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poeticoddity
Jan 14, 2007
"How nice - to feel nothing and still get full credit for being alive." - Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - Slaughterhouse Five

ptkfvk posted:

I have a rock flower bed in front of my house that i cleared out and planted a bunch of flower seeds in earlier this spring. in the process of clearing it out i found a buried walnut there.

now the flowers are coming in and a squirrel keeps coming in a diggin up the same spot looking for the nut. is there anything i can do to get it to stop? will it eventually stop? should i build a tiny landmine and bury it in the saame spot?

They may not be in season where you are, but squirrels are edible. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll some day have a garden that produces delicious deer.

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Squibbles
Aug 24, 2000

Mwaha ha HA ha!

poeticoddity posted:

They may not be in season where you are, but squirrels are edible. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll some day have a garden that produces delicious deer.

We've got a few for you

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

ptkfvk posted:

I have a rock flower bed in front of my house that i cleared out and planted a bunch of flower seeds in earlier this spring. in the process of clearing it out i found a buried walnut there.

now the flowers are coming in and a squirrel keeps coming in a diggin up the same spot looking for the nut. is there anything i can do to get it to stop? will it eventually stop? should i build a tiny landmine and bury it in the saame spot?

I keep finding sunflower sprouts all over my garden because of these guys and I think it’s awesome.

DrBouvenstein
Feb 28, 2007

I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.
Transplanted my tomatoes this morning when it was still cooler and the garden was shaded.

Fingers crossed.



They really kind of disappear in that photo...which makes me think I transplanted too early and they're too small.

But they all sort of stopped growing in the cell packs. Almost no growth in a week, even with them getting hardened outside in real sun.

But they also weren't root-bound...I actually had a hell of a time getting them out of their cells because the roots were kind of the opposite, if I tried to push on the dirt from the backside, only dirt came out and not the plant, had to gently tug on the plants to get them out and they basically only had the one long root going straight down.

I don't have high hopes. :/

Jhet
Jun 3, 2013

DrBouvenstein posted:

Transplanted my tomatoes this morning when it was still cooler and the garden was shaded.

Fingers crossed.



They really kind of disappear in that photo...which makes me think I transplanted too early and they're too small.

But they all sort of stopped growing in the cell packs. Almost no growth in a week, even with them getting hardened outside in real sun.

But they also weren't root-bound...I actually had a hell of a time getting them out of their cells because the roots were kind of the opposite, if I tried to push on the dirt from the backside, only dirt came out and not the plant, had to gently tug on the plants to get them out and they basically only had the one long root going straight down.

I don't have high hopes. :/

So remember a while ago when I said that patience is the hardest thing to learn in gardening? I did this the first year I started tomatoes too. And then a little bit again the second year.

They are probably a bit small, and when you start hardening them off, the plants stop growing for a bit while they adjust to new weather, wind, and temperatures. They'll also probably not grow much for another week because you've just transplanted them and they're still probably adjusting to being outdoors.

But it's still not a loss, those plants might come up big and tall, but they might be a little behind. So try to be patient, don't over-fertilize because they're not growing fast enough, don't over and under water them, and let them be tomatoes. Then take notes for next year, wait until they're a little bigger and start the seeds a couple weeks earlier (seriously, put this on your calendar now so you remember). Then next year, they'll be a little bigger when you put them in the ground, and then you can think about how you changed things and how the weather was and how the yields ended. It's simultaneously the best and worst part of gardening, but the goal is to be able to think about it while eating what you grew, so that makes it a lot easier.

(Also, pro tip, if these aren't doing what you want, you can "cheat" and buy some from a garden center.)

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

Squibbles posted:

We've got a few for you

Yep. My new crop comes in every July or so.

SubG
Aug 19, 2004

It's a hard world for little things.

Fitzy Fitz posted:

Oh wow, I totally forgot that I wanted to grow bitter melon this year. I wonder if it's too late.
I guess it depends where you live, but bitter melons really want it to be on the warmer side, so late Spring/early Summer is actually the ideal planting time.

Fitzy Fitz
May 14, 2005




I'm in Georgia, so it's about to get tropical around here. Hmm might order some seeds then. I think all my yardlong beans got a virus anyway, so I need to replace them.

