Anyone else play in dirt?

Rawb

Ya ya I know this is a music forum BUT.. Since it is the season I was just wondering if anyone else here Takes time outta the wood shed to go over to the garden shed?

I start everything from seed,, But this year my maters an peppers failed :evil: May be able to salvage a few mater plants, a far cry from the 60 I wanted to set. Had to buy a few varieties of peppers no time to start again from seed.

Just seeded everything else last week. Ya I know, I am a few weeks behind this year .. The list..

Water melon
Spinache
Onions
Cucumbers
Pole Beans (Kentucky wonders and a 2 ft long variety)
Lettuce
And a dozen types of herbs

Going heavy on the beans since the tomatos failed three bean trees, each with 8-10 stringers.. For Canning. If the maters didn't fail then we would have made our own spagetti sauce an salsa too.. Oh well .. Use to disappointment being a Browns fan.. Our motto.. Next Year! :roll:

DenSco

Hey,
here in my area we have had a cool wet spring and my tomadoes just sit there not doing much. I also started with seeds and they did good, but without some heat or at least warming soil not much point in putting them in the ground. I'm useing my liveing room as a green house and the seedlings are taking over, i recon the neighbors and police think i'm gowing pot. I use a lot of Roma tometoes, there great for sause, salsa but mostly i dry em. Dryed Romas for snacks, pizza, soup and salads, roma roma roma. The cool spring is makeing for excelent pea and greens growth as well as most everythings elce, except for the heat loveing plants like maders, corn, mellons ect. I'm not a heat lover and while we are solar powered beings i cant take any more sun directly on my skin and really like the cloudy, cool weather here in Oregon. Now a days instead of working inthe garden after work and weekends i play the guitar.

Rawb

\DenSco\ wrote:

Hey,
here in my area we have had a cool wet spring and my tomadoes just sit there not doing much. but without some heat or at least warming soil not much point in putting them in the ground..

Maybe try putting them maters in containers if it's that cool.. Containers get warmer than the ground.. mater may just take a liking to 'em..

Last year roma's and big mamas ... went for rutgers this year (the same mater campells uses in their products.. but it just didn't go right.. may be able to salvage about ten seedlings for a late crop.. :oops:

guitar3456

My wife bought a topsy turvy so I'll tell ya if that works or not in about 6 weeks I guess.

cyclonic

I loaned out my tiller and then the flood hit and the guy I loaned it too was running around like a chicken with his head cut off helping his two sisters who got flooded real bad.Sadly he didn't bring my tiller back till last week so its about pointless to turn it up now and expect anything to really kick in before July burns us out.

Hope your having better luck

i'm gonna miss my cherry tomato patch :x

gtaus

Planted about 24 tomato plants (4 different varieties), cucumbers, zucchini, various peppers, peas, beans, squash, and some swiss chard.

For the most part, I tried no-till gardening this year. Last fall I dumped all my yard leaves and grass clippinging on my garden bed and let them sit over the winter. This spring I just dug out small holes to plant the tomato plants, etc... In the past, I have always tilled up the garden every fall and spring, but I recently read that tilling kills about 90% of the good bacteria and worms in the soil, and that it is better to not till. Anyway, the bed of decaying leaves and grass are full of worms so I think they are making good soil for me. That is important because I live on lakeshore and my garden has been mainly sandy soil, but the leaves and grass clippings are really making the soil look better.

I did have to till the part of the garden where I planted the pea and bean seeds because of weeds and grass starting to pop up in that section. All the other plants in the garden have been transplanted and I did not till the majority of the garden.

I did try to start some plants from seed this year using those compressed peat moss discs, but after 2 weeks nothing came up. Don't know what happened there, it was a complete failure. Still watering the discs to see if anything will sprout. If anyone has a suggestion on using those discs, let me know. I thought all you had to do was water the discs to expand the peat moss, plant the seeds, and keep the disc moist. But so far I've seen nothing sprouting.

Gardening, music, listening to music while gardening, it's all good.....

Rawb

Last yr I used the pods everything sprouted.. This year I went with seed starting mix ... was a couple weeks late starting .. nothing came up .. planted another batch ,, came up.. but other varibles caused a 90% loss .. oh well ...

