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Rabbit poop is great; it is one of the few manures you don't have to compost prior to using and it makes a good top dressing as well. Just make sure it isn't soaked in pee; give it a week on top of a compost pile to leech if so.
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Mar 16, 2014 18:31
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We use our rabbit and our chicken manure as compost. If the drat hens wouldn't go in and continually kick my pile everywhere it would compost faster, but as it is I'm going to make the entire space into a raised bed and dump a yard of soil and manure on top of the compost that is there. It works phenomenally well as soil additive. We just harvested our last 2 heads of winter green leaf lettuce that was left and stirred up the area and added some cut and return chicory and redina lettuce. My already planted lettuce is a beautiful carpet of green right now. It's going to be great having 16 square feet of cut and come again lettuce. I like growing it that way more than trying to grow heads. Last year we had 8 square feet and could barely keep up. This will allow us to feed the rabbits and us as well as give some away until mid summer. My new chard is coming in, the borage is growing as well as all the herbs we planted and the inter planted beneficials. I'm looking forward to the next few months of spring eating. Oh the beans along the fence have sprouted as well and are beginning to grow. I want 20 feet of asian long beans to admire this year along my fence.
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Mar 16, 2014 20:00
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Hi everyone. I'm fairly new this gardening business, and I've run into an issue I'm concerned about going into this. This is my current set up As you can see the sunlight misses the table we keep our plants on, and so we have to transport our poor plants over to the couch to sit near the window so it can catch heat/sun for a little bit before moving it back to the table and keeping it there for the night. I'd like to get some sort of grow light set up in that location, or find a bulb I can throw into the lamp over there so my plants have light. What is my best bet for a good grow light setup for these plants? I'd like it to be less than 35 bucks, and hopefully if there's just a bulb I could grab and put it on that table area with the lamp that'd be perfect. These are planters that we're going to move over into the garden area. There is: Basil,Dill,Thyme, Sage, 4 kinds of chiles/peppers, and tomatoes. Thanks in advance!
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Mar 16, 2014 21:21
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Veskit posted:Hi everyone. I'm fairly new this gardening business, and I've run into an issue I'm concerned about going into this. This is my current set up You need some 6500k fluorescent bulbs. If you have some sort of fixture that you can stick a couple of 42 watt CFLs in, that would work, but you need Cold white or 6500k colour temperature bulbs to pull it off. If you have the room to set something like this up: homedepot.com 2 bulb 4 ft fixture, that's what I'd consider getting, but I'd paint the relector white for more light.
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Mar 16, 2014 22:26
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SpannerX posted:You need some 6500k fluorescent bulbs. If you have some sort of fixture that you can stick a couple of 42 watt CFLs in, that would work, but you need Cold white or 6500k colour temperature bulbs to pull it off. If you have the room to set something like this up: homedepot.com 2 bulb 4 ft fixture, that's what I'd consider getting, but I'd paint the relector white for more light. How close would the light have to be to the plants itself if i went with this setup?
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Mar 17, 2014 00:21
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Veskit posted:How close would the light have to be to the plants itself if i went with this setup? Quite close, say no more than 8 inches, tops. The closer the better, or they get leggy.
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Mar 17, 2014 01:05
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SpannerX posted:Quite close, say no more than 8 inches, tops. The closer the better, or they get leggy. In that case I may have to spring for a full set up. Bleh. I have cats and if the cord dangles from the ceiling all the way down onto those plants something will break.
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Mar 17, 2014 01:16
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boberteatskitten posted:How do folks feel about rabbit manure as compost? I've used guinea pig and rabbit bedding as a soil additive quite often, and I don't think it's ever hurt anything. Veskit posted:Hi everyone. I'm fairly new this gardening business, and I've run into an issue I'm concerned about going into this. This is my current set up I don't think it affects the answers that anyone gave you, but isn't east to the right of north? Or did you reverse the picture for some reason? Peristalsis fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Mar 17, 2014 |
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Mar 17, 2014 03:26
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Woops just switch north and south. Doesn't really matter.
