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learnincurve posted:Working fruit and veg planner/calendar! (remember to set your location on the website) https://www.gardenfocused.co.uk/calendar-veg-personalised.php This is super useful thanks! I've been trying to figure it out with the farmer's almanac, but they were wrong by about three weeks last year. So it's good that I already put my tomatoes and peppers in to start, but I'm apparently behind on the peppers.  I learned the hard way last year to probably try to do things with a little research instead of just trying to start things and failing miserably. Ended up with about two dozen radishes and some mixed lettuce and everything else decided that I hadn't taken good care of it and decided to die slowly.
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Mar 14, 2018 15:10
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I feel bad for you about that. I have a feral cat that sort of lives under my porch and doesn't dig anything up. The squirrels dig up everything when the cat isn't lying around in the sun and I haven't seen rabbits or any living rats/mice since it adopted my yard. It's one of the better things that's happened to my garden in the last year.
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Mar 30, 2018 05:55
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Who doesn't forget to write down where they plant things? I do it all the time. The top looks like Savory to me. The middle could be the Borage. I've not planted it so I'm not sure what it looks like small, but the leaves look close. The last definitely looks like Sage. Could you have forgotten that you planted it? I had 13/16 pepper seedlings get massacred by cutworms while I was gone last weekend. So I went and replaced them with plants from a nursery that are four times larger than the three plants that were left. Moral of the story is to get better seed starting mix/process and actually start them early enough so I don't have this problem next year. The tomatoes are all 1.5-2' tall and already flowering. They've only been in since Mother's Day (zone 5b). Fairly happy with how the rest of the herbs/veggies have gone, even if the feral cat that protects my garden like a guardian spirit lays on the cucumber plants. They don't mind, I don't mind.
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Jun 5, 2018 19:52
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Mikey Purp posted:Found this horror show on one of my (bolted) broccoli plants this morning. Any idea what the hell these are? I pulled the plant and none of the other plants look affected, but I'm worried because this plant was in close proximity to my tomatoes and cucumbers. Those look like aphids to me. I had kale left over from the previous owner of my house and it was covered with those by the end of September. Seemed to leave a lot of the other plants completely alone, but they were all over the kale. They'd sit on the large veins in the leaf and leave a sticky sugary substance all over the underside of the leaf and in the crook where it attached.
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Jun 13, 2018 19:04
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TheToxicEuphoria posted:Re: super hot peppers grow slowly It's helpful to be able to start them indoors in about February I imagine. After the cutworms decimated my pepper seedlings this year, I went and bought plants. I have a couple Carolina Reaper plants that looked about 4-5 months old already when I bought them. Thankfully, they're already flowering and just starting to fruit, because I don't have good enough weather to wait until November for them to be done. The two Cayenne plants of mine that did make it are at least about two months behind everything else (orange habenero, carolina reaper, hot portugal, and more cayenne).
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Jun 20, 2018 19:04
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Cory Parsnipson posted:Also, ALART I too got super excited when I saw my tomatoes this year. I've never successfully grown them to any decent extent, but this year I just built a raised bed, mixed in a bunch of compost from my bins and planted the seedlings I started when they were ready and the weather was right. I have one variety of cherry tomatoes (Riesentraube) that have between 12-18 flowers per branch. I have three of these monsters and I'm going to be drowning in them. So you have every right to be excited, and keep going and you'll eventually figure out what they need from your space and climate. It took me a few years to figure out tomatoes, so I'm looking forward to eating every single one. Because last year that's exactly how many tomatoes I got from eight plants. One.
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Jul 19, 2018 05:33
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A TOMATO HAS FORMED 
I think I used too much fertilizer on mine.
