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Welp. My patch of volunteer tomatillos which have received next to zero of my attention and look like absolute poo poo are still producing far more tomatillos than I could ever find a use for. What a crazy plant.
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Aug 23, 2017 22:41
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Tomatillos are savages. A volunteer tomatillos from seeds off the previous season will put out just as much or more as a store-bought start.
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Aug 23, 2017 22:54
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coyo7e posted:Tomatillos are savages. A volunteer tomatillos from seeds off the previous season will put out just as much or more as a store-bought start. I wish my tomatillos were half that awesome. I've got two and neither have produced any fruit yet, just teasingly hollow leaf bowls.
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Aug 24, 2017 03:26
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Speaking of Physalis, my pineapple ground cherry plants are unstoppable this year. Two of my plants were started from last year's seed and have far surpassed their parents in every way; it seems they like being in my raised pepper bed rather than the 24" pots I had them in last year. My third and final plant was a volunteer in said pot that I transplanted to its own, since there was no way my raised beds could fit a third. Between all of these, I've been hauling in 30 - 40 ground cherries per day for awhile now. They sprawl like crazy and the thick branches have no issue holding the weight of all the developing fruit, even in wind and pouring rain. Easily one of my favorite plants to grow and snack on with a buttery pineapple/tropical tomato flavor, this'll be a fixture in my garden for years to come. I'll be saving seeds but if there's a general interest in sharing, I'll clean and process them rather than digging them out of what becomes ground cherry raisins next year. For those that care, these were originally organic seeds from Seed Saver's Exchange; and I never use fertilizer or pesticides of any sort. The other day when I was harvesting ones that like to settle between the grass and my raised bed, I picked one up to reveal a big cricket that was happily munching on the fruit. I literally stole it out of his mouth so I apologized and put it back.
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Aug 24, 2017 16:50
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Motronic posted:Great points, but I assure you this was not an early harvest for that bine. 1/8 of them or so were completely brown and way past usable. The rest were just right. It's got to be 2 weeks or more ahead of the nugget bines. Yeah, I trust you did it for good reason  Like I said, the harvest time may vary substantially by variety/lattitude; however, I suspect that whatever was causing the bine to wither like that is also what caused the low output. Nutrition (fert/water) aside, there's a whole array of hop diseases/viruses that could be responsible. Downy mildew is one common problem if it's been really humid -- worst case scenario for that are humid weather followed by cool nights, and hops without a lot of airflow (dense growth, close to a building, etc). Hop Mosaic Virus is another (though I don't know how likely that is in a small home garden). You could probably just Google Image Search "Hop Diseases" and see if anything looks familiar.
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Aug 24, 2017 20:34
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LLSix posted:I wish my tomatillos were half that awesome. I've got two and neither have produced any fruit yet, just teasingly hollow leaf bowls.
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Aug 24, 2017 20:42
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coyo7e posted:Go to a Latin grocery, get some tomatillos, and throw them into the yard. This works and is why my compost heap is consistently the most productive bed in the garden. 
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Aug 24, 2017 22:53
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Suspect Bucket posted:Contact your local ag extension. They'll be able to tell you how to deal with your multitude of plorp issues. In the meantime, check your soil hydration levels. if its yellowed leaves with brown or black dots on tomatoes its probably blight. get some copper fungucide. i got hit hard this year. once it appears you can only really mitigate it with aggressive pruning and fungucode applications
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Aug 25, 2017 12:55
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So I am looking at end of season in a few weeks and am wondering if burning the old growth would be a good alternative to just leaving them to shrivel up over the winter. I have a lot of stuff I am going to torch around the perimeter (large weds growing through the river rock walls) and thought perhaps to do the old garden plants as well. No plans to till in the spring and the ash will seep down into the dirt.
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Aug 25, 2017 21:40
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Hi, I need some advice: A month or so ago I put my strawberry planters into the empty bed and neglected to think of a next step. Now I've dozens of runners that have rooted. Should I just formally plant all the strawberries in the bed (seems like a waste of the space?) Or find somewhere better for them and plant more veg?. How have you got your strawberries?
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Aug 27, 2017 11:45
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Strawberries will take as much space as you give them. Move them out of those flats but dont put them anywhere you want to plant other stuff.. you want to cover them with birdmesh anyway second year.