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Mar 17, 2014 03:28
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Veskit posted:Woops just switch north and south. Doesn't really matter. Veskit posted:I'm fairly new this gardening business, ... You don't say. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 17, 2014 03:31
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We got all the compost moved with the help of my in laws and their niece. The whole back yard is filled in now. The next step is flattening it all out and marking the edges of the various beds with stepping stones. After that we need to put in irrigation and decide where everything goes, but we are already doing that. We are thinking about using a tiller to mix the compost with the rocky clay beneath to get a little more depth though. Pics in the morning.
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Mar 17, 2014 05:04
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Finally built the hanging-tomato tower-garden I've been wanting for a while now...
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Mar 17, 2014 09:18
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Maybe this is totally obvious but I have a question about seeding and mulch. We've had a very cold long winter and I'm probably going to be putting down some dark / black wood mulch in the raised beds and a few mounds separate out in the yard. The question I had was, for some of my 'direct seed' plants like carrots and peas do I just leave the mulch free of that area then mulch in after I see decent sprouts? Just curious what the right approach was.
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Mar 17, 2014 12:56
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/\/\ I recommend using straw as mulch around your veggies anyway. If you want the warmth absorbing quality of the dark mulch, use black landscaping cloth. It's easy to rake up and remove at the end of the season/beginning of next season for tilling, as opposed to wood mulch. Then the tiny bits that are left get tilled into your garden and breakdown there and add to your soil. Ornamental mulch is just not suitable for veggies. Anyway, as for mulching around carrots (I don't grow peas), I wait until they're a a few inches tall and I've thinned them a bit. Then I lay straw between the rows, tucking it up against them on either side, but not attempting at all to tuck it in between on account of them only being spaced a couple inches.
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Mar 17, 2014 14:03
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AlistairCookie posted:/\/\ Excellent. Thank you! I was looking to get warmth from the mulch and also to suppress weed growth. The problem for me will be knowing what the growth from my direct seeding looks like vs weeds. Not having experience I don't know what each sprout should look like vs crap.
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Mar 17, 2014 14:46
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Going a different direction with gardening this year. I had to tear up my square foot beds as our landlord is not renewing our lease. I think I'd really like to do some container gardening this time since I know I'll have to move again in a year. I know this is an open-ended question but any tips, recommendations, etc you can offer for container gardening would be great. I definitely want to do some tomatoes, any sort of salad stuff that works well in containers, peppers, and some herbs. Anything beyond that works well in containers?
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Mar 17, 2014 15:01
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I'm college I had a lot of success growing tomatoes and zucchini in large tupperware bins with holes drilled in the bottom. I did smaller things like herbs and flowers in plastic buckets I bought from the dollar store and drilled holes in the bottom.
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Mar 17, 2014 15:29
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vulturesrow posted:Anything beyond that works well in containers? I also have had peas in those wide and narrow window-ledge-flower-containers, just for the fun of it. Got a handful of peas from that, nothing spectacular. But it worked well enough to give me hope that this is going to fare better:  Trying mange-tout this time. The package said the plants would grow up to 70cm, which is about as high as that stick sticks out. Zucchini and cucumbers have a taproot that makes a deeper pot preferable. I couldn't get them to work reliably, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. I'm going to guess beets are doable. Potatoes in a large garbage bag work as well. You roll the bag down at the start and you can keep topping up with soil along the way to milk the most out of the plant.
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Mar 17, 2014 16:06
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Breaky posted:Excellent. Thank you! I was looking to get warmth from the mulch and also to suppress weed growth. The problem for me will be knowing what the growth from my direct seeding looks like vs weeds. Not having experience I don't know what each sprout should look like vs crap. Don't sweat that. It will be pretty obvious once they start coming in.....you'll have a bunch of all of the same thing in rows or however you planted it, so telling the difference between that and randomly placed and different looking week sprouts will be obvious.
