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We sowed some seeds from one of those "Free wildflowers that bees love!" types of packets. It looks like the wind carried them and they've now invaded one of our veggie garden areas. We went from this:  To this:  The wildflowers have completely taken over. There're a few squash plants, in there. And I think a few herbs. But are these wildflower plants in any way bad for what's left of our veggies? Should I be yanking any wildflowers to promote the vegetables' growth? The rest of yard it doing really well, but this section has become a crazy mess. Pham Nuwen posted:I just weeded the hell out of my garden, finally. 
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Jul 10, 2016 03:16
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melon cat posted:Oh man. Some of you have some nice poo poo growing in your yards. You mean cheatgrass?  And datura. Can't forget the datura.
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Jul 10, 2016 04:36
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Speaking of weeds, I dunno how but I've got loving johnson grass growing in my herb bed and out into the grass next to it. I've spent the past 2 months on a brutal campaign of digging up what rhizomes I can find and then nuking any shoots that come up with Roundup to try and eradicate it. The grass there looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland right now, and as soon as the weather cools enough to transplant I may have to move the herbs I have growing there to another bed so I can start nuking the poo poo that pops up there too. loving hell.
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Jul 10, 2016 15:02
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Is it possible that hot peppers will wilt in hot temperatures? I've been having some leaves look pretty droopy even though they've been getting plenty of water. I noticed that the droopyness was a bit location dependent. It may be the heat outflow from the air conditioning unit on my roof. Even though the unit is is maybe 4-5 yards away. Kinda surprised though, I thought they were a bit more heat tolerant. I ended up moving them along the wall, hoping the grill shields the heatflow a bit.
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Jul 12, 2016 22:33
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Could be too much water.
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Jul 12, 2016 23:19
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I would only worry about wilting if it's in the morning or at night when it isn't still hot outside. I'm not an expert on peppers, but daytime wilting is normal even with the right amount of water.
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Jul 13, 2016 01:28
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It's the heat. 12-15 feet away seems a bit far for the hot air from the air conditioning to reach them, but move them anyway, if you can. It could also just be the sun. Maybe you have a location that gets some mid afternoon shade? Mine wilt most afternoons in the hottest part of summer, but perk back up in the evening. (I'd put up a shade screen, but meh.) Sometimes the leaves lose water faster than the roots can suck it up.
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Jul 13, 2016 01:33
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Yea, peppers wilt in the heat of the day. Check the leaves after the sun has gone down. You may find they have bounced back very quickly to a normal leaf firmness. If they are firm at night, they probably don't need more water.
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Jul 13, 2016 12:59
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Alright. Gonna do it. Gonna grow some herbs...though I don't know how often to water them. Some sites I've looked at say "water if it's not damp 1/2 inch down" other sites say "let them get dry cause it's easy to overwater." I've heard people say once a week is enough, other people say once every morning. I don't know.
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Jul 14, 2016 23:23
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MrSlam posted:Alright. Gonna do it. Gonna grow some herbs...though I don't know how often to water them. Different herbs like it a little drier or wetter but once per week is a good rule of thumb, and increase if they start to wilt. If they are indoors it's good to let the top dry out because keeping it moist all the time will encourage super annoying fungus gnats.
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Jul 14, 2016 23:37
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Fozzy The Bear posted:Fungus and mushrooms are a sign of healthy soil. Follow up - another reason to remove these bastards is their spores got all over the parsley leaves and were a pain to remove in order to use the parsley, since they have a weird sticky substance that kept them from being washed or flicked off. Also they definitely got on my fence, even 2-3 feet away from the herbs.
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Jul 14, 2016 23:51
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Cpt.Wacky posted:Different herbs like it a little drier or wetter but once per week is a good rule of thumb, and increase if they start to wilt. If they are indoors it's good to let the top dry out because keeping it moist all the time will encourage super annoying fungus gnats. Thanks! I probably would've murdered the plants if you hadn't posted.
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Jul 14, 2016 23:52
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MrSlam posted:Alright. Gonna do it. Gonna grow some herbs...though I don't know how often to water them. I'm growing herbs (basil, thyme, peppermint) for the first time in boxes on my windowsills. I started at watering once a week, but now in this heat, I'm up to twice day. You should definitely adapt any advice to how well your plants are doing.
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Jul 15, 2016 01:38
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Sorry if this is answered somewhere. 1. We have a small asparagus patch, and are letting shoots get bushy. We've got two or three shoots that are really tall. Should we clip them back to encourage new growth, or support the existing shoots? We really want to encourage new growth. 2. Strawberry patch hasn't produced much the past few years. My understanding is that it needs to be disturbed. That means the plants moved to another bed next year? Thanks!
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Jul 16, 2016 17:34
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 So I have this...pumpkin? that is doing better than anything else I've ever grown. I want to not screw this up. Should I put up sticks for it to climb? How often should I water it? What do?
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Jul 17, 2016 03:54
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Defenestration posted:
My best pumpkin-years had vines 20 or so feet long that I just let spread along the ground out from my raised beds. I'd figure out where I'm going to let it grow and start training it that way. Can you let it grown right along the fence?
