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Thanks Luloo & Hummingbirds! I don't have a light for them; I had heard that until they sprouted to keep them in partial light. I'm shocked how quickly these sprouted given I plated them a week ago. Today is really beautiful at 70 and no wind so I have them sitting outside  http://imgur.com/iYISfzS http://imgur.com/xvlkjkJ (Again, on a mobile so has to be links :/) (And these do look twiggy; should I transplant them out of seedling mix ASAP?) The tomatoes and basil have sprouted but the tomatillos and catnip haven't. They were all in the same light and water so I'm guessing it could be the seed brand or they'll pop-out later. Also, thanks for the heads up on the additional thread! I'm now stalking it too.
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Apr 20, 2014 20:28
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polarbear_terrorist posted:Thanks Luloo & Hummingbirds! You want to wait until they're nice and strong (or until they start growing their secondary leaves) before you transplant them. Taking them outside into the sun will help a lot. It may be that the tomatillos and catnip just take a bit longer. What does it say about germination time on the package?
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Apr 20, 2014 21:56
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I'm herbin' an urbin' garden too! We're poor students so we're trying to do this as cheaply as possible. One friend gave us a huge pile of food-grade buckets from his work-place, I discovered that a local farm gives out free manure and there's an allotment society next door where the people are super friendly and willing to give us tips and random cuttings or seedlings to play with. We're having a lot of fun and the plants are doing really well due to our ridiculously warm spring   The whole set-up, pots against the wall in the corner contain sugar snaps (which just started sprouting their first babypeas  ) Raspberries and strawberries, purple bell pepper, forget-me-nots, cauliflower on the lower left  Lavender, rosemary, thyme and lettuces  Beet seedlings, zucchini, Purple Queen beans Not pictured: herbs, cherry tomatoes, Caloro peppers and Peter peppers still enjoying the warmth on the window-sill. Soon we'll also be sowing radishes, more beets, chard and more lettuce in the big square bin.
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Apr 21, 2014 12:41
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Peter peppers like the dick shaped ones? If so that's awesome.
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Apr 21, 2014 15:13
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Hummingbirds posted:Peter peppers like the dick shaped ones? If so that's awesome. I couldn't resist 
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Apr 21, 2014 20:22
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Woohoo, urban gardening! I'm still volunteering at my little urban farm project and that's going delightfully! At home, not so much. But last night I snuck out under cover of darkness ('cause I worked till almost dark anyway) and planted beans along the foot of our new pathway arch! It's this adorable flimsy metal arch we got from Aldi (of all places) and stuck over our front walk. I've interplanted Kentucky Wonder and Purple Pod pole beans on both sides, a ton of seeds (completely disregarding spacing 'cause it was dark and half of them won't make it anyway) and I'm hoping to get a good thick cover of vines over the whole thing this summer. It's gonna rock. I'll take pictures once things sprout. It's been 70s and raining all week; if the seedlings don't drown they're gonna take off.
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May 13, 2014 05:33
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Faerunner posted:Woohoo, urban gardening! It's always better to plant too many seeds and then thin out the weak ones than to plant too few. I hope that they don't get drowned out. In Columbus we've been having a good bit of sun interspersed with the rain today. I'm hoping that you get the sun too. Also, your chick updates in the chicken thread are adorable!
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May 13, 2014 17:14
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Does anybody know of a good and not ridiculously-priced tool that will keep track of temperature in a particular spot over the course of a day? Other features would be a bonus, but I'd like to get concrete numbers for just how hot my east-facing balcony is getting. Judging by how it seems to kill just about anything I put out there, I think it's pretty drat hot, but I'd like to know for sure that it's not just my incompetence.
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May 13, 2014 21:46
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Zenzirouj posted:Does anybody know of a good and not ridiculously-priced tool that will keep track of temperature in a particular spot over the course of a day? Other features would be a bonus, but I'd like to get concrete numbers for just how hot my east-facing balcony is getting. Judging by how it seems to kill just about anything I put out there, I think it's pretty drat hot, but I'd like to know for sure that it's not just my incompetence. There are more elaborate solutions. I own a digital multimeter with a type K thermocouple that I'd actually use if I wanted to do what you're talking about. But while the accuracy is almost certainly going to be better than a cheap USB dongle, you're looking at several hundred dollars worth of gear (for a good digital multimeter that either records or exports via USB) and it's way the gently caress overkill for what you're trying to do.
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May 13, 2014 22:08
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SubG posted:There are more elaborate solutions. There are simpler solutions too, like a min-max thermometer. Quality can be hit or miss on the cheap ones though.
