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Suspect Bucket posted:One big one in the morning, then a second smaller one after I've had coffee.  Thanks for the fertilizer feedback. I potted mine with bone and blood meal, put a little bit of fertilizer on them today. I've been pinching off buds for the last few weeks, how much longer should I pinch them off for? How big do you let them fruit? I'm in Northern Colorado, so I've had mine outside in large pots since Mother's day, and I started them all in February. It's been pretty warm this week, like low 90's and they are really loving the heat.
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Jun 6, 2020 21:58
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Yeah, bone meal is fine, but I actually use Blood meal. I constantly get them confused. N for early, P2O5 for later. K2O for both in less quantity. Now I’m hoping I used the right ones when making the blend this year for early.
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Jun 6, 2020 22:13
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Ok, so now that there's some thunder and lightning going on I can't do any more yard work, so it's time for some pictures. And no, this isn't a crosspost from the plant thread, I'm talking about trees and flowers there. Raised beds!  First off, we have banana peppers and habenaros (the smaller ones). I'll add some cilantro seeds when it finally stop pouring down rain. By the way, do pepper plants need to be pinched? Either in terms of early flowers or the tops of the main stems?  Next we've got the JV tomato squad with some sweet and dark opal basil going on. The large green posts are for a weave trellis that I was working on before I heard thunder that will take care of the peppers as well. And yeah, I need to prune the heck out of the lower leaves of those tomatoes. I've got some oregano seeds planted as well, so I'm just waiting for those to germinate. Or I'll cheat and buy starts because lots of herbs are a pain in the rear end.  Here we've got snap peas, mixed carrots and green onions. That's just a chicken wire trellis because it was something inexpensive I could get delivered to the back of my car without putting folks in danger. I need to plant some more green onions, now that I think about it. Maybe stick some garlic cloves in the ground because gently caress it, why not? Oh, and those single sunflowers in the corner are volunteers and who doesn't love sunflowers?  Finally we have some mixed lettuce. Real exciting poo poo right here, but gently caress it I need to eat better so here goes nothing. That upper empty square will be turned into two mounds for watermelon and cantaloupe, with the vines wandering over into the otherwise useless lawn. If that works out once the lettuce is done I'll throw in some pumpkins. I know it's not optimal, but gently caress it, it's better than just having a lawn. 
Solkanar512 fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jun 7, 2020 |
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Jun 6, 2020 23:26
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Solkanar512 posted:First off, we have banana peppers and habenaros (the smaller ones). I'll add some cilantro seeds when it finally stop pouring down rain. By the way, do pepper plants need to be pinched? Either in terms of early flowers or the tops of the main stems? Very nice looking garden. Peppers can be topped, but you don't need to do it. Topping them can help them get bushier which can help with yields for some varieties of pepper. I like to top the habs but I've not done banana peppers. Some people like to pinch early flowers, but I've never seen the point. The ones that come too early have always just fell off before the plant was big enough to produce fruit. If those are regular orange habs, I would top and just leave the flowers alone. By August you should be swimming in them. Looking at the banana peppers I might take the flowers, but they're a little leggy, so next year I'd top them when they start getting that way. It's probably okay to do it now, but it's likely getting toward being late to do it for those plants. They have enough time to bounce back still at least.
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Jun 6, 2020 23:36
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Finally bought a rainbarrel adapter kit for 55 gallon drum I bought awhile back, finally going to set up a collection system and I’m excited!
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Jun 7, 2020 04:39
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LogisticEarth posted:I build rain barrels with volunteers and we use toilet flanges with a bit of mesh screen attached to the bottom with a hose clamp. install the flange in the top of the barrel. Then just position the spout over the flange. Easy to clean out leaves and debris, while keeping the hole from turning into a mosquito access point. I hadn't thought/seen the toilet flange idea! I may do that. I didn't like a lot of the kinda just open or hard to clean connections I'd seen, so that seems like a good solution! Thanks! Pinus Porcus fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Jun 7, 2020 |
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Jun 7, 2020 06:25
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Finally transplanted my pepper plants. They did get a little bigger than the tomatoes in the starter cells and had more roots to them, and a day later there's not a sign of wilting or "sad" looking ones, so I think they'll be ok. They're still tiny, so we'll see if they manage to grow in time. I've been using some fertilizer, too (noty too much, cause I assume that's bad as well.) My transplanted tomatoes are finally growing a little bit, but not much. Thankfully, the starters I bought are way ahead of them, so maybe I'll get like 2 crops of tomatoes...one in July from the starters I bought, and 1 in August from the ones I started myself? Also got my first real radish yesterday:  None of the others, as far as I can tell, are this big. Most are still about the 1/2" wide territory for my regular red radishes, and my watermelon radishes are still WAY behind and most are only 1/4" wide, maybe 1 or 2 are 1/2"/ I noticed one of my container potatoes has some very slight yellowing on a few leaves:  You can see the center of some leaves just a tad yellow. Is that anything to be concerned about?
