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Post by daylilydude on Oct 12, 2018 3:40:25 GMT -5
What are some of the things that run thru your head when planning a garden?
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Posts: 0
Joined: January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2018 6:57:54 GMT -5
Type and varieties of plants, water sources, sun/shade, spacing, trellis, soil, protection.
And, just where am I going to fit in just 1 more....
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Post by brownrexx on Oct 12, 2018 7:52:56 GMT -5
I grow almost the same thing every year and I try to rotate the planting areas every 2 years so the first thing I do each year is to figure out where I will plant everything and then I make a written plan.
Deciding which seeds to start indoors comes next and then I just wait for outdoor planting time.
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Oct 12, 2018 9:17:38 GMT -5
I've moved a fair bit so I've done this over and over.
Location with regards to Sunlight!
Soil can be amended although sometimes it's just not worth the time and expense to amend. Sometimes it's easier (and less costly) to replace it, as in filling up a raised bed.
And as previously mentioned by Imp, what kinds of plants to grow? What does my family like to eat? If they aren't going to eat it, why am I wasting precious time, energy and space to raise it? Grow something that will be appreciated.
If you are urban and you want a veggie garden on your front lawn, there are a few pitfalls I can think of. Bylaws against it. Vandals taking food off your table. Neighbours helping themselves isn't quite as bad, although I prefer when people ask if they can share in the profits.
And Water source. Rainwater of course, but it's not always reliable. I have 6 rainbarrels here instead of having to pay the city for use of municipal water and because it contains fluoride. But on the farm. there was little to no water pressure by the time water travelled 250 feet from the wellhouse to the garden. But a stream or a well can be a great backup when the clouds have nothing to give.
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Post by octave1 on Oct 12, 2018 9:39:27 GMT -5
What I would like to eat that Summer.
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Post by september on Oct 12, 2018 9:50:45 GMT -5
My gardens have been in the same locations for a long time, so important considerations like sun/shade, water are in place and won't change for me. I mainly think about the fun stuff -- what new unfamiliar kinds of vegetables I might try, should I try for any zone pushers in large pots I can start early, should I try new varieties instead of my tried and true ones, what new kinds of flowers should I order for starting early. I keep a document on my computer desktop for gardening tips found online, that I cut and paste into when I read about ideas and varieties I should try in the future. I have blank charts of my garden beds I can play with, but when the time comes to plant, I often think of reasons to switch things up depending on my overflow of tomato and pepper seedlings.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 12, 2018 12:53:09 GMT -5
First thing, I have to figure out what not to grow again, along with things to grow again. There are only a few new, if any, keepers each year, but a bunch that I will not grow again. Much later, I'll be looking at new ones, and maybe reconsidering some old favorites, if necessary.
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Post by spacecase0 on Oct 12, 2018 20:14:51 GMT -5
I consider not nearly enough to have things work out well I try to figure out the weather for the next year, the solar cycle tells me well enough what the summer will be like, so no large crop loss on that front. but I wonder what plague will hit next year I have had year of the frogs, years with infinite insects, year of the gophers, this year is year of the birds. they are some sort of cycle I can't quite pin down. so I try to figure out how to protect things from the current plague (don't plant sorghum in a year of the birds)
I attempt to plan for enough organic matter in the soil, but I have almost infinite organic matter now, so it is just a matter of moving it around
I use to think about food allergies and what I can actually eat that i can grow
now I wonder what others would like to grow, but that seems to be a loosing game, I give people new foods asking for reviews, the most common feedback I get is that it was the wrong temperature. the second thing I have feedback on turns out to be expectations people will spit out food if they did not get what they expected. no matter if it was good or not. example is that you give someone a cucumber (so they don't know what it is) and tell them it was a melon. or the other way around. most (friends) tell me that they would boycott any company that did this to them until they failed. So clearly new foods need to be introduced to humans very carefully. so now I test new foods on the wild bunnies and see what they eat. would seem that most humans have no clue what they want or like, so I pay no attention to them anymore.
I think about CO2 and when sun hits plants. I live in the middle of an oak forest, not just my land, but in every direction for a long way. to little CO2 is a huge issue, and the oak trees suck the CO2 up in hours after sunrise. so the C3 plants have to have sun in the first few hours after sunrise or they fail. mid day to afternoon sun only works for C4 or CAM plants 160PPM is the lower limit for C3 plants, if you have crop land near you it is just as bad as being in a forest when you go looking at micro climates, this is a huge and often overlooked issue live very close to a major roadway, and this is no help at all
next I plan for how large of a garden I can commit to and I usually end up with more than I can manage without pain
have told myself every year for 3 years that I will not plant anything without automated watering, and every year I plant things anyway
lately I try planning for what seeds others will want, I am trying to start a garden seed company, quite the task... I know that most contract out growing of the seeds, but that just does not work for what I have planned, no seeds I ever bought ever quite worked where I lived. there are not any seeds for high altitude places that get zero rain all summer so I try to figure out what gardeners here will want talked to many of them and it did not go well, the one that sticks in my head the most was about corn they had tried "corn" and determined that it did not grow here I know that triple sweet corn grown in solid clay is going to fail... but no convincing them that there might be more kinds of corn that might grow under conditions like that. so I spend lots of time trying to figure out what they are looking for while keeping in mind just how limited they think. by the way, trying to offer the idea that plants get energy from the sun light and that shade is less than ideal is an equal fail.
so I guess that most of planning my garden ends up in the realization that the topic of biology in school has entirely failed any potential customers and on a more deep issue, the failure of things like logic and reason.
so sometime in late winter I just plan on planting whatever I am excited about in the hope that others will be as well.
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Post by paulf on Oct 13, 2018 8:26:41 GMT -5
Which varieties will taste the best this year and whether to soil test to see how much sulphur and nitrogen to apply. Most everything else has been the same for a lot of years.
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