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Motronic posted:I don't know just how small you can go, but I can tell you that a 10 foot wide pile of shredded leaves that ends up being about 4 or 5 feet tall after they get "rained down" will happily cook all winter long in the northeast and end up with some really nice compost by the next spring. I do turn it every few months when I remember to - that definitely helps it go faster. But on that scale when I say "turning it" I'm talking about this: Mine are all about 4x4x4
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May 29, 2020 18:16
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DrBouvenstein posted:Thanks, I think I'm going to get some fertilizer today. Not only have none of the transplanted ones done much of anything, it looks like my beans and peas, that initially shot right up, have stalled for almost a week (to be fair, the past few days have been very unseasonably hot, but I tried to make up for it with good morning and evening waterings.) It sounds like your soil is drying out constantly. You could try mulching the top with shredded cardboard or straw and that would help. Grass clippings too if you mow a lawn or your neighbor does. I had a sandy soil in my bed and if it was shaded it would hold water well enough, but early season it would need extra help until I got a couple batches of compost mixed in. The suckers are the ones that’s grow above the branch next to the stem. I would personally prune the lowest branches you have there and start supporting that one so it grows straighter. I’m not sure if the ones on the back are suckers but you might leave one and remove the others. It’s going to be close enough to the ground in July August that you may not want it there because it’ll fall into the soil bed.
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May 29, 2020 19:00
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Cool, thanks. I have leaves, good amount of leaves. Could have had more if I didn't bring a lot to the municipal compost area earlier. But with what I already have shredded and the rest I can shred, that's more than enough to cover my beds. Mostly been using them as either the brown for my compost pile or to add to my potato bins. Just went out now and all the currently shredded stuff covered my main beds a little bit...it's gonna rain soon, so tomorrow i"ll shred some more and make a deeper mulch layer.
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May 29, 2020 20:16
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LogisticEarth posted:Also curious about this, although i only have 3 6'x4' raised beds. I'm thinking about doing lines of soaker hoses attached to pvc distribution lines. Not sure how well it’ll work out, but I wound up going to Menards and getting 50’ of soaker hose and a 50’ garden hose to run it out to the garden. I also bought an Orbit B-Hyve smart home water controller and a brass four way ball valve splitter and a 25 psi pressure regulator. My plan is to frabicobble some additional weather/uv shelter for the controller, but I like the idea of rain delays and battery notifications, and I just didn’t see any standout controllers in terms of durability.
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May 29, 2020 20:19
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This morning I found a spider had curled up one of my bean leaves and made a little spider home on my runner beans. I figure it won't eat the plant, but would it hurt it at all? I don't care too much about spiders and it might even kill some bad insects, but it may also kill some good ones.
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May 30, 2020 15:03
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Eeyo posted:This morning I found a spider had curled up one of my bean leaves and made a little spider home on my runner beans. I figure it won't eat the plant, but would it hurt it at all? I don't care too much about spiders and it might even kill some bad insects, but it may also kill some good ones. Spiders eat insects. Leave it alone. Let the spider choose which insects live or die, it's part of having a good garden, because it encourages all sorts of life to live there.
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May 30, 2020 15:59
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My neighbors have a huge mulberry tree that is constantly dropping berries. I decided I should make use of them this year. Spent about 10 minutes picking up berries while weeding.  Not enough for jam yet but maybe just enough for ice cream 
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May 30, 2020 18:50
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Jhet posted:Spiders eat insects. Leave it alone. Let the spider choose which insects live or die, it's part of having a good garden, because it encourages all sorts of life to live there.
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May 30, 2020 22:06
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Started a hugel mound today. 
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May 30, 2020 23:16
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SubG posted:Yeah, it's this. Spiders, lady bugs, and lacewings are all things that you should almost always be happy to find in your garden. Some snakes, too. I never have my phone with me when I see my black rat snake buddy. The last time it nearly gave me a heart attack I'd estimate him around 10 feet long.
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May 31, 2020 03:10
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mischief posted:Some snakes, too. I never have my phone with me when I see my black rat snake buddy. The last time it nearly gave me a heart attack I'd estimate him around 10 feet long. I would have to burn my garden down and move to a new part of the country if I found a snake longer than 12" in my yard.
