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I don't remember if this has been brought up before, but is anybody interested in a seed exchange, or just giveaway? There are some seeds I have way too much of, and they'll probably just go bad. We ordered a lot of different things this year (garden is 20' x 40') I can put a list up later of what is available. Off the top of my head, I know I have extra for red pear tomato, roma tomato, black jalapeno, early jalapeno, red slim pepper, spicy mustard habanero, broccoli, sweet basil, thyme, and italian parsley.
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Apr 17, 2011 15:35
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It's burgin' time! 
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madlilnerd posted:Do any of you guys live in rental properties? Did you have to ask permission from the landlord before putting in beds for vegetables? If the landlord is the one doing your landscaping or mowing the lawn, then yes, where I live the landlord can tell you whether or not you can garden. In practice, when I've had a yard, I only had one landlady who cared if I dug it up in a spot or two. She had an expensive looking landscaping that she maintained, as well as a perfect lawn in the back yard, and she did not want it messed with. I had buried a few pumpkins in a small bare spot in the front yard and it had gotten as far as good blooms before she noticed, then she told her gardner to rip it out. Then she treated that area with roundup. She was a complete bitch.
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Apr 17, 2011 19:41
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I heart bacon posted:I don't remember if this has been brought up before, but is anybody interested in a seed exchange, or just giveaway? There are some seeds I have way too much of, and they'll probably just go bad. We ordered a lot of different things this year (garden is 20' x 40') I can put a list up later of what is available. Probably too late for this year, but I saved seeds from my Kellogg's Breakfast, Black Krim and Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes. Tomato seed lasts for 5 years so if anyone wants to try any of these for next year, let me know.
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Apr 18, 2011 03:23
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Is there any truth to the "pinch off the first flower buds of your vegetables and get more vegetable growth later" thing? I don't know where I read it but the idea is that when the plant produces fruit, it stops growing as much and so produces less fruit in the long term - so pinching off the first buds allows the plant to grow more and produce more. Has anybody tried it and noticed any vast difference in amount of produce from their plants? I see people on sites like Folia with pictures of their plants and then they show what they harvested and it's only like five peppers or something. I also read that spraying your plant with a crushed up aspirin solution (like a half a tablet to a couple gallons of water) will increase their immune system, and was wondering if it might be worth any thought.
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Apr 18, 2011 04:02
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I'm not certain about any vegetables outside of tomatoes, which you NEED to keep pruned in order for them to bear more fruit. Although, you can pluck off the blooms of zucchini plants and stuff and fry them. They are delicious like that.
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Apr 18, 2011 04:26
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The aspirin folk lore probably derives from aspirin originally being made from salicylic acid (like what is found in willow leaves) which can promote plant rooting/growth. Im not sure if a foliar spray would do anything and Im not sure if the synthetic salicylic acid now used in aspirin would work the same way as the natural stuff
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Apr 18, 2011 05:33
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Well, I may be in over my head. My gardening this year started out as an idea to grow some tomatoes, using some old, weather cracked tires as raised beds. A conversation with a friend convinced me, who has never had success in growing anything (and oh, how I've tried) that I could start tomatoes from seed. Another conversation with a house mate convinced me to give up the tires in favor of knocking down, cleaning up, and eventually forming a six foot high, four - five foot around pile of dirt into a raised bed. I'm completely losing steam. I have 20 potential tomato plants (long term plan, if they all live: give half away. I have the dirt pile about 50% knocked down, but the small willow trees growing out of it are starting to get in the way. Add that to the temperature not hitting 50 since Thursday, and you have one very unmotivated, reluctant gardener. I want the produce, but I'm not sure I can do the growing. I don't know if my tomatoes are warm enough, I don't know if I should be watering them every night or ignoring them, and now the cats are eying the trays. IF I can get the bed put together, I'm thinking of planting chard (from seed ), carrots (from seed) , green peppers (from seedlings), and probably some zucchini. I'm in zone 5. Any advice?