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May 14, 2014 04:59
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SubG posted:For that application I'd probably just buy a cheap USB thermometer (for under US$20). In addition to whatever software comes with it, there are any number of open source widgets that'll track temperature from a USB thermometer. Are you talking about a dongle that stays attached to a computer or something that has its own power supply and then connects to a computer to spit out the data?
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May 14, 2014 16:21
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Zenzirouj posted:Are you talking about a dongle that stays attached to a computer or something that has its own power supply and then connects to a computer to spit out the data?
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May 16, 2014 02:00
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Greetings herb goon gardening thread, on a whim I ordered http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002NKWTUE/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0058STDHA/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I started doing minor research online and this actually sounds sort of complicated. Advice like "put rocks in the bottom of your vessel" or "dont put rocks in the bottom of your vessel" or "For each cubic foot of mix add 4 ounces of dolomitic limestone (dolmades?), 1 pound of rock phosphate or colloidal phosphate(more of a colloidal phosphate guy myself), 4 ounces of greensand (food coloring, got it), 1 pound of granite dust (how does granite perform in a vitamix), and 2 ounces of blood meal (okay this is getting weird)." So anyway I was wondering if you all could answer some very basic questions. I just want to plant some herbs in those containers listed above, they will be on my balcony which I think gets about 8 hours of full sun a day, though I could move them to a place that gets less. I just want some tasty herbs, nothing too particular in mind though basil would be nice. I was planning to go to my local farmers market today and buy some mini-plants (seedlings?) I looked last week and that had what appeared to be an infinite variety. Would you all be kind enough to answer some very basic questions. -What herbs should I get, I am looking for taste, relative ease and the correct mix for the pots I have -Which herbs should I isolate to the green pots (I hear mint spreads like crazy) -How many plants in each pot, I was thinking just one for the greens and maybe 5 for the bigger one? -What type of soil should I use? -What are general care instructions, I don't mind having different watering schedules for different plants though I am not sure how this works for plants in the same pot, so maybe the ones I isolate in the green pots should be ones with atypical watering? Thanks for your help making my summer delicious! broom fucked around with this message at 14:02 on May 17, 2014 |
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May 17, 2014 13:54
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broom posted:Greetings herb goon gardening thread, on a whim I ordered When I do potted plants, I just do a 75/25 mix of potting soil and perlite. The perlite helps with drainage. If you can get some quality compost, I would do 50/25/25 potting soil, compost, perlite. Every gardener has their own mix that they prefer. I like to keep things simple. If you go the compost route, top the containers with an inch or two of compost. Every time you water the plants, the compost will release nutrients and feed the plants. A couple of notes about your containers. The fibrous bigger one is going to wick moisture out of your soil like crazy. You're going to need to line it with some plastic. Make sure that you punch holes in the plastic so that you have somewhere for the excess water to go. Do your smaller containers have drain holes? If not, you're going to need to put some drain holes in the bottom before you plant. I would go with one plant per small pot. You could probably get away with 4 in the bigger pot. Some plants are going to need more space than others. Basil and mint tend to be space hogs. I've never had parsley spread all that much. When choosing your plants, ask yourself what you will use. I love the smell of rosemary, thyme, and lavender and used to grow them for that reason, but I rarely ever used them. I use parsley, oregano, and basil pretty much constantly. Mint is great for tea, as are chamomile, lemon verbena, and lemon balm. Lemon scented plants are great for mosquito control (lemon thyme is supposed to be the best). If you spend a lot of time outside, you might want to grown some lemony herbs, then you can just grab a handful and rub it on your skin to ward off mosquitoes. Watering. More plants die from overwatering than underwatering. In the soil and pot sections, I gave some tips to help with drainage. If it's hot, you might need to water your plants every day. If it's rainy, less so. I do the finger test, but a lot of people advise against it because it can lead to overwatering. I dig my finger into the soil two inches and if the soil is moist, I don't water.
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May 17, 2014 14:53
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luloo123 posted:
Thanks so much, this is exactly what I was look for! What kind of plastic would you suggest, plastic bags? The green ones have one hole in the middle of the bottom, I was thinking of punching a few more given the angle they will be hanging.
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May 17, 2014 15:10
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PiratePing posted:I'm herbin' an urbin' garden too! For a poor student, you have a fantastic looking balcony. So much space! Nice work, too
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May 17, 2014 15:16
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broom posted:Thanks so much, this is exactly what I was look for! What kind of plastic would you suggest, plastic bags? The green ones have one hole in the middle of the bottom, I was thinking of punching a few more given the angle they will be hanging. I would recommend sheet plastic because it's much thicker than garbage bags and won't tear as easily, but a garbage bag will do in a pinch.