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May 31, 2020 03:20
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It helps if you make helpless shrieking noises and jump around like the yard is on fire.
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May 31, 2020 03:42
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mischief posted:It helps if you make helpless shrieking noises and jump around like the yard is on fire. I saw a big fat cottonmouth in the woods the other day about 4 feet away from my leg and shrieking noises seemed to stun it long enough for me to escape unharmed.
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May 31, 2020 03:48
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Yeah, this is probably a regional thing but the day I find a big rear end snake in my garden is probably the day I lose my poo poo like a small toddler and give up gardening.
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May 31, 2020 05:19
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I find huge snakes all the time, its really fine if you think about it. -pnw gardener on garter snakes
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May 31, 2020 05:25
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Neon Noodle posted:Started a hugel mound today. Nice, have you done one before?
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May 31, 2020 13:16
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I could use a second opinion: I left this chocolate pepper (brown bell pepper) plant out over the winter in zone 9b. It lasted the winter, and now it's blossoming again, but it lost so most of its large leaves so that I don't think it can really support a bunch of new fruit. I started some replacement plants that are just getting big enough to transplant, so I'm considering putting this one out of its misery to plant afresh. I've never grown peppers, though, let alone let them winter, so will I get a pleasant surprise if I give it a chance?
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May 31, 2020 18:37
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Unless you're severely limited in space, it wouldn't seem to come at a great cost to find out.
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May 31, 2020 19:10
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Jan posted:I could use a second opinion: Overwintering peppers is a thing that can be done. It's good to trim back the smallest branches so that the plant puts out new growth in the spring, and you could still prune back the branches a bit to encourage that. It should be putting out leaves already, but it looks like it's going to try to push out of the ends of those existing branches and not grow anything further down. This may end up leaving it very sparse on the bottom, but I'd still try pruning back a couple things to see if it'll put out new branches. But yeah, if you aren't having issues with space, then I'd definitely keep it if you liked the fruit last year. At least for a little while if you want to see how the pruning might work.
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May 31, 2020 23:17
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I just took a walk through a community garden and I noticed something: Lots of plots with Chinese names had insanely nice garlic and onions, and in most cases they were digging trenches and planting in those:  The trenches are 3-6 inches deep, and 6-10 inches across, depending on the plot. Can anyone explain this technique to me? (For reference I'm zone 3 or so - we had frost two days ago, so this is pretty amazing this early)
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Jun 1, 2020 00:37
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They say if you live in a cool climate that you should plant your garlic in autumn and let it sit in the ground over the winter, so maybe it’s coming up now?
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Jun 1, 2020 11:40
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bengy81 posted:I would have to burn my garden down and move to a new part of the country if I found a snake longer than 12" in my yard. I'm sure I could find you a bunch of people who would love a 12" snake in their backyard
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Jun 1, 2020 12:17
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My yellow pear tomato bit the dust over the weekend. It was 5' tall and was producing like crazy (and great tomatoes-hand't planted it before but really nice mild flavor and pretty color) when it suddenly wilted in the course of a day. I think bacterial wilt id the culprit-white stuff oozed out of the stem in a glass of water and that's apparently the test. The good news is it isn't fusarium, which was my initial suspect. The bad news is there's pretty much nothing you can do about bacterial wilt-hopefully it doesn't get all my tomatoes! What should I plant in it's hole? Does bacterial wilt effect all nightshades, or could I stick some eggplant in there? Or try cucumbers if it isn't too late? E: apparently grafting tomatoes can give some resistance to bacterial wilt-anyone ever tried grafting maters? Kaiser Schnitzel fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Jun 1, 2020 |
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Jun 1, 2020 12:43
