End of January: Garden

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January is a pretty dead month mostly but for the end. This is when I mine my compost pile and distribute its bounty throughout.

The compost pile is just four steel fence stakes in a rectangle driven into the ground, surrounded by a 4x6 mesh fence. At one corner you bend it so you can open it. I open mine last week January, so did it. I got ten 5 gallon buckets of black compost. The stuff that hasn't broken down separates itself pretty cleanly as you dig through the pile with a pitchfork and a shovel. Then you pitch back in the stuff that's still decroding, piling new leaves and cuttings and orange peels and what not until next January. I put six buckets on the back garden and the other four under the dwarf maple out front.

I'm going for snow peas early. Chard and basil for sure. Now's the time to give thought to those thoughts.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: End of January: Garden

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One of the things I dig about living where I do is year round gardening- getting fresh lettuce still, broccoli is well on its way, and heads of purple cabbage should be ready to go in the next month, which will then become kraut. Early spring I should have our first asparagus harvest up early. I need to get my tomatoes started inside in the next few weeks.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
- Maya Angelou

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Re: End of January: Garden

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We are now heading into the snow and coldest part of the winter. We've already seen 0 deg. We had snow this morning, then rain in the afternoon and evening, turning back into sloppy snow, not the pretty stuff. This time of year, if you want to grow stuff, you'll be doing it on your window sill.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: End of January: Garden

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I just turned everything down and raked piles a couple weeks ago. Got enough wet this year that the leaves blown in from the neighbors trees hold enough water when piled over the decrepit tomato vines to melt the whole mess in just a few weeks. Will till it all in late February.

Not sure what's growing this year. Still don't trust the break in the drought enough to plant the grapes I want. Might sprinkle the whole upper (dryer) half of the yard with black hollyhock seeds and throw a few tomatoes in below and just let that be all of it. We are both working more, so there'll definitely be less of a tiny lawn farm than in years past.
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Re: End of January: Garden

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It is -28F in my backyard. The mulch pile is kind of hard and hard to find under the snow. The garden magazines help a bit. Wife is trying to build up the nerve to fill the bird feeders, and I will remind her that feeding the birds is her hobby. Mine involves shooting and eating birds.
In an ironic twist, the polar vortex is here as a result of warm air over the arctic displacing and moving out the cold air, so this cold is caused by global warming.
Somebody should explain to the deniers the difference between climate and weather.

In Nordic mythology Helheim is the coldest of the 9 worlds At this point, Minnesota is colder than Hell.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
- Ronald Reagan

Re: End of January: Garden

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senorgrand wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 10:54 pm Pics or it didn't happen...
So true.

Here's the compost pile, freshly harvested. The navel orange tree is doing its thing, so there's a lot of orange peels there before a covering of leaves. It's been there since about 2005 with the same stakes and wire.

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Here's the garden with freshly spread compost. You can see the two galvanized pipes there. They will hold up the grid upon which will climb the peas. At the top there you can see the bottom of a rice straw bale that will serve as mulch this year.

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I thought I'd try some arrows. Seems unsafe.

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I'll cut up the bale and mulch with the rice straw today and let it rain on it on Friday. I'll get some snow pea starts at the local organic garden store. Maybe mid Feb. I'll plant.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: End of January: Garden

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Those veggies look good, water is expensive where I live so that dampens my motivation. Home grown tastes so much better but local stores are well stocked at good prices. Now eelj's shooting range gets me going, maybe my next house will have a lot of acreage.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: End of January: Garden

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highdesert wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:36 pm Those veggies look good, water is expensive where I live so that dampens my motivation. Home grown tastes so much better but local stores are well stocked at good prices. Now eelj's shooting range gets me going, maybe my next house will have a lot of acreage.
Can't really see it in my pic but on the left side of the picture is a small pond, I plan on setting up a small pump and pipeline so I water the garden with pond water.

Re: End of January: Garden

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Yeah, we're in Zones 7-9 of the Sunset Western Garden book rating here in northern California. I can't imagine what it would be like living in such cold temps. Yeowch! I'd prolly sit in front of the woodstove for like three months.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: End of January: Garden

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eelj wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 4:07 pm
highdesert wrote: Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:36 pm Those veggies look good, water is expensive where I live so that dampens my motivation. Home grown tastes so much better but local stores are well stocked at good prices. Now eelj's shooting range gets me going, maybe my next house will have a lot of acreage.
Can't really see it in my pic but on the left side of the picture is a small pond, I plan on setting up a small pump and pipeline so I water the garden with pond water.
Very smart, that would reduce your water bill. I thought about having a small well dug, but the water company has an easement on my property for all the underground water and on most properties in town.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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