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Motronic posted:Nah, that will break them off. You need them to go up some. Can you explain the wheel/rim idea? Trying to picture it.
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Mar 21, 2021 00:53
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Bloody Cat Farm posted:Can you explain the wheel/rim idea? Trying to picture it. Good excuse to mspaint. 
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Mar 21, 2021 02:31
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Bloody Cat Farm posted:What are the chances that I can pull up these ancient rhododendrons? If I hook up a chain to them and pull with a truck, do you think I’ll be able to pull them out? Those are well known locally (PNW) for having a very solid taproot. Proceed accordingly.
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Mar 21, 2021 07:00
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Motronic posted:Good excuse to mspaint. Ah I get it. Thank you!! Solkanar512 posted:Those are well known locally (PNW) for having a very solid taproot. Proceed accordingly. Good to know. Hoping this will work. They’re so old I’m afraid the roots will be too hard to get out.
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Mar 21, 2021 14:16
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My basement tomato starts are like 2ft tall and starting to throw some flowers. I should probably just clip those off right? I was thinking about moving them outside in about 2 weeks maybe
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Mar 21, 2021 18:20
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silicone thrills posted:My basement tomato starts are like 2ft tall and starting to throw some flowers. I should probably just clip those off right? I was thinking about moving them outside in about 2 weeks maybe Yes. Definitely just pull them off if you don’t want them fruiting yet. Those are going to be productive early if it warms up soon and they stay happy. My tomatoes and peppers have been getting trips outside when it’s hitting 55-60 in the sunny afternoon. I’m excited for them to get in the ground. I neglected covering the radishes and greens I planted and they’ve refused to start because I got them in right at the end of that warm snap and now it’s frosty in the morning again.
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Mar 21, 2021 18:30
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Jhet posted:Yeah, they should be fine as those are supposed to be sun dried. They do germinate fairly quickly for peppers (5-10 days), so maybe you just grabbed some from a dud pepper. Let me know if you can’t get them to work and I can put seeds from my round of growing them for seed in the mail if you’re in the US. The ones I tested for germ all did fine, so hopefully everyone is having good luck with them coming up. I think I might have to take you up on that offer--I took more seeds from a couple other peppers, and tried both direct sowing and damp warm towel/bag germination, and nothing's showed up in almost a week now. At this rate it'll be late to plant if I do ever manage to get some to germinate, so I'd probably be safer off with yours.
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Mar 21, 2021 20:20
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I have a super basic question: we grow nothing, it's rocks in the back and front yard that my landlord put down over plastic years ago, and the plastic has rotted away so we get lots of weeds. I want to kill literally everything. We also have a 10 month old and a 2.5 year old, so we don't want to use 'bad for kids' weedkiller. I figure I'll spray when they go to daycare one day, is there any brand that's recommended or not terrible for children? Someone recommended I do salt and vinegar and dish soap. I tried it one year and used a lot of it, sprayed it all over the weeds. Some went brown, some died, most stayed green and liked it. I want to use real weed killer but don't want to poison my kids. They don't play in the back yard much but yeah, their room is next to the front yard and side alley where I'd spray.
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Mar 21, 2021 22:14
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Just use weed killer. If you're kids aren't out there making salad every night there will be almost no exposure. It's okay. High percentage glyphosphate is a perfectly acceptable start. I used a mix of it and imazapyr to knock back some very stubborn weeds around our tobacco barn last year and so far nobody has extra fingers or anything. Motronic is probably the thread expert on killing plants though.
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Mar 21, 2021 22:40
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Jan posted:I think I might have to take you up on that offer--I took more seeds from a couple other peppers, and tried both direct sowing and damp warm towel/bag germination, and nothing's showed up in almost a week now. At this rate it'll be late to plant if I do ever manage to get some to germinate, so I'd probably be safer off with yours. No problem. Send me your details via PM if you can, or let me know if you can’t and I’ll get you an email address you can send it.
