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Hobo Camp posted:I gave up on my cantaloupe plants. We've been having really unpredictable weather in California (100 degrees one day, 65 the next) and it's been months since I planted them. I also work really long hours and don't really have the time to tender to them every day. But I kept watering them anyway because the thought of them dying broke my heart. Canteloupes are a lot hardier than you'd think. I had a pair that went rotten on me, so I just dug a hole in the backyard and dropped them in(I'm in Orlando, for reference. We don't have soil, just white sand essentially), a couple weeks later there were canteloupe sprouts which did surprisingly well. Fast forward, we're in a vicious drought and they don't get watered for over 2 months, plus being baked in full sun and 100 degree temps daily. The first rainstorm of the summer hits, and the next morning I have nearly every leaf fuzzy, fat, and looking like they'd been watered regularly all summer. Melons are some tough bastards. To contribute, I've jumped on the bandwagon with congo birdseye peppers and some zambian variety given to me by a friend, and some basil from Target that took all of 2 days to sprout and another one to toss up the first leaves. I grew it from seed in these little foil packs with a sphagnum puck in them and had just about every seed sprout; currently I've had to dedicate an entire windowbox to just half of the seedlings by now, so I think a lot of caprese salads are in my future this summer. I had to skip a bit of the thread to catch up, has anybody tried growing tropicals at all? I have some sugar apple seeds from a particularly tasty fruit and evidently sugar apples are able to grow here, they are just sensitive to cold temperatures the first year or two. So, I figure I can just keep it potted until that mark has passed, then plant it somewhere or look into making a pruned mini version that still bears fruit. I'd like to try planting some native fruits but haven't really found too many that aren't tree-based and take time. I can definitely do alligator apple, but that will require a large tub to keep it underwater since it's a marsh and canal plant. e: maybe some passionfruits, beautiful flowers and delicious fruit. I know they can deal with the climate, all the construction sites back home used to be swarming with them during springtime from workers spitting out seeds in fall. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at Nov 9, 2009 around 21:15 |
| # ¿ Nov 9, 2009 21:12 |
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| # ¿ May 21, 2013 09:45 |
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Has anybody had any experience setting up some grow lights for overwintering? My peppers basically got ravaged during thanksgiving due to being left inside and out of direct sunlight for 4 days (friend was taking care of the pets, had her bring the plants inside to avoid a <50F cold snap and she never took them back out) and are barely hanging on. I've got to go back up home to Atlanta for a week and a half soon and would like to avoid killing these little guys off if possible, they've hung on too long. I have a surprisingly large amount of equipment necessary just laying around(2 2-foot fluorescent fixtures and a spare waterbed temp controller/heating pad), so I really just need to know things like lightsource distance, bulb temperature/wattage requirements, heat recommendations, etc. I do have a roommate staying here who can be asked to water them, he just won't be here the whole time and I can't depend on the temp not dropping down to the 40s for a night or two and murdering my chiles. Also: Slung Blade posted:Composter ideas? A nice diaper pail could be your solution. If it can hold back the stench of aging baby poo, it should do the trick for compost. Some of them even have holders for baking soda/charcoal stink-reducers.
