|
sexy tiger boobs posted:We've got black cap raspberries (Rubus leucodermis) as natives on the west coast. Maybe it's that?
|
#
?
May 18, 2022 20:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 00:13 |
|
|
They straight up called the black cap raspberries "blue raspberries" after a bit of digging.
|
|
#
?
May 18, 2022 20:35
|
|
|
Anyone have any experience getting physalis seeds to germinate? I've got some Chinese Lantern and New Hanover Ground Cherries that I can't get to sprout for the life of me. i had them on a heater with most soil and led light and it didn't take, and then i sowed some new ones outside so they could get real sun and they still aren't doing their thing!!! My purple tomatillos and other ground cherries sprouted fine so maybe these are just bad seeds, out maybe they're specifically hard types to grow?
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2022 23:17
|
|
|
Try putting them in a plastic bag on a moist paper towel in a warm and indirectly sunny spot? You may also have a low germ rate batch, but I’d keep trying. They take a 3-4 weeks to germ and keeping temperamental seeds nice and evenly moist tends to work for me when I run into trouble. I also have better luck when I cover the starting tray right above the soil with a clear cover of plastic wrap or the lids that are terrible and still come with the jiffy starting trays anyway.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2022 23:30
|
|
|
Well, I uh, finally got pictures of my garden. Fortunately the embers from the house and the firehoses didn't reach it, so it's one of the few undamaged things I have left! My mom is going to be taking care of it for a while though, since I'm in North Carolina at the moment living with my brother until we get a new house. Here's an overview of the whole thing! I don't know what got that zinnia on the lower right nearest the watering can. I had another zinnia there before that got trashed too.  A closer look at 3/4 of my vincas. They don't look good. It did get down in the low 40s and even the high 30s a couple of nights before I took this picture though.  Snapdragons on the bottom, and the mystery PHC bulbs I talked about before. The second from the left looks way dark, I don't know if that's just because of what kind it is or if there's something else going on there. It was also the last to sprout of the group. The rest look like they're doing great though.  Pretty much just took this one to show the other mystery PHC bulb on the right that was left out of the previous shot, also a look at one of the red zinnias which have been doing stellar.  And a closer look at all the red zinnias, just doing wonderfully. And cat butt.  Bonus cat. She's the oldest one we have, I don't remember her exact age but she is at least 15 years old, maybe a little more but not much (she's from after I got out of the Navy, which was September 2004).
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2022 01:09
|
|
|
FogHelmut posted:Woops, found these guys in my garden bed and freaked out and threw them away. Turns out they're actually figeater beetle grubs which eat decomposing plant matter. They actually help compost your soil. I thought they were the bad kind to eat your plant roots. But I guess that makes sense because I currently don't have anything growing. Welp, I left these guys in there. Crows just dug up my whole garden trying to get them. Lost half of my baby plants. Netting doesn't seem ideal. I have a motion sensor sprinkler that I use for the rabbits on the lawn. Scarecrows seem ineffective? Any other ideas? Dog is useless, she will go in and try to see what they're digging for and help them out.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2022 19:16
|
|
|
Garden is looking OK so far (zone 5), though I had some problems with my indoor pepper starts. parsley, cilantro, rosemary, mint, basil, and chamomile. Most of the chamomile either survived the winter or seeded itself.  My trellised planter. Need to get the netting up. Those are all pees in the back, with beans, cucumbers, and luffa starting up front. As well as some kale that auto seeded and is growing like a weed.  Brassicas, chard, and some more kale in back. Have some radishes and carrots next to the big tomato in the middle. Some perennial green onions next to some indoor tomato and pepper starts that looked pretty scraggly when transplanted but look OK now. And some more tomatoes and peppers up front. Everything except for the rosemary bush (costco) and the tomato plant in the middle (costco) started from seed. Playing with some flowers this year too. Have some zinnia, nasturtium, ageratum, echinacea, and aster, I think. Will see how those go.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2022 19:32
|
|
|
FogHelmut posted:Welp, I left these guys in there. Crows just dug up my whole garden trying to get them. Lost half of my baby plants. Crows have been eyeing my ducklings and chicks, so I talked to my neighbor and he recommends shooting a crow and hanging the body as a warning. He did it years ago and after the crow funeral, the crows left and didn’t come back to his yard for years. In lieu of shooting a crow, I ordered a fake dead crow. It should arrive next week so I’ll see if it works or if the crows are too smart for that.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2022 19:47
|
|
|