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Mar 21, 2021 22:56
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Kind of torn on asking this here or in the mushroom picking thread but this is more gardening since i'd be "planting" but has anyone ever done mushroom plugs? I've got some huge chunks of dead maple logs that have been rotting for a few years and I was thinking about buying some oyster mushroom and lions mane plugs. It sounds too easy/too good to be true but I'm also not going to cry if I blow 15 bucks on 500 plugs and nothing comes of it. edit: fuggit. I bought 3 sets of mushroom plugs because they were 30% off on fungi perfecti if you bought 3. I'll report on my findings. silicone thrills fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Mar 21, 2021 |
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Mar 21, 2021 23:04
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There’s mushrooms in the horticulture thread right now too. I keep wanting to do them too, and I have a spot that might be perfect for them. A project for next year I think. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3951612&perpage=40&noseen=1&pagenumber=10
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Mar 21, 2021 23:33
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One Yard Revolution has an episode or two on growing mushrooms in the garden. I'll see if I can find it. I wish he would start making content again  I've started some celery and will probably get some other stuff going this week. Its been warm enough that my stawberries have started producing new growth.
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Mar 21, 2021 23:41
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Jhet posted:There’s mushrooms in the horticulture thread right now too. I keep wanting to do them too, and I have a spot that might be perfect for them. A project for next year I think. Thanks for the tip! Wine caps were on my list too so I cant wait to see how that other goons goes.
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Mar 21, 2021 23:43
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Another productive weekend. Not related to veggies/fruit I got a mixed Hosta pack in the mail in got them in the ground. I also got around to getting all of my columbines into the ground too. I bought the columbines from Sam's club about a month ago. Right when I saw them I bought them because I learned if you don't they'll sell out by next time you are in the store again. The hostas and Columbine were in great shape; strong root structures and no dead parts. I'm hoping every single one takes off and thrives this year. We also bought new blueberry bushes from Sam's club. The ones I bought from Lowes weren't looking great so I dug them up and replaced them. Probably a bit of overkill, but it's my money to burn so I did. All of my onions are doing great, and the shallots and garlic are doing great too. No activity from the strawberries, peas, or carrots yet. The real winner of the weekend was I got around to running my wire lines for my espalier apple tree and I got the bamboo structure that came with the tree off. It looks great. I'll have to think about getting a picture. One of my three ordered raised beds arrived and I put it together. The remaining two got shipped today so they should be here by weeks end. Which is rough for me because that means next weekend I'm digging them into place. I live on a hill and digging into the hill to level beds is a lot fo work. Of the three beds I aim to get one for Yukon potatoes, another for sweet potatoes, and the third for ginger. I bought some ginger from the store and put it into the cupboard to hopefully get it started growing. In my starting pots I've got my poblanos growing, and bell peppers are starting to come up. Also, some tomatoes and poppies are popping. The most exciting thing about my starters is my milkweed looks to be coming up. Milkweed seems to be so fickle to get going. I'm super pumped it looks like I'm getting 5/10 I attempted to start of the milkweed. The worst part of the weekend is it wasn't long enough and there's much more to do in the garden that will have to wait for next weekend.
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Mar 22, 2021 03:58
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Earth posted:We also bought new blueberry bushes from Sam's club. The ones I bought from Lowes weren't looking great so I dug them up and replaced them. Probably a bit of overkill, but it's my money to burn so I did. That's a lot of cool gardening stuff, but one question to make sure you end up happy. I didn't do this the first time and had to try again myself. What did the root structure on the blueberries you dug up look like? Did they have any or were they kind of just in the ball that they may have come in. Blueberries can be very particular about soil structure and pH, so if they were in just a ball, it's something you'll want to read up on before too long or you may be unhappy with the new ones too. Lots of peat moss mixed in to start (4-6" in the top 8"), maybe some sulphur based on your soil pH, and a nice 3" of bark mulch on top of that moss filled section. They will go on strike if you don't keep them happy, but once you get there they'll be really awesome. You'll be able to dig them up and replant them still now if they need more coddling.
