SW Ohio (Cincinnati Area)

I am looking  for other SFGers in the southwest area of Ohio. I am about an hour north east of Cincinnati in Warren County. It would be great to chat about gardening specific to our area.

Hi, mijejo!

Welcome to the wonderful world of SFG!!!

Have you ever gardened before?  What do you want to eat this year!  Our growing season beginning; what are your plans?

I can’t wait to hear of your plans!

Oh, and there is a regional forum in the N&C Midwest.  That is us.  We share the similar weather, pests, etc.  But really this site is a WEALTH of info.  The search bar in the upper left-hand corner is a great place to start with most questions.

Hi Mijejo. Welcome from Atlanta, GA!

Yes, please tell us about your garden!

Hi Mijejo, Welcome back!

Thank you for the welcomes. Actually, I have been a member for years. I took a break from this forum during a big life change. MOVING!

I had an SFG garden in the backyard of my home in West Chester (Greater Cincinnati area). I have since moved to a farm and have once again created an SFG, only bigger, and (I hope) better. I borrowed a pickup truck to take all of my Mel's Mix with me. Now, with livestock (alpacas, sheep, Angora goats, and Angora bunnies), I have lots of compost.

I created this thread to connect and network with those geographically close to me. I hope we can share gardening joys and woes and details specific to our area.

My garden consists of 3 rows of boxes 30 plus feet long, 3 feet wide, and twelve inches deep. I went deeper than my last SFG to reduce the amount of watering. With two years experience in this new garden, I can say that it worked! I went 3' vs 4' wide to make it easier to reach all areas. When the garden is full with tall foliage, I can easily access every inch.

I love to garden and try new things. In addition to growing food, I want to grow some plants to use for natural dyeing. My farm produces wool and other fibers for making yarn and felt. I thought it would be fun and useful to grow some dye resources. I also like growing gourds and making things with them. I do not know much about medicinal herbs, but enjoy growing a few common ones such as lavender. I also want to grow some produce specific for the farm animals. There are so many new things I want to try now that I have more space.

This week, I plan to plant potatoes and peas. I will check dates, and plant other veggies if the timings are correct. I currently have many trays of seeds/seedlings under lights inside. I also have some winter sowing jugs outside. Needless to say, I have BIG plans for gardening this year. I am optimistic. Isn't every gardener? As a realist, I know not all seeds will germinate, no all plant starts will survive transplanting, nor will all direct sows survive. Each plant comes with an adventure. I share its journey while nurturing it along.

Mijejo, We would love to see some photos!!!!

@sanderson perhaps when there is some growth in the garden, and if I can figure out how to upload photos, I will post some pictures.
Right now, I would love to get some ideas for the walkways between the beds.

mijejo wrote:@sanderson perhaps when there is some growth in the garden, and if I can figure out how to upload photos, I will post some pictures.
Right now, I would love to get some ideas for the walkways between the beds.

My pathways are 3 feet wide.  The first two years I used newspaper and then wheat straw on top of the newspaper.  Too many wheat seeds germinated so I then tried using mini pine bark nuggets.  That works great and here in Georgia they are relatively cheap.

yolos wrote:

mijejo wrote:@sanderson perhaps when there is some growth in the garden, and if I can figure out how to upload photos, I will post some pictures.
Right now, I would love to get some ideas for the walkways between the beds.

My pathways are 3 feet wide.  The first two years I used newspaper and then wheat straw on top of the newspaper.  Too many wheat seeds germinated so I then tried using mini pine bark nuggets.  That works great and here in Georgia they are relatively cheap.

Thanks. That is a good suggest. Years ago on this forum, a young man named Josh Greene created pathways by pouring concrete mix into forms. He posted a number of photos of his garden. It was very attractive. I think I might like to try that method of creating pathways and then adding pine bark nuggets or some small pea gravel in the gaps. How might I find Josh's photos?

mijejo wrote:

yolos wrote:

mijejo wrote:@sanderson perhaps when there is some growth in the garden, and if I can figure out how to upload photos, I will post some pictures.
Right now, I would love to get some ideas for the walkways between the beds.

My pathways are 3 feet wide.  The first two years I used newspaper and then wheat straw on top of the newspaper.  Too many wheat seeds germinated so I then tried using mini pine bark nuggets.  That works great and here in Georgia they are relatively cheap.

Thanks. That is a good suggest. Years ago on this forum, a young man named Josh Greene created pathways by pouring concrete mix into forms. He posted a number of photos of his garden. It was very attractive. I think I might like to try that method of creating pathways and then adding pine bark nuggets or some small pea gravel in the gaps. How might I find Josh's photos?

To find posts made by Josh do the following.  BUT beware because I do not know how long the forum saves these old posts and if you actually get all of the posts by an individual member.

Click on Members at the top of the page in the green task bar.
Click on in the box titled "Username" and type in "JOSH" then hit enter.
Click on Josh's avatar.
Click on the tab "statistics".
Scroll down under the heading "POSTS", click on "find all messages posted by Josh".