Platystemon
Feb 13, 2012

as a person who never leaves my house i've done pretty well for myself.

cakesmith handyman posted:

My patio apple tree (gala on dwarf rootstock) has developed one set of leaves that turned white and powdery over a couple of days, is this fungal or something? Should I treat it or the whole plant or just prune this bit off?



I think that’s apple powdery mildew, which is different than the mildew other plants get.

SubG
Aug 19, 2004

It's a hard world for little things.

Fitzy Fitz posted:

I'm in Georgia, so it's about to get tropical around here. Hmm might order some seeds then. I think all my yardlong beans got a virus anyway, so I need to replace them.
Tropical is exactly what bitter melons want. Or at least all the bitter melons I'm familiar with--dunno if there are specific cultivars that behave differently.

I used to try to grow bitter melons by starting the seeds indoors and then transplanting, but these days I just direct sow. It seems to lead to slightly lower germination rates--I usually put three or four seeds in a hole, and expect to get one or two sprouts--but more vigorous plants. If I'm planning on growing them in the same place in consecutive seasons I'll just let a couple fruit get overripe at the very end of the season and then work it into the soil and leave it there over winter. It might just be coincidence or bias but the vines that grow from self-sowing (or assisted self-sowing or whatever you call it) are stronger.

If you're ordering seeds online then I like both the bitter melon and long bean seeds I've gotten from Kitazawa. I've grown both their Futo and Deva bitter melons (they call them bitter gourd). I'm currently propagating seeds from one or the other, but I don't recall which (and it's possible that I've unintentionally crossbred them and so I'm propagating a hybrid). But I've had real good luck with growing them and they're really tasty if you're into bitter melon.

I also really like their kurosanjaku long beans, although they're not quite as dry as a lot of long beans are--they're almost like a cross between haricots verts/green beans and most of the Chinese long beans I've had. I like them a lot and they're productive as hell. The only downside is that my local ants seem to love farming aphids on the fruit. As in I had a massive loving outbreak of aphids at the end of the season last year.

Pretty much any long beans will happily grow in the middle of a hot and humid summer, so they're absolutely something you can get away with planting this late if you're thinking about it.

Fitzy Fitz
May 14, 2005




Thanks -- I was actually looking at kitazawa. I may put the melons into a 7-gal pot. I've been having the worst luck with slugs eating anything I sow directly this year. I've caught a bunch in beer cups and smashed more by hand, but they keep coming. I put out DE when it's dry, but now we're getting rain every day, so..

SubG
Aug 19, 2004

It's a hard world for little things.

Fitzy Fitz posted:

Thanks -- I was actually looking at kitazawa. I may put the melons into a 7-gal pot. I've been having the worst luck with slugs eating anything I sow directly this year. I've caught a bunch in beer cups and smashed more by hand, but they keep coming. I put out DE when it's dry, but now we're getting rain every day, so..
If you're putting in an order, I also like the greens from Kitazawa. When the lockdown happened that meant my normal planting plan was shot all to hell--I usually get some seedlings from local nurseries, and those were all shut down. To make up for that, I ordered a shitload of various kinds of greens from Kitazawa, and they've all been growing well.

I put in small patches of a bunch of different greens, but the standouts so far have been a mustard green they call komatsuna, a bok choy they call `Chinese Pak Choi', and another bok choy they call Shanghai. I mean yeah, greens. They tend to have high germination and grow without a lot of fuss in general. But I picked up I dunno looks like a dozen and a half seed packets from them and those have been the stars so far.

I also started out a batch of gai lan and yu choi from their seeds earlier, but a cold snap hosed them all up when they were less than an inch tall, so I re-tilled and replanted them. The yu choi seems to be coming in well and the gai lan has germinated like crazy, but none of the replanted stuff is close to harvesting yet.

