My Back to Eden garden progress

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JamesY

JamesY

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Mar 16, 2018
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252
So about may last year I started a garden. We tilled and planted. The weeds were terrible so we started mulching heavily. Now it's a no till garden. This year I just pulled back the mulch and sowed seeds. It's going ok so far. Some of the seeds were a little old and didn't come up but anyway.... Here's a few pics of the progress.




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after the plants were done we mulched HEAVILY again. 6 inches of grass clippings and another 4 inches of wood chips. Then a few wheel narrows of compost and manure on top to get some nitrogen on the chips. This year before planting there was a nice layer of fluffy black stuff u deer the chips where we had white sand before.
 
Your garden is looking good! The first set of 5 pictures… at the very bottom of the last picture I believe I see a plant in the grass named “Plantago lanceolata”, a wonderful medicine. To most people it looks like grass.

I’ve used it heal a brown recluse spider bite, any kind of ant or wasp sting, best thing for a poison ivy rash. Google the latin name and click images. I need surgery for a cataract so I’m not 100% sure…
 
Peanut said:
Your garden is looking good! The first set of 5 pictures… at the very bottom of the last picture I believe I see a plant in the grass named “Plantago lanceolata”, a wonderful medicine. To most people it looks like grass.

I’ve used it heal a brown recluse spider bite, any kind of ant or wasp sting, best thing for a poison ivy rash. Google the latin name and click images. I need surgery for a cataract so I’m not 100% sure…
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Thanks! I run across plants here all the time that look like they could be food or medicine. But idk so I mow em down
 
Very nice looking gardens. Question. I see everyone has fenced the gardens. Does it really keep everything out? Any of them electric? I have tons of critters to include bear. I'm thinking electric may be needed.....thanks for any answers.
 
JamesY said:
I fence mine to keep the chickens in when I let them I. The garden or the chickens and dogs out when things are growing.
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It looks awesome James. Mine is new this year too....I've learned so much so far with much more to learn hence all the questions. I'm going kinda big so we'll see. Herbs, vegetable, perrenials and annuals. Looking for some good color for it as well as medicinal items and great stuff to eat. I'm really enjoying it. Hope you guys are too.
 
Dutchs said:
It looks awesome James. Mine is new this year too....I've learned so much so far with much more to learn hence all the questions. I'm going kinda big so we'll see. Herbs, vegetable, perrenials and annuals. Looking for some good color for it as well as medicinal items and great stuff to eat. I'm really enjoying it. Hope you guys are too.
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I'm gonna try companion planting this year. I don't know much about it but I'm mixing herbs with alot of the plants to try and deter pests.
 
In one of my previous gardens I had fencing like James' to keep critters out, but still had a problem with rabbits getting in. The young rabbits were small enough to squeeze in the openings of the wire fence and did a tremendous amount of damage! I fixed that problem by attaching a 2 1/2 foot high border of one-inch mesh chicken wire all around the bottom of the fence.

In another previous garden I had problems with cats, dogs, rabbits but no money for a fence of any kind, so I gathered pine cones and made a wide border of them around the perimeter of the garden. The critters hate to walk on that stuff because the stickum parts of the pine cones hurt their paws.

Growing rabbit-licious greens in containers also works for preventing rabbit damage. But this is not practical for huge quantities. "High-rise" garden beds should work well for larger quantities of greens, etc. High-rise, as in the kind for gardeners who are confined in wheelchairs or otherwise unable to get down-n-dirty in the garden. Something similar to this: https://www.google.com/search?q=gar...gxPPZAhVT_oMKHXmLD04QsAQI5QI&biw=1200&bih=560
 
I love the first photo in this thread: ten feather-weight tillers vs. one heavy weight tiller! I used to "till" my gardens with a chicken tractor, so I know they work very well!
 