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I fertilized on...Friday of last week, though almost right after we have massive amounts of rain. Was this likely to "wash away" my fertilizer? I also put some leaf mulch on, it looks like it helped, but it needed more. So I mowed my lawn on Saturday after the sun dried up the lawn and use the clippings for more mulch, though part of me is worried some of my microgreen seedlings got buried? They should be able to push through, right? And grass clippings won't, like...just cause grass to grow in the garden? As far as I know, none of the grass I cut was so big it was going to seed, but my lawn is also like 50% NOT grass, so no clue on if those weeds will take root in the garden. I'm still annoyed that almost nothing is happening in my garden. Seedlings I transplanted now over two weeks ago are still the same size, not dying, but not growing. My peas and beans have stalled a lot, and my radishes (which are supposed to be a "quick" variety that is ready in like 30 days) and still no where near ready to harvest...I took a peak at the tops of the roots and they're still maybe only 1/4" around, not even close to the ~1" they should be around this time. And like the ones I transplanted, none of them in the seedling trays have gotten any bigger, and neither of the ones I moved into larger containers to try and grow before putting in the ground. I know it's just barely June but I'm just really frustrated, I see posts on local FB groups and from friends/family who live nearby and they have gardens much further along. I'm just going to keep blaming the lovely dirt I got, at least for anything not related to me transplanting the tomatoes too soon. DrBouvenstein fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Jun 1, 2020 |
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Jun 1, 2020 14:26
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You may want to pull those radishes if they're at +30 days. They might start to get woody and tasteless if you leave them, regardless of size. A lot of homegrown stuff ends up smaller then commercial, because they fertilize to hell and back. If it starts getting really hot, they'll bolt and REALLY not taste good (but hey, free seeds) Betty tiny and tasty then big and bleh. You can also cook the greens. I was disheartened by the lack of progress my stuff has been making, but a local garden YouTuber just showed his garden and his tomatoes and peppers are tiiiiny. He has cold frames too, but this summer has been a very cool rough start. I might just restart my peppers and hack back the cold injured ones. I have 3 weeks before I leave on a 2 week trip where a neighbor will be watering, do you think they'll make it? Suspect Bucket fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Jun 1, 2020 |
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Jun 1, 2020 14:40
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Jan posted:I could use a second opinion: Let it live. Once it gets warm and some sun you'd be surprised at how much it'll grow and produce again. I've overwintered peppers before and consistently get 2 -3 pepper harvest out of them before they die.
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Jun 1, 2020 15:08
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I’d like to find out more information about my soil and monitor it to figure out what I can do to better water and fertilize stuff. I was looking at this soil tester which seems pretty decent, but I was wondering if there were any decent connected devices that would chart out conditions or send notifications or something? I saw the Xiaomi sensor but it seems to have a lot of issues judging by the reviews. Is there anything better y’all are using or would recommend?
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Jun 1, 2020 15:08
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Yo, anybody want to give me some ideas on why my cherry tomato plants suck this year? I transplanted it two weeks ago. Container is a big raised bed thing that sit off the ground. Potting soil is new as of this year. Leaved are light green and it hasn't really grown at all since I've transplanted it. I've fertilized it and mulched it over with dried grass. I'm having the same issue with two other tomato plants as well. Edit: Fixed my link! bengy81 fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Jun 1, 2020 |
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Jun 1, 2020 15:14
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OSU_Matthew posted:I’d like to find out more information about my soil and monitor it to figure out what I can do to better water and fertilize stuff. I was looking at this soil tester which seems pretty decent, but I was wondering if there were any decent connected devices that would chart out conditions or send notifications or something? I saw the Xiaomi sensor but it seems to have a lot of issues judging by the reviews. Is there anything better y’all are using or would recommend?
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Jun 1, 2020 15:15
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bengy81 posted:Yo, anybody want to give me some ideas on why my cherry tomato plants suck this year? You're using BBCode, but the actual URL is for the direct link. It's dumb that the BBcode software can't auto-parse the links, but that's life. You have to change the URL to this in the [IMG] tag: https://i.imgur.com/L81SwyB.png Add "i." to the front, and ".png" to the end. Putting the above into the IMG taqg, it'll work: If you use Imgur on desktop, it gives options to directly copy the BBCode link. After you upload, h\over over the image and click the three dots and then choose "get share links" and the BBCode is listed there:  
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Jun 1, 2020 15:33
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DrBouvenstein posted:You're using BBCode, but the actual URL is for the direct link. Thanks, been a minute since i've posted an imgur link!
