I don't just have a bass thumb.

[Swamp Girl]

I don't just have a bass thumb. I have a green thumb too. I've lived in my house for three years and have done all the landscaping. The first pic amazes me. I've grown red raspberries many times over the years, but these raspberries were planted last summer. I built the two raised beds, filled them with topsoil, and planted five pots with raspberries. Look at them now! They're ready to attack Tokyo. 

 

 

So, I built another two raised beds, one for blueberries and one for black raspberries. Here are five black raspberry plants. i share this pic because this is what my red raspberries looked like last year.

 

 

I've done other projects too, like this flagstone walkway bordered by boxwoods. See the colorful tree to the left of the path? That's a Flamethrower Redbud, an incredible tree that always look like it's at the peak of fall color. 

 

 

You can see my big project in the background of this shot. It's a Japanese garden. I should finish it this summer.

 

 

I know my grass isn't perfect. That will be my final project. I'm focused on bushes and trees right now, which grow slowly. I can grow grass in two weeks.

 

@Blue Raider Bob, you're not the only one who makes cool, pretty things.

 

Any other gardeners? Any other hobbies other than fishing?

[IcatchDinks]

Very nice, Katie! Impressive! 

I'm not much of a gardener myself. 

My other main hobby is music. I write, record, and mix my own songs, as well as play several instruments. 

[TnRiver46]

We are getting too many cucumbers 😂, I swear I only planted two vines. I’m taking some to the firemen and work so they can make pickles 

 

 

[Swamp Girl]

@TnRiver46: I wish I'd thought to put posts in the corners of my raised beds like you did. What kind of soil do you have in your raised bed? It's so dark. It looks like shredded wood.

 

@IcatchDinks: I wish I'd learned to play a single instrument. 

 

When my Japanese garden is done, I'll share some pics of it. I'm getting close. I have to lay a patio of slate. I've laid three paver patios in my life, but never worked with heavy slate squares. I wish burly Bob the Builder (@Blue Raider Bob) were here!

[gim]

29 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

We are getting too many cucumbers 😂, I swear I only planted two vines.

 

Last year was the first time I've ever had a garden.  My wife and I planted 5 vine-type cucmber plants in mid May and they completely erupted by mid July.  I ate a cucumber every day for 3 months lol.  And I gave some away to neighbors, family, and co-workers.  Obviously it went way over board.  I like cucumbers but a guy can only eat so many.

 

This season we only planted 2 of them and spaced it out more.  We also planted 2 pumpkins, 6 carrots, and 2 tomato.  Everything is growing pretty good.  I haven't had to water it once yet either because of all the rain here.

 

My yard...well let's just say its the best on the block.  Several of my neighbors pay a service to take care of their yards and mine looks better.  They all refer to me as the Greenskeeper.

 

 

[Swamp Girl]

5 minutes ago, gimruis said:

they completely erupted by mid July.

 

You and @TnRiver46...and me. "Erupted" made me laugh.

 

6 minutes ago, gimruis said:

We also planted 2 pumpkins

 

Prepare to be swallowed. I wrote a book about pumpkins overrunning a town.

 

 

Your lawn is amazing. When you come to do my grass, please stop in Tennessee and pick up Bob the Builder to do my lawn. In gratitude, I will put you both in the bow my canoe and paddle you to bass.

[gim]

3 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

Prepare to be swallowed.

 

Haha.  This gardening thing is still relatively new to me.  The house I bought in May 2022 has a built in, fenced in, raised garden bed so I figured I would try to use it.  Its a lot of trial and error I'm sure.

 

[fishhugger]

i'm slightly dyslexic........ i read your post as "i just don't have a bass thumb...." lol....  

very impressive gardens!  man, i s*ck at gardening......  i have trouble growing weeds.......... 

[TnRiver46]

@ol'crickety, we used old rotten plywood on the bottom. Second layer was tons of dead leaves. Then I carried these giant buckets of dirt with a shovel as a yoke from the low downhill corner of inside our dog fence that gets buried with erosion. Lemme tell that bucket will kick your butt 3 ways from Sunday. The first time I filled it to the top and not only could I not pick it up, I couldn’t even drag it along the ground 6 inches. Soil was a loamy clay

 

Then once that was done, my wife bought lots of miracle grow organic raised bed garden soil at Home Depot and that’s what is on top when we planted 

[Swamp Girl]

@TnRiver46: I'm not surprised that filling it was a chore. That was the hard part for me too. I bought yards of topsoil, which were loaded into my trailer, and then I parked the trailer beside the seven raised beds. I shoveled and shoveled and shoveled!