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| # ¿ Dec 15, 2009 02:38 |
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kid sinister posted:Advice Thanks! I was planning on buying real grow lights, Sunshine Hydroponics is just around the corner from me(I'm right next to a large college, not really a coincedence there) and they've got a decent selection of bulbs for about 10ish apiece, I'll be setting it up tonight or tomorrow I think. I hope this works, those poor peppers have been abused so badly by now it's almost a matter of conscience to try and keep them going. E: \/\/\/\/ It's the the intensity of the various wavelengths emitted by the bulb. Lightbulbs emit different wavelengths at different levels in what looks like a bell curve when you graph wavelength vs intensity. You want to have the intensity curve of the wavelengths emitted match the preferred intensity curve of wavelengths the plant best utilizes. e2: Unfortunately for the wannabe winter gardener, the only thing anybody online has info on growing indoors is weed, which does not help me here. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at Dec 15, 2009 around 16:30 |
| # ¿ Dec 15, 2009 15:14 |
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Save me jeebus posted:I am very You're going to want to add some fertilizer soon, most of your nutrients probably went out with that rainwater. My basil and pepper plant are still going strong, they've pretty much outgrown the frame I've been hanging my grow light fixture off of by now, so I've moved them over to the windowsill and started some more peppers. I've found you can make excellent seed starters by cutting a 2 liter bottle 1/4 of the way up, filling it up with potting soil mix and soaking, then feathering the bottom of the other part of the bottle so it can slide down. Did a bunch of these with more pepper seeds and had 95% of them sprout and root sturdily in 4 days. No worries about stress from switching media when you transfer them out, too, you just sit it in the destination pot and cut the plastic off. Here's a lesson I didn't expect to learn: Raccoons seem to get at least as high as your cats do off of catnip. They will also do exponentially more damage to a potted catnip plant than your cat will. gently caress raccoons. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at Feb 17, 2010 around 05:11 |
| # ¿ Feb 17, 2010 05:02 |
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about gardening, as will be evident by my post. I'm trying to get better, though.
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Chajara posted:I ordered pickling cucumbers and San Marzano tomatoes from Seeds of Change and they got here today. I cleared off the top of my fridge and set up my grow light and got a big tray full of seeds started i got mine from walmart for 10 bucks, it's a solid fixture, grounded plug, nice thick insulation on the cord, strong pullchain too. Actually came with a bulb that complemented my "warm" light that I had bought from the hydroponics store down the road exactly, they had run out of the "cool" spectrum ones and forgotten to update their online stock count. E: Now with pictures! Several months ago:  Same plant, today (please ignore the badly overgrown and undertrimmed basil):  Look at those big fat beautiful leaves!  Pepper's little sisters:  The whole setup(the catnip and rosemary are outside with my other 2 basil planters, tomato is the roommate's):  Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at Feb 25, 2010 around 04:25 |
| # ¿ Feb 25, 2010 03:38 |
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mischief posted:Getting everything wound up here as well. Need to make sure my seeds are all still in order. Spring is loving awesome. drat skippy, I've already got planters full of soil/slow release fertilizer just waiting for the last dip down below 50, then my stuff is all getting transplanted and going outside. It rocks having a south-facing porch, especially with an overhang for light mid-day shade. I can't wait to see those pepper seedlings rocket up and start giving me sweet, tiny, firey fruits to torment my friends and tickle my tongue with. If the rental company is cool with it, I may rip out the lovely, half-dead bushes under the window and plant a straight-up herb and light veggie garden. It would certainly make the outside look a lot nicer and up their property value when I eventually clear out of here in a year or two.
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| # ¿ Feb 25, 2010 04:35 |
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The Weird posted:Crossposted from the GWS Gardening Thread 2010 Solution: Buy plexiglass, cut into desired size, glue/caulk/epoxy together. If you want one big molded piece, maybe make a mold, stick a shop vac in the bottom, and go to town with a heat gun?
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| # ¿ Oct 14, 2010 18:33 |
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I don't know how long to wait for your tomatoes, but don't trash them just because they're green. Do this instead, it's delicious
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| # ¿ Oct 22, 2010 05:04 |
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I can tell you from experience that they make really awesome bait. Bass go bonkers for them if you can rig up something for topwater and make the retrieval nice and twitchy. \/\/\/ If you have a really bad infestation of them, they can wreak havoc on a lawn or garden but it's pretty hard for it to get to that point. They're a favorite food of too many animals. If you have armadillos in the area they'll gladly take them off of your hands the second they smell 'em. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at Nov 20, 2010 around 05:06 |
| # ¿ Nov 20, 2010 01:35 |
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Maybe try mint family and Buddleia(butterfly)bushes? I know Buddleia does alright in shade, and it tolerated the red clay pretty well in Georgia. It will definitely draw in the butterflies and bees, too.
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| # ¿ Jan 31, 2011 18:43 |
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This is somewhat tangential to the current discussion, but http://www.eattheweeds.com is a good resource to poke around in. You can find out exactly which of the plants you're yanking out of your garden can pay you back for your effort with a good snack.
