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ChaoticSeven posted:Look at all this poo guys. There's like 6 times or more left to be gathered too. Just gotta muck it out of two stalls, which is a bitch because it hasn't been done in forever and it's like a foot and a half deep, compacted and heavy as gently caress. Also getting lots of chicken poo from the same place, mixing it all up with some old straw and weeds and scraps and what not. I'm going to have like 10 3x3x3ish hot compost piles going at once. Holy poo poo. Where is the best place in a city to find manure like that? A neighbor down the street has chickens but when I mentioned taking some of the poo off her hands she kind of deflected the question and hasn't brought it up since. I may have to ask again...
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Jun 8, 2013 02:49
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Faerunner posted:Holy poo poo. She's probably using it! If I had hens and someone wanted their poo poo, I'd get right territorial. You'd have better luck trying to find a stable somewhere, or just someone that owns a four-legged animal. They produce a ton of poo poo, and mucking it is a huge chore that most people will gladly pass on to you.
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Jun 8, 2013 14:14
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Well ain't that a load of happy horseshit.  Onto a different topic, I just (temporarily? permanently?) turned all of my potted chili plants into ornamental chilis. I don't have any private outdoor space to let nature set things right, so I gave in and sprayed my indoor plants with Confidor (imidacloprid) after two years of fighting back an aphid infestation with all the organic soft options. I want those little turds dead.
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Jun 8, 2013 17:01
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On the topic of finding manure, just be really, really careful about who you get it from. In the last eight years, farmers have begun using two herbicides (clopyralid and aminopyralid) on pasture land to suppress weeds. These particular herbicides are so persistent that they survive the animals' digestive tracts, get excreted in their urine, mix with their manure, and then cause massive problems with a wide range of vegetables (mainly tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and beans) that people try to grow in soil fertilised with that manure. The herbicide stays in the soil and continues to affect plants for several years. http://extension.umd.edu/learn/gardener-alert-beware-herbicide-contaminated-compost-and-manure http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/29/food.agriculture
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Jun 8, 2013 23:58
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Actually the neighbor in question had been somewhat unknowingly composting her chicken manure by layering it with straw in a pile in her yard but had no idea she could use it in her garden beds until I told her so! I can understand her not wanting to share though - I'd think twice about sharing mine if I had any. There's a stable on the edge of the park a few miles up the road from me but I don't have any way to haul animal manure (I don't even own a wheelbarrow), unless I wanted to line the back of the Jeep in plastic and drive it home with all the windows wide open. I was somewhat aware of the herbicide issue but thanks for the reminder. I'd hate to go through all the work of acquiring manure only to find that it killed my crops. And speaking of killing crops... Armadillidium vulgare (pill bugs, aka roly-poly, aka sow bug, aka potato bug, aka woodlouse) girdled and killed half a dozen of my pole bean seedlings as soon as they came up, and ate holes in the leaves of all the rest. Thankfully beans are fast growers so most of them are getting too tall/thick/chewy for the bugs (they seem to prefer only the tenderest of seedlings). I know it's them, too. I've watched them climb the plants and chow down. There are no signs of any other insect/slug either and I keep spraying the plants with various organic insecticides. I finally gave up last week and went all-out war on them with the Sevin, which I save for emergency pest control. I don't think it even made a dent in their population. I used to try to flick them off the plants but now I just squish them heartlessly when I find them. What eats pill bugs (other than hippies)? Not sure about that particular chemical, Holden, but I know -most- insecticides will 'wear off' or return to "safe" levels in plant leaves and fruit after a certain period of time. Every label I have seen includes a table with a list of plant types and the time before fruiting/harvest that you can spray the crop safely. I know peppers tend to need a longer time than some others. Hopefully you didn't permanently ruin your chances of getting peppers but I sympathize with your plight! Faerunner fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Jun 12, 2013 |
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Jun 12, 2013 02:09
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You can control them as for slugs: leave beer traps out level with the soil for them to drown themselves in, or leave traps in the form of a hollowed-out grapefruit or board that they'll gather under, then dump all the ones you find into water to drown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-vBAeM7b_M And worst case, you can use sluggo plus, which is organic, and contains spinosad (a mixture of two soil bacteria that kills pill bugs, among other things). I wouldn't go too overboard, though, as it seems to be pretty broad spectrum.
