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I gave in and got some Sevin as well this year... the pillbugs/sowbugs (I haven't bothered to see what they actually are, but they all go by interchangeable names anyway unless you're an entomologist) are still chewing on the base of everything I plant and are getting at the lower leaves, too, and there are small brownish-black caterpillars killing the leaves of my cucumber and leaving circular burned-looking spots on them as they go. As much as I love the idea of organic gardening, I garden in a front yard in an urban neighborhood and I'm also trying to make the place look semi-presentable, so bugs gotta go. I'm really sorry to any beneficial insects I might have killed  I'm planning some more companion plantings next year (stuff like garlic closer to the tomatoes to repel pest insects, marigolds, echinacea and butterfly bush to attract pollinators) so I'm hoping between attracting more beneficial insects and repelling or distracting the nasties, the garden will look healthier and I won't have to use any more pesticides. It's scary that the bottle of Sevin I bought has all of these warnings about not spraying before it rains and keeping it out of the water system and not ingesting/inhaling/letting it sit on your skin, but it's ok to harvest your veggies as soon as 3 days after spraying! (I'm going to wash them all three or four times to be safe!) I did get 8 cucumbers out of NOWHERE the other day though. Just looking at the plant and BAM. Cucumbers. I never saw a single one actually growing. It's like magic!
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Aug 29, 2012 02:16
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GRBass posted:just as a note for next year... don't choose late ripening tomatoes. i panicked the entire time waiting for these berkeley tie dyes to get done. kinda made it more exciting at the same time though... Use imgur: http://imgur.com/ My garden has produced nothing this year except for more chickens. And eggs. But mostly just chickens. Hopefully they start laying soon!
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Aug 29, 2012 02:17
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I am jealous of your chickens. Some day... Will trade cucumbers for fresh eggs. Or pickles! Anyone know a good place to get cheap canning equipment? I've seen some $40ish sets on places like Amazon, but we're on a super-super tight budget right now and I'm saving to go to a friend's wedding this fall as well as a camping trip/seminar thing, so "free" is about right, although I could probably manage a $20 stock pot for boiling jars if I could get/put together the other assorted goodies. Do you think craigslist would be any good for that sort of thing? Faerunner fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Aug 29, 2012 |
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Aug 29, 2012 02:19
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Faerunner posted:I am jealous of your chickens. Some day... Either that or rummage and garage sales. I got my canner, a bunch of accessories, and a food mill for $5 at a garage sale.
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Aug 29, 2012 02:28
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My kids eat pickles too drat fast for me to really bother canning them properly. I usually just put the sliced cukes in a jar with garlic and dill, pour boiling brine over them, and toss them in the fridge. They only keep about a week that way but my kids eat them all in like 2 days so it works. The upside is you don't need anything special outside of the jars themselves and maybe a canning funnel, and it only takes maybe 10-15 minutes to throw together a few jars of pickles from whatever cukes we had that day.
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Aug 29, 2012 13:12
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Chajara posted:Remember when I was bitching about not having any beans? That's awesome. My beans did OK, but not as well as I'd hoped. After they finished I chopped them down to see if I could get a second crop. I think the second crop's been better than the first, especially considering a few plants didn't make it. The beans never seem to make it to the house (my kids and the neighbor kids eating them), but that's OK. I'll definitely do the same next year. On another note, the local greenhouse was giving away their sad, nearly dead cucumber plants several weeks ago. I picked up 4 Burpee Pickler Hybrids... 2 died almost immediately, but the other 2 survived and are producing like crazy. I planted them on my pea trellis, maybe the extra nitrogen is helping. My tomatoes are a good 8 feet high on their trellis. So nice, after that huge period of unbearable heat. I didn't think most of the stuff would make it.  Marchegiana posted:My kids eat pickles too drat fast for me to really bother canning them properly. I usually just put the sliced cukes in a jar with garlic and dill, pour boiling brine over them, and toss them in the fridge. They only keep about a week that way but my kids eat them all in like 2 days so it works. The upside is you don't need anything special outside of the jars themselves and maybe a canning funnel, and it only takes maybe 10-15 minutes to throw together a few jars of pickles from whatever cukes we had that day. I make refrigerator pickles, which is similar... they are gone so fast.
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Aug 30, 2012 21:53
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Wife and I were getting some last-minute landscape plants at Home Depot last night. Saw some scraggly grape starters and one behind them that was in fantastic shape. I had intended on getting a few mail-order varieties for spring planting, but was too tempted by this one to let it pass. Its a pinot gris, which as I understand it is not exactly a pluck and eat grape, but rather a wine grape.
