Vegetable Gardening

[deeaimond]

I look at all these photos of your bountiful land and i'm just quite jealous of it all... wish i was born somewhere that had less people and more room.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Here is a very inspiring article in the NYTimes about urban food production and food sustainability:
StreetFarmer

And Deeaimond-
Here is an amazing website about an urban family who have transformed their 1/5 acre city lot into a self sufficient food garden of eden:
PathToFreedom
They have also started a large website here freedomgardenswhere you can find groups of all kinds of 'farmers'- even apartment dwellers who raise sprouts in tiny boxes or use only pots or window boxes to grow various food. Don't be discouraged no matter how little space you have!
I find these websites very helpful and full of all kinds of ingenious ideas for growing things in clever ways no matter what our home space is like.

[mudmucker]

Woohoo! Dance. Dance. My cherry tomatoes are turning and will be ripe by late this week. These are the ones I started from seed under the grow lights. I'm woo-hooing because and despite lack of humidity and sun which has just come back, this is early for where I am. Usually I am 2-2.5 weeks behind the rest of the state because of elevation. I started them about 3 weeks earlier than I usually do so when I put them out they already had blossoms.

And the sun is out for the second full day in a row, allowing me to catch up while on vacation and turn 2 of 3 bins of compost. Yay for the sun.

And I'm revelling in my snap peas. I could have the whole garden as snap peas I love them so much

[mudmucker]

Another woohoo!

I just found out my town will have a Farmer's Market on the common every Saturday. I am so excited. Now I don't have to bike 40 miles to the nearest Farmer's Market. I only have to bike 10. And the route goes by a new ice cream stand that just opened up. My little 1400 person town is startin' to be a happenin' place.

[mudmucker]

Hmm, 3 in a row. Not consolidating well.

Gee everyone is showing pictures. Here's a link to some garden photos I already have set up elsewhere. It is stuff from last year but the garden set-up is basically the same for this year. I have expanded some areas for peas and potatoes this year. The narrative is actually for the purposes of communicating with my father to let him know what I've been up to.

Way in the back I have 3, 4'x4'x3' compost bin piles. I have it away from the house so any varmints stay away from the house.

You'll see in one of the photos where I show peas. In the background are some very large boulders. I, by myself because I had no help around, removed each one of those boulders when I was double digging for the raised beds. It took me 1.5 to 2 hours each to remove the largest ones. I had to use a series of boards as leverage as I would incrementally raise the rock out till finally I got it to the surface where I had to get down and use my legs to push the rock away. That was 6 years ago and I wonder if I could still do that now. I decided I had so many boulders that I physically couldn't move - I rolled them over to create a flower garden around the tree.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Mudmucker- nice photos, nice garden!
I love that little field of young peas plants. With the semi woodland situation, it seems that grass is not growing very aggressively around your planted plots- is that correct?
How is that little cold frame working out?- have you had it a year now? How'd it do through the cold weather and winter, and did it extend your food growing season?

This morning I saw the very first vegetable seeds start to sprout in my new big garden! So exciting!!! As i had expected, it was radish, bok choy, and turnips that were the first to poke their little heads up through the soil after only three days since sowing the seed.

[tulip]

Bleeker, you're going to have one Fabulous Fall Garden!