Walkway between patio and stairs in back yard (gravel and paver, so will drain well and not too intense to execute)

Still to come down the line:

Renovate both bathrooms
Replace the bay window and one other that's currently behind a wall (someone wasn't thinking!)

Far down the line:

Fully renovate kitchen with good cabinets and replacing the floor and countertop

And that's on top of planting both edible and decorative things.

Whew.

MsDDC
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And, since I'm sure some of you have heard how insane housing prices are in DC...

By doing all that work myself, my cost basis (purchase price + renovations) is currently about $150,000 less than comparable flips are selling for in my neighborhood. Those comparable flips don't have the same quality of anything compared to what I've done (cheaper windows and doors, cheaper appliances, etc.), but especially don't have the quality of landscaping/hardscaping. If a flipper got my house instead of me, they would have put in some concrete or box and paver stairs and sod in the back yard, and probably just yanked the fence in the front yard without replacing it and put in some impatiens or something similarly cheap. The people who bought the most expensive flip on my block to date actually stopped by to chat a couple weeks ago, since the cheap landscaping the flipper did is getting eaten up by weeds. They're going to have to spend a lot of time and money (which one will be more depends on their preference, but both will be involved) to "rescue" their yard. After spending nearly TWICE as much up front on the house than what I did.

MsDDC
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A few days of sun did wonders for the seedlings. The first round mostly has 3 true leaves now, with the leaves finally growing faster than the stems. Second round is much more obvious. And third round is in. Fourth and final round goes in this weekend before I take off to the tropics. I paid my roommate to watch my dog and water the plants, so I think they'll be well taken care of while I go plant MYSELF in a beach for a week. And when I get back, it'll be time to plant!

I was going to post a pic, but it says the board attachment quota has been reached? Does a mod know anything about that?

The tomatoes continue to ripen, but aren't quite ready yet. Nice color, but they're still firmly attached to the stem. Taught my roommate that tomatoes are truly ripe when they detach from the stem easily. :) I told her she could eat whatever ripens while I'm gone (another bonus of keeping my plants and dog alive), so passed on that nugget while I was showing her the tomatoes (upstairs in my office, in my "private" part of the house) and where the watering can is.

imafan26
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I have enjoyed the chronicle of your yard transformation. I have renters on one side of me. I can feel your pain. On the other hand, I have so many weeds that mostly came from their yard that I can't keep up with either.

MsDDC
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I'm baaaack!

I didn't mention that I was going on vacation, I don't think. I went to Belize. It was nice. Like...really nice...
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(We ate lunch there)

But then...
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So I was doing donuts in the golf cart out on Ambergris Caye... Yeah, I can't even pull that off. I slammed it in the screen door. Fortunately on the last day of vacation. Broken 5th metatarsal. That's doing wonders for getting my garden in shape. I am allowed to put weight on my heel, and do anything I can while doing that, sitting, or kneeling. So I'm still going to try to plant these beautiful babies next weekend (thanks to my roommate for keeping them alive while I was laying on a beach and slamming my foot in the door)...
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applestar
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Oh no! Hope you heal up quickly. ...Skip the bad stuff — enjoy the GOOD memories. :D

MsDDC
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@applestar...I spent a whole week out on a barrier island where the primary form of transportation is boat or golf cart. That is 100% "living the dream." (and it wasn't spendy at all...we split the BIG condo between 4 of us and it was $300/each for the whole week!)

I also got to fish again (whole day fish and snorkeling tour, private boat for $600 total before tip), and I still know how to do it. I caught the nice-size porgy and the trigger there in the cooler (friend got luckier with the "better eating" red snappers).
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imafan26
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Looks like it was a great vacation. The water must be shallow there based on the color of the ocean, but it is beautiful.

MsDDC
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@ imafan, off the coast is the largest coral reef in the Northern hemisphere. If you look carefully, you can see the waves breaking on it. Inside of the reef, the water is VERY shallow. Even up to 100+ yards from the shore of the Cayes (barrier islands/peninsulas), it's often under 20 feet. I swam at least 50 yards out from our resort (I'm a good swimmer, and waves were nearly nil due to the reef breaking them), and the deepest I encountered was maybe 6 feet (there were multiple places I could bob on my tip-toes out that far to rest, and I'm 5'5). Even going further out on the boat, we could always see the bottom, and I remarked on how shallow it was so far out! Plus, the water was almost 90 degrees (F, of course) inside the reef, so that made for really nice conditions for swimming!