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Sep 2, 2012 15:38
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I finally got two yards of black garden mix delivered and filled my three 8'x4' boxes in the back yard. Excited for next year. Currently working on the side beds.
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Sep 2, 2012 19:32
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I've pushed the family garden into the section my mom neither used nor heavily amended, and ye gods is the soil structure terrible. Good enough for grass to have taken it over but not much else. At this point I've just thrown caution and formulas out the window; the new strategy is "add compost until it quits behaving like clay," and it's working well so far. Square foot by square foot, it's starting to become gorgeous, workable, soft soil and my arms are starting to become deadly weapons. A local gardening expert recommends working six inches of compost twelve inches into the soil every year, so I'm pretty sure I've got a buffer before I've officially overdone it. I hit Singh Farms for the compost this time and got a huge burlap coffee sack of compost for the price of a tiny garden center bag. Check it out if you're in Phoenix.
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Sep 2, 2012 23:44
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Ugh it's been a terrible year for cucumbers around here, it seems like. I don't think I'm going to get to make any pickles. I have a canteloupe but it's fairly small still and I doubt it'll be terribly edible. It's not in a very good location for sun though really.
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Sep 2, 2012 23:47
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My girlfriend and I just started renting a new place that has 2 x 2'x4' wood planter boxes with 1/2" tubing going into the box from an unknown location. The tube is open on the end and has no emitters on it. We decided to start an herb garden and planted them staggered in the box - I put 1/4" line off the 1/2" with 1gph emitters on them - when I start that zone on the sprinkler controller water jets out of emitters across the yard. Given that I don't know much about this sprinkler setup and the 1/2" tubing prior to where it comes into the planter box from out of the ground, I'm a little lost on how to fix this.
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Sep 3, 2012 03:08
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neongrey posted:Ugh it's been a terrible year for cucumbers around here, it seems like. I don't think I'm going to get to make any pickles. Where are you at? We've harvested a total of 2 odd-shaped cukes out of the 4 plants. Plenty of flowers all summer, but only one plant bore any veggies. Molten Llama posted:I've pushed the family garden into the section my mom neither used nor heavily amended, and ye gods is the soil structure terrible. Good enough for grass to have taken it over but not much else. I'm in kind of the same position with the soil we had delivered this spring for our new backyard and the leftover which was used for the raised garden box. Black as hell soil, but will take a couple years to slowly work in the compost to lighten it up a little. Has anyone used one of the attachments for weed whackers for turning soil over?
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Sep 3, 2012 04:43
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Fog Tripper posted:Where are you at? We've harvested a total of 2 odd-shaped cukes out of the 4 plants. Plenty of flowers all summer, but only one plant bore any veggies. Winnipeg, and it's been pretty dry. I don't think my cukes even got a lot of flowers but yeah, it was all of 2 toal and they were all funny-shaped. The picklers we got from the farmer's market turned before I could pickle them, even. 
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Sep 3, 2012 07:03
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I haven't even been able to give away enough cucumbers to keep up with my plants. They slowed down a little when it got really hot but both them and the tomatoes have taken right back off with the temperatures down. They're well out of control all over again. 
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Sep 3, 2012 17:05
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So next year, I'm gonna loving do this for my beans, because goddamn is it nice to pick under a trellis this high.
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Sep 4, 2012 17:44
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 weee! GRBass fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Sep 5, 2012 |
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Sep 4, 2012 20:18
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Hahaha wow, that is quite a large tomato and a large image to match it. Is that 'chocolate stripe'?
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Sep 5, 2012 02:07
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Rogue posted:Hahaha wow, that is quite a large tomato and a large image to match it. Is that 'chocolate stripe'? hahaha fixed. I posted from my phone and just checked it now. That lovely beast is/was a berkeley tie-dye and it was quite lovely on top of my tacos!
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Sep 5, 2012 02:53
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I am so sad my one surviving pumpkin plant died. It wasn't very big and something got to it. (Birds had already killed the first three plants.) My tomatoes are finally ripening. The seed package said that they were roma tomatoes, but they are definitely cherry tomatoes. Also my "big" beef tomato plant has mostly small tomatoes. I am glad I finally got tomatoes though. They seem to take really long to grow up in BC (planted in late April).