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Jun 12, 2013 17:55
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I didn't expect it so soon in this climate, but my cucumber and zucchini plants started flowering. I'm half in a state of panic, because I've never grown them before and I'm not sure what to do next. Each of the plants has about ten flowers and I'm basically unsure whether it's customary to pinch some of them off like you would with tomatoes or bell peppers or what? And for those who remember my cfl desklamp setup, that seems to be a great success. My tabasco pepper starters have quintupled in size. I'm tempted to say that's not just because they were also behind a south facing window, because the stuff that wasn't directly under the lamps has merely doubled in size.
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Jun 12, 2013 18:27
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My garden is going great for the most part, although most of the lettuce was a loss, I still have one nearly-empty bed to put stuff in!  My lemon cucumber is coming out slowly compared to the patty pan squash (which is already putting on a couple squash), I suspect that variety simply grows slow though, it seems like my lemon cukes drag their feet most years, before suddenly turning into a viney mess!  I thought my thai basil wasn't doing too well but I looked this morning and a couple have put on a lot of growth - they're not really taller, but they're two or three times as bushy as when I put them in. Tomatoes are doing well, as are the tomatillos. Bush beans are starting to work on becoming bushy, and the runner beans are making a run for it.4 lettuce last week:  2 now. Note the completely melted two. One of the starts did that before I even put them into the loving ground! I should've taken them back when that happened.   I am kinda stumped, the only thing I can think of is that I planted them too deep and they got their feet too wet.  Left to right, thai basil (offscreen), lemon cucumber (2 which were too stuck together, it was originally 3 but one didn't survive the split attempt) kale (russian heat-hardy variety, iirc), and brussel sprouts. I found a couple of chewed holes in the brussel sprouts and a few cabbage worm eggs (I'm pretty sure), but I haven't seen any serious damage or caught any buggers in the act, yet. Either way it's already better than last year's cabbage worm infestation!  (Left to right, top to bottom) Royal Burgundy bush beans, indigo rose tomato (the leaves always look like crap on this variety, but the fruit is divine) more thai basil, and a patty pan squash.  baby squash beginning!  Scarlet Runner beans (not many, I might put some more runner beans in here) a brandywine tomato, and three tomatillos. 
coyo7e fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Jun 12, 2013 |
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Jun 12, 2013 18:37
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Flipperwaldt posted:Each of the plants has about ten flowers and I'm basically unsure whether it's customary to pinch some of them off like you would with tomatoes or bell peppers or what? I can't speak to cucumbers as I've never grown them but squash is easy. You can do nothing at all or you can attempt to hand pollinate. Squash will have both male and female flowers. After looking at a few of them closely it should be obvious which is which. There will be more male flowers and they won't last as long. If you want to hand pollinate just pick them tear the petals off and rub it on the female parts. You can also just pick and eat the male flowers. Battering and deep frying is pretty common with those. For zucchini I don't think hand pollination is necessary unless you are getting any fruit set. For winter squash it's more important because you need good pollination to get big healthy winter squash. You'll often see the poorly pollinated squash wither and die on the vine when they're only 1-3 inches in size. I planted some true potato seed last night after doing a lot more research. There's a lot of genetics/breeding stuff I still don't fully understand but I think I have a good grasp on the basic idea now. You grow from true seed the first year to see how well it does. The tubers that it produces in the first (seedling) year will become seed potatoes for the next (tuber) year. If you buy seeds from a breeder then somehow they know that all the seeds will be roughly the same type. So you grow a bunch of them from seed. Once they've matured you evaluate how well each plant did. If there are any really good plants then you bag all the tubers separately for planting next year. Otherwise you take a single seed potato from each plant to plant next year and repeat the evaluation next year since sometimes they don't show their full potential the first year. Once you start growing these varieties you're likely to get potato berries forming that have viable seed. If you aren't controlling pollination then each seed is going to be a new variety. You can save the seeds and plant them as above. If anything looks and tastes good then you can call it a new variety and keep propagating it through seed potatoes.
