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Zeta Taskforce posted:It looks like you got your work cut out for you. I would start now digging stuff out now, attacking part of the yard at a time. You could use a broad spectrum herbicide like Roundup to kill the things that you don't want, or determine are weeds. It looks like you have a lot of shade. In the shadiest spots, I would plant a shade garden with plants like hosta's or shade tolerant annuals like impatiens. Spring bulbs should do well too, all the more reason to prepare the soil now. Assuming you live in a sunnier climate than what Boston has been this year, you could still expect to get some veggies, but the most sun and heat loving things like peppers, eggplant and melons probably won't do well. Thanks for all this! The house is basically covered in english ivy and virginia creeper, which actually looks kind of nice. I spent a few minutes yesterday disentangling some of the creeper from a few of the other plants. You're right about the shade for a lot of the edges, though there's quite a bit of full sun in many places, where I'm starting up some potted plants. I'm fairly clueless about what plants are what still, as evidenced by everyone knowing blackberry vs. black raspberry, but I figured out there's a ton of yellow archangel in one area, so score one for me. It's nice to know what everything is. Does anyone know what this little guy might be?  This one looks nice and will be kept around:  There's also way too much crap clay soil where I want to plant, but some decent-enough looking soil in other places (darker, good drainage). Is it enough to mix in that and some mulch with the clay to make it better for planting (eventually)? The Big One fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Jul 10, 2009 |
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Jul 10, 2009 15:31
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The Big One posted:This one looks nice and will be kept around: That's second plant is a violet. I dunno about the first one, but those seed pods sure look interesting! You're right about amending the soil. Short of scooping it all out and replacing it, amending soil takes some time. Any of the following are good additives: sand, mulch/wood chips, rice hulls, or humus/compost.
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Jul 10, 2009 16:12
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The Big One posted:Does anyone know what this little guy might be? It's a money plant! http://www.examiner.com/x-2485-SF-Gardening-Examiner~y2009m2d13-Grow-your-own-Money-Plant
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Jul 10, 2009 16:38
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^^^ Yeah Money Plants are pretty cool, they look great in flower arrangements when dried, and they rattle like maracas.
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Jul 10, 2009 16:55
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I have a lot of clay soil in my yard as well, and the only thing I'd have to say is to avoid amending with sand. You need organic amendments to break up that clay and make your plants happy. Also it will probably take several tillings to get the clay to incorporate anything you work in, as it likes to stick together in big clumps. I also did a sort of hugelkultur variant with some of my veggie beds, because after tilling my herb bed I couldn't stand the thought of doing it 3 more times. Basically I just dug up the top 4-6 inches with a garden fork, then build a raised frame around it and filled the frame with cold-compost materials (mainly rotted wood, smaller tree branches, newspaper and cardboard, which I had ample supply of after moving into the house and cleaning up the yard). The soil then went back on top, and I planted directly on top of it the first year. Over time the materials inside have shrunk down as they compost, so every spring I top it off with fresh compost from my bins. As a result I have crazy rich humus now in my veggie beds. I'm planning on building one more bed sometime this month and planing my fall crops in it, since I've now dedicated one of my 3 beds to asparagus and I need more room again. 
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Jul 10, 2009 17:05
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Here4DaGangBang posted:Do any of you goons doing the square foot gardening method use the Mel's Mix recipe instead of soil? I'm in Australia and this year will be my second attempt at growing some veg and herbs in the backyard, and I want to go from pots last year to some square foot raised beds. The square foot gardening site touts the method as high intensity and all that, and I like the idea of growing in another substrate if it's going to help things along. I bought a soil blend from a local landscaping company. It would have cost me a small fortune to fill up all my beds with Mel's Mix. And so far everything is growing like crazy in them.
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Jul 10, 2009 18:13
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I've still been tinkering with my garden setup, and want to make sure it's perfect, before I start planting stuff. In my raised garden bed I tilled up the soil beneth it but the soil itself is so full of clay and dense that I think it'll be a serious barrier to drainage. My plan is to sort of put a layer of mulch on the bottom on top of the normal soil to both aid drainage and to keep weeds from sprouting up; then on top of that put the normal compost/soil mixture and finally a thin layer of mulch around the plants. code:
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Jul 11, 2009 23:57
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toenut posted:I bought a soil blend from a local landscaping company. It would have cost me a small fortune to fill up all my beds with Mel's Mix. And so far everything is growing like crazy in them. I got mine from the local nursery, they called it "Compost mix". It was less that US$50 per cubic yard. I got a yard and added blood and bone meal as well as two 40 Lb bags of peat moss. I didn't really know what I was doing but things went great.  Click here for the full 1296x972 image. It's 4' x 8' x 20". The bare spot in the middle is were a took out my spent strawberry and just added some peppers. ChuckHead fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jul 12, 2009 |
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Jul 12, 2009 00:05
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Shazzner posted:I've still been tinkering with my garden setup, and want to make sure it's perfect, before I start planting stuff. With my plot I dug out a 16'x10' section 18" deep, then put come cheap gravel in the bottom. Built up the dirt on top and it's working amazingly well.