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Sep 5, 2012 17:30
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I did an experiment this year growing squash in horrible soil. Most of the seeds didn't germinate. I ended up with 1 sugar pie pumpkin and 1 delicata transplant that made it and they've each only got 1 fruit on them. My tomatoes are doing pretty well and I'm just south of BC. Are you doing anything besides planting them in the ground? They need some protection early on from cold temperatures at night in the spring. I use the 5 gallon water bottles with the bottoms cut off for cloches until the plants get too big. I've also been experimenting with the poly tunnel setup this year and it seems to be working well by keeping a lot more heat around the plants. One thing I didn't do enough of this year is fertilizing. A cup or so of chicken manure under each transplant made some tomatoes at the community garden grow like crazy. Small fruit size could be a lack of water too.
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Sep 5, 2012 18:02
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Cpt.Wacky posted:One thing I didn't do enough of this year is fertilizing. A cup or so of chicken manure under each transplant made some tomatoes at the community garden grow like crazy. I also made up some compost tea but have yet to try it.
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Sep 5, 2012 20:25
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coyo7e posted:I also made up some compost tea but have yet to try it. I hear it's a bit nutty.
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Sep 5, 2012 21:39
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I work in a mix of blood and bone meal every time I do anything drastic to the dirt in the garden and it seems to do fine. It's also got about 3 tons of compost in it, so that probably helps too.
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Sep 6, 2012 02:20
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Just found this thread! I have a few plants, sadly I need a back yard to do more. Outside we have: Jalepenos, cherry tomatoes, some variety of small strawberries all potted. Upstairs on top of a dresser we have: Rosemary, spearmint, mint lemmon, sweet basil and oregano all potted as well. Working on getting some more but a tree blocks out light on half of the upstairs window What if anything should I add to my herbs and outdoor plants to help them grow bigger?
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Sep 7, 2012 03:02
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The previous owner of our house really liked hostas. The compost pile feasts on hostas this night.
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Sep 7, 2012 03:53
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I started gardening this year. Two raised beds, some seed starter kits my mom bought a bit late in the season, and absolutely no idea what I was doing. I've gotten a buttload of cukes, but though I was just a few weeks away from more tomatoes than I normally eat in a year, last night I realized they were covered in blight. My neighbor told me it was sun damage when I noticed it last week. NOPE. It wasn't a big loss money wise, but I'd put a lot of time into them and was a little sad. I learned some crucial lessons, though. Like that I should probably stake them before they start sagging. Oh, and prune them. At all. Oh well. Life is learning. Another lesson was researching plants before I do anything with them. Like cucumbers, for example. They will take over a box if you just let them do their thing. Like I said, I got a ton of cukes, but it would have been much simpler had I trellised them. Next year will be better. Tilling the back of the yard for a three year rotation set up, and I got a bunch of bulbs for some very pretty flowers to put in front to hopefully attract some pollinators (and to look at). Probably going to get a couple butterfly bushes as well, those are nice. Anyway, I like this thread. I only know two people who are into gardening. They are married and live next to me, and aren't really interested in organic gardening like I am. They're a great resource, though. Lots of knowledge, and I can get free manure. Always a plus!
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Sep 8, 2012 01:35
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Cpt.Wacky posted:I did an experiment this year growing squash in horrible soil. Most of the seeds didn't germinate. I ended up with 1 sugar pie pumpkin and 1 delicata transplant that made it and they've each only got 1 fruit on them. I had similar issues with basil taking a long time. Now, both it and the tomatoes are flourishing. So next year I would like to try squash because I love it so much. Any tips on that for BC?
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Sep 8, 2012 11:50
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Sow in May under a cloche, or in June. I work in 1/2 to 1 cup of fertilizer per hill and put about 5 seeds per hill, spaced out 2-5 feet apart depending on variety. If they don't germinate and grow quickly after a week then resow until they do. They germinate best with soil at 60 F or above and not too wet. You can start indoors and transplant but they grow fast inside. The root systems are very delicate and they need to be hardened off for cooler Spring weather so it can be tricky getting the timing right.
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Sep 8, 2012 15:47
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This is my first year gardening and it took me a while to find this thread, thought I would come and post some pictures. Grape tomato, Super Sweet 100. I've been picking 10-20 every day now, there are so many fruits.  Green beans. We have a ring of plants around the outside of the small piece of dirt we have.  Collard greens  Huge basil plant. I've continually kept cutting the flowers off the top as they form, so it's gotten quite tall.  2nd wave of peppers growing, hopefully we get some before it gets cold. The first ones ripened to a very nice red and were sweet and delicious. Capsicum annuum.  Poor mostly defoliated Wisconsin 55 hybrid plant, still has a few ripe ones on it and a bunch of new green ones that probably won't be mature before it gets cold. It got hit with some kind of powdery mildew on the leaves or possibly fusarium/verticillium about a month ago and the leaves slowly died all over the plant.  Carrots visible from above now.  Tons of carrot foliage.  New fruits still setting on the tomato.  I'm building an aeroponic apparatus to continue growing through the cold months and have big plans for lots of tomatoes and stuff next Summer!