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Apr 18, 2011 13:53
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As we were talking about prior in the thread, starting from seed is not always easy and for the newbie, buying starts is probably best 50F won't encourage much growth but they won't be hurt either (been 50-60 here in Northern CA and the summer crops have been stagnant in their growth) Id recommend smaller tomatoes or cherry: you don't have to get such an early start to still get a good harvest from them. They'll ripen earlier and you won't have to worry about end of growing season as much Tires are fine (although Id stick to fruiting plants like tomatoes in them). A berm would be fine too but, depending on how it was built, it could dry out/runoff water. If its just a pile of native soil and not compost or amended in any way you lose what I'd consider the best benefit of a raised bed. A raised bed also really needs to be no more than 12-18"
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Apr 18, 2011 18:01
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dwoloz posted:As we were talking about prior in the thread, starting from seed is not always easy and for the newbie, buying starts is probably best I'm fine with buying plants if these don't make it - I think the whole experiment cost me $8. dwoloz posted:Id recommend smaller tomatoes or cherry: you don't have to get such an early start to still get a good harvest from them. They'll ripen earlier and you won't have to worry about end of growing season as much dwoloz posted:Tires are fine (although Id stick to fruiting plants like tomatoes in them). A berm would be fine too but, depending on how it was built, it could dry out/runoff water. If its just a pile of native soil and not compost or amended in any way you lose what I'd consider the best benefit of a raised bed. A raised bed also really needs to be no more than 12-18"
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Apr 18, 2011 21:45
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Probably too late for this year, but I saved seeds from my Kellogg's Breakfast, Black Krim and Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes. Tomato seed lasts for 5 years so if anyone wants to try any of these for next year, let me know. I may have to take you up on that for a couple of each. Here's the full list of what I have extra: Italian Parsley Spearmint Oregano Sweet Basil Roma Tomato Black Cherry Tomato Red Pear Tomato Early Jalapeno Giant Jalapeno Ancho Pepper Genovese Basil Serrano Pepper I know it's late for some for seeds, but it also can't be too late considering we're still waiting to put anything in the ground here. On top of that, we're expecting snow here again 
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Apr 19, 2011 03:40
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Uh oh, not good. My Yellow Delicious tree has almost fully bloomed but my fuji tree hasn't even gotten his leaves out yet. I'm guessing this is going to completely gently caress up the pollination and mean almost no apples this year. 
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Apr 19, 2011 13:53
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Anubis posted:Uh oh, not good. My Yellow Delicious tree has almost fully bloomed but my fuji tree hasn't even gotten his leaves out yet. I'm guessing this is going to completely gently caress up the pollination and mean almost no apples this year. Yeah, sounds like you are screwed. Fuji should normally start blooming before Golden Delicious. It's too bad your Golden Delicious blooms will be wasted.
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Apr 19, 2011 14:35
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Anubis posted:Uh oh, not good. My Yellow Delicious tree has almost fully bloomed but my fuji tree hasn't even gotten his leaves out yet. I'm guessing this is going to completely gently caress up the pollination and mean almost no apples this year. Are there any crab apples, anything else remotely nearby? That stuff does cross polinate. If not, maybe a neighbor would be kind enough to give you a branch of something that is currently in flower and you could put it nearby when the bees are active.
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Apr 19, 2011 14:44
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ToastFaceKillah, when I was telling you how big Concords get this is what I'm talking about. This is me standing next to a 3 year old concord I'm taking care of in our vineyard. I'm 6 foot tall. Also got some plants from the green house tonight. The rest we grew are destined for the farmers market.  26 heirloom tomatoes 3 water melons 4 musk melons 4 8 ball eggplants 12 giant Marconi peppers 4 habaneros 4 banana peppers 4 chili peppers 4 California wonders Here is a rough plan for the garden, 60ft x 30ft. Minus some cole crops that are already out there. 