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Jul 12, 2009 00:15
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Hopefully this hasn't already been covered... But can somebody tell me more about "True Potato Seeds?" I'm doing some research, and I guess they're supposed to be disease/pest resistant (huh?) and because they're not clones (grown from existing potatoes), you end up with the potential for variety, in terms of size, shape, color. Anybody have any experience with this? My potato plants have flowered and given me a handful of berries, which apparently contain lots of seeds within.
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Jul 13, 2009 05:38
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kid sinister posted:Not to mention nearly all the commercial cultivars have the added benefit of being thornless. I found the ONE stand of elderberries near my house, on the side of the road. They're still flowering, so it's easy to spot them now. I have the spot marked and plan to visit it in a month or so and make some jelly and pies.
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Jul 13, 2009 15:08
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NosmoKing posted:I found the ONE stand of elderberries near my house, on the side of the road. They're still flowering, so it's easy to spot them now. I have the spot marked and plan to visit it in a month or so and make some jelly and pies. Feel free to move dig them up and move them to your yard, they smell absolutely incredible in bloom and are very pretty plants otherwise with their purple new growth in the spring, the color lasting in the petioles if they get enough sun. There even are ornamental cultivars of elderberry (Sambucus) with near-black or variegated foliage if you're so inclined. They are native, so they're very tough and can take transplanting. I should know: I did this very thing last year, digging up and moving to my yard. All 5 died down to the ground, probably because I did it in midsummer without watering much. Well, I went to pull them up in the winter, and it wouldn't budge! I very carefully pulled back the dirt from one and sure enough, it put out little feeder roots everywhere. All 5 came back in the spring. If you're growing for a crop, keep in mind they need full sun to flower well and they only flower on growth starting from old wood, not from the ground. They also spread by underground runners, so try and give them some room to expand into a nice clump. edit: if anyone wants advice for planting or caring for larger crop plants like fruit trees, bushes or vines, I'm your man. kid sinister fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Jul 13, 2009 |
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Jul 13, 2009 15:42
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jovial_cynic posted:Hopefully this hasn't already been covered... Cloning is loosely similar to inbreeding in that regard - it keeps around the weaknesses of the lineage while not necessarily forwarding most of the positives, either. With plants you can get away with this for quite a while, but you're always on that razor edge of risk, too.  Of course some types of plant must be cloned such as apples, otherwise the offspring of the plant could potentially be undesirable. Edit: In my first sentence, I didn't mean to state that seeds are automatically more disease resistant than the parent, that came out wrong but I don't want to reword it. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jul 13, 2009 |
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Jul 13, 2009 15:54
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coyo7e posted:I've never done this with potatoes, however any plant which comes from seeds rather than cuttings, will be more disease resistant due to basic genetic differences from the parent.. A pure clone crop runs the risk of being felled by something relatively minor which happens to affect that plant, but since that plant has been duplicated a ton of times then all of the plants could potentially fall to the same affliction, at essentially the same time. Aha. That makes sense. When is a potato berry ripe and ready to harvest for seeds? My berries are about half an inch across, but I've seen some pictures online of berries that are an inch and a half, and I imagine that there are different sizes of berries for different plants. Is it like most fruit, in that it's ready when it's about to fall off the plant?
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Jul 13, 2009 16:54
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jovial_cynic posted:Aha. That makes sense. Edit: Google books link for those interested. It also has a section on potatoes, which I forgot about. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Jul 14, 2009 |
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Jul 13, 2009 19:33
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kid sinister posted:edit: if anyone wants advice for planting or caring for larger crop plants like fruit trees, bushes or vines, I'm your man. Blackberries. Blueberries. Raspberries.