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Jun 8, 2020 13:49
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1 - Should I pinch blossoms on my indeterminate tomatoes this early in the season? They're like 12-15 inches tall right now. 2 - Why the heck have my peppers stalled out since transplant? They have big nice containers to live in with nutrient-rich soil and they;re just hanging out doing loving nothing for like 3 weeks now.
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Jun 8, 2020 14:56
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I only bother with pruning tomatoes. If they want to fruit, I let them. Has it been under 70F for the peppers? They like it hot. Wait a little, they’re still growing roots.
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Jun 8, 2020 16:35
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Jhet posted:I only bother with pruning tomatoes. If they want to fruit, I let them. It gets under 70 at night, yeah. I'll be patient, then.
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Jun 8, 2020 17:40
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DrBouvenstein posted:I noticed one of my container potatoes has some very slight yellowing on a few leaves: Looks like a healthy plant to me, and not spotty or patchy like a blight would look. Potatoes always turn yellow before the surface plant dies off (as it should) at the end of the growing season. Depending on where you are and how long ago you planted them it's probably too early for that though? If nothing else it could be water-stress, maybe check that they aren't getting significantly under- or over-watered? They're generally pretty tough though and I wouldn't be worried with potatoes looking like yours.
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Jun 8, 2020 19:38
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I need more carbon in my compost, and I'd like to just use the cardboard boxes I get in the mail. Since I have a tumbler composter I built a few years ago, I can't just do the lasagna method, but need to shred the boxes up. Does anyone have any heavy duty shredder suggestions for cardboard? Seems like something that'd be well suited for power tools like a wood chipper or something, which might be more robust than a regular crosscut shredder and probably in the same price range.
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Jun 8, 2020 23:34
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Collapse boxes, put in pile, attack with chainsaw
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Jun 9, 2020 00:31
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Unless you need to make a commercial level of compost I'd just take the most fun cutting tool you own and go to town. Sawzall?
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Jun 9, 2020 12:12
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How much cardboard are we talking here? I would think you could just saw it, boxcutter it, or experiment with soaking the whole mess then just raking it with whichever garden implement until it falls apart
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Jun 9, 2020 12:43
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Maybe that’s the right answer, soak it and attack it with a pitchfork... I’ll experiment. I just wanted to be able to balance the ratio in my regular compost while putting to use all the boxes from the random poo poo I buy, especially since I don’t have great faith in our single stream recycling program to not just landfill it. Do you guys compost pizza boxes? Or is the cheese and grease bad for it?
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Jun 9, 2020 14:08
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OSU_Matthew posted:Do you guys compost pizza boxes? Or is the cheese and grease bad for it? Everything I've read/seen says that a home compost pile/bin is not capable of breaking down fat, grease, or animal by-products. HOWEVER, I think that's mostly in regards to large amounts, I imagine the small amount of grease left on a pizza box is probably ok, so long as you aren't putting in multiple greasy boxes a week or something.
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Jun 9, 2020 14:31
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Don't worry your friendly neighborhood rat will come and take away any edible non compostables you put in there.
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Jun 9, 2020 14:39
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I've seen videos of people breaking paper/cardboard down with a weed whacker
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Jun 9, 2020 15:14
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Clearly the answer is a $700 gas powered wood chipper/mulcher. Maybe a box cutter is going to be better. If it gets damp you can just pull it apart after a bit. A box cutter into strips will probably help with turnover better, just pull off the tape. I’d start with a box cutter, because trying to use a fork with nothing to provide an opposite force to help pull the boxes apart has been more annoying than pulling them apart dry.
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Jun 9, 2020 16:09
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What about just tearing the boxes into pieces, putting them in a bucket of water, adding some cellulase, and waiting until it can be run through a paddle mixer?
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Jun 9, 2020 16:21
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^^ these are some pretty interesting DIY fixes CancerCakes posted:Don't worry your friendly neighborhood rat will come and take away any edible non compostables you put in there. Yea this and you dont want it Jhet posted:Maybe a box cutter is going to be better. If it gets damp you can just pull it apart after a bit. A box cutter into strips will probably help with turnover better, just pull off the tape. I’d start with a box cutter, because trying to use a fork with nothing to provide an opposite force to help pull the boxes apart has been more annoying than pulling them apart dry. Do this and then put something below so your blade lasts a little longer than cutting on concrete or something
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Jun 9, 2020 16:37
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Cucumbers were one of the only two things doing well this year until a few days ago. All of a sudden their leaves started turning yellow and dying.  Is there anything I can do to save them?