MsDDC
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And the absolute most hilarious part of our trip. We docked just off shore so our captain could filet our catch for lunch, and before he could even pull a single fish out of the cooler, we attracted an entourage. Whispers :they know what's up" He did feed them the guts. Pelicans, for those not familiar.
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MsDDC
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Location: Washington, DC; 7A by the map but 7B by local urban temps

Long time, no see! I have actually been really busy during this quarantine, with work and yard work. On the plus side, minus a commute and using what would be coffee breaks at work in the yard means it's in pretty bang-up shape!

The brassicas are mostly coming along nicely. One romanesco (I think...I can't remember which row is cauliflower vs. romanesco) shriveled up and died on me, for no apparent reason. The rest are clearly doing great, so it's a little odd. Still, doing pretty well overall!
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Turnips and beets are chugging along. Turnips better than beets, as per usual. You can't even see the beets, though they are sprouting a little. I think I may have to give up on them, no matter how much I enjoy them. I've never gotten a good crop, this being my 3rd try. I seeded too many turnips, thinking the slightly old seeds would reduce germination. HA! This is AFTER an initial round of thinning!
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And the "greens" (mostly purple in this case) are coming along). I used seed tapes this time, and *really* like them! Asian greens are the biggest in the back, the smaller in the front a baby mixed lettuces.
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And, of course, work on the non-edible part of my yard continues apace. I put in irises, aster, and alstroemeria (hybrid hardy to zone 6, so hopefully it works out here in my very warmest and sunniest bed...I *really* want the long-blooming goodness!) this weekend and mulched everything in. Lilies are coming in apace. And the cool weather has meant that I have been able to seed new grass in my sunburnt front yard rather than cut in sod in a month. Despite not being able to see it in the photo, it is sprouting. I have a little left to do closest to the photo location, which is my job for tomorrow. We've got another week of wet weather in the 60's coming (and then just smattered low 70's still with lots of rain), so that'll do to get it growing!
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SQWIB
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Looking good. I can never grow beets, I may try again someday but its just not worth the effort.

MsDDC
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Things are mostly moving along. As I mentioned and usual, the beets aren't doing anything, but everything else on that level continues apace. Turnips, bitter Asian salad greens, and red romaine are all progressing well to great, and the kale (not pictured) is ever so slowly coming along.
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In an odd situation, the lower bed of my garden is apparently deficient in...a little bit of everything, nutrient wise (it's odd because the second tier, filled with the same soil and amendment, and having heavier feeders in it over the last year, is fine). I caught on, but I'm not sure if the small supplementation I was able to do with the plants and the plastic mulch both in place is going to save the cauliflower and romanesco (not pictured...they look better, but not fantastic). It was enough for the broccoli, which is starting to produce. The leaves are still a bit pale, but they have grown and regained some color in the last 10 days or so. I suspect that a lot of this stemmed from the super-wet April (I measured over 6 inches of rain in ~3 weeks), but it's truly odd that it hurt one bed more than the other, in the reverse order you'd expect (lower bed is worse off than higher).
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The flowerbeds are looking good, despite a cold spell/scare Mother's Day weekend. One new iris bloomed, and the Asiatic lilies (dwarf) are starting to pop!
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MsDDC
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The nutrient deficiencies took a few plants and slowed some stuff down, but did not win the day! With just a little pellet fertilizer, I was able, to some extent, to recover all 3 broccoli plants, 2 romanesco, and one cauliflower. The broccoli has been harvested and will be cooked tomorrow (lower yields, but still plenty), and the cauliflower and romanesco are days to about a week away from harvest!
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In the upper bed, my turnips are putting on a show. The roots are looking good and juuuust about ready for harvest, but the greens are the stunner with the cool spring. I put out a call to friends to come get some, since I've got about 3 grocery store bunches there (I already harvested 2!)!
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Greens are also going nuts. Neighbors and friends are getting gift bags regularly. I don't have to pull them to plant other stuff for another couple weeks, so I hope to keep them going for a while!

MsDDC
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Some of my recent harvests!
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MsDDC
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Query for those with thorny blackberries: do you find the birds leave them alone?

