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Discussion Quorum posted:Maybe some kind of leaf cutter bee? Some of them look like chonky honeybees. Almost certainly them! Yay. I probably gave them a hideout with this little hut I use for the pond air pump and electrical connections. 
B33rChiller fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Aug 7, 2023 |
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Aug 7, 2023 20:06
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| # ? May 30, 2024 19:28 |
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I've seen those at Lowes and assumed that they would probably just fill up with wasps. Maybe now I'll give one a try.
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Aug 7, 2023 20:24
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mischief posted:Just stick it in an old sock or hose or something and tie that up to the trellis Pull up your sagging pants, Mr. Watermelon.  Discussion Quorum posted:I've seen those at Lowes and assumed that they would probably just fill up with wasps. Maybe now I'll give one a try. Wasps kill hornworms, so they are friends. My new bee hotel only has about four residents, but I was inordinately excited when I saw them.
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Aug 7, 2023 20:52
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Bad Munki posted:I want to point out that your rack there is probably exactly the same one I was doing this on during the multi-year phase one of this whole thing. It is now a plant shelf and cat couch on the deck. 🤣 Oh, definitely the same one. They were massively on sale at Lowe's one day so I picked up several not even knowing what I was going to use them for. They're a little wobbly but not bad if you find them cheap.
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Aug 7, 2023 20:56
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I adore the cat couch.
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Aug 7, 2023 21:13
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Arsenic Lupin posted:I adore the cat couch. We’re lousy with the drat things. Everything is a cat couch.   There’s a semi-stray/neighborhood-adopted one that lives in the barn/workshop, too. I got her chipped and put a reader cat door in so she has private VIP access. She’s actually the best of the whole bunch.
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Aug 7, 2023 21:20
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I’m not here to tut-tut but as long as they have ad-libitum access to the outdoors cats are like a bomb to the local ecosystem, esp songbirds and natural pest insect predators like who cares if it makes them sad, put ‘em indoors
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Aug 7, 2023 21:23
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Yeah, I’m very much aware of what they can do, but they also eat the mice and such. In fact, I rarely see them with birds, actually, but they get rodents all the time. About the only time they get a bird is when one hits the window. It’s rural farm country, so free range cats are just a fact of life, beyond the couple we added (the couch cat is beyond old and doesn’t hunt at all.) 
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Aug 7, 2023 21:29
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Bad Munki posted:Yeah, I’m very much aware of what they can do, but they also eat the mice and such. In fact, I rarely see them with birds, actually, but they get rodents all the time. About the only time they get a bird is when one hits the window. It’s rural farm country, so free range cats are just a fact of life, beyond the couple we added (the couch cat is beyond old and doesn’t hunt at all.) Yeah, as long as they’re snipped and can’t make kittens that’s really the most important thing
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Aug 7, 2023 21:35
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This is my cat couch, but not my cat He's a little creep that likes to come stare in the front window at 3am. B33rChiller fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Aug 7, 2023 |
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Aug 7, 2023 21:53
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Ok Comboomer posted:Yeah, as long as they’re snipped and can’t make kittens that’s really the most important thing Yeah, even the barn stray is fixed, for sure. Most of the cats here aren’t truly stray or feral, I’m only aware of one of those in the area.
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Aug 7, 2023 21:55
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Seems like a bountiful catfruit harvest this year
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Aug 7, 2023 21:55
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Shifty Pony posted:Seems like a bountiful catfruit harvest this year Had a real good crop of fishcorns last year. Might gonna get sum mystery catsquash from that spot. The seed packet said "mixed ornamental squash" and "best before Aug2009" 
B33rChiller fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Aug 7, 2023 |
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Aug 7, 2023 21:57
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We do grow a fair deal of catnip in multiple locations. Good fun, that. 
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Aug 7, 2023 22:06
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Someone in gws started a thread about how to use up shitloads of vegetables https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4038809&pagenumber=1&perpage=40
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Aug 8, 2023 00:51
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I've decided to try my hand at gardening. I'm hoping I don't hate it. I have a low tolerance to finicky stuff, so we'll see lol. I have a tiny little plot with turnips, carrots, swiss chard, and radishes. I'm hoping at least one of them will make it. I just planted it last week and it's rained nearly every day, so pretty easy breezy so far. No pictures yet, cause it's still just dirt. Anyways, I'm also testing out a tiny hydroponic tower with some basil. 
