Posted on 04/04/2020 9:15:07 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Nice living up in the mountain’s right now; getting garden started on a beauty day.
I miss my garden - these days I only have a cramped urban balcony, but soon I will leave that behind.
One thing I did was to create a miniature bonsai garden that winters over (New York area) in a New England climate.
I started with a Home Depot potted Juniper (ground hugging variety) and felt through a bunch of them at the store until I found one with a nice thick, hidden ‘trunk’.
Then I trimmed it all up, found some stern moss and sphagnum moss, a bit of small succulents for the edges and voila... an expensive looking, yet very cheap bonsai - everything came from Home Cheapo!
http://www.henrylivingston.com/theman/atlocustgrove/flowers.htm
Mid 30s this morning here but in a few days will hit 80. Got my taters and onions in. Supposed to rain last night but didn’t. I was hoping it would. I raked a spot as smooth as I could for the greens, lettuce and cabbage but was hoping rain would smooth it a bit more before planting those tiny seeds. If I had planted them and then we got a heavy rain, the seeds would get moved all over the place. We don’t have a well here yet so I’ll have to pull one of our water tanks down there and sprinkle the area. I really should be doing drip irrigation but I don’t want to spend the money yet with this virus thing going on. Same with the high tunnel. Between the two, it would be close to a grand that I’d prefer to keep in the bank right now. I say in the bank but we’re also pulling cash via the ATM and keeping some of that on hand.
OK, more questions.
I was out in the garden at the new place and parts of it are very swampy.
Im thinking a slightly raised bed in parts of the garden would work nicely, just enough for decent drainage, but the roots could go deeper to get the moisture.
What is good rot proof or rot resistant material for the sides that wouldnt break the bank?
The beds were filled with virgin soil from the pasture, then a topping of composted mule manure. Beau tilled it all in for me with our small tiller.
The gravel walkway will be soaked down with the hose when we drag the hoses out. That will help it harden into place.
The materials for the project totaled $350.00, mainly for the wood. Labor was free. ;) This also solves the problem of a weedy SLOPE that was and impossible to mow eyesore.
I'll have pictures later in the week of the rose varieties that are going in there. All are sturdy Rugosa-types that are good to Zone 4. I want these beds to be beautiful, but as self-sufficient as possible. Herbs and medicinal roses will be on the west-facing side.
‘Home Cheapo’ LOL!
Sounds like a great winter project. A gal I used to work with was into Bonsai, and she had made some stunning creations through the year.
For people who dont normally follow Prepper threads I keep a Knowledge Base for SHTF situations. Although a lot of the material may be on topics that you arent really interested in there is quite a bit of information people who subscribe to threads like this would find useful and its all organized by directories so if you arent interested in how to make improvised weapons or survive in the wilderness you will still find hundreds of titles on gardening, homesteading, country living in urban areas, foraging, DIY and frugal living tips among other topics. All you need is a pdf reader, an Ebook reader, both of which can be found online for free and most of you probably already have, and a program like WinRaR to uncompress files if you choose to download an entire directory at once. Send me a PM and I will give you an access code to the site. Its totally free. All I ask is that you dont discuss the contents of the KB in this forum.
Maybe covering the area where you plant the lettuce seeds with an old sheet until they come up.
That way the sheet would take the brunt of the rain and yet allow the water through.
BTW, I planted lettuce and spinach seeds a couple weeks ago in Central NY and they are up already.
Here it was on day one:
It spent the entire New York City winter outdoors on the balcony exactly as you see it.
Below is exactly how it looks today. I put a little bit of scrap succulents in there to give it a more landscape-ish look. Mostly stuff I found on the floor while shopping at Home Cheapo.
Cedar is beautiful and will outlive you, if you can afford it. ;)
Beau has used treated pine boards for our raised beds. Yes, they are food-safe! They don’t use arsenic in treating the wood, anymore.
We have one bed that is about 4 years old and one corner has come apart and will be fixed this week. Other than that, even the oldest bed he has that he put in probably 10 year ago, (of treated pine) is still going strong.
My other suggestion would be to use cinder blocks if you’re strong enough to lug them around and stack them. We had fun at the garden center designing cinder block gardens during the slow winter months, then assembling them for the growing season, then take them apart and we’d do something different the next year.
https://blog.gardenloversclub.com/structures/garden-cinder-blocks/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuSBwFkCiAw&list=PLZIMIDEiQu3IwuRHd8teRV0VFOT5ldHK2
Concrete but you or someone would have to be pretty handy. He makes them out of regular concrete first and then starts experimenting with lightweight versions ending with something called aircrete. Some people use pressure treated wood or even railroad ties but some people, myself included, prefer not to put chemicals against food growing soil.
BEAUTIFUL! Thanks for sharing that!
Good time to be a prepper. I’ve been a step ahead of everyone on a lot of things. Seeds, cash on hand, food etc.
We use regular old cinder blocks, 3 rounds. We stagger them to be more sturdy. has worked very well for us for 10 years or so. And you can use the ‘divots’ to plant more stuff like tiny tim tomatoes or marigolds or one lettuce plant..etc.
I’m going out to play in the greenhouse for the rest of the day. I’m getting flower seeds & okra started. Tomatoes and Peppers are still under lights, but have been cut back to one seedling per cell. Some have their second set of leaves, so in another week it will be time to start lightly fertilizing them, then they’re off to the races! :)
Have a Great Day, Gardeners. I’ll report back this evening with failures and successes. ;)
Wow. amazing. beautiful!
If you need extra cash you could probably sell those!
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