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I was given a handful of radish seedlings, with the roots all firmly bound in some sort of water retaining seed-starter fabric, and I am completely at a loss for how to plant these things. Am I supposed to pull individual plants out, damaging roots, or what? My understanding of radish is to start from seed and give it a little room. It seems like starting 50+ seedlings in a 3"x3" spot would be less than useful.
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Mar 17, 2009 04:17
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It's really just a porous foamy kind of material, but it's pretty root bound at this point. I only care because it was given to me by my wife's crazy Chinese mother, and if we don't at least try to plant them I'll hear about it for at least a month.  I'll dig out the camera later tonight after work.
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Mar 17, 2009 15:27
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Quick question... I put in my first garden this year and it took a ridiculous amount of effort and materials to make the clay into something worthwhile. Like 650 lbs of mushroom compost, 9 cubic yards of peat moss, and 3 truck loads of soil conditioner. The dirt is pretty awesome now except when it rains. It makes a "skin" almost of clay on top of the dirt and pretty much strangles any new growth I've got from seed. My tomatoes, cukes, peppers, and bean plants are chugging right along just healthy as they can be, but lettuce, herbs, and other leafy plants got covered up before ever getting tall enough. Would mulch help this situation? I "mulched" the bean areas with some dried grass and dead frasier fir leaves and it seemed to help them considerably. What would the best mulch if that is what's needed? I'm running out of time to get good spinach and lettuce grown before it gets too hot I think. Edit: Added comically huge and badly focused pictures here, here, and here! mischief fucked around with this message at 23:25 on May 1, 2009 |
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May 1, 2009 22:31
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kid sinister posted:Did you even till that stuff in? It doesn't look like you tilled it enough... It definitely got tilled. A lot. With a commercial grade monster tiller. I actually dug all the clay out 18" deep and then added it back in to mix with the soil conditioner in equal parts, then everything else got tilled in. It got tilled thoroughly at least 4 times. It's like a thin layer of clay floats up out of the dirt when it rains. The soil itself is amazing now, you can plant by hand, it holds water well, drains perfectly. It just makes this 1/16" skin of clay on top when it rains.
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May 2, 2009 15:36
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I'm in the process of replanting a few of the beds and mulching them with dead leaves from the cypress trees in my yard. It's free and I think it'll help. I was just baffled, after spending all that time and effort to make super dirt, I came home to standing water in parts of it. It's a learning process, that's for sure! Also, any suggestions for a cheap way to make the walkways less muddy and treacherous? I can get gravel cheap, I just worry that it will sink down into the dirt regardless. Eventually I'll use paving stones, I'm just waiting to find some in the local Re:Store for cheap. mischief fucked around with this message at 21:23 on May 2, 2009 |
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May 2, 2009 21:21
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It'll probably stay dirt this year, I've dumped enough money into the ground now that it's really unlikely this garden will pay for itself in a year. I'll get around to gravel and pavers next year when I expand. Stupid NC clay.  The mulch in the garden helps immeasurably. All the plants seem happier and we had some pretty hard rain last night with no visible negative impact on the garden. Put together some trellises from some treated furring strips, about $3 for each one. I think that's the last expense for this year, now it's just on to growing some yummy produce hopefully.
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May 4, 2009 00:07
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Had another really heavy spring rain today and it seems like my mulch experiments worked. I left one patch of the garden unmulched and mulched the other 95% or so. The mulched parts are perfectly fine and already showing good growth from the lettuce planted in them. The unmulched part is floating in water.
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May 5, 2009 15:53
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D'awwwww, your tomatoes are going camping! 
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May 8, 2009 19:05
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Is there any point in me starting some habanero seed with a frost date of around November 1st here in NC? I've never grown hot peppers and ordered some on a lark the other day, I have the ability to start indoors, etc, I just didn't know if that was insufficient time to get a good yield of the fiery little bastards.
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May 29, 2009 02:03
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That's pretty much what I figured. I think I'll hold off to next year, just stick with getting my tomatoes and such to work. Any secrets to getting tomatoes to actually vine on a rope trellis? My cucumbers and beans are off like gangbusters but the tomatoes are just kind of shrubbing at about 2' tall, even with pruning. Sorry for any simple questions, first year and all.
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May 29, 2009 04:09
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My grandfather had success using ammonia on rags on his garden in Virginia, but we ultimately were only really successful shooting them. One of his draft horses tore her leg up pretty bad in a hole and we declared groundhog genocide for the summer.