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Apr 19, 2011 16:35
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Are there any crab apples, anything else remotely nearby? That stuff does cross polinate. If not, maybe a neighbor would be kind enough to give you a branch of something that is currently in flower and you could put it nearby when the bees are active. A couple neighbors have apple trees but they are a good 100+ feet away so I don't know how good they will be. I haven't even seen any bees yet this year, so I have no clue what the hell is up with this tree. It just seems to have completely jumped the gun on everything else. Once we get the sewer redone we are going to have to add two more trees to try and make our apple crop a little less vulnerable to this, I suppose.
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Apr 19, 2011 17:00
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Something is eating my apple trees.  I found what looked like a cabbage looper on it this morning, and the damage seems to be consistent with images on-line. Guess I'll have to go try to find some BT today
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Apr 19, 2011 18:36
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Here's a good question for you guys. Does using gypsum to break up clay have any potential weird side effects in a veggie garden? We've been fighting clay for years now working in compost with a little sand every year but if this stuff does half as well as I've seen people claim it'd be a God send for our larger garden.
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Apr 19, 2011 19:29
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Anubis posted:Here's a good question for you guys. Does using gypsum to break up clay have any potential weird side effects in a veggie garden? We've been fighting clay for years now working in compost with a little sand every year but if this stuff does half as well as I've seen people claim it'd be a God send for our larger garden. I have clay soil too and my vegetable production teacher told me to use gypsum, jersey green sand, and kelp. He said that would set me pretty good.
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Apr 19, 2011 20:10
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As far as I know gypsum will not cause any problems and will indeed help with making clay more porous. Finished compost will also help I toss scrap pieces of gypsum board into our compost every once in a while
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Apr 19, 2011 21:00
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Sure this has been asked a million times but where's the best place to purchase seeds online? If it depends on what type of seed then I'm interested in the following: Herbs: Basil, etc. General garden vegetables (and tomato): Cucumber, Squash, etc. I'll be satisfied with a "Home Depot or Lowes whichever is closer" response but I like to assume that there's a newegg/monoprice for everything these days. Also, I'm interested in potting soil (Best brands?). Although I feel I'll have to get that locally or maybe there's some trick to making it yourself.
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Apr 19, 2011 21:34
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Orange_Lazarus posted:Sure this has been asked a million times but where's the best place to purchase seeds online? If it depends on what type of seed then I'm interested in the following: Do you just want the cheapest? Do you want organic? Do you care if you support a company owned by Monsanto? I like Baker Seeds http://rareseeds.com/shop/ and Seed Savers Exchanges http://www.seedsavers.org/Content.aspx?src=buyonline.htm . But they support causes I'm into.
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Apr 19, 2011 22:28
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Depending on how deep the clay goes, be careful not to end up with an impermeable layer of clay below the gypsum infused soil. It'd be a shame to do all the work and end up with flooded soil every time it rains/you water. The flooding and resulting erosion will be a huge bummer.
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Apr 20, 2011 02:28
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Bigdee4933 posted:Do you just want the cheapest? 1. No I wouldn't just want the cheapest and I usually do my best to weigh both the cost and benefits of my purchases. 2. I'm not politically motivated over genetically modified crops vs organic. Basically it would boil down to whether or not which seed resulted in (all other things equal) the best tasting/most nutritious crop. Conclusions vary and there are good arguments for both sides of the issue. 3. Will read the Monsanto/Aspartame topic before concluding on this. Edit: Seriously the sites you suggested look fine. This was basically what I was looking for. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Apr 20, 2011 |
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Apr 20, 2011 03:59
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Giblet Plus! posted:heres some progress pics of some yellow pear tomatoes i have in perlite in my windows - started 6 of them in early feb some updates   starting some seeds in coco - water thru the bottom of the egg crate:  trying to make some cuttings of the yellow pear tomatoes  seedlings under T5 lights  zucchini seedlings being transferred to duncan donuts cups, drain hole at 1", filled to drain hole with perlite, coco coir on top  root growth on zucchini seedling 
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Apr 20, 2011 04:03
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  This is my "heirloom" crop of wheat that I've grown since 2008. At that time, I found a few stalks of wheat growing on the side of the road that were ready to harvest, so I plucked the heads and harvested the seeds. By the end of 2009, I had my third generation of seeds, from which the wheat in the photo was grown. (I didn't plant those seeds in 2010, because I didn't have a yard to do any gardening.) This year, in February, I planted my wheat seeds together and hoped that they survived the year in a plastic baggie, and sure enough, they sprouted. I'm now on my third generation of wheat. And for some reason, that's really interesting to me - this idea of maintaining generations of a single plant. I suppose it's a bit like sourdough friendship bread, or yogurt - from a single batch, it keeps growing and spreading, and you can pass it down from generation to generation. I don't know if I have an end goal with this wheat. But I do like the idea of preserving it, and maybe passing it down to my children. And wouldn't it be neat if, years down the road, I'm able to gather enough of my wheat seeds to start a wheat farm or something? We'll see.
