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I moved into a new house (rental) recently and the landlords don't appear to have done any yard work for at least a year. I've got a yard with more leaves and twigs than grass. I've already raked up the leaves from maybe a quarter of the back yard into a compost pile that's 3' x 3' x 2'. Is there anything useful I can do with the rest of these leaves and twigs? I don't want to just send them to the dump as yard waste but I'm a bit overwhelmed by having a whole years worth of back-logged yard work to do at once and don't know what else to do with it. I've gathered most of the larger branches for kindling in case I ever want to have a fire but there's still tons of little stuff left. I'm in a 5a zone, but I'm just a mile or two north of the dividing line into 6a. I don't know if its relevant or not, but I've seen other people include that information.
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Feb 13, 2017 18:48
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Last frost is mid-april here. I'm planning to plant two 4x6 raised beds. It will be my first year growing at home but I've done community gardens for several years so I think I can handle this much space. I'm leaving the row after my tomatoes and cucumbers empty because those plants tend to expand everywhere. I'll probably put some basil in there as companion plants. Living in Illinois I probably don't have a good environment for growing tomatillos or peppers but my wife loves them so I thought I'd give them a try. Any comments or suggestions? I'd love to get some advice. LLSix fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Mar 29, 2017 |
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Mar 29, 2017 14:49
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Peristalsis posted:I live in Madison, WI and I grow peppers every year, and have grown tomatillos quite successfully (i.e. they were like weeds). If you're buying starter plants, just make sure you get ones that are pretty large/mature so they start producing earlier in the season. If you're growing from seed, you probably should have started them already, but it might not be too late to get some going, especially if you can use a hoop house to extend the season or something. You might also look for early-producing varieties. Awesome. Thank you.
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Apr 1, 2017 23:01
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I'm hoping to grow strawberries for the first time this year, but so far Walmart is the only place in town with any and all of theirs have brown leaves. Any idea what's wrong with them? I don't want to import some horrible leaf rot disease into my garden. learnincurve posted:Im officially a veg grower. LLSix fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Apr 7, 2017 |
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Apr 7, 2017 20:14
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I tried starting my seeds for the first time this year, and most of the paper towels in my ziploc baggies have either brown or reddish spots in them. Is that fungus? Do I need to start over? The discoloration has spread to some of the seeds in this bag and in the lower left corner what looks like a white smudge next to a seed is actually rootlet covered in fuzz. 
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Apr 9, 2017 17:21
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Fitzy Fitz posted:I have grown things from moldy seeds like this before. Mold and germination often go hand in hand. Thanks! I'll give it a try then.
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Apr 10, 2017 01:42
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Pheasant Revolution posted:I just saw a thing about no-dig gardening that suggests keeping the soil matrix intact results in better soil. So, no digging over or killing the grass, you just put your beds right on top, the grass will just go back to enrich the soil. It was this week's Gardener's World with Charles Dowding if anyone is interested (ep7) Maybe if you don't have weeds and/or really deep beds. Dandelions and other weeds keep poking up through my beds near the edges where I didn't dig them out well enough.
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Apr 23, 2017 15:32
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Is there any good way of keeping rabbits out of my garden besides building a fence? The little rodent robbers are eating my strawberry plants.
LLSix fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Apr 24, 2017 |
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Apr 24, 2017 02:51
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I saw a tiny bug crawling over my zucchini today. It had a little baby bug riding on it's back. It was striped yellow and black with the stripes running from its head down its body to its rear. A few minutes googling makes me think its probably some sort of squash beetles. Are there any good ways to get rid of squash beetles now that they've moved in? Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of it since my camera zoom wouldn't focus on it and when I moved my camera close to it, the bug jumped off and I lost it in the dirt.
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Jun 11, 2017 23:52
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I thought I planted radishes in this spot on april 25th, but now I've got a bunch of giant mystery plants spreading out everywhere from it. Can anyone identify them? another picture of how the largest stalk lies naturally, stretching out over 18 inches to the side: 
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Jun 18, 2017 16:20
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Marchegiana posted:Leaves look like radishes to me, that one with the big flowerstalk has just bolted. It's too hot for them now and they're setting seed. Personally I'd just pull them and see if anything's salvageable, then try again in the fall. Suspect Bucket posted:Yeah, that's bolted raddish. The'll grow from seed to maturity in 30ish days. Thank you! I'll just pull them as you suggested.
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Jun 19, 2017 04:35
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Growing basil for the first time this year and its coming up lovely. I'd like to make some pesto from it, but all the recipes I find want 2 or more cups of basil leaves. How do I make just enough pesto for one or two servings?
