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My garden in London is experiencing its lowest snail and slug population for years. I've still lost a lupin and had some sage damage, but in a normal year I can pick up any pot in the garden and you wont be able to see the terracotta for snails.
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May 23, 2011 10:28
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So one of my make shift domes for starting seeds has some how have loving fleas in it. I have no pets, all new furniture, blankets, pillows, and such. Carpets are clean. Fleas aren't anywhere else in the house. Just in the one dome (not the peat pellet dome I have). I really don't want to spray any kind of chemical since the pitaya seeds have barely sprouted, but everyday for the past week and a half I have been squishing like 10 fleas. They keep showing up out of no where and it's pissing me off. Googling has remedies for big outside gardens, but nothing about small newly sprouted seeds in a small tray. Is there any type of substance I can spray over the starter mix in the tray to help kill fleas and not kill the germinated seeds? I also ordered off of Amazon an LED panel in hopes to speed up growth because there are not any good window spots in my house for a good amount of sun. I thought about getting a seedling heat mat but my house goes from 70F in the morning to 85F during the day which is plenty warm.
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May 23, 2011 17:00
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ijii posted:So one of my make shift domes for starting seeds has some how have loving fleas in it. Are you in an apartment or do you own/rent your house? If you're in an apartment it's entirely possible the people next to you might have brought them in on a dog/cat and they migrated. Otherwise, pyrethins do a bang-up job on fleas and are derived from chrysanthemums, they work by disrupting the fleas' nervous system and making it constantly fire. I don't think it should affect your sprouts, just smell bad for a bit. If I were you I'd go ahead and lay down diatomaceous earth in the corners of the carpets, you never know if they've gotten out of that dome or not. If you don't own one, borrow a dyson vacuum or a steam cleaner from a friend and go over the room too, you really really don't want any potential eggs hatching and finding the only warm bodies in the house.
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May 24, 2011 05:00
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Are you sure its fleas? They don't have wings?
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May 24, 2011 05:41
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 Rearranged things a bit today, and added a bigger water bucket. I'll probably hit up the nursery again on Friday to get something to help hide it a bit, or see if they have a nicer looking one this size. All but one lonely sprout of corn failed, so I'm going to try a different variety. It's been a month and the kernels I scraped out of the patch haven't rooted at all. Any recommendations? The perennial corner is filling in nicely:  Go apples go! 
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May 24, 2011 19:28
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How warm has it been where you are? Corn needs the soil to be pretty warm to germinate, a minimum of 50 degrees fahrenheit (10 centigrade). Even then it's sluggish, and won't really start to take off until soil temp is about 60F (16C). It could be that you were just overeager and put it out there too soon.
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May 24, 2011 23:20
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Could be temp, the daytime temps have 50+ for over 2 months with a couple 70+ days, it's still regularly slipping into the 40s overnight. It just seems strange that one kernel sprouted and the rest aren't even rooting, though they seemed a bit dodgy right out of the packet.
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May 25, 2011 08:56
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My basil isn't really growing much compared to my other plants. Why might this be? I didn't break up the root ball at all when I planted it, if that matters.
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May 25, 2011 15:48
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Kilersquirrel posted:Are you in an apartment or do you own/rent your house? If you're in an apartment it's entirely possible the people next to you might have brought them in on a dog/cat and they migrated.
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May 25, 2011 18:46
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Sounds like fungus gnats to me. They reproduce in moist potting soil, and feed off fungus and dead roots. They're mostly harmless but very, very annoying. You can use either Bt or neem applied to the soil to get rid of the larva, and a dish of cider vinegar set out where the flies hang out works OK at trapping the adults.