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Aug 27, 2017 14:55
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I'm currently letting my container strawberries root at the ends of my planter bed and in various corners of my yard. They seem to multiply exponentially every year, so agreed with coyo7e – put them somewhere you don't want to plant other stuff. I'm just going to keep an eye on the runners they send out next year to make sure they don't spread too far from their point of origin. They seem to do fine in most soil as long as it's not too dry or permanently wet. I've had mixed luck moving rooted plants, even when I've been extremely careful with them. Usually about half or more will die, but if even a single plant survives next year it'll be ten plants.
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Aug 28, 2017 15:49
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Strawberries are naturally a ground cover, so yeah they will take over if you let them. I seem to recall that you can combine them with a taller crop but it's easiest to corral them by themselves so you can cover them.
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Aug 29, 2017 09:19
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We've just let our strawberries do their thing, so they're in a different section of the garden every year. It's kinda funny.
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Aug 29, 2017 13:26
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Soon enough I'll need to start bringing in my citrus plants at night. I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for non-toxic insecticides/insect deterrents I can use on the soil/pots? The last few years I was living in apartment high rise with a balcony that had very little insect traffic, but this summer my lemons and oranges have been in the thick of it insect-wise. Last I checked the soil was home to quite a few bugs, and if possible I'd rather not bring them inside with the plants. There's nothing particularly bad or damaging on the plants, just quite a few roly poly bugs and centipedes and whatnot. I have cats, so non-toxic is very important. Any ideas?
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Aug 29, 2017 14:27
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I like centipedes and sow/pillbugs as they keep processing the dressing of compost I give my house plants at the end of the season before bringing them inside. The world outside the pot may as well be the Sahara to them as I've never seen a sign of emigration (or maybe I just have happy decomposers). After a really bad infestation of aphids a few years back, my routine is to hose all my plants off with a jet of water, let dry, spray with neem, then let dry. Since then, I haven't had to deal with any infestations.
Big Nubbins fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Aug 29, 2017 |
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Aug 29, 2017 15:40
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I've had sowbugs meander out. Unless your house is damp and has lots of decaying plant matter, the poor bugs who leave the pot will dry up and die. Or maybe get eaten by a pet.
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Aug 29, 2017 16:58
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I skimmed the first few pages of the thread and didn't see this (maybe I missed it) - is there a recommended brand of potting mix / recommended method for mixing your own for container gardening?
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Sep 2, 2017 14:46
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Has anybody used root hormones for transplants? I bought some thinking that must be its purpose but the bottle and most places online say it's for cuttings.
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Sep 3, 2017 04:05
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Root hormones are best for cuttings, they're plant hormones that will signal any latent buds to grow roots instead of stems. For transplants you're better off with rooting compound or stimulator, which is basically vitamins and minerals for plants that encourage faster and stronger root growth.
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Sep 3, 2017 14:43
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Marchegiana posted:Root hormones are best for cuttings, they're plant hormones that will signal any latent buds to grow roots instead of stems. For transplants you're better off with rooting compound or stimulator, which is basically vitamins and minerals for plants that encourage faster and stronger root growth.
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Sep 4, 2017 00:41
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*rolls boulder over cave entrance until april*
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Sep 5, 2017 20:45
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turing_test posted:I skimmed the first few pages of the thread and didn't see this (maybe I missed it) - is there a recommended brand of potting mix / recommended method for mixing your own for container gardening? This quite a debatable topic, I think. If you just want to buy something, Black Gold has a good reputation, I think. As far as making your own, there are as many ways of doing it as there are people. The most basic formula is 1/3 peat, 1/3 compost, and 1/3 aeration (pumice, vermiculite, lava rock, what have you.) Maybe toss some rock dust in there as well. But there are an incredible number of variations on that theme.
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Sep 6, 2017 20:56
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Mozi posted:This quite a debatable topic, I think. If you just want to buy something, Black Gold has a good reputation, I think. As far as making your own, there are as many ways of doing it as there are people. The most basic formula is 1/3 peat, 1/3 compost, and 1/3 aeration (pumice, vermiculite, lava rock, what have you.) Maybe toss some rock dust in there as well. But there are an incredible number of variations on that theme. I've seen some debate about whether we should use peat/sphagnum versus coir or newspaper-based media. There was some concern about peat harvesting destroying habitat and carbon dioxide buffers, but it looks like most of the peat used in the US is harvested from Canadian stocks that are pretty well-managed, at least according to Wiki. Does anyone else have some insight about this?
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Sep 6, 2017 21:03
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Peat takes thousands of years to form so anyone saying theirs is renewable is taking the long vision of things. It's realistically irreversible damage to unique ecosystems and unnecessarily bad.
