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Last weekend we set up our grow light/heating mat setup and laid down the seeds for our peppers (14 jalepenos of a variety my wife chose, not sure which, and 10 of the free sampler pack that Jung's seeds sent, Maule's Red Hot). After a week of light and warmth, we've got one germinating already, which is pretty fast for peppers. Today we put our 3 primary tomatoes into the pods, 12 each of Genovese, Black Krim, and sweet 1000's. Next week, cabbages, maybe cukes, and the 'junk' tomatoes (Roma's and some other lame cherry tomato that also came as samplers. Still love ya', Jung's) I'm really diggin' the growlight setup. Not digging the still frozen earth (literally not digging it). Still excited. I grew up with parents and grandparents that gardened when we lived in the country, and I've enjoyed so much, the last couple of years trying my hand at a small raised bed, and now a big ol' country plot of my own. To get to do this, experiment, and play around is so fulfilling, it's great. And my wife, who's parents now garden but didn't when she was younger, just loves learning all about it and helping, it's an awesome 'chore' to do together. Big Beef City fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Mar 30, 2014 |
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Mar 29, 2014 23:59
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I started my tomatillo plants waaaay too early, as this photo illustrates
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Mar 30, 2014 01:53
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I did some more planting today, I hope my seedlings were big enough since I got kind of a late start. So far I've planted seeds for 9 watermelon vines, 3 varieties 15 tomato plants 9 peppers 1 squash My wife planted a grape vine, a clementine tree and a pomegranate bush. Tomorrow I'm going to plant some New Zealand Spinach and maybe some basil and maybe add some more irrigation to cover future cucumber patches. I have a lot more peppers to plant that aren't big enough yet, and tomatillos that are in the same situation. I'm also waiting on the temperature, some of the plants I want to start like lows in the high 60's to mid 70's. Most of them I sow directly, so all there really is to do is wait.
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Mar 30, 2014 05:41
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Snails ate my cucumber sprouts overnight  At first I was going to live and let live but it is ON now.
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Mar 30, 2014 15:25
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/\/\ Can you set out a pan of beer for snails like you can do for slugs? (That really works for slugs.)
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Mar 30, 2014 15:31
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Shifty Pony posted:Snails ate my cucumber sprouts overnight Let this stand as an example to everyone whose garden isn't in the ground that you need to be PRO-ACTIVE about your pest control 
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Mar 30, 2014 16:12
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Suncut posted:Thanks for the advice! I hadn't even thought about the soil yet, good thing you mentioned it. I know at least one place that sells it, and there might be others even closer by if I look. No pickup trucks, but it would be pretty easy to rent a trailer from the gas station and use that I think. There's no reason to dive into building a huge planter right away either. Herbs will grow just fine in containers. You could get a few 2-5 gallon containers, a bag or three of potting soil and some herb starts or seed packets for under $100 at a decent nursery.
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Mar 30, 2014 17:32
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I'm loving all the pictures here. I've got a medium sized second floor patio to work with, so it's nice seeing other peoples' gardens. Just fixed up some of my stuff and potted a few new things. In this photo I have a planter with peppermint and lemon balm, one with yellow gerbera, and Roman and German chamomile, and you can see the tomatoes off to the right.  The tomatoes actually sprouted from my composting pot a few weeks back so I transplanted them to their own container. You can't see it, but there are also hundreds of little amaranth seedlings coming up thanks to the one purple amaranth I cut up and put in the compost at the end of the season. The tomatoes are just about ready to start setting fruit.  I couldn't really get a photo that would do it justice, but I have asparagus growing in a pot with some chives. The whispy fern like growth looks great hanging through the railing.  All told, I have a big pot each of rosemary and lavender, planters with a mix of tomatoes, chamomile, mint, thyme, gerbera flowers, firespike, amaranth, and lettuce, and medium to small pots of asparagus, chives, cilantro, a fig, a cypress tree, and a neat begonia with massive leaves/tubers/flower spikes (2 ft tall when it blooms). 
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Mar 30, 2014 18:22
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Shifty Pony posted:Snails ate my cucumber sprouts overnight I just came here to post this very same thing. I noticed that a few sprouts had been eaten so I laid down some snail bait. Woke up this morning and ALL of my sprouts are gone  . The snail bait got some of them though.
