2021 Lawn and Garden Thread

[magpiemaniac]

The 2020-2021 winter isn’t over yet, but our 2021 spring and summer lawn and garden season is right around the corner.  When the weather isn’t severe and tropical cyclones aren’t heading our way, talk about your garden, plants, and lawn here.

I’m ready for spring!  

[MountainOctopus]

I'm looking forward to it. Have been vegetable gardening for many years, but just got a little hoop house last year, and it's been incredible for seed starting. I'm going to inventory my seeds this weekend, place my orders as needed, and consider germing some greens. 

[magpiemaniac]

31 minutes ago, MountainOctopus said:

I'm looking forward to it. Have been vegetable gardening for many years, but just got a little hoop house last year, and it's been incredible for seed starting. I'm going to inventory my seeds this weekend, place my orders as needed, and consider germing some greens. 

What do you have the most luck with?  We’ve found okra to be difficult to NOT grow well.  The deer enjoy eating the leaves though.  I end up picking it too late half the time.  I’m resolving this year to do better.

[wx4life]

I hope to have a better year with my garden than last year. Had to replant twice due to too much rain. Had the most beautiful garden, but did not produce anything other than some green beans. 

[magpiemaniac]

28 minutes ago, wx4life said:

I hope to have a better year with my garden than last year. Had to replant twice due to too much rain. Had the most beautiful garden, but did not produce anything other than some green beans. 

Last year, we had a lot of luck with okra and decent success with yellow squash.  Bell peppers didn’t do so well.

[frazdaddy]

I have procured several old power poles. Neighbor has a sawmill. As soon as we can dry out a bit several raised beds are going in.

[buckeyefan1]

13 hours ago, wx4life said:

I hope to have a better year with my garden than last year. Had to replant twice due to too much rain. Had the most beautiful garden, but did not produce anything other than some green beans. 

I am worried about too much rain also. I got some berry bushes last year and they drowned  I was thinking about using 5gal buckets with rocks on the bottom and drainage holes. Tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, squash, lettuce, watermelon, cantaloupe, green beans and maybe corn. 

[buckeyefan1]

15 hours ago, magpiemaniac said:

The 2020-2021 winter isn’t over yet, but our 2021 spring and summer lawn and garden season is right around the corner.  When the weather isn’t severe and tropical cyclones aren’t heading our way, talk about your garden, plants, and lawn here.

I’m ready for spring!  

Me too! 

[gritsnc]

This is probably a long shot but do any of you have donkeys? We need to seed our pasture and I have no clue what to plant or where to buy the seed. Donkeys can gain weight quickly and weight gain can kill them so I am trying to find people that have donkeys and hear what they use.

[buckeyefan1]

4 hours ago, gritsnc said:

This is probably a long shot but do any of you have donkeys? We need to seed our pasture and I have no clue what to plant or where to buy the seed. Donkeys can gain weight quickly and weight gain can kill them so I am trying to find people that have donkeys and hear what they use.

I feed the donkeys coastal/orchard mix (easy to get the round bales in winter) and they each get a small scoop of horse compete twice a day. 
Edit to say: donkeys are like horses when feeding. They should eat 1lb of forage for every 100 lbs of weight. Plus supplements. 

[NorthHillsWx]

Any suggestions for spring re-planting or a yard? My entire yard is destroyed from this winter and last year’s rain. Never started over from scratch. Any ideas on seed to use (low maintenance) and timing when to plant? 

[Avdave]

I HATE Bermuda grass here, it is simply the worst except for summer and even then I dont like it.  Its doesnt thicken up and it holds water like a sponge. I miss my northern Fescue so much

[NorthHillsWx]

1 hour ago, Avdave said:

I HATE Bermuda grass here, it is simply the worst except for summer and even then I dont like it.  Its doesnt thicken up and it holds water like a sponge. I miss my northern Fescue so much

I’ve tried fescue and found it either isn’t shade tolerant enough or needs water daily but it failed bad when I planted it last spring 

[Avdave]

1 hour ago, NorthHillsWx said:

I’ve tried fescue and found it either isn’t shade tolerant enough or needs water daily but it failed bad when I planted it last spring 

Yeah I tried it too, You need an irrigation system in place to grow fescue here.     I just hate the bermuda grass. You get all muddy in winter/spring with it and it grow not thick enough

[griteater]

4 hours ago, Avdave said:

I HATE Bermuda grass here, it is simply the worst except for summer and even then I dont like it.  Its doesnt thicken up and it holds water like a sponge. I miss my northern Fescue so much

Is it shady in your yard?  Bermuda hates shade and loves sun

[griteater]

4 hours ago, NorthHillsWx said:

Any suggestions for spring re-planting or a yard? My entire yard is destroyed from this winter and last year’s rain. Never started over from scratch. Any ideas on seed to use (low maintenance) and timing when to plant? 

