2011 Garden Pics

guess it was the flash player======so much for freaking out.

i will reply to questions shortly.

staf74 I was lazy with the Compost Tumbler. It was really heavy and I hated turning it while it was on its stand. You have to turn it completely over 5 times each day. I think that about 50 cranks....and its heavy. It holds about 26 five gallon buckets of organic chopped materials. It took me about 6 weeks to get a fairly good compost.....only cause i was lazy. I am not sure what you would get if you were steadfast to the instructions for compost in 2 weeks. It costed me $500 for the tumbler on the stand. Do you know how many trash cans I could of bought with $500. I down sized my composting cause it was heavy and most of the time , I cannot come up with 26 five gallon buckets of organic material ==portioned correctly to compost it.
I stored my chopped leaves and pine needles and manures, and used potting soil in trash cans for a long time and one day I just had the idea to use the trash cans for composting and when I searched it on the internet,,,,,, it was popular.

Thanks for the updates Carolyn,

I was thinking about a tumbler but I too was like...hmmm....I'm sure I could make my own for much cheaper.

I have the cinder blocks that you have in your garden surrounding my compost pile and it works fine for my needs but always looking for options as I could use the blocks for another SFG

My intentions are to put 1x6 s sfg frames on top of the concrete block beds so I can have grids.......not for my liking but for other sfgardeners cause they want to see the grids....The grids are nice looking but they don't make my veggies grow so they are last on the Do List. I want the 1x6s so I don't have to deal with those block holes....and the wood will last longer sitting on the block beds than it would sitting on the ground.

You are my new hero! Great job and fantastic pictures.

Fabulous garden, fabulous pictures, fabulous honesty sharing your ideas towards compost and additions. Did I mention. Fabulous? I want your garden

thank you everyone.

I cooked the purple cauliflower tonight. I made cauli cheese soup with white and purple cauli.
I always cook the cauliflower just a little bit in a pot with a little bit of water....heavy quick stem. wow, I only cooked it for 3 to 4 minutes and the purple cauliflower faded to a dingy purple but the water was purple....... I drained it and got my creamy milk cheese soup ready and added the cauliflower back to it during the last couple of minutes and the cheese soup turned PINK. LOL. topped it off with some stir fried green beans.

Pink soup

this is sooo inspiring for anyone, new and old. I now want to move south! LOL

thank you very much for the pics.

Slightly off topic... I used to loathe summer and pine for fall and winter. I grew up in Michigan and loved the cold weather! I lived in Washington state briefly and I think that was the most ideal climate I've lived in, but there's no question that Virginia has a great growing season. Once I took up gardening I understood the allure of heat and sunshine.

I worked at Boeing in Everett. Maybe the climate we live in is kind of like the hair we have... people with curly hair want straight hair, and people with straight hair want curly hair. *giggle*

If I could pick a vacation destination it would be Washington, hands down! Watching the orcas at Lime Kiln Point was one of the most wonderful things I've ever done and I hope to do it again someday.

I harvested another meal.
Danvers Carrot

Yumm.

Look at those L shaped carrots.

Hope they were sweet.

My 12 inch tabletop garden only has about 9 to 10 inches of soil. I
need 12 inches for these carrots. 14 inches would be great. I need to
add more soil mix to the table tops.
The carrots do look funny.

This is the radish I have been growing way past it's prime. I wanted it to go to seed but It hasn't yet. One of them actually had a bloom spike but the freezing temps stopped it in it's track. This is the same Table Top garden that I want to grow carrots in for Spring and I have to sow the seeds in Feb.......with a mini hoop greenhouse construction. I hate to pull the radish.

Holy Cow! That's a biggun

That radish is enormous may be a world record even , it looks like a pommegranete grafted onto a beet root.

Is there some kind of " Guiness book of record " set for for a big raddish ?

lol....i have no idea what the record is. I haven't checked into it. But I am sure this wee radish didn't make the records by long shot. It won't grow anymore right now. I am undecided if i want to pull it or leave it to grow more in the spring. In March, I could just side dress it with some rabbit manure and see if the plant will seed.

here is one type of record Radish
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nachosan/3588274/

Beautiful pictures. I also use cinder blocks because the
cedar is too expensive. You must be a master gardener,
your up there with the best of them.

A heavy freeze killed my radish dead as a door nail and mushy as mud on top. Sad.

Thanks.
I wish I was a master gardener. I just like to garden.

So sorry for your loss. It would have been nice to see if that big ole radish would make seeds for you.

A heavy freeze killed my radish dead as a door nail and mushy as mud on top. Sad.

I think I just shed a tear
That was one fine lookin radish. Sorry for your loss