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What (if anything) is wrong with my satsumas? Just noticed some of them are starting to turn and thought I’d try and see if they were sweet yet, and I noticed two of them had some funky looking spots on them. Flesh inside looked (and tasted) fine. Probably nothing, but I remembered reading something from the extension service last year about some new disease in our area (south Alabama).   
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Oct 24, 2018 23:49
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Fitzy Fitz posted:I harvested real, actual sweet potatoes the other day. Now I realize I have no good way to cure them.
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Nov 6, 2018 00:49
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Fitzy Fitz posted:Yeah I just wanted to give them a shot because it might be fun. Root vegetables in general don't seem worth the effort unless you enjoy growing them or want to try a less common variety. These are Myanmar Purples from Baker Creek.
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Nov 6, 2018 03:03
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Ape Has Killed Ape posted:Has anyone done mushroom spawn plugs on Redbud? Cause I just cut down a big one that was going to start causing problems, and now I have about 12 good sized logs of it. I don't think it's a dense enough wood for shitake, but I figured it doesn't hurt to ask.
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Nov 23, 2018 18:45
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I’ve never rooted peppers because I don’t grow them, but high humidity and bottom heat really help with rooting. A big clear soda bottle or a plastic grocery bag loosely tented over the cutting and lightly misted once or twice (don’t want it too humid or you get fungus and mold) helps with the humidity, and they make heating pads for rooting or stick the tray on top of a warm appliance. I’m always tempted to leave too many leaves on herbaceous cuttings, but fewer seems to be better, or you can cut the leaves in half crossways to reduce moisture loss. Cuttings from new growth always seem to root better than older growth that has hardened off. I’ve never saved a cutting once it started going downhill, but it’s worth trying something. All this reminds me I need to take a million rose cuttings here soon and ignore all my own advice and just stick them in pots outside and see which ones grow come spring because I’m lazy as gently caress.
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Nov 27, 2018 23:28
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Lady Demelza posted:Can anyone suggest why swiss chard would be all floppy and droppy? The seedlings are just over a month old and have always been...horizontal? The internet suggests too high humidity but the spinach and rocket in the same propogator are doing OK. An old hippy I know pets/lightly brushes the tops of his seedling flats a few times a day and claims it helps them stiffen up and keep from getting leggy. He also keeps a small fan on low speed blowing on them for the same reason, and he grows some good seedlings. I wouldn't do the fan unless they're in pellets with their feet wet or somehow irrigated well so they won't dry out.
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Nov 30, 2018 00:52
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The bizarre thing about kumquats is that the peel is sweet and delicious and the flesh is bitter, but since they’re bite sized they balance each other out. I squish the insides out and toss them and put the peel in a Manhattan and it is delicious-the bitternes of the pulp get overpowering in a cocktail to me. Or I just eat them whole. I’m definitely in the ‘love them’ camp. I need to get one to go with my satsumas. I saw a picture once of a perfectly manicured hedge of kumquats in France somewhere with fruit on it and it was gorgeous.
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Dec 10, 2018 05:01
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Grand Fromage posted:Cilantro sucks because it doesn't keep growing like other herbs, you have to harvest and replant. I grew it once and it wasn't worth the trouble. Helith posted:I’ve got Jalapeño and Habanero chilies, ginger and lemongrass growing on my balcony at the moment. Basil is going great on my kitchen windowsill but the basil seedlings outside got mostly eaten by caterpillars. They’re just about hanging on. My rosemary is looking sorry for itself, it’s alive but it’s shed a lot of leaves so it looks patchy and threadbare.   Some of them reproduce themselves kind of oddly-new plants will form in the old flower spike, and you can just pull them off and plant them. I'm not sure if it is just seeds that germinate in there or if it is some sort of vegetative reproduction, but it's kind of cool.   .
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Dec 18, 2018 00:26
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I think you just harvested them too soon. Radishes make a nice root in a month, but in my experience growing carrots in a warm climate, they take a lot longer than you think to develop a big root and are highly variable year to year depending on weather. I used to plant mine here on the Gulf Coast late September through October and harvest nice carrots (sometimes) in February. If the weather was reasonably dry, I'd have nice carrots, but too much rain would make the tops of the roots green and the carrots wouldn't be very sweet. Luckily, carrot tops are pretty delicious anyway, as are radish tops. This is untested theory with regards to carrots, but it seems like fewer, deeper waterings would promote deeper/longer root growth as the roots have to go down deep for water vs. always having plenty of water right at the surface? One or two deep soakings a week vs daily sprinklings-less evaporation that way too. Carrots are actually biennial. They grow greens quickly, and then need time to spend the next few months storing all their energy in that big root so they can grow flowers next year and make babies and die-we want to eat them right after they've built up that big fat root right at the end of their first growing season.