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Jun 12, 2013 19:16
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Cpt.Wacky posted:Squash will have both male and female flowers.  Cpt.Wacky posted:For zucchini I don't think hand pollination is necessary unless you are getting any fruit set. I mean, it's fantastic that I don't have to deal with pests, but still...
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Jun 12, 2013 20:00
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It has been raining like crazy here, but it is worth it. Things are blooming all over! Definitely time for some sun now, though. Tomatillos, which I had started indoors from seed a few months back  I don't know what these are called but they look like little purple lanterns and I love them  And I have a poppy down by my front gate 
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Jun 12, 2013 20:18
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coyo7e posted:4 lettuce last week: I'm going to remove all of the lettuce and toss it out along with whatever dirt it was touching, and then try some more lettuce - which I will plant into little mounds, in the hopes of keeping them from brushing the wet dirt too much. I also picked up another (yellow) squash, a cherry tomato (some yellowy goldy colored one, don't recall the name offhand,) and an eggplant. Zratha posted:I don't know what these are called but they look like little purple lanterns and I love them coyo7e fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Jun 12, 2013 |
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Jun 12, 2013 22:04
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Dinner harvest! Rainbow Swiss chard, sunburst tomatoes, some small orange cherry tomatoes, asian long beans and some green squash I forgot what it is called
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Jun 13, 2013 00:43
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coyo7e posted:
All these years I have known the colour, but never known the flower it was named for, thanks!
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Jun 13, 2013 01:48
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Lead out in cuffs posted:You can control them as for slugs Awesome, thanks! I will start with the easiest method (hollowed-out fruit peel) and we'll see how it works. I look forward to a less buggy summer!
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Jun 13, 2013 02:07
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For anyone interested, I am saving chive seeds this year. Does anyone want, need these beautiful chives???
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Jun 13, 2013 03:36
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Lead out in cuffs posted:You can control them as for slugs: leave beer traps out level with the soil for them to drown themselves in, or leave traps in the form of a hollowed-out grapefruit or board that they'll gather under, then dump all the ones you find into water to drown. If you sink a dish flush with the soil you will inadvertently kill beetles, lizards and other creatures that need not be killed. Better to leave the dish above the soil and let the slugs climb up it. Put a cover on the dish (with an entrance) so the beer won't evaporate as quickly
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Jun 13, 2013 03:54
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I complained about our yellow-leaved plants a while back. Since then I've taken some responsibility for the watering duties (my wife planted so I thought she'd do more) and added fertilizer. The fertilizer seems to have made a massive difference. I also prune the yellowing leaves, not sure if that really helps or not. On the subject of the maggots or whatever in the compost: I added a couple of boxes worth of cardboard and it was hot as balls a weekend or two ago. Now they're all dead!  Thanks for the help in this thread!
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Jun 13, 2013 20:12
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Is there anything that grows well in shade in an English climate? The South west corner of my allotment is home to a 60ft sycamore tree and the entire Southern end of the site is shaded for a good portion of the day. It's currently just nettles and a few other weeds like Dock and Bramble (now won't that all be fun to clear), but I'd like to plant it with something edible eventually. Nearly half the site is shaded, a good chunk of that shaded for most of the day, and since I have to eventually cultivate 75% or risk losing my tenancy I need to find *something*, even if it's slow growing and low yielding. The only thing I can think of that grows under a canopy and is also edible is wild garlic, which while attractive and great smelling would be way too much for me to eat on my own if I plant the entire shaded area Fatkraken fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Jun 13, 2013 |
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Jun 13, 2013 23:23
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Shade tolerant vegetables are basically anything that doesn't fruit where you eat the plant itself. So mostly greens.quote:The following crops will produce with three to six hours of sun, or fairly constant dappled shade, per day.
