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What type of plants are you interested in growing? This poll is closed. |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Perennials! |
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142 | 20.91% |
| Annuals! |
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30 | 4.42% |
| Woody plants! |
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62 | 9.13% |
| Succulent plants! |
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171 | 25.18% |
| Tropical plants! |
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60 | 8.84% |
| Non-vascular plants are the best! |
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31 | 4.57% |
| Screw you, I'd rather eat them! |
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183 | 26.95% |
| Total: | 679 votes | ||
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Yeah, I am a terrible plant person but I grew up around enough aloe that my first guess would be, does your pot have drainage holes, and my second guess would be that it would do better in soil that drains rather than keeps water. This stuff generally grows in areas that are mostly sand.
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Jun 2, 2019 16:43
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Are there any water barrels that don't cost an arm and a leg? A neighbor has a water pump that works that I can use to fill it up, but pretty mcuh everything I see costs $100 and sells a stand separately to make the spigot remotely usable.
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Jun 2, 2019 20:35
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Just get any old barrel and put a plastic tube tied to a rock to the bottom and suck on it until you get flow!
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Jun 2, 2019 22:00
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Someone ID the little sedum I started from the tiniest rosette (seriously a little pinhead) that is killing it in the second pic!  " but it looks very etiolated. Did you mean for it to etiolate?For more specifics, it looks like it could easily be a Pachyphytum or a Graptopetalum (or a hybrid), but it could also be an etiolated Echeveria elegans, some cultivars have more rounded leaves. It might be easier to ID if it weren't etiolated, and certainly easier when it blooms. Hopefully someone with more succulent experience will weigh in!
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Jun 3, 2019 22:38
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LoreOfSerpents posted:I have a really hard time with succulent identification, so my ID is basically "it's a succulent Yea I've been messing with its light on purpose to try and limit and control its growth
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Jun 3, 2019 23:12
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Repotted my oncidium and it seems way happier - I bought it potted in pure green moss which immediately started rotting the roots away, so I moved it to a bonsai mix to dry out but the roots had a hard time extending into that. Got a mix of chopped bark, lava, and a little sphagnum packed around the roots, hopefully this is the Goldilocks mix.
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Jun 3, 2019 23:43
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my little ceiling trellis idea seems to be working! (ignore the strings ive used to "encourage" growth in the right direction) soon i will have to avoid hanging bottle gourds on my patio LIKE THE GODS INTENDED  also look at my GD peppers 
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Jun 4, 2019 00:41
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gently caress PRIVETS That is all.
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Jun 4, 2019 05:02
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It's spring and the garden is growing like crazy, which is not a good thing because I'm now two growing seasons into it running wild because renovating the garden is at the bottom of my priority list and "clearing the garden out" is one step above that. It's now one third nettles, 6ft each. I tried to get to my shed the other week (machete in hand) and was rebuffed.
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Jun 4, 2019 10:08
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Platystemon posted:gently caress PRIVETS The previous owner of my house deliberately planted them all around. I'll be killing runners as long as I live here 
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Jun 4, 2019 10:35
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Cactus potting question: the fiance wanted this so we picked it up, a bigger/more mature one than we usually get. I saw the nice lava rock (I think) on top and thought good things, since it didn't have the usual too-heavy, brown soil mix cactuses and succulents often come in from stores. I did check it out, however, revealing this:  It looks like it's a small pocket of soil around the roots, enclosed with a border of rock? Is this a viable technique? I'm confused because I expected them to cheap out, as stores almost always do, but expected the usual crappy soil, not this rock situation.
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Jun 4, 2019 11:18
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At least it has good drainage.
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Jun 4, 2019 12:08
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It'd be fine if the organic stuff was mixed in amongst the rock, but as it is, that could be a root rot nightmare. There's a wonderful myth that has propagated through pot-gardening history that rocks = great drainage. This is true, if the rocks are the only media in the pot. However, where there are different media with different water-retentive properties, things get a bit funky. I'm not much good at physics, so it'd be easier to explain with this simple graphic:  Anyway, the solution is to get those cacti out of the pot, wash the potting mix off the roots, mix up a nice, gritty mix for them and they'll live happily ever after. elgarbo fucked around with this message at 12:22 on Jun 4, 2019 |
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Jun 4, 2019 12:19
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elgarbo posted:Anyway, the solution is to get those cacti out of the pot, wash the potting mix off the roots, mix up a nice, gritty mix for them and they'll live happily ever after. Word, that's what I was leaning towards, but hadn't encountered this method so I wanted some feedback  Thanks guys
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Jun 4, 2019 12:25
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elgarbo posted:It'd be fine if the organic stuff was mixed in amongst the rock, but as it is, that could be a root rot nightmare. MIND BLOWN. I was always taught to use gravel for drainage at the bottom, never even considered what I could be doing to some plants. Guess i'll have to repot everything again soon. Is there a better method for drainage medium at the bottom then, or is the answer just dont use any?
