Gardening – Page 2 – Beautiful Chaos

Planting cucumber seedlings

I have planted pickling cucumbers and cucumbers for fresh eating at 2 different locations in the garden

In our garden 4, I planted the purely female flowering cucumber varieties I am trying for the first time. These should be planted separate from the male/ female flowering cucumbers. I planted the varieties Cleopha & Kalomira. I planted these in the same location as I had planted the cucumbers last year, so I hope this will not cause any problems.

2 rows of small cucumber plants in a garden accompanied by 2 rows of carrots and radishes and a lot of comfrey in the back

I mainly planned the cucumbers in our garden 3 in the long compost bed. The cucumbers take about 8 meters of the garden bed and are planted in 2 rows about 1 meter apart and 50 cm apart in the row.

2 rows of small cucumber plants in a garden bed

I planted Vorgebirgstraube, which is a pickling cucumber, then Persika, which is a cucumber for fresh eating, and Liefje, which also is a pickling cucumber.

After experimenting with pickling cucumbers last year we found some recipes we all liked and I plan on pickling enough cucumbers to last us the entire year, that is if the cucumbers produce well.

Planting a 3 sister garden for the first time

Trying out a 3 sister garden for the first time, with sweet corn, different types of runner beans and pumpkins from gifted seed I do not know the variety of

This spring we unexpectedly where gifted a handful of pumpkinseed. I always have the Hokkaido pumpkin Solor and save seed from them as well. In order for the seeds to come true, there can not be any other pumpkin varieties growing to close to them. Very curious as too what kind of pumpkinseed we where gifted I was glad we still had the smaller garden bed, of our new created garden 1, free. Our new created garden 1 is on the north side of our property near our pond and where I planned the pumpkins I normally grow, is at the complete opposite side of our property at the south side. There also are several groups of trees in between. As I understand from different sources the pollinators do not fly such great distances especially with so much to feed upon along the way and so many obstacles.

I have been wanting to try the 3 sister garden for a while now and actually had planned it at the south side of our property, but the farmer planted corn on the field south to our property and that will not be sweet corn. I have had this in the past and the corn cross pollinated and the corn we became was not that tasty and the seed obviously did not give tasteful new corn. We used this as feed for chickens.

This let me to rethink my garden plan and give up on growing corn this year, but after having a garden bed left in the new garden 1 and being gifted pumpkinseed I decided to create the 3 sister garden there.

So first things first. A 3 sister garden needs a nutrient rich garden bed and luckily we still had a good amount of ready compost which my husband brought to the garden bed with the tractor.

Garden bed partially covered with compost with a tractor bringing more compost

We spread out a layer of about 8 cm of compost and planted the sweet corn seedlings. Since the compost tents to dry out a bit, I made a hole in the compost and planted the corn in the soil below. This way the corn also has some protection against the harsh wind that blows here a lot.

Corn seedling planted in soil and surrounded by compost

I planted 2 rows and a short 3th row of sweet corn about 50 cm apart and about 30 cm in between the plants in the row.

I had only 5 pumpkins that sprouted and filled the 3th row with them, a few days after I planted the sweet corn. I did sow the remaining pumpkinseeds we where gifted in some containers and will plant them, if any sprout, in between the corn later.

Garden bed covered with compost, planted with sweet corn and pumpkins

I watered the corn seedlings after planting and I luckily remembered in time to water in the planting holes before planting the pumpkin seedlings. This is the better way around, because the roots are more likely to grow down with the moisture.

After that I direct sowed 3 varieties of runner beans to complete the 3 sister garden. I sowed Feuerbohnen, a group with self saved seed and one with store bought seed, Neckarkönigin, only self saved seed, and Brunhilde, only store bought seed.

A planted corn seedling with 3 different varieties of runner bean seeds lay out before it

We did this in the first half of June and I have noticed some mole activity which had covered some corn seedlings I uncovered again, but other then that all is looking good.

Growing potatoes under hay

Doing things in the wrong order and putting potatoes back under the hay. Will there be anything to harvest this fall?

Since we have 2 out of 3 new created garden beds, in our garden 1, left and we have a big crate of sprouting potatoes in our barn, we might as well combine both.

Since this soil is very hard and we only loosened a top layer, we decided to plant the potatoes under mulch instead of trenching them. (Link to making this garden bed) This means, laying out the potatoes on top of the soil and covering them with a mulch. In our case we used a complete round bale of biomass.

A long garden bed covered with hay mulch, grass around it and a Great Pyrenees in the background

Since our potatoes where already sprouted with very long sprouts, I was worried that the sprouts would brake when we would lay them out first and cover them afterwards. Therefore we divided the biomass first and then planted the potatoes into the biomass. This was very exhausting and not something I would want to do this way again.

A long garden bed covered with hay mulch, grass around it, a measuring tape laying over it and a box with sprouted potatoes sitting beside it

We used only the long garden bed (about 23 meters long) out of the 2, since I have something else planned with the other one. We planted 3 rows of potatoes about 60 cm apart and laid the potatoes about 30 cm apart in the row.

Since we had a good amount of rain this spring I thought we would not have to water before mulching, but while planting the potatoes I started wondering if the moisture in the soil would be enough. With a normal rain shower the water will not penetrate the mulch layer, so the change of extra moisture going underneath the mulch is very small. Just to be sure I did water the garden bed after everything was done. My husband parked our water trailer beside the garden bed and I laid out the garden hose and let the water run (on gravity) for about 10 minutes at the time on different spots along the garden bed. This way the water gets underneath the mulch and can spread and soak in properly. Normally you would give the garden bed a good soak before you put on the mulch layer.

A long garden bed covered with hay mulch and grass around it, with a Fendt tractor and a water trailer parked alongside it, with a garden hose laid out to the garden bed

We planted the potatoes end of May, but there is still no growth to be seen after two and a half weeks. I only had to replant a couple of potatoes in the mean time. Something has dough them up.