Gardening Thread - Show me your gardens!

You do realize that if you give them common names, you won't be able to eat them.

I personally would name all the ducks 'F*cked', and the goose 'Cooked'.

 

Nice. I typically do the canned pickles because you can put up large batches fairly quickly, and it seems like my cucumber plants are all loaded up at the same time.
Any photos of your rainwater collection system? I like seeing those

Yeah, for 4 months out of the year, at least. 25 broilers plus 15 layers plus 4 ducks and a goose for new additions this year.
But, after we put the broilers in the deep freeze it'll just be the laying hens, the ducks, and the goose by this winter. And even though the laying hens are sexed, there's always a couple of roo's in the mix that will likely be culled out as fryers when we process the broilers.

We've got two each of a production Rouen and Indian Runner ducks, and the goose is a Grey Toulouse. If nothing else he/she will make good hawk prevention.

Meh. Never bothered me. We named all of our animals when I was a kid, and I never minded sending them to the butcher.
The ducks and the goose aren't likely to end up in the freezer for a few years anyway, and they and the layers are treated more as pets anyhow.
The broilers, on the other hand...
Whenever I look at them I think of a winter of fried chicken, grilled chicken, chicken soup, chicken pot pie.....mmmmmm

 

Its not a very good photo, but here you go. I removed the gutter part of the way up and used tin roofing screws to attach corrugated pipe, then ran it to the opening on top of the container. There's an overflow (not visible in the photo) with more corrugated piping leading to the ground and away from the foundation of the house. Right now we just fill buckets and carry them over to the garden. I have a 1500 GPH pump and plan to buy a 55 gallon drum to put out in the garden so I can transfer water out there. I had plans to possibly set up a gravity irrigation system, but that will have to wait until next year.

Oh and please forgive the messiness, it is the side of the house that gets no sun and we had an issue with algae growing on the siding. The photo was taken last year. I later learned that bleach/water mixture sprayed on the siding once per year fixes this issue.

 

You must have a crazy early planting season down there!

 

Nice. I have a similar setup for mine, with 2 of those drums linked. I've got it posted somewhere in the previous pages; I'll try and find it for you. I have the same problem with algae growth on my North face as well, and I use a similar bleachwater mix to keep it under control. Have you noticed a lot of algae growth in your drum? I ended up having to paint mine to keep the algae levels down.
Works ok (not awesome) with the low-pressure soaker hoses I've got, but at some point (probably this fall) I'm going to start swapping the beds over (probably 1 at a time) to a drip irrigation setup instead. Right now I find that I have to go around with just a regular hose and soak the areas that the soaker hoses don't cover very well to get some of the beds a really good watering. But, it's gravity feed without a whole lot of down slope, so it's VERY low pressure.

 

you better believe it. some of my plants are stunted due to all the rain.

cucumbers are going crazy.

potatoes I had to early harvest.

peas died prematurely from too much water. (I did get enough of a pea harvest, so no hurt there)

green beans started to rust. (great harvest also)

 

I love that rainwater setup. Wish I had something like that.

I planted my raised garden next to my waterwell and tapped into the main water line. Ran a 1" water line underground line that feeds those "mister sprinkler" irrigation system from lowes. Those things are awesome!

 

Found it.
Pictures were linked from my Facebook, so I'm not sure if they still work on here or not (can't see FB linked photos at work )
Let me know if they're dead and I'll do a manual upload tonight.

 

I preemptively spray painted the outside white to prevent algae growth, so far no issues. Awesome that you got it to work with soaker hose..

Every "low pressure drip" system I looked at required at least 25 psi, and head pressure out of the container is probably 0.5 psi to 1 psi at best. Can I ask what you're planning to use? I'd love to find something that would work for us too.

 

as long as you guys don't put soaker hoses on water wells, its all good. those soaker hoses will burn out the water pump

 

I've only got 4 'Early Girl' tomato plants, 4 green pepper plants, and some herbs. The tomatoes have been delicious. The first of the peppers are almost ready to pick.

 

Good to keep in mind, thanks. I hope you didnt find this out the hard way

 

You can google "gravity feed drip irrigation systems" and there's a bunch of designs that pop up that are made to run on 1-3 PSI.
Right now (subject to change as I research/experiment) I'm planning on having a 50 gallon drum elevated on a stand (for extra pressure) and pumping it full with an old-fashioned pitcher pump hooked up to my rain drums. That'll give me a chance to filter the water so it doesn't clog the emitters, too. I'll likely have individual systems for each bed with a simple garden hose attachment, so I'll have to swap the connections manually but I won't have to deal with burying lines or have lines crisscrossing my yard. That'll also help eliminate the uniformity problems with gravity-flow drip systems by keeping the runs short.
But, I haven't worked out the exact layout or system design I want to use yet; I'll start experimenting with one bed sometime this summer, work the bugs out, and then do the rest of them once I find a system that works correctly.

 

A great year for the garden, but I think there won't be much colour left come August.

 

I love this setup!

 

After berserk rooster #3 died in battle my brother never bothered to get any more... because of how much noise it/they would make at 5am.

He's since lost 2 full flocks (14 or 15 hens each time) in two years because something got into the coop. I don't think a rooster would have prevented it but it might just be coincidence. I don't know.

 

Yea, it sucks loosing a whole flock, just to many varmints out there anymore. Don't really have a solution either. Maybe more trapping would help

 

My parents would keep a peacock in with the hens. Those suckers are battle ready. Just remember, if the peacock decides it wants to be the alpha "rooster", any rooster that tries to defy him, WILL DIE.

They're great at scaring off any varmints. Tricky thing is getting ahold of them. They're expensive and hard to raise due to the high mortality rate.