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Motronic posted:I swear by my scarecrow. One battery lasts you the season, and it not only scares the crap out of deer, but pretty much everything else. You still need the fence, but if you add one of these too you'll likely be golden. Please remember to turn these off when the landscaper(me) comes to work in your yard. These darn things have sprayed me quite a few times. Veggies must wait for now since I jumped the gun last year and an unexpected frost killed everything but a few pepper bushes  . In the greenhouse I potted up my Caladium "Kathleen" and Alocasia "Giant" from bulbs I found at Walmart and am just getting some shoots coming up above the soil. My mandevilla seeds are being picky about germinating but I think I'll get them. Once I'm able to move those and the 8' tall philodendron from my living room out there its going to be a tropical paradise on my front porch! Just need a dwarf banana, ginger, hibiscus, kumquat, echeveria carunculata, giant agave and every other plant in the Monrovia catalog and my porch should be all set.
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Mar 1, 2011 01:44
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dinozaur posted:Please remember to turn these off when the landscaper(me) comes to work in your yard. These darn things have sprayed me quite a few times. I leave it on. By the time I get over to that part of the yard I'm hot and tired of being dragged around by a 15 year old Scag on its last legs and the quick dousing is kinda nice. Having landscaped for years, yeah, I'm sure that sucks when you get it on a job. Those things weren't around when I was doing it. But I can't imagine that's nearly as bad as the kid toy/tennis ball mine filed that were most back yards. Of course those were also the yards that were ChemLawn'ed so they would grow approximately 2 feet every day, so by the time you got there you couldn't see any of the small stuff until you were on top of it. And you tore the sides up turning because there was no root structure left after the nitrogen explosion that is the trademark Chemlawn experience.
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Mar 1, 2011 02:31
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A flying piece of posted:The two fruit bushes and cut-off raised bed frames: Why the landscaping fabric at the bottom? If gophers or voles are an issue you can use hardware cloth. Leaving the bottom open allows deep rooted veggies to work the soil and collect moisture and nutrients and also allows earthworms to travel up aerating your bed Edit: If its for weeds the previously mentioned sheet mulching technique with cardboard works great and will break down over the season
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Mar 1, 2011 04:16
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dwoloz posted:Why the landscaping fabric at the bottom? If gophers or voles are an issue you can use hardware cloth. Leaving the bottom open allows deep rooted veggies to work the soil and collect moisture and nutrients and also allows earthworms to travel up aerating your bed I just have it on there for now so anything thinking about growing hits a barrier while I wait to get the compost and stuff to fill it. It's going to be removed once I start filling. Edit: Speaking of compost, am I going to have any problems with filling those beds with mostly compost? It's free, after all. I'm going to be supplementing it with some vermiculite.. maybe one large bag of it per bed (8'x4'x8"). I don't have a ton of money to spend on non-free fillers. I would have just gone for the bare ground option again this year, but Maryland seems to love its clay. A flying piece of fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Mar 1, 2011 |
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Mar 1, 2011 05:40
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Growing in pure compost is fine. I like mixing in some of the native soil but for clay, mix it in only while you can still clump the soil with your hand and the clump keeps its shape but is easily broken apart by touching it. I hope that makes sense. For me, that's about a 1:3 mix
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Mar 1, 2011 06:24
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A flying piece of posted:Edit: Speaking of compost, am I going to have any problems with filling those beds with mostly compost? It's free, after all. Personally I'd be leery about using that "possibly contaminated" landfill compost on your garden when you don't know the sources of the compost. On the blueberry bushes and fruit trees, fine, but I'd be slightly nervous about lettuce and herbs growing on it, stuff that's low to the ground.
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Mar 1, 2011 13:50
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Costello Jello posted:Personally I'd be leery about using that "possibly contaminated" landfill compost on your garden when you don't know the sources of the compost. On the blueberry bushes and fruit trees, fine, but I'd be slightly nervous about lettuce and herbs growing on it, stuff that's low to the ground. It's one of those things where I'm just going to have to see what happens. I'm probably expecting too much of the people at the garden center to know how lawn and garden chemicals (the compost is made from county lawn clippings/waste pickup) break down under decomp and heat, but whatever. If I don't continue posting about progress throughout the summer, assume I'm dying and send help.