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| # ¿ Feb 2, 2011 05:17 |
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The Iron Fury posted:Absolutely! I tell people this all the time when they are being overly paranoid and concerned about their gardening endeavors! You can try doing what I do with bitchy seeds, I've had good success with it thus far: Take an empty 2-liter and cut the bottom 1/3 off. Poke a small hole in the bottom of each of the bumps on the bottom, just enough so excess water can weep out. Take the top 1/3 and feather the bottom a bit so you can slide it onto the bottom portion. Keep the cap on for now. Mix up some potting soil and sand so you get a nice mushy glop, fill the bottom portion with it, then slide the top on. Stick it in a south-facing windowsill, remove cap once it sprouts and throws up the first leaves. I've had seeds that utterly refused to sprout normally, sprout and throw up their initial leaves in 3 days with this method before, plants seem to love having their own mini-greenhouses. Plus it gives a use to all the 2-liters people have hanging around all the time, recycling trash is always good. e: Oh, and put 1 seed per 2-liter if you're not planning on growing a ton of them, 2 per bottle is acceptable as well; you just have to be vigilant about transplanting them before they twine roots together too much.
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| # ¿ Feb 21, 2011 06:06 |
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The Iron Fury posted:^^^ Speaking from experience, don't skimp on the soil level, those roots spread out FAST and you can accidentally root-bind your seedling if there isn't enough dirt in the bottom. My favorite thing about these is that you don't have to worry about damaging the seedling by tipping it upside down and trying to get the soil block out, you just stick it in the hole and cut the bottom portion until you can slide it off easily.
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| # ¿ Feb 21, 2011 17:06 |
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Less than a week in the ground and my poor abused cayenne is already fruiting and flowering, and the thai bird+congo birdseye chiles are sprouting leaves like it's going out of style. Hell yes Florida.
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| # ¿ Feb 25, 2011 04:54 |
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pisshead posted:Does anyone have any tips for growing herbs and chillies from seeds? How often are you supposed to water them? Some of them have gone mouldy, but I don't want them to dry out and die. Herbs are basically weeds, I had a single basil plant in a pot last year and now there's basil all over the front of my doorstep area. Try to kill them and they'll laugh in your face, save for a few exceptions(FYI rosemary HATES not being treated like a cactus. It will literally grow and thrive in bagged playground sand and zilch for watering). Chiles take a little babying when they're young, give them really really well-drained soil to start in. I had my best success with the ground-up sphagnum moss pucks that come in the cheapie "grow X herb from seed" foil packs from Target. Otherwise, use a potting soil/sand mixture to try and make the material as loose as possible and easy for them to sink those delicate little roots down through and still get air while remaining moist. I've heard people talk about only using distilled water due to chloramine killing seeds or excess mineral content inhibiting sprouting on tropical-origin plants but no hard proof. I've never done it, myself, sounds a little bit  to me for anything that's not an orchid or epiphyte. Those, however, are some picky bitches.e: once your chile seedlings get a few inches high, they like to get a good soaking every 2-3 days. Their native habitat in south mexico/the yucatan(yes i know there are arid varieties like piquin and chiltepin but we're typically talking tropical ones here) gets a couple inches of rain several times a week and typically has poor, very sandy soil with lots of mulch-type buildup from all the fallen and decomposing leaves. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at Apr 9, 2011 around 02:15 |
| # ¿ Apr 9, 2011 02:06 |
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flick3r posted:That's what I hear too but my mint plant is VERY VERY slow growing even though it has access to decent sun every day, and is watered like a pig every day. I don't know what type of mint plant it is.. but the Iguana here LOVE TO EAT IT. So I had to screen the top of the pot. Last time I woke up an Iguana had eaten all the leafs off the poor dying thing... Turn it around on them and eat the iguanas, then make bone meal out of the rest. Seriously, they're supposed to taste great, find a friend from central america and I bet they'll be all over some fresh, well-fed iguana. Also I'm assuming you're in the Boca/Ft Lauderdale/Miami area, those things are everywhere in SoFlo.
