This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24
March 24, 2007 at 4:07 pm
· Filed under Gardening
I don’t see many people blogging on gardening…one of my favorite topics, as you all know by now. Maybe I’m just not checking out the correct blogs for gardening! So, if any of you garden, please let me know and share what you do or plant.
Anyway, on to this post. My father came over yesterday and tilled the garden for me. (Have I mentioned what a great help it’s been to have my parents living right here in town?) He worked on it for several hours and now I have probably about the best garden area that I’ve ever had. I’m so excited to start planting!! I did plant some Yukon Gold potatoes yesterday, just one row. The garden is big, but not big enough to get everything in it! But, I’m ahead of schedule and that makes me really happy! I’m hoping to have everything in before we have some spring rains.
I was reading in an organic gardening magazine last summer and I’m going to try a new way to grow tomatoes. I’m going to erect a wire ‘cage’ of sorts at each corner of the garden and then plant my tomatoes around the outside of this cylinder. I can probably get about six plants around the outside of it. Then I put my compost material on the inside of the ‘cage’. I use salad scraps and fruit scraps, but no animal anything. Sometimes I do use farm eggs, for the shells, but I wash them first. I also put our grass clippings on the garden and I will put this in the compost bin too. The article in the magazine said this compost in the middle keeps the tomatoes roots cool and moist…plus I will have someplace to put it. I usually put the grass clippings between the plants and this keeps the garden moist and I have virtually no weeding! I love that part!! 
It also helps our lawn and of course I don’t put anything on the lawn since I mulch the garden with it.
So, I’m off and running on another spring and ahead of schedule too! That puts me in a great mood!
Permalink
Just found your blog about gardening. I too like to write about my gardening happenings and meanderings. A wire cage is a good way to grow tomatoes. They’ll thrive with all that wonderful compost. I like to include banana skins as mulch as it’s my understanding that the mineral content is beneficial to tomato plants. I must look up Yukon Gold potatoes because I like to grow heritage potatoes. I like to plant potatoes in layers of hay rather than in the soil. One interesting variety I blogged about is a blue potato called Urenika. Enjoy your springtime.
multiveg wrote @ March 26, 2007 at 8:27 am
There are more of us gardening bloggers out there!
My dad used to grow tomatoes over a compost heap.
I grew Yukon Gold one year - found the leaflet from GardenOrganic’s Potato Day - it is a seond early.
Previous years, have tried Salad Blue - a blue inside potato. You could have a patriotic red white and blue mash (with Highland Burgundy red, with a white fleshed potato).
Thank you Jenny and multiveg for checking out my blog and for your comments. It was so great to hear from other gardeners!
Jenny…that was interesting…to hear that you can plant potatoes in layers of hay rather than in the soil? I will have to check that out at your blog!
Multiveg…growing tomatoes over compost…that’s also very interesting. I have heard about the blue-fleshed potatoes, but I don’t know…would take a little getting used to I would think! But I loved your idea about the patriotic mash! That would be fun to try out. I’ve always loved Yukon Gold when I’ve bought them in the store, so I’m excited about them growing in my own garden plot!
susan wrote @ May 20, 2008 at 8:49 am
thanks all of you for the gardening tips as this is my first garden here in the Cariboo lived here for years and years just never grown any vegetable garden. Fun!
Deborah wrote @ May 28, 2008 at 10:13 am
It was good to hear from you, Susan and I’m happy that you were able to pick up some gardening tips. I was just reading the post and the comments from last year and reflecting how that all went in my garden…
Tomato plants grew very well, but it was hard to get to the compost to turn it with the wire cage around it. So, this year I am growing the peas and cucumbers on the cages. My husband will build a t-pee like form to go under the tomatoes that we have used in past years and that has seemed to work well for us.
I sure wasn’t ahead of schedule this year for the garden! I didn’t get it planted until the end of April, but I’m happy to say it is doing well!
HTML-Tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
