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goodness posted:Single buckets this year as I didn't want to invest too much for my first try. I couldn't find any local grocers that had free 5 gallons I got a bunch of free 11l pails from an ice cream shop!
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Jun 17, 2020 01:45
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We can get 5 gallon buckets cheap as poo poo from local dairies. Most of mine are from Chinese restaurants - soy sauce goes fast.
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Jun 17, 2020 01:49
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goodness posted:The best spot in my yard for sun is along the fenceline, and I'm trying to think of a solution for a shallow, long, waterproof trough that I can bottom water 5-gallon buckets from. With buckets, you could just drill holes an inch or so from the bottom so there’s a reservoir in each one. I drilled holes in the bottom of mine, but I think that should work? YMMV, but you should only need to water twice a week. I just lined up all my buckets next to one another and ran a soaker hose through all the handles, off a Y coupler from the garden. That seems to be working well so far, and just waters 1” twice a week, off my timer.
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Jun 17, 2020 04:09
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If you need to make an arbitrarily sized trough in the future lay out some sleepers as a perimeter and staple thick plastic sheeting over/in it. Not pretty but whatever size/shape you need for cheap.
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Jun 17, 2020 10:23
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goodness posted:The best spot in my yard for sun is along the fenceline, and I'm trying to think of a solution for a shallow, long, waterproof trough that I can bottom water 5-gallon buckets from.
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Jun 17, 2020 13:36
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So trying square foot gardening this year in a raised bed and so far so good. We cant hardly keep up with all of the romaine and butter lettuce the garden has been producing. And we've started to harvest some chives as well. My question is how many people have used this method with tomato plants? I planted some purple cherokee indeterminates and I feel like they're going to get to big and crowd each other out. They already seem to be and they are just now starting to flower and fruit. Do I need to drastically cut them back or should I just let them get crazy and try to harvest whatever I can get? I have been pruning suckers at least.
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Jun 17, 2020 13:52
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:IDk if mosquitoes are a problem in your area, but that thing looks like a giant mosquito breeding puddle to me. The picture is a bit deceiving. It would only have standing water in it for an hour or two while the pots soaked, most of the time would be dry. Oh and I am in zone 5b at 5600ft, and very dry. CommonShore posted:I got a bunch of free 11l pails from an ice cream shop! There is one down the street! Ill ask. OSU_Matthew posted:YMMV, but you should only need to water twice a week. That is way less than I thought I would need to water. It is really dry out here in Colorado so I've been having to water the solo cups they are currently in every day.  Wrinkly leaves, calcium deficiency?
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Jun 17, 2020 14:35
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goodness posted:
I dont know if thats as big a deal for pepper plants. Maybe a bit dry, but my peppers at least seem to prefer being a little on the drier side.
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Jun 17, 2020 14:42
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When should I be harvesting kale? I have a ton of plants and I'm not sure if I should be just plucking leaves as I go or if it's better to wait until each plant is in a big bunch and snip the entire thing at once. For reference, this is about what my plants look like now.  Outer leaves are about the size my hand with the fingers outstretched.  Entire plant is about yea big. A few summers ago we grew romaine and while we grabbed leaves off as needed, they eventually bolted and most of it became inedible. Hoping to avoid that if it's an issue. First time I'm trying any greens other than lettuce.
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Jun 17, 2020 15:25
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goodness posted:The picture is a bit deceiving. It would only have standing water in it for an hour or two while the pots soaked, most of the time would be dry. I was thinking something like this:  With PVC pipe and pipe fittings, spouts hooked up to holes drilled in the bottom part of the bucket (like the homebrewing buckets with taps in them)
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Jun 17, 2020 15:36
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Quiet Feet posted:When should I be harvesting kale? I have a ton of plants and I'm not sure if I should be just plucking leaves as I go or if it's better to wait until each plant is in a big bunch and snip the entire thing at once. All those leafy greens can be munched on regularly, itll grow back. Snip the big outer leaves and then cut out the big rib in the middle of each and you're set. Watch out for spikes
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Jun 17, 2020 15:51
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BaseballPCHiker posted:So trying square foot gardening this year in a raised bed and so far so good. We cant hardly keep up with all of the romaine and butter lettuce the garden has been producing. And we've started to harvest some chives as well. What do you have them supported on? Tomato cages / trellises / something else? Proper support makes all the difference in my opinion - making sure each branch getting enough sun and air lets them produce more reliably. Tomatoes can be pretty crowded, although that makes fungal problems more likely to spread. But usually I end up giving mine 2' x 2' each, which in my 4x8 bed I can do two rows of four, and towards the end of the season it's a bit hard to tell where one ends and another begins, I've never noticed the crowding to cause diminished production. I use large (5' tall) tomato cages and initially try to keep each branch supported inside the cage, pruning the ones that I can't. Or at least I try to, towards July things just go a bit nuts. By that point I'm usually picking a few tomatoes per day, so I'm less obsessed with max production, as that's all I can reliably eat. They also tend to grow less as they start to produce fruit. Mine have gone crazy in the last couple of weeks, reaching probably 2/3 of their final height, but have started to set fruit and will no doubt slow down. Indeterminates can handle a ton of pruning. If you like a youtube rabbit hole to go down, look into how some people train indeterminates into massive vining structures. There are a lot of people who just focus on tomato production that have made me realize that I'm simply not thinking big enough when it comes to tomatoes.
