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GANDHITRON posted:I will never learn anything. I can't wait to repeat the exact same mistakes next year, whatever they were. This guy gardens. 2020 was my third year in my community garden and the best by my measure. The weather in the mid-Atlantic was great this year so I barely watered and still got a pretty decent crop of tomatoes and peppers. I think the one thing I learned this year was how to tell the difference between a Mexican bean beetle and a lady bug. Last year I had aphid trubs, so I bought a box of 1,000 lady bugs and they went flight of the valkyries on my plot. (And all my neighbors' plots... you definitely feel like you're doing something wrong when you unleash a cloud of insects in a shared area, but I digress.) This year my bush beans were getting decimated and I couldn't figure out why. It looked like there were some lady bug pupae on the bottom of leaves, they should have been taking care of poo poo. NOPE. Those were invasive beetles. It boggles my mind how much of organic pest control largely boils down to "try hitting poo poo with soapy water and if that fails just flick off the eggs or whatever."  Gardening is fun.
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Oct 5, 2020 16:01
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Spikes32 posted:In the next few weeks I'm going to add about six inches of soil to a 5 X 8 ft bordered garden. Is the 'garden soil' from a hardware store fine? I'm not going to be living here for much more than a year so can't do any long term soil improvement. Depends what the soil is like there now. If it's got a bunch of clay and tends to retain moisture, the cheap bagged stuff can make it worse. And if the soil needs nutrients, it won't offer much. I'd amend with manure and maybe top with a layer of leaves or mulch to spend the winter breaking down. But if the garden soil is all that's available, you're still probably fine.
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Oct 7, 2020 18:46
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rojay posted:I am hoping someone can help me figure out what the hell is eating my pole beans - specifically, chewing through the vines, often at the base of a leaf cluster. In the last week, my plants have been drat near 60% defoliated. I first noticed something was eating through the bean pod on one side to get to the beans. I saw a huge (5") grasshopper on a vine and figured that was it, but I thought I chased the little bastard and its two smaller friends off with a combination of hitting them with a stick and spraying them with a mixture of neem oil and sevin. I haven't seen them around anymore, but I also can't find any other pests on my plants, and I've been looking diligently. I have those poo poo-rear end fake lady bug beetles and they don't do damage like that, they are mostly leaf munchers.
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Oct 12, 2020 16:48
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Anybody have suggestions for building terraced raised beds? We're moving into a proper house for the first time next week and I'm excited to finally be moving out of the community garden with crap soil and poor drainage to a proper backyard. It's a big yard, most of which has a good 10-15 degree slope. I'm eyeing this spot where the previous owner seems to have experimented with a single small terraced bed.  Also an option is this more level spot at the top of the yard where there's already a little fire pit where I could just plop the steel beds I already have, but I'm thinking we might want to keep that spot clear for a play area for future children.  For those who have done it, is the terraced approach worth the work it's going to take to dig the trenches and reinforce them and all that fun stuff? How deep can I make them? Is drip irrigation worth setting up? Anything I'm likely to overlook drainage-wise? I'm also looking forward to seeing what wildlife will destroy my garden next year. Will they be cooler and more exotic than the aphids, bean leaf beetles and chipmunks I've battled in years past? Time will tell! Chad Sexington fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Dec 5, 2020 |
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Dec 5, 2020 22:07
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Ha, I'm not out here doing architectural drawings and buying materials, I'm just asking broadly if anybody has experience building terraced raised beds and what I'd be looking at. Forget my dumb yard.Ok Comboomer posted:Mother Nature: “lol get hosed yuppie” This is definitely baked in.
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Dec 5, 2020 22:55
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Earth posted:I like your dumb yard. Go up several posts and you’ll see photos of my yard with a similar incline and what I did with prices. Also, there are a lot of variables like all the negative Nancy’s are posting, but I’d say the most important thing is letting us know what zone you’re in. I’m in zone 6 and honestly I’ve grown great onions in a spot that got maybe three hours of direct light a day across about six months. Can you do that in zone 4. Probably not. But realize that to garden you don’t always need perfect conditions. Thanks, yeah we're in Zone 7a. The yard goes west to east and the spot I'm hoping to use has pretty unimpeded southern exposure, so I'm optimistic. And the yard slopes down to the north, so the drainage situation seems pretty good too. I imagine I'll be out there quite a bit this winter with the 3-in-1 soil tester regardless. I really like the setup you have with your beds — in particular how high you made them. Was all that cedar purchased pre-pandemic shortages? One of the main things I'm curious about : when you dug out and leveled the trench to put in your frame, what if anything did you use to reinforce it? Is it mainly the 4x4s or did you use paver base and rebar too? And what's the thread consensus on pressure treated lumber and garden beds? No bueno?
