Winter pre-discussion..

This isn't meant to be a real discussion thread. It's more of an announcement to all those that weren't here last winter...

When you decide you've had enough gardening for the winter, I ask you to stick around. Many of us don't stop until nature absolutely forces it on us. The discussions continue. A few may join from the southern hemisphere that need your experience.

You need to stick around and stay active especially if you plan to extend your season. Those in the mid and upper south will finish behind those in the northern climates. It's fun to check yourself against what they are doing.

Cold frames, heated hoops houses, and all kinds of season extending techniques will be discussed as the holidays approach. I encourage you to stick around and keep learning. It'll be here before we know it.

Thanks BBG. I don't know if your talking to a first timer like I am, but I'm expanding. I plan on taking advantage of my southern exposure this winter and again next year. This should be interesting, to say the least.

I don't plan on going anywhere this winter except to my couch with a big cup of coffee and this netbook. LOL I'm actually excited to see/hear how the different regions finish up.

Go an entire winter without my "forum fix?" I can't even go a couple of days without it! Besides I've heard tell there can be even more silly antics going on in the winter - wouldn't want to miss that!!!

I'm going to do my best to garden year round and would stay on the forum even if I were not a RH. Thank you for this post. I didn't even think of people not showing up do to their garden season being "over". I will post some garden gift ideas. That is gifts from the garden to give friends and fam during the winter holidays. I guess I should do that soon as I tend to start them now for later giving.

I went totally AWOL last winter I guess I just wanted a break for a while! But this year I plan on making a cold frame and keeping plants alive late into the season, so we'll see how it goes!

shannon1 wrote:I'm going to do my best to garden year round and would stay on the forum even if I were not a RH. Thank you for this post. I didn't even think of people not showing up do to their garden season being "over". I will post some garden gift ideas. That is gifts from the garden to give friends and fam during the winter holidays. I guess I should do that soon as I tend to start them now for later giving.

I don't think it would go over well if I mailed Cucumbers and/or Tomatoes to family around Christmas time....

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:

shannon1 wrote:I'm going to do my best to garden year round and would stay on the forum even if I were not a RH. Thank you for this post. I didn't even think of people not showing up do to their garden season being "over". I will post some garden gift ideas. That is gifts from the garden to give friends and fam during the winter holidays. I guess I should do that soon as I tend to start them now for later giving.

I don't think it would go over well if I mailed Cucumbers and/or Tomatoes to family around Christmas time....

Perhaps not, the gifts I make are herbed vinegar, olive oils, and butters. That is why I should start now so they will be ready when Chanukah rolls around, or Christmass or what ever they are celebrating.

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:
I don't think it would go over well if I mailed Cucumbers and/or Tomatoes to family around Christmas time....

Why not? I would think they would LOVE fresh tomatoes or cukes in Dec. Unless, of course they were left over from August. Then it might be an issue.

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do this year. Evidently putting a real gate on the goats never made it to the priority list, and my husband wants free range chickens. So I have 1 poor tomato hanging on (plus the 4 on a shelf outside my kithchen window) a few cream peas, some lady creams, and some herbs left. We have learned we do need to move the garden, because goats eat A LOT, and we need to build some paddocks, BUT where we need to move it to has those little trees that like to pop up, so I want to lay down some old carpet we have and go from there, hubby does not. I've also been looking into gutter gardens (using 5 gallon buckets, with MM, a water cup at the bottom, and set in the gutter full of water) and a few boxes, and other containers. I don't know, I'm just so upset and discouraged right now. The heat and dry weather took its tool on everything this year, even the trees are looking sad, and being on well water we have finally reached the point that we need to watch the water table and ration our watering. I know the bug will bite in a week or two, and I'll be out there doing what I can, but first I need to get that chicken yard done, it's just to dry to dig, we have to dig an inch, fill the hole with water, let sit 30 min, start over. Okay, I'm done whining, I guess this should have gone in the just saying thread, I just thought maybe there was someone else out there who had a rough year, and I did not want them to feel alone!!!

Chopper wrote:

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:
I don't think it would go over well if I mailed Cucumbers and/or Tomatoes to family around Christmas time....

Why not? I would think they would LOVE fresh tomatoes or cukes in Dec. Unless, of course they were left over from August. Then it might be an issue.

