What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

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SUMMARY

This discussion centers on successful gardening techniques, emphasizing organic methods and the cultivation of various plants. Participants share personal experiences with growing perennials such as blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries, as well as vegetables like tomatoes, lettuce, and peppers. The conversation highlights the importance of gardening as a spiritual and fulfilling activity, while also addressing challenges like deer damage and water restrictions. Additionally, cultural differences in gardening practices between the U.S. and Spain are noted, illustrating varying access to gardening spaces.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of organic gardening principles
  • Knowledge of perennial plant care, specifically for blueberries and raspberries
  • Familiarity with vegetable gardening techniques, including planting tomatoes and peppers
  • Awareness of common gardening challenges, such as pest control and water management
NEXT STEPS
  • Research organic pest control methods for vegetable gardens
  • Learn about the best practices for propagating berry plants
  • Explore techniques for creating a cutting garden
  • Investigate deer-resistant plants suitable for landscaping
USEFUL FOR

Garden enthusiasts, organic gardeners, and individuals interested in sustainable gardening practices will benefit from this discussion. It provides insights into plant care, gardening challenges, and cultural perspectives on gardening.

  • #1,141
These are some of my favorites:
stargazer5.jpg


This one has 8 blooms:
stargazer6.jpg


stargazer3.jpg



The stamen ends (?) are covered with a dust of rust colored pollen that are barely attached and tremble/wiggle/dance in a slight breeze.
stargazer4.jpg


I mentioned how sweet these specific ones smelled to the mailwoman, and she said she could smell them from across the street and wondered where the fragrance was coming from. They're as fragrant or more than hyacyths.
 
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  • #1,142
Beautiful blooms, rewebster! I spend all my time and effort on the herbs and vegetables, but I appreciate the dedication that goes into producing such nice floral displays. We have a couple of neighbors who landscape with flowering plants and their places look nice.
 
  • #1,143
I had those same lilies at my old house. They are very fragrant. What's so nice about lillies is that you plant them once and ignore them, every year they come back bigger and with more plants. The bad part is that they only bloom in spring/early summer. Rew have you tried summer blooming lillies? They bloom all summer.
 
  • #1,144
Evo said:
I had those same lilies at my old house. They are very fragrant. What's so nice about lillies is that you plant them once and ignore them, every year they come back bigger and with more plants. The bad part is that they only bloom in spring/early summer. Rew have you tried summer blooming lillies? They bloom all summer.

no---got some varieties? (names) that could be looked up? or post?

(Homer like and drooling: hmmmm-low maintenance!)--yep, they are great for that, evo--and they are beautiful too

turbo--try lilies --easy and nice to look at
 
  • #1,145
Problem with lillies here is a very nasty bug, eating the plant much faster than it can grow. :-P
 
  • #1,146
rewebster said:
no---got some varieties? (names) that could be looked up? or post?

(Homer like and drooling: hmmmm-low maintenance!)--yep, they are great for that, evo--and they are beautiful too

turbo--try lilies --easy and nice to look at
I have the Stela D'oro lilies. They bloom from june until frost. This sight has them as late season bloomers, but they bloom all summer, as do many others.

http://www.bloomingfieldsfarm.com/frmindxb.html
 
  • #1,147
Those are lovely, rewebster! I love stargazers.

One of my other favorite lillies is Stella d'Oro. Lovely profuse yellow blooms, but no heady fragrance.

(Evo - you beat me - it took me quite a while to post)
 
  • #1,148
stella.jpg


got a couple small patches of stellas--they're in a 'dry' spot and need to be moved to some place a little more damp

(they're in my creeping charlie ground cover bed)

thanks for the link Evo--nice site
 
  • #1,149
rewebster said:
no---got some varieties? (names) that could be looked up? or post?

(Homer like and drooling: hmmmm-low maintenance!)--yep, they are great for that, evo--and they are beautiful too

turbo--try lilies --easy and nice to look at
I might plant lilies some time. We had tiger lilies and day lilies at our last house a few years back. I have blue-flag irises growing in my shady little frog-pond, and cat-tails and other water weeds growing in the larger pond. The areas bordering the lawn are loaded with wild-flowers like black-eyed Susans, daisies, wild carrot, asters, milkweed, thistle, buttercups, etc, etc. I pretty much let mother nature do the landscaping around here, and we have wildflowers from spring until hard frost.
 