I think the only real failures that I have to report from their seeds is holy basil. Tried planting a couple different cultivars and had almost zero germination. That could just be something about the weather or something, though, because I had the same problem with a couple Italian basil cultivars from a different seed source (Southern Exposure). Never really had any problems with basil from seed before, so I don't know if there's a new soil problem I don't know about or what. I've currently got a couple basil clippings from my CSA in jars of water that I'm hoping to get to root to get some going in the garden.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


SubG posted:

If you're putting in an order, I also like the greens from Kitazawa. When the lockdown happened that meant my normal planting plan was shot all to hell--I usually get some seedlings from local nurseries, and those were all shut down. To make up for that, I ordered a shitload of various kinds of greens from Kitazawa, and they've all been growing well.

I put in small patches of a bunch of different greens, but the standouts so far have been a mustard green they call komatsuna, a bok choy they call `Chinese Pak Choi', and another bok choy they call Shanghai. I mean yeah, greens. They tend to have high germination and grow without a lot of fuss in general. But I picked up I dunno looks like a dozen and a half seed packets from them and those have been the stars so far.

I also started out a batch of gai lan and yu choi from their seeds earlier, but a cold snap hosed them all up when they were less than an inch tall, so I re-tilled and replanted them. The yu choi seems to be coming in well and the gai lan has germinated like crazy, but none of the replanted stuff is close to harvesting yet.

I think the only real failures that I have to report from their seeds is holy basil. Tried planting a couple different cultivars and had almost zero germination. That could just be something about the weather or something, though, because I had the same problem with a couple Italian basil cultivars from a different seed source (Southern Exposure). Never really had any problems with basil from seed before, so I don't know if there's a new soil problem I don't know about or what. I've currently got a couple basil clippings from my CSA in jars of water that I'm hoping to get to root to get some going in the garden.
Do any of those asian greens tolerate long, hot, humid, gulf coast summers? Much as I love all the summer vegetables, I miss greens during the summer. Something dug up my first planting of asparagus beans, so I may try some of those varieties you mentioned.

Also what the heck is a bitter melon?

E: drat they got some cute fuckin lil eggplant varieties

Kaiser Schnitzel fucked around with this message at 03:13 on May 21, 2020

ptkfvk
Apr 30, 2013

i left some nuts out for the squirrel as reparations. hopefully tensions ease

Suspect Bucket
Jan 15, 2012

SHRIMPDOR WAS A MAN
I mean, HE WAS A SHRIMP MAN
er, maybe also A DRAGON
or possibly
A MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM
BUT HE WAS STILL
SHRIMPDOR
Malabar spinach is great for hot humid weather. Mine was gangbusters in Jacksonville straight through summer. It's kinda like a thicker, more gooey spinach. Like spinach and okra had a baby. A bit rough as a raw salad, but good as a topping, in a sandwich, and in any dish you would use regular cooked English spinach.

You can also eat sweet potato and squash leaves as a green.

Spent a few hours tidying the garden and patio today, coming along nicely. Still can't put the tomatoes out though and I'm completely out of pots. Tomorrow is another run to home depot.

Suspect Bucket fucked around with this message at 03:25 on May 21, 2020

Fitzy Fitz
May 14, 2005




Kaiser Schnitzel posted:


Also what the heck is a bitter melon?

Imagine a zucchini that tastes like a green bell pepper. It's a really unique fruit that frankly tastes awful. But when it's cooked well it's enjoyable, like chili's are even though they make your tongue burn.

They're renowned for their health benefits, but I don't think I really buy it.

Thumposaurus
Jul 24, 2007

In typical MD weather fashion the forecast changed and I spent the last few day furiously planting things before the rains came. Now there won't be rain for another few days.

I had a bunch of potatoes in planter bags I stuck in the ground today they were getting too big for the bags. I got some bonus baby potatoes that shook out of the roots when I was getting them out of the bags. Did a quick bake on them with some olive oil salt and pepper to have with dinner tonight A+ can't wait for more of those little fuckers to grow in.

Shine
Feb 26, 2007

No Muscles For The Majority
My grocery store potatoes have a bunch of buds now. It'll be nice to have flowers in the garden. The progress they've made in 18 days has been so much fun to watch. The ones I'm growing from certified seeds are also exploding.

That said, I'm wondering about something.