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Mar 17, 2014 16:39
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vulturesrow posted:Anything beyond that works well in containers? I second the suggestion for carrots. Get something 18in deep and scatter carrot seeds. After they sprout, thin them out a bit and let it go. I grew really nice rainbow carrots in two pots towards the end of the season last year--started them around Labor Day. I pulled them about two weeks before thanksgiving and they were all about 6 inches long, beautifully straight, and awesome.
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Mar 17, 2014 17:31
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Here's some pics of the new plot Starting where our older beds left off..  Here's the middle. There are some beds right in front of the patio, they've been covered over with compost.  The corn and bean bed from last year surrounded by new compost.  We're watering it down to settle it, we may yet till it in a bit.
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Mar 17, 2014 23:08
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vulturesrow posted:Anything beyond that works well in containers? Radishes and turnips also do well in containers. You could probably do smallish rutabagas in largish containers. Like AlistairCookie said, container gardening root vegetables gives you the most awesome picture-perfect results. Strawberries work well, though they yield best at one plant to no less than 1-2 gallons and prefer to be regularly fertilized. You already mentioned lettucey things, but I'll throw Tom Thumb lettuce out there anyway. It's a little fickle but it looks awesome when you have a bunch of heads filling up a container. Decorative in the pot! Decorative on the plate!
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Mar 17, 2014 23:10
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boberteatskitten posted:How do folks feel about rabbit manure as compost? Just make sure it's been fully dried out.
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Mar 17, 2014 23:39
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Anyone know what would cause this on scarlet runner beans. I have a row of 8 plants and they are all exhibiting these symptoms.    The new growth starts out fine but then forms yellow veins and then looks sunburnt and dies
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Mar 18, 2014 00:02
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dwoloz posted:Anyone know what would cause this on scarlet runner beans. I have a row of 8 plants and they are all exhibiting these symptoms. what are you fertalizing them with, and how much are you watering? It almost looks like they are missing a nutrient, which is why they yellow.
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Mar 18, 2014 00:11
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Cimber posted:what are you fertalizing them with, and how much are you watering? The beds were prepared with worm compost. Since the yellow veining I have been applying nitrogen but no effect
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Mar 18, 2014 02:55
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dwoloz posted:The beds were prepared with worm compost. Since the yellow veining I have been applying nitrogen but no effect Hmm. Well, I'd stop the nitrogen now, if its not working then its not that. Your compost should be fine too. How often do you water, how much direct sunlight do they get, and does your water have anything funky in it? Town or well water?
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Mar 18, 2014 04:17
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Only water as needed, soil is mulched and has been kept moist. Municipal water in a city, its safe. The fence faces south and gets direct sunlight all day long (its a mild climate though, never over 80F, been around 70F)
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Mar 18, 2014 18:24
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dwoloz posted:Only water as needed, soil is mulched and has been kept moist. Municipal water in a city, its safe. The fence faces south and gets direct sunlight all day long (its a mild climate though, never over 80F, been around 70F) Your local extension office may have a regular walk-in plant clinic where you can take a few leaves and get a diagnosis. I'd be leaning towards a nutrient deficiency or excess too.
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Mar 18, 2014 22:16
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Cpt.Wacky posted:Your local extension office may have a regular walk-in plant clinic where you can take a few leaves and get a diagnosis. I'd be leaning towards a nutrient deficiency or excess too. Excess potassium perhaps? He may want to get one of those soil testing kits from Home Depot and see what that comes up with.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:50
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The local extension office is probably a better (cheaper) place to get soil samples analyzed.
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Mar 19, 2014 00:10
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I swear I broke my shallots up as much as I thought I could get away with! It looks like I actually ended up averaging around 4 per what I thought was a single clove. Oops.
