New England, June 2015

Your garden looks so healthy. Welcome to the Forum from hot Fresno, California!

May I ask you to modify your "location" to Dixbury, MA. That way folks in the other states/countries will know where your garden is located. Thanks

Cagirl.....Welcome to the Northeast.
The growing seasons are a lot different, but check in here at the New England threads and you'll get used to it.
Your garden looks wonderful.  You have done a great job this year.

Wow CAgirl, what nice-looking plants! I really enjoyed seeing how well your covered beds are doing. I haven't done that this year yet, but maybe over the winter ... it's great when it works, be it summer to keep the bugs out or winter to keep things a little warmer.

Thanks Marc. The coverings help SO much. I've almost no issues with pests. Although, I did have a rabbit get into one of the beds & he/she helped themselves to a whole head of lettuce. I just have to make sure to keep the netting tight.

CAGirl - What is the wire you put on your beds to hold the fabric in place? That's a great system. 

Slugs harvest time! I forgot about those. I think they got a later start this year.

Hi CaGirlinMA!  Welcome from hot & humid Atlanta, GA.

Your garden looks terrific!

NHGardener, the wire over my cool veggies is just a basic fencing I found at Lowes. It's nothing fancy but it works so much better than the PVC pipes I originally had. I then just clip down the mosquito netting with clothes pins. I have been quite relieved at how well it's actually worked.

CA, I too love those covered beds, especially how they are rounded. Can you post a photo of a whole one from the outside when you get a chance please? Do you have to take the whole cover off to water? Also, how do you harvest in the middle, remove the fence?

CC

I'd seen the wire idea, but I had seen it with chicken wire which is kind of stiff, silver, and has bigger holes. I like this green wire.

+1

I'm trying to figure how you attached the fence to the box. Did you use 2x2's like a batten to squeeze the fence between them and the box?

boffer wrote:+1

I'm trying to figure how you attached the fence to the box.  Did you use 2x2's like a batten to squeeze the fence between them and the box?

That's what I'm seeing. That's a neat idea in itself for any type of hoop house.

I use battens to secure plastic coverings against our early winter winds. Effective, but not nearly as convenient as using clips of some sort.

I'm getting serious this year about using tulle on some of my boxes. I'm finding that if I don't use battens for the tulle, the little buggers still find a way in.

Scapes!



This year I was sure to get them early. Last year I waited too long and they got tough.

They're in a spaghetti sauce now with the kale, plus one of the walking onions which I cut up before I thought to take a photo.

This is the wire we used. It's just basic metal fencing. It's galvanized but I don't really care since it's not touching my food. It's super supportive of both plastic & the mosquito netting & I've also used a shade cloth intermittently. I clip everything on with basic clothes pins by pulling the fabric taut & then securing. I've had only 1 lettuce plant get eaten (rabbit pushed aside the netting which I had forgotten to secure) & 1 that bugs got to. Everything else has been perfect with zero bug damage.


One of my cool weather beds from the side. I purchased mosquito netting from JoAnns fabrics for cheap. I need 2 pieces to cover both ends completely. I water right over the top of this or just stick the hose in. I only take it off to shake off debris & snip veggies. This bed is a 4x4 so it's pretty easy to reach everything even in the middle. The only issue with it is that I can only reach in from 2 sides instead of 4. It's helped with pests so well that I don't even care about only having 2 sides to access. 



It's held in place by this piece of wood which my husband screwed into the box. I have no plans on removing them as I plan on keeping them as my cool weather beds & then transforming them into cold frames come late fall/winter.

That spaghetti sauce sounds excellent, NHG. Are you using your own tomatoes for the base? I didn't realize that scapes got tough as they got older, but that makes sense. I'll cut mine this weekend. Last year I stuck them in a baggie and threw them in the freezer and used them whenever I needed them. It worked perfectly. I love them in homemade hummus.