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Hubis posted:Mint is the big one. Thyme is supposed to be a big spreader, but it's not that aggressive and I've never really seen it be a problem. Honestly the biggest for me now is the sage that is just thriving so much that it crowds other stuff out! The grass in my lawn disagrees with you on thyme, I loose inches to it that I have to cut back in the spring. Make sure you get one that isn't known to spread and it won't be an issue. Mine was planted by the previous owner and I haven't had the energy to dig it out and it's great when it flowers due to the hundreds of bees it attracts. It does take a year or two to get really going, so if you're only doing one season planters it should be fine. My oregano also came back this year much larger, but not much for spread. My solution for the sage is to just cut it back and make it grow up again (and it obliges but is still a small shrub size). I'm in Zone 5b(ish). I've had success in the past with oregano and basil together (also with tarragon that year). Thyme and basil is okay if there's enough room for the basil to get tall enough before the thyme gets very big. Never mint with anything else. I left some in a planter without water for an entire year on a Kentucky porch and it came up the next year after it had gotten a bit of snow and ice over winter.
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Jul 23, 2018 04:12
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I had a handful of Beauty beefsteak tomatoes with that same problem. It probably didn't help that I went away for 10 days in early July and by the time I go back they had overgrown the trellis and were falling all over each other. Now the problem is the vines are pushing on the fruit and bruising things. So I'll eat what I get if any turn out. The cherry tomatoes didn't mind, but I need a better set of supports. The peppers haven't cared one bit about my interference in the least. I have a bunch of cayenne, hot Portugal, and orange habanero all ripening. I don't know if the Carolina Reaper or Caribbean Hot Peppers will finish before frost, so I may try to move them inside. Worst thing that happens is I still don't get any of them. Carrots didn't mind either and are starting to come out. Definitely making some different choices about where I plant things next year and probably putting in a third raised bed.
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Aug 8, 2018 16:39
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Fitzy Fitz posted:I have one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Geobin-SYNCHKG043886-Compost-Bin-GEOBIN/dp/B0085O6NXQ/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1534343264&sr=8-15&keywords=compost+bin If you're worried about rodents and vermin, do not go with plastic and make the same mistake I did. I bought heavy duty plastic bin and they lasted about a year before the rats chewed large enough holes to dig inside. Go with wire and a frame. Maybe a frame that lets you open the front partially to turn it. Or not, that's high (low) tech.
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Aug 15, 2018 15:53
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That's useful info from the USDA, I can just use the asparagus ratios for what's apparently going to be about a dozen pint jars of garlic chives that decided to grow and start to flower this week after doing nothing all summer. They sure waited longer than last year and I didn't expect them back, but I need to go and cut and package them already before they go to seed. I'll probably just pickle them with garlic in salt and vinegar and then water can them. I'd wash them with this Calcium Hydroxide that I have for something else, but I'm not confident I could adjust the pH back down to sub-4.5pH adequately, consistently, and safely. (That's Lye, great crunch, big botulism risk.) My grape vines are constantly putting out new leaves at the ends right now, so I'll just grab some of the leaves instead. I'm also turning all the cayenne peppers that have decided to ripen at the same time (hooray for that) into vinegar based hot sauce. I have one ripe Caroline Reaper that will be getting mixed into some of it too. I can't wait to discover if I was able to grow it as hot as advertised or if it didn't turn out that way like some of my early Hot Portugal did (they were tasting like sweet peppers while bright red). The habaneros will probably get one of the carrots I grew in their jar of hot sauce as well.
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Aug 17, 2018 15:22
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Does that mix contain powdered dill? Because it looks like residue from boiling things that leave residue. Could have happened during the jarring process while boiling. The scummy part could be the salts in the mix not dissolving well, or again just leaving a residue. Just follow normal safety precautions and if it smells off, it is off. Pro-tip about testing your pH. Strips are okay, but they do have a shelf life (3 years or so), so be sure to make sure they're within date as they can start to throw errors after that.
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Aug 20, 2018 14:30
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I'm pickling my current haul of cucumbers and carrots this week. The worst part about it is washing all the large equipment and finding enough room on my counter for everything. Today I turned my hot peppers into hot sauce. Super easy too, up until the point where the mild batch has decided to try to push out the top while on it's pasteurization bath. Should have let it settle more to get the air out after blending maybe? And/or filled less and left the tops cracked open. Either way, that's a dozen cayenne and a carolina reaper in the three bottles that have not had an issue. I should hopefully have another batch to make in a month or so. It's tasty, but not really as hot as I was expecting. Perhaps it was because it was the first reaper off the plant. It tastes really awesome and I'm very happy to have planted those varieties this year. I'll definitely be doing 4 cayenne plants again next year, and probably the reapers again too. There are a lot of flowers that are closing and turning to fruit on all three of my hot and super hot varieties, so as I was expecting them to not produce they're going for another round and that's awesome. Also, if you for some reason need a metric tonne of cherry tomatoes, find yourself some Riesenstaub tomato seeds. I've pulled in about 14 dozen of these things and there are another 4-6 dozen green fruit on all of three plants.