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Dec 31, 2018 01:30
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And when/if you do actually succeed in growing good carrots, it is incredibly satisfying to pull big fat 8” long carrots out of the ground. Makes you really feel like you’ve grown something special.
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Jan 1, 2019 17:46
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The old advice for planting an oak is ‘look up.’ They are long lived trees that will grow to be quite large, so think about what want in 50 years. Don’t plant it right next to the house or under a power line, for instance, and I wouldn’t plant it too close to your garden because tree roots like nice rich garden soil just as much as vegetable roots do. That being said, I think planting a long-lived tree is about the best thing anyone can do for the world and their local community. They’re super easy to grow but they do need protection for their first few months. I planted a bunch of Chinese chestnuts in pots one year that we’re doing great until the squirrels found them and mowed them down in an afternoon. Make a little chicken wire cage to go over the pots and plant the acorns a few inches deep. White oak acorns sprout in the fall of the year they drop and then put up top growth in the spring-red oak acorns don’t sprout until the spring and benefit from cold stratification (stick them in the fridge for a 3 months) You can probably grow them in 3 gal plastic pots for 2-3 years but then they’re going to need to go in the ground somewhere-give them to you friends!
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Jan 4, 2019 15:38
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Anyone have any advice on growing garlic on the Gulf coast? We don't have a real winter here and I'm never sure when I'm supposed to plant it or what I'm supposed to do with it. Also is it worth it to try and grow celery?
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Feb 9, 2019 00:39
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I’m fairly cavalier about pesticides/herbicides, but definitely don’t use a systemic insecticide on anything you plan to eat.
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Mar 16, 2019 15:51
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kedo posted:A somewhat on and somewhat off topic question for the thread at large – does anyone know of an existing data architecture for growing most/all edible plants? I've been putzing around with an idea for an interactive project that would require a well organized database of information about how to cultivate plants (ie. when/how to sow, soil types, maintenance tasks, when to harvest, etc.), but I worry my knowledge is limited to the plants I've researched and grown, and that I'm therefore not the right person to design the structure for a database that would also house information for plants that I have not grown which may have drastically different growing requirements. The Southern Living Garden Book is a great general reference book, especially for the SE US. There are other more specific horticultural/agricultural giant reference books for all kinds of different plants, but I'm not aware of a giant digital database (which would be very useful-wikipedia for gardeners?) Part of the problem is that growing conditions vary so widely across the country/world, that it is hard to say generally how to grow tomatoes or kale. In the hot, humid south, we plant tomatoes about this time of year and have great tomatoes in May and June and then it gets too hot and they stop producing and/or die, whereas in Connecticut they don't even plant them until May. The best time to grow most greens here is in winter, and if you plant them in spring like every garden book written for Massachusetts or England tells you, they bolt in about 2 weeks etc etc.
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Mar 16, 2019 21:12
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kedo posted:Thanks! That's very helpful, I'll check that book out. It looks like my local library might have a copy. I forgot about https://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/ it's kind of similar to what you're talking about. It at least has a list of locations where users say they grow XYZ which can be helpful. Like you say, USDA zone isn't always all that useful-plenty of stuff that is happy in Egypt, with the same latitude and elevation and similar temp ranges as here can't handle the constant rain and humidity we get. Surely some government body somewhere has plotted various climactic data to say location X and Y are climatically very similar, where Y and Z are not? The good news is good practice for planting pretty much anything is the same worldwide. A few plants have particular requirements for pH, but generally everything wants good, well drained soil high in organic matter and then they vary in light requirements and water, which are also very dependent on local climate.
