Garden 2019.

Next month I can start doing things out in the garden according to my calendar.
I'll have to prune the berry bushes,apply lime sulfur to my blueberries and start some seeds inside if I plan on growing certain things ( leeks,cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower,celery,collards).
I'll have to trim the fruit trees and apply dormant oil on them
If I lived down in the southern part of WV I could plant peas in the ground and salad greens( in a high tunnel)

I need to remember to ask the hubby if he has any spare windows or plexiglass laying around. I think I'm going to try making a coldframe and try growing some greens

BUT right now we're looking at snow showers tomorrow night and the some type of snow on saturday lol Depending on where it tracks we could get 2-4 inches or up to 12 inches

Meerkat said:

Are you renting if so maybe cut off over hanging branches. I'm busy doing some of that myself today.

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They are very tall spindly oaks. But there is a diseased myrtle that needs to come down.
I'm curious as to how to keep critters from ruining it all. As I've mentioned before, I give up; but I can't give up!
I'll figure out something. If nothing else, my own determination.

@Patchouli put chicken wire around the garden beds to stop the critters and you can peg it with steel or wood pickets and tie on the wire with tie wire. If the animals can climb over that then use the chicken wire on top as well. Just remember to make it high enough that you can walk around in there and do what you have to do and make a gate at one end.

This morning got Red Pontiac and Irish in the raised bed .
Also working on pile as wrist permits which is better but not quite well.
Hubby pruned the pear and fig trees, then we transplanted the branch's in the ground to see what we get. If they do ok and take root we will transplants to permanent place.

Sewingcreations15 said:

@Patchouli put chicken wire around the garden beds to stop the critters and you can peg it with steel or wood pickets and tie on the wire with tie wire. If the animals can climb over that then use the chicken wire on top as well. Just remember to make it high enough that you can walk around in there and do what you have to do and make a gate at one end.

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, we did this to our garden area and it worked to keep out rabbits.
Went up about 18 inch to 2 feet .

We have a little dog that chases away the small critters. If it wasn't for her, there wouldn't be anything out there to pick. I ordered some vegetable seeds,
and blueberry and elderberry bushes yesterday. I'm going to try to make my own elderberry syrup this year. It's so expensive at Walgreens and the bottle is small. It certainly works on shortening the duration of colds and viruses. When my grandchildren start to get a cold, we dose them up with elderberry, and they are right as rain before you know it. Does anybody make their own elderberry syrup?

Gigi said:

Does anybody make their own elderberry syrup?

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I do and I think several folks on here do also. Last batch I made included cinnamon, I guess for flavor. I won't do that again, better plain to me!

Id like to find some elderberry plants

Much cheaper to buy elderberry tea. I've often used it with other herbs when the family would get sick with virus, flu, etc, in a big pot of tea. Really helped.

I finally found a on-line supplier that sells market garden equipment like you see Curtis Stone use here in Australia.

They also stock Johnny's Seeds. AWESOME!
They are the only business I've found that will sell pelleted carrot seed to someone without a primary producer or a
Australian Business number owner.
I've been wanting pelleted carrot seeds ever since I saw my favourite gardening channel on YT Bumble Bee Junction
planting them and explaining why they choose pelleted carrot seeds.
I've used pelleted lettuce seeds that I got with my hydroponic system and the germination I got from them was 100%.
They sell commercial bulk seeds a lot cheaper than other seed companies and I'm just giddy after spending several hours looking at
their site reading descriptions and other various information.

Bacpacker said:

Id like to find some eldrrcerry plants

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Stark Bros. sells a few varieties. I'm sure you can find some.

Patchouli said:

Much cheaper to buy elderberry tea. I've often used it with other herbs when the family would get sick with virus, flu, etc, in a big pot of tea. Really helped.

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I've been buying powdered elderberries on eBay. Very inexpensive! Already to make anything with. Probably could even make jelly but haven't tried that yet.

Patchouli said:

Stark Bros. sells a few varieties. I'm sure you can find some.

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Thanks Patch. Just got a new catalog from them i havent looked at yet.

Planning on adding a new garden this year. Have read a ton about Square Foot Gardening, so I'll be trying it on a little corner of the lot with southern exposure.

I've had to face hard facts that my region is in for a hard growing season.
Already any tomato plant has been struck down with multiple viruses and blights.
Total and complete crop failure.

Heirlooms are off the growing list and the F1 hybrids with proven disease and virus resistance
are now on.
In an ideal world, yeah, heirlooms all the way BUT I'm not going to starve because I
was too bullheaded to adapt to changing circumstances.
First and foremost I'm growing food and I aim to get food to put in my pantry
and on my table.

I've searching high and low for disease and virus resistant varieties of
tomatoes in both Roma and slicer/ truss indeterminate growth habit.

Roma variety I've gone with Origin Roma F1 at a cost of $28.95 for 50 seeds ( plus postage)
Slicer/ Truss I've gone with Petula F1 at a cost of $34.09 for 100 seeds ( plus postage).

Yes, I'm abundantly aware that that price is ridiculous BUT these seeds are imported from
America and they have the best disease resistance of any other varieties on the market at the moment.
If these fail, given the amount of husbandry I give my tomatoes with copper sulfate and asprin sprays
then I can safely say that I've done my absolute best.

Yes, I'm abundantly aware that I won't be able to seed save BUT I'm very good at striking
cuttings using side shoots that I nip off effectively cloning the parent plants.
It's the same thing you do with sweet potatoes.