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Jun 4, 2019 17:17
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BaseballPCHiker posted:MIND BLOWN. I think if you mix the gravel in with the soil at the bottom instead of going 100% gravel it drains better
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Jun 4, 2019 17:20
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So the physics of it (as I understand it) is this: Discounting evaporation and uptake through roots* you have two mechanisms moving water around -- Gravity (pulling it down) and absorption from neighboring soil. Gravity will move water down through the soil through macro-pores until they are saturated, then it will pull water down as successively lower layers of adjacent soil absorb water until they are saturated. When water hits an impermeable layer like the bottom of a pot then it can't move any further so you get pooling. When there's a hole in the bottom of the pot them the drainage is limited first by how quickly water can move through the macro-pores to the drainage hole, and then by how quickly the saturated soil next to the drainage will dry out (allowing adjacent saturated soil to transfer water, etc.). It's easy to forget that water has surface tension, and on the scale of pore sizes that you find in soil that effect matters. We tend to think of it more like it would behave with very large-grained open soil, like on the 1/4"+ scale. The problem with adding gravel to a pot is that it is impermeable so the gravel doesn't pull any water from the higher layer of soil. In effect you've made your pot shallower, with lots of tiny holes at the bottom. All things being equal, an 8" deep pot with 2" of gravel in the bottom will drain better than a 6" pot with just soil, but not better than an 8" pot with just soil. The gravel IS good for acting as a filter bed, preventing any large objects in the soil (bark, etc.) from blocking the drainage hole -- a lot of times people confuse the two. It is also just fine for eating up space in the bottom of a pot that is otherwise too deep. BaseballPCHiker posted:MIND BLOWN. indigi posted:I think if you mix the gravel in with the soil at the bottom instead of going 100% gravel it drains better If you are concerned about the drainage holes getting blocked, a thin layer of gravel won't kill anything. However, an even better option would be to use something that has an open grain structure and yet will also absorb water. The right answer is to use something like Hydroton: https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Earth-Products-Hydroton-Expanded/dp/B01KYYZ9DE/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=Hydroton&qid=1559667021&s=gateway&sr=8-3 If I have a pot where I need to fill space, I put a layer of those balls 1-2 balls deep on the bottom.
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Jun 4, 2019 18:11
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Hubis posted:Discounting evaporation and uptake through roots* *: This is actually something also worth keeping in mind. Evaporation is generally as minor factor and the vast majority of water is going to be removed from the soil via root uptake. If you don't have sufficient, established roots then your soil is going to stay wet for a very long time. This in turn means that your soil is going to have filled pores and make roots grow more slowly because they want to get wet, then stay moist but not submerged. All of this is why you don't want to "over-pot" your plants, but rather put them in soil that matches the root mass they currently have (or will soon grow to support).
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Jun 4, 2019 18:14
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About how many square feet in a garden should I budget for small decorative and jack-o-lantern pumpkins, minimum? I’ve got some seeds I’ve been meaning to plant, but they’d be going right near a space I want to espalier some apple trees in later this year and I don’t want them crowding each other. Also, and I kind of hate myself for having to ask this, but...... what good or bad things does feral cat poo poo do to garden soil? 
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Jun 4, 2019 18:57
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I. M. Gei posted:
Biggest concern is toxoplasmosis. if your wife is pregnant don't let her garden in it.
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Jun 4, 2019 19:19
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Contracting toxoplasmosis is like getting a minor case of serious brain injury.
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Jun 4, 2019 19:50
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Platystemon posted:Contracting toxoplasmosis is like getting a minor case of serious brain injury. Unless you’re pregnant
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Jun 4, 2019 20:00
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I’m saying that I’d try to avoid it even if you are not pregnant or soon to be pregnant.
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Jun 4, 2019 20:21
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FizFashizzle posted:Biggest concern is toxoplasmosis.  Toxoplasmosis is really, really stupid. Most cats build up antibodies to it, and they'll only shed it for a few days after they're first exposed. You're way more likely to get infected from poor food handling practices than from a cat. Really though, wash your hands thoroughly after gardening, wash your tools and gloves and such, and never, ever touch your mouth/nose/eyes until after you've washed your hands. Thoroughly rinse all of your produce, too. For what it does to garden soil, it'll have a similar effect to other manure. It won't be quite as destructive as dog feces (which basically murders plants by being a large sunblock for several weeks). You can deter feral cats from making GBS threads in your yard by putting down chicken wire or really coarse mulch on the ground, or by using a motion-activated sprinkler. The sprinkler is my favorite.