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Sep 9, 2012 16:46
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Rogue posted:
I would love to hear more about what you're building, when you have time.
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Sep 10, 2012 16:30
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Deer have found our Big Boy tomatoes. Just as they are finally beginning to turn from green. 
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Sep 10, 2012 17:00
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Deer are bastards. My poly tunnel has been keeping them out of the tomatoes so far this year but they still got to the stuff I had in containers, even though it was fenced off in the backyard. Mowed my lettuce and strawberries down, stripped most of the leaves off my apple trees and even ate a bunch of the tomato leaves. I can't afford to build a proper fence right now so I'm going to try growing a hedge out of a fruit-bearing shrubs like aronia, sea buckthorn, goumi and goji berries. It'll probably take a few years to fill in so I guess I'll be taking on a few more plots at the community garden instead.
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Sep 10, 2012 17:53
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This year was a definite learning experience. Next year we'll have things protected properly. Lots up upgrades to the raised bed, and perhaps a secondary bed to separate the herbs and peppers from the more "viney" plants. Still in the planning stages with my sole potted pino gris. May build a pergola along the driveway with lines between the posts. Uncertain how elaborate I want to make it. The posts are going to be cemented in, so it will be a one-shot deal. I want to be certain of how I want it to ultimately look/work.
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Sep 10, 2012 19:39
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Frilled Lizard posted:I would love to hear more about what you're building, when you have time. Sure thing - you can check out all of the details in the post I made in the DIY post your projects thread. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2734807&pagenumber=44#post406800382 That's for part one, the lighting. We recently finished constructing the misting system to supply the roots of the plants with nutrients; I'll be making another post on that pretty soon.
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Sep 11, 2012 00:17
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Marchegiana posted:My kids eat pickles too drat fast for me to really bother canning them properly. I usually just put the sliced cukes in a jar with garlic and dill, pour boiling brine over them, and toss them in the fridge. They only keep about a week that way but my kids eat them all in like 2 days so it works. The upside is you don't need anything special outside of the jars themselves and maybe a canning funnel, and it only takes maybe 10-15 minutes to throw together a few jars of pickles from whatever cukes we had that day. I did this with beets this summer, and it was really good. The last of them are still in the fridge, haven't gone bad yet but I won't let them last the month! My better half refuses to eat them, though. Picky eaters, hmph. I'll keep my eye out for a canning set-up. This year we didn't have enough that I'm desperate to can any of it, but I do want to at least be ready for next year, because after two years of growing I kinda have a handle on how much stuff I want to plant and how much it will produce, and I'm planning on doing enough that I can preserve some! Rogue, I am jealous of your carrots. Mine never get very big... our soil here is such terrible clay that I've given up on root vegetables until I can dig several tons of compost into it.
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Sep 11, 2012 15:51
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Rogue posted:Sure thing - you can check out all of the details in the post I made in the DIY post your projects thread. That's a great setup. I'd be interested in making something similar, though a few plants thrive here in the winter (thyme, for instance).
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Sep 11, 2012 16:10
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Desmond posted:That's a great setup. I'd be interested in making something similar, though a few plants thrive here in the winter (thyme, for instance). I posted part 2 today, the misting system. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2734807&pagenumber=45#post407444232 I'd be happy to answer any questions you would have about setting something up. The information on the internet is generally bad and inconsistent; I had to spend a lot of time looking things up to come to a decent consensus on what would work.
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Sep 12, 2012 02:41
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Faerunner posted:I'll keep my eye out for a canning set-up. Yard sales in church parking lots are almost a guaranteed jackpot around here.
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Sep 12, 2012 03:13
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mischief posted:Yard sales in church parking lots are almost a guaranteed jackpot around here. I'm rather leery of used pressure cookers though, a pressure cooker can be really dangerous, and used ones could have any number of issues, missing pieces, broken gauges, etc. Just seems like a good place to button down, and buy a new thing with a good manual. We're at the end of the yard sale season this year, I ought to make a google doc list of treasures that I'll want to keep an eye out for at the early yard sales next summer. 
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Sep 12, 2012 16:03
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Is there a DIY thread for general backyard/landscaping? I am growing a garden in part of my yard, but I wanted to get advice on stuff like gravel, paver stone patios, outdoor furniture, etc.
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Sep 13, 2012 22:29
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