I had plans to net the blackberries, but it would be...less than ideal since they're large and harvesting already requires careful maneuvering (to determine if the berries are ripe and ready, a bare hand is really necessary, so having to either lift the net constantly or try to poke my arm through the holes on top of avoiding the brambles would both be cumbersome). So far, I don't see that I've lost any berries to birds. Usually they peck at them rather than grab a whole berry cleanly, so you can usually tell they've become bird food. No evidence of that. And I picked a handful more than double the pictured size today. When I pick them, they are tender and come off the stem with no force, so if birds were going to get them, they'd be on it then or earlier. Just looking for other's experiences.

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applestar
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Since those berries come off the stem cones, what you have are raspberries. I have red and yellow raspberries with thorns as well as thornless blackberries. I used to have wild/pre-existing blackberries full of thorns and ended up getting rid of them or designating A few remaining ones for the wildlife due to impossible to use netting as well as harvesting.

Once the patch is abundant I stop trying to protect the berries from wildlife and share. As long as I’m out there first light/first thing in the morning, I can harvest most of the good ones that ripened for the day. Even the earliest risers like cardinals and catbirds don’t seem to start eye-ing and raiding berry patches until sunlight helps to distinguish the colors for ripeness.

- I use birdscares made of string-hung shiny aluminum pans decorated with big eyes made of colored duct tape cutouts and markers that bang around in the wind to deter the birds. The scares need to be moved around and reconfigured with longer/shorter strings to change them up every couple of days.

- I protect thornless blackberries and blueberries trusses with drawstring organza party favor bags. They are also useful for keeping out bugs like insects like ants, fruitflies, and stinkbugs.

- Thorny (netting and fabric catches on the thorns) and larger fruits are protected with ventilated zip plastic bags, clear clamshell deli and baking goods containers, and berry containers.

Chipmunks are also pesky berry thieves.

MsDDC
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The blackberries of my youth (wild, growing at the edges of wooded areas, and FULL of thorns) certainly did look a bit different than what most people consider "blackberries," so, apparently, there's quite a bit of nomenclature confusion going around. The flavor was largely the same, even if this variety is less juicy than the ones of my youth. Maybe I should call these "black raspberries?" Though the original planting (not me, someone else I got starts from) was from a (local, not big box) store-bought plant labeled "thorny erect blackberries."

Anyway...I don't even have to get out early. Yesterday I picked around Noon, today around 7 PM. I have seen at least one cardinal around my house (it sometimes likes to sit on my front awning). Still, no evidence of pilfering. I do have a large colony of common grackles that descends on my yard (lawn specifically) every late afternoon into evening to forage for insects (they don't even go near the garden, instead pecking away at my lawn, which I *know* has a lot of crickets in it). Could that be deterring birds that would go after the berries?

I have also never seen a chipmunk in my neighborhood. The squirrels seem to be too busy jumping on top of transformers to knock out the power (3 times in the last 6 weeks!) to bother with anyone's garden, at the moment! ;)

MsDDC
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In the spirit of "photos and videos," here are my "blackberries" now. The floricanes (woody and producing) are a little sloppy since they came off the spindly starts from last year, but you can totally see the "erect" habit of the plants in the new primocanes (green) that are up for this year (the stems are at least 3x thicker than what went up last year). Some are running up against my existing support structure (1x2 boards pounded into the soil with picture hanging wire (no joke...that's what the gal at the local Ace Hardware recommended!) run between them), but they stand up on their own even where they're not. And they'll all get trimmed back to 5' in September and again in March.
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Gary350
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I have raspberries too, I like to call them blackberries mostly because when I try to type raspberry I make typing errors that need to be corrected. It is easier to type blackberry. Sometimes I call them black raspberries. Blackberries & Raspberries are in the same family they look & taste the same. They make good, pie, cobbler, muffins, jelly, jam, pancake syrup, wine, they both taste the same. The only difference is the stem pulls completer off the raspberry but not the blackberry. LOL. That has nothing to do with how good they both taste so who care what we call them. If someone wants to be technical mine are Raspberries.

MsDDC
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Hey, when I get only a handful, they make an excellent afternoon or evening snack!

