What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

[turbo]

I bought a second compost bin yesterday and today I ripped up all the tomato plants and string beans and a lot of weeds and started the second batch of compost. I got out the old Horse and repeatedly deep-tilled the northern 1/3 of the garden. We'll probably rip out the rest of the garden this weekend and I'll till the remaining 2/3. There is so much clay here that I want to get the garden ready early so I can amend the soil with some sand, so it will work more easily and give root vegetables some "breathing room". I'm thinking I'll need to spread 10 yards of sand (2" x 35' x 50') and give that a try, with more next fall if needed.

 

[Evo]

Have you been adding gypsum to the soil? When I lived in Houston, the soil is clay, gypsum is the only way to go, but it takes time. I'd start applying it now, if you haven't already.

 

[Astronuc]

Our soil is mostly clay, and we simply amend it with composted cow manure and organic material (composed kitchen vegetable waste/scraps, cut grass, decayed leaves, twigs, branches, . . . ). It does take a few years, but the composted manure speeds it up.

There are some mighty huge earthworms in our compost pile.

I start with a pick and break up the clay down to at least 1 foot and then mix in a bag of composted manure and other organic matter.

 

[Evo]

I also mixed in peat, but then had to add blood meal to compensate.

 

[turbo]

Have you been adding gypsum to the soil? When I lived in Houston, the soil is clay, gypsum is the only way to go, but it takes time. I'd start applying it now, if you haven't already.

Our soil is already fine in the calcium department, and I am routinely adding organic materials to the soil like peat, composted cow manure, etc. My neighbor gardens organically, too and he has similar soil. The addition of manures, compost, etc, helps with aeration and drainage in soils with a high clay content, but he had even more success after amending his garden soil with sand. It helps keep the clay from compacting and forming a moisture barrier, and makes it easier to pull weeds without leaving lots of roots that allows them to come right back. He says that it also improved the quality and size of his root vegetables (carrots, turnip, beets, garlic), and I can attest to the great garlic that he grows. A couple of weeks ago I heard someone hollering, and since he often works alone with heavy equipment and his sawmill, I was concerned that he might be pinned under a log, injured, or something, so I ran right down to his place. It turns out that he was hollering for his dog (he is a big guy with a booming voice). A little later, he brought us up a big handful of fresh garlic bulbs as a thank-you and we have been using them as we make our hot pepper sauces. He has a little greenhouse, and I'm going to offer him some of our habanero and jalapeno bushes - many still have buds, flowers, and tiny peppers and they will produce all winter if they are kept warm and happy.

 

[turbo]

Our Waring 6001 professional juicer showed up today. It is a factory-reconditioned unit (actually every part appeared to be brand-new and unused). Very heavy, yet compact, with high-quality SS parts throughout. Best of all, it was only $54 for a juicer with an MSRP of over $400. My wife and I just finished juicing a few pounds of our grapes (they got JUST ripe enough before the killing frost), and the juice is wonderful. Most of the astringency in these grapes is in their dark purple skins, and most of the macerated skins were caught on the screen of the centrifuge. They sent a pack of paper filters, too, and the juice could be made even less astringent by lining the centriguge basket with one, but I like the extra color and body. Filtered juice might sell better, but this is for home consumption, so we probably won't bother using them. Tomorrow, carrot juice! We dug up all the remaining carrots on Saturday and have about 50# of them kicking around.

 

[Evo]

Organic carrot juice paralyzes Canadians.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/10/09/botulism.html

Glad you're making your own.

 

[turbo]

We have many gallons of frozen blackberries, and we're talking about the possibilities for combinations - blackberry/apple and grape/apple are VERY good (we made those with my sister's juicer), but there are possibilites for carrot/cabbage/parsley, blackberry/grape, hell! maybe blackberry/carrot would be good. My wife is planning on making a batch of carrot/cabbage/parsley juice before she leaves for work tomorrow, and I'll but the pulp in a beef/vegetable soup that we've got planned.