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Jul 7, 2017 00:38
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Something got into my garden last night and ate the top half of every last one of my parsnips. Here are some images of the damage.   I'm pretty sure all those eaten plants used to be twice that tall. Any idea what did this? I might almost guess deer since something also knocked over one of my tomato plants (it's mostly okay). Only, I haven't seen any deer since we moved here in January. I have seen a groundhog around a few times the past 60 days. I lost a bunch of almost ripe tomatoes too. All that's left are green ones. At least it left the zucchini and cucumbers alone. LLSix fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Aug 9, 2017 |
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Aug 8, 2017 23:44
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coyo7e posted:Tomatillos are savages. A volunteer tomatillos from seeds off the previous season will put out just as much or more as a store-bought start. I wish my tomatillos were half that awesome. I've got two and neither have produced any fruit yet, just teasingly hollow leaf bowls.
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Aug 24, 2017 03:26
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Does anyone grow anything during winter? Is there an indoor hydroponics gardening thread? I've really enjoyed puttering around my garden and eating it. I'm dreading its absence this winter and the lows are already down into the 40s every day here.
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Sep 7, 2017 17:19
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Just bought and moved into a new house in Houston, Texas. Any advice for starting a garden so late in the season? Main thing I want to grow are cherry tomatoes. Will probably plant a small number of jalapeno and bell pepper plants too if it's not too late. I think our hardiness zone is 9a, but we're pretty close to 8b and my last garden was several states North. I was planning on waiting until next year before planting, so I haven't done any prep work at all. Things being as they are, having fresh fruits and veggies in our backyard instead of needing to go to the store feels more urgent.
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Apr 4, 2020 03:12
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Anyone got suggestions for an online seedling seller? Trying to make a garden at the last minute after moving into a house just soon enough to make an attempt but too late to start seeds (Houston, so may be too late for some plants). Thinking about maybe giving this place a shot: https://www.growjoy.com/store/pc/Cherry-Tomato-Plants-c148.htm. Normally I'd try to buy local, but the places I've found so far either don't carry most of what I want or were actively making shopping there riskier than it would be if it was just business as normal (Walmart  ).
LLSix fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Apr 7, 2020 |
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Apr 7, 2020 00:36
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STAC Goat posted:I'm feeling super weird about how responsible it will be for me to go and do my usual trips to Lowes for my garden (or what they'll be like or what kind of stock they'll have). Its not yet time for me to worry about that since I still had 30s and 40s here. But I've been anxious about that and not sure how to approach things this year and the only thing I've bought so far is a bag of potting soil from the grocery store. I've had to run errands as part of buying and moving into a new house. My experiences have been uniformly bad and have been getting worse. I strongly recommend that you do any shopping you can online and have it delivered. Buying seeds online is very easy. It sounds like you still have plenty of time, so do that. Or maybe Burpee will deliver seedlings to you (they don't deliver where I live, but maybe you'll be more fortunate). I've been to more stores than I feel comfortable admitting to, and not one of them has been practicing social distancing. Some are still operating like normal, as if there is no pandemic at all. Others (Walmart ) are herding everyone in and out through a single entrance and making no effort to prevent long lines or large groups from forming; guaranteeing that if any of their customers are infected it spreads to everyone.I have not seen anyone else practicing social distancing, and people have repeatedly walked closer to me or behind me despite my best efforts. Due to a lack of testing caused by the complete, and systemic (Trump fired the entire White House National Security Council's global health security unit) failure of our federal government to address the ongoing health crises, no one knows which areas are infected or how heavily. Going anywhere other people are is not safe, and covid-19 has a 3% fatality rate, assuming access to high-quality medical care. Things seem to be getting worse, not better right now. I expect covid-19 to be a thing for several months at least. That seems pretty doom and gloom, so let me try to steer things back towards gardening. What are goons favorite cherry tomatoes? I really like Sun Gold and Sun Sugars. They taste good and 3-4 plants can just about keep up with how quickly my family eats them. LLSix fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Apr 7, 2020 |
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Apr 7, 2020 04:47
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Oh no! They'll probably not die, but it'll probably slow them down a bit for a while. Why's your garden white? Kinda reminds me of giant spider webs in horror movies and its creeping me out.
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Apr 12, 2020 21:04
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I've been disappointed by every cucumber trellis I've ever made. Every time I've tried to make something cheaply, it collapsed under the weight of the cucumbers partway through the season. Does anyone know of a good premade frame for cucumbers to grow up? Failing that, I'm thinking of trying to make an A-frame by cutting this down to size and then bending it in half. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Tarter-Act...cB&gclsrc=aw.ds I'd really prefer something I could order instead of risking a trip to the store.
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Apr 13, 2020 21:56
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Motronic posted:
Wow.