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Jun 9, 2020 16:55
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LLSix posted:Cucumbers were one of the only two things doing well this year until a few days ago. All of a sudden their leaves started turning yellow and dying.
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Jun 9, 2020 19:28
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Well, finally made it to a garden center and they’re pretty picked over for veg. Lots of melons and squash left, but they had some sad looking peppers. I’m really happy that so many people are gardening, but I’m also really sad because I’m definitely starting late. Time to pull out some really short season seeds and hope for the best. At least I’ll have greens this year.
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Jun 9, 2020 19:34
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Yard Long is a-growin' June 2nd  June 6th  June 8th  June 9th 
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Jun 9, 2020 19:58
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I just moved into a new place and have a small area I'm allowed to garden in. It faces east and is bordered by lawn, I'm renting so can't make too heavy of modifications. Currently occupied by rosemary, cabbages, mint and then nothing behind the giant bushes. My plan is to tear out the mint in the middle, and at least one of the cabbages, and plant tomatoes, maybe eggplants or squash. Not sure if anything would survive behind the bush on the right with less sun. I'm going to visit an Armstrong garden or something similar, but would love suggestions for what would work well in this space. 
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Jun 9, 2020 20:52
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Dukket posted:Yard Long is a-growin' Yours are much further along than mine, but I did build a neat trellis for them (bamboo) 
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Jun 9, 2020 21:07
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Dukket posted:Yard Long is a-growin' And another greens update: all of the Shanghai bok choy has bolted, and about half of the various mustard greens have. Same with the gai lan and yu choy. For whatever it's worth the stuff Kitazawa calls Chinese Pak Choi still hasn't bolted and is still producing nice, dense leaves.
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Jun 9, 2020 21:07
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Lookin for some tomato and tomatillo help, got 6 of each. Fruit is coming along just fine, but noticed some weirdness in the leaves. The tomatillo leaves all have a bunch of holes in them, and the tomatoes are starting to develop holes in the leaves. It's worse on older leaves and growth. Pictures of leaves:     A couple tomato plants have a fair amount of these guys on them, but they seem too big to be spider mites (i think?) and there's no webbing anywhere i can see. Not sure if they're a pest or not, might spray with neem oil just in case:   any help would be appreciated, my plants are in pain 
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Jun 9, 2020 21:36
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sugar free jazz posted:Lookin for some tomato and tomatillo help, got 6 of each. Fruit is coming along just fine, but noticed some weirdness in the leaves. The tomatillo leaves all have a bunch of holes in them, and the tomatoes are starting to develop holes in the leaves. It's worse on older leaves and growth.
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Jun 9, 2020 22:22
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Some days I think it would be cool be a farmer and then a big storm comes and fucks poo poo up and I am really glad I'm not a farmer. Tropical storm was not kind to my garden. Sunflowers blown over:  Not entirely storm related, but tomatoes are starting to look generally raggedy this time of year: They're probably done setting fruit at this point, so maybe they've got a few more weeks to live.  It looks like I lost my super sweet 100 to the same bacterial wilt that got my other cherry tomato. Guess I'm gonna learn to graft tomatoes this summer! Should have pulled a lot more unripe fruit before the storm to save them from this fate:  There were also some yellow squash that grew like a foot long in 2 days of rain. Still have a fuckton of eggplants. All my beans desperately need trellising, and I hope to get to that this week. Ate the last of the chard last week-time to plant okra there. Maybe I beat off the squash vine borers, or at least the first wave? I need to fertilize them and mound some more dirt over the borer damage.
