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So after being on the wait list for the community garden for over 6 months now and still being over 100 away from being accepted, I finally decided to do some backyard gardening. I have a big backyard but it's all cement. I bought a couple pots from Ikea and a big oak 1/2 whiskey barrel. But is there a good book or website on how to start? I have literally never gardened before so I have no idea what I'm doing  I just bought Miraclegrow organic potted soil and some starter strawberry plants and threw them together in an ikea pot before I found this thread and saw you should do research on soil. Whoops.
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Apr 7, 2012 22:40
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Lackadaisical posted:But is there a good book or website on how to start? I have literally never gardened before so I have no idea what I'm doing  . At the end of the day, some tips and tricks will help, but the key thing is just to go for it and see what happens! Today I finished raking out/weeding the garden circle in the lawn here (I rent, but my downstairs neighbor and I are allowed to garden as we wish). It's a lot more space than I expected and I'm not totally sure what to put in. I'm thinking tomatoes, zucchini, onions, carrots, and lettuce. I have some strawberries already, but those are in pots (along with my young berry bushes). I'm worried that when field season starts up I'll lose most of my gardening time, but I think I can manage to keep some tomatoes alive at least .
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Apr 8, 2012 01:16
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mischief posted:Best practice is to thin. Pulling them apart and all the rest of it is just overkill, especially for really common plants. I can see being a little more thorough with some starts of relatively expensive seeds, like super hot peppers or the new big deal in tomatoes, but for some bog common stuff it's just not worth the trouble. Additionally, it's not "wasting" seeds if you select against seeds that perform poorly. It's just the way of things. When you thin, what determines your choice on the most vigorous plant? Is it the tallest seedling in the puck, or the most developed? I have a few seedlings that are bigger but don't have true leaves yet, whereas one of the smaller ones may have some actual leaf development, but will be shorter.
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Apr 8, 2012 02:01
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I'd go with leaf development, cause more leaf development means faster root growth and probably faster growth in general. I'm no expert though. Also is twine really recommended for tying vines and whatnot? It just seems so rough, could cause damage I'd think. What makes it so good?
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Apr 8, 2012 02:46
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dhrusis posted:When you thin, what determines your choice on the most vigorous plant? Is it the tallest seedling in the puck, or the most developed? I have a few seedlings that are bigger but don't have true leaves yet, whereas one of the smaller ones may have some actual leaf development, but will be shorter. All things equal I go for the one with the thicker stem. But sometimes it is just a coin toss, or I pick the one that is closest to the center of the cell.
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Apr 8, 2012 03:20
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What do you guys use to support tomatoes? I'm doing a bunch in a long line a la square foot gardening. Can I really do 1 per square foot? Everything else I've read says that they take up a lot more room than that. * edit: also, the frost free date in my area is April 15-20. I looked at the 10 day forecast and the lowest it's supposed to get at night is 39. Is it safe to plant more delicate stuff now? Plus_Infinity fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Apr 8, 2012 |
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Apr 8, 2012 14:53
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Plus_Infinity posted:What do you guys use to support tomatoes? I'm doing a bunch in a long line a la square foot gardening. Can I really do 1 per square foot? Everything else I've read says that they take up a lot more room than that. I've been growing tomatoes in that style for years now and you can jam 'em all in there pretty tight. Just make sure you have some good support for them to grow vertically on, and if you're growing indeterminate varieties read up on keeping them pruned so they don't branch out excessively and put most of their energy into growing vertically and setting fruit. Most of the time when you hear about tomatoes, cucumbers, that kind of vining plant "taking up a lot of room" it's from people growing them more traditionally. They'll spread the hell out in a hurry if you let them. Edit: For support I built some freestanding trellises similar in theory to these. I'm still struggling to find the best string to use though. When I use sisal type twine it doesn't UV/dry rot but towards the hot end of the season when the tomatoes are really getting huge it hasn't been able to hold them up. I tried a nylon stranded twine last year and the sun just blasted the top of it until it broke. mischief fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Apr 8, 2012 |
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Apr 8, 2012 15:59
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Plus_Infinity posted:* edit: also, the frost free date in my area is April 15-20. I looked at the 10 day forecast and the lowest it's supposed to get at night is 39. Is it safe to plant more delicate stuff now? Frost dates can be confusing because most everyone just lists a date. In reality all those dates are for probabilities of frosts. The most commonly used are 50% for "average" last frost, and 90% for "frost free". Dave's Garden has a little frost date app that explains it a little better. For my zip code it comes up with: quote:Each winter, on average, your risk of frost is from October 23 through April 28. Which is about right as far as I can tell. We had one hard frost last week, but the forecast for the next 10 days has the lows all above 40. So I'd feel safe planting now. I spent all day yesterday outside and got a bit burned. Don't forget your hats and sunscreen like I did! We spent about 4 hours cleaning up the community garden, and then I was lucky enough to attend a small hands-on class about pruning fruit trees. There is nothing like actually pruning trees with an expert for learning. Pea sprouts are all coming up and I'm finally going to get all my wildflower seed mixes put in today.