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Mar 30, 2014 18:58
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Fart Car '97 posted:Let this stand as an example to everyone whose garden isn't in the ground that you need to be PRO-ACTIVE about your pest control I have been! They nibbled on my spinach and onions so I had laid bait over there to take care of the problem. I didn't know they were over by the cucumbers so now the entire garden is baited for a full gastropod genocide.
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Mar 30, 2014 19:32
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Zratha posted:I started my tomatillo plants waaaay too early, as this photo illustrates You need to start blowing a fan across those plants. They are going to get awful leggy and end up snapping at the first storm if you don't.
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Mar 31, 2014 13:20
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In my experience growing them(outside in Florida), tomatillos tend to be pretty leggy and sprawling anyways so don't worry too bad about it. Do put a fan on to start toughening them up though, they're going to have a tough time adjusting otherwise. I'd also advise getting some straw later to lay down underneath when they start fruiting, those berries get real heavy and if they sit on the ground at all they're toast.
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Mar 31, 2014 17:47
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The fan is a great idea, thanks! I am not too worried overall; I was in a similar situation last year and still ended up with a good crop of balcony tomatillos.
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Mar 31, 2014 18:02
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The first week after I grounded my admittedly leggy peppers we got 2 days of 50mph wind gusts. Luckily they all managed to stay up. I'm sure the cages made all the difference.
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Mar 31, 2014 21:10
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Are tomatillos like tomatoes in that you can plant them extra deep?
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Mar 31, 2014 22:33
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This is my first "real" vegetable garden this year and so far things aren't going as well as I had hoped. My brandywine and sweet 100 tomatoes are doing wonderfully. I've already got several tomatoes coming on. The pole beans are doing really well too. The zucchini and crook neck squash are finally sprouting after about a month. Unfortunately the snails got my cucumbers. I bought some more transplants from home depot and laid down a bunch of snail bait as well as a few beer traps. That should stop them (hopefully). Even more depressing is that I think my mortgage lifter and black krim tomatoes are sick. I transplanted them on the first of march and they've only grown a few inches. Many of the leaves are pale green/yellowish and there are brown spots and holes all over them. There's also a weird purple striped pattern going all the way up the stem. At first I thought I wasn't watering them enough so I watered them some more -- didn't make a difference. I checked the leaves for pests and didn't find anything. I think they have some sort of disease. Here are some pics: http://imgur.com/a/hghrQ Does anybody have any idea what might be wrong?
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Mar 31, 2014 23:44
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Fozzy The Bear posted:Are tomatillos like tomatoes in that you can plant them extra deep? Yup! I just keep planting them into deeper containers as they grow.
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Apr 1, 2014 00:29
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 Peppers are looking good! 3 tall ones in the back are Burpee "Big Thai Hybrid." Ones in the middle with the fat leaves are Orange Habanero and Jamaican Chocolate saved from Farmers Market purchased fruits. Also a few runts I haven't given up on. Sadly none of the ghost peppers lived, maybe it was not warm enough, the seed starter tray has a huge water reservoir, way too big to be warmed by a warming mat.
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Apr 1, 2014 15:03
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Comb Your Beard posted:
Nice! If you're interested, I think you can prevent those wrinkly leaves with a liquid calcium additive. It won't fix the ones that are already wrinkled, but new ones should be nice and smooth.
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Apr 1, 2014 17:59
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Comb Your Beard posted:
If you don't mind, how long have those been growing and what's the temperature like in their growing area? Just curious because the peppers I germinated look alright but they are coming up sloooooooow and are tiny in comparison. I wasn't sweating it because the room / soil temp was pretty cold but I just want to see if our conditions are incredibly different.
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Apr 1, 2014 19:13
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I sowed them Feb 3 according my thread post. Initially they were on a dresser with 1 big CFL over them (desk lamp + aluminum foil DIY reflector) but eventually I moved them to the windowsill. It may not have been the best move, hard to say if they gained more from the extra ambient sunlight being next to the west-facing window vs. some very cold outside temps making the windowsill cold. These are the best ones that lived from a 32 cell plug planter, now they are in garden cups and regular potting soil. Who knows when it will be warm enough to move them outside, in Northern Virginia. Interesting about the Calcium deficiency, I will look into that. I have used the Miracle Gro liquifeed that comes in the giant bottles from Home Depot, I'll have to see how much calcium is on that.
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Apr 1, 2014 21:42
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Breaky posted:Just curious because the peppers I germinated look alright but they are coming up sloooooooow and are tiny in comparison. I wasn't sweating it because the room / soil temp was pretty cold but I just want to see if our conditions are incredibly different. Mine grow fine in max 90F (day)/min 70F (night). Wouldn't expect anything from them if the temp at any time drops below 60F with any regularity.