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Jun 2, 2009 03:42
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I've got about two dozen tomatoes and have lost count of the cukes. One end of my garden is trying to take over my bean trellis with their runners. Cucumber is like tasty kudzu. The ones I have trained are almost 6' tall and festooned with little baby cukes. It's the rest of them that are the problem.
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Jun 5, 2009 05:30
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I would find the biggest pot you can get your hands on for the cucumber. They get big. Mine are almost 9' tall and putting out 5-6 cucumbers a day at an increasing pace. Give them plenty of room for the roots and you'll get a lot more cukes!
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Jun 27, 2009 01:29
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Tequila Mockingbird posted:woop! I have a pretty big pot sitting on the deck here so that's definitely in the works for next week Just make sure you throw some gravel in the bottom before you fill it up with potting soil. Don't want to drown the little fella!
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Jun 27, 2009 23:21
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I'd smursh the poo poo out of the worm, then tie him up on a stake in the garden to remind his buddies. It worked for me with rabbits.
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Jun 28, 2009 06:17
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 Thanks for summing up my hornworm experiences, superpoop.
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Jul 10, 2009 05:55
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Shazzner posted:I've still been tinkering with my garden setup, and want to make sure it's perfect, before I start planting stuff. With my plot I dug out a 16'x10' section 18" deep, then put come cheap gravel in the bottom. Built up the dirt on top and it's working amazingly well.
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Jul 12, 2009 00:15
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http://www.highmowingseeds.com/ http://www.seedsofchange.com/ http://rareseeds.com/ - their print catalog is amazing All good places for something new or unique for a season. Had a lot of success this year with the lettuce mixes from Bakers Creek.
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Jul 22, 2009 00:53
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Richard Noggin posted:hornworms... 
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Aug 7, 2009 19:10
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Soooo... onions and carrots planted over the fall in Greensboro, NC. Are they harvested before or after winter? I wasn't paying attention when I planted them.
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Dec 4, 2009 22:33
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As long as the stuff isn't just water logged sludge it would probably be okay. Potting soil is dirt cheap though (see what I did there?) so I don't see any reason not to just get some fresh stuff to try again. Throw some cheap gravel in the bottom first before the layer of potting soil to keep the bottom from getting water logged and stopping everything up.
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Feb 16, 2010 01:38
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I used the double dig approach and a tiller to overcome some seriously clayey soil last year. A LOT of work but really worth the effort. Compost is definitely your friend, and a cheap way to improve the soil is to gather leaves from your neighbors when they fall and till those in as well. It is a tremendously rewarding hobby and once you have some habits and experience you can start to see significant savings if you eat a lot of produce (lettuce especially for some reason, that poo poo is waaaaay over priced in the stores).
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Feb 19, 2010 01:06
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Getting everything wound up here as well. Need to make sure my seeds are all still in order. Spring is loving awesome. 
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Feb 25, 2010 05:10
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kid sinister posted:Kind of... When they build subdivisions nowadays...  That's when you dig it all out and mix in a few truck loads of compost. It took forever. The "top soil" for the grass was maybe 1/2" deep, the rest was straight clay.
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Feb 25, 2010 16:46
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They're just good sources of organic material really. Ideally you would compost them all first but I don't see how adding a little bit of them directly would hurt anything.
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Mar 1, 2010 00:20
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Got my peppers and 'maters started for the year. Orange and white habanero, Caribbean red habenero, Thai burapa, and some bhut jolokia seeds in the post from South Carolina. Stuck with some safer tomato options: better boy, brandywine, and san marzano. Expanding the garden Saturday for all the new sauce components. 
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Mar 5, 2010 05:38
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Pepper Joes has had a lot of success down in South Carolina growing them, I'm hoping that will translate over to NC. The habs and the jolokia are occupying a new part of the garden that I will make a little sandier, etc. I'm also only growing probably 3 cucumber plants this year. I had six last year that grew over 9 feet tall and we were just sick of cucumbers halfway through the season. Tearing apart some palletes over the weekend to build some tables for a container lettuce garden idea I've been nursing all winter. Those are some hateful bastards, but hey.. free wood for tables.