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Jun 10, 2020 00:18
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LLSix posted:Cucumbers were one of the only two things doing well this year until a few days ago. All of a sudden their leaves started turning yellow and dying. Looking at the amount of water in these pics, I’d be liable to suspect overwatering—yellowing is a classic sign of oxygen deprived roots. During summer , ~1.5-2” a week is a good amount to water. For reference, I just recently measured my soaker hose output by putting a small plastic tray underneath and seeing how long it takes to drip an inch, and adjusting my timer based on that. Apologies if you already know all that, but never hurts to start troubleshooting at the beginning  E: I recently bought one of these moisture meters and have found it to be helpful in establishing baselines Catatron Prime fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jun 10, 2020 |
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Jun 10, 2020 00:42
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Everyone's gardens are looking fantastic. I managed to get everything except 5 dwarf marigolds planted today and a long box that I'm putting in a shady spot for some greens or something. I haven't decided which of my seeds will get put there and hopefully grow before it starts being nothing but hot. All the veg and about half the annuals were already marked down, so we'll see how it works out. Everything except some 3-4 month old peppers that were supposed to live and die in the container they were selling them in. In total, I managed to get 2 habenero, 2 jalepeno, 2 "hot" cayenne (seriously huh), and a phenotype-less thai pepper plant that is also already a foot tall. They had very few tomatoes, mostly hybrids and looking sad, but I snagged a grape tomato plant that looked the best. I also planted the 4 bell peppers that I started ages ago and they now have a forever home (for the year), and the basil is looking happy too. I'm not sure I did a great job hardening them off, but it's shady where I put them to start, so it should be okay. It's not cold at night anyway. Seeds were 80% empty, and they had one lonely packet of marjoram left and that's all for herbs. That was a surprise. Anyway, I did order seeds last week from a place that primarily does hot peppers. Here's some of the haul: Aji Charapita, Chiltepin Tucson, Trinidad Scorpion Moruga Red, Bhut jolokia Strain II, Trinidad Scorpion Moruga Caramel, Jays Red Ghost Scorpion, Guatemalan Chiltepin, and a half dozen others too. Plan is to start a bunch of these this year inside and get them put out to get a decent amount of size. Then I'll just overwinter them all under lights and on a big temp controlled pad. No, I'm not crazy, why do you ask?
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Jun 10, 2020 00:47
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OSU_Matthew posted:I just recently measured my soaker hose output by putting a small plastic tray underneath and seeing how long it takes to drip an inch, and adjusting my timer based on that. Dammit, how did I forget about that. I'm using a sprinkler in the new garden and I'm like.....yeah, looks like enough I guess. I TOTALLY forgot about this. THANK. YOU.
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Jun 10, 2020 01:48
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OSU_Matthew posted:Looking at the amount of water in these pics, I’d be liable to suspect overwatering—yellowing is a classic sign of oxygen deprived roots. I did not know that. Thank you. I was in the process of watering them when I took that picture. Daytime temps were in the high 90s all last week here in Houston and the soil has been getting very dry. I’ve been worried that watering for ~5 minutes a day is too little water, the soil has felt very dry lately. Do you think I should be watering them less?
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Jun 10, 2020 02:43
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I've just moved in to a new apartment. I've got a small southern facing deck 7'x9'. I'd love to start a container garden. I'm in Knoxville TN so I think that puts me in zone 7? Is there anything that could fit in that space that it's not too late in the year to start?
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Jun 10, 2020 03:08
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Anything quick. Lettuce, container type tomatoes if you find a healthy start, bush beans, greens.
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Jun 10, 2020 03:41
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Dreqqus posted:I've just moved in to a new apartment. I've got a small southern facing deck 7'x9'. I'd love to start a container garden. I'm in Knoxville TN so I think that puts me in zone 7? Is there anything that could fit in that space that it's not too late in the year to start? Plenty of time for some cherry tomato and summer squash / zucchini starts. Not an ideal time to start lettuces or leafy herbs from seed, but if you keep them shaded they'll be fine.
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Jun 10, 2020 03:45
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LLSix posted:I did not know that. Thank you. I am not an expert, and up until this year I’ve just relied on watering by eye. I finally did some researching to do a better job, and the consensus I’m seeing is: -Water early in the morning, so the soil can absorb everything and not evaporate. Even better if you have a light mulch like straw to reduce evaporation in the soil -Spring you should do ~1” of water a week, summer ~1.5-2” of water a week. Measure your watering with something like a tuna can or leftover container. 1 or 2 deep waterings a week are better to encourage strong root growth. -Soaker hoses are cheap and effective at dripping water to the roots, encouraging better root growth. Timers are cheap and you can schedule your watering easily with them. So far I’m not a fan of the Orbit B-Hyve and have had a bunch of connectivity issues. May still buy the 20$ timer if I doesn’t get better. -I’ve been checking soil conditions with a cheap moisture/ph/ light meter I linked above. I also took the thread’s advice and ordered a soil test kit from my local extension for a detailed breakdown because I’m super curious and love geeking out on this. We’ll see if I do better this year! Oh, on the compost front — I got a ton of cardboard shredded with a heavy duty shredder today, but it’s still a chore to prep everything and run through. Going to try the bucket soak and paddle mixer method next, and I really like the weedeater idea mentioned earlier! Will report back... but in the meantime, my compost is definitely much happier to have the carbon!  Also hotboxing some plants and weeds I cleaned up in the garden beds out front in black plastic bags to kill them and any germinating weeds, and will be adding those in hopefully in a few days!
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Jun 10, 2020 06:13
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