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Mar 16, 2019 23:16
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If you really want to do this, a strong solution of glyphosate (buy the concentrated 51% stuff, its available in all kinds of generics besides RoundUp. Just read the labels at the store) mixed in a hand garden sprayed and sprayed on the green parts of everything in your yard will kill most everything and not gently caress up your soil for eternity. 3-4oz of 51% glyphosate/gallon of water and a few Tbsp of dish soap is a good mix for killing everything. It may take a week or two, and you may need to reapply in a few weeks when you see what it didn't kill. It works best when stuff is green and growing-if it's still winter where you are wait until spring. On trees/shrubs you can do a hack and squirt treatment-chop into the trunk with a hatchet/machete and squirt undiluted glyphosate in the cut. Usually 1 cut per 1" or diameter will do it. Think real hard about if this is what you really want to do. You might think it looks like poo poo now, but it's really going to look awful when its a bunch of sad, brown, dead poo poo. It's probably going to make your gardener grandfather very sad to see his garden a brown mess. It probably won't take nearly as long as you think to just do some basic pruning and weeding to make it look better and not look like you just got Agent Oranged.
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Mar 19, 2019 00:14
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My favorite gardening guy is Felder Rushing, a former county extension agent with a masters in horticulture or something from MS State who just knows tons about plants and gardening and has the best gardening show on public radio and I pretty much totally trust whatever he has to say. He says he really wishes he could find something wrong with glyphosate but he just can’t. His advice is don’t take a bath in it and don’t soak your cigarettes in it before you smoke them and you’ll be fine. I live in a hot, humid, rainy place where glyphosate probably degrades/moves out of the soil (I thought it only really was absorbed by leaves anyway?) faster than most places, but I can kill a patch of grass I want to turn into a bed with it and a week later when the grass is dead there are already weeds sprouting in it. I’m not familiar with 3,4-D, only 2,4-D-will it keep stuff from growing in an area? Does it work as a preemergent by stopping seeds from germinating or by just keeping stuff from growing? Is there a common name?
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Mar 19, 2019 03:55
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It’s still good the second year. It will probably start to flower at some point and make fewer leaves and die, but not for a few weeks or months. If I leave them alone and let them flower and set seed, occasionally they reseed themselves but not as reliably as basil or cilantro. The roots are good in a stew or stock. They have a nice parsley/parsnip/carrot flavor.
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Apr 1, 2019 13:41
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PVC with tiny holes in it is super cheap and works pretty well. Make like a big U with your row of vegetables and stuff down the middle. Light enough that they are pretty portable if you have multiple beds and don’t want to bury them.
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Apr 22, 2019 22:15
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Garlic chives can get really invasive. I also don't particularly like to eat them. I have no idea why I planted them. Apparently the Chinese much prefer them to normal chives, but I am sadly not Chinese. I dug up a wheelbarrow full out of my much neglected herb garden: My much less neglected herb garden. I always separate out the 3 plants you usualy get if you buy parley/basil in a pot and it turned into a whoooole lot of parley and basil.  Also, can anyone identify this? Its maybe 18-24" high. Definitely an allium, hanging around an abandoned vegetable garden that hasn't been used in probably 40 years.  E: Motronic posted:"Normal" to you (wherever you are) plants are weird on other places. I learned this many years ago when I first was in the bay area and found a rosemary HEDGE. I always thought rosemary was yet another one of those annual things you plant and it stays kinda contained and it's tasty. But put it where it was meant to grow.........
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Apr 24, 2019 02:14
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Parsley leaves that are white/yellow around the edges is probably just chlorosis/too much water right? All my other herbs look great but some of the parsley is looking sad around the edges-might just be transplant shock too.
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Apr 24, 2019 23:38
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I love these things for starting seeds: https://www.amazon.com/Count-Jiffy-...423487254&psc=1 Easy to move delicate little seedlings when they're fragile and tiny, and don't take up much space.
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Apr 26, 2019 01:37
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Sounds like time for biological warfare courtesy of Bacillus thuringiensis. Let it eat those caterpillars from the inside out AND MAKE THEM PAY.
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Apr 28, 2019 19:20
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Serious vegetable gardeners/seed savers is one of those rare markets that includes lots of slightly-to-very whacko off the grid types on the far far left and the far far right which probably makes it even harder to pick a speaker who won’t be at all politically controversial to someone. He definitely was not the right choice to not tick off half their customer base though, however much he may know about melons or whatever.
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Apr 29, 2019 21:56
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Fitzy Fitz posted:I think I'm going all in on groundnut next year. What a versatile plant. They grow like crazy here too.
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Apr 30, 2019 16:19
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Has anyone ever successfully transplanted a huckleberry here? They seem to like specific rotting stumps I'm hesitant to try I wouldn't think its too hard? Blueberries are easy to move and they're like first cousins. I'd just make sure to keep it watered well.
