Wow, we still have snow melting where it was plowed up along the side of the road. I'll be happy to see green grass.
Similar here Larry, except we got lucky and had a milder spring this year!! I ordered bareroot strawberries this year, turns out Gurneys and Burpees do not ship til the average last frost date for your growing zone. Bummer, nice weather this year but my strawberries wont be here til next week, too bad I cant get them started in the house before then. Live and learn.
Our snow is all gone, the ice is out of the lakes, and the trees are budded out. Lawns are green, but the fields are still in transition. I bought some strawberries at Agway. They took bare root plants, potted them up in 6 pks and charged $10 for each 6 pack. Was the only way for me to get everbearing berries without going someplace else.
Made 4 lines at 75 foot. Two are with Okra, 2-20' hog wire sections with cucumbers, 1 - 25' foot of Green beans, and 6 spots of zucchini... Now tomorrow need to till the between rows ready for the rain on Wednesday & Thursday...
picked 4 pounds here yesterday as I was cutting out the flower heads. I need to thin mine but just didn't get to it again this year.
It's getting cramped in here. 2 more cold nights and then this stuff is getting planted. I freed up a bunch of room planting two dozen tidal wave wave petunias that were just sprawling like mad out in beds that have a base temp of 39 so they should be OK. They're gonna have to be. Even the peas, onions, lettuce, spinach, chard and cauliflowers don't look very happy with this cold weather/nights. I'm not seeing any honey bees yet this year either. Some bumblebees and I'm finding dead ones too. Some tiny bees when the weather was warmer. I'm hoping Spring picks up the pace here soon.
Planted 27 tomatoes, 24 pepper, 8 eggplant today. Corn, melons, okra, squash, beans ,etc go on tomorrow.
I have. I've done a side-by-side, see-if-it-makes- a- difference test with peppers and tomatoes and I saw no difference. Likely a waste of $ for me.
I have to think that it makes a difference if your soil is deficient to start with. Most of the folks on here tend to take good care of their soil.
The biggest help I had to my garden was the addition of literally 2 tons of organic matter in the form of cattle lot cleanings that had been composted and turned a couple times. The soil went from rock hard to slime and back to rock when the sun came back out, after manure it is more like a sponge and holds moisture and plants are night and day happier with more even moisture levels. I was just glad I got the poo for free from a friend who has cattle. I can't imagine what it would cost to get that much in 50lb bags at the store.
Bought a tiller attachment for my mini-steerer this year. So it is the first garden I have had in years. The garden is about 14' x 100' So far I have: 14 tomatoes, 12 various sweet bell peppers, 6 Sweet Hungarian wax peppers, 6 Hungarian Hot wax, 2 Kohlrabi, 6 cucumbers, 10 strawberry plants and 8 14' rows of corn planted. I have 2 dozen sweet potato plants coming. Planning on completing the Kohlrabi row with Broccoli. After all plants are here, I figure I will have a 14' x 30' section left to plant that I don't know what to do with. Could I plant white potatoes close to sweet potatoes? I may try some carrots and cabbage. I also put in 8 red raspberry plants that I got from Backwoods Savage and 5 yellow raspberry plants that I bought. Looking forward to the harvest.
I cleaned out the barn and put the manure on the garden. I got rid of the cattle 4 years ago so it has been sitting for that time. The section that I put the manure on, sounds like your story. That section has worked up nicely.
