Construction Block and Cattle Panel SFG

And finished the expansion today.  The sunshine felt great!

Wow! Job well done.   

 

GG

Nice. I love how simple and sturdy concrete looks, ditto for that kind of strong metal trellis.

Thanks!  The materials are only in their third year of use, but they look as good as the day I put them in.  I like the holes in the cement block too, I filled them and plant a lot of marigolds and some herbs.  Last year I snuck in a few extra onions and garlic in some of the holes and they did surprisingly well.

That's exactly what I think about when I see those concrete blocks -- Ah, little holes to plant herbs and marigolds and maybe some garlic in!

No spot is off limits with a SFGer around!

So the beds have dried out and warmed nicely!  Much faster than I expected with the snow pack we had and the cold March.  We got spinach, peas, and radish seeds sowed yesterday and Copra onion seedlings that were started in late January planted today.  I'm doing a bit of an experiment--3 squares with 9 each and 3 squares with an alternating 5-4-5.  I want to see size difference and yield per square using the different spacing.

Are copra that small that you can fit nine in a square foot? I thought they got to be bigger than baseballs.

Size potential on Copra is said to be ~3".....so baseball size if conditions are good.

Oregon may be onion country or something. I see them that big and bigger here all the time. Maybe the fall crop that overwinters gets bigger than the spring-to-fall crop.

I've grown Copra for a few years--it is a good onion, but the sizes haven't been the best, more racquetball size.  I attribute it to my spacing since last year the ones I grew in cinder block holes were baseball or even a touch bigger.  I'd prefer baseball size for cooking.  I expect the onions with larger spacing to be larger--I would guess the smaller onions grown 9/sq will yield more weight though.  It will be interesting to see how big of a yield difference there is.

Yeah, yield per square foot might well be higher. I hope you bring up your spacing and results again later on once you've harvested the onions and seen how your experiment turned out.

Peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos are potted up and ready to grow for another 4-5 weeks before they make their trek to the garden!

I put in my SFG this year.   I have used the 4x6 wire construction mesh rolled into a circle for tomato cages,  (Best thing ever) but I need trellis for melons and vines.  - I saw your cattle grid and it looks great as a trellis.  Where did you get it and how much did it cost?  Thanks.

rocketman1701 wrote:I put in my SFG this year.   I have used the 4x6 wire construction mesh rolled into a circle for tomato cages,  (Best thing ever) but I need trellis for melons and vines.  - I saw your cattle grid and it looks great as a trellis.  Where did you get it and how much did it cost?  Thanks.

They have 4x16 foot cattle panels at a nearby store for about $20...but they don't deliver, and I don't have a truck, nor know anyone with one.

I think transportation can end up trickier than locating the panels in the first place, haha.

rocketman1701 wrote:I put in my SFG this year.   I have used the 4x6 wire construction mesh rolled into a circle for tomato cages,  (Best thing ever) but I need trellis for melons and vines.  - I saw your cattle grid and it looks great as a trellis.  Where did you get it and how much did it cost?  Thanks.

The EMT for the frame is available at any hardware type store.  The cattle panels I got from a farm store by us--called Farm & Fleet, 16' x 5' panel was ~$24.  Maybe check for a Tractor Supply Store, etc. by you?

No garden pictures worth sharing as the spring crops are basically sitting there waiting for the week of rain, clouds, and upper 40s/lower 50s to go away.  The tomatoes and peppers in the cold frame aren't growing very fast with the weather, but I've still got weeks until they're going out, especially this year with cold soil temperatures.!

So I'm guessing a lot of us in the northern US are having the slowest gardens in recent memory.

My spring crops are so slowly growing.  But the weather looks to have turned and today we planted out the tomatillos and tomatoes into buckets in the deck.  The soil temps out in the main beds were a bit too cool for tomatoes, so we'll wait another day or three.  The peppers are going to remain in the cold frame for another week or so, I want those 4" soil temps pushing 65F.

Tomatoes on the deck in buckets.



Deck bed.  Garlic on left, lettuce in the middle, and tomatillos right (sweet potatoes will replace lettuce in later June).


North 4x11 bed pictures.  First are onions and broccoli, second is east portion of bed with radishes, arugula, vit, some lettuce, very tiny carrots and more broccoli.




South 4x11 bed pictures.  Radishes (that are starting to bulb despite small tops) and onions.  Second lots of tiny spinach and slowly growing peas.  This will be by far the latest spinach and radish harvest.  We've gotten some small lettuce cuttings so far.






Happy Gardening!

What kind of lettuce is the speckled one?

A new one for me this year, Flashy Butter Oak.  I love the way it looks and it's quite tasty too!  I got mine from Baker Creek.

Looks great, JM.

jmsieglaff wrote:A new one for me this year, Flashy Butter Oak.  I love the way it looks and it's quite tasty too!  I got mine from Baker Creek.

Thanks. It's very pretty.

And the tomatoes are out!  In the garden this year top row L to R:  Wisconsin 55, Golden Monarch, Sungold; bottom row:  Celebrity, Purple BumbleBee, Black Krim  (also growing another Sungold in a barrel on the garden, some dwarf tomatoes in buckets and a tomato plant from a seed our son spit out and wanted to grow in the test garden).

Got the peppers in today!  Still need to do the marigolds in the cinder blocks and get squash and cucumbers in. 

North bed:


South bed: