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Jan posted:I don't tend my plants, I'm being buried under 2 metre tall plants growing rampant I built some 24" high raised beds this year. We hosed up the seed starting and hardening off and ended up with a bunch of spindly sunburnt tomato and pepper seedlings a couple weeks behind schedule. They're now 7 goddamn feet tall and I need a step ladder to get to the top of them. Cow manure compost is a helluva drug.
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Jul 24, 2019 18:46
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Anyone ever grow Black Vernissage tomatoes? We planted a few of them this year after getting a free seed packet along with other orders. Grows like crazy and we're getting yields probably twice that of our other tomatoes...but they're a little off. Kinda have a mealy texture and the flavor is just so-so. Not sure if that's just the way the variety is? On the flip side, our Lucky Tigers are delicious and also yielding a great crop.
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Aug 17, 2019 02:46
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guri posted:I grew black vernissage the past two years both in containers and in the ground and I agree. They were early and prolific but taste was just okay. Last year I had a bit problem with what seems to be internal blossom end rot (not sure exactly but I've seen that term brought up -- there were some somewhat hardened black areas on the inside) on a lot of them. For the record last year I also grew dark galaxy of which from two plants (one in container and one in the ground) I got a whole three tomatoes. The three I got were delicious but I wasn't left wanting to try growing them again. The "internal rot" is something I've seen with the black vernissage too. I have pounds and pounds of these things, not sure what to do with them! We also grew indigo rose, which are tasty and producing well. Lucky Tigers (already mentioned), Green Zebras, which came in early and were delicious until a thunderstorm knocked the plant over, and Speckled Roman, which is a larger plum tomato, beautiful, made great salsa. I think I'm going to grow the Lucky Tigers, Speckled Romans, and Green Zebras again, and then a beefsteak variety next year. Obviously in stronger cages since the 1x1 oak stakes didn't do it this year.
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Aug 21, 2019 13:46
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Solkanar512 posted:That’s amazing. I have a patch of lawn that I can’t do anything with because it’s a drain field so maybe I can have the vines go there. gently caress lawns. I wouldn't plant anything harvestable in a drainage way as it'll probably be too wet and/or get damaged if you have a storm. If you're tilling, you could also get nailed by whatever municipal storm water authority you have in your area. What you probably CAN use it for is a great bio-swale planted with native grasses and wildflowers for a great pollinator habitat. The more bees your garden sees, the better.
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Jan 21, 2020 18:01
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nesbit37 posted:This seemed like the best thread to post this question, if anyone knows of a better one just let me know! I'm a week late to the party here but I work for a conservation district and partner closely with Penn Sate Extension. We have loads of info on establishing meadow in urban environments. I can point you in the right direction with species and such too. Shoot me a PM, or post some more details here.
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Mar 17, 2020 02:30
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nesbit37 posted:Great! Just sent you a PM. Responded! Suspect Bucket posted:KEEP THE PARTY GOING That's tough to say, but you'd do best to make sure you kill off the turf grass so it doesn't compete much with the native stuff. Crappy, dry soil is often good for warm season grasses and such, so you might want to look into some conservation seed mixes. Wildflowers are great but they can get out of hand if you ONLY plant them, and a lot of them are annuals so you have to rely on them self-reseeding. This is why the addition of warm season grasses and such will help with a more uniform and constant look. A lot of the grasses also turn a nice ocher color in the fall and provide some structure and habitat over he winter. You need good seed-soil contact so if it's compacted make sure you rake it up good, and then roll after seeding. A mulch layer (leaf compost works great) is also advised. If you're doing a larger area you should look into basic aeration or overseeding. I shared this with the other guy but here's a great book that a colleague of mine developed, relevant to the east coast/PA: http://lgnc.org/pdfdocs/brandes_book.pdf
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Mar 17, 2020 18:23
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So it's my first year really trying to get seeds started properly in my basement. Am I going tot totally fail to have my tomatoes and peppers germinate if it's around 66-68°F down there? I don't have a heat mat handy. I also just got around to starting the seeds today as well, so I am way behind the curve for the season. Eastern PA for reference. We did a few seeds last year, tomatoes included, and they sprouted, but they were under a hotter halogen light. They were no also really spindly, but eventually took off and were over 7' by the end of the season.
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Mar 30, 2020 01:42
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Torpor posted:Why are planting trays so expensive? I guess I could use an egg carton or something, are there any other options? Are they really that expensive? From places like Greenhouse Megastore I got some 1020 trays, and a variety of plug inserts and pots for under $100, for enough for like 10 flats, or hundreds of plants. All sturdy and will last years. Note that a lot of places price by the 10 pack or whatever, so if you don't look closely you think it's $35/tray, when really it's $3.50 or whatever.
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Mar 31, 2020 20:07
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What a coincidence, I just bit the bullet and spent $200 on a cucumber trellis and several tomato towers from from Gardener Supply. I really looked into the cattle fencing options but it was hard to find ones that were the right dimensions so I wasn't ending up with too much waste, plus the transport and shopping around for the right stuff wasn't an exciting prospect right now. I probably could have saved $100 but gently caress it, amortized out over the decade or more these things will probably last it's peanuts. I lost half my tomato crop last year due to blowdowns be so good sturdy supports are worth it for me.
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Apr 13, 2020 22:33
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A Pack of Kobolds posted:What were you using for your tomatoes before? I religiously use tomato cages supplemented with bamboo stakes and the only issue I've ever had with them is not being tall enough. I'm not super familiar with tomato towers, but I do wonder why they cost several times more than a bog standard tomato cage from the hardware store. I had a mix of 1x1" oak stakes, and the "sturdy stakes", some set up in three-stake cages. We had one storm that just flattened a few of the sturdy stake cages and snapped the oak right in half. My plants just got too big for them and the wind pressure just took it all over. The main reason I sprung for the towers was because all the cheap cages, even the taller ones were still too short after I factored in having enough of it anchored in the ground. The other main difference is that it's far more of a "cage" with many more crossmembers and heavier gauge wire. If you don't have high windstorms occasionally it might not be worth it. But we've been having really nasty thunderstorms blow through eastern PA the last couple years.
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Apr 14, 2020 01:29
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BaseballPCHiker posted:I've got a 4x4x2 foot raised bed I just put in and its amazing how much soil it needs. I did three 6Lx4Wx2H beds last year and it took about a load and a half using my dad's 10,000lb dump trailer. It then settled, and I topped them off with another 18 bags of compost. This year I used 10 bags of topsoil and another 10 bags of compost again, amd they're still a good 5" below "max". Beds that deep settle a lot, but man are they nice to work in. I half assed it last year and we had more peppers, tomatoes, and lettuce than we could eat.
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Apr 22, 2020 15:52
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Jhet posted:I can’t even imagine wanting to fill in a 2’ deep bed. That doesn’t sound like much fun at all. Was it easier to keep pests away or did it not make much difference for fruit loss? On my end, it was more about ease of working the bed and comfort. I had zero pest problems, aside from some Japanese Beetle issues. My yard is infested with rabbits, and 2' definitely kept them out. Again, along with the dump trailer, my father has a small tractor with a bucket loader, which made it pretty easy to fill as well. Honestly though, I've seen a lot of other gardeners use 2' beds. It's a little more work up front, but is so much nicer to work from.
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Apr 22, 2020 23:40
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I have a question about a seed starting/growing rack that I built this year. It's working OK for my general seed starting needs, but it's kind of bootleg, and I'm trying to improve it, or even make it useful for wintertime production of greens and such. It's basically just a two-shelf unit I built out of some scrap plywood and 2x4s. Right now the lighting consists of excess old T12 fluorescent shop lights that were left over from the previous homeowner. A mix of various daylight and soft-white bulbs. Really high end stuff  Anyway, I built each shelf as 4ft wide by 2ft deep, to accommodate four 1020 trays each, for plug starting and eventually 3.25" pots and such. My question is, would a set of grow lights like this be appropriate? Originally, I was thinking about having two, 4ft lights per shelf. Now, I'm thinking that I could get four 2ft lights per shelf, one for each tray, and suspended at the appropriate height for whatever was growing there. Something like the "B" configuration here:  Is there any rule of thumb as far as how many lumens I would need per tray? Would one of the bulbs above be enough for a 1020 tray of, say, lettuce plants or tomato starts?
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Apr 29, 2020 14:28
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Motronic posted:Raised bed mounds are in. Aren't those beds a little close to the fence? I'd leave a little room for access/weed control. Unless you just plan to herbicide along the fence or something.
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May 8, 2020 13:38
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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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May 21, 2020 22:50
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Solkanar512 posted:go tonyour surface water management district for guidance. Hell, go there anyway so you know what to look for - some areas will ticket you if you ignore especially problematic species, though they’d rather help you out or some places will take care of the removal themselves. Yeah, I work for a conservation district in PA, we're a good place to start but your local extension office is useful as well. The method we have used for control of established knotweed is generally to cut it down in June or so, let it come back up and expend some of the energy in its roots, then spray with glyphosate in August. Sometimes folks will do a second cutting and spray in September-ish. This usually gets rid of it in 1-2 years, although more established stands might take longer. Although if you're just dealing with a small veggie garden, just keep pulling it before it goes to seed and you'll be fine. EDIT: And for what it's worth, glyphosate is really demonized and I am constantly trying to communicate to folks that it is not radioactive waste. It's a great and safe tool when used responsibly.
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May 21, 2020 23:13
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Suspect Bucket posted:So's DDT. But unfortunately the application of pesticides is often the task of the undereducated and overworked, given the instructions of "spray it everywhere try not to drink it". I mean, as far as herbicides go glyphosate is pretty safe and most alternatives are much more nasty. It's not DDT, which had a be bio-cumulative effect and damaged apex predators. Glyphosate breaks down, binds to soil particles and doesn't enter the food chain. Sure you can over-apply it but you can over apply pretty much anything. Even organic practices can be hugely damaging to soil and water quality if improperly used (e.g. mouldboard plowing) Nosre posted:Quoting this in case I may need it eventually. There's a ton on my parents' 64 acres in New Hampshire; not much by the house but big patches along the banks of a few streams we have running through the property. We just brush hog it or hand cut depending how big a stand. You can get some transfer but most of it is through seeds and such. Just have to monitor the site. And, of course, keep mowing or get some good native vegetation in there to compete with the knotweed. What to plant is going to depend on the site and region.
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May 22, 2020 00:46
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Willows would be fine in either PA or NH. Actually one of the nurseries we order from is from up in Vermont. Red Osier Dogwood, pussy willows, ninebark, would all work. Getting a conservation seed mix (check out Ernst Conservation Seeds) is another option. We usually don't bother "starting" the willow cuttings in water beforehand. I just use the live-stake method, where you just plant the cutting straight in the ground. If you use rooting hormone and the site is moist enough, we have had pretty great success rates. Really though getting into details is tricky without knowing more about the site. Your best bet is probably contacting your local conservation district or extension office and seeing if someone would be willing to come out or give some localized guidance.
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May 22, 2020 14:13
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Sockser posted:I was very excited about all my corn sprouting up, and I had maybe 15 sprouts when I went out and looked this morning Not sure if this is the same problem as you, but I've had bad problems with sow bugs this year snipping off a lot of seedlings. Lost most of my spinach, beans, and even some started cucumber plants. They just come in and "chop" down the seedlings like they were trees. I'm going to put out some diotomaceous earth and see if that helps.
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May 26, 2020 16:05
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Rubicon posted:
It just looks like you have some hairy bittercress (a common weed) coming up in your radishes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardamine_hirsuta Probably was just in your soil, not the seed packet.
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May 26, 2020 22:40
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OSU_Matthew posted:I’m looking into getting some drip line, pressure regulator, and a timer to better irrigate the garden this year (Hardiness zone 6a for reference). Can anyone recommend any particular systems, or all they all pretty similarly good/bad? Also curious about this, although i only have 3 6'x4' raised beds. I'm thinking about doing lines of soaker hoses attached to pvc distribution lines.
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May 29, 2020 12:47
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BaseballPCHiker posted:Sometimes I wonder why I even bother starting from seed.... This is why I spent the money and just bought big cages for my tomatoes. Tried to do the stake/trellis method and such but for some of the storms we've been getting that just wasn't enough.
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Jun 4, 2020 14:59
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This was my first season planting peas, and my plants are extra bushy. Any tips on how to prune shoots for eating? Are they overly woody and no good after a certain point?
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Jun 4, 2020 16:22
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Pinus Porcus posted:Did you buy some or make your own? I have 55 gal drums I am going to use, but still trying to decide how precisely I want to actually integrate it to the downspout. I build rain barrels with volunteers and we use toilet flanges with a bit of mesh screen attached to the bottom with a hose clamp. install the flange in the top of the barrel. Then just position the spout over the flange. Easy to clean out leaves and debris, while keeping the hole from turning into a mosquito access point. You do need a relatively beefy hole saw, although you can use a reciprocating saw if you don't care about having as clean a hole.
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Jun 6, 2020 19:49
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