What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

[OmCheeto]

from the first thread, it sounded as if the container that you buried was more of a internment than a composing bin----you probably have a lot better mix of nutrients, plus trace ones than 99% of any fert you can buy---great!-----I bet it does turn out to be good compost

Buried? The rubbermaid sits aboveground, such that I can move it to collect the most solar radiation during the course of the year. I live in a forest.

The tree's surrounding my house are between 80 and 120 feet tall.

The plane in the my tree is Bob Fossett's. Yes, he was way off course.

 

[rewebster]

Buried? The rubbermaid sits aboveground, such that I can move it to collect the most solar radiation during the course of the year. I live in a forest.

The tree's surrounding my house are between 80 and 120 feet tall.

The plane in the my tree is Bob Fossett's. Yes, he was way off course.

gotcha----I thought you buried the container--you bury the contents of the container.

Nice setting with so many trees---


an ice storm took off quite a few limbs off in the fall of 06 of mine, but not as bad as in other areas---ice storms (and wind storms) seem to be about the worst thing (except maybe tornadoes) on the trees

 

[turbo]

It hasn't rained (yet) today, so I took the opportunity to do some garden chores. The string beans are done producing, so I ripped them out and added them to the compost, then I went up and down the rows of tomatoes, removing any with soft spots/stem rot, and saving any that had been knocked off by recent storms but were still sound. I got a little over a gallon of sound tomatoes to ripen off and threw over 4 gallons of bad ones in the compost. That's pretty sad. Most years, I'm in a frenzy of salsa-making about now, but I can't get enough ripe tomatoes at one time to justify canning a batch. So far, we're confined to making up small batches of fresh salsa. It tastes pretty good with corn chips or on enchiladas. We chop tomatoes, cucumbers and various hot peppers with yellow onion, add fresh cilantro leaves and lime juice and season with salt and fresh-ground black pepper. That stuff doesn't last too long around here.

 

[baywax]

Hello to the green thumb gang!

My 2nd generation fuchsia that survived the 11th month of rain this year has just now finally produced two of its cool little flower bulby things. Very late in the year for this but its to be expected after the prolonged, inclement weather. I'll see if I can get a good shot of pretty well the only thing I helped to grow this year... the spearmint and other herbs simply grow themselves!

 

[Evo]

Hello to the green thumb gang!

My 2nd generation fuchsia that survived the 11th month of rain this year has just now finally produced two of its cool little flower bulby things. Very late in the year for this but its to be expected after the prolonged, inclement weather. I'll see if I can get a good shot of pretty well the only thing I helped to grow this year... the spearmint and other herbs simply grow themselves!

Don't let it get fried in the sun! Mine was getting huge and flowering like crazy, so healthy. Then one day it was out in the sun without water and all of the tips fried off, now the plant is in shock and looks worse every day.

 

[turbo]

Don't let it get fried in the sun! Mine was getting huge and flowering like crazy, so healthy. Then one day it was out in the sun without water and all of the tips fried off, now the plant is in shock and looks worse every day.

Yep! Those are very popular hanging plants for open north-side summer porches - common features of Maine farm-houses built before air conditioning. Nice shady places to sit and snap beans, shell peas, shuck corn, etc. My aunt's shady porch is home to some monsters, and the blooms are fantastic. Filtered sun in the morning and indirect light/shade most of the day seems to be just what the doctor ordered for these plants.

 

[Andre]

However, one night frost and they're gone. Tough for surviving in the winter. I used to dig a deep hole about 3-4 feet in the forest in December, and dump them all, covering it with the fallen leafs until April. That kept them alive.

 

[Evo]

Oh, I may have my first tomatilio! I am so excited. See the "lantern like husk" in the middle of the picture!