Twas my point....lol. I can't possibly keep summer veggies "fresh" that long. It would be the equivalent of giving lumps of coal. Hmmmmm, maybe I save a few for the kids? That may get a chuckle from mom. That or the doghouse for me.

Year round gardening, one of the few benefits of living in the southern most reaches of this country. Okay, fine, it might be the only benefit come to think on it.

Already started with the cool crops, running an experiment with ground cherries to see how they overwinter(and I should see some fruit before the cold hits...I hope). Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and some onions are already started in the Speedling trays.

I have my plans for formalizing the garden over the winter too. Now I just need to put down another 4x4 box before the transplants are ready(maybe next weekend I'll get to that). Shuffling around SFG beds to make space to put down permanent beds is a lot of work.

Still have to make a 3 bin compost area(still have 2 4x4's cut in half sitting in the back seat of my car...not quite sure why, but the moisture content must be near zero after spending over a month in that heat).

And...still have to finish figuring out how I want to use wicking/drip irrigation for the beds. I'm starting to think pouring some concrete for the sides of the beds is the way to go...But that's a lot of concrete that I'll have to mix by hand...an awful lot. Somehow I think I'll just be squaring off a section of the yard, throwing down some weed cloth, cardboard and wood chips then going on top of that with a few boxes will be the end result of all this planning.

Who has time to take off during the winter, I don't!

Unmutual, I'm inclined to disagree just a bit about the growing season being the only benefits, I wasn't born down here, but I got down here as fast as I could, and stayed. The other benefit is the food is out of this world. In fact I just gave my gumbo pot a real good scrubdown, checked inventory, made a list and for Football's kick off I'm makin' begniets and gumbo. Now, I scrubed my gumbo pot down last year before putting it up, but hubby decided to use it to melt wax from his beehives, that's grounds for divorce as far as I'm concerned, but then it's cheaper to keep him. Just kidding of course. Maybe I just take football and gumbo way too seriously, NOT.

Hi, unmutual,



Your post has stirred up some ideas that have been simmering on the backburner in my brain. I, too, want to start a cold frame and try carrying some items as far as possible through our (usually:lol: ) mild southern middle Tennessee winter. The 11" snow we had last winter was a bit of a shocker , to say the least. I saved a semi-circular shower door from the bathroom remodel just for this. The idea being that having the door in a track will make it easier to adjust airflow when needed. At least, I hope it will.



Regarding your thoughts on making a concrete border for your boxes. I've been considering a similar idea. After we moved our original 3 and 4-year-old wooden boxes this year we realized how much they were starting to deteriorate. What I've been considering is using concrete blocks, the ones which are about 3" thick and solid. I'm not sure what they are called, some type of paver block perhaps? Anyway, the plan is to make a trench, cover the whole area with enough weed cloth to allow the edges to drape into the trench; put a layer of sand in the trench to cover the cloth edges, then set the blocks in edge-wise. This hopefully will reduce/eliminate weeds working through the cracks. My long-term goal is to lay a row of concrete and brick pavers is a flat border around the boxes to make for easier mowing and eliminate having to use a weed trimmer. An idea my DH would really appreciate.



Ah, such grand plans! I will work it through a bit at a time, I hope. Some of my plans for earlier this year didn't get done in a timely manner due to a health issue. But that's life, isn't it. Besides, without dreams and plans we wouldn't have much to look forward to, would we? I will post pictures to this thread when/if I get any of this done.



Good luck with your plans and hope you will post some pictures, too.

Hi, BBG,



Just wanted to say thanks for starting this thread. Between your post and unmutual's some of my ideas got stirred up and brought up to where I'm actually thinking about the next steps for making my garden the way I want it to be.



This stimulating of ideas and sharing of information with like-minded gardeners are two things I've been wanting so much and am finding here.



Thanks to you both!

FarmerValerie wrote:Unmutual, I'm inclined to disagree just a bit about the growing season being the only benefits

Yeah, I kind of got screwed on that part...I'm not much of a seafood eater, which is a big waste of a talent down here. I won't say no to a poboy or some jambalaya, however! The local coffee is really good and coffee without chicory is a sin in my book.

tnirisgirl wrote:
Ah, such grand plans! I will work it through a bit at a time, I hope. Some of my plans for earlier this year didn't get done in a timely manner due to a health issue. But that's life, isn't it. Besides, without dreams and plans we wouldn't have much to look forward to, would we? I will post pictures to this thread when/if I get any of this done.