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Aug 8, 2023 19:59
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If you like radishes, they’re about the easiest, fastest thing in the world, so that was a solid pick right there.
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Aug 8, 2023 20:15
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Bad Munki posted:If you like radishes, they’re about the easiest, fastest thing in the world, so that was a solid pick right there. Love radishes. Regular and pickled. The farmers almanac suggested planting radishes in between all of the other stuff I planted, so I figured why not.
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Aug 8, 2023 20:25
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I’m pretty sure that if you’re willing to hold the seed in your hand for two weeks, you don’t even need the dirt.
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Aug 8, 2023 20:29
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i've been thinking about getting into gardening some garlic and onions but i was wondering if the small space i had available would be able to host anything at all, do these tiny row planters you often see outside houses ever amount to much, would it be possible with these?   they're about 11 inches wide, would that be enough width to accommodate root vegetables? They're about 2-3 feet deep and I'm fairly certain they have irrigation or drainage. another consideration that i feel makes this starting off on a losing foot though is that my family had a history of just dumping waste water which would sometimes contain trace amounts of bleach or soap into the dirt, which has probably killed what's there already. I was always planning on getting some starter soil to mix in, but would i be able to at least use some of what is still there or is it just dead dead and i should replace it entirely? e: i guess in addition i was also considering green onions and radishes like the post above, plus maybe some fall time herbs that i could use the pots for
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Aug 11, 2023 02:45
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Futaba Anzu posted:i've been thinking about getting into gardening some garlic and onions but i was wondering if the small space i had available would be able to host anything at all, do these tiny row planters you often see outside houses ever amount to much, would it be possible with these? That space will easily work for any of the veggies you mentioned - in fact the things you mentioned are a perfect way to get some usable food from a space like that. You could run a double (or even triple) row of most of what you mentioned, the whole length of the planter, or do say onions for part of the length, then switch to garlic, etc. But with those being 11" wide, I'd probably just use the square foot gardening spacing recommendations: https://squarefootgardening.org/planting-chart-cheat-sheets/ . The book explains things in more detail, but for example for garlic it says 9 per square foot, so you'd arrange each square foot in a grid pattern, 3 wide, 3 deep, where each plant is about 4" apart. They're recommending closer planting for onions than for garlic, but if you space them a little wider you'll get bigger onions (depending on variety). Once you know how many feet long that is, you can easily do the math based on that chart and figure out how many feet to dedicate to each crop and how much you can expect to get. Depending on timing, you can also interplant things like radishes and green onions, before the other plants in that same area reach full size. For example you could plant onions at twice that density, then pull every other one for green onions when you need them. That will leave the remaining onions with enough room to bulb up when they're ready. Radishes take a few weeks to a month from seed to plate, so you could also squeeze them in between immature plants and they'll be out of the way before the other plant needs that space. As for the soil, trace amounts of regular chlorine bleach should be no more harmful than watering with chlorinated water. It may kill off some soil life at the time, but it won't stick around in the soil long term. For the "soap", that probably depends on whether it's actual soap or detergent. I'll let somebody who knows more than me answer that one.
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Aug 11, 2023 11:01
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Feel like for the soap it also matters how much, how often and how long ago or is this still a continuous practice? Along with what kind(s) of soaps. I'm not here to try and answer but my guess is that info would help.