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Aug 20, 2018 22:52
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I was just looking at buying some Winter Rye grains from them. We get plenty of winter normally, and I figure this will help my son remember where the wood raised beds are with snow on the ground. Has anyone ordered from Pepper Joe or have a better source for the super hot pepper seeds? I'm looking ahead to starting them indoors in very early spring so that I might have better luck with production for the year and so that they might actually be producing at the same time as the other peppers I want to use for making the hot sauce.
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Aug 27, 2018 23:11
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mischief posted:Recommendations... Thanks for these. I've used Seed Savers in the past, and have gotten some really consistent stuff from them. Pucker Butt Pepper Co (I almost made the mistake of not looking up their website and just guessing) is just what I need for next year's super hots. Now I just need to set up a better heat/lamp situation in the basement and get another bed set up before it frosts. Plenty of time, but just as many other things to get done.
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Aug 28, 2018 04:23
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Anyone have a good resource for moving plants indoors for the fall to extend their lifespan? I have some hot peppers that are not particularly happy with it no longer being 85+ and super sunny and I want to get at least the last 45-60 peppers from the plants. They're in dirt in my raised bed, but a hydroponic solution isn't going to work. I'm planning on using grow lamps with them on for at least 10 hours a day, but I'm not sure if it's best to just put them in large pots or if I'd be better served by building a plastic lined raised bed to keep them elevated from the floor in my basement which will probably level off at about 60F in a couple weeks. There won't be any heat sources down there until the boiler starts running regularly in a month or two. Then if large pots are a good solution, how big do they need to be? 2' diameter or will smaller work? I have plenty of compost/soil hanging around and will have more frequently, so that's not really a concern. Is there any other solutions I should be considering too? I've not done this before and just left them to the elements.
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Sep 7, 2018 23:00
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Whoa I didn't know you could do this.. I have a sweet habanero plant that really killed it this year and I'd love to take cuttings from or even try and bring inside for the winter I wish I'd known you could do this too. I just moved everything into planters and tucked it into the basement under grow lamps so that I'd get a lot more fruit and so I could winter them and not loose them. I have a pair of Carolina Reaper plants that haven't gone dormant that I may try this with. I'm also looking for seeds for starting Er Jing Tiao (二金条), but the most I've found is typically either dried peppers or crushed dried peppers. Has anyone had success in using seeds from dried peppers for starting plants? I suppose I can just try to germinate a bunch of them in a warm moist paper towel, but it would be nice to know if it's just a fool's errand.
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Oct 30, 2018 03:58
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Jhet posted:I wish I'd known you could do this too. I just moved everything into planters and tucked it into the basement under grow lamps so that I'd get a lot more fruit and so I could winter them and not loose them. I have a pair of Carolina Reaper plants that haven't gone dormant that I may try this with. I took cuttings of the Carolina Reaper plants a few hours after I originally posted this last week. After only a couple hours the leaves had perked back up and were firm and greener. So I took a handful of cuttings from my Caribbean Red Pepper (which is basically an extra hot habanero). Those too perked up right away. I should be able to take a few more Reaper cuttings once I pick the rest of the peppers this week, in which case I'm going to probably have some to give away if they produce roots. I got about two dozen peppers on two plants, and the Caribbean Reds produced about four dozen total between the two. Neither are as productive as the 100 orange habaneros I got from two plants this summer. They were very productive, but I'll probably run out of hot sauce before next harvest. I really did need more plants...