I was reading random potato stuff last night, and I came across several websites that said potatoes have both determinate and indeterminate varieties. Indeterminate varieties produce potatoes up the vine, but determinate only produce them around the level of the original seed. These sites said that for determinate varieties, as long as you have at least 4" of soil over the seed and maybe some mulch, the potatoes will be protected from sun exposure, and no hilling is necessary and doing so won't increase the yield.

I see people online saying "I did hilling and the hill was full of potatoes, so hilling is great" and other people saying "I did hilling but nothing grew above the seed, so hilling is bullshit", so the in/determinate thing could be the difference there (the former people may have used indeterminate, and the latter used determinate). But at the same time, it seems odd that none of the various certified seed potato companies I looked at show this in/determinate distinction in product descriptions, and it seems like every "how to grow potatoes" guide says you need to hill them repeatedly. Even the guide that came with my seeds said to hill up at least 10" as it grows.

Aside from the grocery store red potato, I'm growing adirondack blues and caribes, and a cursory google suggests that they (and early potatoes in general) are determinate.

I know that in YLLS Land there's no shortage of very common practices/beliefs that are myths, so I'm open to "all potatoes need hilling" being a gardening myth. Thoughts? Do I need to keep hilling these potatoes, or is that just wasting effort and potting soil?

Platystemon
Feb 13, 2012

as a person who never leaves my house i've done pretty well for myself.
I trust this man’s tuber knowledge, and he says hilling doesn’t affect yield.

quote:

Potatoes have two growth habits: determinate and indeterminate, which are largely synonymous with early and late maturities, respectively. Determinate potatoes usually have early to mid-season maturities. They grow to a certain size, set tubers, and then senesce uniformly. Indeterminate potatoes will continue to grow for as long as conditions allow, branching and flowering over a long periods, producing very large plants and, in some cases, very large harvests of tubers. This is not a useful trait for big agriculture, since it makes it difficult to time the harvest. Where indeterminate varieties and big agriculture intersect, as is the case with the classic variety ‘Russet Burbank’, the solution usually involves killing the crop with herbicide in order to harvest while weather is still favorable. Indeterminacy can be a very good trait for small growers who are not reliant on mechanical harvesting. One important thing to note about indeterminacy is that it does not mean that potatoes continue to produce more tubers as you hill them higher. This is a persistent myth. Indeterminacy means that the plant is able to continue growing larger and collecting more sunlight to form tubers, but the number of stolons is not significantly different.

Jhet
Jun 3, 2013

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

Do any of those asian greens tolerate long, hot, humid, gulf coast summers? Much as I love all the summer vegetables, I miss greens during the summer. Something dug up my first planting of asparagus beans, so I may try some of those varieties you mentioned.

Also what the heck is a bitter melon?

E: drat they got some cute fuckin lil eggplant varieties

Yes, and Kitazawa does a pretty good job labeling the greens for season and temperatures. They have plenty of options and I have a similar collection of seeds that SubG seems to be growing. The germ rate was really very good last year, and the yard long beans I got from them exploded in the heat and humidity last summer after a really wet and cool June.

You could also try out some shade cloth, but with super humid and hot, I don’t know how much that will actually help. The Shanghai and Chineses pok choy both bolted quickly after it got warm, but chards did really well in the heat for me last year. And the collards got to be enormous plants understandably. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could find some mustard variety that did well in a little more shade too.

Endie
Feb 7, 2007

Jings

Suspect Bucket posted:

They're in fresh miracle grow potting soil, and I fertilized 5 days ago with 20-20-20. Did I over-fertilize? Hardwood mulch. That's why I'm so confused. It's been a touch chilly, in the 40s last night and probably tonight, but they were like this yesterday and it was high 50s overnight then. Daytime temps over 60. Still a bit cold, but I cant bring them in again, no room. Tonight should be the last 40s night for the season though.

Bit of a long shot, and I suspect that it would take longer to take effect, but yellowing leaves can be a sign of nitrogen deficiency, while woodchip mulches rob nitrogen from soil as they begin to decompose.

SubG
Aug 19, 2004

It's a hard world for little things.