 

That Miracle-Gro soil is the best. Expensive, but wonderful. 

 

@fishhugger: I have plenty of weeds you may transplant to your yard. I guarantee that they will grow. 

[Blue Raider Bob]

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

 

You and @TnRiver46...and me. "Erupted" made me laugh.

 

 

Prepare to be swallowed. I wrote a book about pumpkins overrunning a town.

 

 

Your lawn is amazing. When you come to do my grass, please stop in Tennessee and pick up Bob the Builder to do my lawn. In gratitude, I will put you both in the bow my canoe and paddle you to bass.

I've got that book!!!!   Katie, I build things and garden, but I don't keep a great lawn. Gimruis is the lawn guru and I will be more than happy to share a canoe bow with him!

[Jar11591]

Love the garden pics. Our garden has exploded this year. Already harvesting cucumbers, we also planted 4 types of tomatoes, 3 kinds of peppers, carrots, scallions, leeks, chives, green beans, lettuce, kale, cabbage, thyme, oregano, cannabis, dill, basil, rosemary, cilantro, parsley, lemongrass and probably forgetting some. Also the second year of our blackberry bush that has hundreds of flowers on it already and the first batch of berries has started to ripen. We gambled by moving our seedlings outside in late April and it payed off as we never got another frost and we’re weeks ahead of last year. 

[Swamp Girl]

@gimruis and @Blue Raider Bob: Whoever sits in the bow, it's now the hot seat. If the kid can catch this gal, you've got to surpass him, since he's only 12 and doesn't even have his own fishing rod:

 

 

Wow, @Jar11591: That's a long list! 

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, ol'crickety said:

@TnRiver46: I'm not surprised that filling it was a chore. That was the hard part for me too. I bought yards of topsoil, which were loaded into my trailer, and then I parked the trailer beside the seven raised beds. I shoveled and shoveled and shoveled!

 

That Miracle-Gro soil is the best. Expensive, but wonderful. 

 

@fishhugger: I have plenty of weeds you may transplant to your yard. I guarantee that they will grow. 

If I owned a wheelbarrow it would have been a tad easier but there is no flat ground anywhere and where I was getting the dirt from is mostly roots so even that may not have worked 

[JackstrawIII]

The only thing I do with plants is mow my yard. Even trying to get grass to grow is… hard for me. 
 

My other main hobby is knife making. Did it for years, took a break for the last 5 years, but I’m back at it now and loving it!

 

[Way north bass guy]

My wife and I have grown things forever. Always had a bunch of veggies, and flower gardens all over the place (our last house had more gardens than grass). Just this spring we’ve started our new adventure. We’ve begun setting up a cut flower farm, looking to mainly sell to wholesalers/florists, as well as do a subscription bouquet service to local business and summer cottagers. 
It’s the main reason why I’ve hardly had time at all this year to post much on here, tons of extra work, but lots of fun and learning as well. I hope to make it my full time job in a few years. We’ve accomplished a lot since early spring, and plan to start selling next year. If anyone wants to check us out on instagram, to follow along with how this thing is going, look up Blackbird Flower Farm. We’re located in central Ontario. 

[Swamp Girl]

@JackstrawIII: I love craftsmanship and wood, so those knives are wowsome.

 

@Way north bass guy: Another "WOW!"

 

 

[IcatchDinks]

On 6/22/2024 at 7:43 AM, JackstrawIII said:

 

My other main hobby is knife making. Did it for years, took a break for the last 5 years, but I’m back at it now and loving it!

I used to make knives as well. This looks like a cut above my skill level though. Very nice work. 

 

I haven't made a knife in at least ten years at this point, but would love to get back into it once I get space enough for a shop. One day. 

 

 

 

[JackstrawIII]

5 hours ago, IcatchDinks said:

I haven't made a knife in at least ten years at this point, but would love to get back into it once I get space enough for a shop. One day. 

I love your style. Hope you get the chance to get back into it someday 👍🏻

[Blue Raider Bob]

On 6/21/2024 at 10:20 AM, ol'crickety said:

I don't just have a bass thumb. I have a green thumb too. I've lived in my house for three years and have done all the landscaping. The first pic amazes me. I've grown red raspberries many times over the years, but these raspberries were planted last summer. I built the two raised beds, filled them with topsoil, and planted five pots with raspberries. Look at them now! They're ready to attack Tokyo. 