I missed watering yesterday because it was so darn windy and all kinds of stuff kept flying into my eyes. I could see today that the SFG really missed it, so I watered the worst of it when I got home from work and will continue tomorrow. So so dry...

CA, I see you just posted with photos. Yay! Off to read it now.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I have the baby tomato on one of the Sweetie plants. Usually the Black Cherry is the first and last to give me fruit. I guess the race is on now between the Black Cherry and the Sweetie to see who will outperform who. I like that kind of race!

CAgirl, aha, so that is the chicken wire fencing. It looked green and smaller in that first photo for some reason. I had thought way back that it looked like an easier and more sturdy method than just the hoops, but then I forgot about it, so I'm glad you posted those photos.

CC, I would've used my own maters if I had any!  I didn't grow a whole lot of tomatoes last summer - or rather, they didn't produce a whole lot - so I ran out of those pretty quickly. This summer I should have a lot more. I freeze the scapes, too. It's so nice to have the scapes because my garlic by this time is shot and there won't be more until mid-late July.

I'm sure it can be used as chicken wire. It's labeled as "perimeter fencing." 

CAgirlinMA wrote:I'm sure it can be used as chicken wire. It's labeled as "perimeter fencing." 

Oh! You're right, that's probably my term.

CA, that mosquito netting looks fantastic. How long does it last? Do you think it's longer lasting that tulle?

CC

I want boxes like that, especially if my bug issues keep up. and to start some stuff earlier next year. 

since i started late, nothing is happening in my garden. Well strawberries and i do have peas just starting to grow. And lots of watering thanks to the lack of rain, but thankfully monday's rains filled my rain barrel. 

Oh, i know it might be early for this... but I have boxes that are not mel mix(ground with added compost and vermiculite  over the years) This year they didn't get "fed" and i'm having trouble growing stuff in them. I've read about ground cover plants for the fall time to help but didn't know if you all have experience with what works and how. Also the area is hard and full of "new england potatoes" as my hubby calls the rocks. These beds are up against my house so i can't easily redo them over to mel mix. I'm just trying to get ideas now because i know my summer will run away from me once july hits.

CC I've had the same netting for 3 years. It's starting to show some wear & a few holes when it got snagged on one of the metal edges. It only cost something like $8 with a coupon at JoAnns fabrics, so if I had to replace every year i would because I find it so effective. I've never used tulle.

sdugas, I think further back in this thread NHG talks about ground cover. I know nothing about it as I don't use it.

What a perfect day it is today! Shorts and tank top and bare feet. My kind of day. I've been out watering like crazy even though we're supposed to have torrential downpours from the remnants of Hurricane Bill tomorrow. I'm sure it'll miss the elbow here.

Oh, forgot to mention, there was a Black Cherry tom forming at the same time that I saw the Sweetie tomato. so it looks like they are neck and neck. Don't know how I missed it.

Heading back out to mow the crispy dusty brown stuff out there in my yard .

The rain is from Bill? I'm so out of the loop with no TV. I saw we are supposed to get 1" of rain tomorrow. And some tonight.

sdugas, oh yes, I love ground covers. If that were my bed and I were trying to break it up and "feed" the soil for next summer, I'd probably do daikon radishes. They're supposed to be like nature's tillers, plus they add nutrition to the soil. If you wanted a weed squelcher smother crop, buckwheat is good, altho you'd want to get the seeds out of there so they don't regrow next summer, altho mine never have, so far at least, wish they would, would save me a lot of trouble... Oats are great for nitrogen fixing the soil, and they die come winter and don't come back, but I don't know if they break up the soil. Those are my ideas.

Strawberries! I've gotten about 3 of these spaghetti strainers so far:

Last night we had eggo waffles with strawberries on top and homemade whipped cream on top of that. Tomorrow I'm going to make a strawberry pie. And after that, I want to try the breadmaker's recipe of strawberry preserves.

Today for breakfast I had kale, garlic scapes, and walking onion sauteed in coconut oil.

Those strawberries look delicious. yummy!!!

Congrats on your Strawberries!