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Nov 5, 2018 18:25
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fralbjabar posted:Also these are hot enough, as novel as trying to grow reapers would be I'm not sure what I'd actually do with them if they were anywhere near as productive as this ghost pepper plant has been. I'm making BBQ sauce, hot sauce, and maybe drying some of the Reapers for powder (because I'm stupid I think). Jealous of the heat you can give your plant. Mine are in the basement on a wire mesh elevated thing that I cobbled together with leftover parts from other projects. They need to live there so I can indiscriminately water them as there's nothing but a concrete floor with a drain to take the excess away. I used the cheapest lamps I could find on short notice, but they work pretty well. I won't get any more flowers though, it's just going to be too cold all winter. That part of the basement stays about 67F and that's the warmest spot.
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Nov 6, 2018 05:34
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fralbjabar posted:I made a basic hot sauce with these which came out pretty decent, and I'm going to try making chili oil with them this weekend. Need to find someone who will lend me a food dehydrator so I can dry the rest of the pile sitting in my fridge. I would not want to mess with reaper powder, cayenne powder seems to like to get absolutely everywhere so that but reapers...yike Yes, the lights always make the neighbors think we're all growing pot. I have blue/red LEDs and it really makes it look like those scenes in Weeds and any other show about it. Just peppers though, and tomatoes to start in the spring. I just tie my washed peppers on a butchers string in bunches of three with slip knots and then hang them in a sunny window with plenty of moving air. They dry out in a couple weeks with good results if you can't get a dehydrator in time. You can also use a needles and just thread them through the stems. Anything with a hole or an obvious blemish won't line dry well and those you should use fresh if they're in okay shape. Those are the sort that tend to just grow mold for me instead of drying nicely.
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Nov 7, 2018 03:16
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A Pack of Kobolds posted:Anyone doing a winter garden or anything? I'm thinking about planting some winter radishes to see what happens. I wish. I just mulched my beds because it's already starting to freeze. Most I managed was bringing in peppers to overwinter and a short round of radishes that didn't ever really get to size. I wish I'd taken the time to plant extra savory and thyme for my window box, but I did not.
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Nov 13, 2018 19:32
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Grand Fromage posted:[...] I'm hoping some of the seeds in the dried Sichuan red chilies I brought back will germinate, I got some wet and in the dark right now to try it out. Supposedly if they were air dried and not baked some of the seeds should be viable. I've found a lot of the tien tsin seeds available in the US as a side effect of procuring er jing tiao seeds. I still haven't found those outside of a package of dried chilies. I'll be trying dozens of seeds from a few different packages of them this winter, but I'm not really hopeful of having any luck. My Chinese is basically non-existent so I'm just searching poorly and haven't found any suppliers in the US for seeds. They're similar to cayenne to grow, but from my limited experience they have a big enough flavor difference to make it worth the trouble.
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Nov 14, 2018 00:28
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Grand Fromage posted:Yeah it's annoying, I can't find any for sale though I'm not even sure I know what the species name is. I don't think it's even that good of a pepper compared to a lot of the American options, but the flavor/fragrance is very specific and important in cooking Sichuan food so you can't really substitute. I found this page a while ago. https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BA%8C%E9%87%91%E6%9D%A1 . It seemed to have some decent info, but I can't figure out where to acquire the seeds either. Plenty of links to buy bulk dried peppers, but no leads for seeds. My wife has a coworker in Shanghai, but I doubt that he'd be able to find them there. Thankfully, I can get pretty good Asian produce here, but I haven't made a trip to Chinatown in Sept/Oct to see if they have any this year. Supposedly you can get them on the west coast in Seattle during that time of year, but that doesn't help me any. My garden is going to be primarily peppers followed by paste tomatoes next year, so planning it is fairly easy. I'll do some cucumbers again, but I don't need eggplant or anything like that. I'd do a more rare variety of garlic, but I was lazy and haven't gotten around to it. I do have about 40' of garlic chives that come back year after year, so I have that going for me at least.
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Nov 14, 2018 04:41
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Teabag Dome Scandal posted:Quick dumb gardening question: I bought a brick of coco coir and uh do not need all of this right now. It should be able to be safely stored after being rehydrated in a big plastic tub or something without going bad or whatever right? I can't imagine what would happen to it that would render it unusable after sitting for a while but I guess that's why I'm making certain that is true. Just break off what you do need and rehydrate that part leaving the rest dry? If that's not an option, it should be fine if you leave it to air out again, but it won't be small again and you'll probably want to make sure it can drain properly so it doesn't start growing things you don't want.