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May 6, 2020 02:50
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Here in Texas local temps are in the high 80s and my tomatoes and peppers are starting to fruit even though they have hardly any leaves. Is there anything I can do to help them grow, or should do next year? I'm watering them once a day, but as you can see, even though it rained last night the soil is already dry. They're in a lovely spot where there's almost no shade.  
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May 6, 2020 20:25
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SubG posted:I've got a patch of bunching onions that squirrels keep digging up. They don't go after the onions themselves. They just dig everything up right where they're growing. I put chicken wire over them, and the squirrels keep going out of their way to get under it just to dig up that patch of ground. There's sugar peas growing right next to the onions and the ground there has no protection, but they leave it alone. Leave out some nuts or birdseed nearby to distract them?
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May 10, 2020 04:20
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Cucumbers were one of the only two things doing well this year until a few days ago. All of a sudden their leaves started turning yellow and dying.  Is there anything I can do to save them?
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Jun 9, 2020 16:55
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OSU_Matthew posted:Looking at the amount of water in these pics, I’d be liable to suspect overwatering—yellowing is a classic sign of oxygen deprived roots. I did not know that. Thank you. I was in the process of watering them when I took that picture. Daytime temps were in the high 90s all last week here in Houston and the soil has been getting very dry. I’ve been worried that watering for ~5 minutes a day is too little water, the soil has felt very dry lately. Do you think I should be watering them less?
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Jun 10, 2020 02:43
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Anyone have suggestions on a composter? My HOA has rules against open-air composting which is what I have done in the past so I'm thinking of getting one of those rotating barrel things from amazon.
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Jun 18, 2020 17:59
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I'm planning to build garden beds this year and would love to hear suggestions for what to build them out of. I'm currently thinking of doing 2"x12" pressure treated boards (yellow southern pine) since that's the tallest boards I can find online at my local hardware stores. Something like this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Severe-Weather-Common-2-in-x-12-in-x-12-ft-Actual-1-5-in-x-11-25-in-x-12-ft-2-Prime-Treated-Lumber/50277349. Anyone know if that's okay for garden beds? I'd read that some forms of pressure treated wood are acceptable for food crops, but can't tell if these are. The perimeter for the new beds is about 68'. Zone 9a and we get small floods about half the time when it rains (standing water in the yard, none inside, yet).
LLSix fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jan 16, 2021 |
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Jan 16, 2021 19:46
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So I noticed that pre-cut galvanized zinc garden beds would cost about as much as buying treated wood and assembling them myself so I'm thinking of doing that instead. I certainly feel a lot better about the safety of steel beds versus maybe-safe pressure treated wood. I'm thinking one extra big bed for cherry tomatoes because those are our favorites and a few smaller beds. Anyone have opinions on these two brands? https://www.amazon.com/Raised-Garden-Elevated-Planter-Vegetable/dp/B086T1VY6M/ https://www.amazon.com/zizin-Galvanized-Elevated-Planter-Vegetable/dp/B07T8HMV5S I could buy the raw parts for cheaper but I don't have any tools yet, or any where to store tools and once I did it'd be pretty close to the same price as just buying the kits. LLSix fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Jan 19, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 21:55
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I just finished putting together two "Zizin" brand raised beds. Never again. Heartily discommend. The main problem I have with them is that the screw holes are not even. They aren't even close to even. More than one of the screw holes is off by half the width of the hole, which means I can't thread the provided screws through the holes anymore (I have plenty of left over screws from previous projects and used those as a stopgap for now). Dirt gets here in a few days, and I'm crossing my fingers that they don't just fall apart when I fill them. The manufacturing quality is transparently poor in several other ways as well, most of which made them a lot harder to assemble than they should have been. Also, the instructions for assembling them are exactly backwards, so I had to take the first one apart and put it together again. The Slack Lagoon posted:Anyone have a guide for raised beds on top of urban fill? Maybe put down some bricks or concrete blocks and make your raised bed on those? Lots of videos around on how to do that. LLSix fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Jan 29, 2021 |
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Jan 28, 2021 23:42
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Dirt arrived today. Supposedly 3 cubic yards. Used it to make 4 barely raised beds. ~1 foot tall.   The two silver ones are 7' long and the two green ones are 4' long. Looking forward to planting in a week or so. The season starts early here in Houston. There's an empty space between my beds to leave space for a 5th one, but we ran out of dirt.
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Feb 1, 2021 00:01
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Ok Comboomer posted:why are they so spread out? They're about 40 inches apart. The last time I made beds they were only two feet apart and that didn't feel like enough space. It made mowing challenging and felt cramped. I'm hoping spacing them out will help with that, and maybe limit the spread of bugs from one bed to another. Keeping the insects from spreading is probably a dumb hope, but I've got the space.