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Mar 1, 2011 15:04
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Heat mats are like voodoo witchcraft germinating seeds. My tomatoes are exploding!
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Mar 2, 2011 01:58
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Its March! Now...do I attempt to start some summer crops indoor or wait it out until April. hmmm
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Mar 2, 2011 02:19
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After thinking about long and hard, I've also decided to try my hand at home gardening. I live in a tropical country where the mean temperature is about 28~30 C during the day with the humidity at a solid 80%. I've planted a basil bush, an oregano bush, an anise bush and a lemongrass bush. Do you know how often and how much should I water them? Do they like sun? Can they grow properly on the same planter? I'm interested in seeing my spices grow so I can use them on food. Thanks in advance.
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Mar 2, 2011 04:06
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TerryLennox posted:Do you know how often and how much should I water them? In planters its really easy to check once you get used to it. Just bump/lift them. Get used to how light they are when the soil is dry. At that point, you no longer need to even get your hands dirty checking. Water them when they get light. Do make sure you keep up with the watering - basil is notoriously not drought resistant. Besides wilting, mine seems to "bolt" (start to flower/seed) if it hasn't received enough water after the next time it gets watered. TerryLennox posted:Do they like sun? TerryLennox posted:Can they grow properly on the same planter? If its a really big planter, sure. But basil has quite a root structure. If you're going to use a planter, it needs to be a big one for the basil. This also helps to hold some water in there so it doesn't need such frequent attention. A little much on the top of the soil (close to but not touching the plants) will also help with this. Oregano is pretty rooty, but not as much as basil. Lemongrass is not very rooty at all, and could be grown in quite a small planter. If I were you, I'd try it as a "cover crop" around the edges of your basil/oregano planters. Hopefully someone here knows something about anise and can help you with that. But, bottom line: you have nothing to lose. And it sounds like you can keep trying and growing all year. Can't beat that.
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Mar 2, 2011 15:58
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Ok it's been a while since I posted. Lettuce and spinach and green onions are doing great!!! Beets and radishes look like they need help. Which is why I'm here. My root veggies are planted directly into containers but all of a sudden some started to just go limp and I think they're dying. No true leaves yet and it's been maybe two weeks... What could be wrong??
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Mar 3, 2011 16:00
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Dug the garden today, first day it's been warm so far. I want to grow... Anything, really, right now there's two (slightly raised) beds, I grew spinach and tomatoes and stuff last year but this year I have acquired five chickens who have free range of the garden. How do I go about chicken-proofing the beds? Will a bit of wire mesh around them work or does it need to be industrial? How desperate are they gonna be about getting in there, I saw the cockerel jump five feet yesterday.
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Mar 3, 2011 17:53
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noodlesinabag posted:Ok it's been a while since I posted. Lettuce and spinach and green onions are doing great!!! Beets and radishes look like they need help. Which is why I'm here. My root veggies are planted directly into containers but all of a sudden some started to just go limp and I think they're dying. No true leaves yet and it's been maybe two weeks... What could be wrong?? Were you using brand-new potting medium for them? Because it sounds like damping off. Damping off is caused by a fungus that lives in the soil, and will kill off new sprouts, usually just before, or after they sprout but before they get true leaves. The only guaranteed solution I know of is to dispose of any soil that caused damping off and get fresh, sterile potting mix.
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Mar 3, 2011 17:57
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Nettle Soup posted:Dug the garden today, first day it's been warm so far. Good luck! We have 3 chickens and we're building a new fence (hopefully finishing this weekend) so our drat chickens will stay out of the garden. We have just a 3' chicken wire fence right now and it doesn't work. They'll hop on over it. We're using this stuff http://www.lowes.com/pd_62294-307-84067_0__?productId=1094819&Ntt=wire+fencing&pl=1¤tURL=%2Fpl__0__s%3FNtt%3Dwire%2Bfencing We have a front fence made from it and they can't get over it. At least my observations is ours won't fly up onto something like that if they can't land on it and perch and jump down. For the wooden gate part, I'm going to attach some chicken wire to the top so they won't be able to land on it so hopefully this will keep them in.