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Mar 22, 2021 04:47
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silicone thrills posted:Thanks for the tip! Wine caps were on my list too so I cant wait to see how that other goons goes. Winecaps rule! We have ours growing in fruitwood/maple/alder chips under the blackberry hedge next to the road.  Bed's been going for 3 or 4 years now. We initially put down carboard over the turf, then layered spawn and woodchips lasagna-like. The bed gets watered in the summer and a new layer of chips once or twice a year. The mushrooms start flushing in late April and last through September, every 2 to 4 weeks. Some critter really likes eating them so we have to pick them small at a day or two otherwise they've got munch tracks all over them. The winecaps have also started popping up in the lawn away from the chip bed, but I figure as long as I can eat it it's not an invasive. We had less success with plugs in logs for Shiitake, a couple of varieties of Pleurotis/Angelwings, and Chicken of the Woods. (Less = none, zilch, zero, nada.) Based on that record, take anything I say about plug culture with a grain of salt. Advice for using plugs is to use wood cut fresh a few weeks before inoculating. The thinking is that live trees have anti-microbials in their system and you need to let them degrade out of the wood. Leave inoculation too long though and other fungi can colonize the log and out-compete your pet fungus. For the most part I did that but also tried plugging a couple of old stumps, one of which was definitely already colonized by wild fungus. Success rate was the same as when I followed instructions. I was deeply disappointed because I thought I'd finally found a use for cottonwood, a weed species that produces wood about as useful as wet paper for normal wood things. Could be I didn't stash the logs in a wet enough place. I might try again and either bury the ends of the logs in the stream bank or install a mister off the drip irrigation system. Or maybe go with spawn and the sterilized-chips-in-a-bag technique, but the logistics involved in boiling a garbage can's worth of chips might be a bit tricky. Jhet posted:That's a lot of cool gardening stuff, but one question to make sure you end up happy. I didn't do this the first time and had to try again myself. Good advice. We had exactly that happen with our blueberries. When we finally got around to checking the pH the soil had swung from it's original acid state to near neutral (6.8). Flowers of Sulphur is slow acting and took over a year to get the soil acid again. Once it did we went from a handful of berries to three large bags in the freezer + whatever got eaten out of hand.
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Mar 22, 2021 06:51
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Man, all this time I was concerned that I might accidentally over-fertilize my cucumbers, but I decided last week to dump in quite a bit more fertilizer than usual, since the plant seemed to be slowing down, and holy poo poo within days it just exploded in fat little fruit flowers. There are 8 fruits that have been pollinated, 6 more that should open their flowers tomorrow, and at least another dozen tiny ones growing in. 10/10 would attempt to kill my plant with nutrition again.  etc. We got some sprouting trays a while back and we are now drowning in tiny plants. I ordered extra trays, so we have two stacks with ten trays each, which is enough for us to harvest 3-5 trays per day. These are working much better for us than the old tilted-mason-jar-with-cheesecloth approach ever did, and they require very little effort (I can cycle and water all 20 trays in under a minute, three times per day). We use about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon for small seeds (alfalfa, clover, mustard, etc., depending on the size) and 2 teaspoons for large ones (mung beans, chickpeas, etc.) and that seems to work well. If you crowd the trays, you'll get diminishing returns (or zero return, if they mold).  We've had zero luck with a few types of seeds, such as sunflowers and quinoa (they molded each time); but mung beans, radish, clover, alfalfa, dill, and mustard have been stellar. A while back, we transplanted some dill from the microgreen box to the grow tent, and it's now covered with hundreds (thousands?) of seed pods. It'll be neat to sprout our home-grown seeds. As non-landhavers, this has been a great and easy way to get some additional vegetables in our diet, along with the usual cucumbers, tomatoes, mint, etc. from the grow tent. We eat a lot of spring rolls, which are perfect little vegetable delivery snacks, and the mung beans add some body to our soups and curries. I love grabbing a tray full of mustard/radish greens to toss on my sandwiches, too. Vegetables are great  silicone thrills posted:Kind of torn on asking this here or in the mushroom picking thread but this is more gardening since i'd be "planting" but has anyone ever done mushroom plugs? I've got some huge chunks of dead maple logs that have been rotting for a few years and I was thinking about buying some oyster mushroom and lions mane plugs. It sounds too easy/too good to be true but I'm also not going to cry if I blow 15 bucks on 500 plugs and nothing comes of it. I'd never heard of mushroom plugs (nor read about mushroom agriculture in general), so reading this sent me down a rabbit hole that ended with me ordering the stuff needed to grow mushrooms in our closet->grow tent using toilet paper rolls. We also read about the bucket method, but the TP sounds like a fun way to dip our toes into it. I figure I can use the spent TP roll as compost afterward. We have a cool, dark closet for the mycelium phase, and the tent has plenty of hanging space in indirect (grow)light for fruiting, and I can easily water them with a spray bottle. We'll try oysters first for beginner-friendliness, but my spouse would love to try shiitakes, if this method works for us. So thanks for posting this here, or I wouldn't have seen it!
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Mar 22, 2021 08:57
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The cheat code for blueberries is to use ferrous sulphate to acidify the soil instantly.
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Mar 22, 2021 10:08
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Jhet posted:That's a lot of cool gardening stuff, but one question to make sure you end up happy. I didn't do this the first time and had to try again myself. Good to know. Does anyone have suggestions on how to test the soil? I avoid peat moss as well since it’s unsustainable.
