Tra-la-la-la Trellises

It has been beautiful outside.

...Because winter is behind us and anything that's NOT winter is beautiful and lovely in Zone 6.

And I've had the week off.

So my legs are painfully sore from excessive frolicking.

All that prancing really works the calves.

 

And my garden gloves have become a lot more like wristlets or bracelets.

Which is pretty awesome for anything but my fingernails.

 

So I've been doing a bit of above the dirt action to keep them clean.

Trellis building!



 

 This is my squash trellis. I'm still not sure if it will hold up from the weight of winter squash, so it will be an interesting experience. I suppose by next year I'll have learned whether or not I should have used poultry fencing or construction fencing instead of nylon fencing.

But if nothing else, it was the perfect location to hang this UBER nifty gift I got from an uber special friend last year.

Building anything fun in your garden this year? Share, share!!!!
Please Share!!!!!!

Haute Potato Towers

This morning, after chasing around baby birds and throwing little sticks at Fat Tony, the mob boss squirrel of the pine tree grove, I finally got down to work in the garden. And I put in some serious elbow grease.

'Cause really, who gets a shower BEFORE they go out to garden.

But greasy elbows aside (and yuck factor firmly in your brain)

I finally got my potatoes planted.

I've recently discovered that there are about One Million ways to plant potatoes. And I've tried most of them.

Or two.

But I'm on to my third, so I'm a good way through that million.

There was the trash bag method that first year. I planted those potatoes in a big black trash bag, added more soil as I went, and kept pulling the bag up higher and higher as I filled it with dirt. And it went really well.

Until the tree fell on it and I had skewered baby potatoes.
Blame nature for that one,

In year two, I dug trenches and put them under just a bit of soil and added straw on top of them throughout the season until I assumed they were good and ready. And for small little creamer potatoes, I got some hefty baby elephant sized spuds.
But it took up a whole level of my tiered garden.
Eh...

So this year, it's towers.

I started with poultry fencing and twisted the ends together to form a circle.

 

\

I used dried grasses from our yard that we had trimmed back to line the metal frames.

 Then I filled the bottom with a few inches of dirt.

I put in my seed potatoes, making sure each spud had at least two eyes.

I pushed them into the dirt...

And put all ten in a layer. Then I covered them up with 2-3 inches of soil. I Think I'll add a few more layers of potatoes and try to get more out of my harvest.

I'll let you know how it goes. This idea is floating all over the Internet and I've seen some people say they've had a lot of success, and others say they didn't get anything at all.

How are you growing potatoes this year? What kinds are you growing? Share, Share!!!

In which I attempt to sing and frolick about in spring-ish weather glee...

In the first month of gardening the big box stores gave to me:
One whiskey barrel
Two hog fence panels
Three rosemary bushes
Four window boxes
Five bags of organic soil

and a few more things too, but none of them work as 6-10 and I don't think Hubby would appreciate me buying anything else in those numbers, just to finish off the song...

Today was gorgeous. And by gorgeous, I mean a bit chilly with mushy, wet, post-drizzle soil, and a slightly overcast "blah-ness" with an occasional glimpse of "oh hey there Mr. Sun".

Perfect weather for turning over the earth with nothing but a pitchfork, hoe and back muscle...

...For those of us who cannot convince our Hubbies that we need to have tillers. Because they point out how we manage to get it done every year without. To which we reply, "ow my back" and "look at my un-girly callouses". To which they again respond that we seem to have managed without. And we DO get it done, cause girly or not, Gardenistas are a fierce breed, and some Hubbies are just too tight-fisted (er um, frugal).

Okay, not that tight-fisted, because mine took me on a shopping spree.

And he's never going to let me go shopping on my own ever again.

Last year, I bought hog panels and bent them into arbors and grew squash over them. It worked out really well so I thought I'd get more. And Hubby went with me.

I don't know what he was or wasn't thinking last year. Maybe he thought I wriggled my nose and the hog panels just appeared in our yard. But when I tried to explain how we should load them into his truck this time around, he gave me this arched brow that almost disappeared up into his hairline and a loudly proclaimed "You did it HOW?"

So after much "debate", we loaded the panels 'his" way and got them home.
Just like I got mine home last year.
But let's not belabor the point because I got more panels and I'm glad for it.

And I plan on using them as Tomato Arbors!

I dug trenches at either end, filled in a mixture of compost, a bit of manure and organic soil and blended it all together.  My lower garden is slightly sloped and I'm hoping the trenches hold all the good soil in place. I'll plant the tomatoes in the rich beds of soil and let them grow up and over the arbors. Hopefully, I'll get a bunch of tomatoes hanging down for easy picking. The last few years, my tomato plants have grown so large, I'd run out of space to tie them back and ended up foraging about in thick walls of leaves and stems for hidden tomatoes.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

What are you doing with your tomatoes this year? Trying anything new? Using the same old time-tested tomato cages? Share, Share!!!