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

Do any of those asian greens tolerate long, hot, humid, gulf coast summers? Much as I love all the summer vegetables, I miss greens during the summer. Something dug up my first planting of asparagus beans, so I may try some of those varieties you mentioned.
Gai lan always bolts on me once it starts getting into the 90s and once it starts bolting there's no saving it.

Yu choy is usually good for one decent harvest before bolting--if you're not familiar with it, you usually harvest by topping the plant and then letting it re-grow; in good weather you can get two or three harvests out of a plant before it decides to get woody and bolt. In the summer heat I'll usually get one harvest out of a plant, and then the regrowth will be the plant bolting.

Mustard greens seem to be be produce okay if you can keep them in shade. They'll bolt, but they seem to produce a good bunch of edible leaves before the plant goes to seed.

Bok choy seems to be willing to grow but ends up getting...whatever the greens equivalent of leggy is, so it will produce edible leaves but they're sorta long and spindly, and then the plant will bolt before forming a nice head.

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

Also what the heck is a bitter melon?
A curcurbit that looks like a dragon turd and tastes...like a dragon turd.

They're definitely an acquired taste kind of thing, but sliced and thrown into stirfry they're pretty good. They're really more...astringent? something like that, more than bitter. Sliced and then salted before cooking they loose a lot of the bitter/whatever flavour and just have a sort of distinct green veg flavour. They're also really good pickled, like as a tsukemono/banchan kind of thing on the side.

If you're looking for a dish to ease into bitter melon, Okinawan chanpuru is pretty good--there's a lot of complimentary flavours and the kind of bitter melon characteristic to Okinawan cuisine is a little less...assertive than the bitter melon more common in, say, China. There's a local Chinese place that seasonally has bitter melon on the non-English menu and it's waaaaaay funkier than the bitter melons I grow in the back yard.

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

E: drat they got some cute fuckin lil eggplant varieties
This is a trap. Every year I grow Japanese eggplants and they take off like crazy and produce like troopers and they're wonderful and a credit to eggplants everywhere.

Every year I plant a couple Thai or Lao or whatever green eggplants or some other crazy cool-looking cultivar and they grow like two inches and then fall over. Last year I had a Lao green eggplant plant that sprouted almost as soon as the seed was in soil, it grew into a nice, vigorous-looking plant right up until it was about 10" tall...and then it just sat there. Didn't wilt. Didn't drop leaves. Didn't discolour. But just spent the next 4, 5 months exactly the same size.

Year before that I had two green eggplant sprouts that came up and just sat there with just their seed leaves for like three months. I didn't even know that poo poo was possible.

Eggplants, man. They'll gently caress with ya just to gently caress with ya.

DrBouvenstein
Feb 28, 2007

I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.
What's a good plant or two I can plant in a fairly shady area?

I have one half of one of my raised beds that I underestimated how much sun it gets. A neighbor's tree starts to shade it at like 1:30. The sun IS moving in the right direction to get it more sun, so come June 21ish it might get sun to as late as like 2:30/3, but then the sun will start moving in the other direction, so...really I can only count on like 6-7 hours of sun a day.

Is there anything I can get (at this point probably as a seedling, though I'm open to ones that can still be started from direct sow this late) that love a lot of shade?

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


DrBouvenstein posted:

What's a good plant or two I can plant in a fairly shady area?

I have one half of one of my raised beds that I underestimated how much sun it gets. A neighbor's tree starts to shade it at like 1:30. The sun IS moving in the right direction to get it more sun, so come June 21ish it might get sun to as late as like 2:30/3, but then the sun will start moving in the other direction, so...really I can only count on like 6-7 hours of sun a day.

Is there anything I can get (at this point probably as a seedling, though I'm open to ones that can still be started from direct sow this late) that love a lot of shade?

6 hrs of sun is considered full sun, so it should be fine. Depending on your climate, the plants may appreciate a little afternoon shade (they do here). In hot, dry weather, the plant essentially halts production/photosynthesis in the late afternoon anyway because it can't pull water up fast enough to keep up with the loss from photosynthesis.

If you're worried about it, plants that make mostly leaves (greens, herbs) generally need less sun than plants that make flowers and fruit.