 

[turbo]

As a "break" from the daily torrential rains, it was pretty nice while I took my father shopping for a used car. Then, before I got home thundershowers rolled through, and we got almost an inch of rain in 90 minutes. Tomorrow is supposed to be a dry day, but the humidity will be high and the garden will be a mud-hole. I have never had to endure such a wet summer when I had a vegetable garden. Maybe next year, I'll plant cat-tails and water lilies instead of peppers and tomatoes.

 

[turbo]

Oh, I may have my first tomatilio! I am so excited. See the "lantern like husk" in the middle of the picture!

That's nice - I'll have to try growing some. Our home-made fresh salsa is nice, but it would be even better with some fresh tomatillos. That little papery husk looks very similar to some hops a neighbor had growing beside his barn back in my beer-making days.

 

[rewebster]

are those the same as 'ground tomato' ?

http://www.slowfoodusa.org/ark/images/Auntmollystomato.jpg

http://www.slowfoodusa.org/ark/aunt_mollys_tomato.html

They're nice if they are--and they produce a lot of volunteer plants the next years

 

[Evo]

Supposedly they are in the same plant family, but there are differences, tomatillos are always green.

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1592/tomatillo01croppedbd3.jpg

Not only the color is different, but the husks are shaped differently.

 

[Evo]

As a "break" from the daily torrential rains, it was pretty nice while I took my father shopping for a used car. Then, before I got home thundershowers rolled through, and we got almost an inch of rain in 90 minutes. Tomorrow is supposed to be a dry day, but the humidity will be high and the garden will be a mud-hole. I have never had to endure such a wet summer when I had a vegetable garden. Maybe next year, I'll plant cat-tails and water lilies instead of peppers and tomatoes.

Turbo, I can't believe how much bad weather you are having. Out here it's been an unusually calm summer, it's almost like fall now, and I'd say we are at average rainfall for the year. I'm almost afraid of what fall will bring, we've been too lucky.

 

[Evo]

Wow, did you see the news? It's snowing in parts of Colorado!

Temperatures here are going to be in the 50's tonight.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Here's an idea for something to do with the tomatillos, Evo:
http://www.recipezaar.com/34965

 

[Evo]

That's why I grew these tomatillos, but I might die of old age before they produce enough. On the garden forums people are complaining of getting hundreds of tomatillos off a single plant and can't give them away.

Oh, the other day I was going through dozens of cookbooks looking for something and found the original recipe for Ninfa's Green sauce that I cut out of the Houston Chronicle when I lived there! Now I can't remember which cookbook I stuck it in.

MIH, someday we are going to go to Ninfa's together and eat green sauce and drink Ninfarita's until they throw us out.

 

[turbo]

Turbo, I can't believe how much bad weather you are having. Out here it's been an unusually calm summer, it's almost like fall now, and I'd say we are at average rainfall for the year. I'm almost afraid of what fall will bring, we've been too lucky.

We have been in some really depressing weather-patterns. I feel really sorry for the potato farmers who are losing what for many of them is a whole year's income, dairy farmers and beef-cattle growers who have yet to get in a single crop of decent hay, etc. It's brutal.

On the up-side, today my father paid $1200 for a Buick Park Avenue Ultra with power everything and a supercharged 231 ci V6 putting out 240 hp. The car has a new battery, good tires, etc, and apart for some small cracks I noticed in the serpentine belts, it needs little or no maintenance. Heated leather seats, power sunroof, and all kinds of on-board diagnostics - it's a far cry from his old(er) Caprice that just puked a rear differential. The car was owned by a local millionaire and it spent almost all of its winters in Florida, so the body and paint are great.

 

[Evo]

We have been in some really depressing weather-patterns. I feel really sorry for the potato farmers who are losing what for many of them is a whole year's income, dairy farmers and beef-cattle growers who have yet to get in a single crop of decent hay, etc. It's brutal.