FogHelmut posted:Welp, I left these guys in there. Crows just dug up my whole garden trying to get them. Lost half of my baby plants.  On the right that's a 4'x8' raised bed. On top of it are four 2'x4'...things. Fence panels? Whatever. They're four pieces of 2x2 held together with #8 screws. On one side of each panel is some plastic netting material, stapled at ~1 foot intervals. When the beds are empty, or (as pictured, earlier this season) just have seeds starting to sprout, the panels get left on top of the beds as shown, to keep digging things out of the soil and to prevent birds from pulling up the sprouts. Once the seedlings get big enough to start working their way through the netting (or when seedlings started indoors are ready for transplant) the panels get stood up, one each on either end and two along each long side, to make a 2' tall fence that keeps out squirrels and cats (which is most of what we have to worry about here; we also have possums but they don't bother the garden and only get an occasional raccoon). One year we had a racoon that had a hardon for the garden so we ended up rigging something similar to cover the "upright" fencing to make a fully boxed-in enclosure for the beds, but most years we don't bother. Just throwing that out there because it's pretty cheap and simple. It's also pretty modular, so it's not too much of a pain in the rear end to work with if you need to do something special with one chunk of a specific bed or whatever.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2022 22:09
|
|
|
Joburg posted:Crows have been eyeing my ducklings and chicks, so I talked to my neighbor and he recommends shooting a crow and hanging the body as a warning. He did it years ago and after the crow funeral, the crows left and didn’t come back to his yard for years. I'd be terrified that they'd just dive me instead for years if I injured a crow >.>
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2022 22:21
|
|
|
silicone thrills posted:I'd be terrified that they'd just dive me instead for years if I injured a crow >.> This is what would happen yes. Crows have a long memory. I have three that I see regularly and can recognize from the marks on their beaks. This is only really a problem if the crows outnumber people, but they will absolutely dive bomb cats and dogs too. They dgaf and I see them harry seagulls and the occasional hawk and even the peregrine falcons nearby too.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2022 22:54
|
|
|
Growing these dwc using maxibloom currently. It needs a water change for sure since the ppm is down to about 75% of last change, so I'm guessing there's a nutrient imbalance. But all I can find about it says it's likely a genetic defect. The first couple peppers are perfectly normal, pretty much all the rest are turning into these curly chodes. Ive got a sweety drop and 2 dwarf tiny Tim tomatoes in this tub as well, the tomatoes are completely normal and doing fantastic, and the sweety drops are flowering like crazy but no fruit yet. I've seen bells grow extra bits like this before but never a jalapeño. Any ideas?  
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2022 23:04
|
|
|
It’s possible you aren’t getting great fertilization of the flowers. I had this issue growing indoors myself and being thorough with moving the pollen around seemed to have solved it for me. Changing the nutes and checking that it’s warm/bright enough would be my next steps right now too. It takes long enough to figure out which one is the culprit that it’s worth just doing it all and seeing how the new fruit grows.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2022 23:17
|
|
|
That's a definite possibility, I have fans all around to help but I was still getting some kinda odd strawberries until I started brushing the flowers, I'll try that with the peppers too. Light and temp are fine I think. The nutes definitely need a refresh, this is my first time trying dwc and the amount these things suck down once they get big is a little surprising.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2022 23:23
|
|
|
I bought a 4’ European beech last week with the intent of thickening it up and air layering it into two 2-3’ bonsai in 2-3 years. When I got it home I noticed that the trunk had a thin length of plastic absorbed in it, of the kind commonly used to tie saplings to stakes. The nursery had cut it flush against the bark and I hadn’t noticed it at the time of purchase. It’s pretty well wedged in there, with the trunk more or less fully covering it on all four sides at this point (it’s in the armpit of a large branch. I’ll take pics tomorrow but it’s kind of dark out now). I could potentially do a bit of surgery to remove all or part of it, but it’ll probably mar the tree and probably isn’t worth it unless absolutely necessary. Am I fine just leaving it in there? I know trees in nature absorb poo poo all the time, and tons of bonsai also have wires embedded in them either on purpose or by accident. I’m worried that it’ll cause some sort of problem spot or dead zone in the future. Could it harm the tree at all? I purchased this particular tree for the feature branch closest to the plastic, I’d really rather not touch it but I also want that spot to grow well into the future. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 00:52 on May 21, 2022 |
|
#
?