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Mar 3, 2011 18:41
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Marchegiana posted:Were you using brand-new potting medium for them? Because it sounds like damping off. Damping off is caused by a fungus that lives in the soil, and will kill off new sprouts, usually just before, or after they sprout but before they get true leaves. The only guaranteed solution I know of is to dispose of any soil that caused damping off and get fresh, sterile potting mix. It was new... And in the same bucket some of the sprouts are fine while others are dying... I haven't really been looking after them at all though and they haven't really been getting much sun....
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Mar 3, 2011 20:52
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Nettle Soup posted:Dug the garden today, first day it's been warm so far. I've found it just too annoying to fence off all the beds so we have our chickens cooped up.
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Mar 4, 2011 00:22
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dwoloz posted:Chickens will decimate your garden, it indeed needs to be fenced off somehow. I think light fencing would most likely deter them just fine. Theyll fly but tend to stick to the ground (depending on breed). One of our chickens is a buff orpington, a breed that's not suppose to be able to fly well. She flies the best. She routinely flies over our 3' fence.
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Mar 4, 2011 00:26
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What about clipping flight feathers?
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Mar 4, 2011 02:47
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Costello Jello posted:What about clipping flight feathers? I'd be scared they'd kill themselves because they love to climb the stairs up on our 10' deck and jump off! Taken this morning when they came to wake us up to come out and feed them   Edit: This might be of interest to people here. I know they talked about it on the Colbert Report last night. http://www.pollinator.org/guides.htm Alterian fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Mar 4, 2011 |
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Mar 4, 2011 17:16
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Holy poo poo that site is fantastic. I'm going to be giving another beginners gardening lecture for Girl Scout leaders in September and I'm totally going to print out copies of the Southeast Mixed Forests guide to hand out.
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Mar 4, 2011 18:40
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Is there anything I can do to stop neighborhood cats from making GBS threads in my raised beds?
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Mar 4, 2011 23:10
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Shoot them. On a serious note, in NC using heat mats it only takes about a day for tomato seedlings to get leggy as poo poo. Hoping I can fix it for the most part when I replant the first time. It's been beautiful all day today, all my bulbs from last year are coming up, and I am getting seriously stir crazy for the garden.
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Mar 4, 2011 23:30
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There's a lot of NC gardeners here it seems.
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Mar 4, 2011 23:43
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That's because NC is awesome.
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Mar 4, 2011 23:58
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Question about fertilizer. I know blood meal and fish emulsion are both good nitrogen fertilizers. Can anyone tell me from experience which one was better for them in terms of increasing harvest of green stuff? Also can both be applied weekly with water? I'm having trouble finding fish emulsion at the nearest lowes/home depot/ace but they all carry blood meal...
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Mar 5, 2011 16:48
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noodlesinabag posted:Question about fertilizer. Fish emulsion seems to be faster acting. It's what I use during the season. Water with it, on the leaves, early in the morning when the leaves are dry. No more than once a week. Som people even spray it on. This is a middle of the season thing. I've always treated blood meal as before planting soil amendment. I can't tell you which is best, but I can tell you that you'll see a "burst" a couple of day after you spray with fish emulsion. It's like you just shot your lettuce up with steroids. You do know you're looking for a bottle of fish emulsion, not a bag like blood meal, right? Either way...get the blood meal now, amend your soil, and find locally or order fish emulsion for later int he season. You'll be happy with the results.