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Jun 17, 2020 17:24
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Neon Noodle posted:I was thinking something like this: Fancy. I like this idea, and I have a lot of pvc fittings from when I had a saltwater aquarium. Thanks for the idea.
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Jun 17, 2020 21:52
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Anyone have suggestions on a composter? My HOA has rules against open-air composting which is what I have done in the past so I'm thinking of getting one of those rotating barrel things from amazon.
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Jun 18, 2020 17:59
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Is there an organic pesticide that will kill the stink bugs on my tomatoes?
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Jun 18, 2020 18:07
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Spinosad will kill them but will also kill pollinators and other beneficial critters.
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Jun 18, 2020 18:27
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LLSix posted:Anyone have suggestions on a composter? My HOA has rules against open-air composting which is what I have done in the past so I'm thinking of getting one of those rotating barrel things from amazon. I have two black trash bins from home depot. One is the finishing compost, one is the current 'dump stuff in' bin. Works great, no smell
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Jun 19, 2020 01:16
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Worms are great. Get red wigglers. Don’t get them from Uncle Jerry’s necessarily, when I ordered some they went nuts on arrival and started to make a break for it. It turned out a lot of them were a different species that doesn’t like being moved around.
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Jun 19, 2020 01:50
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LLSix posted:Anyone have suggestions on a composter? My HOA has rules against open-air composting which is what I have done in the past so I'm thinking of getting one of those rotating barrel things from amazon. Here’s the one I built a few years ago from a 20$ Craigslist blue HDPE Drum:  I think I spent another 20-30 on hinges, L brackets to mix the contents, pvc pipe, and lumber for the frame. Wound up being more expensive than I’d anticipated, but it rolls easy and has held up better than I expected. If I were to do things over I’d probably just do a lasagna method and alternate cardboard and greens in a static pile, maybe with a 10$ rubbermaid bin or drilled trash can or something. Way less maintenance, and I could just add sheets of cardboard that way (instead of processing them down). Then you just hit it with a pitchfork every so often. Which, speaking of, I only recently learned that most cardboard is compostable—boxes in North America use soy based inks. So as long as you strip off the tape and labels, it’s a decent source of carbon in my otherwise nitrogen rich compost.
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Jun 19, 2020 03:20
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 I forgot what gourd this is but I love it. It's growing very pretty.  Corn is looking big! This is my first garden. It's wild to me that you can take a potato or a corn kernel and plant it and it makes more of itself. Potato flowers are coming up   Leaves on the butternut squash still look like they're getting chewed up but it's growing fast anyway.
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Jun 21, 2020 20:09
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I caved and bought buckets. Doing single this year, and either double bucket next or try out hydroponics. 
goodness fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Jun 22, 2020 |
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Jun 21, 2020 23:47
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The adirondack blues are shedding their flowers. Getting closer to potato harvest! Also we will never run out of mint.
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Jun 22, 2020 01:14
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I harvested a bunch of spinach I planted as baby spinach, as I don't care for most mature spinaches, and maybe 20-25% of the leaves loved like this:  I cut out all the leaves with that white on them... Anything else I should do to prevent it from coming back?
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Jun 22, 2020 01:22
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What's goin on with my bell peppers? It's been dry and hot and I haven't been great about watering regularly. Some of my squash have gotten blossom end rot from the irregular water-is this the same thing or something else entirely? 
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Jun 22, 2020 01:34
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Very happy with this corner of my rooftop. Peppers (birds eye and bell), lemon grass, squash, eggplant, amaranth, water spinach, and tomatoes. In the back there is the tree that popped out of an acorn I had forgotten about a couple years ago. As I mentioned a bit back I was worried about my container tomatoes but they have mostly recovered and the ones that were too far gone I was able to replace with suckers I had rooted. Also pleased with the amaranth because I wanted to grow this variety again this year but ran out of seed; thankfully it popped up all over the place like weeds. 
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Jun 22, 2020 02:49
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This year I completely reorganised my raised beds, moving 90% of the soil and sieving most of it, pulling every potato I found out.  Repeat, I planted no potatoes and removed every one I found.
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Jun 22, 2020 08:30
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goodness posted:I caved and bought buckets. Doing single this year, and either double bucket next or try out hydroponics. What does "double bucket" refer to in this context? Twice as high but with the same diameter? Just a second bucket so the first one doesn't feel lonely??
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Jun 22, 2020 09:43
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GANDHITRON posted:What does "double bucket" refer to in this context? Twice as high but with the same diameter? Just a second bucket so the first one doesn't feel lonely?? I imagine it's drilling holes in the bottom of half the buckets and nesting those in the undrilled buckets, then filling the undrilled buckets with water.
