October 4, 2018
October continues the bi-polar weather with a 90 degree day then back to mid fifties. The next few days will be 50s and 60s. It's a typical Nebraska October. The first three days of October had a misty rain that fell with a total accumulation of just under a 1/2 inch. I think we are good on moisture for awhile.
Two of the beds at Urban Ranch have reached the limit of the land scape timbers life. I am thinking that these timbers are most likely 10 years old or more. It's time to replace them with some thing more permanent.
Every project has to have an anchor. This is the anchor block for the rest of the perimeter of the bed. It takes the most time to set because it has to be perfect in alignment, level inline, and level across. The rest of the blocks take there lead from this anchor block.
This will be the end result for the entire perimeter. I have four more blocks on the front patio and many more at Terra Nova Gardens. Maybe I can make a run to Terra Nova to get them and dig some potatoes while I'm there.I've been thinking about this for some time and have now started the process for one bed. The took about 3 hours to build but the process is getting faster as I perfect the process of laying the blocks. Once the first level block gets laid the rest go really fast.
September 13, 2018
September has not been much better for gardening than the rest of the year. It's so embarrassing to look at how great the year started and how unruly the garden has become over the Summer. I have managed to keep the outside of the garden looking relatively under control but even that has suffered this year. I was glad to see the knock off rose bush survived the harsh Winter. It suffered during this year but perhaps next year it will be back to it's beautiful self. I'm hoping to be able to propagate some more rose bushes to plant around the garden area. I'm also hoping to spend more time at Terra Nova Gardens in September reclaiming the garden.
This is the ugly mess that the garden has turned out to be this year. The bones are still under there but the grass and weeds have taken over the land again. It doesn't take long for nature to reclaim the land when unattended.
After an hour or so I completed a trim of the grass and covered the area with a tarp. I'm hoping this will keep the weeds at bay better than the carpet. This is a 12'X20' tarp for $20 at Walmart. When I get the next section cleared I'll buy another tarp to cover it. It will take five tarps and some smaller ones to cover the entire area. It would be nice to get it all covered before Winter but I think that's probably not going to happen.
Slowly but surely the reclamation is at work. I'm almost starting over with the garden. I've come to the conclusion that the garden is too much to handle at this time in my life. Other things always seem to get in the way of garden time. By the end of the my energy is spent and I'm not in the mood to spend a couple hours in the garden. Next year my garden at Terra Nova Gardens will be half the size with only every other bed in production. The other beds will be in a rejuvenation process. Then the next year it will switch with the ones that have been rejuvenated this year will be in production and the beds that have grown vegetables next year will be rejuvenated and so it will go into the future years. It will a total new concept.
September 26, 2018
The month is ending soon. I have been making some headway at Terra Nova Gardens.
This I believe is bed #9 before I started cleaning it up. The process was to weed whack the weeds down to the ground. Then rake the debris off the path and bed. Then do a general soil turn over. No deep trench compost preparation just yet. The reclamation process continues as long as I can until the ground is frozen.
This is the result of about two hours of work. The bed is now exposed. I that that the best answer for weed control is to cover the ground with carpet but turns out the dust settles on the carpet, weed seeds sprout in the dust, and roots grow down through the carpet. If the carpet is turned over occasionally, then the method works but if not weeds grow as if they are in the soil without the carpet barrier. My next thought was to cover the beds with tarps but that will block the rain from soaking into the soil over the Winter. So I'm taking the tarps off for now and leaving the soil exposed for Winter moisture to soak into the soil. Perhaps in the Spring I'll cover the beds again to keep weeds under control until I'm ready to prepare and plant the bed.
The potatoes that were planted oh so long ago and neglected all summer long have matured. The potato bed had weeds just like bed #9 before cleaning off the debris. Now the harvesting of the potatoes can begin. I'll be keep them in the ground as long as I can. Storage in the store room is not the best for potatoes. So I need to keep them fresh in the soil until the soil started to freeze. Hopefully, that won't be for another month.
August 29, 2018
August has been a total bust for gardens this year. The best I can do is to press into cleanup and try to get ready for next year. The plan is for reclamation of the garden. The bones are there it just needs to be cleaned up. I'm planning to cover up each bed with carpet to keep the weeds from coming back when I get them cleaned up.
July 6, 2018
Here it is July with not much more progress in the garden.
June 9, 2018
Another month has scooted by way too fast. It's been blazing hot the end of May and now into June. My water tank is mostly full but struggles to stay that way. Rain comes but only in very small amounts. Many times less than .1 inch. Plants are struggling to survive let alone produce. My garden schedule is extremely sporadic this year. Family, friends, and neighbors have tasks for me to help them with and I just can't say no. I don't feel that my lack of gardening care this year is a strain on my life. Helping others is my focus and gardening is my enjoyment. So if pulling weeds is all that's accomplished this year so be it.
June 13, 2018
Weeded the first planting of corn today. Pulled the weeds in bed 3 & 4, Gave bed 5 a stir, the tomato bed, and weeded bed 2, the cabbage bed. It was a very productive day for sure. Things are starting to look a lot better. Now concentration is on the second half of the garden.
I started some seeds in soup cans. Squash, cucumbers, and Chard. I'm not sure they will come to harvest but I think they should have plenty of time to mature. It's the latest I've ever planted such plants and it will be a experiment for sure.
The volunteer tomatoes that looked so desperate are perking up and will make it. I knew those cherry tomatoes woould not die. They are too determined to give up and die. They will be taking over the bed before long.
I've been wondering what to do about the rain gutter trough that is leaking and decided to use the Flex Seal to line the entire gutter. That should seal it up. I have room for the three gutters on the patio which would give the total buckets to 21 when in full production. The watering would be entirely gravity fed with mini float valves to keep the gutter full.