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Mar 5, 2011 17:30
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Motronic posted:Fish emulsion seems to be faster acting. It's what I use during the season. Water with it, on the leaves, early in the morning when the leaves are dry. No more than once a week. Som people even spray it on. This is a middle of the season thing. Wait u spray the leaves not the soil? I have some liquid seaweed... Well they're flakes that u mix with water... I've been giving my seedlings that to help promote strong root development. That's something u water into the potting mix, right? Well Lowes told me they stopped carrying it because not enough people were buying it at the store nearest to me and ace told me they just font carry it... Might be able to order some for me though... My greens seem to be getting along with more than just a few baby leaves so I thought I would start giving it fish emulsion but I just wanted to check with you goons first to male sure I had the right info.
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Mar 5, 2011 19:26
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I know everyone likes to take pictures and show off their first harvests of the season. We still have tons of snow, so sadly that won't be happening for awhile here, but I wanted to show off my LAST harvest of last season: Things finally melted enough for last years kale to be re-exposed.
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Mar 5, 2011 20:49
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noodlesinabag posted:Wait u spray the leaves not the soil? Fish emulsion, yes. It will also work in the soil, but it seems to do pretty well on the leaves. But when you wet leaves, you better be sure they dry soon - meaning do it in the morning. noodlesinabag posted:I have some liquid seaweed... Well they're flakes that u mix with water... I've been giving my seedlings that to help promote strong root development. That's something u water into the potting mix, right? Yes, you can water seedling with that. VERY diluted. Like an ounce or so to a gallon of water. But....why are your seedling in potting soil? Did you start seeds in it? If so, good on you that they germinated. But stop doing that. You should be using a non soil mix for seedlings. Equal parts of peat moss, perlite, vermiculite, and compost with a little bit of wood ash or lime. You can buy it pre-mixed for about double what it would cost you to mix your own. noodlesinabag posted:Well Lowes told me they stopped carrying it because not enough people were buying it at the store nearest to me and ace told me they just font carry it... Might be able to order some for me though... My greens seem to be getting along with more than just a few baby leaves so I thought I would start giving it fish emulsion but I just wanted to check with you goons first to male sure I had the right info. I don't want to accuse you of anything here, but sometimes you just need to put down the fertilizer and WALK AWAY. I used the fish emulsion in the middle of the season as a supplement. I use fresh non-soil mix to start. I amend my soil before I plant, either in the fall or the beginning of the growing season depending on what I'm putting in. Over fertilizing is bad, and correcting soil later on that is incorrect can be difficult. Let your babies grow. Give them water. If they're in a non soil mix or potting soil and very small, they ought to be just fine. Let the get big enough to harden off and put out, put them out in good soil, let them start to thrive, and then think about maybe needing more food for them. It's much easier to kill stuff with fertilizer than without.
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Mar 6, 2011 00:20
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Motronic posted:Fish emulsion, yes. It will also work in the soil, but it seems to do pretty well on the leaves. But when you wet leaves, you better be sure they dry soon - meaning do it in the morning. Thanks for the info. I live in an apartment with a balcony facing south and so am confined to container gardening. I am using potting mix, not potting soil (my books were sure to tell me) and the mix had trace amounts of nutrients in it (I think 1-.5-.5). I planted some winter hardy stuff which have about 3 or 4 pairs of true leaves or so which was why I was asking about the fertilizer. I hadn't put any into the mix for this first batch so I was getting ready to start giving fertilizer but I understand about the whole overfertilizing thing. Just had no idea you were supposed to spray the leaves with fish emulsion. Doesn't that make the lettuce taste fishy?
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Mar 6, 2011 03:26
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thepedestrian posted:Is there anything I can do to stop neighborhood cats from making GBS threads in my raised beds? I'm using some Dog & Cat Repellent spray that I found at Lowe's (I don't see it on the website). It works, but you have to spray it on a regular basis. Smells like strong pickle juice. I plan on burying some bamboo skewers in my boxes to help deter them that way too. I like cats but gently caress, why they gotta poo poo in MY garden? You could also build a cage around it. That's what I did for my 4x4 box more out of fear of squirrels (bastards!) than cats.