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Jun 22, 2020 14:50
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Congrats on your permanent potato garden!
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Jun 22, 2020 16:33
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showbiz_liz posted:I imagine it's drilling holes in the bottom of half the buckets and nesting those in the undrilled buckets, then filling the undrilled buckets with water. Yep, something like this. It makes it easy to bottom water as well as adding a hydroponic like function once the roots go down into it. I've been seeing some incredible root pictures from kratky/dwc buckets which are really tempting me. 
goodness fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jun 22, 2020 |
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Jun 22, 2020 17:39
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goodness posted:I've been seeing some incredible root pictures from kratky/dwc buckets which are really tempting me.  i guessWe decided to try a bunch of kratky stuff this spring and its been an experience. We started with bibb & red lettuceses--plus some oregano, basil & parsley---in mason jars, but they lived sad lives because I hosed the nutrient mixture up and didn't add any salt. Also, they might have boiled in the sun a few times after I brought them outside plus the cheapo LED grow-lamp I bought might not have helped anything either but who really knows? I don't think I was a huge factor in any of this tbh since its just the cosmos doing it's thing and all that. Anyways here's the family in happier times before they got put out:  I figured we learned enough from the mason jars that we were ready for more, so we picked up 2 large heavy-duty totes from home depot and I turned one into a place for 4 pepper plants (2 jalopeno + 2 serrano) and the other into a container for 4 tomato plants (2 cherry + 2 roma). IIRC they hold 20 gallons of water each and probably should be kept clean of debris and shits while you're getting things setup and breaking your fragile, limp wrists making sinfully ugly cuts by using a whole saw on a job where a box-cutter would have sufficed:  We ended up setting them on some bricks, for additional aesthetics, after discovering I can shove cedar stakes into their convenient holes to use as a hobo-trellis;  Eventually we moved them into the full sun & quickly realized they might be too close together and are competing for light   Here they are as of this afternoon;  & their roots:  (a keen eye will notice i tried to get slick and find a way around using a net-cup on one of the tomatoes but I p much stunted it's growth b/c it couldn't oxygenate its roots enough so gently caress me for that i guess)  & their roots:  Oh and here is a basil that survived being neglected;  Both totes are really taking off at this point and soon we're going to need to build the trellis up further to accommodate. The tomatoes are especially crowded lol so I should probably get around to doing something about it soon. I have a journal of my failures somewhere so I can keep track of how terrible I am at this, as well as having a space for sketching more bad ideas out, so hopefully there is more to come. stone soup fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Jun 23, 2020 |
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Jun 22, 2020 23:48
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Found a little friend among the peas this morning.
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Jun 23, 2020 13:26
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Rad toad. We've got a disused pool in the backyard and don't want to pay to have it fixed, so right now it has several hundred tadpoles in it. Can't wait to be a froglord
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Jun 23, 2020 14:05
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Neon Noodle posted:Rad toad. We've got a disused pool in the backyard and don't want to pay to have it fixed, so right now it has several hundred tadpoles in it. For the love of your neighbors (and yourself) PLEASE tell me you put some mosquito poison in there? Not sure if tadpoles eat mosquito larvae, but if they do, probably not enough.
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Jun 23, 2020 15:47
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Wally Joyner posted:Welp time for me to I haven't heard about this, the goal is hydroponics and to avoid planting in beds? Any other benefits? Looks interesting
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Jun 23, 2020 15:53
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DrBouvenstein posted:For the love of your neighbors (and yourself) PLEASE tell me you put some mosquito poison in there? Yeah, I'm using dunks and they're effective so far  There are also tons of water striders, damselflies, dragonflies, backswimmers, boatmen, diving beetles, and other friends. Oh and a duck who visits once per day to take a bath. 
Neon Noodle fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Jun 23, 2020 |
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Jun 23, 2020 16:04
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Soaping my plants has done nothing to stop the aphid plague They've moved on from my tomatoes to my broccoli and my radishes Guess I'm gonna go to the greenhouse and see if I can get some ladybugs??
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Jun 23, 2020 16:04
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Today I learned that if you start messing with straw it gets loving everywhere. Makes my garden look pretty though.
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Jun 23, 2020 16:31
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STAC Goat posted:Today I learned that if you start messing with straw it gets loving everywhere. Tractor Supply did me dirty this year. I ordered a bale for pickup, and they sold me one apparently meant for livestock food, as soon as I broke it apart seed heads started blowing all over my yard, and now my garden is infest with whatever they sold me 
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Jun 23, 2020 16:56
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I just bought a packaged bale of "seeding straw" it at my Lowes this year for $10. Last year I used mulch to cut down on weeds/retain moisture and it helped but was kind of a mess and didn't break down fully over the winter and i just ultimately didn't like the experience. I remember people saying they used straw and it was cheaper so I thought I'd give it a try. And I think the color will make it easier to spot weeds that poke through or dirt that gets uncovered. It will probably introduce me to new problems of some kind but whatever. That's gardening.
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Jun 23, 2020 17:09
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