I kinda hesitated to share this, but here goes...they're planted where they are (in the upper bed along my fence line, with barely a foot clearance between the bushes and the fence (just enough for me to squeeze in to weed, harvest, and tend...VERY CAREFULLY))...um, intentionally. The friend I got them from had them along his back fence line for the same purpose. If someone jumps our fence, we'll hear them pretty quick if they land in thorny blackberries. That actually happened about a week and a half ago. I heard someone yelp out back, and when I went to the window, saw someone go *back* over my fence asking "what the F was that???" to his companion. There's been a rash of lawn equipment thefts in the neighborhood, and I had stupidly left my bright yellow weed eater sitting out plain as day for everyone to see after I finished cutting the grass. I suspect he used the bumper of my roommate's car to boost over the fence, but was met with an unwelcome surprise when he came down on the other side.

In any case...I still have my weed eater, and he didn't damage the blackberries meaningfully.

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Gary350
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Do your plants have big thorns like mine in this photo. My plants have evil thorns but they are no problem I have learned to move slow and not jerk away if I get poked. Sometimes I get tangled in my clothes if I pull straight away I get stuck tighter but if I turn left or right I can roll out of the thorns. I usually pick berries with short sleeve shirt & short pants so not to get tangled by my clothes. My plants are wild Cumberland Black Raspberries native to TN and many other States from what I read online. I love the huge berries it only takes a few minutes to pick a gallon of them. Flavor is very good in everything especially home made wine. Using thorns as a security system is a good idea.
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MsDDC
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Gary, the new canes look very similar to yours. Thick with big thorns. The woodocanes are more spindly since they were the first put up by the plant after putting the starts in, last year. It also turns out that they are a primocane fruiting variety, and several of my primocanes have fruit on them, too (I got a very few berries last year, but it looks like this year's primocanes are going to give me a BIG crop in a few weeks, hot on the heels of the woodocanes). These were literally a freebie from a non-gardener, so I'm just generally thrilled to have productive, delicious, "security enhancing" plants. :) Point about not jerking away when pricked taken...I need to get better with that since, yes, that's when I really get hurt. :)

I've started seeing a *tiny* bit of bird damage, but nothing to write home about. A berry or two will have a "cell" or two pecked out. Given that I'm getting over a cup a day now, with the highest yields yet to come, I'm going to forgo netting unless the damage becomes more significant.

This was my harvest from Tuesday and Wednesday:
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Which I turned into this:
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DEEEE-LICIOUS with a scoop of vanilla blueberry crumble gelato (what I have in the house). :> (that's supposed to be a drooly tongue)

MsDDC
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So here's what they look like the daylight. Overall and how I've supported them so that they stay narrow enough for me to get my arm in for weeding and harvesting:
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And here's a close up of the primocanes, similar to yours, Gary. Note that one has ripe berries on it. All the berries! :)
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On other fronts, beans are up, cukes are up (and a random kale that decided to grow now?), and corn is big ups!
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MsDDC
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Also, it may look like I started some seeds indoors in peat pots and then transplanted them outdoors, but that is not the case for this portion of the garden. Everything was direct seeded. But I do have a trick for that when it comes to seeds that should be shallow in the soil (generally less than an inch). Those seeds can easily wash away in heavy rains or with watering, even if you're careful. So, I surround them with an ~1/2" ring of TP roll (half buried at the outset, so 1/4" below ground to keep it in place, and 1/4" above to keep the seed in place). Everyone has them, they're usually trash (or recycling), and cutting them into rings requires no equipment beyond any household scissors (I used my kitchen shears, but anything more intense than children's safety scissors would work) or even plant pruners. Photo of the "ring" in action.
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MsDDC
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Well, it's been quite the couple weeks. A couple deaths in my circle, a lot of time on the PA turnpike because of them, and getting behind on the garden, as usual. Something always comes up. But, I persist.

The garden itself is turning into a nice small farm. I've got cukes and tomatoes and beans and peppers and corn all up! The corn (first round) should make the standard wisdom of "knee high by the 4th of July." It's about 3" away now for the tallest stalk.
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In greater landscaping news, my dry well with topping walkway went in about 2 weeks ago. We have gotten some heavy, but brief, rains since then (largest drop about 3/4"), and it's done beautifully in sending the water below ground instead of standing in the yard. I think I might be able to retire my galoshes as a means to ford my yard and use them to walk on the street in the rain, now! :)
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And since the largest part of the "things that need to be done" are done, I'm experimenting with "nice but not necessary" things. The solar lights on my stairs seem to be doing well, and look really nice! Maybe I can take out the trash without almost falling down the stairs from now on!
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