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Feb 1, 2021 20:18
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Earth posted:First, you should be glad that you can actually order dirt like that. I've looked all over my area and couldn't find a single person to deliver with those bags. Second, is that silver raised bed this? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086T1VY6M/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_10?smid=A13I5F5GZ8MDRR&psc=1 You are correct on all counts. Except my silver beds are the 7' versions which they don't sell anymore. Not sure why. I bought mine about a week ago. They're... okay for the price. There were some hole alignment issues. Nothing I couldn't fix with a hammer, but on the other hand, I did have to use a hammer and a lot of pushing and shoving to get the screw holes to align. I can't really recommend them and don't plan on buying from them again. Something you notice really quick with metal beds like these is there's no lip. You can't sit on the edge and I wouldn't recommend resting your arm on the edge either. They are folded over, so the edges aren't sharp, but it's still a thin piece of metal. In terms of effort, it took me ~3 hours to assemble each bed. The first 1 to 2 hours was spent pulling this awful sticky blue protective covering off them. Took a lot of work and there's still bits stuck on under the top and bottom where it got folded over. The rest of the time is spent screwing the sheet metal together. They don't provide any tools and the hole alignment issues mean that sometimes the bolts they provide are barely long enough to work, and only then with a lot of brute forcing. The kits don't include any tools. You can hand assemble them, but I used a 10mm hex socket wrench to tighten them. Oh, and there weren't any spare bolts or nuts so don't lose any. Most places include a few spares incase they got the count wrong, so I'm a little worried that some people might receive kits missing a few pieces. I don't think I'd ever do this again. I've seen DYI videos of metal beds with wooden tops and bottoms. The next time I make beds I'll probably do that. I honestly don't feel like I saved myself a lot of time by using the kits compared to when I made beds by hand from lumber. It is a cheaper than a similar amount of wood though, which is why next time I'll probably try to make a wooden frame with metal sides myself. Maybe something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnVZTLeaLLM One goon upthread recommended a different, much more expensive, bed kit provider. I ordered one to fill the empty spot, but we got shorted more than half a cubic yard of dirt by the provider so I probably won't assemble it this year. My wife has been much more involved than usual this year, which is mostly nice, but we've also already spent more on the garden than all the previous years combined. As to the bags, they came from a place that also delivers just a dump truck pile. The bags were a little extra money. So maybe ask at the dump truck places near you if they do bags or containers too. We got them because we expected to have a lot of leftover dirt and needed something to store it in. LLSix fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Feb 2, 2021 |
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Feb 2, 2021 02:45
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Earth posted:Wow, thanks a bunch for the write up. I'm glad you gave some thoughts on those. I may end up passing on them. Which goon was the one that recommended the different bed provider? I must have missed the post. Fozzy The Bear posted:If you are looking for metal raised beds, I recommend https://www.metalgardenbeds.com/. I've had four for 1.5 years and they are high quality. They look nicer, but I don't have any personal experience with them.
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Feb 2, 2021 04:59
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Sweet Millions are a very productive cherry tomato plant. Everyone we've gifted some to has enjoyed the taste as well. You said you were already planting "some tomatoes" so maybe you're already doing cherry tomatoes, but that's my go to suggestion.
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Feb 6, 2021 20:00
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CommonShore posted:I haven't decided on other varieties yet, hence the post! We often plant something that's called "Sweet Hundreds" or something like that - it's my partner's favourite - I wonder if they're the same thing. They're very similar! We like the Sweet 100s too. Sweet Millions are a little hardier and I'm a lazy gardener so they usually produce better for us. I've never pruned my plants before, for example. I should probably do that this year.
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Feb 7, 2021 03:28
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TraderStav posted:I cut down a lot of trees last year and have a fantastic stripe of yard between our houses that I think would be perfect for a garden. I am drat near a complete beginner. Do you have a recommended resource for babbys first 5 gallon bucket garden so I can get going this year? A nice hand holder would be fantastic! Then grow (hah!) and learn from there for next year. Some amateur advice from my first time growing things. Cherry tomatoes tend to be much hardier than full size or even roma tomatoes. I recommend you try those first (and you will definitely need a trellis/cage for them). Of everything I've tried to grow, cherry tomatoes seem to be the most forgiving. Cucumbers also need a trellis. When I grew them in southern Illinois, the came out a lot smaller than when I grew them just a few states South. So make sure you get a good variety for your region and don't be surprised if they're not very big. Also, they taste better if you pick them when ripe. They'll keep growing after reaching "normal" size, but it's mostly just water weight and it makes them taste bland and watery. It's hard to describe, but once you see it once or twice it's really obvious when a cucumber is ripe vs getting too big.
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Mar 18, 2024 14:15
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