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Jun 4, 2019 20:34
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I got a foot parasite from feral cats once while on a holiday in the tropics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/cutaneous-larva-migrans I could feel it munching around under my skin.
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Jun 4, 2019 21:14
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Pablo Bluth posted:I got a foot parasite from feral cats once while on a holiday in the tropics. 
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Jun 4, 2019 21:17
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Nephzinho posted:Are there any water barrels that don't cost an arm and a leg? A neighbor has a water pump that works that I can use to fill it up, but pretty mcuh everything I see costs $100 and sells a stand separately to make the spigot remotely usable. You can get 50-60 gallon food grade plastic barrels lots of places on Craigslist. If you have any factory food making places nearby, give them a call. All of the fittings on them are standard sizes for putting on pipes and such.
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Jun 5, 2019 00:42
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I. M. Gei posted:About how many square feet in a garden should I budget for small decorative and jack-o-lantern pumpkins, minimum? I’ve got some seeds I’ve been meaning to plant, but they’d be going right near a space I want to espalier some apple trees in later this year and I don’t want them crowding each other. Square foot gardening claims 4 sqft, but squash vines can grow a lot bigger than that. That said, if you're attentive you can always train them to go where you want them to. http://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/winter-squash/
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Jun 5, 2019 20:10
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Alright, so I guess my next question is how do I go about preparing a garden bed in an area full of grasses and weeds? Spray it with herbicide and cover it with ground cover for awhile to kill off what’s there? How long before I can remove the ground cover and plant stuff? How much of the loving feral cat poo poo do I have to scoop out of there? Will the poo poo break down under the ground cover? I don’t want to touch the cat poo poo but I also don’t want to step in it or smell it or be around it or get the diseases in my brain/body.
I. M. Gei fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jun 5, 2019 |
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Jun 5, 2019 20:36
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Interesting observation: I bought a small vine maple (Acer circinatum 'Pacific Fire') at around 2' a few months ago and it's now already over 4'. Nurseries online say that it will only grow to be 6' to 8' tall, so that's some rather impressive growth over the past several weeks. And holy poo poo the color (not mine). This is only the spring color by the way, the fall is going to have a whole new set of color changes. The bark is a bright, shiny red as well.  I. M. Gei posted:Alright, so I guess my next question is how do I go about preparing a garden bed in an area full of grasses and weeds? Spray it with herbicide and cover it with ground cover for awhile to kill off what’s there? How long before I can remove the ground cover and plant stuff? How much of the loving feral cat poo poo do I have to scoop out of there? Will the poo poo break down under the ground cover? I don’t want to touch the cat poo poo but I also don’t want to step in it or smell it or get the diseases in my brain/body. I had to do the same loving thing with a massive raised bed. If you can, see if a tiller makes sense. It's not going to stop new weeds from growing, but it will even the playing field. If you can't, you really need to do it by hand. I'm not against herbicides but you're going to have to not only wait for them to go away you're also growing food in this bed so you have to be rather choosy as to the herbicide you choose. When I cleared out my raised bed, I found that getting started was the hard part, but using something like a four tine cultivator (something like this) helped to pull stuff out, as does watering the ground the night before. But yeah, it's going to suck. My bed was an odd trapezoid that was 8' x 14'ish and about 2' high. It took a while to clear out but I packed it with a few varieties of sunflowers, so hopefully it's going to worth it. Solkanar512 fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Jun 5, 2019 |
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Jun 5, 2019 21:08
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Oh, boy. Are you in for some fun. Disclaimer: I mostly did no-chemical gardening when we had a house, so my suggestions are all along those lines. I was also dumb and didn't rent equipment to make it easier.I. M. Gei posted:how do I go about preparing a garden bed in an area full of grasses and weeds? Spray it with herbicide and cover it with ground cover for awhile to kill off what’s there? You can just manually remove the grass/weeds as-is if you want some mindless work for a few hours. Or you can spray it all with vinegar and then take a hoe to it to get the plants/roots out of there. Even a strong rake will work. I personally wouldn't use anything worse than vinegar on a vegetable bed. Vinegar degrades very quickly (after 1-2 days). It's most effective on dry plants (so not around rainfall). Pickling vinegar is more effective on established weeds than household vinegar, but I've used household vinegar to kill grass and dandelions. Vinegar worked very fast for me (in the Midwest at the time). It only took one application to kill most of what was in the bed area within a few days, but some people do multiple applications (you can wait a few days to a week and see if anything survived your first round). I. M. Gei posted:How long before I can remove the ground cover and plant stuff? If you use vinegar, you can plant after 1-2 days. No matter what, you'll still have to pull weeds as they sprout (forever). Weed seeds can be very hardy. I. M. Gei posted:How much of the loving feral cat poo poo do I have to scoop out of there? I. M. Gei posted:Will the poo poo break down under the ground cover? You should do a soil test to know how bad the problem is after you've removed visible waste. You might want to amend the soil in other ways or let it sit for a while before planting there. Like normal manure, large quantities of cat poo poo could hurt plants if it changes the soil chemistry too much. This is one reason why manure is composted for months (or years) before you amend a bed with it (bacteria is another obvious reason). Manure treatments in soil are usually tilled into the soil 1-2 months before plants are added. Install deterrents to keep the cats away from your garden space in the meantime. Always wash your hands/tools after gardening, and always wash your produce before you eat it.