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Dec 6, 2020 16:17
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What are good places to get seeds from? I've used Gardener's Supply before and bought Burpee seeds from the hardware store and never really noticed changes in quality that couldn't be attributed to my other numerous gently caress-ups. I've tried a fair number of different types of tomatoes over the years, but I've learned little beyond that Cherokee Purples are cursed and Sun Golds are the best in every way.
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Jan 4, 2021 20:14
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Ok Comboomer posted:Man, gently caress shinies and rares I have a bad feeling my new house is infested with deerlings. Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Southern Exposure seed exchange has tons of cool old varieties for the Southeast and is like a literal old hippy commune. Sow True is good too. Thanks for that. I'm in the mid-Atlantic so Southern Exposure seemed like it'd be a good fit.
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Jan 5, 2021 02:05
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SubG posted:If you live in the US, your state has a master gardener programme. The master gardener programme will have a handbook. These are generally a spectacular guide to growing poo poo in your local climate. Ooo, great tip, I never knew this existed. Just ordered one for my area.
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Jan 17, 2021 23:13
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LLSix posted:So I noticed that pre-cut galvanized zinc garden beds would cost about as much as buying treated wood and assembling them myself so I'm thinking of doing that instead. I certainly feel a lot better about the safety of steel beds versus maybe-safe pressure treated wood. I'm thinking one extra big bed for cherry tomatoes because those our favorites and a few smaller beds. I have three of these. They're nice, light and portable. Mine survived a move just fine. Also tend to warm up a bit faster in the sun. Good for temporary beds IMO. And definitely get the rounded ones, I've gouged my leg on sharp corners before.
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Jan 18, 2021 22:39
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Finally found some cedar at a local lumber store. $48 for a 2x6x12' I still picked up a few, but definitely scaling back my plans for building raised terraced beds this year. The aluminum ones I have will be fine for a year.
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Jan 21, 2021 02:20
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CommonShore posted:Cedar is simply not cheap in my experience unless you know a dutch guy who buys a bunch to make a deck and then decides to move back overseas to the netherlands in the middle of a global pandemic and just wants to get a few hundred dollars for the contents of his garage. You can try looking for that. brb going to post a WTB dutch guy's cedar on NextDoor
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Jan 22, 2021 02:59
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Earth posted:First, you should be glad that you can actually order dirt like that. I've looked all over my area and couldn't find a single person to deliver with those bags. Second, is that silver raised bed this? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086T1VY6M/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_10?smid=A13I5F5GZ8MDRR&psc=1 Ha, yeah, that bagged situation looks great. I seem to have the choice of "dump truck full of loose compost" or "stack of bagged poo poo you can buy at Home Depot."
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Feb 2, 2021 02:37
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CommonShore posted:Ok here's one for you Most of my seed packets say how early before the average last frost to plant. My hot peppers say 10 weeks, some tomatoes say 8 weeks, some say 6 weeks, etc. Already got little baby peppers, sun gold tomatoes and tomatillos under the growlight, since last frost is mid-April here.
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Feb 19, 2021 20:23
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Took one of my company-mandated furlough days today because it was sunny and 60 and got to work laying out my raised beds. Not setting up anything permanent yet not knowing what the sun will look like during spring/summer, but had enough time to get my cedar bed made and leveled. Getting 30 cubic feet of soil delivered tomorrow in a giant tote too.  Still seven weeks to last frost here, so a ways to go yet. But peppers are coming along under the LEDs and the next round of tomatoes gets going next week.
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Feb 24, 2021 23:36
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Got dirt.
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Feb 25, 2021 17:42
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Everything is horrible in its own way. I've used the peat pellets in the covered tray and have a few pepper and tomato plants going large enough that I repotted them into clay pots. But the ones that aren't big enough yet are getting attacked by mold now. I've also got some of those Jiffy strips, but nothing seems to want to grow in them and they're a little hard to water correctly without having them fall apart. Those little plastic pots are pretty good. You can stick them in a tray to water from the bottom and it's also really easy to squeeze them to remove the plant come springtime.
