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I'm growing sweet pea flowers and they just won't stand upright, they're drooping all over the place. I've given them stakes to climb up but they don't bother and instead just flop all over the floor. Is this normal? Am I doing something wrong? Should I tie them upright or is it okay to leave them as is? I plan on shifting them to my balcony once I feel they're big and strong enough, and then I'll just them wobble all over the balcony bars or whatever they wish.
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May 29, 2023 17:39
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| # ? May 30, 2024 09:55 |
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Aragosta posted:Truth. I weeded part of my yard and seeded drought tolerant wildflowers a couple of weeks ago and used a hoe. It worked great. We used one of these, goes by different names, hula hoe, weeder hoe, scuffle hoe, etc. Ours is labelled as an "action hoe" and my wife constantly makes off color jokes about it. Between it and a good solid rake you can do a lot better work than any of the torch stuff. Not nearly as fun, though.
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May 29, 2023 18:30
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quote:hoe 
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May 29, 2023 18:47
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Qubee posted:I'm growing sweet pea flowers and they just won't stand upright, they're drooping all over the place. I've given them stakes to climb up but they don't bother and instead just flop all over the floor. Is this normal? Am I doing something wrong? Should I tie them upright or is it okay to leave them as is? I plan on shifting them to my balcony once I feel they're big and strong enough, and then I'll just them wobble all over the balcony bars or whatever they wish. Also, a hoe won't do poo poo against things with taproots, nor yet with a gravel driveway.
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May 29, 2023 19:09
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I'm a gentle man, as a rule. I don't hold grudges. I care about wildlife. I'll move bugs out of my house instead of killing them. But when I see this sight a gleeful, vengeful rage overtakes me and I relish murdering an entire family. 
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May 29, 2023 19:16
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This is my first year gardening anything. I'm extremely proud of my wife and I and want to show off our first 'proper' harvest. Also learned corn is not worth it.
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May 29, 2023 22:14
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That's awesome, those peppers look great! Corn is really only viable at a commercial scale in my opinion, it's a whole hosed up hellscape to navigate and is really just not worth the impact it has on a hobby size garden.
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May 29, 2023 22:28
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You gotta grow a big dense patch of it for it to pollinate right too, it's a real pain
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May 29, 2023 22:31
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sterster posted:This is my first year gardening anything. I'm extremely proud of my wife and I and want to show off our first 'proper' harvest. Also learned corn is not worth it. Where are you that you have corn in May? Also, corn requires a decent density of plants to ensure proper pollination (corn pollinates by wind, not bees or other bugs).
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May 29, 2023 22:31
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 Happy growing season, garden goon bros.
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May 29, 2023 22:39
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captkirk posted:Where are you that you have corn in May? Also, corn requires a decent density of plants to ensure proper pollination (corn pollinates by wind, not bees or other bugs). I'm in the low valley of arizona, Phx-ish. It's currently hovering right around 100 and my Pepper plants are already dropping flowers because of the temps. My tomatoes are starting to slow too because of the heat. Also the corn variety is early glow dwarf corn that matures in 60-70 days, that's part of the reason they are only about 5-6 inches per ear. The reason I said it wasn't worth it is because the amount of water, the space, the number of plants you need etc. All for some of the ears to STILL not pollinate correctly when hand pollinating. Some to be eaten by bugs and having each ear be slightly off taste or texture wise because you didn't pick it at the exact right time. It does make some okay trellis for my cucumber tho.
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May 30, 2023 01:17
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 Pepper bed is doing well, though the lemon drops have been finnicky since they were seedlings. From ledt to right, habs, lemon drop, jalapeño, anaheim and golden bell. Onions and lettuce in between. Probably overstuffed the bed, but I was very excited. Edit: whoah apple does odd things to images 
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May 30, 2023 18:05
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Qubee posted:I'm growing sweet pea flowers and they just won't stand upright, they're drooping all over the place. I've given them stakes to climb up but they don't bother and instead just flop all over the floor. Is this normal? Am I doing something wrong? Should I tie them upright or is it okay to leave them as is? I plan on shifting them to my balcony once I feel they're big and strong enough, and then I'll just them wobble all over the balcony bars or whatever they wish. They don't need much soil, so if you have the space you can grow them in elevated containers and let them hang down instead of trying to get them to climb up.
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May 30, 2023 20:47
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Welp, I've tried everything short of building an entire building complete with foundation around my strawberries. The squirrels took the hint, but the chipmunks decided to burrow under the sharp edge (scratching the poo poo out of themselves judging by the fur they left behind) and ate all of the almost ripe strawberries that kiddo had been eagerly watching. I'm done spending the very few hours of free time I have building pest-exclusion stuff and still seeing my kid's disappointment as the garden stuff gets spoilt. An entire colony of chipmunks is going to learn about the death bucket the quick way.
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May 30, 2023 22:59
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I'm really sorry to hear that. Send those little bastards straight to hell.