On the up-side, today my father paid $1200 for a Buick Park Avenue Ultra with power everything and a supercharged 231 ci V6 putting out 240 hp. The car has a new battery, good tires, etc, and apart for some small cracks I noticed in the serpentine belts, it needs little or no maintenance. Heated leather seats, power sunroof, and all kinds of on-board diagnostics - it's a far cry from his old(er) Caprice that just puked a rear differential. The car was owned by a local millionaire and it spent almost all of its winters in Florida, so the body and paint are great.

Great news about the car, what a great find!

The weather is freaking me out. If it is this cool here already in the middle of August, what is the winter going to be like? I'm really hoping that maybe we'll have a really long fall and a mild winter.

Hey my luck has just changed - KNOCK ON WOOD! I just won two cups of coffee and a breakfast panini from Wendy's! WOOHOO! The downside is that my winning sweepstakes e-mail said the coupon will be mailed in 8-10 WEEKS! In 8-10 weeks, you guys all come over and we'll cash that sucker in!

 

[turbo]

One cup is mine! Don't invite too many other PF'ers!

 

[Evo]

One cup is mine! Don't invite too many other PF'ers!

Sorry everyone, turbo has claimed the second cup of coffee and gets half the panini. Anyone else that wants to join will have to buy their own.

 

[turbo]

Sorry everyone, turbo has claimed the second cup of coffee and gets half the panini. Anyone else that wants to join will have to buy their own.

Now I just have to figure out how to get 1/2 way across the country for breakfast without breaking the bank. It's been a few years since I hitch-hiked and bummed around...

 

[Evo]

Now I just have to figure out how to get 1/2 way across the country for breakfast without breaking the bank. It's been a few years since I hitch-hiked and bummed around...

I could probably overnight them to you.

I swear that Greg has an evil plot to make me crazy with the moving smilies.

 

[Math Is Hard]

MIH, someday we are going to go to Ninfa's together and eat green sauce and drink Ninfarita's until they throw us out.

That sounds heavenly. I am going to try to visit Ninfa's when I am on Christmas vacation if I have enough time.

 

[Moonbear]

As predicted, we had no rain the week I was away. (Though plenty in NY! ) My tomatoes look horrible. In containers, I think they needed more than one watering a day, or maybe they didn't get a good soaking. From drowning to drought, the poor plants are having a rough summer. I'm getting tomatoes, but mostly very funny looking ones, and not nearly as many as I hoped to preserve any for winter or even enough ripe at the same time to make a batch of tomato sauce. Oh well, at least I'm enjoying them for fresh eating. I guess I didn't start out hoping for much more when I started this adventure with container gardening. It's not like I chose varieties that are adapted to growing in containers.

 

[Evo]

Moonbear, I seem to have found a cure for blossom end rot. Ortho Garden Disease Control. When you notice the brown rot on the end of the tomato, give it a good spray with this mixed according to directions (I keep a quart spray bottle mixed). This has stopped every instance of rot instantly and it scabs over and the tomato continues to grow. I've had several ripen now and you just cut off the scabbed end and the rest of the tomato is perfect!

 

[Moonbear]

Moonbear, I seem to have found a cure for blossom end rot. Ortho Garden Disease Control. When you notice the brown rot on the end of the tomato, give it a good spray with this mixed according to directions (I keep a quart spray bottle mixed). This has stopped every instance of rot instantly and it scabs over and the tomato continues to grow. I've had several ripen now and you just cut off the scabbed end and the rest of the tomato is perfect!

I already cured the end rot. That is a calcium deficiency. Once I verified what it was by looking at some pictures, all I needed to do was add some lime.

Now I think the plants have a new problem. I didn't think about it before I left, but my cat sitter/plant waterer was stopping by after work each day, so watering the plants in the evening, rather than morning. Tomatoes can be pretty sensitive to getting watered at night when they stay wetter and start rotting with the cooler night air, and since the nights have been pretty cool, that's probably exactly what happened. Though, I've added some additional fertilizer to the pots in case it's just a simple nutrient deficiency. At this point, I'll be happy if I just get the tomatoes on them to ripen before the plants die.

