Garden 2019

[kmcconaughey]

I finally got my garden planted. First thing I had to do was repair my tiller. It's an older MTD rear tine tiller that I bought new back in the early 1990's. A few years ago the throttle lever broke off leaving just a stub. It still worked, but made it harder to operate. Last fall when I went to till leaves into the garden the plastic assembly completely broke and I had to use pliers and vice grips to operate it. Last weekend I made a new throttle out of some scrap aluminum angle and bar stock that I had on hand. I used three layers of heat shrink for the handle grip. It works better than the original ever did. The original never had enough leverage and was hard to operate. I need to make a couple of simple updates now that I know it works. I want to increase the pivot bolt from an 8-32 to either a 10-32 or 10-24 and get rid of the stack of washers and replace them with a proper spacer and a nylock nut. Also I want to trim the rear edge of the aluminum angle so it's not a sharp corner.

Garden photos to follow later.

 

[aaytay]

Great job Kraig! That looks very well engineered.

 

[mfrade]

Pretty clever Kraig. And it works better than the OEM.

 

[bbranstetter]

Very nice work Kraig!

 

[wshytle]

Nice work Kraig. Fabricating things like that can be so satisfying...and better than new.

What would MTD do without those pointed (5/16"?) bolts. One can be seen on the right side of the second pic down. I guess they saved a fortune not having to use nuts.

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[glippert]

Very impressive, Kraig - better than new!

 

[mmasheris]

Gardening in Northern Ill used a 6'' power auger to put tall tomatoes in the ground worked well

 

[kmcconaughey]

Thanks for the nice comments!

Please post photos of your gardens. This thread is for sharing gardens and ideas. I should mention that both veggie and landscape garden photos would be welcome.

Here's some veggie garden photos.

This is looking South East. Garlic on the left foreground. Tomatoes planted in plastic mulch on the right. First row is a cherry tomato, next is a row of Brandywine heirloom tomatoes then two rows of Roma paste tomatoes. Home made tomato cages made out of concrete welded wire mesh. Some of the cages are over 20 years old. The last row has some peppers, a mix of Jalapeno, banana and bell peppers also planted in plastic mulch. In the far South East corner is a bed of asparagus that I planted last year.

This is looking South West. Garlic beds on the right with the German Hardy White garlic that I have been growing for decades and a smaller garlic bed in the far South West corner with a variety that I recently started growing.

This is looking North. Small garlic bed in the foreground with an unknown variety that I call "Harland" after the guy I got it from.

View looking North East. There are plantings of zucchini, cucumbers, Basil and dill but the plants are not up yet. The exposed soil will get mulched with leaves to keep the weeds down and hold in moisture.

 

[kmcconaughey]

I snapped this photo on Friday of a May Apple blossom that had a moth on it. Thought it was interesting.

I have some hardy kiwi vines growing in my yard that I got as cuttings back in the mid 1990's from a former coworker. The variety is Actinidia Kolomitka. Some of the leaves are white and some times even pink. The last few years they have been producing more and more fruit. This year there are a bunch of blossoms.

 

[mgwin]

Looking good Kraig!

Those Kiwi are some good eating.

 

[klindstedt]

Trying something different this year with respect to vegetable gardening. I built these raised bed garden boxes and we are trying the 'square foot gardening' (SFG) method of planting. One box is filled with zucchini and yellow squash (slightly overfilled actually) and the other has three kinds of peppers, green beans, brussel sprouts (maybe too late in season for these) and cucumbers. The weedy area (lol) will be a second later planting of green beans. A lot easier to maintain this garden without the stooping and bending.

 

[dschwandt]

Looks good!!
Lots better than mine this morning!!'
everything is flat as a pancake.
Crappy weather anyway!!

 

[kmcconaughey]

Kevin, that's a nice raised bed setup!

 

[kmcconaughey]

My Hardy Kiwi vine has some nice sized fruit on it.

 

[aaytay]

Kraig-
Wow, that's amazing. I didn't know those grow by us. What does the fruit taste like? How much yield do you get from your vines?

 

[kmcconaughey]

Art, I would probably get a lot more fruit if I had them growing on a trellis rather than letting them grow wild and climbing on the plants around them. I rarely get to eat the fruit because the birds and or other animals always beat me to them. As they get closer to ripening I check on them daily to see if they are ripe and the day I figure they are ripe they are typically gone.

The few times I've been able to get a few they have been very tasty. I have had the Hardy Kiwi vines since the mid 1990's. I got them from cuttings from a guy named Bob Guthrie. Mine are the Actinidia kolomikta variety. I worked with Bob at an environmental services company called Bay West from 1991 until 1997. Bob has a PhD in Geology but his passion is Hardy Kiwi. Bob was just starting to get into them when I got the cuttings from him. I should probably let him know mine are doing well...

Hardy Kiwi 1

Hardy Kiwi 2

Hardy Kiwi 3

 

[kmcconaughey]

My tomatoes, peppers and garlic are growing nicely.

The Kiwi is climbing onto a Nanking Cherry tree. Here you can see the Kiwi fruit are the elongated fruit and the cherries are the smaller round fruit.

 

[wshytle]

Kraig-

That is very interesting about kiwi growing up north. I always just assumed kiwi was a tropical fruit. If the birds are getting them then there should be a crop of "wild" kiwi I would think.

The weather here in NC just isn't being nice right now. It's been hot and dry and I'm almost out of rain water. My garden is doing well so far but the forcasts aren't delivering any rain to speak of...only possible afternoon thunderstorms which is typical this time of year.

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[kmcconaughey]

Wayne, the kiwi that can grow up here are not the typical kiwi. The fruit is grape sized and not fuzzy like the typical kiwi most are used to seeing.

It's been a bit on the rainy side here the past few days, which is nice because I am trying to get grass to grow where the yard was dug up for my geothermal heating install. On June 20th I had 5 yards of compost delivered that my wife and I spread out, tilled in and seeded. The grass is growing nicely so far. I like it when it rains then I don't have to water it.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Here's a few garden photos from Steve B.: