Grandpas Garden

Efundies Staff

September 01, 2022 (Last Updated: March 06, 2023) | Reading Time: About 1 minute

GrandpaÃ¢ÂÂs Garden is a collection of hints and tips to help you get more enjoyment out of your garden.

Grandpa in his native habitat - the garden.

Suggested Grandpa's Garden Articles

The Carrots are Up

I've been holding off until warmer weather to plant summer crops, but it rained today and I had my choice of kneeling down in the rain weeding, or sitting on the rug in front of the fake fireplace planting seeds. I realized that I want the perpetual spinach to be mature by the fall so I can cut it back to overwinter, so I needed to get it started now.

The Cucumbers I Planted Under Plastic

As the corn comes up this year I'm gojng to cut holes in the plastic for them to grow through and leave the plastic down until they all germinate. Last year I took the plastic off as soon as the first few seeds germinated and had a terrible yield.

November Planted Garlic

I dug them up with a short handled pitchfork that my son got me to save my back. I am constantly reminded of how working on your knees relieves back pain.

Now Is A Good Time To Get Rid of Bermuda Grass

When the soil is soaked down to eight inches or so you have better luck with not breaking off the runners as you pull them up. Each runner has a tuft of roots every inch along it, and a nub for stem development, and can grow underground for two feet.

Corn Pollen

That's a long way. It needs to get nutrients to grow so it must use sunlight and products from the silk.

Whelp I Did It Again - Rigged Up My Shade Cloth

Rigged up my shade cloth and got a huge chunk of ground cleared. I was glad I had watered it the day before because it took only about 15 min.

My Gardening Career Started In Grade School

Man I hated that. By high school I had moved up to weeding flower beds.

I Got My Cauliflower And Broccoli Seeds

The cauliflower is Early Snowball which I'm familiar with but the broccoli is called Romanesco. It's an Italian 16th century cross between a broccoli and a cauliflower so I already like it better.

My Melon and Squash Starts In Spite

Pale green and spindly are signs of not getting enough light. It's been overcast and rainy here for a week and they are not happy.

Brussels Sprouts Leaves are Edible

Summer beets are thin skinned and tender so they only get the tan part at the top peeled. The leaves need not go in the compost pile, they are delicious sauted.

Insect Control

It's tempting to go ahead and pick the squash because they look ripe, but it's recommended that we wait until after the frost because it will harden their skin and start the process of converting carbohydrates to sugar. Wiping them with a 1% solution of bleach will kill the mold spores and help keep them from rotting.

There Was a Corn Cob On the Ground

I guess I've got a raccoon visiting at night. I didn't even know the corn was ripe yet because the plants are still covered in pollen.

More Gardening Articles

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I got to Fish Emulsion my Crucifers Today

Plant asparagus once, and harvest it for 20 years. If everything in the garden was as easy, we'd have nothing left to do except weeding.

Letting All The Volunteer Swiss Chard Grow

I have swung back to a more formal preference, with defined borders. I would prefer the chard plants all in a row somewhere, but they are so deep rooted that transplanting them could be a disaster.

It's Time To Make Up Your Christmas List

The stems that came out from your main plants, touched down on the ground and rooted, are called daughters. You can cut the stems and dig up the plants, replant the daughters, and double your strawberry patch.

Grandpa in his native habitat - the garden.

Grandpas Garden

Grandpas Garden is a collection of knowledge from an avid grandpa who happens to have an amazing garden.

You Can Mulch With Shavings

I've seen little yellow birds in the spring doing that and named them Chard Birds, but I've never caught sparrows at it before. I cut off all the large outer leaves and covered the plants with the pop up mini greenhouses I got for Christmas.

Hydroponic Dutch Buckets

I've never had as wonderful growth as I've had in dutch buckets. The results are simply amazing.

It's Time To Get Your Winter Squash

Acorn, spaghetti, and butternut squash will start to mold if they sit on the damp ground for too long. Cut them from the vines leaving an inch of stem, wipe them down with a 1% bleach solution, and put them in a cool place that doesn't freeze.

I Was Surprised at How Well the Brussel's Sprouts Overwintered

It seems a shame but they were only eye candy. Peas are one of natures edible candies.

I've Always Liked Bringing the Cauliflower In

That won't be the case anymore. Each of the four cauliflower heads that I just harvested had between 6 and 10 cabbage moth cattapillers hiding up inside.

I Found a Wilted Corn Patch Today

90° temperatures and full sun all day so I shouldn't be surprised. Watering is becoming an every day necessity now, and I'm glad the plants can tell us when they need it.

I Trapped Another Rat In The Same Place

It was the same size too, and I'm wondering if I got two adults or two adolescents. I guess I'll find out by resetting the trap and waiting.

Good News All You Pizza Lovers

Now that tomatoes have risen on the nutritional scale so has pizza, because tomato sauce counts. If you put onions, peppers, mushrooms and olives on it you get health food instead of junk food.

There Are Two Foot Tall Snapdragons Growing

They are too big to transplant so I will either have to make a new trellis or plant my peas on the fence line. If I had a north side of my garden fence, that wasn't covered in grape vines, this would be fine because the majority of the peas would develop on the south side of the vines, and the deer couldn't eat them.

December Gardening Is, You Guessed It, A Lot like November Gardening

If you've been getting your compost spread, mulch applied, weeds removed, bushes trimmed, vines cut back and areas cleared for spring planting, you are probably running out of things to do. I start my spring garden in six packs, in the house, on a seed starting mat, on January 1st, so I'm looking at the garden differently this month.

Green Peas on Black Round Plate

PGIF (Peas Go in First) Spring Planting

(Peas Go In First) Spring planting is hearlded by the planting of the peas.

November Is a Good Time To Get Garden Pathways Mulched

Leaves are plentiful this time of year so that's what I use. They stay in the low spots, which my pathways are, so l don't need to continually rake them back.

Extend Your Artichoke Season

New shoots should come up now and produce a fall harvest. Around them are 4" thick flakes of moldy hay that I put down last winter under which is a teeming mass of earthworms and sow bugs.

The Most Colorful Thing In the Garden

They seem to be taking over the fence line from the grapes. They don't lose their leaves in the winter so I'm getting more and more seclusion.

I Got a Fourth Planting of Lettuce

Why so much lettuce you might ask. Well, truth be known, my third planting didn't come up.

Garden Chair

I move it from sun to shade and do most of my prioritizing from it. From this throne I can see when the corn leaves are starting to turn dull, or the zucchini leaves wilt and know it's time to water.

The Only Problem With the Incredible Amount of Kale

I'm going to try putting Apple Cider Vinegar on it to kill the taste. It's the jagged leafed purple and green kind that used to taste more like spjnach.

Hands on a Pile of Dirt

I Keep Hauling My Garden Trimmings

It's much easier to trudge through the mud with the cart than try to burn wet sticks in the rain.

Hydroponic Pea Shoots

Pea shoots are one of the best crops to grow in hydroponics.

2 Liter Bottle Hydroponics

2 liter bottles make excellent hydroponics containers and they're cheap. I've had excellent results growing lettuce in them, and you don't have to water very often at all.

Who wouldn't want to sit in this bench, surrounded by tulips.

Gardening

Gardening is a perfect hobby for automation. You can automate your watering, heating, fans, and temperature sensors.

Green and White Bird on White Flowers

A Flock of Sparrows Dive Bombed

They were everywhere, covering all the plants, and scarifying the ground.

Hydroponic Lettuce

After discovering bus boxes from the restaurant industry I think I've found the best possible solution. They are food grade plastic and nice and deep.

Lettuce and Zucchini

The lettuce are getting dappled sunlight, not complete shade , so they can continue to photosynthesize. They also enjoy the extra humidity when I sprinkle water on the stalks.

I've Gotten Tired of Picking Broccolini

It's not crop rotation because cruciferous plants should not be planted in the same spot for two years. My rows get an 18" wide by 2" thick covering of fine compost three to four times a year so the soil I'm planting in is always changing.

Try Eating the Leaves of your Broccoli

There was nothing in the water after the first rince. I don't know how long it will be before we eat them because the cook turned her nose up at them.

Getting The Weeding Done In The Garden

I had broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts in rootbound six packs, and didn't have time to weed outside the areas they were going. They got planted in assorted rows in two patches because they have the same water requirements.

I Scored a Whole Wheelbarrow Full of Wet Hay

It's a welcome looking contrast to all the melon mounds that are encircled by leaves. I don't have any leaves in storage for spring yet because I keep finding more places for them.

My Discomfort With The Scattered Around Swiss Chard

With every rain squall that causes me to take refuge in the greenhouse, a bunch of sparrows decend upon them, eagerly ripping at the leaves in haste because they know I'll be back shortly. They must wait in the surrounding grape and blackberry vines for me to disappear.

The Lettuce That Got Transplanted

Shout out to fish emulsion, which always moves the plants along at top growing speed. I didn't even used to grow lettuce until my son introduced me to Deadline.

The Double Row of Beets

The answer is yes, but I couldn't find it. It may have gotten too brittle from all the sun exposure and I didn't save it.

Gardening Resolutions

Im'a gonna get more exercise. I think we Grampa gardeners could all get on that bandwagon.

My Garden Often Feels Like A Dissertation

An extremely complex body of work composed one word at a time. I find myself absorbing it one word at a time and letting sentences unfold.

Green Grass Under Blue Sky

While Removing the Bermuda Grass Runners

They followed the 'sweet spot' in the black, decomposing straw on top of the ground.

Plant Snow Peas in January

Peas get planted in there this month so I have to start closing the door. February 2nd is outdoor pea planting time here but I get to start them a month early in the greenhouse.

I Cannot Believe That My Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach

What it does have are jagged leaves from birds eating it. Either the birds are keeping the fly's that lay the eggs away, or they are eating the maggots that emerge.