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Nov 14, 2018 19:07
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My pepper cuttings are not doing very well, so I'm changing a few things to see if I can't turn it around before they're goners. It's not a big deal as I've been able to bring the whole plants indoors, but it would be nice to have a few more with a headstart for spring. So, my guess is they need nutrients as the leaves are yellowing and the stem is starting to harden instead of grow. So I'm going to instead move them into milk jugs with a potting medium and maybe add a very small amount of root promoting nutrition as well. The milk jugs will keep them at a better temp as it's not routinely below freezing and my room with the space and the light will have temp swings. Logic tells me to keep them moist, but not soaking to give it enough water too. Cursory googling says this should work, so anyone who's done this before, please tell me how badly my logic is wrong. My worry is that I'll over feed them, so I may just stick with peat moss and a little potting soil so that it's pretty loose, but can hold some water okay too.
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Nov 27, 2018 17:15
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Comb Your Beard posted:Last winter my potted mint plant died outside on my roof deck. They are supposed to be indestructible, go figure. Should be fine. I abused potted mint on my porch when I lived in Louisville. It came back three years in a row and I did literally nothing but take part of it from time to time for cooking/beverage purposes. I don't live there anymore, but it could still be living there and refusing to die.
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Nov 27, 2018 17:52
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Pillow Armadillo posted:What type of peppers saplings are struggling? Can you narrow down the cultivars that are struggling? Carolina Reaper, and the Carribean Reds are not far behind. It's a little too cold, so I've already fixed that, but there's no sign of rooting and it's been a few weeks already. I change the water with room temp water, so it's not that bad, but I definitely need to pare down some of the leaves as well. They each have 3-4 nodes per stem, so there should be enough there to succeed.
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Nov 27, 2018 19:40
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It seemed fairly painless, and the theory of it was good. Only one of the Reaper cuttings went too far south and I still have two living plants in the basement under grow lamps. So it's not really the end of the world. I saw that article and I kept digging and ended up doing a few things. I used an old washed milk jug cut sort of into half that I was going to use for seed starting outside over winter, but haven't used yet. I used about 3:1 seed starting mix to potting soil for about 2". I trimmed and roughed up the bottom of the stems. I trimmed off the larger leaves and anything that was yellowing. I used some root growth feed diluted weaker than recommended as this way I can add more again in the future without as much worry. I put it back in the sunny spot, which is about 5' away from the radiator, and above the pipes that feed the radiator. It's a warm spot on the floor so that should help. I can water regularly enough, keeping it moist but not too wet. If I'm keeping too much humidity, I can take off the cap or punch holes, but it's so very dry here and will be for the next 4-5 months that I'm not sure it's going to be a problem. Hopefully this will work! It seems rosemary is fairly easy to coax into rooting from cuttings, so I'll probably do that with my rosemary plant the next time I'm planning on cutting a bunch for cooking. I can just strip the petals I need and root the rest.
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Nov 28, 2018 05:44
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A Pack of Kobolds posted:I feel responsible for making it sound like such a sure thing. It's never a sure thing, and my milk jug method with starting mix + potting soil with root fertilizer is doing a great job. All the cuttings have perked right up and look very strong and happy. Pulling a bunch of the leaves off probably helped a lot too. So for your pepper cuttings, if they start looking sad or looking like they'd rather rot in the water only method, this is seeming to work. Only time will tell and not for a couple months, but I have a lot of hope for them again.
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Nov 30, 2018 23:54
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Jhet posted:my milk jug method with starting mix + potting soil with root fertilizer is doing a great job. All the cuttings have perked right up and look very strong and happy. Pulling a bunch of the leaves off probably helped a lot too. They were looking nice and healthy until this week. They dropped all their leaves and turned into sticks and started to decompose. The good news is I still have living plants and can try again next year. I think I'll probably need to try earlier (mid-summer or something), instead of waiting until the plants want to go into winter mode and trying to force it.
