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I had some space between my driveway and my neighbor's fence that was filled with a berry producing bush. It didn't look very good and it spread like a weed so I'd have to go over to the neighbor's every week and prune it out(neighbor is like 97). So we decided to get rid of the brush and do something useful with the area and build a series of 3 garden boxes with benches between for enjoying the yard. I just finished the first and was wondering should I go ahead and put roofing paper in the bottom of the box to isolate it from the rest of the yard or will it just turn my box into soup after the first hurricane? The box is 2ft by 2ft by 8ft. Each box has increasingly more shade going from full sun to mostly full shade. Edit for another question. I'm thinking about building in an irrigation system before I fill the boxes. Would drip irrigation be a better solution than a normal sprinkler head? I am considering that mainly because I don't want to water my neighbor's yard and my aphalt driveway what with 8ft being the smallest radius I could find for a normal sprinkler head. I am going to be growing a relatively normal garden with peppers, green onions, tomatos, garlic, herbs etc. Will I run into any issues with plants when I only water the root system instead of the entire plant? El Bano fucked around with this message at Nov 16, 2009 around 02:41 |
| # ¿ Nov 16, 2009 02:22 |
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| # ¿ May 25, 2013 08:17 |
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Is there a good reason why you would need to isolate the beds you are building from the rest of the yard (like tree roots)? If so I would invest in some good landscape fabric that lets water through, and doesn't contain tar. If you don't have a reason to separate the soil, then I wouldn't put anything. Depending on the material you are making the boxes out of, it might not be a bad idea to put something on the SIDES of the box, otherwise your moist rich soil will cause the wood you are making them out of to rot surprisingly fast. Using pressure treated wood put together with treated screws, so I am not expecting much rot anytime in the near future. There are no nearby trees or significant vegetation, however I am building these on top of the berry bush site without removing the roots. I assume with a 20 inch soil depth, the bushes won't come back up though.
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| # ¿ Nov 16, 2009 02:44 |
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Richard Noggin posted:Contrary to what you've heard, this is untrue. Even the old stuff treated with CCA won't make you ill, unless you're making splinter salads. It hasn't been around for residential construction for years, and even if you were to use recycled PT that containted CCA, most of it will have already leached out. Looks like the CCA treatment was banned in 2003. I tend to doubt that they had a 6 years worth of stock in the warehouse, so I'm pretty sure my stuff is the ACQ-D which does not contain arsenic, but does apparently eat through the galvanized fastenings I used fairly quickly. Ah well. Any opinions on drip irrigation vs popup sprayers? I'm going to fill the boxes shortly and want to do the plumbing before I do. I went with the advice above and used landscaping material for the ground cover instead of the roofing paper.
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| # ¿ Nov 24, 2009 21:11 |
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Finally finished turning some unusable space on the side of my driveway to something that could possibly be productive. (assuming someone other than me plants in it). We planted spinach in mid feb and they sprouted around the 1st. Hopefully we will get one harvest in around easter, then I'll start planting for summer the usual stuff (tomatos, hot peppers, cucumbers, etc..) Each box is 26" wide by 8' long by 24" deep. I used pressure treated lumber and some sort of outdoor deck screws. They look like they are plastic coated instead of galvanized since that doesn't react well with new pressure treated lumber. I'm keeping an eye on it for now to make sure the boards don't spread apart. If they do, I'll add some lag bolts. Before:  Click here for the full 720x540 image. After:  Click here for the full 720x540 image. I installed the plumbing for sprinklers which, as I found out today, don't actually water my garden boxes, but instead water the outside of the boxes. I'll continue watering by hand this week and convert at least one over to drip irrigation since I happen to have a kit on hand. Each box can be shut off or on so that if I plant something that needs less water in one, I can still run the other. Plumbing:  Click here for the full 540x720 image. To see the entire process, click here El Bano fucked around with this message at Mar 8, 2010 around 01:59 |
| # ¿ Mar 8, 2010 01:54 |
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I'm starting to try to sprout my tomatos and jalepenos this weekend. I am worried that my spinach won't make it to harvest since we are already having sustained temperatures in the 70s. Hopefully it won't get much warmer over the next 2-3 weeks.
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2010 19:48 |
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ChaoticSeven posted:Also, speaking of green mulches. Is there a cheap place online or something that sells bulk seeds, cheaply, for this purpose? Seed at local places like Lowes and Wal-Mart is way beyond being cost effective. I've been thinking about planting clover everywhere plants aren't in the garden as a ground cover to fix some nitrogen and keep all the grass and weeds choked down better at the same time. You need to go outside your city into one of the little rural tiny towns on the outskirts and go to a farm supply store. I found one in wilmer,AL that sells seeds by the pound usually for about twice as much as walmart sells by the pack. If the store ends in "and tack" chances are good it will sell seeds by the pound(or kilogram if you use the metric system like a pansy).
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| # ¿ Mar 22, 2010 14:16 |
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We just harvested our first batch of spinach which I made into a salad. If i did my math correctly, it cost me $200 to make my boxes and since this guy(http://news.uk.msn.com/photos/photo...42&page=4profit) charges more than 600 british bucks for a salad, I figure my garden just netted me a $400 profit! Even though it was quite delicious, after all the non-garden stuff it took to make the salad, the effort was kind of dissappointing.
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| # ¿ Apr 14, 2010 00:48 |
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Unfortunately, I have started getting buds on my spinach, so I guess it's time to plow it over. I am getting flies around my boxes that look something like the one in this photo: http://www.fotothing.com/photos/406...09bbafe_344.jpg Is this a problem? Right now, I don't have any fruit type plants going, only root and leaf plants, but when my cukes and tomatos come in, will these flies cause a problem?