I think I'll open up the garden to outsiders that I know next year. Jeanie would be a good candidate and possibly Sharon. I'm not sure who else. I would get the beds ready and they could plant and care for what ever they wanted.
May 6, 2018
April flew by without much gardening going on. The weather continued to be cold and snowy up until the middle of April. The cold weather continued after that but no rain for April. Just a half inch of moisture in the month of April put us behind since April's average is 3 inches. The rain catch water tank barely had any water in it by the end of April. Finally as May crept into the days, the temperature blasted up into the 80s which now is abnormally warm. This looks to be a garden season of extremes.
The fence panels that were the ICON of the garden were all but destroyed by vandals last Fall so fence repair was on the schedule for April.
Once again the free fence panels from S&W fencing came to the rescue. I picked up enough panels to repair this section of the fence. It looks like redwood but I think it's just painted wood. Cedar maybe. The next section over was repaired with cedar planks. With the fence repaired I can now turn my attention to the garden beds. One bed is planted with potatoes. I always have potatoes that never get eaten and turn into mushy sprouts. I will not plant as many thing year and harvest them earlier. I do like the early small potatoes. I might try canning some of those for winter consumption.
I spent this last Saturday mowing the grass at 35th street and spreading it over two beds at Terra Nova Gardens. That grass will be buried in the bed before planting. Another layer of grass clippings will be spread over the top of the bed as mulch. I'm hoping to get more mulch from my Urban Ranch yards for that.
Right when I need to do the most work, a family function will take me away for five days. I expect those five days will be perfect days for gardening and probably the day I get back rain will start delaying planting again. It's seems to happen every year. I'm not too distraught this year. The garden will get done when it gets done. I've discovered that I don't always have to try to be the earliest one to have a tomato or pepper.
May 9, 2018
Spent some time at Terra Nova Gardens. The yard grass clippings from UR yards were just enough to enrich the digging and cover the bed before planting. Here is the bed before work began.
I didn't start that many cabbage seedlings this year.
March 6, 2018
March is here with a vengeance. We just had the snow storm of the month with heavy wet snow. I had to be creative and shovel two paths up the west hill to the house and put some ice melt on the pathways. The next time I left the hill was clear of snow. That's what I like about March snows. They are heavy wet filled with good nitrogen that soaks into the soil, and it melts away quickly. By tomorrow night the snow will probably mostly be gone.
I have started some Simpson lettuce seeds. I've decided to start 18 seeds every week through out the year. I have a package with 2000 seeds so that should last the year. Actually, it will last 111 weeks which would be 2 years.
March 23, 2018
I haven't been following through with my lettuce plan. The plants that I thought were eggplants and peppers turned out to be lettuce and now I'm left with leggy eggplants or peppers I think. I really must be more efficient with record keeping.
This is the rough cleanup of bed 8 at Terra Nova Gardens. This will be the potato bed and be the first thing to be planted. I will require more cleanup and a good turning of the soil. I had to clean this out by hand. My trimmer has a broken starting rope. It was a new rope and broke on the third pull. I'm not sure just what that's all about. It's the second time the rope broke this year. Any way this next week will have to a week of Terra Nova Gardening but Monday the forecast is for thunder storms. It's been one of those Springs when the difficulty is getting into the garden. We had some of that last year and I had to plant in the mud a couple times.
March 31, 2018
This is the cleaned up Bed 8 for potatoes. The weather today is cloudy with dropping temperatures that will bottom out in the upper 20s and gusting wind up to 40 MPH. It's an ugly day to be outside in the garden so I'll put off gardening for another day. Maybe a little work in the back yard but nothing at Terra Nova Gardens. It's been a tough year for gardening but I'm sure things will work out eventually. They always do. I should do some re potting of the green peppers and start some tomato plants and plant some more lettuce. I haven't been too true to my plan of planting lettuce every week. There's plenty to do if I just get busy and do it. March is not leaving like a lamb this year.
The New year is here. The last two weeks of December has been bitterly cold and it looks like January is going to be no different. Time to start thinking about seeds and starting up the seed starting station. I have some new ideas about watering the plants under the grow lights that will automate the process and not require daily watering.
January 8
This is a 72 cell seed tray that I use for starting seeds. Once the seed get started I use bottom watering to keep the plants watered. It's always been a challenge to be sure that there's always water in the tray and the plants don't dry out. This is a very simple but effective plan to help keep the plants watered. The plan is to sacrifice two plant trays which is a total of 12 seed starts to put three bottles of water to maintain the water level in the tray holder. Basically the system is a water bottle turned upside down on a piece of 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe. When the water level goes below the bottom of the opening of the water bottle, an air bubble will gurgle up through the water releasing water into the tray holder. This action will continue until the water level is above the water bottle opening at which time air can not get into the water bottle and the water flow stops. I always like to have about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of water in the tray holder for bottom wicking to water the plants. Depth of the water can be adjusted by varying the length of the 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe until the desired water depth is achieved. I use a chop saw and shave increments off one end until trial and error gives me the right depth. Unless you have many bottles that are the same, the length of the PVC will vary depending on the length and thickness of the bottle neck.
January 23
https://modernfarmer.com/2013/07/straw-bale-gardening/
January 27
This is gravity watering for the seed starts 2.0. It's a V8 juice bottle with a shorter collar to stand on. I don't know if three of these will fit in the tray but I think they will. Two seed trays will be eliminated at the end of the water tray to allow these watering bottles to keep the water level even. So if I have to go away for a few days or forget to check the water level, the plants will continue to get watered. The trip that concerns me this year is the one in March. It seems that the trips are always at a critical time for gardening. I will have to start all the warm weather plants after I get back from Texas. The next time will be May which is another critical time as the plants need almost daily attention then. Why is it so difficult to plan gardening.