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Apr 8, 2012 17:35
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I've always done 3 tomato plants in a 50cm pot around a central stake, with only a loop of string from the stake to each plant, so they kind of equally pull on the central stake and support each other. Never had a problem with them falling over; just needed to water twice a day for how much root was in that kind of space.
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Apr 8, 2012 20:39
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I made a little "coldbox" today (plexiglass hinged lid, wood back and bottom, 9 mil plastic sides) to help seeds get going. It's not totally airproof. Would it be a good idea to line the back and bottom with tinfoil, or is this going to make things too hot? It's about 60 degrees as a daily high here in MN and has been plenty windy lately. I'm starting a variety of hot peppers and bell peppers from seeds, and may add green beans / wax beans as well
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Apr 9, 2012 01:35
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I got an itch and planted my own garden this year. I have one question though, I planted crookneck squash and it is literally blowing up in my garden. How worried should I be about this taking out other surrounding plants? It is dark here or I would love to take a picture of my garden and share it with everyone.
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Apr 9, 2012 02:38
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I'm not familiar with that sort of squash. But if it's a vine, you could trellis it and train it vertically.
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Apr 9, 2012 03:35
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I got a bug up my butt last year and tried an in ground vegetable garden. I have horrible soil, I planted in the wron time of year, and didn't stake the plants properly. Needless to say, I didn't get any fresh veggies. This year, I have 15 five fallen buckets. I have 5 bell peppers, 5 tomatoes, 2 cucumbers, and 3 jalapeņos. So far I like the buckets. They are quite an eyesore tho. Hopefully I can get. Some good veggies from this crop, and next year focus on a good in ground garden.
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Apr 9, 2012 03:48
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Interesting idea with the buckets. I hope they're food safe and you poked holes in the bottom!
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Apr 9, 2012 04:02
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Tonight's harvest porn: That's lemongrass on the pole beans. Not pictured: turnips, potatoes, and radishes as they needed to start boiling before the wife gets home. The only outside input for tonight's dinner will be garlic, butter, and salad dressing.  Anyway, the lettuce pictured is "Amish Deer Tongue" lettuce. For those of you in warm environments or who want lettuce through your summer, I strongly recommend it. We haven't had a day below 80 in weeks yet it hasn't bolted and isn't bitter. I have a few heat tolerant lettuce varieties I'm testing and so far it is my wife and my favorite.
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Apr 9, 2012 04:58
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TheFuglyStik posted:My poor station wagon looked like a lowrider on the trip home from Lowes. Four cylinder engines aren't made for hauling cubic yards of compost at a time. Now I have to make two more trips for peat and vermiculite, all while hoping my struts don't give out on me. Luckily that first load was the heaviest by far. Because this weekend I had four days off in a row, and the weather decided to cooperate and stop raining for a couple days.. So I did a thing. What I started with:   Lookit dat fatty work! (actually I was done at this point, and the last barrow-load was used to fill in some ankle-breaker holes around the yard..)  Helper-dog is not impressed.  Fully sperged-out (radishes, carrots, peas shown with markers. My cousin offered to help and promptly hosed up the placement I'd intended, but it won't be a big deal, I'd just wanted to place 4 blocks of radishes in a row, 1 week apart.. Now it'll be 8 blocks of radishes 2x4, 1 week apart.. With 2 blocks of carrots in the dead center...  ) 
coyo7e fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Apr 9, 2012 |
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Apr 9, 2012 17:25
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czechshaun posted:I got an itch and planted my own garden this year. I have one question though, I planted crookneck squash and it is literally blowing up in my garden. How worried should I be about this taking out other surrounding plants?
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Apr 9, 2012 17:32
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I'm really frustrated. Some sort of flying bug is drilling small holes in stuff like squash and cantaloupe and depositing a single larva that then goes to town and consumes it from the inside out. The entry holes are maybe 1/2mm wide and the larvae when I cut them open are maybe 3/4 an inch and green. It has to be a flying pest doing this as some of my infected fruit and veggies has been trellised and the crawling insect would have to do some serious acrobatics to get to it. Does anyone have any idea what this could be? And are there any organic methods of dealing with it? Any box or cover I can put over immature fruit and veggies for example? encoyo7e, those are some drat fine looking raised beds, nice job And your compost pile has be jealous. I can't find big leaves like that where I'm at.