Hope I did not leave out any steps.

To find posts made by Josh do the following.  BUT beware because I do not know how long the forum saves these old posts and if you actually get all of the posts by an individual member.

Click on Members at the top of the page in the green task bar.
Click on in the box titled "Username" and type in "JOSH" then hit enter.
Click on Josh's avatar.
Click on the tab "statistics".
Scroll down under the heading "POSTS", click on "find all messages posted by Josh".

Hope I did not leave out any steps.

I tried that. I think those posts are gone. Darn!

mijejo wrote:

To find posts made by Josh do the following.  BUT beware because I do not know how long the forum saves these old posts and if you actually get all of the posts by an individual member.

Click on Members at the top of the page in the green task bar.
Click on in the box titled "Username" and type in "JOSH" then hit enter.
Click on Josh's avatar.
Click on the tab "statistics".
Scroll down under the heading "POSTS", click on "find all messages posted by Josh".

Hope I did not leave out any steps.

I tried that. I think those posts are gone. Darn!

Here is a picture of the pathways but I am still looking to see if there is a post that shows how he made the stepping stones.

Photobucket decided to charge an arm and a leg for their services. If you didn't pay, your photos disappeared. Many older photos on the Forum were lost.

You know, Yolos, that pattern looks like the cement form you can get at HD. You just pour cement in it & move to the next spot.

AtlantaMarie wrote:You know, Yolos, that pattern looks like the cement form you can get at HD.  You just pour cement in it & move to the next spot.

+1

sanderson wrote:

AtlantaMarie wrote:You know, Yolos, that pattern looks like the cement form you can get at HD.  You just pour cement in it & move to the next spot.

+1

Yea, I also looked at Amazon and they have many sizes and shapes of those molds.

mijejo wrote:Thank you for the welcomes. Actually, I have been a member for years. I took a break from this forum during a big life change. MOVING!

I had an SFG garden in the backyard of my home in West Chester (Greater Cincinnati area). I have since moved to a farm and have once again created an SFG, only bigger, and (I hope) better. I borrowed a pickup truck to take all of my Mel's Mix with me. Now, with livestock (alpacas, sheep, Angora goats, and Angora bunnies), I have lots of compost.

I created this thread to connect and network with those geographically close to me. I hope we can share gardening joys and woes and details specific to our area.

My garden consists of 3 rows of boxes 30 plus feet long, 3 feet wide, and twelve inches deep. I went deeper than my last SFG to reduce the amount of watering. With two years experience in this new garden, I can say that it worked! I went 3' vs 4' wide to make it easier to reach all areas. When the garden is full with tall foliage, I can easily access every inch.

I love to garden and try new things. In addition to growing food, I want to grow some plants to use for natural dyeing. My farm produces wool and other fibers for making yarn and felt. I thought it would be fun and useful to grow some dye resources. I also like growing gourds and making things with them. I do not know much about medicinal herbs, but enjoy growing a few common ones such as lavender. I also want to grow some produce specific for the farm animals. There are so many new things I want to try now that I have more space.

This week, I plan to plant potatoes and peas. I will check dates, and plant other veggies if the timings are correct. I currently have many trays of seeds/seedlings under lights inside. I also have some winter sowing jugs outside. Needless to say, I have BIG plans for gardening this year. I am optimistic. Isn't every gardener? As a realist, I know not all seeds will germinate, no all plant starts will survive transplanting, nor will all direct sows survive. Each plant comes with an adventure. I share its journey while nurturing it along.

Did you get the huge deluge of snow yesterday that is already gone?  LOL!

Hi and welcome back, mijejo,

So far, I think I'm the closest one living near your location.  I live four counties northeast of you, in Fairfield county, near the Pickaway county line.   Hope you are enjoying your alpacas and other critters, I've added chickens to my llama and cat collection.  I'm not adding another sfg bed.  Ten is my limit and my joints have insisted - No More.

Feel free to compare local notes I'd love to hear what's happening !

LM

Come on over to N&C Midwest !  We are super cool....

mijejo wrote:Right now, I would love to get some ideas for the walkways between the beds.

Hi, Mijejo! I am fairly close to you as well - I am about 20 miles north of Dayton, in Clark County.  I have 30" isles between the raised beds, and they are covered with free wood chips from the local tree trimming company - they are anxious to get rid of the wood chips, and I am happy to have them.  When I put the beds in place, i lined the ground with 1/2" hardware cloth to keep gophers & moles from boring up into the beds, and then I spread the wood chips about 6" deep all around the beds. The wood chips smother the weeds, and it gradually decomposes into dark mulch. I have re-applied the wood chips twice as it has decomposed.

Nice isles and beds. Keeping the weeds down in the isles helps keep weed seeds from boxes.

I am about an hour south east of Cincinnati on the KY side of the river.