RayRay's Garden

04/07/2024

Happy Birthday America!

21/01/2024

Winter teaches us the art of patience, but spring rewards us with the masterpiece we've been waiting for. 🖼️

07/01/2024

I deff did!

07/01/2024

Oh snap…here we go!!

07/01/2024

From the freshness of spring blooms to the bounty of summer harvests, Wisconsin's three growing seasons paint a vibrant canvas. 🌱🌻🍂 Embrace the renewal of spring, the abundance of summer, and the colors of fall as we nurture our gardens through every season! Which season in Wisconsin's garden is your favorite? Share your thoughts below!

02/01/2024

As we wave goodbye to the past year, let's plant the seeds for an amazing year ahead! 🌱✨ See y'all soon!!

28/12/2023

I got these done in the last couple days. Deck planters for the railing out of scrap wood. First real project in a LONG time after arm surgery. Feels good to be back in the wood shop y'all! 🤩

27/12/2023

Anyone taking advantage of the heat wave? What projects are y'all doing? Building planters 🪴 in the shop, heaters still on lol

23/12/2023

New worm bin almost ready for bedding 🙂 only about 10 more to go haha

23/12/2023

January here means setting up the seedling rack & getting ready for spring plantings. What's on your seedling list for 2024?

22/12/2023

21/12/2023

Chicken thighs on the grill with the smoke box :)

21/12/2023

Peppergate strikes again! Dill bed instead :)

21/12/2023

Last Garden Tour for '23 from YT

21/12/2023

Learned about many plant diseases tonight including Ergot, aka “St Anthony's fire”! This disease killed MANY people in medieval times and and beyond. 🤢

21/12/2023

Attending an amazing Zoom from The University of Wisconsin-Madison right now. PDDC Plant Disease Talk: Ten Cool Diseases You Can Learn to Love (and Identify by Eye). By Brian Hudelson :)

01/12/2023

Worm Castings Forecast! Looking for interest for spring 2024 worm casting orders. Sold out last year way too early, so trying to gauge better. Reply or send a note if you tentatively will be looking in SE WI. Thanks amigos!!

01/12/2023

Zone Change!!! Those of us in the little strip on Lake Michigan are now classified as Zone 6a. Now time to see what new things we can plant! 😎

28/11/2023

Winter Gardening Blues…

Every year I get really sad and depressed when the fall winds pick up and then suddenly it’s winter in Wisconsin. Matter of fact, I usually spend the first couple weeks wishing we could instantly move back to Texas :) Turns out though, there is a LOT I can do in winter to make the spring gardening season even better!

I live in SE Wisconsin in zone 5b. Despite the fact we have insanely hard freezes, I still look at gardening as four seasons. Up until the past few years, I only planted in spring, summer and fall considering these my gardening seasons. Thing is, winter is just as important. Mid October this year we planted around 100 garlic cloves for a summer harvest. They start to establish roots through the chilly Oct/Nov nights and often even send up shoots. The frozen tundra we live in is actually necessary for big bulb size and root health. So in truth, we are winter gardening when it comes to garlic. But I think I can do even more.

I normally get my seedling operation setup and running sometime late January and the first seeds I sow in early February are hot chillies, yum! I will figure out frost dates and then start things like sugar snap peas and other spring veggies for transplant, sometime in late winter. Tomatoes and other summer crops I try and time so I will have the space for them in my moderately small grow area. Then there is composting.

I have my worm bins and those are indoor, as well as year round. The outdoor compost piles however are a different story. I do try and build the biggest pile I can late fall to go through winter, but I certainly don’t tend the pile as much as I would in summer. Rather, I add to the pile and try to do enough maintenance to keep it from freezing over. So here is where the winter work comes in. I try to build up as many browns as possible. I think about it like this, fall has pretty much unlimited leaves (browns) and spring has unlimited foliage (greens). If I can focus on building up browns, the bigger my spring piles will be. I collect as much shredded paper from work as I can and all the brown packaging supplies from home (we do a LOT of amazon shopping lol). Once I get a big enough stash I will shred everything and then stockpile for spring.

So there, Old Man Winter, I am STILL gardening despite my strange decision to live in cold WI! By looking at winter as another gardening season, productivity goes up all year long 🙂 Happy winter gardening friends and see you all this spring!!

RayRay

10/12/2022

Gardening Q&A!!
Post you gardening or composting questions here!

08/12/2022

Welcome friends! RayRay's Garden is the home of RayRay's Natural Garden Supply and the worm farm 😎 Castings will be ready for sale starting in March, 2023. This is a brand new page and will be a hub for all things RayRay. Stay tuned for new posts!!