farmingfisherman
Well-Known Member
Last weekend was great! Kinda hot but still really nice. We sat out in the yard with my wife's parents out off Bluff Rd. and it was still in the high 70's in the shade of their huge trees. Hoping the T-storms they are predicting for the afternoon hold off. Last year we had small sunflowers that we had put in the ground and theyI'm in beautiful Portland Oregon. I think it's zone 8b. I got out real early and planted the early cold season crops. We had a few frosts after I planted but it didn't phase the early crops. I also plant at the end of summer and overwinter crops like beets, kale, carrots and other greens. I'm going to plant fava beans this fall as well. They're supposed to be a good overwintering cover crop.
I don't have very much space so I'm utilizing as best as I can. I've done a bunch of reading on succession planting. My goal is to have my garden full 365 days a year. It can be done with the right crops and proper planning.
You have a great state there in Colorado and if I ever moved from Oregon Colorado would be at the top of my list. I've spent a bit of time there all across the state. Denver, Colorado Springs, Canon City, Trinidad, Pueblo, Ft Collins, I've been all over. But my favorite place was Durango. Beautiful little town. I spent a week in Farmington NM and then drove up into Durango for another week before flying back to Portland. The Animus river ran right behind the hotel I was staying at. Beautiful country. Unfortunately I was always there for work and didn't get to explore as much as I would have liked. But as Arnie says, "I'll be back".
got pounded by a hailstorm, afterwards they looked like a horde of locusts had come through or something. Plants that survived were scared up and growth was stunted for more than a month afterwards! Sure hoping we some good rain now and a dryer Summer/Fall compared to what we had last Summer.
Laying cardboard down is a popular method for weed control, so you can just build right on top of grass/weeds without a lot of site prep. We used tyvec siding underlayment, just because we had it. Built the box, then laid that down and stapled that on about 1ft up the sides, and then used contractor trash bags cut in half lengthwise to line the insides of the side boards (overlapped with tyvec). I went cheap with the side boards and just used standard pine lumber, so the plastic liner should help protect the boards from constant contact with wet soil. We'll see how long they last... we used cedar 4x4s for the corner posts, and leveled the boards, so only contacting the ground at the one high corner that everything is leveled off of. Scrap wood and bricks to fill the gap at the bottom before lining/filling. Don't us pressure treated lumber, as it might leach nasties into your soil...