May 21, 2022 00:50
|
|
|
Been meaning to take a picture of this, but this very thread got me to buy a Szechuan pepper pant (and a male sansho to pollinate it) and they seem to have overwintered well: The Szechuan has some of the largest thorns I've ever seen. I'll probably move these in a couple of years, but if they made it out here totally exposed on their first year (and with the winter temps we had) they should do fine. I knew I was right on the edge of what one of the two could survive (6b, maybe even 6a).
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2022 01:03
|
|
|
Motronic posted:Been meaning to take a picture of this, but this very thread got me to buy a Szechuan pepper pant (and a male sansho to pollinate it) and they seem to have overwintered well: I'm pretty sure this thread bought what I imagine to be half of their stock from this year. Those look really happy and healthy and are all leafed out like mine have. No flowers and fruit yet, but we've only had one day of 70+ and I'm in 8 coastal. They've already put on so much growth that I'm looking forward to them filling that space with those giant thorns.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2022 01:27
|
|
|
Boy, if there's one thing I loving hate about gardening it's the random bursts of 90-degree weather in May. Guess it's time to go sweat my rear end off outside to try to desperately get a third of the garden under shade cloth so all my spring plants don't fry when there's easily another 2-3 weeks of relatively cool weather left. Ugh. I guess the one upside is that we got a heavy rain last night so at least the soil shouldn't heat up too quickly.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2022 15:45
|
|
|
Paradoxish posted:Boy, if there's one thing I loving hate about gardening it's the random bursts of 90-degree weather in May. Guess it's time to go sweat my rear end off outside to try to desperately get a third of the garden under shade cloth so all my spring plants don't fry when there's easily another 2-3 weeks of relatively cool weather left. I just exclusively grow the most heat-tolerant plants these days. Basically a bunch of high-summer Asian veg and native drought-tolerant plains species. Anything else feels like too much fighting against nature. (Ok I do have some other things but they require constant babying)
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2022 16:27
|
|
|
Been one long day of gardening today. First went to my parents and picked up the plants they planted from runners for us last year, must've been almost a hundred plants.  And some free water barrels too  Coffee break with some rhubarb crumble  My parents old greenhouse, it's gonna get torn down this year and the arches will go to someone else. The 2nd greenhouse was torn down last year, they will leave 4-5 of the arch segments nearest to have a smaller greenhouse / tractor storage.  Growing some stuff in the sand, nothing was grown in the sand for the 40 years they worked in it, it used hydroponics and grew tomatoes in rockwool.  Think these are potatoes, and wild dill is growing in random spots. My dad dropped some onions he hung to dry too and they started growing in the sand. Things seem to grow well in sand.  So we brought home some sand with us and mixed it into the top layer of the planter boxes we're putting the strawberry plants in:  All done:  After that I had to muck out our insulated compost, because we've sold it and someone is picking it up tomorrow. Mucked it out, washed all the pieces and reassembled. Then took a long shower...  We're gonna replace it with one of these, an insulated, rotating compost. Rotating it areates the compost and I have high hopes it'll be a lot better than our current model, also easier to empty, just put the wheel barrow under it. 
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2022 19:25
|
|
|
Anyone have a recommendation on melon slings? I've seen a bunch on amazon and the like, just don't know if there is a better brand/way to get them. I was looking at something like this, saw the smaller vinyl net types, didn't know if there was a general recommendation.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2022 00:22
|
|
|
Fitzy Fitz posted:I just exclusively grow the most heat-tolerant plants these days. Basically a bunch of high-summer Asian veg and native drought-tolerant plains species. Anything else feels like too much fighting against nature. Yeah that's kinda why I decided I want to grow some cayenne peppers. Doesn't need a lot of water and prefers higher temperatures? Southern Virginia is a miserable hot and swampy mess with barely any rain for like half the year!
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2022 02:03
|
|
|
Gothmog1065 posted:Anyone have a recommendation on melon slings? I've seen a bunch on amazon and the like, just don't know if there is a better brand/way to get them. I was looking at something like this, saw the smaller vinyl net types, didn't know if there was a general recommendation. Old t-shirt
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2022 03:23
|
|
|
Neon Noodle posted:Old t-shirt Nowadays few people with room to garden wear pantyhose (praise the Lord) and I wound up mail-ordering clothlike stuff for tying a couple of trees to their stakes. This is for their first year only; next year they fly free so they can strengthen their trunks. (If you are a person with room to garden who wears hose or stockings, they make great plant ties.)