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Sep 7, 2017 14:00
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Does anyone grow anything during winter? Is there an indoor hydroponics gardening thread? I've really enjoyed puttering around my garden and eating it. I'm dreading its absence this winter and the lows are already down into the 40s every day here.
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Sep 7, 2017 17:19
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cakesmith handyman posted:Peat takes thousands of years to form so anyone saying theirs is renewable is taking the long vision of things. It's realistically irreversible damage to unique ecosystems and unnecessarily bad. This is false. From the article: "The amount of peat moss harvested from Canadian peat bogs every year is nearly 60 times less than the total annual accumulation of new peat moss."
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Sep 7, 2017 19:32
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frozenphil posted:This is false. From the article: "The amount of peat moss harvested from Canadian peat bogs every year is nearly 60 times less than the total annual accumulation of new peat moss." Okay, from that article peat bogs can be restarted within 5 years with proper management. That's great thank you I didn't know that, but I'm in Europe where we just savage the wetlands and destroyed them.
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Sep 7, 2017 20:23
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Definitely try to find 'Sphagnum Peat Moss', not just any old 'Peat Moss'. Sphagnum is harvested in Canada which has an overall quota that cannot be exceeded, so you can be fairly confident it's not harvested in a really environmentally harmful way. Coco coir is the alternative for a lot of people, but in my opinion coconut plantations are possibly even less environmentally friendly, so that's not really a great choice either. The only other choice I'm aware of is wood bark-based potting soil, but my personal experience with that is pretty poor (excessive water retention, lots of fungus gnats and stunted and unhappy plants.)
Mozi fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Sep 7, 2017 |
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Sep 7, 2017 21:23
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I'll look into that thanks, wasn't aware there was a sustainable peat option.
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Sep 7, 2017 21:45
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Though, now that I read you posted that you're in Europe, I'm not sure if that would affect the availability or price of Sphagnum peat. If it's too expensive, you might have to choose coco instead, which can be packed into a brick and shipped cheaply.
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Sep 7, 2017 21:50
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There are newspaper based substrates that might be more economical than buying imported peat. I do like watching rehydrated coir pellets and bricks expand though.  Also, thanks for the good peat talk.
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Sep 7, 2017 21:53
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LLSix posted:Does anyone grow anything during winter? I grew....leafy greens! wooooooooooooo! pak choi, spinach, mesclun mix... leeks, onion, spring onions also might work depending. I've had a greenhouse this last year and even inside it most things aside from the above did sweet fuckall over winter. They did get a great head start when it started warming up in very very early spring, though.
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Sep 7, 2017 22:38
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I saw enormous packs of coco on Amazon but wasn't sure whether they're any good, I do need something to open up the clay-based soil I've got here.
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Sep 7, 2017 22:41
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My june bearing strawberries are flowering again and I already have some small green berries. This seems weird to me but I am only a second year strawberry grower. Is this just a thing that can happen when you get a long growing season or have I finally found proof of climate change?
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Sep 8, 2017 02:14
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Anyone in East Tennessee or thereabouts have any recommended varieties of garlic? Never grown it before but I'm clearing out a new area and I've set aside a patch for garlic.
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Sep 8, 2017 21:37
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There are so many distinct kinds in flavors of garlic that I would probably recommend finding a farmer's market or Googling around for local garlic Farms or garlic festivals. it's a bit late in the year to probably find a Garlic Festival but you really want to have access to a lot of varieties that you can test The Taste and odor of an end eyeball the size of as well because all of those factors will be a big deal. Also do you plan on using the Scapes because that's a factor as well in what you choose. It looks like there are definitely garlic festivals and Specialty garlic farms in Tennessee although I don't know about Eastern Tennessee.
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Sep 8, 2017 22:28
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cakesmith handyman posted:I saw enormous packs of coco on Amazon but wasn't sure whether they're any good, I do need something to open up the clay-based soil I've got here. I've read that adding wood bark, sand and compost will help a lot with clay soils.
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Sep 12, 2017 15:47
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Basically adding course grained soil (sand) to offset the % of fine grained clay in the soil profile, and then adding organic matter (wood bark) and something with high microbial activity (compost) to increase the byproducts of microbial activity/decomp, which assists in binding up fine clay into larger, more stable aggregates.
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Sep 13, 2017 20:23
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Plant things that tend to develop deep root systems in addition to the composting. That will help break up the ground and move nutrients/soil microbes around more effectively.
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Sep 13, 2017 23:32
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