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May 17, 2014 15:19
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I've done up my first small, potted garden. Leafy greens, brocolli, tomatoes, and some herbs/flowers. I'm not too sure about the spacing on some of them. For example, in my Kale pot (centre neon green one), I have actually 4 baby kale sprouts right now, but they are only an inch apart. Is that too close? I've basically come to separating each plant into its own pot, but the spacing of each bit of it is concerning me. 
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May 20, 2014 12:40
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bosko posted:I've done up my first small, potted garden. Leafy greens, brocolli, tomatoes, and some herbs/flowers. Kale can get really big, so it needs a good bit of space. Dad just planted some seeds, and if I'm remembering correctly, the packet said that they needed to be a foot apart. It won't hurt to keep them close for now, but you'll probably need to spread them out into separate pots when they start getting bigger.
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May 20, 2014 12:56
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luloo123 posted:Kale can get really big, so it needs a good bit of space. Dad just planted some seeds, and if I'm remembering correctly, the packet said that they needed to be a foot apart. It won't hurt to keep them close for now, but you'll probably need to spread them out into separate pots when they start getting bigger. Thanks! That's what I figured, they would be ok for now, but I don't know how plants work so was a little wary. I'll just transplant them once they get big.
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May 20, 2014 13:21
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bosko posted:For a poor student, you have a fantastic looking balcony. So much space! Nice work, too Haha yeah, the building I live in used to be a monastery. In the first picture you can see part of our enormous garden (including a little orchard with apples, plums and pears!) and what used to be the chapel on the right. The chapel and the arch windows on the ground floor still have their original stained-glass windows even. It's a pretty fancy place to live for a poor student! I wish they would let me dig up a little corner of the garden so I could build some proper raised beds but the buckets work really well too. So spoiled.
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May 20, 2014 14:14
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bosko posted:I've done up my first small, potted garden. Leafy greens, brocolli, tomatoes, and some herbs/flowers. Your tomato could use some more real estate (dirt). At minimum you should fill the existing pot up closer to the top (the buried stem will turn into roots). I've got my 'maters in 5 gallon buckets at the moment. In fact, most of your plants would benefit from a more generous amount of soil in their pots. It'll also allow them to get more sun considering so many are sitting well below the rim of their respective pot. I don't know if this matters, but I generally try to use darker colored pots for summer plants. I'm even considering painting my 'mater buckets black to raise the soil temp.
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May 20, 2014 16:37
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DuckTalesWooHoo posted:Your tomato could use some more real estate (dirt). At minimum you should fill the existing pot up closer to the top (the buried stem will turn into roots). I've got my 'maters in 5 gallon buckets at the moment. In fact, most of your plants would benefit from a more generous amount of soil in their pots. It'll also allow them to get more sun considering so many are sitting well below the rim of their respective pot. Thank you, definitely taking this advice! I'll add more real estate this weekend. I wasn't worried too much about sun exposure since my deck gets a good morning and afternoon sun, but most of these guys enjoy full sun anyways.
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May 21, 2014 12:49
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DuckTalesWooHoo posted:I don't know if this matters, but I generally try to use darker colored pots for summer plants. I'm even considering painting my 'mater buckets black to raise the soil temp. This really depends on where you live. In Atlanta, on my balcony, if I put a plant in full sun in a black planter, I'd have to water it 3 times a day just to keep the temperatures from killing the plant. It gets 95-100 on a regular basis in summer, and topping 85-95 the rest of the sunny season.
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May 22, 2014 09:57
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^ Ah, good point. I'm in Louisville so I was on the fence about painting mine. We generally run lower 90s pretty consistently all summer, and my work schedule has me away from the garden for too long to babby my maters.
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May 23, 2014 00:42
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I have my first tomato fruit showing and oh god all I want to do is nurture it and make sure it turns out ok (don't worry, I'm mostly just letting it do its thing while watering it now and then) gardening is awesome.
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Jun 21, 2014 13:22
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I gave up on tomatoes last year; I live in the woods and just don't have enough full sun to make them happy.  However, I have one spot on the side of my house with enough sun for three buckets of peppers, a hollerpeena, a poblano, and a habanero. The jalapeno is doing SO WELL, it's huge and happy and I just picked my first pepper! July 11th is insanely early for New England for a fully grown fruit. How tall is the habanero supposed to get? Mine is little, like 14 inches tall, but it's already got like 6 tiny peppers on it. So cute. Anyway, say this on imgur, and my first thought was "must make it easier to live in a country where the entire place is one single grow zone". http://imgur.com/gallery/nFr7Fe3
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Jul 12, 2014 12:35
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I know this isn't exactly urban I guess, it's more of a back yard. But any suggestions on tomato trimming? As you can see somehow mine became monsters, even though it's early July in Olympia, Washington. I want quantity, but I don't want a bunch of little weiners, I'd like some big ones. Any simple tips?