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Mar 19, 2014 01:47
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Cimber posted:Excess potassium perhaps? Those testing kits are garbage. Extension offices will send the samples off to a proper lab which can measure all sorts of things accurately. Around here it's $20 and I heard they added an option for testing micronutrients for another $10 but I haven't tried it yet. I don't know how much it costs anywhere else though. Excess P or K is possible but I have no idea how they manifest in beans. N tends to move with water while P and K get bound up in the soil until used. The community garden here has near excess P and K and no N. Winters here are very rainy and wash away all the N. We're guessing the large amount of P and K comes from the history of the site being used as horse stables for a long time. I tell people that soil tests will pay for themselves in terms of not buying and applying fertilizers you don't need but the really savings is not wasting an entire growing season wondering why your plants are doing as well as they should. Add up all the amendments, tools, seeds and starts, water and time and $20-30 every 2-3 years looks pretty cheap.
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Mar 19, 2014 04:46
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Beans get N from the air if they need it, so I'm betting it's P. I'd apply a balanced or low- N fertilizer, plus foliar feed liquid or dis-solvable kelp. Organic gardeners would probably foliar feed kelp and feed with fish emulsion. If it still dies, pull it up and look at the roots. beans should have some nodules on them, but if the roots are misshapen and there is an absence of fine feeder roots you have nematodes. Gardens alive has a product they say works, but no one else has it. Other strategies to deal with it are to plant nematode resistant crops, or fallow and completely dry out the soil. Certain species of marigolds repel nematodes, but only if you completely plant the bed and only while they are there. If you remove them and plant something else, the nematodes start breeding again so you need to alternate. I don't remember where I found the marigold thing, only that it was a co-op site, part of a generally informative document and not some random bullshit.
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Mar 19, 2014 16:53
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Another question is, what type of seed are you using? Who is the manufacturer?
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Mar 19, 2014 20:57
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vulturesrow posted:Anything beyond that works well in containers? I grow most of my plants in containers, I live in a rental property and want to take my trees if I move one day (took me a year to find that drat key lime tree) also the dirt here is awful and full of ants. you can grow almost anything in a suitably sized container  pumpkins! also a jalapeno, and the empty containers have saffron which will hopefully flower soon. melons and frangipani- which is flowering! yay! more pumpkins! capsicum, a limequat tree and spring onionsI also have a double grafted cherry tree, fig tree, strawberries (some white alpine, some red), tomatoes, carrots, key lime, kale and some herbs in containers. the only thing that hated being in a container was the Inga bean. I grew tomatoes last year in small (15 litre?) 'shrub tubs' they grew amazingly well and got huge, I had more tomatoes than I knew what to do with. the mortgage lifter grew taller than the house. only problem was the plants were very top heavy and some fell over. this year all the tomato plants are in much bigger 50 litre pots and were a lot happier. with container plants you need to water quite often, I fertilize about once a week. remember to put in stakes or supports for climbing plants when transplanting or planting seeds so you don't hurt your plant roots. also apparently get bigger plant stakes than you think you'll need.
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Mar 20, 2014 11:40
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container gardening is a fantastic idea, even for those of us who have land.
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Mar 20, 2014 17:58
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Problem is that lovely plastic containers can be REALLY expensive for some unknown reason. Best strategy is homedepot buckets or grocery store bins. I get green bins from the grocery store, drill holes in the bottom and grow 2-6 plants in each with success. Six is a bit much, can do two peppers or dwarf tomatoes comfortably. 
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Mar 21, 2014 22:58
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cowofwar posted:Problem is that lovely plastic containers can be REALLY expensive for some unknown reason. Best strategy is homedepot buckets or grocery store bins. I get green bins from the grocery store, drill holes in the bottom and grow 2-6 plants in each with success. Six is a bit much, can do two peppers or dwarf tomatoes comfortably. One of the guys in the cooking forum mentioned something about getting cheap plastic buckets from restaurants. Not sure of the specifics there. Guess they have lots of extra ones or something? Edit: \/\/\/\/ That was probably it. That Works fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Mar 21, 2014 |
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Mar 21, 2014 23:08
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Try hitting up pizza and burger joints; feta cheese, pickles, and banana peppers come in 5-gallon buckets. Pretty much anything that is brined will come in them, so anywhere that goes through a lot of olives is a good bet as well.
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Mar 21, 2014 23:10
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