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Jul 13, 2009 21:03
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Help! I ended up with two Mortgage Lifter tomato plants this year. I've never grown tomatoes before - well, not grown anything before - but my daughter wanted to grow some things this year. So I have a couple of very happy and productive cucumber plants and some happy cantaloupe vines. But the tomatoes are not doing as well. (Or are they? I really can't tell.) Here are the bastards:  The top part is healthy:  But below the top not all is so nice looking:  They get a full day's direct sunlight every day, I water them in the morning, a little at noon, and then again after work. I am in southern Oklahoma, so it's been hot. I've only seen two blossoms near the top once about two weeks ago and then no more since then. Am I over/under watering them? Is the pot too small? My daughter wants to have a full garden in the backyard next year, so I suspect I have a steep learning curve ahead of me.
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Jul 13, 2009 22:53
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ChaoticSeven posted:Blackberries. Blueberries. Raspberries. The trickiest of those to grow are blueberries simply because of their pH requirement. Blueberries grow best in soil with a pH of between 4.0 and 6.0. If you remember your high school chemistry, 7.0 is a neutral pH; most soils naturally have a pH of around there. You'll need to test your soil pH to determine just how much work you'll need to do to get that pH down to "blueberry paradise" range. If you live in a swamp or peat bog, score! For testing equipment, they make little testing kits with little bottles and chemicals and poo poo, or they also make electronic probes. I prefer the probes because of ease of use, just remember to polish up the rods with a piece of steel wool so you get a good reading. Now you know how much work you'll have to do to lower that pH! You'll be doing this with... acidifiers.  Basically you'll have 2 choices, both involve sulfur: sulfates and elemental sulfur. Sulfates are faster acting but shorter lasting, whereas elemental sulfur is slower acting but longer lasting. There are several forms of sulfates, mostly to supply deficiencies that other acid-loving plants need. Blueberries just need the acidity, so any sulfate should be fine. Pay attention and read the instructions on the label! Measure out your plot and do the math to figure out just how much you'll need to add. You don't want to go too far, raising pH is a bitch and uses even more dangerous chemicals.Right now, it would be best to prepare your bed now, then plant in the fall. Till everything in and water it, even though nothing is planted there. The water will help activate the chemicals so they can do their thing. Wait a month and test the pH again. One more thing: a good acidic soil often takes on a ugly shade of green on top. That's an indicator of perfectly fine acidic soil, so don't worry that your dirt looks "sick". I'll type the other two after a shower.
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Jul 13, 2009 23:05
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Raspberries are basically a weed here. You almost have to salt the earth surrounding them to try and curb their expansion throughout the yard.
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Jul 13, 2009 23:11
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handbags at dawn posted:Help! I ended up with two Mortgage Lifter tomato plants this year. I've never grown tomatoes before - well, not grown anything before - but my daughter wanted to grow some things this year. So I have a couple of very happy and productive cucumber plants and some happy cantaloupe vines. But the tomatoes are not doing as well. (Or are they? I really can't tell.) there's several guides available on the internet for diagnosing tomato problems. i like the ones with pictures since descriptions with words like "chlorotic" mean nothing to me. heres one http://www.ext.colostate.edu/PUBS/Garden/02949.html this one is more focused on specific element deficiencies, i think more useful for someone with only a handful of plants since those problems are probably more common. http://4e.plantphys.net/article.php?ch=t&id=289 skimming over this guide, it looks like a nitrogen deficiency.
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Jul 14, 2009 02:16
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Banana Factory posted:skimming over this guide, it looks like a nitrogen deficiency. Yup. We had the same sort of thing (leaves yellowing from the bottom up). My husband googled it, we fertilized, and now the tomatoes are fine.
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Jul 14, 2009 02:30
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Oooh, thanks. From reading that article, I think that may be the problem. They mention that the newer leaves will be green but smaller than the older leaves, which I have noticed. Will be fertilizing as soon as possible. The soil is getting a chance to dry out between waterings, I did make sure of that because of the high number of houseplants I have overwatered in my lifetime. 
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Jul 14, 2009 03:25
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kid sinister posted:
So...what am I supposed to do with a peach tree? I just realized I have one (I thought it was just a 'generic spring flowering tree' until it started fruiting) and have no idea how to care for it. It looks sickly--several branches have no leaves, and the leaves have sucking damage. I keep catching squirrels with green peaches in their little jaws, so right now its only job is distracting them from my tomatoes. It is out front and COMPLETELY surrounded by weeds. The soil is covered in rocks. Can I glyphosphate the weeds or will it get down into the roots? I wouldn't mind having a few peaches, not enough to go squirrel shooting, but enough to buy some fertilizer and new parts for the soaker hose that the previous residents hooked up around it. How often does it need watered? It is next to the house and doesn't get as much rain because there is a small overhang. I know absolutely nothing about fruit trees!
