Notices tagged with gardening, page 4

I have a surplus of tomato seedlings so I decided to create a small vegetable patch near the curb to grow "free" tomatoes for passersby. The soil in my front yard is crap so I made kind of a mini Hügel. I dig a trench about 2 feet deep and threw in some birch logs and staves from an old rotted barrel planter, then added leaves and compost, back-filled it with the original soil, then covered it in a layer of cardboard and mulch. I made sure to leave a space in front equal to the deck on my lawnmower.

#hügelkultur #hugelkultur #gardening #food #tomatoes

Spent about 3 hours this afternoon helping a friend build a Hügel in their backyard. 😅

#hügelkultur #hugelkultur #gardening #permaculture #diy

I made this wicking bed bucket planter late last season but never ended up growing anything in it, so I decided to plant tomatoes in it this year. They're the poster-child crop for this type of setup. I also decided to give it a deep straw mulch layer and inoculate it with oyster mushroom culture, just for fun.

#gardening #wickingbeds #globalbuckets #diy #mushrooms

The expanded Hügel is finally complete and ready for planting (though the weather isn't quite yet). The final list of ingredients were (in order):
- logs (mostly white birch, some maple, a few random others)
- old rotten barrel staves
- wood chips
- leaves
- rabbit poop
- kitchen compost
- soil
- straw

I also once again inocculated it with Stropharia mycelium in the hopes that it will produce some mushrooms in addition to vegetables. I have all of my seedlings started indoors. By the time they're ready to transplant the weather outside should be perfect.

#gardening #hügelkultur #hugelkultur #composting #compost #mushrooms

Hügel expansion, phase two: Leaves, soil, rabbit shit, and a bunch of half-finished compost from last year. I still have a bunch more compost to add, but the rest of it is still frozen.

#gardening #hügelkultur #hugelkultur #composting #compost

I was pretty happy with my Hügelkultur from last year, and I still have a ton of old logs and stuff around the house, so I decided to expand it this year to about twice the size. I'm going to re-inocoulate it with wine cap mushroom spawn. Hopefully I'll get some to harvest this year.

#mushrooms #fungi #gardening #hügelkultur #hugelkultur

Fresno chilis indoors under a $8 LED grow light. So far, so good. 💡🌶️

#chilis #plants #gardening #food #diy

A fresno chili seedling from seeds I harvested from the peppers I grew this summer. I thought @[Farhad](/people/dddebe80aec501364742005056268def) might like to see it.

#plants #gardening #chilis

Hot sauce finished and bottled. Home grown Fresno chilis, fermented 6 weeks. It's not murderous, but it has some kick (and lots of garlic). I'm going to be gifting it for Christmas mostly, so I need a pithy name for the label.

#hotsauce #chilis #fermentation #gardening #diy #food

This spring I created a 6'x4' woodchip bed specifically for growing wine cap mushrooms (Stropharia rugosoannulata). I was also setting up a Hügelkultur mound at the same time, so I threw a handful of mushroom spawn into it just for shits. Both beds were fairly prolific producers of wild mushrooms such as mica caps all throughout the summer and fall, but sadly no wine caps -- but I was just out by the Hügel pulling out some old broccoli plants to throw into the compost pile and saw this little guy poking up. I guess that means it wasn't a total dud. Maybe this is a harbinger of things to come next season. We'll see. 🤞

#mushrooms #fungi #gardening #hügelkultur #hugelkultur

Future hot sauce with home grown peppers 🌶🤞

#hotsauce #chilipeppers #gardening #fermenting #food

Tend Your Garden… Again

#cookinghacks #featured #greenhacks #interest #originalart #food #garden #gardening #produce #victorygarden #hackaday
posted by pod_feeder_v2

I've been intrigued lately by the idea of "wicking beds" for gardening, so I decided to have a go at it on a small scale with one of these "global buckets" style setups. The gap between the bottoms of the nested buckets forms a reservoir, which can be replenished via the standpipe. There are overflow holes on the outer bucket to ensure that the water level always stays below the floor of the inner bucket, and allows air beneath to prevent root-rot. The soil retains moisture via capillary action from the soil in the cup, which is immersed in the reservoir. Pretty basic. I'm curious to see how it performs and how often I have to top it off.