Fall is by far the best time to plant Fescue for two main reasons. One, you want the roots to establish as deeply as possible thru winter and spring in year one before the heat hits, which is Fescue’s biggest enemy. Secondly, you need to put out crabgrass pre-emergent each spring and that pre-emergent will also prevent the grass seed from germinating. As Avdave mentioned, ideally you would have irrigation for Fescue. But if you don’t, you just have to let if go brown/dormant over summer. No big deal, it will come back in the fall for the most part, but you just want to keep the weeds out of it thru summer. This part of the country isn’t the best for growing grass. Too hot for cool season grasses. Too cold for warm season grasses. I guess if you have to seed in the spring you could seed the Fescue (get the Turf Type Tall Fescue and cut it high for better root growth) and don’t put out the pre-emergent but you’ll likely get a lot of ugly crabgrass in the summer. Other option is to put out summer zoysia or bermuda in May, but there’s no turning back to Fescue once you do that, you are all in 

[griteater]

2 hours ago, NorthHillsWx said:

I’ve tried fescue and found it either isn’t shade tolerant enough or needs water daily but it failed bad when I planted it last spring 

Grass and trees don’t mix. Fescue is best in partial shade, but it doesn’t like growing close to the tree trunks providing the shade (that goes for most any grass really)

[wncsnow]

Shall we add fishing to the title? It's not spring without fishing!

[jburns]

5 hours ago, NorthHillsWx said:

Any suggestions for spring re-planting or a yard? My entire yard is destroyed from this winter and last year’s rain. Never started over from scratch. Any ideas on seed to use (low maintenance) and timing when to plant? 

Go with the flow and rock and roll with a weed yard. Stays green 9 or 10 months of the year. Drought resistant to the max. And best of all it is free. This is my side yard. I’ve lived here 21 years and have never seeded or fertilized. I do mulch mow. My yard is very interesting. The spring starts with some onion that smells great when I mow. This is followed by some patches of little yellow flowers from wild strawberries. For some reason I don’t seem to have dandelions but as summer gets rolling in June I do have several sections of buttercups. There are some purple wild violets. They and the buttercups bloom on and off until fall when my yard season ends as it began with the smell of wild onions with the last cut or two.

It certainly won’t win a prize but it works for me. Oh, almost forgot. Over the course of the 21 years I have had as many as six and as few as four dogs so to say it was never fertilized is a bit of a lie.

[buckeyefan1]

I agree with @jburns, all natural weed lawns are the best lawns. More bees, birds, worms and fireflies will appreciate not being poisoned and I never have to worry about the kids (or pets) coming in contact with chemicals that can cause permanent damage while rolling down the hill or sliding into home while they play kick ball  

[NorthHillsWx]

8 hours ago, jburns said:

Go with the flow and rock and roll with a weed yard. Stays green 9 or 10 months of the year. Drought resistant to the max. And best of all it is free. This is my side yard. I’ve lived here 21 years and have never seeded or fertilized. I do mulch mow. My yard is very interesting. The spring starts with some onion that smells great when I mow. This is followed by some patches of little yellow flowers from wild strawberries. For some reason I don’t seem to have dandelions but as summer gets rolling in June I do have several sections of buttercups. There are some purple wild violets. They and the buttercups bloom on and off until fall when my yard season ends as it began with the smell of wild onions with the last cut or two.

It certainly won’t win a prize but it works for me. Oh, almost forgot. Over the course of the 21 years I have had as many as six and as few as four dogs so to say it was never fertilized is a bit of a lie.

The only issue is your “natural” style lawn is clearly doing much better than mine

 

 

https://postimg.cc/9DFsk20M

[gritsnc]

17 hours ago, buckeyefan1 said:

I feed the donkeys coastal/orchard mix (easy to get the round bales in winter) and they each get a small scoop of horse compete twice a day. 
Edit to say: donkeys are like horses when feeding. They should eat 1lb of forage for every 100 lbs of weight. Plus supplements. 