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Apr 2, 2014 01:01
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Flipperwaldt posted:If you're calling the room cold, it's very likely that that's the problem. Peppers do not grow in circumstances a human would call cold. Even just nighttime temperature dips can severely stunt the growth. Yeah thats what I figured. I've got the thermostat at 55F in that room and it gets above that during the day but definitely gets down to 55 at night. Otherwise the heating bill (that room is on a separate electric heating system) wouldn't justify the cost. It's finally warming up around here though so I hope they start taking off soon.
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Apr 2, 2014 01:51
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I see a lot of people having problems with snails. Slugs and snails all over your wonderful plants are a real bummer. One good precaution against slugs and snails is to water in the early morning instead of at night when the they come out. If you stop watering at night the topsoil ill be dry and they won't like traveling over your raised beds as much. Another immediate precaution is to surround the plants with biodegradable materials that are prickly to slither over, like eggshells, coffee grounds, pecan shells, crushed seashells, stuff like that. They'll hate traveling over that. Something that sometimes works is putting a hollowed out grapefruit half on the ground round side facing up, or standing a flower pot upside down in your garden. The slugs will sometimes gather under these things and get trapped when it's light out. I'm sure everyone has heard of the beer method but it's kind of expensive. There was an episode of King of The Hill about it. That silly Peggy Hill, she had so many other options. A more proactive method is digging a small ditch around your raised garden and filling it with gravel or seashells or both. If you want to be really proactive you can plant lots of bird-attracting trees and shrubs in your yard. Birds will eat slugs, and tons of other things that like to ruin your crops. If you have the land for it, putting in a pond is a very good idea. Frogs are immensely beneficial for any garden and they'll gobble up slugs, grasshoppers, and other larger pests that predatory insects usually can't cover.
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Apr 2, 2014 03:11
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If you're really having problems, copper works extremely well for keeping gastropods away. Copper ions are deadly poisonous to anything without a backbone so they will absolutely avoid it as much as possible. I've heard of people burying scrubbies in a line, or undoing one and circling a plant that poisons and traps haven't been able to keep them away from.
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Apr 2, 2014 05:33
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If I put gravel around my raised beds would that be a decent deterrent? (I was thinking about doing this anyway so I wouldn't have to get the mower so close to them).
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Apr 2, 2014 12:52
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I have a front yard entirely composed of gravel and the garden snails have no problem wandering around on it. Ortho Bug-geta is an extremely effective chemical solution, especially if you know where the snails are overnighting and place it between them and the plants.
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Apr 2, 2014 14:17
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Yeah the snails like to hang out in a bunch of ivy I have near the garden. I just put some pellets between the ivy and the garden. It rained last night and I woke up this morning to see about twelve dead snails. I hate using the pellets because they're so poisonous, but they work really well in a pinch.
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Apr 2, 2014 18:17
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Squirrels ate the buds off my rhododendron again this year. I wasn't going to kill trap them this year but since they made the first move I'm going to start filling my freezer with dead squirrels again. Also my lawn looks like a horde of golfers came through with all the divots from them digging. Don't worry, they are the invasive grey squirrels.
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Apr 2, 2014 18:53
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The more I plant, the more aphids I get. I've used that spray bug soap stuff before, is there anything else I can do? I have ladybugs, but just not enough to get rid of the majority of the aphids.
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Apr 2, 2014 20:51
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/\/\ Have you tried getting more ladybugs than what Mother Nature is providing your yard? There's a couple garden shops around here where you can go buy a box full of them. They really are efficient little aphid gobblers. They hibernate all winter long in colonies, and we have a colony that hangs out in our attic space. One of the first signs of spring in my house is all the ladybugs inside out of no where. Crawling all over the lights, the walls, whatever. For about a week stretch, I can scoop up about a dozen a day and put them outside.