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Jun 1, 2020 15:39
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DrBouvenstein posted:I'm still annoyed that almost nothing is happening in my garden. Seedlings I transplanted now over two weeks ago are still the same size, not dying, but not growing. My peas and beans have stalled a lot, and my radishes (which are supposed to be a "quick" variety that is ready in like 30 days) and still no where near ready to harvest...I took a peak at the tops of the roots and they're still maybe only 1/4" around, not even close to the ~1" they should be around this time. Alright, I'm an idiot, gonna chalk this up to poor planning and garden placement. Here is one of my beds a little past 10 AM:  (Please ignore the lovely pea "trellis" from twine...poor experiment and I'm going to replace it.) That's a lot of shade. Here's where Mr.Sun is relative to my tree:  Won't really shine on that garden until it hits the read area, maybe a couple hours from now? My own dumb fault...when planning the location, I did accurately take into account where tree was...but that was in April...the sun moved (ok, the Earth moved/tilted) and so now the tree blocks the sun all morning. gently caress...nothing I can do now. I don't think it's remotely possible to trim that tree, either.
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Jun 1, 2020 15:44
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Brutal^Neon Noodle posted:They say if you live in a cool climate that you should plant your garlic in autumn and let it sit in the ground over the winter, so maybe it’s coming up now? That's more than come up by now, here's mine I put in last fall. ~150 in that bed right now 
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Jun 1, 2020 15:49
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It's not 150 but I randomly threw some leftover grocery store cloves in a pot sometime last year (no idea even when) and I noticed recently they look done. Definitely doing more now that I know it's that easy (you can see I barely even weeded it) Picture perfect  And tasty! 
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Jun 1, 2020 16:03
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I'm trying some variation of lasagna gardening where, because our soil isnt bad but IS full of weeds, I mixed in some compost and covered with cardboard and some newspaper for the edges. Then I used a drywall knife to cut openings for tomatoes. I still need to get mulch to top it off. And hey the spaghetti squash I planted less than two months ago finally has flowers!  Here's a pic from a couple weeks ago when I tied rope around the tree to use as a little support.  I have four other spaghetti squash plants that were stagnating but when I put them in better light, they did well, so I'll probably be drowning in spaghetti squashes in the fall.
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Jun 1, 2020 21:38
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My daughter and I made a bending jig for EMT row hoops: Work pretty well. I also cut 2 foot pieces of rebar to stake them in the ground.  Not really feeling motivated to start installing them right now. That sounds like a tomorrow thing.
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Jun 1, 2020 23:13
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mischief posted:Some snakes, too. I never have my phone with me when I see my black rat snake buddy. The last time it nearly gave me a heart attack I'd estimate him around 10 feet long. Anyway, for no particular reason have some photos of some beneficial guests to a backyard garden. Here's a Peucetia viridans or green lynx spider. We get at least one of these guys in the basil every year. Although this one isn't a guy, it was a lady spider guarding her egg sac (not visible, under the leaf). The fact that she's that yellow in the abdomen means it's late in the season:  And here's a harvestman, one of several things known as a daddy longlegs. These guys are arachnids like spiders but lack venom (despite what you might have heard in elementary school) and silk. They're omnivorous but won't damage plants and will prey on many insects that will (aphids, various larvae, mites, and so on): 
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Jun 2, 2020 11:41
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Motronic posted:My daughter and I made a bending jig for EMT row hoops: Slick, gotta love jigs for exactly that kind of job
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Jun 2, 2020 16:13
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Yesterday, I put up nets around my corn and planted my corn for the fourth dang time Come out in the morning to find that a bird managed to get in through a gap between several pieces of netting. Okay, alright, that's on me. I replace a couple of plots and grab my hose and start watering the rest of my garden, with the intent of adding some zipties and rope to seal it up better when I'm done While I'm thinning out some extra beans that have just sprouted, a sparrow manages to get inside the netting and then loving get stuck in the netting So I guess instead of a bed of corn I just have a birdcage now DrBouvenstein posted:Alright, I'm an idiot, gonna chalk this up to poor planning and garden placement. Similar thing going on with some of my bigger beds getting shaded out by my house starting at like 2pm. Sucks.
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Jun 2, 2020 18:14
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Anyone got experience with young onion sprouts? The ones I have seem healthy, but one at a time a single leaf blade seems to just die and fall over and pretty much rot off over a weeks time, other new shoots keep coming up, but at the same time one always seems to be on its way out.
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Jun 2, 2020 21:34
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