calling all gardeners....

I'm getting so excited about my garden this year, I've been studying all the seed catalogs I get. I'm planning to triple the size of my veggie garden & I'm going 100% organic again. I'm also going to try growing grapes & I'm getting three fruit trees. In a couple of weeks I'll be starting everything out in my greenhouse.
Who else starts from seeds?
What are you planting this year?
Did you have great results with something new last year?
Does anyone can or freeze part of their harvest?

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I would love to garden if I had more time, but as it is I find that I can barely manage to keep my flower bed weeded. I do throw in a few tomato plants and some basil, but that's it for now. Post pics of your progress - it will be fun to garden vicariously.

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I'm sooooo excited this year. We bought a house with a nice size yard. FINALLY we can plant a real garden like I used to have growing up upstate.
I prefer to start from seed, but I may have to wait a couple of years until I can conditon the soil to really have a GREAT garden.
We have a lot of priming to do to the yard to get it ready. As much as I love our trees they shade too much of the yard, so we're planning on cutting them back a bit.
Definitely keep us posted with your results...I'll do the same!

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here is a pic of mine from the middle of last summer, I had two 4' X 4' cedar raised boxes, I used "the square foot gardener" book as a guideline.
This year I'm adding 2 more boxes & making an area for row planting.
We are moving the whole garden area when we make it bigger, I've got to get my neighbor's trees trimmed too. Its too shady back there by mid summer.
I'd really love to try some canning this fall, or maybe make jam or jelly if I can grow enough berries.

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What a beautiful garden!!! I WISH I could grow anything! I have a really nice size yard and have always wanted to do veggies (I only did a few plants last year and realized I know nothing!!). I love the raised bed idea, but I always feel overwhelmed about the soil stuff - testing it, making sure it is good etc.. I wouldn't know where to start! Good luck this season, and def. keep us updated!

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well our soil is very sandy & after reading several books I liked the square foot gardeners the best. There is a 3 part soil he uses that I put in the boxes & I think it worked out well. Its also really easy to keep weed free. I don't use any chemical fertilizers or pesticides, only organic stuff so keeping the weeds down is important. The only con I can think of is that I should have built more boxes last year.

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dumb question -- why the planters? Is it for better drainage? Your garden looks amazing, by the way!!

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thanks! the theory w/the planters is that you create the soil mixture-i used the formula in the book i mentioned, then the soil stays put instead of washing away in heavy rain & stuff.
Also I did have good drainage & when the beds are raised they are supposed to be a little easier to maintain. This is the grid system used to divide the areas & make it easy to keep track of what we're growing.

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Thank you! I talked to DH and we both agree we're going to do the raised beds this year. We're going to order the book today! Thank you!

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Great Lorich!!! I got the book at BJs for $14. All the other gardening books I get at the library, then I buy them if I like them.
You are moving to Ronkonkoma right? Are you Sachem or Connetquot?
I lived in Connetquot for years, GREAT library. You can probably get a card with your real estate contract.
Keep me posted on your garden progress. Are you going to start your plants from seeds?

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Before DH built me my greenhouse I used this

The main thing about starting from seed is that you've got to be ready on time to get them in the ground. Last year my plants that I started from seed were doing great, then we had bad weather & we didn't get the boxes finished & some of the plants were getting too big for the cell pack I had them in. It all worked out though.
This year I'll start everything from seed again, except tomatoes, I buy those as young plants. Oh & berries, I buy those as plants too.
I have TONS of squirels here too, but I feed them-actually they pig out on my bird feeders so they didn't seem to interested in my plants. The whole area is fenced in with chicken wire to keep rabbits out. I had a pretty big insect problem last year but this year I'm buying 2000 ladybugs & 50 praying mantisis to live in the garden & help with the pests. We also have lots of toads here so that helps.

Don't forget to start a compost pile as soon as you move in! I can give you chicken manure & rabbit manure if you want to add to your compost!

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I only used seeds for flowers and zuquini/yellow squash and cucumber. It's super easy.

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Kelly, do you have pictures of your greenhouse? I'd love to see it. I saw a picture of a house out east somewhere last week and it had a huge greenhouse in the back. I was drooling all over myself.

I planted over a hundred tulip bulbs one year (which squirrels love to eat) but I also kept my bird feeders filled with sunflower seeds, which they really like.

The squirrels didn't bother the bulbs. Now that they're established, they don't go out of their way to munch on them. Squirrels are also attracted to fresh dug soil also. But if you're prepared to invest in peanuts or corn, you'll probably keep them satisfied so they don't go after your plantings.

In the past I've grown flowers from seed/bulb/corm/tuber, but I've never had a veggie garden. But since you said "all" gardeners, I thought I'd share...

These are my lilies, just breaking ground the first year, oriental lilies in the ground and daylilies in the pots:



They came up ok, but not that tall. And I hadn't gotten the hang of the mulch yet:



But this is the second year, after I planted the daylilies in front and piled on the mulch:



Every year, they get better and better. I'm really thinking about digging these babies up when we move out of this house.

The rest of my photo albums are here, the list is on the right:

http://www.greenfreak.net

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greenfreak-flowers count too!!!
AWESOME LILLIES! I love them & I would take them for sure if I were you!
I do some flower gardening too, I'm trying to add more perinnials & get away from annuals. I ordered a bunch of stuff from springhill last year, but I was very disappointed. This year I'll buy local.
I can't find any finished pics of my greenhouse-here's one from the day we built it. It made of 100% trash to treasure items-used windows, used slding glass door roof, discounted seconds lumber, river rock floor free from craigslist

Now all the unfinished wood is white & I'm painting the door barn red this spring.
Here you can see a bit of the greenhouse-still unfinished, my chicken coop-also now painted & the distance to my garden. This time of year I store my chicken feed & supplies in the greenhouse & I have a chair & a heater, I read out there a lot.

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WOW, that looks great! Can you prop up those windows on the roof? I don't know if we're that handy, we'll find out soon enough I guess. Where did you get the windows & door from - also Craig's List?

As of now, my orchids (which is what I would put in a greenhouse) are in our living room in an orchidarium:



Which is pretty much greenhouse conditions. In the summer though, I have the timers set to shut the lights off at the hottest points in the day, or it gets close to 100 in there.

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that is so cool! I love orchids but have never tried growing them.
My greenhouse roof is stationary but the windows open top & bottom on three sides & the gable vents stay open in the summer.
The doors & windows were getting thrown out on jobs my DH did, the windows are 3 yr old andersen double-hungs
The slider was an andersen & the main door was an elegant entries replacement door. MY DH is a contractor in the hamptons, people out there rip out perfectly good stuff every couple of years. Luckily my DH has a whole section of our property dedicated to his "sanford & son" collection. after a while we get enough stuff together to make something good. the chicken coop is mostly trash to treasure too.

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Sheesh, don't say that too loud. You're going to start getting FM's from people wanting those old windows.

My Dad was in construction and there was never any shortage of "old" stuff that was being thrown.