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Apr 20, 2011 04:14
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Orange_Lazarus posted:Also, I'm interested in potting soil (Best brands?). Although I feel I'll have to get that locally or maybe there's some trick to making it yourself. You can make your own potting soil for seeds and seedlings. Sieve your compost so it's free from any big lumps or sticks and then mix 2 parts leaf mould with 2 parts compost and 1 part clean sand. This should make a fine mix for sowing onto. There are loads of different recipes online and in gardening books, but most use leaf mould because it's very high in nutrients. I could tell you the results of various Gardening Which? trials on compost, but I'm guessing you're in the USA so you probably won't be able to buy the brand. The big one not to buy is Miracle-gro Organic Choice Peat Free Compost- it scored just 28% on their container and seedling tests, yielding 1.3kg of potatoes versus their best buy compost with 1.8kg (the best buy was New Horizon peat free)
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Apr 20, 2011 09:57
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Every year I tell myself I'm going to start my stuff from seeds and every year I run out of time because I'm too busy getting gardens ready. Hopefully next year! After this year the gardens will be pretty much done so hopefully next year! FYI: Dogs thinks fish emulsion fertilizer is delicious 
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Apr 20, 2011 16:19
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I have this patch of land that is up and behind some trees. I also have tons of deer and turkey who wander through , I want to put stuff there but with it being right next to the woods and separate from the house I worry I will just be making a lovely deer feeder. Do you think fox urine or whatever would be enough to keep them at bay? It would not be economical to fence, but other suggestions are welcome, I am a complete novice.
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Apr 20, 2011 16:27
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ChairmanMeow posted:I have this patch of land that is up and behind some trees. I also have tons of deer and turkey who wander through , I want to put stuff there but with it being right next to the woods and separate from the house I worry I will just be making a lovely deer feeder. Do you think fox urine or whatever would be enough to keep them at bay? It would not be economical to fence, but other suggestions are welcome, I am a complete novice. Put stakes at the four corners of your garden and run strands of clear fishing line around them. The deer can see them and when they run into it they will get freaked out and run away.
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Apr 20, 2011 16:46
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ChairmanMeow posted:I have this patch of land that is up and behind some trees. I also have tons of deer and turkey who wander through , I want to put stuff there but with it being right next to the woods and separate from the house I worry I will just be making a lovely deer feeder. Do you think fox urine or whatever would be enough to keep them at bay? It would not be economical to fence, but other suggestions are welcome, I am a complete novice. You probably want to focus on deer resistant plants. I have a feeling any repellants or fox urine would work only to the extent they don’t get washed off when it rains and the deer don’t get too hungry. I never heard of the fishing line idea. You can try that, but my gut feeling is if the first one bumps into it and freaks out, it is just as likely to knock it down and clear a path for the next one as it is to work fine. Unless you put up a huge fence, you are probably stuck planting things that they don’t like as much.