Bio-security will be important.
Sterile seedling mix and sterilised seedling punnets.
Scrubbing down the trellises with a strong bleach solution before planting and cleaning
off clippers with bleach or vinegar before and after each use.

It may seem like over kill but conditions here are the worst I've ever seen.

Are the prices that high because of shipping? Heck, if its legal to send seeds give me a list and I'll hit the 99cent rack for you.

Terri9630 said:

Are the prices that high because of shipping? Heck, if its legal to send seeds give me a list and I'll hit the 99cent rack for you.[/QUOTE

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I appreciate the thought but it's illigal and against Australian bio security laws to import tomato seeds without a bio security certifacte. Hence the huge costs.
Also it's not a matter of hitting the .99 cent racks unfortinately. These varties are proven resistant to the horrendous diesase and virus burden we have happening here.
Planting anything else would be a massive waste of time and effort.
I cannot afford to have a failed crop.
It's a bitter pill to swallow bit needs must.

That's to bad. Most of the 99cent seeds are hybrid with wilt/blight/fungus resistant.

Priced bulk garden blend compost from a local supplier.
$125 delivered per cubic meter. For around here that's an awesome price.
Beats the heck out of hauling +++++ 20ltr bags of potting soil in the car from Bunnings- (a big hardware chain like Home Depot.)
I still may have amend it depending on it's PH and add epsom salts and lime for the tomatoes but I was planning on doing
that anyway.

I ordered some tomato seeds for tomatoes that grow on vines.....sounded interesting......

Something I normally don't do is order much of anything thats a hybrid. But I've found some tomato types I want to try for flavor, they are all hybrids. I guess nothing wrong with that for year to year. Just don't plan on saving any seed.

I found out the variety of sugar snap peas seeds I brought have ZERO mildew resistance *sigh*
so I got on-line and found a heirloom variety that did called Sugar Bon.
I brought 5 pack of seed and now I have to wait 2+ weeks for them to turn up or maybe long because of the flooding.

I made lots of lists of what I want to grow this season, how much, what is going be direct sown, what is going to be
planted into seedling trays.
I drew a map of where I was going to plant everything in relation to how much sun/ shade it can cope with.
Also by the sort of crop protection they need.
I've grouped my Swiss chard and kale together because they need similar growing conditions/ light and they
will both need the same grade of insect netting over them.
Broccoli, cabbages and collards need the same growing conditions and they'll need to be covered with a wider weave
butterfly netting so they've been put together in their own block. If the white cabbage butterfly can't land on the plants
they can't lay eggs. No eggs no caterpillars.
Grouping these together makes management easier and it's cheaper to buy larger rectangles of mesh that will cover multiple rows
that it is to buy shorter lengths that will only cover one row at a time.
It also gives me the option to cut the mesh at any length and width I require if whole block coverage proves to be a pain in the butt.

Lists of seeds, propagation and irrigation supplies I still need to get.

Good news on the seed front is that I found Yates has put out a F1 hybrid beefsteak tomato with very high
disease and virus resistance called Big Beef and I can by it at large chain variety stores.
I'll swap out the insanely expensive Petula F1 tomato seeds for Yates Big Beef F1 which I can buy locally.
I'm still sticking with the Origin F1 roma/ plum tomatoes because heirloom romas just don't have the disease resistance I need.

Working out what I want to grow and allocating space with the right light requirements has been hard.
I've had to pare down the numbers of different crops and increase volume on the ones that remain.
I still haven't worked out the knack of succession planting and that's something I'll have to work on.

Still "ouching" in the bank balance over paying $35 - includes postage for 50 Origin F1 Roma tomato seeds.

These tomatoes are going to have to be bomb proof and taste like heaven *grumbles*.

*shrugs*

You do what you need to to make sure you get a harvest.

Found Poblano chilli seeds at a specialist chilli seed bank and brought them for $4.00 for 20 seeds plus $4.00 postage.

I've discovered that a lot of heirloom seed suppliers here in Australia have removed Poblano from their seed lists so I had to
hunt for these.

Another seed variety to cross off my list of "to buy".

I made 100 sweet potato cuttings from sweet potatoes vines I harvested.

The UV and heat has been that intense that the leaves got scalded but they've produced really well.
Anything that produces that well under the really harsh conditions we've had this summer is a keeper.

Ticked some more garden items off the list of "must gets".

The poblano chilli seeds turned up in the post and I got notification that the Origin roma tomato seeds will be here on Monday.

I got two packets of Big Beef tomato seeds.

I brought a 100 mtr roll of weed matting off ebay which will get here Thursday next week.

Next on the list is the steel star pickets and concrete reo mesh panels and then the compost.

I need more seedling flats and seed starter mix but I'll keep working my way through the lists
a little at a time.

Today is a awesome day!

My Origin tomato seeds are going to be delivered today AND.........

I found the ONLY supplier of Dr Wyche's yellow tomato seeds and Rutgers in Australia through a seedsaver network on Ebay.
I just brought a packet of both!
These are precious and I'll be putting exclusion bags over the flower buds before they open to ensure the fruit and the seed they produce breed true.
The seed will be kept in the fridge to preserve the viability.

I'm all kinds of SQUEEEEEEE at the moment.

We grow Rutgers. They are our primary canning tomato. Nice find.

My garden clock is starting to tic.

I placed one seed order yesterday. Gonna send the second tomorrow. After that it'll just be specific type stuff I find.