Tell me about your SB garden so I can post about mine

[lakegran2]

I have a small yard so my garden is tiny (12X14) but I have pots of with salad makings on my deck and tomatoes in my flower borders etc.
this morning I was reminded of a method of planting potatoes in a barrel, Since I am pretty much p3 for the summer I guess this should be a good addition to my growing adventure.
I looove new redskins roasted in lots of garlic and evoo
I will wait to see if there is any interest in a gardening thread before I go on......and on......and on

[Chris55]

I'm slowly starting back to gardening. I lost my sunniest spots to our RV 10 years back and haven't really done much since then. Plus we've done major work on the back end of our house, including a new deck, so this year I am reclaiming my yard . Unfortunately that has involved too many days of sitting on the deck drinking beer or coffee.

I was inspired last summer by a garden that mixed veggies and flowers - it was gorgeous! So I decided to try to do something similar. Since I have sun only part of the day I've only planted a few things, tucking them in with my other plantings. I have a ring of hostas that are partly in the sun, so I tucked some kale and swiss chard in with them. I planted black-eyed susans near the edge of my deck and put in some snap peas with them. And I have tomatoes in planters that I can move around since I'm not sure where the sun is hitting and the one place I'd really like to plant them is where DH is still finishing the deck. So until that's finished, I can just move them out of his way when needed. If all goes well this year, I'll do a bit more next year. Since I'm in Maine and our season had such a late start this year, I'm not expecting much. The kale will keep going until after the snow is on the ground, and everyone in my family loves it, so I decided that would be the best use of my space. I still have my aerogarden full of lettuce that I'm using for my daily salad, and some basil to jazz things up a bit. I really should plant some herbs in the ground, too. I also have to catch one of my neighbors who has been trying to give me some chive divisions for the past few seasons - I'm ready for them now!

[lakegran2]

You have my kind of garden...but you have a lot more exotic flowers...I have been adding a perennial or 2 each year and my beds are starting to look nice..( with the addition a a few annuals tucked in to bare spots ) I have stairs going up to my front entrance where I put pots of color. My yard is tiny so i don't have to spend a fortune to make a big splash.

[Chris55]

For years about all I had growing was daylilies, mostly because our springer spaniel ate everything, even tore the poor daylilies apart. Our soil has a lot of clay, rocks, and oyster shells - we live near an area that was the summer residence of our Abenakis, so there are oyster shells in our soil. It needs a lot of organic material worked in, which I have neglected to do so far this year, so I'll be digging in some nice compost as soon as I'm up to it.

My back doesn't let me dig much, but I bought this great weeder last year that has big prongs that you step on and then twist the whole thing with your arms, so that's pretty much how I've been digging my holes - I poke the weeder into the soil until it's soft enough to dig with a trowel or lightly with my shovel. So far, it's been working. When DH built the deck last summer, I had to dig up a bunch of hostas, lily of the valley, and irises, which I did very slowly with my weeder (and my DS, who helped with the last few batches!), then just made a circle around our nice birch tree. I wasn't sure if they'd survive, but they took off, and they're filling in nicely this year. I'd love to just start from scratch and put in a bunch of nice bushes, but I can't afford it.

[Chris55]

I finally got some compost yesterday and picked up a pack of zucchini seeds. I think I'm going to dig up my old 2'X4' garden plot and plant it with zucchini. It's hard to reach the area with my hose now that the deck is in the way, but I figured that I can water the seedlings with a watering can and then hopefully we'll have enough rain to take care of them most of the time. As long as I can keep the weeds out they'll be pretty low maintenance - I may go buy some weed block fabric to help with that. I love zucchini, and love how quickly it browns up on the grill, and if I have too many I can always grate and freeze them for baking. I'm trying to only plant things that are pretty easy and will provide a lot of bang for my efforts. I have a CSA share, but it's a small share and everyone is home, so extra zucchini will be a good thing. Being so far north and starting the season exceptionally late this year, I need quick-growing veggies.

[lakegran2]

Yep zuc really produces......my problem is getting to them while they are still a nice size ...I like 5 or 6 in , about the size of a smallish cucumber......sooo good on the grill.
for the first time I think I have some type of critter in my garden ...hope I am wrong, but the top of a crook neck plant has vanished and some of the beans appear to have been nibbled on......

[Chris55]

I have holes in the leaves of my black-eyed susans. I know we have neighborhood ground hogs - lots of them, so I'm expecting to share my harvest That's why a pile of zucchini is in my plan - maybe they'll grow too fast to be eaten!

[lakegran2]

We have a muskrat in residence here year round, but I have never known him to bother the garden hmmmmm, more likely a ground mole maybe? Kitty has been spending more time in the garden so he may take care of that.
I am seeing some green poking through in my potato tub, ( already)
the garden is looking good......this heat has been tough on the annuals I put in over the weekend but temps are supposed to get back to 70s with some rain by Friday.
I need to thin out the chard and romaine but will wait until we have cooler mornings
I love black eyed susans .... good memories of tiger lilies and blackeyed susans everywhere. I grew up spending summers on this lake. My grandfather built our "cottage" in about 1895.
The weeder you mentioned sounds interesting, I mostly use a long handled 3 prong thingy for weeding. Does your tool have a name?
bending is hard for me too so it is on my knees..... or standing.

[Chris55]

Mine is made by Fiskars. There are a number of them on the market - I went to a number of stores to look at them. This one is nice because it has a sturdy spot for your foot to step down and the top handle is long enough to give you leverage to twist and break up the soil. Some of them have longer twisted arms, but I couldn't find one like that - had seen a friend's. I think I got mine at Lowe's.
http://www2.fiskars.com/Products/Yard-a ... ols/Tiller

[lakegran2]

That looks like a serious tool, I will check it out at Lowes. thanks

[Quirquie]

That is a serious tool and a good workout too! We just had to add 1 cub yd of topsoil to fill holes in the yard so we could get the grass growing there again. Mem day weekend I go get the dirt and we put it in the yard and then it rains and it turned to a solid rock! I actually spent $10 more on that tool to loosen up that dirt to plant the grass than I spent on the dirt! I took me all of last week but I got it all loosened up and the grass seed down. Works great for pulling weeds too!

[Chris55]

Sorry to hear about your topsoil turning to rock! I need to do that this year also - our grass is very sad and our yard is full of holes and bare spots.

[Quirquie]

Well it was a good work out, however I was unable to maintain my normal workout routine that I had just gotten into and get all that work done in that heat. So I haven't done any exercises since because my upper back and shoulders are still sore from all that twisting! I am going to try to get on the exercise bike for a bit if my leg cramp lets me.

[Chris55]

Yeah, I have a spot on my spine right between my shoulder blades that aches, but it's way better than having a lower back ache from using a shovel to till the garden. I buried a deceased pet rabbit a few years ago when the ground was frozen and ended up at the chiropractor for 6-8 months. I had lower back pain and sciatica - couldn't sit in the car for more than 5 minutes. I gave up my shovel after that episode and I've been fine if I watch what I'm doing. Even with the tiller, I only do a little bit each day. My friend who showed me her tiller had one with a long bent handle that was much wider and I think had more torque, so less work. But I couldn't find one like it anywhere.

[lakegran2]

Chris ......If you are still looking for garden tools, there are some pretty good garden forums out there....
I haven't posted there for awhile, but I got a lot of great help when I was just getting started...seed exchanges too.

My 'taters in a tub' are up about 2 inches.....so cool.......I picked up a few more basil plants...I pretty much stripped my first plants for salads those first hot hot days
We finally got some really good rain...three separate nice little rainfalls....My catch buckets are full Yea....... Previous years I watered from the lake, but Last year the lake had to be treated for an invasive weed and this year they followed up. ( this should be the last..I hope!) So I have needed a water source for the garden. My hose spigot water goes through the softener and I don't like to use it for the yard.
I only lost one plant to the hot spell ( it began the day after planting) everything else looks great after such a late start. Need to thin romaine and chard again.
The cuke bushes look really robust ( I have my fingers crossed) I have never had any success with cukes or pickles...and I dearly love those things.
Nice and warm now ...off to spend an hour in my little garden