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Jul 17, 2016 19:03
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Gounads posted:My best pumpkin-years had vines 20 or so feet long that I just let spread along the ground out from my raised beds. I'd figure out where I'm going to let it grow and start training it that way. Can you let it grown right along the fence?
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Jul 17, 2016 21:30
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Planet X posted:2. Strawberry patch hasn't produced much the past few years. My understanding is that it needs to be disturbed. That means the plants moved to another bed next year? Master gardeners have told me that strawberry patches should be mowed down after bearing each year, essentially pruning down all the existing growth and letting it regrow. At the same time, remove all the dead leaves and mushy/moldy berries to reduce disease. Then every few years you should let the runners root and get established as new plants and then remove the old plants, aiming for plants spaced about 1 foot apart.
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Jul 18, 2016 20:02
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Speaking of strawberries, we planted these in june and they're growing nicely and bearing fruits, just put up the netting because the birds thought it was for them.
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Jul 22, 2016 06:07
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That's a lovely looking strawberry strip. If I wanted to grow some sort of cherry or dwarf tomato in a pot indoors, how would I go about it? I have a south-facing window I'd like to utilize. I live in Sweden (Skåne). Is it too late in the year to attempt this, even if it's indoors? I'd like to start from seeds, I feel like that'd be a decent (and probably infuriating) learning experience.
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Jul 22, 2016 16:14
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anatomi posted:That's a lovely looking strawberry strip. If you're growing indoors then time of year doesn't really matter. You will need supplemental light though. I've been looking at some of those new LED grow lights recently, probably one 250-400W equivalent for around $100 USD would do for a few tomato plants. A plain old CFL or LED bulb might do in a pinch for one plant. Cherry tomatoes are all? indeterminate vigorous vines and will want something to support them so plan ahead for that.
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Jul 22, 2016 19:20
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Planet X posted:Sorry if this is answered somewhere. We clip them back in winter when they die back naturally. I experimented with cutting back the browned stalks and leaving them as mulch, but someone mistook asparagus crowns for weeds a few months later and pulled up half of them and fed them to the pigs x.x
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Jul 23, 2016 12:07
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Cpt.Wacky posted:If you're growing indoors then time of year doesn't really matter. You will need supplemental light though. I've been looking at some of those new LED grow lights recently, probably one 250-400W equivalent for around $100 USD would do for a few tomato plants. A plain old CFL or LED bulb might do in a pinch for one plant. Cherry tomatoes are all? indeterminate vigorous vines and will want something to support them so plan ahead for that.
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Jul 23, 2016 13:51
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Does anyone have any experience with outdoor hydroponics? I've got a section of fence that get's a good 4-6 hours of sun a day in the summer, and I was thinking of setting up a tier of Rain gutter/PVC pipe trays for growing greens. From what I've seen, people seem to prefer a Flood & Drain approach here, but I'm curious if anyone else has a similar configuration and what they have set up.
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Jul 23, 2016 14:08
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anatomi posted:Thanks! I ended up ordering a couple of packages of Gardener's Delight and Black Cherry. As for light, I have a pair of decently bright "daylight" CFL bulbs that have been used for photo sessions. I'm thinking I'll upgrade to monster LEDs when necessary. On that note, any particular LED/brand you're looking at that you think looks good? Sorry, no. I just started looking into it to see if it's practical and affordable. Most of the info out there is from marijuana growers and they seem to nerd out about all the details, so I'd start there for research.
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Jul 23, 2016 19:23
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Fozzy The Bear posted:No! Never get free dirt.
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Jul 25, 2016 01:52
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Cpt.Wacky posted:Sorry, no. I just started looking into it to see if it's practical and affordable. Most of the info out there is from marijuana growers and they seem to nerd out about all the details, so I'd start there for research. "Tomato" growers.
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Jul 30, 2016 08:15
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Welp, squash bugs are back. I'm really tempted to just chemically sterilize this whole experiment. If it's not one thing it's another. Organic gardening is just straight heartbreak.
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Jul 31, 2016 23:21
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There is a reason why most gardening isn't organic. chemicals work
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Aug 1, 2016 13:15
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Thought I would share our little journey of turning our suburban grass front yard into a veggie garden, and get any general advice and comments from those here as it's our first time and we're still just kind of experimenting. We decided to use lasanga composting to kill the grass and kickstart the plants - after researching, I decided to use cardboard on top of the grass/weeds, which I had already dug out and cropped down as much as possible, and then covered with...  ... Several inches of compost. Some sources said to use mulch, some said to use layers of compost and mulch, I figured it was simpler just to jump right to compost.  We were able to plant stuff right away, as the compost layer is deep enough to start most plants, and putting them in mounts helped - by the time they hit the cardboard, it should be decomposed (6 weeks). We planted: tomatoes (lots of them, mainly on the wooden trellises along the house/porch), onions, beans (string and pole), 2 watermelons, egglants, peppers, corn (later), some California native bushes up front in lieu of a fence, and some other things I'm probably forgetting. Anyway, that was in May. We ran into a problem a few weeks ago - we discovered a water leak on the main water line going to our house, and the entire thing had to be dug up, right through the garden.  This, in combination with a heat wave we had recently (bay area, CA) and us being newbie farmers, means a lot of stuff died. Most of the beans and onions, one of the watermelons, half the eggplants, and a few of the tomatoes. Here's a general state of things now:  The tomatoes along the side of the house are going CRAZY. Seriously these things are thriving. These we actually got as rather mature seedlings from a work contact, so they were already well established when we planted them. This picture is actually from a few weeks ago, they're even bigger now and I'm frankly thinking the trellises are much too small.  Our awesome toilet and sink planter. This one is all my wife's work. Sadly that huge poppy died - we're thinking sunflowers in the toilet instead.  One of the peppers - also from a few weeks ago, some of them are looking a little brown today. I'm hoping it's stress from the heat wave and that it will bounce back. Here's a gallery of more: http://imgur.com/a/4tnlg Edit: As a bonus, my, er, unique method of weeding: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0uOlFJ_O13OM0tmZlFoLThkUTg/view?usp=sharing Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Aug 1, 2016 |
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Aug 1, 2016 18:06
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What does it mean when your tomatos are getting rotten at the bottom before or just as they ripen?