Depending on how many you are starting .... Just a few may keep them on top of the fridge, usually warmer up there.. And in a plastic bag or manufactured type green house for seed starting... Back to the warmth thing.. most seeds like to germinate in the 75 - 80+ range.. I use a heat mat. It keeps the soil an seeds around 10 - 15 degrees warmer than ambient room temp...

Of course once they sprout remove from atop of fridge and supply sunshine, natural or artificial.. :P

gtaus

\guitar3456\ wrote:

My wife bought a topsy turvy so I'll tell ya if that works or not in about 6 weeks I guess.

Is that the tomato planter that is supposed to grow the tomato plant upside down? Do you need a special kind of tomato plant to grow in it? If it's what I'm thinking of, it sounded like a gimmick, but I would like to hear if it really works. If it works, it might be a great space saver for those gardening on the patio deck.

Rawb

\gtaus\ wrote:

\guitar3456\ wrote:

My wife bought a topsy turvy so I'll tell ya if that works or not in about 6 weeks I guess.

Is that the tomato planter that is supposed to grow the tomato plant upside down? Do you need a special kind of tomato plant to grow in it? If it's what I'm thinking of, it sounded like a gimmick, but I would like to hear if it really works. If it works, it might be a great space saver for those gardening on the patio deck.

I have never tried them myself.. I hear they do pretty good though. I know a guy that made one out of a kitty litter container! And it worked! Just that they started to late in the season and didn't get an abundant crop. He just used some tomato plants he bought at the home depot. Foget what variety they were.

gtaus

My beans and peas are off to a great start this year. Looking forward to a great crop this fall. Last year my beans and peas were also off to a great start, but a few days later I went out there and they were all gone. Rabbits had gotten into the garden and ate all the young bean and pea plants. They left everything else alone, but they ate all my beans and peas. So this year I put chicken wire around all my beans and peas. So far, so good.....

Playing in the dirt during the day, playing guitar at night. Might be a good summer.

DenSco

Our cool spring is looking like its going to continue into summer, slowing the growth of heat loving plants. The strawberry crop is abundant and the same with chard and greens. Yea raised beds or container gardening would have more heat to the soil, but I'm not set up for that now. I have to wrap my garden in a high fence to keep deer out and chicken wire at the bottom to keep the chickens, cats, rabbits from eating more than their share. I may have to go for an electric fence in the future as the creepy kids next door are growing and need bigger portions.

gtaus

\DenSco\ wrote:

...I may have to go for an electric fence in the future as the creepy kids next door are growing and need bigger portions.

Or maybe offer up a small portion of your garden for them to grow some of their own vegetables. Let them learn how to care for a garden, grow things from seeds, take out the weeds, water the plants when the rain doesn't fall, harvest the food when grown. Maybe they will have a better appreciation for what you do to make a garden grow. And if nothing else, if you see them out in your garden, remind them to pick up a hoe and take out a few weeds as long as they are out there. Giving them a cut in the action might work out to your advantage. Responsibility might be a better deterrent than an electric fence.

Rawb

\gtaus\ wrote:

Responsibility might be a better deterrent than an electric fence.

But not nearly as entertaining~ ! :P 8)

BEANS! All my 2ft'ers came up. Have a few spaces in my Kentucky wonders an blues... I'll stick some seeds in an see if they come up, just to fill the gaps...

DenSco

oh yea i take responsibility for a lot of things and my garden is big enough for birds, bunnys and boys next door. The electric fence was a joke, sorry :roll: that you took it as an atempt to harm humans, my communication skills leaves much to be desired. The neighbors have excelent garden spot that I have offered to till or help with but unless it is about killing something they don't care much. I am trying to show them that thru hard work and day after day trips out to pull weeds etc. good things can happen. The electric fence is already in place, but the neighbors installed it to keep my criders out of their yard. The only thing the kids next door to me want to do is shoot birds, cats, chickens, dogs and am pretty sure me if they thought they could get away with it.
digging the weeds
dennis

gtaus

\DenSco\ wrote:

...The electric fence was a joke, sorry :roll: that you took it as an atempt to harm humans, my communication skills leaves much to be desired....

No harm, no foul. FWIW, if I thought an electric fence would have kept my nephew out of my garage and my tools, I would have tried that too! My door locks on the garage never stopped him - no joke.