Great chart!

If you grow roses, always plant them on the East side of the house where they'll get the first morning sun. This helps them dry off faster, so they don't develop black spot if it rains overnight.

Also, underplant them with garlic & chamomile.

Plant basil next to EVERYTHING... It's one of those "nurse" plants.

You can take a handful of basil or chamomile & steep it, then add to your watering can in the morning. You won't believe how it can perk up a plant that has suffered an attack by insects or whatever.

Mulching your strawberries with pine needles with give you 10X the flavor!

TY!!! I will have to keep all these in mind. My son has a garden build from scratch coming up this year! I am sure it will come in handy!!!

Welcome!

I'm doing that now - we bought in April 2021 but torrential rains hit - 5 meters in 3 months!

Last year's garden was a near total bust. We did get 3 watermelons, some beans & some okra, not much else.

Just got my Jerusalem artichokes planted yesterday - I'm ripping out lawn so hubs doesn't have to build a fence around our veggie garden.

Turns out the soil's better there... They must have fertilized a bit, because the grass is lusher.

Makes it easier to rip out the turf, though, so I sit on my butt scraping & cutting away with my Japanese hoe... Adding compost & horse manure & some volcanic minerals (Azomite is AWESOME!!! Really ups the mineral content of your soil & therefore the mineral content of your food!)

He couldn't get around to fencing, so I went radical & decided to "help" him out by smallifying the size of the enormous front yard...

Next up - transplanting blueberries from the back to front!

Want an easy tip for a higher garden level? And when it breaks down, if you enclose it with burlap or even wood, it will compost down! You can also fill high bins with sticks and wood at the bottom for the raised garden bed fillers! ;-)

Great idea! I go through a lot of hay, LOL. Straw's hard to come by where I live.

I just kind of did that with t-posts & chicken wire 2 ft. tall, then weed barrier cloth, then put a bunch of tree trunk rounds inside, then smaller branches & stuff, then lots of leaves & green stuff... fill with compost & topsoil & VOILA!

I plan to surround those with some pallets that have been reworked to a solid wall, but tht can come later, while I'm waiting for all the veggies to grow!

Love this convo! Thanks for sharing all your tips!!! A tip that worked great for us for fertilizer is Bunny poop. Plus if you raise a few meat rabbits you always have a meat source if needed. They breed like rabbits. 😂 We would put a small scoop of bunny poop or goat poop right into the hole and mix the dirt up with it before putting in the seeds. Really good natural clean fertilizer and easy to produce yourself. Blessings and Love! ❤️

BINGO!

Right now, what this soil desperately needs is manure!

I'm going tomorrow down to Boothtown Road & ask those folks if I can pick up their pasture & clean their barn!

In Uruguay, we had only sand, no soil, so we had to make our own with compost, charcoal, etc.

I was a common sight in those days, walking along with my 2 buckets & my gloves on, picking up meadow muffins & thanking God for the open grazing laws.

I've been trying to find a burro or small pony, but meeting with frustration. They were everywhere last summer for $100 up to $500, but no ponies this year... Donkeys are now costing between $1000 & $5000!

I'm not going to pay that much for a shit machine... God knows I want such a creature, because I need the garden to feed the pigs, too, and a few 2-leggeds I've taken a shine to.

Chickens are next for us - they don't stress their shelter much.

Can a goat shed be built of cinder blocks?

Lumber is so expensive.

We have lots of tin for roofin

Omgoodness I love " meadow muffins." My new favorite farm term.😂

I wonder if you put some sort of cement in between them to keep them from falling over? You know goats are crazy little creatures..lol Jumping, knocking down everything. 🐐

I just saw here in Missouri the price of a donkey or a mule is out of this world expensive. Whoda ever thought it would be this way. They don't want us to be independent. But if farmers can get more land they can breed more and sell for cheaper but they have made that very hard and I think they will make it harder. Right now a 5 acre plot of land with just a mobile home costs about $300,000 in SW Missouri and that is ridiculous. Grrr! Waiting for the housing market to drop. I hope I see it again in my lifetime. Hugs Love!

Wow, Shewie, that is an OUTRAGEOUS price!

We got 3 acres & a 2-bedroom house with garage & a barn for $155k, just about half, here in Alabama.

Goats are coming soon for us - Boers & Nubians. Did you know that goats' milk contains a short-chain fatty acid that actually retards the progression of fibromyalgia?

Well, it does.

And I always stay slim & full of energy when I have plenty of it, too.

Trouble with goats is, the poop berries. I can't see myself on my knees out there, picking them up one by one to put in my garden.

I knew a guy in Bay Minette 10 years go who had 5 ft. of compacted goat poop in his barn. Wonder if he's cleaned it out yet?

LOL

https://www.youtube.com/wa...

Duh! What was I thinkingn???

YT has everything, doesn't it?

Thank you again, Kris. I've put that video in my Watch Later file!

Hubs will be well-entertained tonight; wonder if he'll take the hint?

lol, I hope he does!!!

If he doesn't, I'll start making strafing runs on places that advertise free pallets down in Mobile...

And when I start trying to knock them all together with my old shattered right wrist that can't drive a 10-penny nail decently anymore, I'll SHAME him into helping me...

Or, I'll collect the stuff & pay this guy, Smiley, to put it together.

We've got piles of new sheet metal lying about for siding & roofing; I just can't afford the 2x4s to nail it onto, LOL.

Pitiful, isn't it?

Meanwhile, I have 13 red oak trees that need taking down cuz they're old & fulla mistletoe & have a habit of dropping branches & ruining fences, etc...

Shame I don't know anyone with a jig to turn our chainsaw into a personal sawmill, eh?

or this... https://www.youtube.com/wa...

The Optimistic Gardner!

Actually, now that you've got me thinking on the subject, perhaps we could frame with pallets & cover the outside with SHINGLES made from the pallets as well!

Then the edifice could be attractive, not just functional...

LMAO.

I say this because our pig shed is an old pickup topper propped up with hay bales.

Thanks for stimulating my little grey cells today, fren!

I am always thinking. I think that McGyver show back in the day got me started on how can I do this or how can I solve this and then how can I solve it or do it another way!. But it has been a great learning experience too!