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May 31, 2023 00:03
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I've been pretty lazy about the balcony garden this year, just watering and not taking time to fertilize with miracle gro or anything. My hubris is coming around to bite me, because some of my potting soil is clearly depleted compared to others. What can cause tomato plants to grow so leggy and scrawny, despite being outdoors in full sun? The leggy one admittedly is being shaded by the balcony railing, but they'd still grow plenty tall and bushy in previous years. 
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May 31, 2023 14:58
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You called it already. Tomatoes are hungry mofos. Give them fertilizer.
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May 31, 2023 15:10
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Garden progress report!       
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May 31, 2023 16:12
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Jan posted:What can cause tomato plants to grow so leggy and scrawny, despite being outdoors in full sun? The leggy one admittedly is being shaded by the balcony railing, but they'd still grow plenty tall and bushy in previous years. What variety is that? It looks like an indeterminate, which can be very vine-y. Also how many hours of direct sun is it actually getting? Maybe the picture is weird, but it looks like it is in the shade there (or its cloudy)
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May 31, 2023 16:51
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Shifty Pony posted:Welp, I've tried everything short of building an entire building complete with foundation around my strawberries. The squirrels took the hint, but the chipmunks decided to burrow under the sharp edge (scratching the poo poo out of themselves judging by the fur they left behind) and ate all of the almost ripe strawberries that kiddo had been eagerly watching. You might be able to adapt the fencing setup I used to (mostly) successfully keep groundhogs out. The general idea is you shallowly bury some hardware cloth or fencing laid flat on the ground, coming out about a couple feet from the garden (or strawberry bed, whatever). You can either use much taller fencing than you'd otherwise need, bent into an L shape, or run your main fencing like normal but first bury the horizontal stuff (it should come into the garden, past the fence, for at least a few inches). If you go with the second option, you have to zip tie the vertical fence to the buried stuff every few inches, which takes way too long. So they can't directly go under the fence since it's attached to the part that's laying flat. And they try to dig under it, starting right next to the fence, and they hit more wire. They're not smart enough to start digging several feet back and tunnel into your garden like Bugs Bunny. The reason it's only been "mostly" successful is because I cheaped out and used chicken wire instead of heavier wire fencing. It gets damaged a lot easier, and if the spacing is a little too wide between 2 zip ties, they'll kind of force their way underneath, stretching the chicken wire. Chipmunks won't have the strength for that, but they'll also fit through a much smaller opening - so you'd need to take that into account. Anyway my current fence has done its job mostly, and I have a better design in my head that I'm hoping to implement later this year.
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May 31, 2023 19:44
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Everything on my balcony that weathered the winter is still dormant, and it's basically June. Is there anything else I can do to try to start growth? I've fertilized everything and I'm watering them twice a week.
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May 31, 2023 21:56
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spotted a cabbage butterfly around my cabbages. pulled an army worm off my pepper. the bug wars have begun
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May 31, 2023 22:11
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ThePopeOfFun posted:spotted a cabbage butterfly around my cabbages. pulled an army worm off my pepper. the bug wars have begun Just get some Monteray BT and start by spraying your cabbages and peppers. Get it all over your vegetable garden space and hopefully you won't have to worry all summer long.
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May 31, 2023 22:13
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Can you put up a picture of a plant, then a closeup of the underside of a leaf? (to The Old Ganon).
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May 31, 2023 22:15
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New to the thread, but this is going to be my third year with my vegetable garden in suburban Philly. I'm keeping one of my beds for what I call my "vanity projects", which is stuff that isn't meant for the food bank. This year, that's going to be pumpkins and luffa gourds, which got direct sown over my lunch break today. Kind of excited to see how they turn out, I did the luffas last year and it was really fun to grow my own sponges.
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May 31, 2023 22:52
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Soul Dentist posted:Can I just say that everybody in this thread that posts their garden is like a thousand times better at it than the folks in my neighborhood. Everybody here just attempts some podunk bullshit and ends up feeding squirrels unripe garbage. It's nice to see folks have researched, invested gardens that have plans and results, even if there's occasional setbacks. Love it! Don't worry, I'm here to change that! We bought a cherry tomato plant at a farmers' market a few weeks ago and put it in a pot. It didn't immediately die so I bought some more pots, cleared out the neglected planter attached to our house, and filled both with tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and some herbs.   I have no idea what I'm doing, and the sunniest part of our yard only gets direct light for probably 4 hours at best, but it was fun to plant them.
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May 31, 2023 23:01
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ThePopeOfFun posted:spotted a cabbage butterfly around my cabbages. pulled an army worm off my pepper. the bug wars have begun Pre-emptive BT application is almost necessary where we are.
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May 31, 2023 23:38
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My tomato wont stop getting taller. Its so tall.
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Jun 1, 2023 00:12
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Real hurthling! posted:My tomato wont stop getting taller. Its so tall. That happened to me once when I was trying to grow a tomato plant on my apartment patio. It just kept growing and by the end was > 6 feet tall. I got like three tomatoes from it.
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Jun 1, 2023 01:06
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Farchanter posted:New to the thread, but this is going to be my third year with my vegetable garden in suburban Philly. I'm keeping one of my beds for what I call my "vanity projects", which is stuff that isn't meant for the food bank. This year, that's going to be pumpkins and luffa gourds, which got direct sown over my lunch break today. Kind of excited to see how they turn out, I did the luffas last year and it was really fun to grow my own sponges. ...are you me? We just started our random gourd patch with pumpkin and luffa in the Philly suburbs as well.
