Gardening: the beets must go on

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Gardening: the beets must go on

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I was doing a ton of yard work today at my new place and I made a glorious discovery. There was an odd area which I hoped to make a garden but it was overgrown with bermudagrass, which was odd because the yard of my house is St. Augustine. While going to war with the very overgrown grass using a string trimmer I found out that my guess/hope was correct: the planned garden area is actually an already amended bed that had just been allowed to grow up, seeded from neighboring lawns. I think that actually it may have, in the past, been a vegetable garden.

I'm planning to send off soil samples, nuke it with two cycles of glyphosate to kill off the bermudagrass, and top it off with a good tilling. Do I have any chance of putting in a fall or winter garden? Are leafy greens the only choice?

The spot gets morning and early afternoon sun, but is shaded from the worst of the late afternoon heat. This is in Austin TX so the fall/winter growing season runs long (first frost average at the beginning of December) but it is hot hot hot so drip-irrigation seems to be the way to go. Any suggestions?

# ¿ Jun 23, 2013 05:01

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 04:32

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Pickles?

Great find!

You should have plenty of time for leafy greens and root vegetables. In Texas, those should grow year round. I don't know about summer crops, but I would suspect that you would have enough heat and light to squeeze one in.

If you wanted to get going faster, you could try using a sod lifter rather than the glyphosate to get rid of the grass. Apparently you can rent motorised versions if it seems like too much work to do this by hand.

I actually decided to solarize the bed to kill everything, seed or growing grass. We are on Stage 2 water restrictions anyway and I don't have the cash at the moment to swing a drip irrigation system so I am going to put the Texas sun to work for me. Let's see if bermudagrass can survive a solar oven powered by a month of 100+ degree days! :black101:

# ¿ Jun 27, 2013 04:06

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

GrAviTy84 posted:

From experience. It can.

For its own sake it better not; my father is an agricultural herbicide rep. Glyphosate is just the beginning (cheapest) of the range of chemical plant doom at my disposal.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2013 15:07

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

My father knows an extremely effective fencing solution for white tailed deer that involves two concentric "fences" consisting of single electrified wires a specific height and specific distance apart. Works great because it is just high enough they have to jump it to not get zapped but the second wire spacing from the first means they can't jump it (and they know it).

I could get more information if people are interested. It is the only thing that he has found that will protect his peas and corn.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 02:37

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Money and energy. I found an article once about the carbon footprints of heated greenhouses (the ones they use to get tomatoes in March up in Canada), and they're considerably worse than shipping the tomatoes in from Florida. That's not to say that you can't do some greatly sustainable things with passive greenhouses, but yeah.

Yeah but Florida tomatoes are absolutely awful reddish foam balls.

That is my reason for moving into gardening. You simply cannot get the same quality produce in stores, or even farmer's markets. That tomato that :byodood:

has to be eaten for dinner or it will go bad on the vine :byodame:

is going to be fresher than one that could hang out for a day after picking, ride in the truck to the farmer's market or stand, and spend a day or two on the counter (because if it doesn't the customer will complain next time they see you at the market).

I call grocery and farmer's market blueberries and strawberries "sadness berries" because that is what they are compared to the "picked this morning, make jam this afternoon" you-pick or garden variety.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2013 03:10

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I finally got my garden area tilled up and got a bit of rain to get the silt dust down and actually see the color of the soil. It actually looks surprisingly good.

I am going to send off samples for soil analysis but I wonder if I can put anything in now. I am in Austin TX and it is still hot as heck. I am not a fan of peas at all.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2013 18:48

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I want them to sprout and start to grow. I have glyphosate waiting for them.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2013 19:03

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

cowofwar posted:

Good luck planting a garden in soil full of glyphosphate.

Glyphosate has no pre-emergent effect and is totally inactivated on contact with soil. You can seed hours after application.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2013 20:44

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Motronic posted:

Yeah....no.

I've already commented on 10 days. Even Monsanto says 10 days, and it's in their interest to make that number as low as possible.

Seriously....wait 10 days.

Gramoxone, Preen, etc are pretty much salting the earth, but most people don't use those on gardens as they are pre-emergents.