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Dec 15, 2018 20:19
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Willsun posted:My real question is: I know both mint and thyme are said to be hardy even in the cold, but is there any benefit to them if I bring them in at night and put them out the next day? I know it's unnecessary work, but is there any detriment to this? Would this make the plant weak if it didn't face the cold conditions of winter? No. You don't have any cause for worry. I live where there's only sometimes actual winter in 5a, and it doesn't kill mint or thyme. Or oregano, sage, and probably not winter savory. I can still use the thyme, sage, and oregano and we've had snow for a few weeks already. Leave them outside and let them grow because your winter is not worth worry about. You will have to water them a lot because they're in pots and keep track of them in the summer when it probably gets dry. They'll need plenty of water then. While they've been recently transplanted, make sure you water them in plenty. They'll need it for the root growth. You may think you're drowning them, but you can't really unless there's not drainage out the bottom of the pot.
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Dec 17, 2018 06:25
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Willsun posted:How long does root growth last then after being transplanted? I do an alright job keeping up with watering in the summer since everything dies real quick without it but I'm afraid of overwatering in the winter. A video seemed to suggest going on the drier side with thyme so that's where I'm doubting myself. If you leave thyme sit in a pool of water it might get cranky. I have mine near my rain spout though and I have problems where I have to cut it back twice a summer. So long as you put it in a pot with decent drainage, you're going to have trouble overwatering it. You said you put stones in the bottom which is fine, but unless it doesn't have a hole you're going to be fine. The extra water will just go out through the drain. E: Both thyme and mint will spread out, so the mint will continue to grow all the time. The thyme will be slower in actual winter, but you're not going to need to worry until it starts being below freezing. I've been under freezing or near since Halloween and it's still slowly growing. Jhet fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Dec 17, 2018 |
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Dec 17, 2018 18:42
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:If only I had a use for the mint that got away from me and now dominates a section of my yard. It grows so thick in the outflow of my pond it actually blocks it. That's a lot of mint julep. Or you could dry a bunch of leaves for adding to tea or using in baking.
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Dec 17, 2018 19:00
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Mine always bolts but then it reseeds itself and I just have cilantro of various ages growing all the time and in random places. My chives and basil tend to do the same. Speaking of invasive, garlic chives will take over whatever pot/box you put them in and I don't think they're nearly as delicious as real chives. Garlic chives aren't that terrible and they're easy to pull out of wherever they landed. I have a fence full of them and they're great. I can pull them all summer long to use, then I can use the scapes when they're going to flower and I pickle some of them as well. I find that they're pretty awesome chopped up in a lot of things. There's not much else that would be happy to grow in the 3" between the fence and the concrete path that I dream of digging out. Meanwhile, I have to constantly pull regular chives out of everywhere and I do my damnedest to make sure they don't flower and seed. I use the crap out of both of them though and I'd probably find some space for green onions if they were as good at coming back as the garlic chives. I put garlic into one of my raised beds though, so that will be nice to have in about 8-9 months. I've also randomly had to pull an oregano plant out of the middle of my yard now two years running. I must keep missing some.
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Dec 18, 2018 06:16
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Crakkerjakk posted:I interplant radishes with carrots. Plant both at the same time, mixed in with each other. each carrot and radish seed 3" apart, but the carrots only 1.5" apart from the radishes and vice versa. Harvest the radishes when they're ready, that frees up space for the carrots which take way longer to mature. That's a good idea with the radishes, I'll probably steal that this year. I mostly just ignore my carrots when it comes to watering. If they get anything it's because my aim was off when I was watering whatever ended up next to them. I had big 6-7" long carrots this year, but they took 4-5 months before they were ready for eating like that.
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Dec 31, 2018 15:56
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Carrots are definitely cheap, but the ones from the store don't taste anything like the ones I pull out of the garden. I don't do a lot of carrots, but if I have a strip that isn't going to care about being crowded/full of carrot greens toward the end of the season I'll throw whatever in. I used some for some pickles and they didn't taste different than grocery store carrots, but fresh and raw I've not had any that come close except from a farmer's market. Thing about gardening is that no plant conforms perfectly and it's definitely a learning process. I had the worst time learning how to get tomatoes to produce for me. Took three years of trying. Two years for my hops before I figured out what they need in the spot they are and this year I hope to actually get to use them.