The zucchinis loved whatever she was doing though! I didn't see the zucchinis hiding under the leaves at first, but when I went to check on progress, found three. One was a normal size, one was fairly large, but not much bigger than I've seen other people pick them, and one was HUGE. It's easily 4" in diameter and over a foot long!

 

[turbo]

I didn't think about it before I left, but my cat sitter/plant waterer was stopping by after work each day, so watering the plants in the evening, rather than morning. Tomatoes can be pretty sensitive to getting watered at night when they stay wetter and start rotting with the cooler night air, and since the nights have been pretty cool, that's probably exactly what happened.

Moonie, I am sorry that I didn't pick up on this. Morning watering in dry weather is preferable (foliar and soil dousing) and on hot days, soil dousing should be an evening activity. One of the problems that we have with tomato rot is that our thundershowers and torrential rains tend to occur in late afternoon and early evening when warm, moist air rises and collides with cooler air aloft and from Canada. Then, the plants stay wet all night and most of the next morning.

 

[Evo]

I know that cross pollination doesn't show up until the following season after you plant the seeds that were cross pollinated, so I will assume that these bell peppers are mimicking the jalapenos they have been planted next to out of envy.

This picture is of a bell pepper that is planted in the same pot with a jalapeno. "ALL" of the bell peppers on this plant look exactly like this.

Jalapeno wannabe.

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/5362/jalapenowannabeqa8.jpg

And my tomatillos have taken off! After 5 months of blossom drop, I had scratched them off my list for next year and figured I'd never get more than one, if I was lucky. Now I have close to fifty and getting more every day! WOOHOO! MIH, come on over, we're having Ninfa's Green Sauce!

 

[Math Is Hard]

And my tomatillos have taken off! After 5 months of blossom drop, I had scratched them off my list for next year and figured I'd never get more than one, if I was lucky. Now I have close to fifty and getting more every day! WOOHOO! MIH, come on over, we're having Ninfa's Green Sauce!

WOW! 50? That's incredible! Your plant must have been visited by the spirit of Mama Ninfa. You can make a ton of Green sauce now!

Let me grab some chips and I am on my way over!

 

[Evo]

WOW! 50? That's incredible! Your plant must have been visited by the spirit of Mama Ninfa. You can make a ton of Green sauce now!

Let me grab some chips and I am on my way over!

I know, and it's all since the other day! Unreal. I have seven plants and they are 4 feet tall and six feet wide. Knock on wood that they survive until they are ready to pick.

Now I just need an avocado tree. My first husband lived in Puerto Rico for awhile and said there was an avocado tree next to his house and the avocados were larger than softballs. He said they'd fall on the roof at night and wake him up.

There are no avocado trees in Kansas. We get those overpriced shriveled up things the size of eggs that when you cut them open are all brown inside. You need to buy a dozen to get what equals two decent ones.

 

[turbo]

I just got back from my neighbor's place after picking 1/2 bushel of peaches. There are lots more peaches left on the most heavily-damaged tree - another few bushels at least. It's really sad. Three of his peach trees have cracks and splits from the heavy load of fruit, but they may be mostly salvageable. The best-producing tree will be very tough for him to save and rehabilitate, because the leader (central branch) is broken off. There is a strong trunk and a well-established root system, so any viable suckers/small branches will be able to develop pretty rapidly over the next few years, but there will be no fruit from that tree for a while.

 

[Andre]

So Turbo, would it seem that the abundance of rainfall more than compensated for the lower temperatures?

 

[Evo]

I just got back from my neighbor's place after picking 1/2 bushel of peaches. There are lots more peaches left on the most heavily-damaged tree - another few bushels at least. It's really sad. Three of his peach trees have cracks and splits from the heavy load of fruit, but they may be mostly salvageable. The best-producing tree will be very tough for him to save and rehabilitate, because the leader (central branch) is broken off. There is a strong trunk and a well-established root system, so any viable suckers/small branches will be able to develop pretty rapidly over the next few years, but there will be no fruit from that tree for a while.

