We do have a few people here that already garden in their suburban sized back yard gardens yards. Maybe they can share their observations, tips, tricks, goals etc.
FR’s search and organizational structure isn’t all that great. With real forum software, you could find all posts by a user named Pete that mention “low tunnel” in the Weekly Garden Thread forum.
I’ll start going through my files and pick out some basics/beginner friendly stuff. Found a dozen already.
As we all know, gardening can turn into a huge complex thing and become overwhelming. (if a person’s not careful, one Spring he can end up with 20+ types of hardy lettuce/leafy brassica seeds while working on a 3 year tunnel project that cost four digits LOL)
Resilient Gardening by Carol Depp and Gardening When It Counts by Steve Solomon are a couple of books that fit into the Victory Garden genre.
I prefer the first version of Square Foot Gardening where he digs 6” into the soil and fluffs it and then adds 6” of compost. In the later version, he just dumps 6” of compost on top because he says veggie roots only need 6”. Not sure a 5-6 foot tall tomato plant would agree.
Noted! Thank you! :)
I started container gardening 25 years ago. Mostly 5 gallon buckets. Works well with tomato and pepper plants. I can move them around to get more or less sun. For shallow root plants I use rectangular containers for green onions and melons.
Initial start up, I had to purchase 6 buckets, tomato cages and stakes. Each year I put new soil in the buckets but re use the cages and stakes. All done in a suburban back yard.
Started out in the low 20s this morning but windy. Supposed to go to 58 today but the rise in temp is blowing in with the 40 mph gusts today.
I can swap out my old dim 4’ fluorescent fixture with a 4’ LED shoplight in the shed. That’s out of the wind. Popped the diffuser off one of the LED lights yesterday and it really puts out light now. It will be the brightest light I’ve ever had over the seedlings. Color should be ok as I always go for 4500k or so.
Extreme wind gave me a chance to play around with the new notekeeping app I found last night. Pretty advanced but doesn’t have to be used that way. Unlimited hierarchies or tree structure which is a must. As soon as you add a child to a note, the parent note changes to a folder icon but is still a note that can have text, pics etc.
Has a journal built in which is handy.
Has a formatting toolbar so no need to type markdown or similar. Toolbar includes adding a table.
Has advanced content like Mermaid diagrams(flow charts, bar charts, mind map etc) and Canvas for freehand drawing with a tablet. Add a bunch of pics to a page and it automatically gives you a grid view gallery.
New app is called Trilium Notes — https://triliumnotes.org/en/
In my case, I can sync a desktop version to a self hosted version and the interfaces are nearly identical. Only have desktop version right now.
I was using a different notes app and syncing with my NextCloud but NextCloud doesn’t display the hierarchy in a tree mode in the sidebar. It shows as folders but not even in the same order as the PC version. Images and other attachments become disconnected from the pages too.
NextCloud is good for what I mainly use it for which is storing/sharing files. It works like a backup too because my cloud files are in a folder called NextCloud on my PC. Add a file there and it will get uploaded automatically within a few seconds. I have the Agriculture folder in there which gets shared and other folders which don’t.
I still have Logsec journal based note app on my phone and it syncs to desktop with the help of SyncThing. I thought I would use it as a daily journal at work but since we’re a .mil contractor, there’s not a whole lot I can put on a phone, OPSEC and all. We’re making SpaceX rocket parts now which is cool.
It’s good for jotting down thoughts and ideas on the fly. I need to use it more for that for personal use. I wrote down a part # on a little piece of cardboard while down at the shed and haven’t lost it, YET. I had the phone with me too.
Speaking of shed, I’m going to go hang that LED light, wire it to the controller relay that already has a grow light timer schedule and activate the timer schedule.