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Jul 12, 2014 20:38
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Squashy Nipples posted:However, I have one spot on the side of my house with enough sun for three buckets of peppers, a hollerpeena, a poblano, and a habanero. The jalapeno is doing SO WELL, it's huge and happy and I just picked my first pepper! July 11th is insanely early for New England for a fully grown fruit. How tall is the habanero supposed to get? Mine is little, like 14 inches tall, but it's already got like 6 tiny peppers on it. So cute. You can usually tell pretty early in the season if peppers are going to be productive or not. Very young peppers sometimes look a little sad and droopy when it first starts getting really warm and sunny, but they usually bounce back pretty quick. If you notice most of your peppers are starting to look more robust and one or two are still looking kinda dragged-out, the stragglers are probably just not going to produce. Otherwise, pepper pepper pepper pepper pepper.
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Jul 12, 2014 21:22
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OlyMike posted:I know this isn't exactly urban I guess, it's more of a back yard. But any suggestions on tomato trimming? As you can see somehow mine became monsters, even though it's early July in Olympia, Washington. I want quantity, but I don't want a bunch of little weiners, I'd like some big ones. Any simple tips? Do you know the varieties you planted? Are they indeterminate or determinate? Determinate are going to be bushy and set and ripen most of the fruit at the same time. For those I'd just prune the leaves of the bottom foot of each plant. Maybe thin out a few in the center for better airflow. For indeterminate it's going to be a lot more tedious. I usually prune mine to no more than 2 main stems per plant, then train them up something tall. At this point you'll have a million huge suckers on each plant and not know which ones to remove. Get the bottom foot of the plant cleared out and then try to thin out the suckers as best you can. What you're going for is two things. First, improving airflow and reducing contact between the ground and leaves to reduce the chance of disease. Second, removing foliage that isn't getting much sun. Those leaves are costing the plant more energy to keep alive than they are generating through photosynthesis. That means less energy available to go into the fruits.
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Jul 13, 2014 03:02
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Cpt.Wacky posted:Do you know the varieties you planted? Are they indeterminate or determinate? It's a wide variety. I'm guessing more determinate based on the bushiness and kinds. Sweet millions, cherries, three or four bigger heirloom ones. But your advice is awesome, I will trim up the bottoms and thin out all of them and we should be good, I'll take my chances. Just got my first zucchini! Screw you global warming, my pacific northwest garden is doing amazing. e: except for my dumb Basil. It's just sitting there.
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Jul 13, 2014 03:24
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 My stoop garden is loving this humidity. My three big tomatoes are starting get little fruits. That strawberry jar is filled with dill. In the back is a failed cilantro, oregano, and chives. You can kind of see my bean lattice. I plan on pickling all the beans I get. Not pictured are some little peppers that are going to make some spicy amish bells once they get bigger.
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Jul 13, 2014 17:58
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OlyMike posted:It's a wide variety. I'm guessing more determinate based on the bushiness and kinds. Sweet millions, cherries, three or four bigger heirloom ones. But your advice is awesome, I will trim up the bottoms and thin out all of them and we should be good, I'll take my chances. Just got my first zucchini! Screw you global warming, my pacific northwest garden is doing amazing. I'm up in Port Angeles and the only time I've seen basil grow well here is under a tunnel that's kept warm and moist. Most cherry tomatoes are going to be indeterminate and they're your best bet for getting ripe fruit around here. If you know the variety then you can look it up online to find out which type it is. Heirlooms are tougher to ripen because they usually need a longer growing season than we get so you have to resort to season extension tricks like tunnels or a greenhouse. PS - There's a more active gardening thread over in DIY.
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Jul 14, 2014 17:16
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Cpt.Wacky posted:I'm up in Port Angeles and the only time I've seen basil grow well here is under a tunnel that's kept warm and moist. I had my basil do super good four or five years ago, but pretty mediocre since. I'll probably try to do some cloches next year. And I'll check it out, I thought it was odd there wasn't just a general gardening thread, but that makes sense.
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Jul 15, 2014 02:53
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Our little garden is really picking up now  Most of our setup  'Maters  Our one and only tiny purple bell pepper   Purple Queen beans  Purple basil   Zucchini  Peas  Beet greens, red cabbage, lettuce and freshly sown radishes  Dinner!
