Starting Fresh

Just wanted to do a quick update, not much to report, plants are doing great and growing along nicely. I'm putting off the ground breaking till after this next week since I have family coming by to visit. Things will really pick up then.

Got to love those cheap party cups.
I for years always bought peat pots.
But they never had what I wanted, always wide but not deep enough.
Balzac got me started using these party cups, cheap and can reuse them.
I just heat a scratch awl and put holes all around the base, then I use flats without holes and water from the bottom.

Nice work, looks like you will have a nice garden.
I have a pvc greenhouse now, but at the nursery in town I built a cheap 20 x 48 A-frame structure for $850, plan on posting plans here when I get a chance.

lookin great man, i'm doing some veggies too, already started pickin some up, built a little greenhouse check my thread.. peace brotha

Scraped the top soil off today, finally had some nice weather to work in.

I'll be picking up a rear tine tiller soon then till the soil. After that I'll be adding the compost and till it again to help stir it up.

Here's a few picks of what I've gotten done so far.

Here's a few updated pics of the plants.

The first pic is the tomatoes and the second is the melons, peppers, broccoli and cauliflower.

wow what a garden plot. your gonna have alot of veggies this year.

what do they plant in that field across the road? looks like it was plowed recently

mcpurple said:

wow what a garden plot. your gonna have alot of veggies this year.

what do they plant in that field across the road? looks like it was plowed recently

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Last year it was corn and I think that's what's going in there again, he switches to hay every few years so it's not so hard on the soil.

The farmer that owns it is a good friend of my family, we get a lot of manure from him to help with our composting.

right on man, do they use a cover crop in the winter? ive been wanting to find a good cover crop for winter instead of tilling in new stuff every year

mcpurple said:

right on man, do they use a cover crop in the winter? ive been wanting to find a good cover crop for winter instead of tilling in new stuff every year

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He spreads manure all winter long and plows it in in the spring.

oh ok. i guess that works.
do you know of any good cover crops?

mcpurple said:

oh ok. i guess that works.
do you know of any good cover crops?

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Sorry, I don't.

its all good, i can google it.

lookin great, always nice when the snow melts back up to the top of a couple mountains around here.. then you know for the season, shouldnt be freezin again.

Haven't seen an update here in a while so i'm gonna post some news....

all my plants are in a 4'x8' greenhouse box made of a 2x frame and some 6mil poly



here are some peppers and some brussel sprouts, a spaghetti squash vine and a bit of my bhut jalokia in a bag.



a bhut jalokia in a bag and one in a planter behind it. they were in hydro but that didnt work out, so i moved them to soil and they are finally experiencing some new growth





tomato plants have outgrown my 3' height capacity, they are very floppy for some reason, will move them to a planter this weekend probably.



More pepper seedlings, tomato seedlings some cilantro and basil



my 2 remaining hydro peppers, had to move them outside because i needed my lighting to prepare another my precious crop. these guys are looking a bit rough they flowered and then dropped all their flowers. im hoping they flower again, i only succesfully created one clone, and it too is very weak, these plants are not nearly as robust as good ol mary jane. i will leave them outside all summer and hope that they come back, i have been feeding them with GH micro 15 ml and bloom 30ml, with a dash of kool bloom in 5 gallon.

Just finished putting it together and haven't even started it yet. I'll be fueling it up and testing her out shortly.

It's a Sears Craftsman counter rotating rear tine tiller, 18 inch wide till path.

insomnia47 your plants are looking great!

So I just got done running the tiller over the garden, twice, had to play with it and break it in for it's first run. We're expecting rain in the forecast for the next few days so I'm unsure of when I'll be able to add the compost but it won't be much longer now. Right after that I'll be transplanting and planting everything in the garden. I'll try and post a layout of how things will be planted once I draw something up.

nice tiller. how much did that run you?

mcpurple said:

nice tiller. how much did that run you?

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A little over $600. I looked into the cover crops a bit and remember being told by local farmers that they sometimes use beans and sweet peas if you're still looking.

Here's the layout of how I would like the garden to be setup.

This should be in order of height and of what should be grown near or apart from each other.

what program are you using for that?