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2022 03:29
|
|
|
Rotating compost bought, the Joraform was too expensive really, so I settled on this:
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 13:22
|
|
|
I have a cheaper compost tumbler I got off NextDoor. It works best if you feed it lots of moist food scraps. Yard scrap was not super effective for me in there and it doesn't get hot enough to kill seeds. I actually had a moldy potato take off in there and grow pretty massive roots despite regular tumbling.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 13:52
|
|
|
On the subject of compost piles, how often should I be turning over my free-form pile? It's pretty big, about a yard and a half I'd guess, so too big for a tumbler.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 16:20
|
|
|
IMO don't bother, worms et al. will keep it aerated fine as long as there is good layering.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 16:47
|
|
|
Neon Noodle posted:IMO don't bother, worms et al. will keep it aerated fine as long as there is good layering. I am an advocate of putting in garden effort where you enjoy it and half-assing the rest.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 16:54
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:Compost can take as much effort as you put into it. The house I grew up in had a "compost heap" that was literally a heap at the side of the barn. No, we didn't farm, it was left there after the farm was broken up into suburban lots. Anyway, our compost heap had food scraps on the top, and periodically we dug dirt out of the bottom. It wasn't fast, it certainly didn't sterilize weed seeds or anything else, but it functioned. We also tried Ruth Stout's method of composting in place in the garden rows (using a mixture of weeded plants, straw, and table scraps as mulch) but I don't remember it working well. Substitute "back of the garage" for the barn and this is exactly what I've got. Good to know that it doesn't really matter that much; turning the pile isn't my favorite gardening chore.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 17:10
|
|
|
There was a question about starting and transplanting cucumbers up thread. I started mine this year and 5/6 starts made the move last week successfully. They’re putting out new growth already, so I’m going to call that a qualified success.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 17:23
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:We also tried Ruth Stout's method of composting in place in the garden rows (using a mixture of weeded plants, straw, and table scraps as mulch) but I don't remember it working well.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 17:45
|
|
|
Neon Noodle posted:I do this and it works great I bury spent grain and yeast in the less growing season months. It’s basically gone after 2-3 weeks. You do want to bury the scraps well if you don’t want animals digging up the bed, but a couple inches down is plenty. At this point I rarely put any of my brewing by-products into the city compost. I had so many worms in the most buried beds this spring that I could have gone fishing for a week straight. Winter I cover with leaves and turn them when I can be bothered when it’s warm enough.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 18:09
|
|
|
Meaty Ore posted:Substitute "back of the garage" for the barn and this is exactly what I've got. Good to know that it doesn't really matter that much; turning the pile isn't my favorite gardening chore. If you want it to happen fast you have to keep the right moisture and turn it and poo poo, but it will compost eventually either way  .
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 18:23
|
|
|
Speaking of Ruth Stout - I had a bunch of extra melon/pumpkin/squash seedlings from doing liberal sowing... ...and my neighbour gave me a ton of straw bales that he had used to insulate his new septic field for the first year... So I have a gigantic straw bale Ruth Stout garden set up now in addition to my other nonsense 
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 19:50
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:I am an advocate of putting in garden effort where you enjoy it and half-assing the rest. This is really the best gardening advice.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2022 23:35
|
|
|
Just plant a lot of fruit trees and berry bushes, let them fight and eat the winners
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2022 08:27
|
|
|
His Divine Shadow posted:
Ha! We have the exact same planters!  My tip: next time you're installing them, set them the other way up. I've lost count of the number of times I've barked my shins on those fecking sticky-up metal corners 
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2022 10:53
|
|
|
I don't know how, but I am the KING of killing perennials this spring. This is now the THIRD year in a row my mint didn't come back. First year I blamed it being left outdoors in a small container, not being in ground the roots got too cold. Over-wintered it this year on my porch, but I guess was still too cold and it didn't come back. And this year, neither my thyme NOR strawberries came back. They both did last year (planted in 2020.) Well, ONE single little crown on the strawberries is trying his hardest, but that's it.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2022 19:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 00:13 |
|
|
DrBouvenstein posted:I don't know how, but I am the KING of killing perennials this spring. I hate it when that happens. NONE of the bulbs I put in last fall came up. What's your climate like? Is there a chance you can try putting the mint in the ground in a sunny patch?
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2022 19:21
|
|