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May 25, 2011 19:28
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avan posted:Care to post pics of the whole garden? I am extremely interested. Here are pictures of the hydroponic garden at my workplace. It's still in the works. We were doing maintenance today, which is why the seed beds are hanging out on the ground.  The garden lives in our kitchen, and the whole system is housed on a speed rack which has been modified with fancy lights, and a plant cam, as well as holes for the hoses.  Seed bed!  You can see our two reservoirs. The plants in full-swing are lovage and chicory. The seed bed is basil, chicory, and broccoli. reserve fucked around with this message at 22:26 on May 25, 2011 |
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May 25, 2011 22:22
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ijii posted:I don't live in an apartment, I live in a house. The tiny insects have wings, so I guess they aren't fleas. They haven't gotten anywhere else in the house. Maybe I should just open the dome outside for today and hope they fly off. It's like they keep reproducing every day. They can fly but I don't see them fly off any where else. They just stay near the dome. Yup, definitely fungus gnats. And yes, they basically do, fruit flies can go from egg to adult in less than 48 hours in some species. Smack 'em with newspapers or do what Marchegiana suggested and they'll be gone in a little bit. If you want to do the vinegar thing, put a cider vinegar/dish soap mix in a glass, then put a funnel in the glass so the outlet is facing down. They're smart enough to get in, but not smart enough to get out and will eventually try landing on the mix, the soap is just there to remove surface tension so they can't help but drown.
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May 26, 2011 02:08
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Even easier, to get rid of fungus gnats just use mosquito bits and sprinkle them on top of your potting soil.
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May 26, 2011 02:53
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FogHelmut posted:My basil isn't really growing much compared to my other plants. Why might this be? I didn't break up the root ball at all when I planted it, if that matters. How long has it been in the ground? My basil was planted for about a month with no obvious growth and I actually planted a second one near it since I figured it was a dud plant. Then within a few weeks the first one shot up into a decent sized bush.
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May 26, 2011 17:08
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I was getting ready to plant a garden for my folks over the weekend, but I just found out my dad has taken to dumping his yard clippings into the cleared plot they've used for gardening in the past. Do potted cherry tomato plants or potted bell pepper plants do well if they stay potted? The local Wal-Mart has potted tomato plants for $10 and Sam's Club has potted bell pepper plants for about the same price, figured I could pick up a few for the parents and let them grow on the front stoop or deck.
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May 27, 2011 14:34
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Two new Tigerella tomatoes: A Scotch Bonnet and a Cheyenne chili:  Iceland poppies (squished in with the mint I already had) and new pots:   This is why I can't be left alone on payday.
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May 27, 2011 16:28
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MaakHatt posted:I was getting ready to plant a garden for my folks over the weekend, but I just found out my dad has taken to dumping his yard clippings into the cleared plot they've used for gardening in the past. As long as the pot is big enough and they get watered regularly they should do great. My strawberries are in full production mode. Don't quite like the Cabots as much as some of the other varieties but I love the larger berries and minimal runners. I seem to be getting a little over a pound of berries a day now. Biggest problem is that with so much rain we are getting a non-insignificant amount of berries rotting on the ground due to the moisture. Picking twice a day would likely resolve this but I really don't have enough time for that and the rest of the garden.
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May 27, 2011 17:02
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Where I live, we've been getting nearly consistent rain for the past 2 weeks and temperatures have been in the mid-50's to high 60's. I've got a container garden that I started with about 24 varieties of herbs and vegetables, and while the veggies are doing ok, almost all the herbs are growing very slowly. I thought it was supposed to be the opposite, where I'd have herbs growing like weeds and be anxiously awaiting the sprouting of my beans and squash. Is this normal? Everything sprouted around 2 weeks ago, and so far the basil, which is only about an inch high, is the biggest of my herbs.
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May 27, 2011 17:39
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Senor Tron posted:How long has it been in the ground? My basil was planted for about a month with no obvious growth and I actually planted a second one near it since I figured it was a dud plant. Then within a few weeks the first one shot up into a decent sized bush. Probably not a month yet, I'll give it time.