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Jun 14, 2013 01:03
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cowofwar posted:Shade tolerant vegetables are basically anything that doesn't fruit where you eat the plant itself. So mostly greens. Unfortunately I'm probably not even getting 3 hours in some areas, it is a BIG mother loving tree and it's right at the corner of the plot. I'll definitely try leafy greens, but what I'm really after is a shade LOVING plant, something that prefers to grow under a canopy. As I said, I know wild garlic likes to grow right under trees as I've seen great swathes of it in the local woods, but I don't think I could eat that much wild garlic.
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Jun 14, 2013 01:56
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Fatkraken posted:Unfortunately I'm probably not even getting 3 hours in some areas, it is a BIG mother loving tree and it's right at the corner of the plot. I'll definitely try leafy greens, but what I'm really after is a shade LOVING plant, something that prefers to grow under a canopy. As I said, I know wild garlic likes to grow right under trees as I've seen great swathes of it in the local woods, but I don't think I could eat that much wild garlic.
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Jun 14, 2013 02:30
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You can plant rhubarb. A guy at a fundraiser for the local botanical gardens was also recommending wasabi.
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Jun 14, 2013 04:02
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Had a long, crazy day at work, hosting pizza parties and kung fu classes and giving my drunk-rear end roommate a ride home, got in late and exhausted. Weather turned cloudy and rainy this week so I've only been going out to put some stuff (yellow squash, eggplant, golden tomato) into the ground and to check for pests and such. Then I saw my brandywine tomato.  (My hand is 8"+ long from fingertip to base of palm, and that leaf entirely covers it!) Holy hell are those big tomato leaves! Another pic from right before planting the three starts I mentioned. Everything seems to be extremely happy with the mild temperatures and scattered/heavy rain. The thai basil, especially, has given me a little concern as it didn't seem to be doing well after transplanting, but they're all beginning to take off like crazy!  edit: forgot to mention that wiht the newest three additions, I added crushed eggshells in the hole as I transplanted them. I'm curious to see if they do any differently and what the eggshells look like after I pull stuff up toward the end of the season. I found out that if you microwave your eggshells (in a paper towel if you don't want spatters) for a bit, you can totally skip washing and drying them off, and the heat makes them extremely brittle.. The second stage, is to do this: http://howto-answers.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-stop-slugs-and-snails-eating-your-vegetables-and-plants-gardening-tips coyo7e fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Jun 14, 2013 |
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Jun 14, 2013 05:19
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cowofwar posted:Might want to get an ID on the tree as the tree type will also determine what can grow underneath. The tree will affect soil pH, available nutrients/water and presence of growth inhibiting compounds. It's Sycamore, a big mature one. Internet says the species found in the UK is Acer pseudoplatanus. There is plenty of vegetation growing under it, mainly nettles at the moment, so if it's trying to inhibit understory growth it's not doing a very good job of it or is only doing it selectively. I'll definitely try Rhubarb and Wild Garlic, apparently with the latter you can eat the leaves as well as the bulbs so it's pretty versatile, might just have lots of lovely garlicey salads
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Jun 14, 2013 13:13
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Fatkraken posted:It's Sycamore, a big mature one. Internet says the species found in the UK is Acer pseudoplatanus. There is plenty of vegetation growing under it, mainly nettles at the moment, so if it's trying to inhibit understory growth it's not doing a very good job of it or is only doing it selectively. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Jun 14, 2013 |
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Jun 14, 2013 17:03
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Today I went to check on my rooftop garden and found my tomato plants had been completely devastated. Most of the plants exhibited defoliated stems and a yellowing color. Upon closer inspection, seems like I got a tomato hornworm infestation. How they reached my building's rooftop is a mystery as the area is VERY windy and adverse to flying insects. Most of the plants appear to be dead, dying so I'll probably have to nuke and pave. This is so frustrating as I wanted to keep the cultivars as devoid of pesticides as possible. Do you have any tips for eliminating/preventing infestations? I went pulled all the dried up plants and picked off all the worms but I don't think the surviving plants are going to make it. The rest of the garden seems to be doing well, I have identified a few plants that seem to do well in this climate. Radishes just thrive and the bean plants seem to be doing better now that I have given them some love and tied them off to protect them from the wind, I even got a few pods. As this is an experiment, I would like to try out some other plants to see if they are feasible to grow. Go: tomatoes (I'll only plant one per 30x30 square next time), radishes, beans, carrots and bell peppers (I still don't know if have planted too many). No go: lettuce (they are growing spirally and vertically for some reason and are not gaining a lot of size), chives (not a single seed sprouted), purple spinach (not a single sprout). Any suggestions?
