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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Jan 11, 2022 11:54:30 GMT -5
Can anyone help me with identification? I have no idea if these images are going to show up so have also a link. the flowers on these are a bit more pinky-purpler in real life. I was hoping it was some kinda bee balm, but the leaves don't look right.
and irises? lilies? I can't help you with the first plant, but the second looks like irises to me. If you don't want them, send them my way! I love irises!  What does that first one smell like? |
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Post by 🐍 cahusserole 🐍 on Jan 11, 2022 20:35:51 GMT -5
Can anyone help me with identification? I have no idea if these images are going to show up so have also a link. the flowers on these are a bit more pinky-purpler in real life. I was hoping it was some kinda bee balm, but the leaves don't look right.
and irises? lilies? I can't help you with the first plant, but the second looks like irises to me. If you don't want them, send them my way! I love irises!  What does that first one smell like? I'm hoping these are bearded irises. I have a ton of the non-beardy kind. This fanned out leaf shape is different than the ones I have. Also the actual bulbs on my non-beardy guys look more like alliums, with a papery cover. (I also love irises! I divided my bulbs last year and I had so many that they're planted everywhere now!)
I don't recall it smelling, but I think I've only torn off a leaf to sniff at, not actually tried the flowers themselves. I'll take a whiff tomorrow. I tried to use a flower-identifying app, and it thought it might be a pincushion flower? (Latin name scabiosa, which is... so... beautiful.)
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Post by 🐍 cahusserole 🐍 on May 5, 2022 19:14:56 GMT -5
This year I skipped starting seeds and bought some tomatoes/peppers/cukes/zukes from Grocery Outlet for cheap. Lazy! I harvested a billion fava beans from the ones I planted back in October/November. I saved four pods containing 20ish beans for planting this fall. I bought some luffa gourd seeds from Ranch 99 in the hope that I can get them to climb the fence next to my patch and block the wind/entice the bees.
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Post by Powerthirteen on May 6, 2022 9:14:19 GMT -5
Proud to report that I have successfully not killed a basil plant I bought from Trader Joe's a month ago.
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Post by ganews on May 6, 2022 11:55:32 GMT -5
Over all twelve years I have been gardening it has been the case that the seedlings I start indoors are bigger and healthier the more time I spend at home (during years of unemployment, furlough, and pandemic) because I very attentively move them into and out of sunny spots - I don't use a grow lamp. Obviously this year is the first time since 2019 that I haven't been around to do that.
But the seedlings look great this year. My theory is that this was the first winter where I had rooftop solar panels and thus kept the house three degrees warmer, and that's all it took. All the seedlings practically leapt out of their starter pots and have been on a roll ever since. They'd be ready to go in the ground right now if the weather would cooperate. I never put the nightshade family seedlings int he ground until almost Memorial Day for the latter reason.
Last weekend I put sowed the green beans and butterbeans, and if it would just stop raining I could put other seeds in too.
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Post by pantsgoblin on May 11, 2022 10:00:57 GMT -5
Anyone else having trouble finding sage sprouts for gardens? Two nurseries I've visited are pushing the relatively niche variety of pineapple sage but the regular stuff has been impossible to track down.
Anyway, got my zuccs, summer squash, tomatoes (Virginia sweets, Fourth of July, brandywine, and some new purple variety called faune flamme), chard, fairytale eggplant, shishitos, and herb garden in.
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Post by ganews on Aug 8, 2022 15:22:28 GMT -5
The rain this year is pretty damn ridiculous. Between traveling a lot, being sick, and all the rain the weeds are beyond out of control. These were the strongest plants I ever produced, I had newspaper and stakes for each one, and the weeds have just eaten it all. It doesn't inspire me to put a lot more work in, just pick what I can (and I do still get a lot; anyone need some cucumbers?).
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Post by 🐍 cahusserole 🐍 on Aug 9, 2022 14:51:16 GMT -5
The rain this year is pretty damn ridiculous. Between traveling a lot, being sick, and all the rain the weeds are beyond out of control. These were the strongest plants I ever produced, I had newspaper and stakes for each one, and the weeds have just eaten it all. It doesn't inspire me to put a lot more work in, just pick what I can (and I do still get a lot; anyone need some cucumbers?). Fax some my way, I have received a grand total of four from my plant (and two of them were pretty bitter). |
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Post by Powerthirteen on Feb 1, 2023 12:02:30 GMT -5
Garden planning time! We have two raised beds - one gets about 80% sun and is 4'x20' (nice) divided into five 4'x4' plots. The other gets 100% sun and is essentially a 7'x7' square with a cutout on one side so you can get into the middle. Between the two of them we are planning to try our hand at a LOT of things over the course of the year: zucchini, butternut squash, corn, tomatoes, salad greens, peas, cucumbers, strawberries, sweet peppers, a lot of herbs, radishes, and carrots - all the basics, really.