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Apr 9, 2012 18:14
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Thanks!  I got the leaves from my city, they dump them for free if you request it, and I've been using the leaves as mulch to replace the bark-mulch that was spread all along my fence, the sides of my house, around my trees, etc.. I'm not a fan of wood-based mulches, since leaving a layer of rotting, dead wood around all of my wooden structures and trees seems like a great way to make them rot away quicker.. I scooped up most of the bark mulch, and used it to fill in holes in my yard.The big box of railroad tie-sized beams used to have an apple tree in it I think, there were some apple seedlings in the yard when I bought the place, and a big depression where someone had removed a good-sized tree. I filled and then mounded over the hole with shredded leaves last fall, but forgot to deal with the grass and weeds and stuff growing in the box itself. After finishing my two new beds I realized I'll probably not have enough plants not use every square until later into the season, so I just covered the whole damned bed with 6-10 inches of leaves, threw a tarp over it, and now I'll just leave it to cook off everything before I turn it over in a month or three. I've got a ton of other home projects this summer so I'm thinking that keeping my beds at a manageable number will be more prudent, my cousin wants to build 3 or 4 greenhouses and sell food at the local farmers' markets (great idea for the first year of a garden, LOL!) but I'd rather build a front porch where I can sit and look out at my garden.. 
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Apr 9, 2012 18:55
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Socratic Moron posted:I'm really frustrated. Some sort of flying bug is drilling small holes in stuff like squash and cantaloupe and depositing a single larva that then goes to town and consumes it from the inside out. The entry holes are maybe 1/2mm wide and the larvae when I cut them open are maybe 3/4 an inch and green. It has to be a flying pest doing this as some of my infected fruit and veggies has been trellised and the crawling insect would have to do some serious acrobatics to get to it. Does anyone have any idea what this could be? My first guess would be melon flies, except I don't think they have green larva. My second guess is pickleworms.
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Apr 9, 2012 18:58
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Costello Jello posted:My first guess would be melon flies, except I don't think they have green larva. My second guess is pickleworms. Now to figure out how to deal with these fuckers. Any suggestions?
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Apr 9, 2012 22:08
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Socratic Moron posted:It's definitely pickleworms. MOTHER FUCKERS. Thanks CJ, I really appreciate it.
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Apr 9, 2012 22:36
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My peppers have pretty much stalled their growth. I'm wondering if it's just too cold right now? We have been getting highs in the lower 70s and lows in the upper 30s/40/50s. I'm sort of failing at this gardening thing.
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Apr 9, 2012 22:39
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My peppers did the same thing for a pretty long time. I think peppers are just really, really sluggish plants.
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Apr 9, 2012 22:49
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Peppers really like heat. Moreso than tomatoes. Growth will significantly slow at temperatures below 20C (70F).
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Apr 9, 2012 23:13
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cheese eats mouse posted:My peppers have pretty much stalled their growth. I'm wondering if it's just too cold right now? We have been getting highs in the lower 70s and lows in the upper 30s/40/50s. I'm sort of failing at this gardening thing. They do grow slower, but how big are they now? Most stuff will stall for a little while as the first few true leaves come out and then start to take off. Peppers also need warmer night temps than you're getting, like nothing lower than 50 F. I have heard of success with a stone mulch, supposedly retaining some heat near the plants overnight.
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Apr 9, 2012 23:16
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coyo7e posted:Spray the affected plants with BT, it is an organic insecticide which only harms bugs that consume the plant it's sprayed on. You'll need to spray the top and bottoms of the leaves and squash though.
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Apr 9, 2012 23:58
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Socratic Moron posted:I'm admittedly one of those, "INSECTICIDES ARE EVIL" people in part because I don't understand BT. Is it definitely safe for humans to consume? It won't affect human gut flora or turn me into a zombie or anything like that? Has it been significantly tested? Here's an excerpt from about a BT variant called Btk: quote:Would humans or other animals be harmed if they accidentally ingested Btk? Better to not need it in the first place, but doesn't seem terrible either.
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Apr 10, 2012 00:15
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Last year, my squash got ruined and turned to mush with little flies flying around them. And a lot of my tomatoes had gotten eaten thru, leaving little holes. Can anyone recommend a spray for tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeņos, and cucumber? I'll post a pic of my bucket garden once they grow a little taller.
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Apr 10, 2012 00:17
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cowofwar posted:Peppers really like heat. Moreso than tomatoes. Growth will significantly slow at temperatures below 20C (70F). Ah that's good to know. I think I got them infected with a fungus anyway. I'm probably just going to start over and grow all the tropical plants at once.