Was it due to all of the rain?

I never had to worry about too many peaches, what started out as a loaded tree would soon be decimated by birds and insects.

 

[turbo]

Andre and Evo - it seems that the heavy rains produced bumper crops of peaches and plums, and my grape vines and apple trees are loaded, too. It's too bad that Al's best tree got damaged. Most of the storms come with some pretty strong winds, and once a tree is loaded with that much fruit (weight plus surface area) the wind gets a much better chance to damage the tree. His plum trees are loaded, too (very sweet golden plums), but the branches of those are low and more horizontal, so he has them heavily braced, and they are undamaged.

 

[Evo]

Can someone tell me what kind of tree this is and what those green balls are?

The squirrels love these things and bury them all over the yard. Every time I go outside you hear a loud THUD and it's a squirrel knocking one out of the tree. Sometimes they manage to actually get one in their teeth and bring it down to eat, the rest of the time they just gather up the ones they've thrown down.

They peel off the thick outer layer and eat whatever is inside.

I'm really curious.

 

[OmCheeto]

Can someone tell me what kind of tree this is and what those green balls are?

The squirrels love these things and bury them all over the yard. Every time I go outside you hear a loud THUD and it's a squirrel knocking one out of the tree. Sometimes they manage to actually get one in their teeth and bring it down to eat, the rest of the time they just gather up the ones they've thrown down.

They peel off the thick outer layer and eat whatever is inside.

I'm really curious.

Looks like a walnut tree to me.

 

[Evo]

OMG you're right! thanks. No wonder they covet them.

 

[Ouabache]

Can someone tell me what kind of tree this is and what those green balls are?

Yup, compound leaves, round seed coats, black walnut, Juglans nigra. Good thing you aren't planting your vegetables in the same soil. They release juglone, a natural herbicide. (allelopathy ).

 

[turbo]

We don't have black walnut this far north, but we do have butternut trees, with a very similar fruit and very similar leaves and tree-shape. The husk of the fruit is fuzzy like a peach, and quite sticky when they're green. The squirrels love 'em.

 

[Evo]

Yup, compound leaves, round seed coats, black walnut, Juglans nigra. Good thing you aren't planting your vegetables in the same soil. They release juglone, a natural herbicide. (allelopathy ).

So that might explain why there is so little vegetation around them. They're down in the ravine

 

[Ouabache]

So that might explain why there is so little vegetation around them. They're down in the ravine

I suppose it's an adaptation advantage for the walnut, so there is less competition for water, nutrients and sunlight.

We don't have black walnut this far north, but we do have butternut trees, with a very similar fruit and very similar leaves and tree-shape. The husk of the fruit is fuzzy like a peach, and quite sticky when they're green. The squirrels love 'em.

So the butternut tree (Juglans cinerea) grows up there? Well with similar nut and leaf shape, I'm not surprised they are in the same genus as black walnut. They too are allelopathic, releasing juglone into the rootzone. So those squirrels are helping the butternut find new places to grow.

 

[turbo]

So the butternut tree (Juglans cinerea) grows up there? Well with similar nut and leaf shape, I'm not surprised they are in the same genus as black walnut. They too are allelopathic, releasing juglone into the rootzone. So those squirrels are helping the butternut find new places to grow.

And that neatly explains why the north lawn of that old farm-house was as sparse as it was. The fields up-slope had been plowed and planted for generations, and due to sedimentation in run-off, most of the lawns were very rich and fertile, except in the vicinity of the butternut trees.

I wonder if squirrels really forget where they bury their caches? It's to their advantage to plant some nuts, acorns, etc, and let them grow instead of eating all of them. At our last house, the yard was fully populated with trees - mostly oaks. Believe it or not, the squirrels would climb out to the tips of small branches and twigs and prune the trees with their teeth to encourage more branching/acorn production. I'd be working in my office, and look out to see clusters of oak leaves falling in the yard, and after a little binocular-surveillance, discovered that the squirrels were actively pruning the trees.