Waiting 7-10 days is good practice if only so that you can spot and re-treat any strips you may have missed but there is no requirement to do so. There is a 3 day wait on certain crops (mostly melons) and when using plastic mulch, but beyond that anything pre-emergence is fair game according to Monsanto. You also should wait 10-14 days before tilling, mowing, or plowing under to allow translocation of the herbicide to the weed roots or else you may end up with still active tubers and rhizomes, but that's different.

http://www.cdms.net/LDat/ld8CC045.pdf
GENERAL USE INSTRUCTIONS: Apply this product during fallow intervals preceding planting, prior to planting or transplanting, at-planting, or preemergence to annual and perennial crops listed in this label, except where specifically limited.

That's the agricultural formulation though, maybe the residential stuff you can get a garden centers and home depot/lowe's is labeled differently? It wouldn't shock me if so as the residential formulation browns weeds much faster than the agricultural mix. I get the ag version at a rural farm supply because it is about 1/10th the price and the town has a good BBQ restaurant (mostly the latter really).

# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 04:57

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Motronic posted:

Uhhh....your own link includes things like:

So you're agreeing with me or disagreeing with me? At this point I'm not sure, as you appear to be disagreeing while providing evidence that agrees with (or even exceeds the timelines) my statement.

Also, I have no idea how joe-homeowner roundup is labeled, and would have to assume it's similar being it's the same thing that's been pre-diluted.

The list of labeled vegetables it includes nearly anything I would ever care to put into a home garden and for those on-label species you can spray at-planting.

non-herbicide talk: how concerned should I be about squirrels and cats using my tilled loose soil for storing other things?

# ¿ Sep 6, 2013 02:39

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

theacox posted:

I've never had squirrels bury obvious things in my tilled field/garden. If you have any especially sandy areas, I have experienced cats "storing" other "things". Yes. I'm talking about turds.

The soil around here is prone to getting very hard this time of year, and the pecan trees are dropping a few early pecans. So the squirrels have been going to town burying pecans in my tilled area. I really hope they don't start pulling up or digging up plants when I plant them.

And yes, turds are my trouble with cats too. We didn't have these issues at my parents' farm! I guess both are better than crows eating tons of seed and deer munching on what makes it.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2013 16:15

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I am inordinately excited about my winter squash and zucchini crops.

yeah yeah doesn't look like much but they are growing like crazy and it is the inaugural plants in the garden. Being in central Texas means a crazy long growing season so I should get decent production out of them before frost hits.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 04:05

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

AxeBreaker posted:

Uh, even in Texas winter squash are a spring start, they are like 110 days. They just don't get ripe till fall and keep all winter.

You can grow short cucubrits in fall though, if that's what you mean.

I should have been more specific: They are a fall crop of summer squash. Yes with the 50 days to harvest I'm running a risk having planted them the first week in Sept but the seeds were a dollar and I can't plant winter vegetables yet or they will get toasted. The hope is last year's weather pattern holds and the first frost comes as late as possible.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 20:18

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

It looks like I have melonworm on my zucchini plants. Does that seem correct?

What is the best control option? They are really tearing up the flowers something awful. I am getting rid of them every time I see them but the fuckers hide and blend in very well until they start leaving silk behind.

I do not have any bee activity (ugh hand pollination) and temperature is getting low enough that the morning holds no risk of them visiting... Is there a viable pesticide option?

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 14:21

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

My parents had a pretty decent kiwifruit harvest this year.

That's off ~~two~~ three vines!

Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Oct 27, 2013

# ¿ Oct 27, 2013 19:41

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

This relentless fall rain has been hard on my squash and zucchini. Plenty of water is good, but the constant moisture has alowed the powdery mildew to just go nuts.

The wind also blew the zucchini around a bit.

But this was mainly intended to be just a trail "can things grow here" for the price of 2 discounted packets of seed, before going all out next spring and summer, hence not really caring too much about plant spacing or thinning. As a trail it has turned out quite well!

I will need to have something nearby to draw the bees in the spring but that won't be hard to engineer.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2013 02:31

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I just picked up my containers for my blueberrry bushes:

A little work with the sawzall and I'll have 6 30 gallon containers for $45, not too shabby.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2014 20:44

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

cowofwar posted:

Nice, I used half wine barrels and my blueberry bushes are doing really well.

I planted them in 50% peat and 50% acid loving soil.

A person near me has their blueberries in peat mixed with very light amounts of other soil and they are doing quite well, so I may ask them for the exact mix they used. I'm excited about them!

# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 15:38

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Alterian posted:

Unless you want the whole garden to be mint, it would be better to put it in its own pot.