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Aug 11, 2023 15:44
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JoshGuitar posted:That space will easily work for any of the veggies you mentioned - in fact the things you mentioned are a perfect way to get some usable food from a space like that. You could run a double (or even triple) row of most of what you mentioned, the whole length of the planter, or do say onions for part of the length, then switch to garlic, etc. But with those being 11" wide, I'd probably just use the square foot gardening spacing recommendations: https://squarefootgardening.org/planting-chart-cheat-sheets/ . The book explains things in more detail, but for example for garlic it says 9 per square foot, so you'd arrange each square foot in a grid pattern, 3 wide, 3 deep, where each plant is about 4" apart. They're recommending closer planting for onions than for garlic, but if you space them a little wider you'll get bigger onions (depending on variety). Once you know how many feet long that is, you can easily do the math based on that chart and figure out how many feet to dedicate to each crop and how much you can expect to get. greatly appreciate the reply. as it turns out i was wrong, this is apparently 'fresh' top soil after they had to renovate the area to account for leaking (i will just assume growing plants in the space shouldn't be that big of a concern in regards to that eheu). when i went over to my gardening store they recommended i just mix in soil booster/conditioner (i bought the one from eb stone organics) without needing to top off with compost. i don't know how sound that idea is but did so, mixed up about the first foot of the soil together with a bunch of the booster. what do people here think in regards to that? i could maybe see 2 rows but would 3 really work? i probably don't want plants too close to the edges of the space since it's just brickwork/whatever, i thought wouldn't a crop feel cramped if it was riding right next to the wall like that? if i planted two rows tho 4 inches apart it would give about 3 inches on either side i imagine. i'm just not sure about going more than that since root stuff like garlic needs the space to grow out too without grinding up against hard surface i feel. i mostly bought the herb options while I was at the store. i imagine i'd find the best luck going to a nearby farmer's market to get starter garlic since i hear supermarket garlic is treated or something. i did also get a habanero plant from the nursery because i couldn't help myself, i'll see how far that goes. i imagine i'd eventually use the pots in photo for the herbs while using the actual row space for garlic and onion/green onions
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Aug 12, 2023 04:26
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Went to the gardening store hoping to find a Sundew to eat gnats and such. They didn’t have it, so I reacted the normal way and spent a hundred bucks on other stuff instead. Nothing exciting, just some typical houseplants to augment the greenhouse, but staples need love too. A philodendron of some sort to drape down from atop the greenhouse. Will provide some shade to us outside the greenhouse, and some nice organic shape to the whole structure. Hopefully that level of light on the dangling parts won’t be too much:  The tiniest little snake plant. It was the only one that size, had a busted leaf, and looked lonely. The picture is deceiving, it’s all of 5” tall:  A rex that fell into my cart somehow:  That one will need to wait a moment to get repotted so we can evict this monsterously rooted in coleus on the deck and steal its pot:  Anyhow, yeehaw, go plants
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Aug 12, 2023 22:00
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Bad Munki posted:Went to the gardening store hoping to find a Sundew to eat gnats and such. They didn’t have it, so I reacted the normal way and spent a hundred bucks on other stuff instead. Nothing exciting, just some typical houseplants to augment the greenhouse, but staples need love too. nice haul
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Aug 12, 2023 23:39
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double post! Sometimes it is very helpful and clarifying when something doesn't work. My Chou cheh vines have produced one melon this year.  It was... fine. Tons of seed made for a weird chew. Sweet and good, but would not grow again. Not even mad about it, excited to get something new on the trellis next year.
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Aug 15, 2023 22:47
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Futaba Anzu, If that window is not an emergency exit for a bedroom, or something like that, you could even suspend trellis netting above the bed, and grow cherry tomatoes or runner beans there. Depending on exposure, that might provide some helpful shade on the house.
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Aug 15, 2023 23:02
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B33rChiller posted:Futaba Anzu, i think that would be an interesting idea although i don't know how far i can take these projects since this is a townhouse and i don't really know if the landlord would like that. i went to another dedicated gardening store yesterday and a couple of the workers there gave me some bad news that they doubt the planters can handle growing anything other than succulents because that space mostly gets afternoon sun which is apparently the death period according to them, since the entire soil area would be heated up by the brickwork and whatnot as well. but i have anecdotal proof that some green onions did grow at least in pots before so i still think it'd be worth a shot trying the planters, right? anyways i actually bought a couple already grown plants that can at least be moved around, a couple hot peppers and a strawberry (and mint on the floor). i didn't know at the time of buying but the hardware store i bought the habanero from really trimmed the pepper plant in such a dumb way leaving only the top leaves like that, but oh well. hopefully it works out 
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Aug 16, 2023 02:06
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Does anyone else have an issue with woodlice (or things that look sorta like small isopods, anyway) eating their unripe tomatoes? They normally go after any heirloom variety that develops weird nooks and crannies, cracks in larger tomatoes and around the stem for some. It's fine to see them chowing down on an overripe tomato I missed, but frustrating to find them trying to infest the stems of tomatoes that are only just turning red at the bottoms
Slanderer fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Aug 20, 2023 |
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Aug 20, 2023 20:40
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Harvested a decent crop of 20 or so habaneros. Made some incredible hot sauce with pineapple, ginger, lime and a splash of some spicy coconut vinegar a friend gave me. Also threw some in a jar w/onions, carrot and more pineapple to ferment a bit. Really wishing I had planted double the pepper plants I did.