Me this summer:
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Post by 🐍 cahusserole 🐍 on Feb 4, 2023 13:03:57 GMT -5
None of the fava beans I planted late last fall have come up. I think squirrels got them all. if I try again next year, I think there will need to be some protection.
at least I have a ton of mustard greens.
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Post by ganews on Feb 4, 2023 14:13:46 GMT -5
I can't believe Liz n Dicksgiving plants garlic every year. We're still working on the bulbs that over-wintered 2021-22. The downstairs bathroom where they are hung up to dry has smelled like garlic for half a year. |
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Post by 🐍 cahusserole 🐍 on Feb 4, 2023 19:52:52 GMT -5
I can't believe Liz n Dicksgiving plants garlic every year. We're still working on the bulbs that over-wintered 2021-22. The downstairs bathroom where they are hung up to dry has smelled like garlic for half a year. How many do you plant? I have two left from last year, and 20 growing now. I gave two away, and I am the only one who uses it in my house (my mom says it smells too strong. whatever.) |
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Post by ganews on Feb 4, 2023 20:40:08 GMT -5
I can't believe Liz n Dicksgiving plants garlic every year. We're still working on the bulbs that over-wintered 2021-22. The downstairs bathroom where they are hung up to dry has smelled like garlic for half a year. How many do you plant? I have two left from last year, and 20 growing now. I gave two away, and I am the only one who uses it in my house (my mom says it smells too strong. whatever.) I think there must have been 25-30 plants? I'm not sure when we started eating them. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Feb 6, 2023 9:03:42 GMT -5
🐍 cahusserole 🐍 and ganews, I am so confused by not using up garlic!  We plant about 150 cloves each year, and I'll pull up maybe 30 during the spring, before they set scapes, to eat as green garlic. So we'll dig up about 120 heads of garlic every summer. I don't have any great place to cure it, and have lousy storage options, so I can't even imagine having usable garlic heads from summer two years ago -- by each February most of my storage garlic has turned to dust. (I also dehydrate a lot of our fresh garlic, to make garlic powder to cook with from about this time of year until the green garlic season starts again. Oh what a marvelous luxury fat, fresh garlic cloves are again when they return mid-summer!) Ultimately, I guess it comes down to whether you cook with a lot of garlic or not! We actually started gardening in the first place because we wanted more garlic than we were getting from my CSA share. Without my deep love of garlic, we'd have no garden!
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Feb 21, 2023 12:14:14 GMT -5
I bought a little grow kit with rosemary seeds at Joann Fabrics a few weeks ago on a whim (also, it was on sale). I put it under the grow light for my patio orange tree and succulents about 10 days ago and the seeds have already sprouted! I am delighted. I've never successfully grown anything with seeds before, so hopefully this is a good start.
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GumTurkeyles
AV Clubber 
$10 down, $10 a month, don't you be a turkey
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Post by GumTurkeyles on Mar 20, 2023 7:54:16 GMT -5
We put off redoing our garden beds last year, but the existing wood is rotting away and we need to take care of it in the next month or so. So now we're trying to decide if we keep the same footprint (3 beds at 4' x 8', with 2' between), if we put a fence around it, or if we redesign everything. In addition, my wife has been looking at this Roman Fruit Cage. If we did this, we'd lose plot space, but we'd forego the raised beds and just go right into the ground. It looks beautiful, but it's like $2500. I want to price out what getting the new wood is going to be, but I imagine somewhere in the range of $400. So that would be a massive difference in cost.  |
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Post by ganews on Mar 20, 2023 8:33:38 GMT -5
We put off redoing our garden beds last year, but the existing wood is rotting away and we need to take care of it in the next month or so. So now we're trying to decide if we keep the same footprint (3 beds at 4' x 8', with 2' between), if we put a fence around it, or if we redesign everything. In addition, my wife has been looking at this Roman Fruit Cage. If we did this, we'd lose plot space, but we'd forego the raised beds and just go right into the ground. It looks beautiful, but it's like $2500. I want to price out what getting the new wood is going to be, but I imagine somewhere in the range of $400. So that would be a massive difference in cost. Is the decision for cage vs. raised beds purely an aesthetic thing? |
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GumTurkeyles
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$10 down, $10 a month, don't you be a turkey
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Post by GumTurkeyles on Mar 20, 2023 9:58:31 GMT -5