Do you keep yours on a dry lot or can they forage freely 24/7?

[gritsnc]

1 hour ago, NorthHillsWx said:

The only issue is your “natural” style lawn is clearly doing much better than mine

 

 

https://postimg.cc/9DFsk20M

Have you ever planted rye in the winter? My yard used to look like that in the winter. This year we planted rye in the fall. Our fenced in backyard used to look like the field. In the summer we will plant more Bermuda. I know people hate Bermuda but we had it at our old house and loved it. It thrives in heat and is low maintenance. 

[buckeyefan1]

37 minutes ago, gritsnc said:

Do you keep yours on a dry lot or can they forage freely 24/7?

They have 24/7 access to the coastal/orchard grass during the growing season and 24/7 access to a round bale in the fall/winter.  They absolutely love peppermints too   

[PantherJustin]

16 hours ago, NorthHillsWx said:

Any suggestions for spring re-planting or a yard? My entire yard is destroyed from this winter and last year’s rain. Never started over from scratch. Any ideas on seed to use (low maintenance) and timing when to plant? 

Check out Pete from GCITurf on YouTube he’s in Riedsville NC but has a ton of followers and dude has an entire Cool/Warm season “Turf Program” he sends you a  Sheet that says what to put out how much and when for an entire year. He uses Liquid products mostly and it does take better than Granular Jmo. He has a custom Seed I wanted to try “Cool Blue Heat” it’s Got Falcon IV Fescue and a Mix of high Quality Bluegrass in it. Also I’d recommend Killing it to Dirt in After Labor Day then Treating the dirt with “Humic Acid” before Planting. It’s just a soil softener allowing for better seed rooting. Also you absolutely have to Areate  idc what anyone says on that. The last thing when you seed put down “Milorganite” with the seed. It’s Decomposed natural Fert and won’t burn ..... I just saw you said Spring.... I’d still Areate and just throw some Milo out and it will be fine until Fall just from giving it air from the holes, also don’t mow any less than minimum 3.5” -4” if possible if you have Fescue 

[David Johnson]

Check out Pete from GCITurf on YouTube he’s in Riedsville NC but has a ton of followers and dude has an entire Cool/Warm season “Turf Program” he sends you a  Sheet that says what to put out how much and when for an entire year. He uses Liquid products mostly and it does take better than Granular Jmo. He has a custom Seed I wanted to try “Cool Blue Heat” it’s Got Falcon IV Fescue and a Mix of high Quality Bluegrass in it. Also I’d recommend Killing it to Dirt in After Labor Day then Treating the dirt with “Humic Acid” before Planting. It’s just a soil softener allowing for better seed rooting. Also you absolutely have to Areate  idc what anyone says on that. The last thing when you seed put down “Milorganite” with the seed. It’s Decomposed natural Fert and won’t burn ..... I just saw you said Spring.... I’d still Areate and just throw some Milo out and it will be fine until Fall just from giving it air from the holes, also don’t mow any less than minimum 3.5” -4” if possible if you have Fescue 

Second this. I buy most of my stuff from Pete. Great guy, great company. Also, wait until the fall to seed. Would be a waste of time and money to seed in the spring


.

[jburns]

5 hours ago, NorthHillsWx said:

The only issue is your “natural” style lawn is clearly doing much better than mine

 

 

https://postimg.cc/9DFsk20M

Damn! I’ve seen better looking ground photos from the Mars rover.  Maybe see if you can rent a couple of elephants and feed each of them10 lbs of ExLax

[Avdave]

15 hours ago, griteater said:

Is it shady in your yard?  Bermuda hates shade and loves sun

It is  sunny. It is the Tif Tuf Bermuda too, supposedly tolerates all kinds of drought, heat, high activity, dogs, etc.   I am def not a fan of it compared to what I had in my mind. 

[gritsnc]

12 hours ago, buckeyefan1 said:

They have 24/7 access to the coastal/orchard grass during the growing season and 24/7 access to a round bale in the fall/winter.  They absolutely love peppermints too   

Thanks! Mine love peppermints, Granny Smith apples and the German muffins for horses (it's rare I buy those though because they are so expensive).

Thanks for the advice on what to plant. We are still pretty new to donkeys. 

[Avdave]

Getting some spring color popping up in the yard thanks to our warm weather last week