Blue ([info]blueheron) wrote,
@ 2009-05-13 19:50:00
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Dug up about 4 litres of dandelions today. Still have to trim the hedge, put new mulch down, get some new plants planted and now the lawn. Oy.

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[info]blueheron
2009-09-10 02:59 pm UTC (link)
I have a 50 metre by 20 metre garden at my family farm (that I work on with my family! I might be able to manage it if I lived out there, but since I don't everyone chips in).

But the work that I was talking about in this post was purely city property upkeep. Bleh. I hate landscaping. My joy is really in vegetable gardening.

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[info]amolibertas
2009-09-10 03:27 pm UTC (link)
conversion from meters to feet is beyond me...

But I did a lot of vegetable gardening this year ^^ without the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizer so there, world! Next year will be better as this was only my first year trying it out. I used the Square Foot Gardening method.

Do you still do the line gardening method?

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[info]blueheron
2009-09-10 03:39 pm UTC (link)
Roughly 55 yards by 22 yards. :)

I do do line gardening by and large because I plan on covering them up with low tunnels (and maybe then a high tunnel on top of that) to extend the season -- with the correct vegetables, and the double protection of high and low tunnels, I should be able to harvest right through the winter (*crosses his fingers*)

We are also experimenting with permaculture arrangements on other parts of the farm.

And yeah, all of my gardening is veganic. :)

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[info]amolibertas
2009-09-10 04:16 pm UTC (link)
permaculture is the gardening during winter thing right? and you're trench gardening for winter to take advantage of the warmer earth? I have raised beds so they should heat up the fasted during day time but that trench gardening is a neat trick too if it works.

I planted some cool crops and I made mini greenhouses for later when the frost hits for later this month. I'm just throwing my raised boxes on top of each other and throwing some plastic wrap cover. I'm hoping it works! I plan on just throwing a few blankets on top of my tomatoes

I have a frost question-- is it the temp that kills the plants or the literal frost landing on the leaves and fruits that does it? I know that lower temps certainly slow down the growing process and the colder it gets it stops it altogether- but didn't know if it was the TEMP that killed or the FROST cover that killed.

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[info]blueheron
2009-09-10 04:31 pm UTC (link)
No, permaculture is an attempt to grow gardens in harmony with nature, using the natural settings, local plants and plants that work well together in order to repel disease/insects/etc.

All my beds are also raised. I don't know if "low tunnel" is perhaps the right translation from French. In French it is a "chenille" (caterpillar). Like this.

A high tunnel, in turn, is like this (only ours aren't quite so large!).

Frost is a royal PITA. I lost a lot of tomatoes this year to it -- first by planting about 1 week to early I lost about 150 tomato plants, and then 2 weeks ago we had a completely out of season frost overnight, which has damaged a lot of the tomatoes that we hadn't gotten around to harvesting yet. Grr.

What does the damage is the water freezing. That can be moisture on the plants (so don't water them if you are expecting frost, even if they are covered!), or the water in the plants (so moisture heavy fruits like tomatoes won't do well if they freeze and then thaw).

Some plants can do just fine with frost, so long as they are only harvested when they are thawed. Mache (Valerianella locusta) is a good example of that, and something I am thinking of putting in my (single) covered raised beds this year.

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