We put off redoing our garden beds last year, but the existing wood is rotting away and we need to take care of it in the next month or so. So now we're trying to decide if we keep the same footprint (3 beds at 4' x 8', with 2' between), if we put a fence around it, or if we redesign everything. In addition, my wife has been looking at this Roman Fruit Cage. If we did this, we'd lose plot space, but we'd forego the raised beds and just go right into the ground. It looks beautiful, but it's like $2500. I want to price out what getting the new wood is going to be, but I imagine somewhere in the range of $400. So that would be a massive difference in cost. Is the decision for cage vs. raised beds purely an aesthetic thing? Pretty much. We're in a suburb with a double-lot, so we have a decent yard (for the neighborhood). There's never been anything built in this location. We used to have a lawn service, and they would spray weed killer in spots, but we stopped using them last year. My wife had built the previous raised beds with the intent of having netting over them, but never got around to the netting. She had PVC that would curve and form arcs, but it was too cumbersome to remove netting and put it back just to access the crops. We did do a 2ft high netting around, but animals laughed at that. We've also built make-shift trellises and arches that we take down yearly. We get tons of squirrels, rabbits (one family was living under the thyme bush 2 years ago), and deer. |
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Post by Powerthirteen on Mar 20, 2023 13:39:46 GMT -5
Just out of curiosity, since we had a couple of cold nights after I planted them, I dug up one of the peas I planted last weekend, and I am pleased to report that it was germinating. Step one, successful.- My lil grow lights for starting my indoor seeds are here, too, so we're off to the races.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Apr 3, 2023 13:29:35 GMT -5
Just out of curiosity, since we had a couple of cold nights after I planted them, I dug up one of the peas I planted last weekend, and I am pleased to report that it was germinating. Step one, successful.- My lil grow lights for starting my indoor seeds are here, too, so we're off to the races. Two weeks later, it has been *chilly* for most of the intervening time, so things are proceeding slowly. Radishes are popping up aggressively, and there are now by my count nineteen pea plants sprouting. We have three or four more cold nights this week and then over the weekend the temperatures jump up to the seventies, so I anticipate lots and lots of growth. |
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Post by Powerthirteen on May 6, 2023 16:08:35 GMT -5
We have twenty-six pea plants that are all about a foot high and jumping up the string trellis, surrounded by a crapload of radishes (someone spilled the whole envelope of seeds, so we are inundated.) The spinach on the other side of the peas is also doing great, and the lettuces are coming in. Meanwhile, in the other bed, we now have carrots starting to sprout, four indeterminate tomato plants of different varieties I just transplanted today, a dozen pepper transplants (half bell, half jalapeno), half a dozen happy kale plants, various herbs at different levels of growth, and cucumber and zucchini seeds just planted today. Plus a bunch of happy lil cherry tomato plants of a hybrid bred for baskets that just got taken outside to hang in their baskets, and six honeynut squash starts still under the grow lights that we're going to transplant and train to go up the fence next to our new patio. And that's not even counting the corn and beans that are going to go in where the radishes and lettuce currently are once they're done (the corn is slightly absurd at the tiny scale we'll do it, but it'll be spectacular to look at at least.)
All in all, this has turned out to be very enjoyable.
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Post by 🐍 cahusserole 🐍 on May 8, 2023 23:39:08 GMT -5
this morning I got what should be the last of my tomatoes in the ground (maybe I'll get another cherry tomato, if grocery outlet has sungolds the next time I go). thanks to some clever selecting of double plants and EXTREMELY CAREFUL separation of ridiculously tangled roots, I have: 2 green zebra, 2 purple Cherokee, 2 big rainbow, 2 sweet 100s, and one black krim. for peppers, I just have one Serrano. I never have had great luck with peppers, so why get my hopes up. my garlic all appears to be doing well. I direct seeded some cucumbers and tromboncino zucchetta, which I'm trying in place of regular zucchini this year. (I have saved a space for one zucchini plant in case they fail). also I have flowers and they're pretty. |
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Post by 🐍 cahusserole 🐍 on May 9, 2023 12:11:11 GMT -5
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on May 9, 2023 14:18:31 GMT -5
Oooh, that's a gorgeous tomato! Thanks for the heads-up! It's too late for us now to start tomatoes here in NJ, but I am very intrigued by that variety! |
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Post by Powerthirteen on May 9, 2023 15:49:48 GMT -5
First corn planting is in! By my math we're going to end up putting in about a hundred plants, in six waves each a couple days apart.
