{"id":15085,"date":"2013-03-29T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2013-03-29T16:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/upstater.com\/?p=15085"},"modified":"2017-11-29T10:40:28","modified_gmt":"2017-11-29T15:40:28","slug":"the-weekenders-garden-prep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/upstater.com\/the-weekenders-garden-prep\/","title":{"rendered":"The Weekenders: Garden Prep"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"garden_sm\"

My garden two weeks ago.<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s March 29th<\/sup> and yes, it snowed today.\u00a0 And yesterday.\u00a0 And it will probably snow tomorrow.\u00a0 But it is officially spring, and I have a planting schedule to keep, so I\u2019m doing what I can do inside to keep moving forward.\u00a0 But, my thoughts are definitely outside as well.\u00a0 In the first post by the Bungalow Byliners about the fantastic renovation they did<\/a>, a commenter asked what drip irrigation system I use for my raised bed garden.\u00a0 This inspired me to do a post on some of the challenges of doing a vegetable garden as a weekender and what I\u2019m doing now to get ready.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Challenge #1:\u00a0 We have a short season here<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are at around 1800 feet in elevation, and it\u2019s common knowledge among local gardeners that you can\u2019t put much of anything in the ground before Memorial Day.\u00a0 Exceptions are some greens, peas and other cold loving plants.\u00a0\u00a0 Using row covers and creating hoop houses, tunnels and floating row covers are popular season extenders in the area, but apparently these work better if you are around to take down the covers during the warm daytime and put them back for the cold nights.\u00a0 Since I\u2019m not around 5 days of the week, I can\u2019t do this, but this year I\u2019m going to try some \u201cHoop Loops<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 from Johnny\u2019s Seeds (one of my favorite online garden stores) to create some row covers.\u00a0 I figure I can try to start some stuff early, and if it works, I\u2019m that much further ahead.\u00a0 If it fails, I can try again at the end of May.<\/p>\n

Challenge #2:\u00a0 The Catskills are full of rocks<\/strong><\/p>\n

We live in a valley with a Catskill creek at the border of our property.\u00a0 When we dug out the lawn two years ago to put in the first garden, we found about four inches of beautiful black dirt above tons and tons of river rock.\u00a0 I had already decided at that point to do a raised bed because I heard they would help somewhat with extending the growing season, but finding rocks and rocks and rocks under the beautiful soil made me realize we\u2019d made the right decision.\u00a0 The amount of rocks here became especially evident after Hurricane Irene when what had been little creeks disgorged twenty-foot roadblocks of rocks across roads and in the middle of fields.<\/p>\n

I love the raised bed garden \u2013 we started the first year with a kit from Gardens to Gro (the \u201cJust Add Lumber\u201d kit<\/a>).\u00a0 Last year we expanded the garden by just buying the metal brackets they sell and adding our own lumber.\u00a0 But, it was lots of time and effort to put it together, and not cheap when you consider you have to buy the lumber to build it (only non-treated lumber) and soil to put in it.\u00a0\u00a0 And now that it\u2019s there, it\u2019s permanent until it falls apart.<\/p>\n

This year, to expand the garden, I\u2019m going to try something different.\u00a0 Last week the New York Times had an article about straw bale gardening<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 There is, of course, a book<\/a>..\u00a0 I was immediately sold due to the fact that it\u2019s easy to do, cheaper than building a raised bed, and we can move it next year if we want.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s a new fad, but it seems to make sense.\u00a0 I\u2019d LOVE to hear from anyone who has tried this.<\/p>\n

Challenge #3: We\u2019re not here to water the garden every day<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The first year we had the garden, it was smaller, it was a wet year, and our neighbor who mows our lawn volunteered to water it for us.\u00a0 Last year, with the bigger garden, I knew I\u2019d need something more robust, so I got a garden irrigation kit from Drip Depot <\/a>(Of course at first I had to make a few jokes about how it was a website that you ordered dorky boyfriends from).\u00a0 If you are just starting out, I would highly recommend one of their kits.\u00a0 It has all of the significant parts that you need to get started, including all of the valves and filters and backflow preventers and things you wouldn\u2019t necessarily think you would need.\u00a0 You will definitely need more drippers and hoses than you think you will need (especially if we have another dry early summer like we did last year).\u00a0 I also got a timer<\/a> to turn the irrigation system on when we weren\u2019t there , but I didn\u2019t like this one very much because it didn\u2019t let me program more than one watering cycle per day (I\u2019d like to do one in the morning and one in the evening).\u00a0 I\u2019m looking for a new timer if anyone has any recommendations.\u00a0 They also have good instructional videos about how to put everything together.\u00a0 I recently saw drip irrigation parts available at Home Depot, but you need to know what you need.\u00a0 Also, if you have well water, and you don\u2019t have a sediment filter coming from your well pump, you will need to clean the filters in the system frequently.\u00a0 At least I did.<\/p>\n