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Jul 14, 2009 04:28
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HeatherChandler posted:So...what am I supposed to do with a peach tree? I just realized I have one (I thought it was just a 'generic spring flowering tree' until it started fruiting) and have no idea how to care for it. It looks sickly--several branches have no leaves, and the leaves have sucking damage. I keep catching squirrels with green peaches in their little jaws, so right now its only job is distracting them from my tomatoes. It is out front and COMPLETELY surrounded by weeds. The soil is covered in rocks. Can I glyphosphate the weeds or will it get down into the roots? I wouldn't mind having a few peaches, not enough to go squirrel shooting, but enough to buy some fertilizer and new parts for the soaker hose that the previous residents hooked up around it. How often does it need watered? It is next to the house and doesn't get as much rain because there is a small overhang. I know absolutely nothing about fruit trees! Are you sure that it is a fruiting tree and not just an ornamental? How big is it?
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Jul 14, 2009 05:52
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Any Saskatchewan gardeners able to tell me when my peas should begin flowering? They're growing like mad, but have not shown a hint of flowering... I want peas! All my googling shows information about field peas, and how to properly shell them..
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Jul 14, 2009 15:17
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coyo7e posted:Just in case you're interested in a more historical reference to plant cloning and how it weakens a line, you might check out the book The Botany of Desire ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Botany_of_Desire ) which is a very interesting read, and it goes over apples tulips and marijuana, and how cloning has affected the plants' evolution, essentially due to their desirability to people. The tulip portion is very interesting - I'd never known that variegated veins on tulip flowers were actually due to a virus infection, and it's pretty interesting to find out how essentially cultivating a sick strain of plant, became a huge affect on the plants as a whole. I’m a huge fan of Michael Pollan and the Botany of Desire was a fun book to read. I won’t give too much away, but he was talking about the story of Johnny Appleseed. The US, being prudish, has repackaged the story of Johnny Appleseed as this wholesome guy who selflessly gave apples to the settlers, romantically spreading his seeds everywhere. The real story is much more fascinating. His apple trees were grown from seed in nurseries he planted by riverbanks, and as mentioned, apples grown from seed display amazing randomness, but are invariably barely edible. There were lots of sources of cultivated varieties, but because they were grafts, they cost more, and Johnny Appleseed was able to sell his wild apples for less. However when you crush wild apples, they make cider just fine, and before refrigeration, cider wasn’t this sweet drink you gave to kids at picnics, cider fermented and could become quite strong. In essence, Johnny Appleseed was bringing the gift of intoxication to the settlers.
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Jul 14, 2009 16:15
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Johnny Appleseed Applejack (what I know as fermented cider) is really really good (we don't have a drunk smiley?!).
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Jul 14, 2009 17:10
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I'm gardening for the first time this year and I have two very large indeterminate tomato plants (Early Girl) planted within inches of each other. I bought the seedlings from Home Depot and they came like that. They have far outgrown the 3 foot tall cage that I purchased at Home Depot and are now bent over and nearly touching the ground. 1. Should I trim the tops before they touch the ground (which would also limit the number of tomatoes on the plants)? Or should I let them crawl across the ground? 2. There's lots of tomatoes growing on them right now, but already two of the branches (not the main stem) couldn't support the weight of all those tomatoes and they bent/crimped. I already clipped one of the branches, fearing that nutrients and water would be unable to get to the tomatoes, but left the other bent branch intact. Should I trim the second branch, or will the plant adapt to this crimp? 3. What can I do in the future to prevent the branches from bending/crimping from the weight of the tomatoes? Obviously, I should have used a larger cage, but they don't sell them bigger than 3 feet and I'm not very handy.
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Jul 14, 2009 18:29
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kid sinister posted:Are you sure that it is a fruiting tree and not just an ornamental? How big is it? It's big--taller than the house, but the house isn't that tall (split level). Wow, that was descriptive--my camera is kuputz for the moment, which would be very helpful. I wasn't sure what it was so I took an immature fruit off and cut it open--looks and smells like a peach, just not ripe. plasticbugs: Next time, you can turn another cage over the top and secure with those plastic ties that you pull to shut, and put 3-4 stakes down to help keep it erect. then you also have more places to tie in heavy branches. I don't know why they even sell those stupid 3 ft. cages, they are only really suitable for determinates. I have several trusses with crimps in them, I try to tie them up for support but a few just hang and are developing just fine. If you want to let them crawl on the ground you can put some clean straw down to try and avoid rotting.