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Jan 1, 2019 16:38
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Over time, my family and I (because it's been 20 years), have successfully gotten two oaks to grow (maybe more, they may have been planted somewhere else). They both came from a young oak my grandparents bought the year I was born and is still growing on the path from the garage to where the barn used to be (as it's since been torn down). We just took a bunch of the acorns and kept them cold over winter in the garage, then left them in the spring in a snowy covered container for them to sprout and root in the spring/summer. I'm sure more would have made it, but we didn't have space for a grove of oak trees, just the few. So that second was planted at my parent's house. The third was a volunteer and we dug it up from the base of the first and I think it too was planted at my parent's house. The first tree is 35+ feet tall now, I don't actually know for sure because I haven't measured. It's almost as tall as the house, and the house is 7' above where the house is built. The second is somewhere between 15-20' tall now and it's about 15 years old. It's starting to work above the spruce that are to the south of it, but has another 10 years before it will start pushing out the ash tree. The nearby birch doesn't really stand a chance. One thing I'd say is give them some time to start putting down that taproot in a big bucket. We used something at least as deep as those old 2 gallon ice cream buckets. It doesn't hurt to try now, but they may have more luck if you take care of them for a year or two and then move them. If you care about them a lot and have deer that like to eat young saplings, you might want to look into a wrap for them after you put them in the ground. Otherwise, just do as the squirrels do and plant them randomly all over the place. Chances are decent that a couple might make it.
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Jan 4, 2019 18:27
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Crakkerjakk posted:Your plan sounds fine to me. I'd personally just top dress with compost and mulch (preferably at the end of the growing season, letting it sit over the winter) to avoid disturbing any beneficial soil bacteria/fungus, and also out of laziness so I don't have to move all the container soil around. This. I just throw my own compost on top, then leaves on top of that. Then I mix it all together in spring when I'm ready to do the planting. If it looks light on compost I'll add more when it's getting mixed in. I also like how the mulched leaves keep the mix lighter while they decompose. Only a few more weeks and I'll start some peppers. I want them to be larger when it's time to put outdoors this year, especially the longer growing plants. So that means I need to modify my starting plans. Should be fun!
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Jan 24, 2019 15:40
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Mikey Purp posted:I could use some advice on grow lights. I have a mini green house that is 28" wide with four shelves. I'd like to get 4 grow lights that I could hang from each shelf to start seedlings in my basement and I'm shooting for two trays per shelf. I tried to use LED strip lights last year but the seedlings came out leggy so I don't think that they were powerful enough. Any recommendations? I have lights like that I used to help extend my peppers and overwinter them. It will depend entirely on how you put the trays under the lights, but they should be able to do two trays side by side when close enough to start. I don't know how tall your shelves are, but for 28" it should be a decent amount of light when close. Either way, strips or the squares, you'll need to start them close to the sprouts and then move them up as they grow taller to keep them from getting leggy.
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Jan 27, 2019 18:08
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:I'm a dummy with 0 experience but those type of lights look so cheap... do they really work?? They're super cheap. They kept my Carolina Reaper and Carribean Reds producing for two extra months in my colder than ideal basement. They don't produce any reasonable heat, so I'll be using a heat lamp/pads for starting seeds. The pepper plants kept their leaves for the whole time until I pulled them off, but three of the plants look like they're still plenty green and alive.
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Jan 27, 2019 21:04
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Shame Boner posted:I’ll occasionally blow on my seedlings and even gently caress them, but have never gone this far! Supposedly if you do it before harvesting the peppers it will make it even hotter. I have no idea if this is true or not, but the hot sauces I made with them turned out similarly hot to other super hot variety hot sauces I've purchased. I'm also the sort that just sort of runs my hands through seedlings as I walk past. Old wives tale or not, it feels kinda cool so I'm going to do it anyway.
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Jan 28, 2019 19:31
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