Not directly related to this, but it reminds me of a neat thing I read somewhere. Some plants react to shade/sun differently and will only do photosynthesis at the 'right' level of light for them. Even though there is still filtered light coming through the shade, some sun-loving plants won't 'turn on' and use it and vice versa, and some plants just don't care and will use whatever light they can get.

BaseballPCHiker
Jan 16, 2006

Learned a lot this year in seed starting. My plan this year was to abandon the small 6 cell seed trays and go to bigger roughly quart size pots to get a few plants bigger and healthier.

Well it was a good plan but I started WAY to early for my zone. I know now that I need to start no sooner than April 1st.

The problem wasnt that I was overwatering plants I dont think, though I definitely did at least once. The problem is that my plants had outgrown the pots by a significant margin.

Planted them outside yesterday and the poor things were totally root bound. Lesson learned for next year.

CommonShore
Jun 6, 2014

A true renaissance man


BaseballPCHiker posted:

Learned a lot this year in seed starting. My plan this year was to abandon the small 6 cell seed trays and go to bigger roughly quart size pots to get a few plants bigger and healthier.

Well it was a good plan but I started WAY to early for my zone. I know now that I need to start no sooner than April 1st.

The problem wasnt that I was overwatering plants I dont think, though I definitely did at least once. The problem is that my plants had outgrown the pots by a significant margin.

Planted them outside yesterday and the poor things were totally root bound. Lesson learned for next year.

I started too early as well but the plants kept me sane through March and April. I'm glad I started my peppers early, though. They needed the time. Might push the tomatoes back a bit next year.

B33rChiller
Aug 18, 2011




A Pack of Kobolds posted:

:ohdear: Oh no. Mint is an invasive plant and impossible to get rid of, but mint doesn't have spike vines. You may have a blackberry patch now, my friend.


I feel like I owe you a direct apology. During my ranting about pruning tomatoes, I was coming from the perspective of cutting overgrown plants back and not about growing from seed or starter. It's a big loving difference, and I should have caught it. The good news is that is a very healthy plant and it'll probably explode if you give it a bigger pot.

It's all good. No hard feelings, and the tomatoes are doing great in the biggest pots I have. I'm trying string supports for the first time this year.

showbiz_liz
Jun 2, 2008
I am very new to this. Over the past two years I went from like 3 potted plants to about 15, and then this past Christmas my sister got me a pack of 20 different herb seeds and 6 different pepper seeds. Also I'm in New York City and my outdoor space consists of 1. a fire escape and 2. the roof of a lower section of my building - no actual yard.

Now this is my situation:







Mostly it's going well but something is definitely eating the herbs. Suggestions welcome.

Also omg Suspect Bucket we have the same little enamel pots!

Suspect Bucket
Jan 15, 2012

SHRIMPDOR WAS A MAN
I mean, HE WAS A SHRIMP MAN
er, maybe also A DRAGON
or possibly
A MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM
BUT HE WAS STILL
SHRIMPDOR

showbiz_liz posted:

I am very new to this. Over the past two years I went from like 3 potted plants to about 15, and then this past Christmas my sister got me a pack of 20 different herb seeds and 6 different pepper seeds. Also I'm in New York City and my outdoor space consists of 1. a fire escape and 2. the roof of a lower section of my building - no actual yard.

Now this is my situation:







Mostly it's going well but something is definitely eating the herbs. Suggestions welcome.

Also omg Suspect Bucket we have the same little enamel pots!

OMG BENDING THE HANDLES WHAT AN AMAZING IDEA

I've been loving around balancing them on the rails like an idiot

showbiz_liz
Jun 2, 2008

Suspect Bucket posted:

OMG BENDING THE HANDLES WHAT AN AMAZING IDEA

I've been loving around balancing them on the rails like an idiot

Yep! I spent ages loving with one until it worked right, then tried to bend the other ones to match. Just used my fingers. It works great but the enamel definitely flakes off at the bend points. For the price though I couldn't care less.

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

I'm ordering a load of soil from a local company. I'm concerned because we have a lot of Japanese Knotweed in our area. Is there anything I can do to ensure I'm not getting contaminated soil?