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Mar 6, 2011 22:52
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thepedestrian posted:Is there anything I can do to stop neighborhood cats from making GBS threads in my raised beds? Liberally sprinkle cayenne pepper all over it. Stops cats *and* my dog cold when they get near the bed. You'll have to reapply it after waterings, but it works. edit- important safety tip I learned the hard way- make sure you're upwind while applying. Always.
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Mar 6, 2011 23:01
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noodlesinabag posted:Just had no idea you were supposed to spray the leaves with fish emulsion. Doesn't that make the lettuce taste fishy? I never really thought about it. Being totally organic is relatively new to me, as I grew up landscaping in the late 80s-90s (I would spay the crap out of anything to make a problem "go away" - now I know how naive and wrong I was, even with my mighty state pesticide/herbicide licence number). I just have it in my head that I don't harvest anything after treating for at least a week or more, depending on what I've applied, so I've never harvested greens soon after treatment. But I can tell you for sure that a week is long enough. Maybe I ought to try sooner this year as an experiment. Motronic fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Mar 7, 2011 |
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Mar 7, 2011 01:11
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Motronic posted:But I can tell you for sure that a week is long enough. Maybe I ought to try sooner this year as an experiment. It should be fine, they extract the oils which are really what go rancid and cause that "dead fish" smell. The protein is then hydrolyzed, so it's in small enough pieces that if you re-sequenced it you'd probably never even know it was fish.
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Mar 7, 2011 01:41
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Greetings from 9b. Some updates.  Transplanted all of the peppers to 4 inch pots. I totally did them too early, but screw it. I lost 3 of my paprika starts in the process, but I'm re-seeding directly into the 4 inch pots and I put them right out in the full AZ sun today to heat them up and maybe give them a jump. All of the italian bells and the french and indian chiles seemed to avoid the shock and be fine.  Took my basil and thyme starts right out to the pots. Genvoese on the left, Thai in the middle, Thyme on the right.  Transplanted the San Marzanos a couple of weeks ago and oh lordy did they take off. They're growing like weeds. Looking at the 14-day weather coming up, it's my belief that the last of the freaky freezes is gone. It was a freakin beautiful 82 outside today, so time to set up the two new EarthBoxes.  There's the 4 tomato plants in their final home between now and the June sun that brings dehydrating, firey death to everything that's not a pepper. We sprung for the staking kits on our two new EB's, and the bird netting as well (the birds absolutely trashed most of our winter crop other than the leeks). Yes there are cheaper, home-grown ways to stake, but dammit if these aren't stoopid easy to set up and they look like they were made for it... cause they are. Hopefully in two more weeks the peppers will be ready to go into the other two EB's. Between now and then I'll gut the remnants of the winter crop out, amend the soil and get ready for some peppery goodness.
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Mar 7, 2011 01:49
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Alleric posted:Greetings from 9b. 6b is impressed, jealous, and anxious to go.
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Mar 7, 2011 02:07
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Motronic posted:6b is impressed, jealous, and anxious to go. 8b is sick of lugging transplants in and out, and wants to throw it all in the ground already. I might throw caution to the winds and do it this week (I'd be doing it in two weeks at most as it is anyways). Three of four 4'x8' veggie beds tilled, amended, and ready to go, garlic planted last fall kicking rear end and taking names, rest of the alliums and greens already on their way, 4'x4' strawberry bed was planted today (half bareroot transplants, half 2nd years that had been in pots), and my herb pots (20ish or so) are about half divided and repotted so far. Adding 5 grape vines in homemade earth-boxes, and 4 blueberries I just got for 75% off at Lowe's that I said wtf not to, plus flowers. Will post some pics when I'm not on my phone at work, heh.
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Mar 7, 2011 02:36
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Be careful with terra cotta pots; they wick moisture out of the soil like crazy. Its best, in my humble opinion, to save the terra cotta pots for succulents only or put some kind of lining on it.
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Mar 7, 2011 03:57
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I'm still just waiting to see the ground underneath this snow here in zone 5.
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Mar 7, 2011 04:48
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It's burgin' time! 