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Apr 2, 2014 21:18
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This is my first year germinating from seed. I'm in Zone 5 Colorado and I started them two weeks ago. Using the Jiffy 72 pellet greenhouse and everything has pretty much germinated except the bell peppers and Santa Fe peppers. I've got five kinds of tomatoes cantaloupe, peppers, squash eggplant etc... I did the too many things thing you do when you do this for the first time. I run a fan for about 4-6 hours a day on oscillate and give them 14 hours fluorescent lights. 6500k 40 watt 4' x 2. So, between now and Derby Day is there anything I have to do besides adjust the light and keep things watered? Fertilizer or repotting 120+ little plants? TheBigBad fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Apr 2, 2014 |
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Apr 2, 2014 21:40
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TheBigBad posted:This is my first year germinating from seed. I'm in Zone 5 Colorado and I started them two weeks ago. Using the Jiffy 72 pellet greenhouse and everything has pretty much germinated except the bell peppers and Santa Fe peppers. I've got five kinds of tomatoes cantaloupe, peppers, squash eggplant etc... I did the too many things thing you do when you do this for the first time. With a month to go, and those little peat pellets, yes, you are going to be re-potting. I wouldn't fertilize though, that'll burn them. Everything sounds like you're doing well though! I hope you don't have a dry year like the last few.
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Apr 2, 2014 21:59
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Fozzy The Bear posted:The more I plant, the more aphids I get. I've used that spray bug soap stuff before, is there anything else I can do? I have ladybugs, but just not enough to get rid of the majority of the aphids. Just seconding AlistairCookie here. I buy ladybugs (from Amazon!) when I have aphid issues. Just do a bit of research so you know how and when to release them and how to make them want to stay. They are cold blooded aphid killers. Most of the keeping them around ends up with you having enough water for them when they are first released (in the evening) typically accomplished by misting your plants and then having places they would like to hang out in like a few piles of big rocks and/or some firewood (they want to be able to hide sometimes). If you give them the right environment you might not even need to buy any.
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Apr 2, 2014 22:13
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TheBigBad posted:So, between now and Derby Day is there anything I have to do besides adjust the light and keep things watered? Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant should be fine potted up to 3.5" square pots, sometimes called 4" pots, and they'll fit 18 per standard 10x20 flat. I don't have any experience with melons since they don't do well here outside of greenhouses. Squash are going to be a little more sensitive to stunting if they get root-bound in their containers. I just direct sow them when the soil is warm enough with a cloche to help them along a little.
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Apr 2, 2014 23:46
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Cpt.Wacky posted:Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant should be fine potted up to 3.5" square pots, sometimes called 4" pots, and they'll fit 18 per standard 10x20 flat. I don't have any experience with melons since they don't do well here outside of greenhouses. Squash are going to be a little more sensitive to stunting if they get root-bound in their containers. I just direct sow them when the soil is warm enough with a cloche to help them along a little. When do you repot?
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Apr 3, 2014 00:26
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TheBigBad posted:When do you repot? Wait at least until there are 1-2 true leaves. Roots coming out the drain holes are usually a sign that it's time to pot up. You can also pull the plug out carefully to see if the roots are starting circle around. Handle it by the leaves and not the stem though.
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Apr 3, 2014 00:47
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There are passive ways of repelling aphids. Interplanting your things with different species of Allium (onions, garlic, chives etc.) will ward away common pests such as aphids. Marigolds will do that also, to a greater effect. Planting useful herbs such as oregano, cilantro, mints, catnip, and fennel (there are more) will attract more predatory insects near them, such as ladybugs. I had a bunch of ants and aphids in my garden last summer so I planted a bunch of garlic bulbs, shallot bulbs, and onion bottoms everywhere and I have seen no aphids as of yet. Earlier in the year, something was munching on all my comfrey plants and when I planted garlic near two of them, they didn't have nearly as much holes in their leaves as the one I didn't plant garlic with after. Natural methods used to repel pests don't work 100% of the time so it's always best to stack functions in your garden. I keep a bottle of onion/garlic spray around for when my other plants that aren't near any allium are having pest problems. This is all completely anecdotal I know, but you should try it for yourself if you haven't. Garlic is pretty cheap.
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Apr 3, 2014 01:48
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Thanks for the aphid tips. Just got emailed that HomeDepot is having Bonnie vegetables on sale for 5 for $10. Might vary by location though. e: Bonnie plant starts. Homedept didn't turn into a grocery store selling produce. Fozzy The Bear fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 04:18
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Peristalsis posted:If you're interested, I think you can prevent those wrinkly leaves with a liquid calcium additive. It won't fix the ones that are already wrinkled, but new ones should be nice and smooth. Only 1 has the most winkled leaves, I hit it with my other fertilizer liquid for the Aerogarden that has 1% calcium in it. If that doesn't work I'll buy a specific additive. Thanks!
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Apr 3, 2014 18:55
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