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May 27, 2011 17:51
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Posting to show off my garden that I wore myself out planting today. Still got a few things to plant after the husband builds me a trellis, but so far got peas, broccoli, green beans, carrots, green peppers, beets and corn planted, as well as four cherry tomato and four regular tomatoes. The mounds are zucchini, summer squash, cucumber and probably watermelon. I also want to do some pickling cukes so I'll probably just plant them along the fence and let them trellis up that. Since there's a pond about 10 feet away cukes loooooooooooove growing over there, as I found out last year. The water table in our area is pretty high so they don't need a lot of watering. I also had so many tomatoes go to waste last year (I let them grow crazy huge and had more tomatoes than I knew what to do with) that they're starting to spring up as weeds. There's a metal fence around the perimeter to keep the bunnies from munching on my peas and green beans. It has the added bonus of baffling my chickens enough that they don't go in there and scratch up all my seeds. All that's left to do is set up some automated watering, sit back, and wait for some veggies! And weed the drat thing, of course.
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May 28, 2011 22:58
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Nice mini-farm. Wish I had all that space. Might I suggest you consider training your cucurbits to sprawl over the fence and into the grass. If they're successful and you let them sprawl in the fenced area, they'll shade out everything.
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May 29, 2011 00:08
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dwoloz posted:Might I suggest you consider training your cucurbits to sprawl over the fence and into the grass. If they're successful and you let them sprawl in the fenced area, they'll shade out everything. Oh I know, last year was my first year trying out that garden. We started late because we had to break the ground, but the whole thing exploded into a massive jungle in short order. I planted 4 mounds of cukes and about half a dozen of some sort of vining tomatoes, and they both went nuts. The cucumbers started vining up the fence, the neighboring plants, anything it could grab ahold of, and the tomatoes completely chocked off one mound of cucumbers and made life miserable for everything else nearby by just running along the ground for about four feet from where I planted them (I had actually planted them along the back in one long row, so they choked off all sorts of veggies... green peppers, carrots, green beans). They bent and destroyed the tomato cages. It was a mess and more veggies than my husband and I could even dream of consuming, I gave a lot away and a bunch just rotted in the garden. So this year's goal is to trim and train veggies and have a much more manageable garden. And to can everything we don't eat fresh - hence less tomatoes because canning them is a pain in the rear end. XD Lyz fucked around with this message at 00:28 on May 29, 2011 |
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May 29, 2011 00:25
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Can't wait to see the progress on that beast of a garden! What zone are you in?
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May 29, 2011 00:47
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Zone 6, apparently (arborday.org). I live in central Mass. I wish I had pictures of it from last year, it was insanity. I picked the plot because it was the lushest part of our lawn, plus it was my first year doing seedlings so I basically over planted because I was so afraid things would die, two plants to a spot. I did a lousy job keeping everything separate... and weeded, I had trouble finding my first cucumbers under all the other plant life. This year I botched the seedlings... I didn't account for how much colder the basement was going to be after we insulated the pipes, so as soon as I took the lids off the plants gave up. Only the broccoli did well enough to get planted in the garden. Next year's project is going to be building a mini-greenhouse for the growing table.
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May 29, 2011 03:34
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MaakHatt posted:I was getting ready to plant a garden for my folks over the weekend, but I just found out my dad has taken to dumping his yard clippings into the cleared plot they've used for gardening in the past. Fantastic! You are describing my preferred compost. Seems like he just saved you some work?
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May 29, 2011 04:15
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MolierePumpsMyNads posted:The perennial corner is filling in nicely: Sorry for the aside, but where did you get the gorgeous chiminea? My clay one just bit the dust so I'm looking for a sturdier replacement.
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May 30, 2011 01:17
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 Finally (FINALLY) got one of my two boxes partly planted. The box on the left is what is planted, and the one on the right is what we're doing tomorrow.  Probably going to put some beans, onions, and serrano peppers in the empty squares. Leafy stuff in the second box might get changed around. Tomatoes, mint, and a few other things are in pots.
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May 30, 2011 02:19
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I'm drowning in strawberries, but it's a delicious death. Over the past week I've averaged just shy of 1Lb a day and it's picking up pace fairly rapidly. We got rid of ~3lbs of what we are calling "Grade C" (stuff with slight bug holes, parts that have to be cut off or aren't quite optimally ripened in either direction) today by canning two quart jars of jam. Then I proceeded to go pick another 1Lb 6oz of them tonight. The wife is currently laboring over http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sensational-Strawberry-Shortcake/Detail.aspx for our dessert tonight. The neighbors have taken notice and have started greeting me on my way back inside from the garden. Fresh strawberries should earn me a blind eye to my sometimes lackadaisical yard quality, right?