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| # ¿ May 8, 2011 01:21 |
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mcrandello posted:Eh, they're all nightshades so it couldn't really hurt too much. I usually throw a heaping teaspoon or so of (miracle grow porcine, no mad cow plz) bone meal around the peppers when the leaves start to get all 'gathered' up in between the veins. So far all the pepper plants have produced well except the Jamaican pepper plant and the Asian ones I put into a bed under a live oak. You may want to think about moving the one under your oak tree, they're famous for allelopathy and like to inhibit or outright poison anything growing within the radius of their crown. And yeah, bunched-up leaves basically mean a calcium defiency, nail them with something containing a crapload of it and they'll spring right back. I personally use the Botanicare Pure pelleted stuff(Sunshine Hydroponics is right down the road and carries it) and my peppers always go balls-out crazy after I add it to either the soil or their pots. There is a definite, marked, difference between a pot that I've added it to, and one that just got the normal Miracle-gro tomato/veggie potting mixture, that's for sure. You can also do foliar feeding with it and not have to worry about leaf burn, which is nice in the blazing-rear end-hot sun and current lack of rain we have here in Orlando. Tangent to all this, gently caress ants and their god damned aphid ranching. Insecticidal soap doesn't do poo poo when they just continually truck in some more aphids to replace the ones I killed off, but I'm not all that wild about having to spray pesticides all over my peppers to keep them from being sucked dry, either.
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| # ¿ May 21, 2011 07:04 |
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dwoloz posted:They tunnel in the soil and help oxygenate it Hahahahahahaha soil in Orlando. (Central Florida is basically dirty playground sand, we don't really have soil to speak of unless you go into an area that's been swampy and wet for a good long time) Thanks for the borax/sugar tip, I'll mix some up into jar lids around the base of the plants and see if that slows the ants down enough to not need diazinon. Last summer we got basically no rain so the ants went nuts, I had an ant hole every 5 feet and had to nail the whole front of the yard just to avoid stirring them up when putting the garbage out. E: /\/\/\ I guess you'll find out in pretty short order.
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| # ¿ May 21, 2011 23:38 |
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ijii posted:So one of my make shift domes for starting seeds has some how have loving fleas in it. Are you in an apartment or do you own/rent your house? If you're in an apartment it's entirely possible the people next to you might have brought them in on a dog/cat and they migrated. Otherwise, pyrethins do a bang-up job on fleas and are derived from chrysanthemums, they work by disrupting the fleas' nervous system and making it constantly fire. I don't think it should affect your sprouts, just smell bad for a bit. If I were you I'd go ahead and lay down diatomaceous earth in the corners of the carpets, you never know if they've gotten out of that dome or not. If you don't own one, borrow a dyson vacuum or a steam cleaner from a friend and go over the room too, you really really don't want any potential eggs hatching and finding the only warm bodies in the house.
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| # ¿ May 24, 2011 04:00 |
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ijii posted:I don't live in an apartment, I live in a house. The tiny insects have wings, so I guess they aren't fleas. They haven't gotten anywhere else in the house. Maybe I should just open the dome outside for today and hope they fly off. It's like they keep reproducing every day. They can fly but I don't see them fly off any where else. They just stay near the dome. Yup, definitely fungus gnats. And yes, they basically do, fruit flies can go from egg to adult in less than 48 hours in some species. Smack 'em with newspapers or do what Marchegiana suggested and they'll be gone in a little bit. If you want to do the vinegar thing, put a cider vinegar/dish soap mix in a glass, then put a funnel in the glass so the outlet is facing down. They're smart enough to get in, but not smart enough to get out and will eventually try landing on the mix, the soap is just there to remove surface tension so they can't help but drown.
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| # ¿ May 26, 2011 01:08 |
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Bigdee4933 posted:
Kimchee, kimchee, and more kimchee.
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| # ¿ May 31, 2011 04:40 |
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Bigdee4933 posted:Here is a picture taken with the lovely ipad camera. Either my monitor color balance is way off, or your dirt was imported from Hello Kitty land. Pinkest. Yard. Ever.
