My favorite part of this whole backyard farming experiment is there are no limits to what you can grow.
Giant pumpkins that are so heavy gravity causes them to sort of get all slumpy? No problem.
Peanuts? Actual, honest-to-Zog peanuts? No problem.
Potatoes?? Your very own potatoes? No problem.
You don’t need acres and acres of land to grow these things, just a willingness to slaughter most of your backyard grass, and some basic carpentry skills. Try it, you’ll like it!
on 
on Jun 2nd, 2009 at 10:04 am
Slaughtering the grass isn’t my problem. I’m always so inspired by what you grow (and exhausted just thinking about how much time you must put into it), but I’d have to slaughter 5 or so very mature trees to get any sunlight into my tiny backyard, let alone get enough sunlight to successfully grow anything. Sigh.
That pumpkin looks scrumptious.
on Jun 2nd, 2009 at 10:22 am
@Heather:
It’s not as much effort as you might think. Weekday afternoons Husband and I venture out to “survey our domain,” harvest whatever’s ready, twitch out the occasional weed. Weekends are reserved for the labor-intensive work, but that’s usually only one day. Granted we pack a crapload of work into that one day… For example, this is what we did Sunday:
- Mowed and trimmed front yard, mowed what’s left of the backyard, including scalping the area where the new boxes are going.
- Removed the Jacob’s Cattle bush bean plants. The freakish rain over the past two weeks had the pods mildewing on the vine (we want dry beans, not snap beans).
- Planted (allegedly) mildew-resistant cukes in those spots.
- Changed out the irrigation heads to get the seeds started.
- Pruned off the low-hanging branches on all 15 outside tomato plants.
- Added support stakes where needed to tomatoes/peppers/beans.
- Fed all 14 boxes with liquid fertilizer.
- Harvested 3 lbs carrots, 2 paprika peppers, and 2 lbs bunching onions (sent down the street to a neighbor via Girlchild)
- Put red plastic mulch under the last 3 un-mulched tomato plants.
- Started more chives and the Moon & Stars watermelon.
- Planted the Criss Cross melon.
- Laid another row of landscape fabric under the expanding pumpkin and watermelon vines.
- Put landscape fabric under the new 3×8 planting boxes, moved them into their permanent homes.
- Repaired the fabric Husband inadvertently mowed.
- Moved a few pepper plants to the now-empty carrot pots – some had sprouted that I had given up on, needed thinning out.
- Sprayed all the tomatoes, corn, peppers, strawberries with Bt.
- Sprayed all the melons with copper fungicide.
Whew, ok, that’s a lot of work. Fortunately Husband and I consider this “fun.”
on Jun 2nd, 2009 at 10:51 am
Heh. ‘Repaired the fabric Husband inadvertently mowed.’
The satisfaction of seeing the fruits (& vegetables) of your labor must make it well worth it, though.
I need a nap just from reading all of that.
on Jun 2nd, 2009 at 12:17 pm
It is so well worth all of the work you pack into one day. Not to mention you guys are very creative with your space.
on Jun 2nd, 2009 at 5:22 pm
You’re going to have to ‘splain the potato bins to us this weekend. It looks intriguing.
I don’t know why, but pumpkins are more fun to grow than most other veggies. I mean, I like growing everything that we’ve got, but there is something just delightful about pumpkins. They made us laugh a lot last year.
on Jun 2nd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
@Caitlin:
Yeah, these are more freakin’ scary than funny…