  • #1,150
I'm guessing no spider mites?
 
  • #1,151
Evo said:
I'm guessing no spider mites?

nope--well, I haven't seen any type of 'bug'--even on close looks

are you suggesting notaspidermite?
 
  • #1,152
rewebster said:
nope--well, I haven't seen any type of 'bug'--even on close looks

are you suggesting notaspidermite?
It could very well be notaspidermite. Any neighborhood dogs that could be relieving themselves on your plants? The Fruit Bat peed on my marigolds and they withered up and died.
 
  • #1,153
Curious how not much else wants to grow in that spot near where the plant died.
 
  • #1,154
Evo said:
It could very well be notaspidermite. Any neighborhood dogs that could be relieving themselves on your plants? The Fruit Bat peed on my marigolds and they withered up and died.

I've got very bad squirrels and cats--but its almost 8 feet in diameter now



yeah, lisab, that what so funny--whatever was in that planter (8 inch) is radiating out from where it hit the ground.---it's only the violets and other 'weeds'--but I haven't seen or heard of anything like it from a 'planter'.
 
  • #1,155
If it's spreading, should you perhaps rip up a trench to stop whateever is spreading? Better to sacrifice some before you lose it all. Have you contacted your local agricultural office? Maybe if you have a really good professional gardening center (not a Lowe's) you could take a sample in and see what they think.
 
  • #1,156
it's more one of those 'isn't that strange' things rather than 'cover it with a tarp and put chlorine gas under it' things
 
  • #1,157
What is extremely puzzling to me about rewebster's killer spider is that spiders don't need any special nutrients, out-of-whack pH or anything else that might stress other plants. Spiders are drop-dead easy to grow in the most crappy nutrient-deficient soil you can imagine. Give them indirect sun and regular water in a well-drained pot, and they will start throwing off runners and baby spiders like crazy. When I was in college my freshman year (with mandatory on-campus housing for that year), my complex was at least 3:1 female:male and I had lots of female buddies, and they loved it when I would give them lovely plants that they couldn't kill. I had several varieties of spiders in my room, and whenever some visiting lady-friend said "Ooh! I like that one." I'd start rooting one of the babies for her. I'd start the babies in undersized pots, so that they would get root-bound soon and start throwing out their own runners to produce that nice multi-level cascade look.
 
  • #1,158
oh--turbo--you were the spider man to those un-suspecting fly women in garden web raised bed
 
  • #1,159
Has anyone grown tomatillos? I understand that they are "self incompatible" meaning that they only pollinate with another plant. From what I've read either people get hoards of them or nothing. I have about 7 plants and they are managing to all flower at different times. I have two right now that are in bloom and keeping my fingers crossed that by some miracle they will set fruit.

I just found out that these plants can reach heights up to 20 feet and produce 100-200 tomatillos per season each! I was wondering why they were getting so tall. I read that I can trim them back like I do with my basil and they'll just get bushier. But I'd like to hear from anyone that's actually grown these.
 
  • #1,160
rewebster said:
oh--turbo--you were the spider man to those un-suspecting fly women in garden web raised bed
Sometimes, all it would take is to visit the room of a friend or acquaintance that had a decent stereo, some non-perishable foods, and some nice house-plants to help relieve the homesickness of girls who had left home only to face the bare, institutional rooms of a public college. Giving them plants made me feel better and it made them feel better about being away from home.

I was a chem-E student and my room was not a hot-bed of party activity, especially since on Friday and Saturday nights, I was usually playing frat parties so I had enough money to eat all week without dipping into my savings. Forced on-campus housing for freshmen was a racket for the university. I could have gotten an apartment and bought and cooked all my own food (and eaten a hell of a lot better!) for a lot less than it cost me to live on campus that first year. When I got an apartment, the ladies across the street gave me a key to their apartment within a week or so. It's pretty amazing what an impression a skinny long-distance runner made on a couple of drop-dead gorgeous ladies (smart, too) with some home-cooked meals, gifts of house-plants, and a willingness to drop in and check on their critters. One of them lost a boyfriend over me - we were just friends, and she wasn't willing to throw me over to satisfy an insecure guy.