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| # ¿ Jun 5, 2011 01:12 |
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Ew, no thanks, I had to till and work soil amendment into post-subdivision-construction(when they were still allowed to strip off all the topsoil and then go sell it off before building your house) clay in Georgia all throughout my child- and teen-hood. I feel for you, go buy a rototiller if you haven't already. Kilersquirrel fucked around with this message at Jun 5, 2011 around 01:33 |
| # ¿ Jun 5, 2011 01:30 |
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Shotguns, root vegetables, herbs, and a nice dark malty beer to braise in.
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| # ¿ Jul 4, 2011 00:14 |
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dwoloz posted:Only things you can do to stop deer are either a tall enclosed fence or only plant plants deer don't like (and there aren't many) comedy option: Go balls-out berzerker with a spear like that one crazy cajun guy did with the feral hogs on his brother's rice farm. Or, call a friend who bowhunts, no report from a bow for anybody to call the cops about. real option: Rosemary is supposed to do a good job deterring deer, get some in pots and move it around the perimeter. Otherwise a (sturdy) fence will probably be your only option there if you can't locate something like coyote or wolf pee.
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| # ¿ Jul 4, 2011 01:05 |
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Alterian posted:I have a couple passion flower vines growing in my garden. They weren't suppose to be fruiting ones (the fruiting one would have to come in in the winter)m but one of them is growing a fruit. Can I eat it or will I die? Yes, you can eat it, it's all passionfruit. Don't eat the skins, of course, they aren't really tasty at all.
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| # ¿ Jul 6, 2011 04:41 |
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pisshead posted:My chilli and tomato plants got some sunlight once and some of the leaves went white and shrivelled up. Is there any hope for them? Where are you located at? I'm in Orlando and if my chiles get direct sunlight, they turn yellow and start frantically trying to die off after a day or so. Just pick the leaves off and give it extra water for a few days and they'll sprout right back. As far as the tomato goes, I don't know what's going on there. Maybe give it some partial shade as well. I'm pretty sure chile peppers are realistically full-sun only at latitudes above Georgia or so.
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| # ¿ Jul 16, 2011 18:03 |
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Yeah, get that thing into a larger pot, give it plenty of calcium carbonate-heavy fertilizer(I like to use an organic one based off of fish, but if you're bothered by the smell you might do something like get some Jobe's tomato spikes and load up the pot), and plenty of potting soil to expand those roots into. I have had the best results with the Miracle-Gro Organic Choice potting soil, personally, with nice big gallon-size pots. I personally wouldn't worry about overwatering it so long as it has good drainage available, all my pots have been soaking wet for most all of the summer from all the rain down here and they've gone nuts with the growth and fruiting. The key point is really to just not have standing water in the pot, that can and will cause things like root rot. Also if you're at a latitude further south than about mid-Georgia, keep it in some shade most of the day. Mine all bleach their leaves yellow after a day in the full Florida sun.
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| # ¿ Aug 11, 2011 22:44 |
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Faldoncow posted:Garlic! I'm going to take a wild stab at it and say lots of "Chicken with 40 cloves" nights and a shitload of latin-style roast pork as well. You can also cross the
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| # ¿ Aug 14, 2011 20:53 |
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A flying piece of posted:What the hell do I do with all of these figs? There's hundreds of them growing on this fig tree. I started off getting 2 a day last week and am up to 4-5 per day the last couple days. Send them to me, I will eat all of them in about a day. God I love figs.
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| # ¿ Aug 16, 2011 21:31 |
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Bean posted:Also, how'd it get light starved with a huge grow light over it? Grow lights can't possibly match the volume of light put out by the sun, and some plants just need a lot more than others. Moving your grow light just an inch further up can seriously cut down the amount of light that can be utilized by the leaf.
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| # ¿ Aug 26, 2011 04:49 |
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ijii posted:Let us know how that works out. Pitaya are vining cactus, they thrive on heat, sandy soil, and small but frequent watering. Absolutely no wet feet though. There's a ton of them growing on the central/southern Florida barrier islands, the flowers are beautiful and last a decently long time.