BaseballPCHiker
Jan 16, 2006

Professor Shark posted:

I'm ordering a load of soil from a local company. I'm concerned because we have a lot of Japanese Knotweed in our area. Is there anything I can do to ensure I'm not getting contaminated soil?

How much soil are you getting?

I've boiled water and mixed it in my potting soil in a big rubbermaid bin to kill off things before planting. Its a lot of work if its much beyond a single large bag of soil.

Fitzy Fitz
May 14, 2005




Hopefully your soil provider doesn't have knotweed contamination. Jesus Christ. I don't think there's anything you can do if it does.

taqueso
Mar 8, 2004


:911:
:wookie: :thermidor: :wookie:
:dehumanize:

:pirate::hf::tinfoil:
That's hopefully something a soil provider would know about.

DrBouvenstein
Feb 28, 2007

I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.
How does Japan handle their Knotweed?

Is there a native animal that eats it, keeping it in check?

Does their soil and/or climate naturally slow it's progression?

Other plants in the area are better at fighting it off?

All these and more?

I don't have any DIRECTLY near me, but there's a big patch on an embankment maybe...1/3 a mile away? It might could eventually migrate, though I feel it's unlikely.



Tried to block out my street names, don't need to get doxxed. Blue is me, red is the knotweed patch.

I'-ve looked pretty carefully, and I haven't noticed it on any lawns across the street from it, a little bit on the lawn that's closest there.

DrBouvenstein fucked around with this message at 20:23 on May 21, 2020

showbiz_liz
Jun 2, 2008

DrBouvenstein posted:

How does Japan handle their Knotweed?

Is there a native animal that eats it, keeping it in check?

Does their soil and/or climate naturally slow it's progression?

Other plants in the area are better at fighting it off?

All these and more?

What about Japanese knotweed in Japan?

quote:

A hint of Japanese knotweed’s resilience and invasive potential is that it grows successfully on the scree and lava fields lining the slopes of Japan’s many active volcanoes. However, in this environment the plants are typically much smaller in size than in Europe due to poor soils, 'central die back' of the plant (similar to fairy rings, common in the UK), and the repeated coverings of volcanic ash and landslides that serve to limit knotweed growth.

In its Japanese habitat knotweed is further kept in check by a large native ecosystem of similarly vigorous giant herbs such as the grasses Miscanthus and Bamboo, and natural invertebrate pests such as the psyllid Aphalara itadori. A range of Japanese soil fungi and plant diseases also attack all parts of the knotweed plant.

As a whole, this more hostile native environment helps to suppress Japanese knotweed in Japan. In urban areas knotweed is still however a problem warranting chemical control and physical management - only not to the degree that it is Europe.

Outside of its native habitat, lacking predation, competition, and suppression by volcanic ash, a strong aboveground Japanese knotweed plant is able to sink much more energy into a hardy underground rhizome. In turn, at different stages of the year, the rhizome is then able to pour more energy back into aboveground growth.

Suspect Bucket
Jan 15, 2012

SHRIMPDOR WAS A MAN
I mean, HE WAS A SHRIMP MAN
er, maybe also A DRAGON
or possibly
A MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM
BUT HE WAS STILL
SHRIMPDOR
Volcanoes and bamboo, got it.

SpaceCadetBob
Dec 27, 2012
Help gardening thread. I have 7 pots of onions, carrots, and herbs in 12” and 18” containers. Ive never grown anything before and I have no idea how often and much I should water the pots?

LogisticEarth
Mar 28, 2004

Someone once told me, "Time is a flat circle".

Professor Shark posted:

I'm ordering a load of soil from a local company. I'm concerned because we have a lot of Japanese Knotweed in our area. Is there anything I can do to ensure I'm not getting contaminated soil?

The only real solution to this is to buy from a reputable company. They shouldn't be selling topsoil full of noxious weed seeds. As a backup, you can put on a couple inches of bagged compost or topsoil to keep the weeds down.

Knotweed is a bitch but if you keep at it before it goes to seed you should be able to get rid of it. On the upside, you can use younger shoots similar to rhubarb.

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Fitzy Fitz
May 14, 2005




Speaking of knotweed, I found some on a ride today. As if our privet problem wasn't enough.

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