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Jun 14, 2013 21:14
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I am kind of confused as to what "spiraling and vertically" means in terms of a lettuce plant, I can't really visualize what you mean. What kind of lettuce is it? Head or Leaf?
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Jun 14, 2013 22:19
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coyo7e posted:I am kind of confused as to what "spiraling and vertically" means in terms of a lettuce plant, I can't really visualize what you mean. What kind of lettuce is it? Head or Leaf? sounds like bolting to me this isn't really the season to grow lettuce anymore unless you live in a very very mild summer climate. They will bolt at the slightest sign of heat and even the bolt resistant varieties need a good cold spell to get that awesome nice sweet flavor in the best lettuces.
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Jun 14, 2013 22:59
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GrAviTy84 posted:sounds like bolting to me coyo7e fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 01:22
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For tomato hornworm, the caterpillar Bt spray works well (and is quite specific). You can also try to encourage parasitic wasps. I saw one guy recommending to personally pick off the caterpillars, but to keep any that have been obviously parasitised (you can see the eggs sticking out), and move those to a sacrificial plant to keep feeding until they die and hatch out a new batch of wasps. That method requires that you keep an eye on your plants, though. Bt would be better if you check the space less regularly.
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Jun 15, 2013 04:51
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Got a pretty late start on our garden this year. We moved to a new house but couldn't get situated until the beginning of June. Just two raised beds, which should be plenty for me and my girlfriend. The spot gets about 7-8 hours of solid sun, then filtered sun after 3pm. Beds run north to south, with the box on the right getting more shade.  From left to right and top/bottom, we have: 4 vining tomatoes, three basils, summer squash, green pepper, red pepper, marigold, melon, jalapeņo, some already-dieing oregano, rosemary and a whole bunch of sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes were kind of an accident. We wanted potatoes, but then saw some sweet potatoes at the nursery and assumed they grew similarly. Turns out they are viney/bushy and will soon take over the entire box. I rigged up an unplanned tee-pee trellis for them and am going to spend the rest of the summer trying to keep them away from the rest of the box (apparently they don't really like trellises much). Whoops. Also, a moment to curse oregano: gently caress you. I've grown oregano four times and have never had good success. I totally wasn't thinking when we planted, the soil is all wrong. I've only had success with oregano once and it was in terrible, sandy soil. It has also been raining a lot lately which has probably made it very sad.  In this box, we have: cucumbers (haven't built their trellis yet), marigolds, cilantro, a back row of sunflowers, front square of corn, and then basically lettuce for the rest of the box (and a little parsley in the back right corner). I don't have much hope for the corn, but we had extra space and I thought it would be fun. Hoping for 16-20 stalks of corn. We'll see.  Of course, that assumes any of them live past the seedling stage. Something has been digging up our corn and sunflowers...I suspect birds. Its happening sometime in evening or early morning, so it could potentially be rats/gophers/whatever. A proud, young seedling once lived in each of those little craters.  It's just enough to make you want to cry. Such a promising life, snuffed out so early. There is no justice in the world.   ...And one of my tomatoes has some horrible affliction. I'm guessing bacterial speck? It's been spreading across the plant and is now on the stems too. Some leaves are becoming fully necrotic. EDIT I have tasked the fur-beast with protecting our garden. She takes her duty very seriously 
polyfractal fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 15:11
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Can someone please diagnose my pepper habanero and early jalapeno plants, please. 