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Jun 5, 2019 21:47
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Here's a random question! I recently snagged one of these, and was wondering how feasible it is as a terrarium? I'm mainly worried that the small aperture at the top won't let the requisite amount of air in. Thoughts?
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Jun 5, 2019 22:15
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Are there any good apps where you can put in stuff like what plants you have, what they're planted in, how much sun they get per day, then it looks up stuff like the weather in your area and helps you know when to water? Or is that just a fundamental part of gardening that you need to learn and pay attention to because there's too much variability?
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Jun 5, 2019 22:21
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LoreOfSerpents posted:I've tried using layers of paper and black plastic to kill off large areas of grass, but it took weeks and I was too impatient to keep doing that. You might have different results in your area. This fall, a good habit to get into would be locating new garden plots for next spring and covering them with cardboard, weighted down with rocks (or plastic or whatever). Everything will compost over the winter and be fairly pristine when it's time to plant. Internet Explorer posted:Are there any good apps where you can put in stuff like what plants you have, what they're planted in, how much sun they get per day, then it looks up stuff like the weather in your area and helps you know when to water? Or is that just a fundamental part of gardening that you need to learn and pay attention to because there's too much variability? It's too variable. All plants have different requirements and also different parts of your yard will hold on to water differently depending on soil composition, drainage, amount of surrounding vegetation, etc. etc. etc. You can tell if your garden plants need water when their leaves start drooping. I have a basil plant in a pot that starts to droop as soon as it gets a little dry that I use as a signal to water my vegetable beds. If possible, water in the morning so the plant has a chance to drink it up before the hottest part of the day. The real pro move is not to plant things where they won't have enough water just via rain. That is, pick plants that have evolved for your region, or a similar climate, and plant them in the correct spot. This obviously doesn't make sense for trying to grow tomatoes in the desert or anything, but in most parts of the USA you shouldn't need to water your garden constantly. Most garden centers can tell you if trying to grow a vegetable is a bad idea in your area - they don't like to sell things that will immediately die.
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Jun 5, 2019 22:48
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vonnegutt posted:This fall, a good habit to get into would be locating new garden plots for next spring and covering them with cardboard, weighted down with rocks (or plastic or whatever). Everything will compost over the winter and be fairly pristine when it's time to plant.  Seriously, pre-planning would've saved me so much time.
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Jun 5, 2019 23:14
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LoreOfSerpents posted:Wait, are you saying most people don't just impulse buy plants/seeds and then panic-prepare space for them hoping to get them in the ground before it's too late? I impulse buy as many plants as the next person, so naturally I always have some spot in my yard weighed down with cardboard. Plan ahead for your failures to plan ahead.
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Jun 5, 2019 23:39
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vonnegutt posted:This fall, a good habit to get into would be locating new garden plots for next spring and covering them with cardboard, weighted down with rocks (or plastic or whatever). Everything will compost over the winter and be fairly pristine when it's time to plant. Thanks for this. All of my stuff is in pots and I'm not doing vegetables yet, but I have some daisies that get the most sun that I have been using as a guide. As soon as I see them start to droop I water them and the more thirsty plants. The others are in trellis boxes that have a water resiviour that seem to not need water as much. I guess I was concerned that if my daisies were drooping that wasn't great for them, but it sounds like that's not a problem as long as I water them at that time. Good tip on watering in the morning. Will start doing that instead of on the afternoon / evening.
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Jun 5, 2019 23:57
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 These two mystery stalks have casually survived a solid month+ after everything else in their flower arrangement has long been dead. What the heck are they? (I checked and they're not plastic 😂)
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Jun 6, 2019 00:26
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terre packet posted:
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Jun 6, 2019 01:16
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Thanks. Just to clarify, the only things I’m planning to plant right now are some pumpkins for Fall decorating, which I won’t be eating. Later this year I’m gonna put some apple trees there too, but those will be high off the ground and won’t produce fruit for a few years anyway.
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Jun 6, 2019 01:19
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