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2010 17:50 |
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^JunkFood posted:Hope that works for you. I live in central FL and we actually had some below freezing temps this winter and I think it's put a hurt on the local bee population as I've seen zero bees thus far. My tomatoes are doing kinda ok but my squash isn't doing much of anything. The only squash I've gotten so far I've had to hand pollinate. Yesterday I finally saw one bee pollinating my cukes. Today I walked out and could barely hear due to all the buzzing in my garden. Just hope they stick around for the rest of the vegetables to bloom.
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| # ¿ May 14, 2010 15:08 |
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I want to grow some winter squash, but don't really have a place in the yard for it, but I do have an extra 5 Gallon terracotta pot that I could use. Will that be enough space?
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| # ¿ Aug 12, 2010 18:18 |
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dwoloz posted:5 gallon would produce a pretty good size plant but probably not to its full potential if unrestricted. Late in the season though to start. Winter and summer squash are started around the same time, winter squash just ripen later My first frost isn't until december. My planting guides for this area say that as long as they're in by late august, I should be fine. Thanks for the answer, probably start them today. With just two of us, smaller squash isn't a bad thing. El Bano fucked around with this message at Aug 16, 2010 around 14:50 |
| # ¿ Aug 15, 2010 17:19 |
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Can I plant the garlic cloves from the garlic heads I buy in the grocery store?
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| # ¿ Nov 12, 2010 20:01 |
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ItalicSquirrels posted:Also, what's a great way to keep squirrels off of crops? Because the ones that live in my neighborhood are absolutely fearless. A couple of cats that you don't feed very well.
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| # ¿ Dec 23, 2010 15:37 |
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Turkeybone posted:Does anyone recommend any online seed or seedling companies? This was the first time I ever bought seeds online, but I went to http://www.botanicalinterests.com/store/index_index.php. They seemed to have a nice selection with several variations for most plants. They also clearly marked which were heirloom or organic, and shade preferences. Shipping was reasonable, less than 5 bucks for the 10 different things I ordered and I received them in about 5 working days. So far I have only planted spinach and escarole from them, but every seed I planted sprouted. Edit: Also, according to thier website, they do not sell genetically modified seeds. El Bano fucked around with this message at Dec 28, 2010 around 16:08 |
| # ¿ Dec 28, 2010 15:55 |
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Alterian posted:For food waste, have you considered doing a worm bin? When you do a worm bin and you want to use your compost, do you filter out the worms before using it, or just throw everything in the gardens worms and all?
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| # ¿ Jan 5, 2011 17:33 |
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Now that the season is ramping up for us Northern Hemisphere types, will anyone be tracking thier progress on MyFolia.com? Or is that site just "so last year"? If anyone is interested, my member name is El_Bano.
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| # ¿ Mar 7, 2011 21:17 |
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I don't know why, but if the packets says that the plants can be finnicky to grow, I just throw them over my shoulder and wait, but if the packet says it will grow in the drat sahara or the lush jungles of south america with equal aplomb, I will just murder it. For the life of me, I can't get mint to grow. Catnip, lemon balm, spearmint, peppermint, they all poke thier heads up and then whither away. Ditto for cucumbers. last year I had piles of them by now. This year, only the Lemon Cukes have gotten beyond one or two true leaves and even the ones that are growing pretty well still haven't flowered. Tomatos(can be tricky in inland Mobile) on the other hand, I'm going to drown in them before long.
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| # ¿ May 16, 2011 20:07 |
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Enigmatic Troll posted:I got four plants this year on a whim marked "red chile". I treat my chile peppers just like my marriage. I neglect the hell out of them and eventually they make me cry. Seriously, I plant them so that they get full direct sun for about 14 hours a day and I water them MAYBE once a week. Last year I ended up getting around 100 peppers per plant and they kept producing until our second frost. It's been in the upper 90's lower 100s here and won't get back down to a reasonable temp until september. This year I started off watering them every other day and they weren't growing. As soon as I backed off to once a week, they started shooting up. This has the added benefit of producing peppers that are on the hotter end of thier scoville spectrum. Of course that was just my experience. I don't know if there is scientific data to back that up.
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| # ¿ Jun 7, 2011 15:00 |
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Looking at people's gardens outside my zone is so bizarre and somewhat depressing to me. People on this board are talking about tomatos starting to fruit, still picking summer squash, etc. My tomatos have come and were gone as of July 1st. Same for the squash. I don't get to harvest chiles until the beginning of July, so I only get about 2 batches of completely home grown fresh salsa. On the plus side, I already sowed my midsummer beans and cucumbers and have large sprouts. In about 5 more weeks, I'll be sowing spinach again to get ready for fall\winter.
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| # ¿ Jul 29, 2011 02:37 |
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concerned mom posted:I hope this is the right thread to post this! I'm trying to grow a chilli plant and it doesn't seem to be doing very well. I got it from seeds months ago and after starting slowly I gave it some liquid feed which made it shoot up an inch rapidly and since then it's kind of stagnated. I make sure the soil is always moist but the leaves look pretty sickly with yellow and greyish splotches on and it has hardly grown since. Does it need re-potting, more fertiliser? I'm apparently terrible. Definitely looks like the pot is too small. Also, I feed mine between 2 and 4 times a month. Before I started doing that, the leaves were all droopy and yellow. You don't want most common chili pepper plants in soil that is too moist. My plan is to water only when the soil completely dries out to about 2 knuckles deep.
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| # ¿ Aug 11, 2011 17:45 |
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| # ¿ May 25, 2013 08:17 |
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Third Policeman posted:Thanks for the link, but I think I will take my chance with supermarket garlic ( £1 for 5 bulbs ) versus seed garlic ( £4.50 for 2 bulbs ). I did supermarket garlic last year and while it sprouted, I didn't get any bulb development.
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| # ¿ Sep 12, 2011 20:58 |
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