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Mar 2, 2021 22:15
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Any old heads ITT have any types for gardening during a cicada-pocalypse? Obviously you have to protect young trees and shrubs, but any other effects? Do they make good composting material? I remember they stink.
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Mar 5, 2021 18:19
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30 cubic feet of dirt looks a lot less impressive in the beds than it did on my driveway, but definitely feeling it all after running it up the hill in my backyard a wheelbarrow at a time. Turning the sod under these and leveling them was also a treat. Still to do: get some compost delivered to amend the soil in the beds and build the anti-deer fence.
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Mar 8, 2021 16:40
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Ok Comboomer posted:a bullshit claim if I ever saw one I'm not saying it's going to work, but I have to try! I'm hoping that it's too small a space for them to be able to land, but I'll run the material over the top if it comes to that. Chad Sexington fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Mar 8, 2021 |
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Mar 8, 2021 17:23
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gvibes posted:Thanks! And no, I am going to move them into a spot in the yard (off screen on the left). The 2:1 topsoil to compost should be fine. And on the yard is good because then you'll get the assistance of earthworms, somewhat mitigating the need for something like vermiculite.
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Mar 15, 2021 18:42
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Motronic posted:artillery fungus When I first learned about this ITT, it led me down a research rabbit hole that lasted almost a whole day. Fascinating, disgusting stuff.
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Mar 15, 2021 20:38
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gvibes posted:I am just starting on this whole gardening thing, but what is the cost/benefit of start from seeds versus buying plants from a greenhouse (or home depot)? Better selection of varieties? Filling them is fine, since they'll sink a bit and settle after some rain. Might be slight problem though if you still need to add compost and the like.
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Mar 22, 2021 16:29
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Gardening: Dirty deeds done at exorbitant cost
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Mar 31, 2021 00:55
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CancerCakes posted:I definitely think small and productive is better than going for monsters, or even mediums. More taste, less seeds, less loss to pests. Buy a pumpkin for carving if you want to do that. Heresy! Papitas are the best.
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Mar 31, 2021 20:46
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I used a few of the jiffy pots for indoor starters this year and the mold growth was crazy pants. Got started on my drip irrigation system today. Pretty impressed with all the stuff you get in a $30 kit on Amazon.  Also quickly discovered the need for a backflow preventer on my hose bib. Chad Sexington fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Apr 5, 2021 |
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Apr 5, 2021 00:12
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Paradoxish posted:Are there any good resources for setting a drip irrigation system up in terms of spacing, number of emitters, etc? I bought a kit and a bunch of extras last year, but I never got around to installing it or even figuring out if I had enough stuff to work with the size of my garden. I was thinking about attempting it in the next week or two, but planning the whole thing out honestly seems more intimidating than installing it. You just have to play around with it. My kit didn't have great instructions for which emitters did what. Was using the sprayers for root veg and will use the proper drippers at the base of each tomato/pepper/tomatillo/etc.
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Apr 5, 2021 02:57
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NomNomNom posted:Is the drip line freeze proof? Or do you have to take it all up and store it for the winter? I'd imagine you can't blow it our with air like a sprinkler system. Definitely not freeze proof. Still figuring it out, but I'll probably be reorganizing my initial setup and adding some switches. Gotta put the true drip-feeders at the front of the line and make the ones that get the broader spray in the back because they require different run times.
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Apr 7, 2021 18:00
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Any tips for planting asparagus crowns? Just got a big ol' box of roots. Plan is to soak them and bury them in a trench 18 inches wide and 6 inches deep in my raised bed least likely to be moved. Will be interesting to try and tease apart the plants in this clump. Chad Sexington fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Apr 14, 2021 |
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Apr 14, 2021 01:26
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Asparagus crowns evoke face-huggers from Alien.
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Apr 15, 2021 22:58
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wooger posted:You might have about 3 time too many for that bed. I only actually planted in half of them after consulting the interwebs. Trying to figure out what to do with all the others -- not all of them pictured! May try and just plant along the property line to see if they take because I do like the look of the fully grown fronds.