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Mar 22, 2021 14:28
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Platystemon posted:The cheat code for blueberries is to use ferrous sulphate to acidify the soil instantly. Any recommendation on where to buy some?
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Mar 22, 2021 14:28
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Got my second 4x4x2 raised bed mostly setup this weekend. Giving asparagus another try after my previous attempt 3 years ago has failed to send up any sprouts. Cleared out all of last years dried out dead hops vines. Already seeing some little shoots come up for this year, going to be much more hands on with these trimming this year so I can focus growth on only a few ropes. Last year they started crawling up some lilacs and trying to reach for my neighbors house. I'm a little concerned that they're doing so well I wont be able to reign them in. Got all of my seed trays started indoors. More tomatoes and peppers. I love Cherokee Purples and have had great luck with them so growing a bunch more of those and some cherry tomatoes called Honeycomb from Burpee that are hybrids. A poo poo ton of different peppers, that will all be grown in pots to save space and because they do better in containers here in MN at least. Now just have to wait another 2-3 weeks so I can direct sow my spinach and greens. Come mid May I'll have so many greens I'll be eating salads twice a day and trying to give them away to anyone who wants them. My focus this year is to do a better job preserving my harvest. Canning, pickling, etc.
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Mar 22, 2021 15:46
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I am just starting on this whole gardening thing, but what is the cost/benefit of start from seeds versus buying plants from a greenhouse (or home depot)? Better selection of varieties? I think I am probably late in the season to start from seeds. I am apparently zone 5b (chicago-ish). e: moved a few tons of dirt. probably am not supposed to fill all the way to the top, but w/e 
gvibes fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Mar 22, 2021 |
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Mar 22, 2021 16:07
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gvibes posted:I am just starting on this whole gardening thing, but what is the cost/benefit of start from seeds versus buying plants from a greenhouse (or home depot)? Better selection of varieties? Starting from seeds? I'd say you are still good for that for things like tomatoes/peppers no problem. Depends on where you live, but we are just starting to start those where I am, zone 6a/b.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:21
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gvibes posted:I am just starting on this whole gardening thing, but what is the cost/benefit of start from seeds versus buying plants from a greenhouse (or home depot)? Better selection of varieties? Filling them is fine, since they'll sink a bit and settle after some rain. Might be slight problem though if you still need to add compost and the like.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:29
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gvibes posted:I am just starting on this whole gardening thing, but what is the cost/benefit of start from seeds versus buying plants from a greenhouse (or home depot)? Better selection of varieties? Seeds are way cheaper, let you grow a lot more plants, control their health from beginning to end, and yeah you can get more varities. Not to late at all for Chicago as long as you get some trays started in the next week or two. Also all that will settle some after its been there for a few days so dont worry about over filling.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:29
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gvibes posted:
Depends on what you used as to how much/quickly, but there will be settling in your beds and filling them to the top is not a bad idea. I've had to add potting soil to my beds several times over the years and in fact I ended up removing the top plank from beds I built too high.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:43
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Thanks all.
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Mar 22, 2021 17:18
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IMO if you're new to gardening, give seeds a try, but don't feel bad about buying some healthy starts from the store. I always buy a few from plant sales that the horticulture club throws every spring.
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Mar 22, 2021 17:29
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i like seeds because if they dont germinate i dont really feel bad but i've got horrible luck from buying from garden centers and having my plants die from transplant shock or other random stuff and there's just something in my brain that makes me feel like that's worse?
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Mar 22, 2021 17:55
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Platystemon posted:The cheat code for blueberries is to use ferrous sulphate to acidify the soil instantly. Earth posted:Any recommendation on where to buy some? Slug bait? (Any big box/hardware store garden centre, read ingredients.) Sounds like a win-win situation. Makes me think I should be careful though about which part of the garden I put it in if I have to use it again in the future, or at least keep a closer eye on the soil pH. Shine posted:I'd never heard of mushroom plugs (nor read about mushroom agriculture in general), so reading this sent me down a rabbit hole that ended with me ordering the stuff needed to grow mushrooms in our closet->grow tent using toilet paper rolls. We also read about the bucket method, but the TP sounds like a fun way to dip our toes into it. I figure I can use the spent TP roll as compost afterward. We have a cool, dark closet for the mycelium phase, and the tent has plenty of hanging space in indirect (grow)light for fruiting, and I can easily water them with a spray bottle. Well, now you've done it. Our chinchillas are no longer getting cardboard tubes to chew on.