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Apr 20, 2011 16:55
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ChairmanMeow posted:I have this patch of land that is up and behind some trees. I also have tons of deer and turkey who wander through , I want to put stuff there but with it being right next to the woods and separate from the house I worry I will just be making a lovely deer feeder. Do you think fox urine or whatever would be enough to keep them at bay? It would not be economical to fence, but other suggestions are welcome, I am a complete novice. Not sure what you mean by economical. I had deer problems, then I went and bought a solar powered electric fence loader, a spool of wire thread, steaks, and plastic standoffs and I had deer control over a thousand sqft for about $200. The run of fence like 1/5 of the load max so I could go quite a bit bigger at the same price. I see deer tracks within 8ft of the fence now but to my knowledge I've not had a nibble in two years.
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Apr 20, 2011 19:17
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ChairmanMeow posted:other suggestions are welcome Deer are fairly jittery so just make your area really weird to freak them out: - put your own scent around as well as the fox stuff - string up some CDs from nearby trees (they sparkle in the sun and wind and weird out animals) - string up cassette tape between poles around your plot (it makes a freaky noise in the wind) But yeah, long term a fence is probably best.
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Apr 20, 2011 23:29
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I know this is small potatoes for some of you, but I'm pretty proud. I got tired of building half assed structures every year so I bit the bullet and invested a couple hundred bucks. Hopefully it'll last several years. The pipe is 1" EMT Conduit pipe that they happily cut for me at lowes for free. The trellis is 7 1/2' high (sunk a foot into the ground), 10' wide, and 5' deep. It's sturdy enough for myself and my husband to hang off of, so it should handle yardlong beans and some delecta squash without much of a problem. The fittings I had to order from a canopy company because nothing at the hardware store was even close to what I needed. The fencing is 2"x4" galvanized wire that laughed at my wire cutters, so I got very small bolt cutters to handle it. Topping it all off are UV-resistant zip ties holding the fence on which will hopefully make for easy removal and storage at the end of the season. Maybe next year I'll invest in a better watering system.
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Apr 21, 2011 01:02
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That is brilliantly hardcore. I love it! I'm trying to get one more season out of my wood + nylon string trellises before switching to something more sturdy next year. Edit: Why not use soaker hoses or something like that? Sprinklers just piss water all over and aren't really effective or economical. mischief fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Apr 21, 2011 |
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Apr 21, 2011 01:26
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Thank you all for the deer tips. Will post pics of what mix I come up with.
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Apr 21, 2011 02:21
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mischief posted:Edit: Why not use soaker hoses or something like that? Sprinklers just piss water all over and aren't really effective or economical. My garden budget is used up this year. That and we just blew money at the casino.
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Apr 21, 2011 03:16
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I like the cut of your jib.
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Apr 21, 2011 04:13
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Pluto posted:Maybe next year I'll invest in a better watering system. This was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw that picture. Setup some drip irrigation, it's easy to install and it's awesome.
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Apr 21, 2011 19:24
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Drip irrigation and a fertilizer injector are on my wish list for next year. Anyone have experience setting up a fertilizer injector for a drip system? I've seen a few online but they always seem to say "not including" something or other and I haven't the foggiest idea how to set one up. I need a kit and a map.
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Apr 21, 2011 21:14
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OK guys, I need some help here. I am not sure what is going on with my bell pepper plants or tomatoes, hopefully someone here can help. I live in zone 7, the weather has been mild, but windy. First up are the bell pepper plants. These guys have been in the ground 1 week as of today, they are in an 8" raised bed whose soil is made up of Peat Moss, Mushroom Compost, Manure, and Vermiculite. I have been watering them lightly every day.    And here are a couple shots of my tomatoes. These poor guys endured hellacious 50mph winds last week (nearly 24 hours) so I think they are just worn out. They are in Earthtainers and were doing quite well prior to the wind storm. I am considering just replacing them, but wanted another opinion, just in case there is something else going on with them that I could correct.  
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Apr 22, 2011 00:27
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