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Apr 16, 2021 14:22
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Forecast calls for possible lows of 34 tonight. Debating whether and how I should try and protect the tomatoes and peppers I put in the ground last week. Probably just some buckets or empty planters? Gotta get some bricks to hold em down too because it's supposed to be gusty too.
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Apr 21, 2021 13:32
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Paradoxish posted:Years ago I apparently deeply internalized people saying "starting from seed is hard!" so now I always end up starting way too many plants even though I've never, ever had an issue with germination. So now my back porch is just filled with plants that I've had to repot into bigger containers because I don't know where they're going to go. Doesn't help that crazy lumber prices have my garden expansion in limbo at the moment. I just added hooks and hanging baskets around my garden area for more places to dump starts that I don't have room for.
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Apr 26, 2021 12:46
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z0331 posted:Red columbines are a very cool plant. Where are you sourcing your local stuff? I've mostly focused on our vegetable garden but my wife has struggled to find native plants for our new place in Maryland beyond some meadow mixes for bare patches.
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Apr 26, 2021 14:45
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On the topic of the thread title, I am trying pumpkins for the first time this year. Sprouted a couple Connecticut Field pumpkin seeds indoors in pots under lights and direct sewed some outside in an isolated 3x3 raised bed that's in kind of a trash part of the yard, figuring if they spread, they just take over yard we're not using anyway. The indoor plants are doing much, much better. Getting their first true leaves now and I'm hardening them off outside and a little nervous about transplanting with the sensitive roots, but I think it'll be OK. Only one seed popped up from the direct sew and its leaves are already yellow. Hoping it was just a bad seed and not something about the bed, but I guess we'll see. On a very different note: anyone ever grown poppies before? I've always been fascinated by them and their "medicinal" use, but they don't do well in pots. So this year is my first year trying them outside since I have a good size backyard. Got some giganteum, danish flags and super blues going. Seem to grow super readily at the moment, but as I say, I've tried growing them in pots before and always hit a point where the root gets damaged or something and they just shrivel. Curious if anyone has grown them before. (Perhaps folks in TCC may have...)
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Apr 30, 2021 17:59
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OSU_Matthew posted:Had an interesting flower sprout off my Wabash PawPaw tree that I’d never seen before: Love the pawpaw! How particular are they about water and soil conditions? I know around D.C. I can only find them within a stone's throw of a decent sized body of water, so I've never thought about growing one. For a few years I'd go stock up on them in September and try and make stuff with them. Got really sick one time trying to turn them into banana bread, but they're good raw or to flavor ice cream.
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May 1, 2021 22:32
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poverty goat posted:I'm new to this but I've got these tomato plants living in buckets on my deck: Those are doing much better than my tomatoes! Peppers might just need more heat. There's no one right way to fertilize. You really do just kind of have to keep an eye on them and see if they show signs of needing one nutrient or another. I used earthworm castings when I was transplanting and then I side-dress with blood meal to augment the nitrogen. (This also keeps the deer and rabbits away for a bit, though it can attract dogs or raccoons.) Fish fertilizer is also a great organic solution -- gives you phosphorus and potassium as well without any fears of nute-burn. I'm excited to be out of the community garden this year because I can experiment with inorganic liquid fertilizer, though the risks of nutrient burn are obviously much greater.
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May 4, 2021 19:12
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I'm just an idiot on the internet, but I'd say suck it up and get it done now. Lumber prices certainly don't seem to be getting any saner and I wouldn't expect them to before summer.
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May 5, 2021 16:04
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Lead out in cuffs posted:What? No just order them online. I did this two years ago and I don't think I was totally prepared for what 1,000 lady bugs looked like?  Unleashed them in my community garden plot that had an aphid problem and as they started taking off like the flight of the valkyries I started to feel like a very conspicuous eco-terrorist of some kind. So about half of them got out and some colonized my plot and destroyed the aphids, and then the other half I took and threw in the woods. In hindsight it was probably fine but releasing 1,000 bugs feels wrong somehow. e: Just checked and it was 1,500. They ship from Amazon!
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May 7, 2021 14:51
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FogHelmut posted:Will the ladybugs eat the rabbits? Jealous you caught a critter on camera. I set up a Wyze camera on my back porch pointed at my garden and I've watched deer walk through my yard and my camera just doesn't see it so it doesn't flag them. Going to stick a remote one straight on one of my garden's 4x4s this weekend.
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May 7, 2021 15:47
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