Good luck with your plans and hope you will post some pictures, too.

I hope the health issues are better now! As far as plans go, I keep changing them so often that I have trouble keeping track of them. There's a lot(too many?) ways to do the beds for SFG and I've been debating on how I want to do them(for 2 years now...). At least I know cedar fence boards are a good way to go in the interim

I guess the important thing is growing the veggies, not how good the boxes look(that's how I console myself when I look in the back yard at least). One reason I haven't posted any pics is because the boxes look so rough, I have a severe disability to make any veggie grow nice and neat and because of the haphazard way the boxes are laid out, everything looks a mess because cutting the grass can be a real pain. Cluttered mind, cluttered life I guess.

But to get this back on topic, winter is the perfect time to make plans especially for our northern friends who are hip deep in snow. Sometimes sharing those ideas can get people together to make some truly wonderful projects.

One day I'll have my step-pyramid SFG garden with waterfall irrigation! That's what I get for looking at renditions of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon(if only King Nebuchadnezzar II had know about SFG!).

You don't have to like seafood to like Gumbo, hubby likes chicken Gumbo so I make my base, split it, and do 1 seafood for me, 1 chicken for him, when he's good that is, we've even done a sausage gumbo with 5 different kinds of sausage!

Thanks for backing off that statement. I have great respect for you, Unmutual, but I just have to say it, though, or feel disloyal to my south - I'm a southerner by birth and by choice! I love the south and wouldn't want to live anywhere else! We have many great regions in our country and I would never deride any of them!!! Our diversity is what makes us great! (Can't we all just get along? lol)

Being displaced myself, it's always interesting to watch territoriality in action!

Lol, I guess this is one way to keep the winter fire burning

I'll plead temporary insanity due to heat and humidity(did I mention that the AC at work has been out for a week now? Would that help my cause?).

LOL, Boffer! I didn't mean to be confrontional and tried to make it lighthearted, but just had to comment.

I have mad respect for Unmutual and know he meant no harm. But I love my home and feel we get undue criticism, sometimes based on our admittedly shameful past. But this is the new south and most of us have thoughts, ideas, opinions and morals that are in absolute opposition to the way things were over 100 years ago.

Love ya, Unmutual!

Speaking of being territorial, did you know that back in the cave man days, women used to pee on their man to mark their territory? It sent a hands off signal to other women.

That obviously wouldn't be appropriate in this day and age, so now, women dress their man in order to mark their territory. Yep guys, all that shopping that women do, and surprising you with new clothes to wear, it's all about marking their territory so other women will leave you alone!

Women know this; gay men know this; unfortunately, very few straight guys know this unless they heard it from the same comedian I did. Spread the word!

[/quote]I hope the health issues are better now! As far as plans go, I keep changing them so often that I have trouble keeping track of them. There's a lot(too many?) ways to do the beds for SFG and I've been debating on how I want to do them(for 2 years now...).....I guess the important thing is growing the veggies, not how good the boxes look(that's how I console myself when I look in the back yard at least)....One day I'll have my step-pyramid SFG garden with waterfall irrigation! That's what I get for looking at renditions of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon(if only King Nebuchadnezzar II had know about SFG!).[/quote]



Thanks for the good wishes - things are improving.



I completely understand about the plans. Before we moved the beds, I drew mine in my journal at least twice and the finished arrangement is almost what I thought I wanted.



I totally agree, the most important part is actually raising the veggies. I'm something of a neat-nick but I strongly suspect Mother Nature really doesn't care about neatness or grids either. Her goal is Grow The Veggies! I once saw a program on an educational station about the Hanging Gardens. They were fabulous and I can't even imagine what they could have done with SFG!

Boffer said:

Speaking of being territorial, did you know that back in the cave man days, women used to pee on their man to mark their territory?

Boffer, I'm beginning to be a bit worried about you and your seeming obsession with one particular bodily function - I mean, peeing on compost and now this!

Off my soapbox and back to sfgardening topics! I'm about to go shopping for chicken poop, so who am I to talk about Boffer's obsession with peeing? Ha!

I must be over-compensating for having a bashful bladder as a kid!

It's all well documented (urera is a compost catalyst); I'm just passing it along where appropriate, just like I would any other gardening tip.

I can't believe you missed the thread a couple days where someone suggested pouring beer on compost piles for the bacterial benefits. I didn't say a word! But you better believe I was thinking that recycled beer works just as well!