This is incredibly true. My parents had to build an addition onto their house to finally kill the mint.

If you would like a bit of lasting green for the winter you could put in some rosemary and lavender. They tend to be pretty low maintenance. Also perhaps a butterfly bush or two? Once they get established they bloom for a long time and the only real challenge they pose is whacking them back to a manageable size at the beginning of the season. At leas that was my experience in Asheville.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 17:21

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Rurutia posted:

Nice, thanks for the suggestions! I was thinking about Rosemary but the ones I've seen have been gangly and ugly. I imagine lavender will be beautiful though, and definitely a butterfly bush.

The gangly ones you have seen may have simply not been kept trimmed. In addition to the "prostratus" variety which tends to hug the ground you can shape rosemary pretty easily (which is why you see those little rosemary "trees" at christmastime) and as a bonus it smells amazing when you do. But your garden space and you get to choose!

# ¿ Jan 21, 2014 00:47

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Bean posted:

You guys were talking about growing blueberry bushes a page ago, tell me about them: will the birds get into them and poo poo purple down my house? That's the one thing keeping me from planting them.

Last year I was able to control birds in my container garden by planting cat mint. The cats came for the mint and stayed for the prey.

Yes birds are a problem, and you should put up netting to deter them once the flowers are pollinated and berries start to grow. Do you have house finches? Because they will absolutely decimate blueberries, taking one bite out of each one and moving on. Assholes.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2014 20:01

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Nothing but a good quality fence will keep deer out. They are very persistent and will quickly figure out that certain smells or objects are not threats. Even then the fence must either be surprisingly high (8' or more) or in a very specific arrangement. Even that electric arrangement can fail, but it keeps most of them out from my father's experience with food plots.

Mole trouble = mole trap. They work wonders.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 19:46

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I may have the opposite of the "shove everything into small area" urge because I'm used to my parent's 1/2 acre garden and may have a bad sense of how much space plants can thrive in. I need suggestions I think. Here's my garden space, approximately 200sqft:

Morning-afternoon sun with filtered sun in the late afternoon when it is crazy hot.

According to people in the neighborhood the people who used to own this house got great tomatoes. Additionally a person a few doors down has chile pequin peppers going gangbusters, and another in the neighborhood says their potatoes are amazing. Last fall I tried summer squash and they grew like weeds (but had pollination issues when the temperatures dropped below bee activities.

I was thinking tomatoes, peppers, onions, and potatoes. Maybe some leafy greens as well. Would mixing in zucchini be too much for that space? I really would love to have cucumbers too, and was thinking about training them onto the fence in the rear. Green beans or even some sweet corn would be nice but I'm not sure I have good space for them.

I also have this strip of dirt which gets morning-noon direct sun:

I keep thinking I can do something with it, but what? It would need to be non-sprawling just because it faces my neighbor's back yard area. Then again fresh vegetables goes a very long way toward smoothing out neighbor relationships.

I plan to rent a rear-tined tiller soon to turn in the dirt and get it ready.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2014 18:36

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Right after I posted I thought "I could have a shitton of basil there..." so that sound like a good start. Low-ish maintenance too.

Our winters are strange: the highs swing wildly from the 30s-40s up to the 70s. Here's what december and Jan have looked like:

I've noticed many winter leafy green gardens where the owners just cover them up when it gets cold. Would that work with rapini?

# ¿ Jan 31, 2014 20:14

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I tilled the ground this fall, and covered it with the leaves. It had been lying unworked for years so it was very compacted and dead. I just pulled a few soil samples just now and it seems that the soil is still plenty loose with lots of worms :woop:

I suppose I should have mentioned...I absolutely hate peas. I may drop the corn because the space just isn't there.

To give you an idea of how spoiled I am, this is what grow in my parent's garden:

# ¿ Jan 31, 2014 23:41

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

They don't look like much but I'm inordinately excited about the blueberries I just planted in my "pots"

# ¿ Feb 1, 2014 22:55

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Should I move my blueberry containers into the garage for tonight? Last night it got down to ~24 but it was warm recently and the blueberries are in 30gallon containers of peat moss in addition to being up near the house. Tonight they are calling for 25 after a high today of only 36 so I'm more concerned about them.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2014 17:19

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I ended up moving them in. They should be hardy to 0-10F but they were just transplanted last week and are not well established enough that I'm comfortable letting them hang out in the cold. I'm mainly worried about root damage.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2014 20:42

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Finally got my soil test results back.