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Jun 1, 2023 01:07
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thunderdome winner
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Dr. Eldarion posted:That happened to me once when I was trying to grow a tomato plant on my apartment patio. It just kept growing and by the end was > 6 feet tall. I got like three tomatoes from it. Hell yeah
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Jun 1, 2023 01:07
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Dr. Eldarion posted:That happened to me once when I was trying to grow a tomato plant on my apartment patio. It just kept growing and by the end was > 6 feet tall. I got like three tomatoes from it. I tried a couple heirlooms in big containers last year in a spot that optimistically gets 5-6 hours of direct sun. I pruned all the suckers and by September the vines were over 10 feet tall. after accounting for losses from birds / squirrels / blossom end rot I ended up with two total tomatoes from three plants lmao trying a couple cherry/grape varieties this year
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Jun 1, 2023 01:34
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Sounds like too much nitrogen or not enough phosphorous. Tomatoes are especially tricky in containers as they are greedy, greedy eaters.
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Jun 1, 2023 01:41
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Tomato plants getting super leggy and not setting fruit can just mean that they want more sun. More generally if the plant's producing a lot of vine and leaves but not setting fruit, could be too much nitrogen. Alternately, if it's not producing flowers at all it may need potassium, and if it's flowering but not setting fruit it might need phosphorus. Alternately, if it's flowering but not setting fruit and it's not soil related, it might be a pollination problem. If it's very hot it can just be that the pollen isn't viable. It depends on the cultivar, but once temperatures start getting and staying in the 90s during the day you can see poorer pollination. Seems to be especially bad with some dark heirloom varieties, but I don't know if that's just selection bias (because I tend to prefer growing them). If you're somewhere super humid or super dry that can affect pollination as well: too humid and the pollen doesn't drop, and too dry and it won't stick after it does drop. Hand pollination is supposed to help here, but I've never tried it myself.
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Jun 1, 2023 01:47
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Chernobyl Princess posted:...are you me? We just started our random gourd patch with pumpkin and luffa in the Philly suburbs as well. not to my knowledge, but what a fascinating movie that would make. I spent a chunk of the winter reading up about the botanical history of the area, both in terms of native plants and non-native plants, and it's informed some of my plant choices this year. I had two fish pepper seedlings survive well enough to make the trip outside, and after two weeks they now have some new growth and they're comparable in size to my store-bought peppers, so fingers crossed there.
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Jun 1, 2023 01:53
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I did fish peppers once. They were cool.
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Jun 1, 2023 02:39
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Tried overwintering pepper plants indoors again, digging them out before first frost, cutting back the roots and leaves, and potting them up. 2 out of 8 survived, so better than 0. It will be interesting to see if they're any further ahead than the starts I bought from the greenhouse. Not sure if it was the peppers or the rose cuttings we had under lights but we fought aphids all winter. Weekly dunking in soapy water, soap sprays, sticky tape, and squishing. Most of the roses survived at least. As soon as we got them outside the aphids disappeared. Following the heat wave the strawberries started drying out, to the point that the weeds in the bed were dying and the strawberries themselves were doing poorly. I use two runs of drip line (1/2" pvc tube with an emitter molded in every 12") to water the bed and it was on a circuit regulated to 25 p.s.i. feeding other berries using normal drip emitters and spaghetti tubing. With this recent heat wave the soil got too dry and I needed to move the drip line to an unregulated circuit running at 40-60 p.s.i. before it could keep up. I also screwed up by not keeping a thick mulch in place. Kind of vital for drip irrigation on sandy soil in a heat wave. I love drip irrigation. It's like wet Lego and you can nerd right out on it. 
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Jun 1, 2023 03:49
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Hexigrammus posted:Tried overwintering pepper plants indoors again, digging them out before first frost, cutting back the roots and leaves, and potting them up. 2 out of 8 survived, so better than 0. It will be interesting to see if they're any further ahead than the starts I bought from the greenhouse. Just yesterday I finally got drip/bubbler irrigation set up for nearly our entire backyard. Had to get it done, because we’ll be out of town for six days, nearly all of which incidentally are forecast to be 10-15 degrees hotter than normal, up to like, 95*F. This is the third time I’ve tried to set it up, first time I’ve gotten it all on a timer with several zones. Going to save us dozens and dozens of hours spent watering by hand.
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Jun 1, 2023 13:06
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SubG posted:Tomato plants getting super leggy and not setting fruit can just mean that they want more sun. My best looking tomato plants never made much fruit and the scraggliest, almost yellow green ones would produce like crazy. I understand the science and the why and everything but it still seem so backwards.
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Jun 1, 2023 17:27
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Also once you cross the line of defiling your plants with Qtips or whatever I feel like you should get some kind of merit badge. There's a line there between smiling at the happy bees in the garden and finger banging a row of pepper plants that is not easily retracted.
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Jun 1, 2023 19:20
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