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| # ¿ Sep 21, 2011 19:17 |
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Consider it an investment in future grilling and/or smoking.
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| # ¿ Sep 23, 2011 21:01 |
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coyo7e posted:Also, I'm curious if anyone has ever seen or had one of these: http://www.savvyhousekeeping.com/herb-garden-spiral/ ? My yard has an overabundance of nice, large rocks which really have no place, but I would love to make a sweet herb garden out of them. My major concern is how this sort of thing would deal after 3-5 years, I suspect that some of the herbs in the spiral would really try and take over..? Well, anything in the mint family is going to try and take over, that's just what they do. Herbs in general are weedy plants and tend to try and expand as much as possible, but the solution is easy: eat them. You cook enough to where this won't be a problem, not to mention your friends/coworkers are probably going to be begging herbs off of you if mine were any indication.
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| # ¿ Oct 28, 2011 15:06 |
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If you can find sterilite brand ones they should be food-safe. The sliding drawer type containers made by them are, so as long as the plastic numbers match up you should be fine.
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| # ¿ Feb 2, 2012 22:15 |
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Hummingbirds posted:Alright guys it's almost spring, let's do this! (alternatively, here is some encouragement for everyone who is dealing with snow) I was kind of glad to stop living in Florida but I really do miss being able to start my seeds in January and put them out by the end of February/beginning of March. loving Texas prairie weather, god knows when the last frost will actually happen as it seems to oscillate between 70 and 30 every other day here for several months. Also pertinent to new Floridian gardeners: plant your basil and similar fleshy herbs now and start harvesting/storing a.s.a.p. because once it heats up for summer, no amount of rain keeps those poor things hydrated.
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| # ¿ Feb 13, 2012 19:31 |
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cheese eats mouse posted:It's the same thing here in the Ohio valley. We've gotten snow at the end of March on some years. Seriously, gently caress that noise. I vastly prefer potentially being able to go swimming on Christmas over potentially having to shovel snow on St. Patty's.
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| # ¿ Feb 14, 2012 05:57 |
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cowofwar posted:Yeah, and he's an rear end in a top hat too. He pulled out a pepper plant that I rescued and bit off a broccoli seedling that I was unable to save when I left the deer netting off for a couple minutes the other day. If you think he's an rear end in a top hat now, wait til he realizes he can get a buzz off of pepper plant leaves. I lost a good 6 seedlings to mine last spring and have to cage off any plants I have inside overwintering due to Lily figuring out that pepper leaves =  Witnessing a cat speeding on Solanacea alkaloids is certainly a sight to be seen though, almost worth the effort to clean up and replant.
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| # ¿ Mar 4, 2012 14:16 |
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A quick note about pesticides and toxicity, cats are very sensitive to permethrins, but are mostly tolerant of pyrethrins. They're similar but different; essentially permethrins are a synthetic version of pyrethrins with a slight change in the chemical structure. Unfortunately this change is one that cat livers can't handle very well(dogs deal with it better thankfully) and thus can't deactivate. So if you've got cats or your neighbors have cats that like to hang around your garden, double-check your active ingredient lists on those pesticides.
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| # ¿ Apr 18, 2012 04:50 |
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| # ¿ May 21, 2013 09:45 |
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GD_American posted:I'm fighting dollarweed in my garden, which I let go for too long. It's making the jump from a strip of lawn that's infested. I'm pulling up roots as far as I can from under the mulch, but a week later they come back, although weaker each time. How goddamned fast does dollar weed run those white runner roots out? Is this stuff just popping up from roots that I've missed, or does it genuinely grow that drat fast? Will there conceivably be some point where I've got it all, or do I just need to spray? Dollarweed (Hydrocotyle umbellifera specifically) is a salad herb, so depending on whether you've been using pest/herbicides on the lawn or not you may be able to eat it to death or at least into a static, manageable patch. Also yes it grows like crazy, it's basically the kudzu of sandy areas. The poo poo is nuts.
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| # ¿ May 3, 2012 16:47 |
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