#gardening #wickingbeds #globalbuckets #diy

I seem to have been bitten by the gardening bug a little late in northern New Engalnd's short growing season. My Hügel is doing nicely, especially the tomatoes and broccoli, but I wish I had planted more, sooner. I've decided I'm going to try to get some sweet potatoes going, but I don't think there's enough warm weather ahead, so I'm going to start them in a large pot indoors, and try to transplant some shoots outside next spring. In the meantime, maybe I'll get a harvest.

#gardening #food

This Hügel is an adventure. I went out this morning to inspect it after we got some heavy rainfall last night, and I found the English thyme smothered in the very aptly named "dog vomit mold" (Fuligo septica). It wasn't there yesterday. Ugh.

It peeled off cleanly enough, and now lives in my compost tumbler. We're due for a few more days of rain so I might be battling this until things dry up.

#hügelkultur #hugelkultur #permaculture #gardening #slimemold

About a month since planting, and the Hügel is doing "OK". The tomato plant on top is going like gangbusters, and the broccoli seems to be doing well. The English thyme is also starting to spread. A few plants are hanging in there but not flourishing, such as the peppers and strawberries. These were the ones that bore the brunt of the skunk attacks though (which have stopped now that the fence is there) and were uprooted several times. Overall I'm encouraged. These mounds are generally not expected to be very productive until year 2, and the stuff I planted was chosen arbitrarily. I'll take some cues from what works well this year, and plant more of that stuff next year.

#hügelkultur #hugelkultur #permaculture #gardening #food #diy

I've had two buckets of maitake spawn colonizing for the past month. The plan was to buy them in the soil at the base of an oak tree, but I ran into a few logistical problems. First, the roots were too close to the surface for me to dig a hole, and second, the blocks would not come out of the buckets. I ended up pounding and shaking them until they finally came out in large chunks, which I made into a pile and then buried under woodchips, which was kind of Plan B anyway. Fingers crossed. 🤞

#mushrooms #fungi #gardening #maitake #henofthewoods

The sun moved and I got a more better photo.

#hügelkultur #hugelkultur #permaculture #gardening #food #diy

I went by the garden center today and got a bunch of seedlings. Planting was really easy, I basically just pushed aside a bunch of wood chips and dirt with my hand, put the seedling in, and pushed the chips back to cover it.. There's actually nothing planted on the back side right now. I ran out of plants. I'll have to figure out what else to get for back there.

So far there are strawberries, several varieties of chili pepper, red bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, and snap beans. I also planted a sun-loving ground cover plant on the top (I forget the name). I'm hoping it will spread out and help keep the mount from eroding. Finally, it's ringed with petunias and begonias, just for aesthetics.

I gave it a good dousing with the hose afterward, and I'll probably need to keep that up for a while, but allegedly one of the main benefits of the Hügelkultur method is that the wood in the core wicks up and holds moisture, so once the roots penetrate down a bit, you only need to water it in extreme dry spells (which don't really happen here).

#hügelkultur #hugelkultur #permaculture #gardening #food #diy

I finished the Hügel this afternoon, thanks to my new massive supply of wood chips. All together it's a pile of old birch logs stacked in a shallow pit, then covered by the dirt dug out from the pit, then a few inches of oak leaves, a wheelbarrow full of ages rabbit droppings, two wheelbarrows full of old garden soil and compost, topped with three wheelbarrows of oak/maple chips. This weekend I'm going to plant it with fruit and vegetable seedlings, and plant flowers around the base. As a bonus, I spread some wine cap spawn under the chips, so in the fall I should get some mushrooms from it as well.

#hügelkultur #hugelkultur #gardening #permaculture #mushrooms #fungi #food #diy