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Jul 14, 2009 19:06
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landis posted:I always knew there was more to the story, I didn't have a source for feeling that way but it felt glossed over. Applejack's a liquor though, iirc? Cider tends to come in around the same range of alcohol as a beer or maybe a wine (with the same amount of range, I've had ciders that're thin as Coors, and others that hit you like you pounded a homebrew,) there're few things that're refreshing like a good strong pint of apple or pear cider (I recommend Wyder's, for the initiate) on a hot, hot day. Come to think of it, if I had a crabapple tree I'd probably try my hand at making some cider.. When I was a kid we'd leave fallen pears in 5-gallon buckets for a few days-weeks, then throw them into the chicken coop for slops and laugh at drunk chickens (which is also one of my family's favorite recipes, involving wine and golden raisins and all kinds of wonderful stuff.) coyo7e fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Jul 14, 2009 |
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Jul 14, 2009 21:24
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CHEEZball posted:Any Saskatchewan gardeners able to tell me when my peas should begin flowering? They're growing like mad, but have not shown a hint of flowering... I want peas! All my googling shows information about field peas, and how to properly shell them.. They might grow like crazy and wait until late August to flower. That's what they do down by Regina. Also it's been so dry that the peas might wait to commit to fruiting?
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Jul 14, 2009 23:20
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coyo7e posted:You can thank Disney for that, in large I believe. Johnny Appleseed was a pretty badass mofo, and a lot more savvy than people assume from popular myth. Our horse would eat apples that fell off a tree in his pasture. Drunk horses are not as funny as you'd think. At least he was mostly a happy drunk.
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Jul 15, 2009 13:19
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coyo7e posted:You can thank Disney for that, in large I believe. Johnny Appleseed was a pretty badass mofo, and a lot more savvy than people assume from popular myth. NosmoKing posted:Our horse would eat apples that fell off a tree in his pasture. Drunk horses are not as funny as you'd think. At least he was mostly a happy drunk.
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Jul 15, 2009 17:22
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landis posted:I think it's just slang/semantics. In my family, we called it applejack to indicate what was ok to give the kids. It's very likely the source of that usage wasn't anything in normal vernacular.
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Jul 15, 2009 18:16
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NosmoKing posted:Our horse would eat apples that fell off a tree in his pasture. Drunk horses are not as funny as you'd think. At least he was mostly a happy drunk. No, but squirrels are! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ikH9ZRcF2Q
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Jul 15, 2009 18:39
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coyo7e posted:You buy applejack at the liquor store, the last bottle I had was 40 proof. To be clear, that sentence wasn't meant to imply that we gave applejack to kids.
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Jul 15, 2009 18:47
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Thanks for the blueberry info. I think I'll try to put some out this fall if I'm back from out of state by then. So how do they have time to become established before they freeze planting that late?
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Jul 16, 2009 01:07
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plasticbugs posted:I'm gardening for the first time this year and I have two very large indeterminate tomato plants (Early Girl) planted within inches of each other. I bought the seedlings from Home Depot and they came like that. Tie them to stakes as they grow. It works a lot better than cages.
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Jul 16, 2009 04:00
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frumpus posted:Tie them to stakes as they grow. It works a lot better than cages. I had no real concept of how tall these things grow when I planted it. I put a 3 foot stake in the ground when they started and thought that was sufficient. Today, I learned an important lesson: Use a MUCH taller stake. One vine was up to about 8 feet (leaning on my fence). I tied it up to the fence yesterday, but it was so much higher than the fence that the top of the vine finally bent over and crimped at the tie-off point. So, my option now is to just leave it bent like that or un-tie it and hope that it doesn't crimp somewhere else as it bends back towards the ground. Wow, what a mess. Any suggestions there? Should I leave the crimp and hope for the best? On a positive note, the thing is flowering and developing tomatoes like crazy.
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Jul 16, 2009 19:03
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frumpus posted:Tie them to stakes as they grow. It works a lot better than cages. Unless you don't want to prune.
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Jul 16, 2009 23:06
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