 

[Evo]

I wonder if squirrels really forget where they bury their caches? It's to their advantage to plant some nuts, acorns, etc, and let them grow instead of eating all of them. At our last house, the yard was fully populated with trees - mostly oaks. Believe it or not, the squirrels would climb out to the tips of small branches and twigs and prune the trees with their teeth to encourage more branching/acorn production. I'd be working in my office, and look out to see clusters of oak leaves falling in the yard, and after a little binocular-surveillance, discovered that the squirrels were actively pruning the trees.

My squirrels do that too. They are very active little gardeners.

Here is one of my tomatillo plants. I am so excited, I have never tasted a fresh tomatillo before.

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/7884/camerapictures435ed5.jpg

 

[turbo]

My squirrels do that too. They are very active little gardeners.

Here is one of my tomatillo plants. I am so excited, I have never tasted a fresh tomatillo before.

I should try planting some of those. I love them in salsas, but the farm-to-market distance is great, and fresh ones would probably be killer in our fresh salsas.

As I posted in Borek's vacation thread, my neighbor (chili-head garlic-grower) toddled up here this afternoon with a nice big brown paper bag of Russian garlic. He culled out a lot of the smaller (that's a really relative term, considering our standards!) bulbs so that I could use them for cooking, and save the larger bulbs for this winter's planting. We'll probably eat/cook with just Russian garlic this summer, because the larger German garlic only gets 4 cloves/bulb, and the 4:1 propagation rate will hold us back until we get a very large crop established. I started with 10 bulbs last winter, and now have 40 bulbs curing, which will translate to 160 bulbs next year if I get that same 100% success rate with them - YAY! BTW, every single clove of garlic that I planted last winter sprouted and produced a bulb of garlic for this years crop. Amazing.

Of course, the garlic-bed got 100% of the compost that we produced last year, so the soil there was pretty good.

 

[Evo]

How are your tomatoes doing? Are you going to have enough to last through the winter?

 

[turbo]

How are your tomatoes doing? Are you going to have enough to last through the winter?

Unfortunately, no. We have to sauce them and freeze them in small batches. Luckily, tomatoes are a commodity-type food that seems to be able to resist market pressures and stay at near-reasonable prices all through the winter - at least in canned form.

One bright point was that we had a bumper-crop of tomatoes last summer, and I was able to cook and can WAY more salsa that we could put a dent in, so there is enough tomato-based salsa jarred up to last us well into next year. It helped that I concentrated on chili relishes and dill-pickled chilies, because that really reduced the demand for tomato-based salsas. We're plowing through those chili-heavy concoctions way faster than the tomato-based salsas. Another factor is the long very wet spells that we have had to endure. Those days were not real conducive to grilling on the back deck, and the reduced cheeseburger-count eased pressure on the salsas.

 

[Evo]

I'm glad to hear you have some from last year. This is the summer that wasn't. If it wasn't for the humidity, most of the days had fall like temperatures. I had to put on my thick bathrobe last night letting the fruit bat out, it was really chilly. I'm not sad that the "dog days of summer" didn't happen this year. Knock on wood.

On a complete side note, here is an eggplant leaf with leaves growing out of it. this is fairly common with eggplants. My little camera doesn't do too well at close ups, but you can see the big one and the little one behind it.

 

[turbo]

Your camera does well enough at close-ups to let me see the ants herding the aphids.

 

[Evo]

Your camera does well enough at close-ups to let me see the ants herding the aphids.

Yeah, that was when I was using neem oil for weeks and weeks. Once I switched to a real insecticide, they were history after the first spray.

 

[Evo]

Say "cheese"

Sorry he's blurry, but this dragonfly had such a great expression on his face I was in a rush to take his picture before he flew away. It looks like he's smiling and saying something. Or I am just crazy.

I mean, you can even see his upper teeth...