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Mar 5, 2010 23:31
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El Bano posted:Finally finished... Those look great! I'll have to post pictures of my hacked together palette planting tables once they're done. I am decidedly unskilled as a carpenter.  teknicolor posted:Also, its my first time in zone 7 so I have NO idea when I should start my seeds. http://www.almanac.com/gardening/planting-dates Congrats with the first time backyard. It's quite an adventure the first year but it's all fairly obvious if you pay attention. Take pictures, we love pictures in the thread. mischief fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Mar 8, 2010 |
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Mar 8, 2010 04:22
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Weird, they're pretty on point for central NC looking over the dates.
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Mar 8, 2010 05:51
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All of my tomatoes and hot peppers have germinated. The tomatoes are growing like wildfire. Now if I can just get these Jolokia to start I'll be off and running. Spring is really just a better time of year for gardeners. So much expectation!
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Mar 16, 2010 22:41
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I'm going safe this year, only one heirloom. Better Boy, Rutgers, and Roma, then Brandywine. Most of my attention is going to be my peppers this year.
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Mar 16, 2010 23:08
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Make sure the pots are getting good light and not too much moisture. If you want to let it dry out a little bit that could help, but don't go overboard. I had the grey mold on a few of my coco pots this year and they resolved themselves with some better ventilation and lighting. Those look like pepper seeds.
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Mar 19, 2010 03:51
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We have a programmed thermostat in our house that tops off at a similar temp and seed starting has not been a problem.
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Mar 19, 2010 04:32
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Seems like a barley or clover approach would have better results and be a lot more effective in generating material for efficient composting.
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Mar 20, 2010 22:08
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Just wait, Smidgen. Soon you'll be devoting way too much time and money to the whole affair. It makes for some drat good produce, though. You're in a great spot climate wise, get your tomatoes and hot peppers on!
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Mar 22, 2010 04:34
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I got a free topsy turvy from Gardens Alive last year and will trip report it this year. It's kind of a plastic fabric similar to a tarp and doesn't seem like it would out last a bucket.
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Mar 23, 2010 03:18
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I just lost two rows of spinach to tornado related weather. Boooooooo. Edit: Started a Folia account, if only to track the stacks of difficult plants I'm trying to grow this year. So far I have bhut jolokia, white habs, Caribbean red habs, Jamaican reds, and Thai burapa getting ready for transplant. Disappointing germination for the jolokia but I'm still excited. Got some tomatoes off and running to boot, some Brandywine, Rutgers, Big Boy, and Roma. All graduated to some bigger peat pots after outgrowing their seed starts. Got a whole rack of herbs started too, but they're looking awfully leggy. I think I started my basil too early this year, then we ended up with unseasonably late chilly weather and then spring tornadoes. I have a LOT of work left in the garden, trying to cut up sod and get the clay worth a drat. School and work and having kids is a pain in the rear end. mischief fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Mar 29, 2010 |
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Mar 29, 2010 04:23
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Started expanding the garden today. Took up the sod off about another 300 sq ft, tilling in compost and soil conditioner tomorrow. Heat really snuck up on us here in NC, I'm still a little nauseous from over exertion digging in that damned clay. Wheeeee. On the positive side, all of my peppers are growing their 4th leaves, including the bhut jolokia. Can't wait for some rear end in a top hat searing sauces!
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Apr 2, 2010 22:29
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Here is what was left of the old garden after a really rough winter for the area. My onions and carrots overwintered, to my surprise. That's them there on the left. Current expansion efforts. Not a lot of backyard to deal with, but I'm excited.  I've got poo poo tons of tomatoes and hot peppers started, and most exciting of all for me is my 100% germination rate on the 4 bhut jolokias I started. Tomatoes are all about 2" tall now and coming along wonderfully. Now I just need to design an intelligent path layout for the drat thing. I doubt these parts will need to be tilled again once I'm done this year. Edit: Looking at old pictures, it's amusing how fast poo poo accumulates in your backyard when you start gardening.  (The boots were a carry over from the absolute clay drenched muddy nightmare we dealt with double digging the first section. Sue me.) mischief fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Apr 5, 2010 |
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Apr 5, 2010 05:12
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Marchegiana posted:I grew corn one year, just a little bit, to see what would happen. I had 16 stalks planted in a 4' by 4' block, and got 1-2 ears per stalk. However, I also got hit hard by corn earworms, and ended up throwing away nearly two thirds of the ears because the damage was so extensive. So now I just buy corn from the farmers market, and use that space for growing something that the bugs don't eat the hell out of. Isn't corn really rough on the dirt too? I have yet to read anything that would compel me to try it in my limited real estate.
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Apr 12, 2010 03:27
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