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May 30, 2011 02:29
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dur posted:
I don't know how well those two zuchinni plants are going to work with only one foot each and in the middle of a box. Have you seen a full grown plant? They get huge!
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May 30, 2011 02:52
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Alterian posted:I don't know how well those two zuchinni plants are going to work with only one foot each and in the middle of a box. Have you seen a full grown plant? They get huge! The Zucchini will probably do OK. Its the eggplant and kale I am worried about. But you might want to space things out so they can utilize the empty squares, because yeah, they get huge.
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May 30, 2011 03:00
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Hah, well, this is kind of a babbys first garden, done with a little input from my mom (who has been doing gardening since I can remember), so I guess I'll just wait any see what happens.
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May 30, 2011 04:07
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Lyz posted:Sorry for the aside, but where did you get the gorgeous chiminea? My clay one just bit the dust so I'm looking for a sturdier replacement.
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May 30, 2011 08:43
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dur posted:
It might work to move the eggplant where you're planning the lettuce, and move lettuce to the empty squares. They'll shade your leafy greens to keep them from bolting, and they'll appreciate the extra space. ack, sorry double-post.
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May 30, 2011 08:47
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We've been having a feral cat problem for a couple years in my parents' garden. They (the cats, not my parents) had been digging and making GBS threads all over the place and it made things a total drag. This year I decided to see if I could crowd the cats out of using the garden as a litterbox and sowed sweet allysum everywhere we had a large enough open space. The experiment has been successful: No cat poo in the garden. The alyssum doesn't seem to be competing with anything, it's providing ground cover and protecting the soil from our blazing sun, and beneficial insects love it. A+++ would plant again. It's also much more aesthetically satisfying (and low-effort) than the previous approach of jamming plastic forks into the strawberry bed.
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May 30, 2011 19:15
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I've never grown cilantro before. It seems that the day after I planted it, the cilantro decided to bolt and went right to seed. Now that I am schooled on the lifecycle of a cilantro plant, I guess the solution now is to just let it go, and plant the seeds it makes?
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May 30, 2011 19:39
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 What am I suppose to do with all this? I still got 17 Bok Choy to harvest.
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May 30, 2011 21:02
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Bigdee4933: you can send me that kohlrabi!FogHelmut posted:I've never grown cilantro before. It seems that the day after I planted it, the cilantro decided to bolt and went right to seed. Now that I am schooled on the lifecycle of a cilantro plant, I guess the solution now is to just let it go, and plant the seeds it makes? Was it supermarket cilantro, or from a nursery? The supermarket stuff always seems to be just on the verge of bolting. Let it go, then harvest your delicious coriander and save some for planting again.
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May 30, 2011 22:21
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Molten Llama posted:We've been having a feral cat problem for a couple years in my parents' garden. They (the cats, not my parents) had been digging and making GBS threads all over the place and it made things a total drag. Nice Ya, that's the way to do it, either planting intensively so there is no soil visible or planting a groundcover. Clover makes an excellent groundcover; beside deterring cats it will fix nitrogen from the atmosphere into the soil feeding your plants.
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May 31, 2011 00:06
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FogHelmut posted:I've never grown cilantro before. It seems that the day after I planted it, the cilantro decided to bolt and went right to seed. Now that I am schooled on the lifecycle of a cilantro plant, I guess the solution now is to just let it go, and plant the seeds it makes?  The plants do best in early spring or fall; they bolt when it's warm. You can also try them in indirect light or partial shade
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May 31, 2011 00:10
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Bigdee4933 posted:
Have you considered sustainably harvesting your greens instead of pulling the whole thing? (ie just taking the leaves you need). You wouldn't end up with a huge glut that way. Unless you're selling at a market, I think it makes more sense that way
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May 31, 2011 00:12
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