I start in my vegetable garden !!!

[Annanjou]

big thank you friends!
I will have BRF and probably also flax straw. I hesitate about strawberries?
On the other hand, I have around my future vegetable garden a few raspberries and also saskatoon trees from Canada and I put BRF to them I think it's better for them because they are forest plants but for strawberries, it might be more "cleaner" of flax straw?
Ah I can not wait to see the rest but hey, for a start, I must not expect too wonderful things

[Ahmed]

"Cleanliness" is not an agronomic criterion, as you yourself understand. Strawberries can last a long time, provided they are properly fed, which flax straw will not do ...

[Moindreffor]

"Cleanliness" is not an agronomic criterion, as you yourself understand. Strawberries can last a long time, provided they are properly fed, which flax straw will not do ...

but that you will do with BRF ... there you forget the legend of having to renew the strawberries after 3 or 4 years

[Annanjou]

Yes thanks ! therefore BRF !!!
I suspected but ... old leftover cranium (!!!), I saw prettier and more practical the very light linen straw under my red strawberries Hoping that I will be left because I too have a lot of feathered and also furry visitors
and I note to see if, after 3 or 4 years, it would be necessary according to the legend (crane jam ??) to have to renew the strawberries ... or not!
To be continued!

[Moindreffor]

Yes thanks ! therefore BRF !!!
I suspected but ... old leftover cranium (!!!), I saw prettier and more practical the very light linen straw under my red strawberries Hoping that I will be left because I too have a lot of feathered and also furry visitors
and I note to see if, after 3 or 4 years, it would be necessary according to the legend (crane jam ??) to have to renew the strawberries ... or not!
To be continued!

yes, you have to forget the "Rustica" style photos, I criticize the photos much too "postcard", not the magazine, there are interesting things if you know how to remain critical and have a little experience

but don't worry, if you lift your nose from the handlebars and observe your vegetable garden, you will very quickly understand 2 essential tools for the vegetable garden, a chair in the vegetable garden to sit down before starting anything. to know if what you are going to do is necessary or not, and a deckchair in the shade to rest from all that you have not done

[Annanjou]

Hello,
Funny year to start a vegetable garden: after April very dry (I even ended up watering recent fruit trees and trees of the year) here is a May full of water: under my hay it looks so much like wet compost that I only planted a few of my tomato plants to see: The little ones have disappeared and the three that I had bought have made a face but seem to survive. My two artichokes (which I had sown in pots (mine therefore!) Also seem to be picking up the hair of the animal so I planted: salads, peas and hverts sown in pots. Some small salad plants are probably drowned ... but many others and the rest seem to be going well.
So here we are in June, we have to really get started: I'm going to crash everything! and I am going (well because I think I had a block of fear to see what it would give) make furrows and sow in the furrow of the hay.
For the moment almost no slug. For the voles, it's curious, there are plenty of mounds at the end of the field but not in the area that I have marked out as a vegetable patch. I keep my fingers crossed because I don't have a cat but foxes that I often see with a tail (field mouse, shrew, vole?) Coming out of their mouths: ah the burrows! In the end, it's better than cats because they hardly ever manage to catch a bird.
Oh, I also have a raptor (barn owl?) In a dovecote (without a pigeon for a long time): there is a slice of white droppings and big balls of rejection on the ground. I especially leave her alone so that she can hunt. I also have a lot of variable nozzles so I keep my fingers crossed for the vegetable patch which could become much more attractive if my plants are thriving. Voili voilou! Have a good day !

[Moindreffor]

don't worry too much about a few plants that don't recover, I transplanted 12 lettuces, and only 10 survived, and out of the 15 oak leaves a dozen are gone and 2 or 3 have also disappeared

if under the hay it's like slush with rotting hay it's great, it's because the machine is running, here it may not have been especially rainy but very cold, nothing has grown, there it's been a week since the Sun is present and a few days that the temperatures have risen, I too am in the middle of transplanting.

[Rajqawee]

Absolutely,

The slightest soil rich in OM makes "slush a little yucky" when it is soaked. When it wipes, it gets better and we get the beautiful brown earth (depending on other components, of course!)

In "gentle" gardening, I always have the impression that I am choosing a compromise:
- transplant early, with the cumulative risk of slugs + mildew or even frost -> you must be prepared to lose plants. It's not that expensive, and it's anecdotal if you make them yourself. Especially for lettuces which are easy to make and come out quickly, without special care
- transplant late, partially reducing these risks -> you have to be prepared to wait longer for summer vegetables.

Regarding water, beware of how it feels: for example, it would be very surprising that in April, your trees really needed water.
To be convinced of this, you have to calculate the useful reserve of your soil, then the average evapotranspiration over the period, to realize that in the spring it probably takes 45 days without rain to exhaust the reserve (which is a priori, at this time, full).

For a first year (and even the following ones), you have to put your apprehensions aside and try things. Especially cheap stuff (in money and time)!

[Annanjou]

Thank you friends for your feedback.
For my missing plants, it was rather spite that it fails (well let's put in perspective I have 30t that take out of 40 salads (and I still have two trays that have risen) and for the tomatoes, I don't. had only planted a few to see. I'm going to get started and plant, plant, plant !!!
Thank you both for reassuring me about my soil: indeed: I have a lot of earthworms (there are always some on all our meadows) and above all there are a ton of mushrooms of all kinds so yes it should. but it was depressing to see that there was a very large thickness of rotten hay (I had not skimped (hay from our meadows) for a departure from the vegetable garden and below, there was clay to make pottery! And you had to plant it in: plant in rotten hay or reach for clay? That frightened me a little. In short, it is not yet black earth, let's be patient!
For the water, indeed, I may be a little panicked but we have had, in the past years, hedge plants and fruit trees very sad for lack of water so that when the nursery sent me the SMS "attention everyone, you need 15 L of water per hedge and 50 L per tree" I filled my water tonne but .... with water from the well which never dried up. For the weather, with us there was 20 mm of water in March, 20 mm in April (and again in small rains of 1 or 2 mm so nothing) and 115 mm in May with heavy rainstorms and even the May 24 big hail. The good weather has been starting for a few days and today it's the cagna! Good too hot, I will plant tomorrow morning
Ah and the strawberries were planted too and I have even already eaten a few strawberries

[Annanjou]

Hello, Here is after the dandelions here is the bother "creeping cinquefoil" but as for the dandelion, I do with it because it tears well and does not interfere where I still have only hay: I do as usual : I lift the hay with the fork and make it fall back on the muzzle, it calms her ... for a while but I come back when she pulls her nose up again and for qq thistles who continue to try, it almost borders on the enjoyment of following a thistle root through the hay and hop without fatigue remove all the root! Ah I remember how this thistle can resist in a "normal" meadow.
For the rest I had carefully prepared pumpkin seeds to sow them and ... the pumpkins grow all over the place on their own because I threw them away with the peelings! This is real laziness !!!
Under the hay it gets better and it stays quite wet with the rains in May. I even had the surprise to see that my "slush" finally crumbles quite well.
I do not see any slug or vole anywhere (??? would I be blessed by the gods? I keep my fingers crossed, my vegetable garden may not yet have been mentioned in the prairie gazette) but on the other hand my green beans are nibbled facts: flea beetles no doubt?
I go back to my deckchair to listen to my tomatoes, salads, etc ... grow while reading over and over two excellent lazy books (thanks to him!)
Anne