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Apr 10, 2012 00:51
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Cpt.Wacky posted:Here's an excerpt from about a BT variant called Btk: In other news, I planted some passion fruit vines a few weeks ago along a fence. My thought was they'd cover the fence but as you can see below, all they're doing at present is going vertical. Should I extend something up for them to climb higher than the fence or is it fine to let them droop over and just go along the fence?  And to contribute something, another variety I wanted to recommend. I planted a pole bean variety called "Gita" and have been nothing but happy with it. Other than a few aphids which are easy to deal with and one caterpillar, all it has done is provided me with tons of 2 foot long beans which is quite pleasing 
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Apr 10, 2012 01:19
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Socratic Moron posted:I'm admittedly one of those, "INSECTICIDES ARE EVIL" people in part because I don't understand BT. Is it definitely safe for humans to consume? It won't affect human gut flora or turn me into a zombie or anything like that? Has it been significantly tested?
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Apr 10, 2012 03:23
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Cpt.Wacky posted:Better to not need it in the first place, but doesn't seem terrible either. Yeah, Bt's cry toxin forms as a crystal in the bacterial sporangium and it only solubilizes in highly alkaline environments (beetles/butterflies and moths/some flies/possibly some hymenoptera). Furthermore, it only binds to cadherin proteins that vertebrates don't possess. Bacillus thuringiensis is a native soil-dweller (named for Thuringia, the region where it was first discovered). If you're worried about native butterflies and moths you might want to refrain, but it cannot harm vertebrates.
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Apr 10, 2012 05:10
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Couple of questions: 1. Growing tomatoes for the first time ever; I did a few topsy-turveys and a bunch in the ground. Can these plants go year to year, or do you have to come back with new tomato plants every year? On the upside-down hangers, is it feasible to stake and tie upside down so the plant gets more drop on the central stalk before it curls upwards? Mine are beautiful and full, but they look fragile as all hell. 2. Anyone have any experience with dewberries? I've got a patch of them growing wild on my property line, but they're not as productive as they could be due to a mess of old dead vines, as well as some weed competition. I'd love to trellis them in some way, but I don't know how far up they're capable of going.
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Apr 10, 2012 05:53
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GD_American posted:Growing tomatoes for the first time ever; I did a few topsy-turveys and a bunch in the ground. Can these plants go year to year, or do you have to come back with new tomato plants every year? To answer one of your questions: Biologically, tomatoes are perennials, but unless you go to great lengths to keep them from freezing, or live in the tropics, they are cultivated as annuals.
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Apr 10, 2012 12:13
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My peas are finally forming flowers! I just wish I hadn't taken so long to get them in the ground because they are definitely lanky. Least I know this now for the fall harvest.
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Apr 10, 2012 18:25
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Zuph posted:To answer one of your questions: Biologically, tomatoes are perennials, but unless you go to great lengths to keep them from freezing, or live in the tropics, they are cultivated as annuals. Even here in Texas, most people here grow tomatoes in spring, tear them out, and plant new ones for the fall growing season. Our summers here are too brutal, and 9 times out of 10, by the time it's cool enough for blossom set to happen again (tomatoes stop setting once temps at night get up in the mid 70's), the tomato plants generally look terrible no matter what you've done to try and help them limp along. It's just generally not worth it, at least in our area. Better to start with new vigorous plants, then try and coax out fruits from a plant that's been suffering the last few months heat. Some plants actually prosper with a little bit of "abuse", but in my experience so far, tomatoes ain't one of em. Cerri fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Apr 10, 2012 |
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Apr 10, 2012 21:22
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Speaking of tomatoes not setting in warm temperatures, does anyone know if you put ice around the plant if that will trick the tomato into setting? I know that works for a lot of plants but I'm not sure about tomatoes.
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Apr 10, 2012 21:35
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GD_American posted:Couple of questions: I used to live in an 8b hardiness zone, which has a super long growing season, and you learn what a pain in the rear end it is keeping tomatoes alive and going from March to November. Even if you're really careful, they'll probably eventually get some blight and start turning yellow. Some people there actually plan to have two mini-seasons, where they don't bother trying to keep the tomato plants super healthy, and just re-plant again in June or July for the harvest that will go to November.
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Apr 10, 2012 22:10
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While we've got this tomatochat going, does anybody have suggestions for pruning? I picked up a Roma plant on impulse because I like tomato sauces and wanted to give it a try. It's done great in terms of settling into my bed and branching out, but I seem to recall being told that having too many branches will heavily hinder fruit productivity. Is the idea the same as on fruit trees and you want to limit the number of blossoms, or is there a way to tell that a branch probably won't blossom and will just suck up water and nutrients?
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Apr 10, 2012 23:27
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