One of the things that my dad recommended that I never knew even existed was quick release hose couplers<\/a>.\u00a0 You put one on the water supply, and one on the hose, and you can quickly connect or disconnect the hose.\u00a0 No more twisting and turning the hose connector with wet hands.\u00a0 Maybe these have been around for years and living in the city didn\u2019t expose me to them, but they are a fantastic invention.<\/p>\n

I also built a custom water supply valve on the side of our garden using basic brass and PVC plumbing parts available at most hardware stores.\u00a0 Between this and the quick release hose couplers, the guy who mows our lawn was able quickly disconnect the water supply hose from the garden across the lawn so he could mow it.<\/p>\n

\"Simple

Simple water supply valve I made to hook the hose to the garden.<\/p><\/div>\n

Challenge #4: Animals (or Critters)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Truthfully, we haven\u2019t had a big problem with this so far (knock on wood).\u00a0 There are a lot of deer here (and probably everywhere).\u00a0 Our first year, we had a bumper apple crop, so the deer, bears and groundhogs were pretty satisfied with those and didn\u2019t bother the garden at all.\u00a0 When we built the raised beds, we put wire mesh at the bottom, so no animals can tunnel underneath and get to the garden that way.<\/p>\n

Last year, without any apples, the deer ate the sunflowers I had growing in the front of the house, and the local ground hog (we affectionately have named him Gordon) chewed through the plastic mesh I had around the garden fence and ate all of my basil and lettuce, some of the cucumbers and nibbled at the squash.\u00a0 We added chicken wire to the fence, so despite his attempts, he wasn\u2019t able to get in again.\u00a0 For the deer, we used one of the smelly deer repellant sprays. \u00a0 It smelled really bad, but it definitely worked.\u00a0 This year we might try something like this<\/a> that supposedly isn’t as smelly.\u00a0 We never had rabbits before, but we\u2019ve noticed a lot of them around this winter, so we aren\u2019t sure what challenges they will bring this summer.<\/p>\n

One other problem I had with the wooden raised beds is earwigs.\u00a0 Earwigs are (to me) one of the most disturbing insects ever.\u00a0 And they love wet wood, so a raised bed garden made of wood is like paradise to them.\u00a0\u00a0 I read up on them and found that you can use Diatomaceous earth<\/a>\u2014a natural insecticide that dehydrates insect\u2019s exoskeletons.\u00a0 It works to get rid of bugs like beetles, earwigs \u2013 even cockroaches and fleas.\u00a0 This year I plan to douse the garden in it before the earwigs and flea beetles really get going.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve currently got the heat turned up in one of the rooms upstairs so my seedlings\u00a0have a warm place to get started. \u00a0 This year I ordered all of my seeds from Baker Creek<\/a> who have lots of interesting heirloom varieties.\u00a0 Here\u2019s to hoping spring comes soon!<\/p>\n

P.S. \u2013 I know I promised last time I would do a whole string of interviews with other people.\u00a0 I will do them, I promise!\u00a0 I had a cancellation due to Passover this week, so next post will be an interview.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s March 29th and yes, it snowed today.\u00a0 And yesterday.\u00a0 And it will probably snow tomorrow.\u00a0 But it is officially spring, and I have a planting schedule to keep, so I\u2019m doing what I can do inside to keep moving forward.\u00a0 But, my thoughts are definitely outside as well.\u00a0 In the first post by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785,102,1056],"tags":[882],"yoast_head":"\nThe Weekenders: Garden Prep - Upstater<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/the-weekenders-garden-prep\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Weekenders: Garden Prep - Upstater\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s March 29th and yes, it snowed today.\u00a0 And yesterday.\u00a0 And it will probably snow tomorrow.\u00a0 But it is officially spring, and I have a planting schedule to keep, so I\u2019m doing what I can do inside to keep moving forward.\u00a0 But, my thoughts are definitely outside as well.\u00a0 In the first post by the […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/the-weekenders-garden-prep\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Upstater\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Upstater\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-29T16:00:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-11-29T15:40:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/upstater.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/garden_sm.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kim McGalliard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kim McGalliard\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/the-weekenders-garden-prep\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/the-weekenders-garden-prep\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Kim McGalliard\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/#\/schema\/person\/7643dac397664990d7ec3ac0c604e7a5\"},\"headline\":\"The Weekenders: Garden Prep\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-03-29T16:00:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-11-29T15:40:28+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/the-weekenders-garden-prep\/\"},\"wordCount\":1442,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/the-weekenders-garden-prep\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/upstater.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/garden_sm.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Weekenders\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Top Stories\",\"Upstate Living\",\"Weekending\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/the-weekenders-garden-prep\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/the-weekenders-garden-prep\/\",\"name\":\"The Weekenders: Garden Prep - 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