 

 

So, I built another two raised beds, one for blueberries and one for black raspberries. Here are five black raspberry plants. i share this pic because this is what my red raspberries looked like last year.

 

 

I've done other projects too, like this flagstone walkway bordered by boxwoods. See the colorful tree to the left of the path? That's a Flamethrower Redbud, an incredible tree that always look like it's at the peak of fall color. 

 

 

You can see my big project in the background of this shot. It's a Japanese garden. I should finish it this summer.

 

 

I know my grass isn't perfect. That will be my final project. I'm focused on bushes and trees right now, which grow slowly. I can grow grass in two weeks.

 

@Blue Raider Bob, you're not the only one who makes cool, pretty things.

 

Any other gardeners? Any other hobbies other than fishing?

Did somebody mention Blueberries? I've got 45 plants. Also I do squash and tomatoes. Used to garden on a really big scale when I was young and energetic. Had a 1/4 acre full of everything. Put up a couple hundred Broccolli and gobs of green beans. Lasted us all year.

[Choporoz]

We are up to four cucumbers a day and they're just getting going....not sure yet how we're going to get rid of them.  Beans almost as bad....40-50/day.  Maybe should have let the beetles just take a bean stalk or two when they arrived.  Tomato plants have gotten over eight feet tall.  Couple pickup truck loads of composted cow manure has been unbelievable difference from previous years.

  And down at the end of one raised bed is two and half year old blueberry bush.  Looks exactly same little 1' bush that it did when we planted it.  It has produced exactly one blueberry.  Last fall, our granddaughter excitedly grabbed my hand and said, "Grandpa, I have to show you something!"  She led me up to the gardens only to find that something had eaten the one blueberry.   She was devastated...still talks about it. 

 🤣

[volzfan59]

I'm not into gardening, landscaping or anything yard related. I can appreciate a beautiful lawn and landscaping, just not my thing.

 

Other than fishing, I am a car junkie (especially race cars), plus I enjoy home remodeling. We just purchased an all brick home on 2 1/2 acres that needed some pretty serious rehab work. We're in the middle of it right now, hope to be finished by the end of August. Also, in the last couple of years have returned to building model car kits. I built them from around 8 years old, up until I was in my 30's. Started back a couple of years ago.

 

Edit, tried to post a picture but it was too large.

[Swamp Girl]

5 minutes ago, Choporoz said:

Tomato plants have gotten over eight feet tall. 

 

WOW!

 

5 minutes ago, Choporoz said:

Couple pickup truck loads of composted cow manure has been unbelievable difference from previous years.

 

That'll do it.

 

5 minutes ago, Choporoz said:

And down at the end of one raised bed is two and half year old blueberry bush.  Looks exactly same little 1' bush that it did when we planted it.  It has produced exactly one blueberry. 

 

Three, likely issues:

 

1. All blueberry bushes need another variety to cross-fertilize.

 

2. It might be a low bush blueberry. They come in three heights.

 

3. It might be unhappy where it is. Blueberries need LOTS of sun.

 

7 minutes ago, Choporoz said:

Last fall, our granddaughter excitedly grabbed my hand and said, "Grandpa, I have to show you something!"  She led me up to the gardens only to find that something had eaten the one blueberry.   She was devastated...still talks about it. 

 

Buy another bush and she'll have blueberries beyond counting. 

 

@volzfan59: I've done some writing in the automotive sector, enough to have GM invite me to meet their drivers and watch the Daytona 500 in the pits. I passed because it's not my thing, but it was kind of them to offer. 

 

[volzfan59]

@ol'crickety, That's pretty doggone impressive, you should take them up on it. Daytona in February has to be warmer than up in Maine. I raced stock cars for 10 years in middle TN, southern KY and north AL. I used to have a nascar driver's license to drive up to limited late model sportsman division cars. It was a lot of fun, but man was it ever expensive! 

[Scott F]

My wife and I started gardening 2 years ago. The back yard we started with 3 years ago was pretty much empty. Except for a 30’ round, above ground pool which I quickly got rid of.

 

We’ve been busy since then, adding perennials, a couple trees and some raised beds.