Check out that nitrogen reading :stare:

That explains why the leaves on my "test" squash the last fall never got a healthy green look to them.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2014 20:21

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I'm thinking about going with ammonium sulfate to bring the N up and the pH down. Adding nearly a pound and a half of 20-0-0 ammonium sulfate to a 200 sq ft plot to hit the 1.4 lbs N per 1000 sq ft suggestion is pretty comical though.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2014 22:08

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Fizting around with "plans" for my garden space. How does this look? It is done with a sqft planner but that was just because anything row based wanted either money or my info. Anything in a line is a row (potatoes, onions).

(click for big)

The plan would be to train the cucumbers out onto angled racks that will be leaning against the fence, about 4ft away. I really like cucumbers, if you couldn't tell already, and part of the onion rows would be shallots because I want to give them a whack but not go too esoteric on a first garden round. I hope I'm not trying to jam too much in there. Maybe I should cut the zucchini and squash down to three mounds? The flowers are there both as bee attractants and because fresh flowers are pretty :3:

# ¿ Feb 18, 2014 01:38

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Cpt.Wacky posted:

4 zucchini and 4 more summer squash is insane unless you're trying to feed an army, imo. Your peppers might want a little more space too depending on how well they do.

Are you leaving room for access to weed and harvest?

I'm kind of counting on one or two of them not making it really. It sounds silly but I want something in the garden that will result in "oh no, I have been too successful and cannot eat all of this!" pride even if everything else doesn't produce anything. One less zucchini may happen as well because I know they sprawl like crazy. If by some strange luck they all make it then I'll start sneaking squash and zucchini onto neighbors' doorsteps under cover of night or something and as an emergency plan there are a bunch people in the neighborhood with chickens that will devour any overproduction (and get me free eggs).

I may go with an 18" spacing on the peppers.

For weed (and kitty) control I'm going with landscape cloth and leaf mulch, but there won't be any areas in the layout that will be hard to get to to get the persistent weeds. The most difficult area will be between the peppers and the tomatoes and that is the section that will best lend itself to passive control.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2014 16:23

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I put onions and shallots in this evening and cultivated the potato row so it will be quick to do once they callus over. Thankfully the soil really didn't compact down much at all from when I gave it a solid tilling last year. Also despite it being a couple weeks since we had any rain the soil was still moist. That bodes well.

Also some spinach has come up! The garden now officially has things growing in it!

# ¿ Feb 24, 2014 02:21

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I put the potatoes in as well.

I'm way too excited about all this.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2014 19:45

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

AlistairCookie posted:

What kind of tiller/cultivator should I be looking at?

If you get an electric one be sure to get one with the option to add some amount of ballast to it. The ones that are just the motor (Sun Joe) will bounce all over the place.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2014 21:35

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Who got things toasted in this cold snap? I imagine there are some very sad people today after all the plant selling I saw over the last week. It even smacked the tips of my shallots a little.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2014 23:53

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

I swear I broke my shallots up as much as I thought I could get away with! It looks like I actually ended up averaging around 4 per what I thought was a single clove.

Oops.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2014 01:47

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Alterian posted:

So this winter is lasting a lot longer than it should here in NC. Is anyone else adjusting their outdoor planting times to accommodate for this? We're suppose to get more freezing rain on Tuesday

We've been getting some pretty nasty swings in Texas. I put out squash and cucumber seeds this week but the temperatures are still getting too low for one or two nights a week for tomatoes and peppers to really do well.

Thankfully there is a big plant sale next weekend so I'll pick up my plants there!

My parents in SC haven't started their garden either because of the cold.

Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Mar 22, 2014

# ¿ Mar 22, 2014 18:36

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

What would be the best way to water in an area where sprinklers are verboten 99% of the time? I have a timer and I've seen a number of people here run soaker hoses from a pvc manifold on one side of the garden so I'm guessing that is going to be the best way to go? I know how to work with PVC so doing that shouldn't be that much of a mess, or I have a bunch of hose I could use to make short runs with to all bring it together at the spigot.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2014 03:17

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 04:32

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Fart Car '97 posted:

Can you afford to set up a genuine drip system? It is generally the best way to water your garden.

I can but don't want to spring that much on a first-year garden, if that makes sense. The garden is covered with white fabric to reduce solar heating so that should cut down on water loss a bit, and the silty-clay has a good affinity for water.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2014 17:10

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