Anyone Growing A Veggie Garden?
 

Just finished two days of work on my veggie garden. Each year it expands to take over more of my parents lawn...It is super fun. I have become obsessed with it, like saving gas. Right now my favorite is carrots. The way I see it, you can't have too many carrots. Hopefully this will save gas, because the family won't have to go to the store as often. hmmm. we will see.

I used to have a garden But
 

I used to have a garden But even with a fence around it the deer would get in and eat everything. I gave up and eventually built a deck over it. I like the deck better. :)

My friend spends his days
 

My friend spends his days out in the garden, it's great fun, sometime I must visit it when it's time for a harvest.

Do you compost? How are you fertilizing? Totally organic?

Re: I used to have a garden But
 

ever seen deer jump fences alongside the highway? they're good jumpers :D

I spend my weekend cutting
 

I spend my weekend cutting my lawn, my father-in law's lawn at his new house and my father-in law's lawn at his old house that hasn't sold because he is asking too much for it. I have been composting the clippings for the last three years however. I guess that counts for something. I'm considering ditching my gas mower for an electric model. Im just not sure if I believe the 60 minutes on a charge claim. I really only need 45 minutes on my lawn but the other ones are twice as big. But I digress.

Re: I used to have a garden But
 

Yes I have. But the deer around here are quite defiant also. They will stroll into the front yard an up to the front window and watch me watch TV. Drives the dog nuts.

Every fall, I drive about
 

Every fall, I drive about 400 miles to the wilds of Maine's pulp and paper lands to hunt deer. I'm successful one trip in 10. No a great average, but I love the wilderness.

The ironic part is that I have deer in my backyard and in the park next door that I can't hunt.

We had a garden last year.
 

We had a garden last year. It was our first summer in this house and we didn't expect the entire back yard to be so shaded. The only thing that grew really well were the tomatos and the sweat peas. Everything else (corn, carrots, etc.) were just minature versions due to little sunlight.

We're planning on turning the side of our house into a garden this summer. It will be rather large with lots of veggies. I'm REALLY looking forward to it.

Oh, and we compost too. We cleaned up a bunch of pine needles recently for the compost. Unfortunately this will add a lot of time to the compost process (pine needles take longer to break down).

Organic with compost
 

I am making compost from cow, goose, and duck manure from a local farm, mixed with weeds, straw, kitchen waste, sod (from where the garden expanded to), swamp muck, greensand, and bonemeal. I spent the last year working on an organic veggie farm, so this garden is just a minature version. Somehow the deer haven't found it yet. No pesticides or synthetic fertilizer yet. Sometimes things get munched, but I have way too many things started, so I just put a new one in if something goes wrong. My biggest mistake was that I did not add lots of dolomite lime when I first started. The pH was too low (acid) and the plants were stunted.

irrigation
 

I've got a little 10x15 chunk next to the house. The nice part is that I hooked up the sump output to a manifold that trickle irrigates each row. Now my garden is 'powered' by my air conditioner via the condensate!