Gardenjournal 2019 - April

Since my last gardenjournal post in october I've not been very active on steemit as the winter season kinda locks you inside the house and the main topics for my blog so far are gardening and litterwalks.
Now that we are slowly sliding into spring, it is time to get active again.

The gardening season has barely started and there is already plenty going on in the plants department. So it is time to sum up the first weeks and give you guys a gardenjournal update.

The plants for this year

If you follow me you might have seen these cucumbers before. They were part of my first gardening myths experiment {insert link} where I boiled seeds to see if that speeds up the sprouting. It is obvious that the heat-treated plants on the right side are still a little ahead.

As usual I grow tomatos and lots of peppers. My brother also lured me into the world of chili enthusiast and made me buy one of the worlds hottest chilis, the 7 pot douglah. These are not intended for human consumption, but I heard they are successfully used for repelling elephants in India. Maybe they also keep cats and dogs from pooping in my garden...

The gardening experiments

There are plenty of little tricks that people use to make their gardening more easy and effective. Did you know that boiling seeds makes them sprout faster?
Sounds like an april fools joke, but check my recent posts and see for yourself:
https://steemit.com/garden/@exator/gardening-myths-1-cooking-seeds-wtf-part-12-h3e4pr2x
https://steemit.com/garden/@exator/gardening-myths-1-cooking-seeds-wtf-part-22-gkr0a2qv
Another experiment that I started is the use of willow water to help rooting on cuttings. Stay tuned for the results!
Next I might also look into the method of removing the first flower on pepper plants...

The aquaponic system

One big project for this year is the setup of an aquaponic system, which apparently is the most effective way of producing food. The principle is rather simple and ingenious - fish poop in the water to feed the plants and the plants clean the water for the fish. This also works without the fish-part, although it requires the supply of nutrients by adding some kind of fertilizer to the water.
There are different variants of growbeds that are used but I decided to go for the tube method. Therefore I bought a couple DN75 tubes, rockwool, filters and a little pump. My initial plan was to add a solar panel and battery as well, maybe I am going to tackle that later this year.

Le yarden

All that gardening and building is fun and entertaining, but sometimes you just have to sit down, relax and enjoy yourself - and a cigar.

Lets have a look into the garden. Spring is at work!

The asparagus - this year it is finally ready to be harvested.

A little beech - as some of our trees were cut down or about to die, I am already growing new ones to replace them. Beeches make pretty good living fences

The peach - plagued by the curly disease for years. I gave her some medicine and hope to finally get some tasty peaches this year.

The rhubarb - was afraid I killed it when I moved it a bit further from the compost pile last fall...Nope.

The poop - if you ever wonder why I put chicken wire on my beds, this is the reason. Cats love the fluffy soil and leave me a present almost every day.

The crops - I have sown radish, lettuce, carrots and snow peas. And the radish is already getting eaten by something...

Fighting tree-cancer

We have a couple of native trees that seperate our garden from the outside world. Most of them are not very suitable for that matter as they grow like crazy and need heavy pruning to keep them under control. Most of the cuts were not correctly executed and treated, so many of them have developed a severe case of tree-cancer (rotten wood).
With the help of sharp knives, drills and saws, I managed to remove most of it and sealed it up to prevent further rotting. Here is one of the patients and its wounds:
WARNING: graphic content

And there we have a happy little tree.

The fails

Well, gardening is not always beautiful. Sometimes shit goes south and you lose some of your plants. This winter I lost my ginger plant that grew like a champ last year and my sweet potato also seems to be happier on the other side. The first time it lost all its leaves because I forgot to water it for a few days, then it got some stupid pests and finally the cold night temps seemed to have given her the final blow.
Funny how they know that 897,648.98 tonnes of CO2 will increase temperatures by exactly 1.5K when even the forecast for the next 12 hours is like +/- 4K off...

I hope you enjoyed my little gardenjournal and I will try to keep the monthly updates coming as I really enjoy to see the different states of my garden over the course of a whole season.
Big thanks to @simplymike for hosting the monthly gardenjournal and I hope your garden-issues resolve soon!
https://steemit.com/gardenjournal2019/@simplymike/steemit-community-garden-journal-challenge-april-with-steem-bounty
Posted using Partiko Android