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Drainage – My garden Cesspool Part Two
Living in the city on 1/3 an acre of land in clay country, finding the ideal spot for a vegetable can be problematic at best. When we moved to our house back in 2007, our lot was covered in pines. Over the past three summers, our garden has been relocated and rebuilt no less than three times. Finally, this summer was THE summer when my gardening stars were to align. We’d removed 19 pines from our yard (don’t worry, there…
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Drainage – My garden Cesspool.
I’m not sure if it was the mucky shplucky smell, the dead zone, the disease on my tomatoes or the lake under the bean tunnel that give it away. But it has become very apparent that the garden has drainage issues. On our sloped lot, most of the runoff cuts around the south side of the house through the garden before making it down to the street and eventually into the Neuse River. The garden sits in a low spot…
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Sights and Sounds of the Morning
For several hours each morning, it feels like fall. Today while the Man-child was sleeping, the Baby and I stepped outside in the cool air and took a brief walk around the garden, where I plucked several green beans and red okra and felt dew under my feet. He old bamboo sticks that once stood next to pepper plants. The birdhouse gourds and cucumbers in the tunnel are continuing to set fruit and the Melondome shows promise of late season…
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Garden Walkin’ & A Little Talkin’
Several days before we left for the beach some of the spinach and chard had begun to sprout; however, upon our return there was no activity. It seems that either the heat or the bunnies got to them. I replanted indoors two days ago, and there is already germination, so I think I’ll be working from transplants soon. I also reseeded outdoors and covered them with straw. Somewhere I read that straw van deter rabbits. The garden paths are totally…
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Garden Letdown.
It’s that time of garden letdown. Where you’ve fought all summer to weed and water and keep the veggie plants healthy, but after one jaunt to the beach you return to find they have succumbed to disease, deer and disarray. Perhaps it is the oncoming fall, but I want to just let my hair down, kick my feet up and let it all go to hell in a hand basket. This is the time of year I start taking notes.…
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Melondome Rhymes with Palindrome
Yesterday I was looking at the cantaloup vines thinking how crazy it was to be wasting nearly 20 sqft of garden space on three piddly cantaloups. I watched a neawly discovered YouTube channel: growingyourgreens.com, and John packs in huge amounts of veggie plants on his 1/10th acre lot by growing vertically. After a conversation with some Twitter pals, I decided to tidy UP my canteloup vines and create the “melondome!” I found several pieces of used steel remesh behind the…