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Aug 3, 2016 22:16
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What's the best way to control Powdery Mildew on a Pumpkin plant?
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Aug 3, 2016 22:21
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always be closing posted:What does it mean when your tomatos are getting rotten at the bottom before or just as they ripen? Blossom end rot? Calcium deficiency causes this
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Aug 3, 2016 22:42
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TheMightyHandful posted:Blossom end rot? Calcium deficiency causes this That's exactly it, thanks, I posted here before even googling, and its paid off. I'll pick up some spray tomorrow, according to Bonnie's website, it works well on tomato plants.
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Aug 3, 2016 23:22
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One of my tomatillo plants has some yellowing in its bottom leaves, some have fallen off. In one case, there was some blackening at the end before it fell. Is this something I can fix or should even worry about? It's still growing and flowering, though none of them are putting out fruit very fast. I can see 3 husks formed but it doesn't feel like anything's growing in. I hear that tomatillos aren't self-pollinating, I do see bees chill there from time to time but should I be giving them a hand?
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Aug 4, 2016 02:25
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/\/\ In my experience, tomatillos are just as susceptible to blight, wilt, etc... as the nightshades are. Mine got the same garbage last year that my tomatoes got (V. wilt and F. wilt). It could be early blight, (do they get brown spots with the yellowing?). Good luck; diseases are a bitch, and I hope your plants are okay. As far as the husks feeling empty, that's normal, and how they grow. The husks will get large first, then the fruit will fill in. You know they are good to pick when the husk gets papery feeling and splits a bit on the end. As far as pollination goes, how many plants do you have? No they don't self-pollinate; they require cross-pollination, and that means multiple plants as well as pollinators. Two is adequate, four is better. ("Self-pollinating" just means that bees can visit multiple flowers on the same plant and they will set fruit with pollen from each other, not that the flowers don't need pollinators. Parthenocarpic is "virgin fruit" where flowers set with no pollinators; most cucumbers, some squash, some seedless watermelons, and a few other things are like that.) 
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Aug 4, 2016 14:50
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I didn't see any brown spots, and that one leaf I photographed was the only one to change colour other than yellow. From what I can read, blight also appears on the stem, which last I checked was okay. I think it's more drought stress, with the wildly varying temperatures here I might've been too quick to water when it was cold, too slow now that it's been an average 25-30C. But I'll watch closely for any developing signs. I do have 4 tomatillo plants, 1 of which came from a cutting because the plant grew far too vertically indoors and ended up snapping. That one's just starting to catch up to the others and bloom.  That was taken July 17, I thought I had more recent pics but I guess I should get around to it! They've now outgrown the balcony railing. Off picture to the right are Sungold and Black Cherry tomato plants going haywire.
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Aug 4, 2016 15:58
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Oooh, that planter is going to be way too small. Can you get them into something bigger? Tomatillos grow into huge unwieldy beasts, at least mine did last year. I had two and dutifully attempted to stake them and keep them in check, but by August they sprawled out and basically took over half of an 8x4 bed.
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Aug 4, 2016 16:42
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Robo Boogie Bot posted:Oooh, that planter is going to be way too small. Can you get them into something bigger? Tomatillos grow into huge unwieldy beasts, at least mine did last year. I had two and dutifully attempted to stake them and keep them in check, but by August they sprawled out and basically took over half of an 8x4 bed. I'll have to try, I suppose. I already am taking up a lot of limited balcony space with just 8 plants, but last year all of those in individual pots grew better than the ones in that herb planter. Maybe I should just stop pretending I'm using my balcony and let the garden take over. 
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Aug 6, 2016 20:02
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Robo Boogie Bot posted:Oooh, that planter is going to be way too small. Can you get them into something bigger? Tomatillos grow into huge unwieldy beasts, at least mine did last year. I had two and dutifully attempted to stake them and keep them in check, but by August they sprawled out and basically took over half of an 8x4 bed. My 4 plants utterly consumed the 4x10ft plot devoted to them. Tomatillos are beasts.
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Aug 7, 2016 21:40
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