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Mar 22, 2021 18:12
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gvibes posted:I am just starting on this whole gardening thing, but what is the cost/benefit of start from seeds versus buying plants from a greenhouse (or home depot)? Better selection of varieties? So I'm on my second year of seed starting and here's what I've learned. 1. Seeds are cheap as gently caress, you often get way too many in a envelope and you can easily save the extras for next year. 2. It's really easy to plant out a whole bed with starts that are often larger and healthier than the ones you buy at the nursery for $3-5 EACH. Getting 30-50 plants out of a single packet of seeds is completely normal, and my tomato starts were two feet tall when I trench planted them. 3. You'll have tons of spares in case you want to impress friends and family with a few starts, or you end up planting your tomatoes 2 days too early and they get hit by a surprise frost. 4. It takes a poo poo ton of time during weather that pretty much sucks rear end. 5. You have way more varieties to choose from, and modern internet seed catalogs are absolutely huge with only some moderate overlap.
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Mar 22, 2021 18:23
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Earth posted:We also bought new blueberry bushes from Sam's club. The ones I bought from Lowes weren't looking great so I dug them up and replaced them. Probably a bit of overkill, but it's my money to burn so I did. To echo what Jhet said, blueberries are really picky about soil type and drainage. Felder Rushing was talking about this the other day and said blueberries (at least in the south) pretty much just straight up won't grow in heavy clay. You can build them up on a little mound if you have clay and that can help. Definitely break up the root ball, and add lots of rotted pine bark (Lowes sells it around here as 'composted organic humus' in bags as it will help acidify the soil and give it the texture and drainage blueberries really want. For anyone who's not aware of the amazing ball of chill and knowledge that is Felder Rushing: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/486075531/the-gestalt-gardener Anyone have any other chill gardening podcasts I should check out?
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Mar 22, 2021 18:51
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Platystemon posted:The cheat code for blueberries is to use ferrous sulphate to acidify the soil instantly. This is the other answer I was looking for too. Do this, but I'd still use the 3" of mulch. And test at least every year, and maybe a couple times in the first year to make sure they're happy. There are plenty of buffers in soil that can make this a small science project, but once you get them going and keep up with the acidification you'll have some very tasty blueberries for many years. Also buy some berry bush netting or a temp fencing solution before you think you need it or the birds will eat them all.
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Mar 22, 2021 19:20
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:
YouTube, not podcasts, but Gardeners World and Charles Dowding are the chillist
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Mar 22, 2021 19:49
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MIGardner has some good info for Northern Gardners but he can bug me sometimes. I also like the Rusted Garden where its just stream of consciousness gardening videos from a guy that plants like 5000 things every year. Which reminds me yesterday the MIGardner guy posted an asparagus video where he said "Bare root asparagus" a million times. I asked if it would make my pee smell like "root bare" and he deleted it.... The world needs to know that joke though.
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Mar 22, 2021 19:52
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BaseballPCHiker posted:MIGardner has some good info for Northern Gardners but he can bug me sometimes. I also like the Rusted Garden where its just stream of consciousness gardening videos from a guy that plants like 5000 things every year. MIGardner's pseudoscience drove me away even though he's the youtube gardener closest to my growing zone. Right now I'm of the belief that RED Gardens is the king of mild-to-cool-weather gardening youtube. Thanks again to whoever here drew him to my attention.
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Mar 22, 2021 19:57
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CommonShore posted:MIGardner's pseudoscience drove me away even though he's the youtube gardener closest to my growing zone. Excellent I will check out that channel. One yard revolution as someone else mentioned also has a lot of good content too.
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Mar 22, 2021 20:05
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Hexigrammus posted:Well, now you've done it. Our chinchillas are no longer getting cardboard tubes to chew on. Oh dang, I've ruined everything for the fuzzy faces To clarify, this particular method uses the entire roll of toilet paper, so assuming you still otherwise use TP and haven't gone the whole "bidet and sterilized towels" route, you'll still have empty tubes for them  .I also found this bucket method video, which we will keep in mind for later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45b2t7fqhjA I assume this could scale down to a smaller pail at least somewhat effectively, given that something the size of toilet paper can work.
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Mar 22, 2021 20:09
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BaseballPCHiker posted:Excellent I will check out that channel. One yard revolution as someone else mentioned also has a lot of good content too. OYR is good but they haven't updated on Youtube since last summer
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Mar 22, 2021 20:16
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