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Aug 21, 2023 01:52
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For me the amount of tomatoes I get is more than I wanted and peppers is always less than I wanted.
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Aug 21, 2023 02:28
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I'm going to try to overwinter these peppers this year and I had a question about where to top the freakishly large one. Since this hurt berry hulked out and grew 5ft tall I'm wondering if I should chop it back at the lower "Y" at the bottom like normal, or if I could keep the extra few feet of stem and make it start taller next year in a larger container by cutting at the second "Y" further up.
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Aug 21, 2023 15:02
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Slanderer posted:Does anyone else have an issue with woodlice (or things that look sorta like small isopods, anyway) eating their unripe tomatoes? They normally go after any heirloom variety that develops weird nooks and crannies, cracks in larger tomatoes and around the stem for some. It's fine to see them chowing down on an overripe tomato I missed, but frustrating to find them trying to infest the stems of tomatoes that are only just turning red at the bottoms The isopods have been leaving my maters alone, but the earwigs have been hell this year. Goddamn Colorado cockroaches. Also, if your tomatoes are just starting to turn red, go ahead and pull em.
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Aug 21, 2023 19:39
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Organic Lube User posted:Also, if your tomatoes are just starting to turn red, go ahead and pull em. this is one thing i hadn't realized until watching a video from my local ag extension office, where 100% of the phds and master gardeners were like "letting tomatoes get to full color on the vine is insane and just asking for heartbreak, pick them as soon as color change begins if you are in any way worried about pests or disease"
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Aug 21, 2023 19:56
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eke out posted:this is one thing i hadn't realized until watching a video from my local ag extension office, where 100% of the phds and master gardeners were like "letting tomatoes get to full color on the vine is insane and just asking for heartbreak, pick them as soon as color change begins if you are in any way worried about pests or disease" Yeah. I have a basket above my banana basket that I put green tomatoes in upside down temporarily to help speed up reddening.
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Aug 21, 2023 20:12
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eke out posted:this is one thing i hadn't realized until watching a video from my local ag extension office, where 100% of the phds and master gardeners were like "letting tomatoes get to full color on the vine is insane and just asking for heartbreak, pick them as soon as color change begins if you are in any way worried about pests or disease" For cultivars that are kinda prone to splitting and catface (I have this experience with Krims, for example), I've had good luck with dry bedding them: watering normally after transplantation while the seedlings are getting established; periodic deep watering (once or twice a week, depending on the weather) while they're developing; and then once they start to set fruit, stop watering entirely. The fruit produced generally turn out slightly smaller than normally watered tomatoes are, but they're super intensely flavoured and much less prone to splitting.
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Aug 22, 2023 00:48
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yeah in the past when i've done cherokee purples and other big heirlooms, they seem drat near impossible to finish on the vine without splitting some, but they still end up tasting pretty good
eke out fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Aug 22, 2023 |
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Aug 22, 2023 00:57
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eke out posted:this is one thing i hadn't realized until watching a video from my local ag extension office, where 100% of the phds and master gardeners were like "letting tomatoes get to full color on the vine is insane and just asking for heartbreak, pick them as soon as color change begins if you are in any way worried about pests or disease" ya i learned this recently too (last year?) and it's really changed my tomato outlook. no birds, splitting, etc. much more successful
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Aug 22, 2023 04:06
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Organic Lube User posted:The isopods have been leaving my maters alone, but the earwigs have been hell this year. Goddamn Colorado cockroaches.
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Aug 22, 2023 11:47
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| # ? May 30, 2024 19:28 |
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Earwigs will eat pretty much anything. They apparently love my tomatillos, which makes picking them a horrible lottery when they hide in the husks en masse
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Aug 22, 2023 13:51
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