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Jun 15, 2013 16:25
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I'm going to look for the bacterial spray but going to try the garlic remedy I was advised (soak garlic in water for a few days and spray it at the bugs). I'm a fan of parasitic wasps so that's an option. Going to research which ones live in Panama. I remember seen a weird variety in another neighborhood I lived in. They were jet black and their lower part was on the end of a tube like structure. They had jewel blue eyes too. I didn't know what the hell they were until I learned about parasitoids. When I meant vertically, I meant that the letuce plant isn't growing in a head shape. Its going vertical. It's a weird white lettuce cultivar I was given for free in Amazon. I don't know if that's what your plants have but Google points at this. http://www.apsnet.org/edcenter/intropp/lessons/prokaryotes/Pages/Bacterialspot.aspx http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/NewsArticles/PepperLeafSpot.htm Hope this helps.
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Jun 15, 2013 18:34
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Human Tornada posted:Can someone please diagnose my pepper habanero and early jalapeno plants, please. If your concern is the lack of flatness in the leaves, I think hot pepper plants sometimes need extra calcium to keep their leaves from becoming warted and bumpy. It won't fix the existing leaves, but it should help new growth. I've used some liquid stuff I got at the local organic garden store with pretty good results, but there may be other (better?) ways to go about it.
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Jun 15, 2013 19:34
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Regarding funky, bumpy pepper leaves: Every single pepper plant I've ever grown has gotten those bumpy, curled, weird leaves at about 5-6", but once they get past 7-8" they go away and don't come back. It's happened with ones planted in plain old potting soil, in the ground(ground that was enriched with Black Kow and full of oyster-shell sand/weathered old alligator teeth, so usable calcium was abundant to say the least), potting soil with pepper/tomato-specific fertilizer in it, etc. They all seem to grow normally after the 8" mark so I just haven't worried about it. Just stick a Jobe's stick (or equivalent fertilizer, Jobe's was just what a place close to me regularly carried) close in by the roots and see what happens. Human Tornada, you probably have something small chewing on your plant, and possibly some sunburn developing on the leaves as well. Those holes look like they were made by bugs to me, and I had similar discolorations start forming on my potted thai and cayenne peppers in Orlando when I moved them to a spot that got full sun all day. It seems like if you're below a certain latitude they like to have a little shade during the day - I'm not sure where you're located but you could try putting something up that shades one plant for part of the day and then compare after a week or two.
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Jun 15, 2013 22:14
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Goddamn wind snapped one of my tomato plants in two. Bottom half has a few leaves left. Top half I put in a bottle of water and while it turned limp first, seems to have recovered. Is this all a waste of time, or will either the bottom half potentially still bloom, or will the top half perhaps grow roots (like you can do with basilicum cuttings EDIT cursory googling suggests it might! Yay!)? Would be great if all was not lost for my favorite vine cherry tomato plant. I've also got an issue with the cucumber plants. The female flowers already started rotting while the male flowers are still green and haven't opened yet. That's a bit dissapointing. Carrots are doing great though. They're still young and tiny, but there's little as satisfying (and delicious) as pulling one out and eating it. Last time I tried them, they got eaten by some maggots. It seems I escaped that this year. Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Jun 16, 2013 |
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Jun 16, 2013 00:28
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Quote not being edit and all. Sorry about that.
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Jun 16, 2013 00:31
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Tomatoes will sprout roots wherever a stem touches persistent dampness, so you could probably just plunk the broken end into some water with flower food in it and place in a sunny location until the roots start to sprout. I had tomatoes start growing roots aboveground once during a particularly rainy and humid spring. They shriveled when it went back to normal but it was neat to see.
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Jun 16, 2013 01:53
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Flipperwaldt posted:Goddamn wind
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Jun 16, 2013 02:36
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