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Post by ganews on May 10, 2023 9:10:03 GMT -5
dang, guess I need to log in to TI more. I already have my plants this year but I usually have no trouble sprouting old seed either. |
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repulsionist
TI Forumite
actively disinterested
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Post by repulsionist on May 10, 2023 19:30:31 GMT -5
Southern Hemisphere TI Report 2023Starting in late spring 2022 (ca. November), I planted broccoli, raab broccoli, cauliflower, garlic chives, chives, and cilantro. In mid-summer 2022 (ca. late December), I planted plum tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, yellow cherry tomatoes, sweet red peppers, banana peppers, and habaneros. All of these objects were planted in 15L pots. I used organic garden mix, which in NZ has copious amounts of sheep pellets and bonemeal (though some of the grind is less meal and more large bits). Some bonus finds that made their way to the surface of a few pots were: remnants of fadge bags (used for storing wool and usually made of woven polyfibre), bailing wire, and pvc. I added cocoir to allow better drainage; mixed in a ratio of 1(cocoir):4(organic garden mix). A neato add to this organic mix is some volume of mycorrhiza. During the grow, a number of small mushrooms have bloomed in most every pot. ResultsTomatoes - Beefsteak return equaled 4 decent vine-ripened 45g tomatoes. Not big. Not even 2oz.
- Plum return equaled 1 decent tomato. The others were savaged by pests.
- Yellow cherry returned 15 excellent and toothsome nightshade treats.
Peppers - Sweet Reds returned 6 peppers total. Not even close to supermarket size.
- Banana Peppers returned 6 peppers total. Nothing as good as what I've grown and consumed in Northern Hemisphere.
- Habanero Peppers returned about 10 peppers total. Nice heat but no flavours that establish themselves beyond heat.
Broccoli - Only 1 head so far. There is another trying to finally bloom near winter. I did collect the best broccoli leaves that had been mostly untouched by cabbage moths and their larval stage. Pan steaming with oil and garlic made them come out like collards.
Raab Broccoli - Only 1 flowering plant. Totally tough. Totally yuck.
Cauliflower - One head so far, and it's not yet beyond golf ball size. A related sadness for this pot is the number of praying mantis I've killed using organic pest control. I have an Haas avocado tree growing in its second year now. That young tree is next to the cauliflower. I had a male mantis on the avocado tree from a brood that hatched in early spring. Some of its brethren occupied the cauliflower for reasons of food. I've taken not enough care in shaking the cauliflower leaves before applying the pest control to limit the destruction of leaves, and I have dispatched two or three mantis in death throes. One drank nearly 2ml of water that I washed over it in hopes of eliminating the poison.
Chives - Garlic chives came first and have a lovely flavour. Still producing.
- Chives came a very late second. They also have a lovely flavour. Still producing
Cilantro - I'd done a grow in winter-spring 2021 that was super flavourful and a real improvement over supermarket and farmers' market cilantro available in NZ. This summer 2022 grow was useful but not as "soapy" as the previous year.
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Post by pantsgoblin on May 11, 2023 10:32:14 GMT -5
No surprise that the chives survived the winter and are now going full steam (just cannot kill those alliums) but I was shocked that my potted valerian plant came back after all winter in the yard.
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Post by pantsgoblin on May 16, 2023 9:13:40 GMT -5
Anyone have any experience with soil amendments for vegetables in raised beds? I had an immense amount of compost available this year so I'm experimenting with mixing it with lower quality bulk soil, but I think I also need to spike it with additions. Any recommendations appreciated.
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Post by WKRP Jimmy Drop on May 16, 2023 9:59:34 GMT -5
I got two big ol bags of used coffee grounds from Starbucks last night! They had a whole stack of neatly-packed, leakproof bagsful!
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We plant about 150 cloves each year, and I'll pull up maybe 30 during the spring, before they set scapes, to eat as green garlic. So we'll dig up about 120 heads of garlic every summer. I don't have any great place to cure it, and have lousy storage options, so I can't even imagine having usable garlic heads from summer two years ago -- by each February most of my storage garlic has turned to dust. (I also dehydrate a lot of our fresh garlic, to make garlic powder to cook with from about this time of year until the green garlic season starts again. Oh what a marvelous luxury fat, fresh garlic cloves are again when they return mid-summer!)