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Jul 15, 2014 17:26
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My dad and I set up a 4x8 box garden in the back yard two or so months ago, and after an off-and-on battle with the goddamned rabbits, we've got it secure enough for things to really take off and start growing. We have a metric fuckton of basil now, and I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do with it beyond 'tons of pesto.' My mother's got a half-biological half-mental thing about cheese, so does anyone have a good cheeseless pesto so she can have some too? Also, people said that zucchini would grow like wildfire once it took off, but I didn't really realize just what that meant 
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Jul 15, 2014 21:19
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Daeren posted:My dad and I set up a 4x8 box garden in the back yard two or so months ago, and after an off-and-on battle with the goddamned rabbits, we've got it secure enough for things to really take off and start growing. We have a metric fuckton of basil now, and I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do with it beyond 'tons of pesto.' My mother's got a half-biological half-mental thing about cheese, so does anyone have a good cheeseless pesto so she can have some too? For cheeseless pesto, just follow any standard recipe and omit the cheese. It will taste fine (we made like 14 jars of it last year, 50% with cheese 50% without, both taste great). I definitely sympathize on the Zucchini. I planted like 6 plants because I love Zucchini and wanted to make sure I'd have enough. Now we run around passing it out for free to neighbors because I just really can't eat 20 zucchini a week.
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Jul 15, 2014 21:38
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PiratePing posted:
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Jul 15, 2014 22:15
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SubG posted:There are a lot of different cultivars of habanero. I've had some that are productive as hell but never get much taller than 30, 40 cm. And some get big enough to be ornamental hedges. So...just depends. Like right now I've got one variety of habanero where the plants are all around 90 cm tall, and another just a couple feet away that's not even half that, and both of them are putting out flowers and setting fruit. Yeah, I know there a lot of kinds, that makes sense. SubG posted:You can usually tell pretty early in the season if peppers are going to be productive or not. Very young peppers sometimes look a little sad and droopy when it first starts getting really warm and sunny, but they usually bounce back pretty quick. If you notice most of your peppers are starting to look more robust and one or two are still looking kinda dragged-out, the stragglers are probably just not going to produce. Otherwise, pepper pepper pepper pepper pepper. I was afraid of that... I don't think it's going to be a good season for poblano. Anyway, the reason I post in here is that I can't use the soil at my house, so most of my gardening is in containers. My GF found this on the web and emailed it to me: quote:This worked well for me for many years - it's a simple, weed-free way to grow lettuce, spinach and even radishes. Take a 2 cubic feet bag of potting soil (I used Miracle Grow), rumple it around quite a bit to loose the soil, poke quite a few holes in the back side for drainage, then lay the bag on a smooth surface that will allow drainage and not get too hot, and cut out the top, leaving about a 4 or 5 inch border all around. Lightly rake through the soil to even it out and loosen it even more, then carefully, and evenly sprinkle the seeds around. I put my salad green seeds in an old spice bottle with large shaker holes, added some cornmeal, shook it all up to mix well and sprinkled them out of it. I put the cornmeal in there to allow me to see that I had covered the soil evenly. If doing radish seeds or spinach, just make lines the depth mentioned on the seed pack, plant the seeds and cover appropriately. For salad greens I sprinkled a lite covering of soil over the cornmeal and seeds and then spray-misted to water them in. I put my bags on metal sawhorses and grates to make them waist level. This kept the bags off the hot concrete and I didn't have to bend over when cutting my salad. When harvesting, just use a pair of scissors and cut what you need - don't pull the plants out. Same goes for spinach - they will grow back almost magically overnight, and you can't tell where you cut. Spray mist the seeds and plantlings at first when watering, until they are established, then you can water more vigorously as the plants mature. You will probably need to water more often, since the depth of the bags are not as deep as a regular in-ground garden. I just kept mine moist, but not sopping wet.  This sounded like a good idea, specially since the only good sun is in this one spot in front of my house, by the driveway. I couldn't find a steel grid that heavy, so I just use fence posts as beams, and zip tied it all together to a piece of concrete reinforcing wire.  And here it is in place, ready to be planted. Note the brick planter by the fence, that's for sun flowers that I'm not planning on eating, so those I can grow in the ground.  Sadly, I must report that it isn't working out so well. I didn't get this planted until later (may 25th), we had a few hot days, and it got scorched. The arugula is completely dead, only a few of letuces are doing well, and the spinach looks like its flowering too early? If they have full sun, its hard to to keep these things wet... in super hot area you'd have to water them three times a day.
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Jul 16, 2014 01:51
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Why not raised beds over some thick plastic? At least that way you get to use the ground as a heatsink.
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Jul 16, 2014 01:54
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