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May 1, 2019 00:01
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Heners_UK posted:Just catching up on this thread, but this post from 2009 explains why my very first attempt at gardening in 2008 (back garden in London, grow bags only) failed. Didn't help that I didn't like tomatoes anyway.
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May 1, 2019 13:45
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Fitzy Fitz posted:Anyone have any advice for squash borers? They killed my crop last year, so I was thinking of putting gauze around the stems this year.
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May 10, 2019 23:52
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Grand Fromage posted:
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May 24, 2019 23:04
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One of my favorite parts of watching people get into gardening is watching them go from “i wouldn’t hurt anything and I think slugs are cute” to “DO THEY MAKE NUCLEAR WEAPONS THAT WORK AGAINST BUGS AND SQUIRRELS?!?!?? WHY ISN’T NERVE GAS AVAILABLE FOR CIVILIAN USE?” in about a month. I don’t have a slug problem, but I have swarms I’d those black and red grasshoppers that turn into the huuuuge yellow and black ones. I’ve doused them in spinosad when they’re young and it does nothing. Neem oil does nothing. When they get big I get scared of them and think they’re all going to gang up on me one day and so I try not to offend them after mid June.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:22
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I used to cover my blackberries in nets and never had a stuck bird in them. Kind of a pain to get them on and off though, and make sure you take them off as soon as you harvest or stuff starts going through them and it’s a mess. People used to eat songbirds all the time-supposedly they’re delicious....
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Jun 25, 2019 15:24
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indigi posted:holy poo poo the handbook for my county's program is $75 used. fuckin Penn State
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Jun 28, 2019 02:13
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Jan posted:I've got a bit of a problem.
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Jul 5, 2019 04:02
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I’m a Bad And Lazy Gardener and let my basil get away from me on deadheading and now it’s all gone to seed. What should I do? I usually just quit about this time of year and let everything but the grass go to hell until mid September when it dries out and becomes slightly bearable again, but I have been on a homemade pizza kick and really enjoying fresh basil and want to keep it going. I read somewhere that I could cut them way back and they’ll put out new, unbolted growth? True or false? Or should I just replant? I think if I repainted they would just bolt anyway cuz it’s hot af. This all is actually sounding like a lot of work for July in the swamp and maybe bolted basil doesn’t really taste that bad after all. 
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Jul 16, 2019 03:47
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Harry Potter on Ice posted:Stubbornly posting this in here because I wasn't smart enough to know that even though these starts were next to the cucumbers and zucchini, they aren't edible. They still might be my favorite thing I grew this season. 4 starts in a pack for $2 and look at the variation I got! Everything in this picture is adorable.
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Sep 30, 2019 04:32
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There is a landscaping thread! https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3892694 It needs some good effortposts!
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Nov 4, 2019 18:44
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I usually snack on them over a few weeks, but I had to harvest all my satsumas ahead of this very early hard freeze. I just planted it 5 years ago, and it's now 8-10' tall and it produced ~10 gallons this year. Not bad for being completely neglected. I was worried the green ones weren't ripe yet, but all the ones I've tried so far have been good, if not super super sweet. I definitely should have thinned out the crop sometime after it had set fruit for quality, but they're still pretty good. uh....anyone know what to do with 10 gallons of satsumas?
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Nov 13, 2019 00:55
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Platystemon posted:The juice is delicious and it takes freezing well. I'd thought about marmalade or something but I'm not sure if satsumas make good marmalade?
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Nov 13, 2019 01:57
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Anyone have any experience growing Chinese/Vietnamese kind of vegetables, especially greens? I’ve been getting into cooking in those cuisines lately and since I live in a hot, humid, wet swamp growing some of them myself might be easier than driving out to the Vietnamese market. I don’t quite have enough sun/space in my main garden bed for tomatoes, and maybe greens don’t need as much sun? I’ve grown plenty of Italian basil before-is there much difference in growing Thai/holy basil? I’m also wishing I hadn’t done quite such a vigorous purge of my garlic chives last year.
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Feb 27, 2020 04:19
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SubG posted:What else are you thinking about? Pretty much every year I grow bitter melons, one or more Asian eggplant cultivars, and I've got some self-propagating Okinawan sweet potatoes, but none of those are greens. I've always hoped/wondered if there were local Asian varieties of stuff like carrots and garlic that are better adapted to a warm, wet subtropical climate with no real winter than the European/American varieties usually grown. Somehow they manage to grow carrots in Vietnam, but maybe they grow them in the highlands or something?
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Feb 27, 2020 15:48
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