Speaking of fencing, I would like to share a low-cost deer "fence" that really works: fishing line! Deer are spooked when they encounter it because they can feel it but can't see it. This spooks them so much they don't take another step forward. I strung several strands of high tensile fishing line around the garden, and it works better than anything else I have ever tried to keep the deer out. It lasts seemingly forever because fishing string is designed to resist UV damage from the sun, etc.
 
Grizzleyette___Adams said:
Speaking of fencing, I would like to share a low-cost deer "fence" that really works: fishing line! Deer are spooked when they encounter it because they can feel it but can't see it. This spooks them so much they don't take another step forward. I strung several strands of high tensile fishing line around the garden, and it works better than anything else I have ever tried to keep the deer out. It lasts seemingly forever because fishing string is designed to resist UV damage from the sun, etc.
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Very good idea! :thumbs up:. We used it around our fish pond the owls and other birds of prey only hit it once. Before that owl got one of our oldest Koi 7 YO. And many goldfish just as old. Never lost another fish. Plus the pond was still beautiful because the fishing line was almost invisiable.
 
Wow! May I ask how you configured it? Did the line go above the water...or...?
 
Very good info. folks..Greatly appreciated. James...I don't mean to hijack your thread...Just so much stuff I see here i have been giving thought to how i will handle it when i get everything in place. Thank you for the thread and everyone for the great info.......Grizzly I have heard the Fishing line trick but had forgotten it...That is DEFINITELY in my future! I also have a lot of rabbits, Possum and Armadillo. I try just shooting the later two but i hate taking out the rabbits......Raccoons don't last long here either...All depends on what damage they do.....I'll give them some but that only goes so far...
 
I noticed James has an abundance of wood chips which makes a great mulch.

If anyone has the space for a large pile of wood chips, here is a good (nationwide) source of free wood chips that make great mulch/compostable material: https://getchipdrop.com/

Here is an overview of what you can expect from them: https://getchipdrop.com/expectations/

A big pile of this stuff will eventually rot down to rich soil amendments.

Here’s how to turn wood chips into compost in a hurry: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...ng-alys-fowler
 
Grizzleyette___Adams said:
Wow! May I ask how you configured it? Did the line go above the water...or...?
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We had strands of pulled up over the pond like a tee pee. It was outside the water. Spaced about 12 ' apart. But we had an arbor over it so it was easy to do.
But if we didn't have an arbor we would have just put stakes on 4 ends and pulled it across, then tied off that to the ground. PVC is cheap and easy.
The huge owl with wing spread about 4 or 5 feet would look at us sitting, on the porch look at the fish then dive down and take one. He hit that line one time and never came back. Didn't hurt him but he was scared.
 
THAT is downright clever!!!! I may do something similar in my garden at planting time. Maybe I'll rig up something to go over and around newly planted patches of ground. I'm thinking of something a few inches off the ground, or else I will hang my fool self, sure as shootin'.

Danged birds eat the new sprouts just as soon as they come up.
 
I hang fishing line over newly planted rows in the garden, especially corn. A crow will walk down a row of corn that's coming up, pull up each plant and eat the seed. I've seen them do it. I've hung fishing line over my chicken pen. I've had a problem with crows raiding nest boxes before. I buy the neon green line and hang it loosely so it'll move in the breeze. I want birds to see it.


@Grizzleyette___Adams
Danged birds eat the new sprouts just as soon as they come up
 
Yep, chickens are great little excavators. I had a pile of cinder blocks that had been there 40 years. It was completely over grown with vines, briars, weed etc. I had a project planned and I needed cinder blocks. I extended my chicken pen with deer netting. I had about 40 hens at the time. It took them two summers but they cleaned all the plant growth off my cinder blocks. ;)

Cinder block pile.jpg
 
Peanut said:
Yep, chickens are great little excavators. I had a pile of cinder blocks that had been there 40 years. It was completely over grown with vines, briars, weed etc. I had a project planned and I needed cinder blocks. I extended my chicken pen with deer netting. I had about 40 hens at the time. It took them two summers but they cleaned all the plant growth off my cinder blocks. ;)

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That's permiculture! Right on!
 
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