Big tip to students that know how to cook: If you are interested in someone, invite them to a non-threatening get-together and make a nice, simple meal with some pleasant music. I invited those two sweeties across the street to my apartment for a spaghetti supper and served spaghetti with hot pepperoni slices in the long-simmered sauce along with ground chuck and pork, a simple tossed salad, some Chianti, and some broiler-toasted garlic bread with crushed garlic, paprika, onion salt, and butter. They raved about that simple meal for weeks. When they wanted to have some people in for a party, they always cut me in on the action, if only (I hope not!) to get my enthusiastic participation with the food, music, etc. I met a lot of nice people at their parties, and some are still friends.
 
  • #1,161
We had a gentle, but steady rain all morning which let up recently. Perfect after a couple of dry hot weeks. The resident female common yellowthroat is still helping with bug patrol. While I was killing Japanese beetles yesterday, she was persistently patrolling my tomato plants and peppers. Funny that the male doesn't join in - he stays mostly off to the side in a tree that he favors. Along with the helpful birds, I've got some free-loaders, too. The goldfinches weren't too bad until recently, but they have begun eating my beet greens and Swiss chard again, like last summer.
 
  • #1,162
rewebster said:
Whatever was killing off those violets, I must have transferred to the front yard, maybe on my shoes or whatever, as the violets in the front yard are now dying off. The worst part is that is now on the tomatoes--which means they'll be dying off in a couple of weeks probably--oh, well---- (and, yes, I have sprayed several times in case it was 'bugs'). I hope it doesn't get the peppers.

I'm going to send photos to my local extension office to see if they what what's going on.I find it really odd that something can effect two such different species.
Good luck with that. I'd hate to have something happen to my tomatoes or to my chilies - those are do-or-die staples.

The string beans are not only flowering heavily - the beans are coming like crazy. Today was our first picking and we got 1/2 peck from that one 35' row. I have most of them flash-freezing on a large pizza pan a big cookie sheet in one of the chest freezers. If you grow green beans, don't wash them or snap them or anything. Get them into the freezer laid out in a thin layer ASAP, and when they have frozen, transfer them to a big zip-lock freezer bag. They won't stick together when frozen this way, so if you want a handful of string beans for a soup, or a larger bunch to prepare as a meal, you can get just as much out of the bag as you want. Rinse them in cool water, snap them, get some water boiling, and toss them in the pot only after it's boiling well. Cook only until they are still a bit crisp. They are the best-tasting frozen beans you will ever eat, with beautiful color and texture. If your crop comes in heavy, and you keep up with the picking and freezing you'll have great beans until next year's crop is ready for harvest.

The key to keeping beans producing at peak is to pick them frequently so that the plants are forced to keep budding. Don't let beans get big - the nutrients tied up in that extra growth should be reserved for the formation of more buds. Beans are far tastier and more tender when picked a little before what many people consider "mature". My father raves about the string beans we give him - I just have to smile, because he always let his beans get too big, and the texture and flavor would suffer AND it would reduce his crop by suppressing budding. I learned gardening from my mother and other relatives and friends - he just never learned a lot of these tricks, and at 82, it's hard to retrain him. :rolleyes:
 
  • #1,163
Red spidermites? Are you going to have to bring out the big guns?
 
  • #1,164
Evo said:
Red spidermites? Are you going to have to bring out the big guns?

I'd like to hire turbo with his red ryder
 
  • #1,165
rewebster said:
I'd like to hire turbo with his red ryder
At this point, you need a flame thrower. You don't want anything that will spread them around.
 
  • #1,166
rewebster said:
I'd like to hire turbo with his red ryder
I'd have to ventilate a LOT of leaves to do you any good, then your garden would be contaminated by lead from all the pellets.
 
  • #1,167
Evo said:
At this point, you need a flame thrower. You don't want anything that will spread them around.

do you want to rent that one you have?
 
  • #1,168
rewebster said:
do you want to rent that one you have?
Can you just imagine me with a canister of gas strapped to my back?
 
  • #1,169
Here is a place that sells spider mite predators. They're pricey, but if it saves your garden...

http://www.arbico-organics.com/organic-pest-control-beneficial-insects-organisms-mite-control.html
 
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  • #1,170
Evo said:
Can you just imagine me with a canister of gas strapped to my back?

well... yes... I can IMAGINE it---

you look and appear to be overly happy and almost laughing uncontrollably with some type of look of joy to your face as you send the flames 75 ft in most directions
 

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