 

[turbo]

OK, some juice combinations are NOT good! I tried a mixture that my wife made before she left for work and BLECCCH! She called a bit ago and asked if I liked it (she does!) and I had to tell her that carrots, cabbage, celery, parsley, grapes, and apples just don't go well together. It's probably as healthy as all get-out, but it tastes awful. I went back to the grape juice we made last night, and am happy with that. It's just a bit tart with some real body, like the unfiltered early-season apple cider you can get at local orchards up here. My sister's boyfriend is going to come down this weekend and we'll harvest a few hundred pounds of grapes, juice them, and freeze the juice. He's planning on making wine, and this will give him the fixin's for a few good batches.

 

[Astronuc]

. . . carrots, cabbage, celery, parsley, grapes, and apples just don't go well together. . . . .

Maybe if you add lots of hot curry!

I can't see grapes and apple going with cabbage and parsely.

Carrots are sweet, so carrots, grapes and apples would go well together.

 

[turbo]

Here is how I spent my day. This is only the first basket of grapes that I juiced. I made grape juice all day until our available freezer space was pretty much consumed. The juicer is called the "Professional" model 6001 by Waring, but notice the trade name. Hey! if it's good enough for Wile E. Coyote... Here's the link if anybody is looking for a heavy-duty juicer at a bargain price. Everything that comes in contact with the food is stainless steel with the exception of the (apparently nylon) clutch knob that secures the cutter disk to the drive shaft. My sister's juicer has lots of plastic parts, and it's a pain in the butt to clean, so we never used it much. This one is very solid and well-built, with a minimum of parts to clean.

http://buyitnow64.stores.yahoo.net/wapjprjustst.html

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/2917/grapesrw1.jpg

 

[turbo]

We still have lots of carrots, and my wife just finished juicing a good batch of them with a melon, apples, oranges, and a lime. Tasty! No cabbage or parsley to wreck this batch. We had one of our buttercup squash for supper with steak and potatoes, cole slaw and bread-and-butter pickles with jalapenos. The cole slaw and pickles are wonderful together!

 

[turbo]

I just got in my last gardening "fix" of the season. I spread and tilled 1-1/2 cubic yards of (very) compressed sphagnum peat moss on the 1500 ft² garden, raked it out and then deep-tilled it. I'll add more composted manure in the spring before planting time, but I wanted to get the organic content of the soil up a bit to help with aeration and drainage in case next spring is really wet like this last one was.

 

[Pythagorean]

I just got a ****ake mushroom log from Oklahoma. So far, it's been hard to get going because it's so dry here (and putting a bag over it to retain moisture results in molding). I'm going to have to try shocking it again after it's rest period is over.

I've harvested the previously mentioned plants. For my first time, I'm pretty happy with the harvest. In the curing state right now. I'd post pictures, but I don't want to raise any spooky flags (i'm totally lying just to sound cool over the internet anyway, for those spooks listening)

 

[Astronuc]

For my first time, I'm pretty happy with the harvest. In the curing state right now. I'd post pictures, but I don't want to raise any spooky flags (i'm totally lying just to sound cool over the internet anyway, for those spooks listening)

That makes good sens

 

[turbo]

I'm really glad that I tilled in the peat moss yesterday instead of waiting to do the tilling this morning. The forecast said that it would start raining in the afternoon today and continue through the evening, with high winds and thunderstorms. Apparently, the rain didn't hear the forecast, because it's been coming down hard all day since early morning. We are told to expect several inches of rain with flood watches in effect, and gusts of up to 60mph are in the forecast, with the wind direction changing throughout the day and night. I've got my generator fueled up, because we are almost guaranteed to lose our power. Since we are on a lightly-populated back road, we are usually among the last in town to get our power back.

 

[Astronuc]

We have a number of bird feeders and suet cakes in the yard. There are lots of birds of numerous varities busy preparing for winter.

We also have several chipmunks (at least three) who are preparing for winter. One has not tail, one has half a tail (it's clear its been bitten off) and the third has a full tail. There maybe others with full tails.

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/4111/chipmunk1lm3.jpg
http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/540/chipmunk2zm5.jpg

This is the one without a tail. Each has learned to run up the pole into the cages holding the seeds and suet cakes. The cages keep out the larger squirrels, but admit birds . . . and chipmunks.

They are a delight to watch, and now Misty, our female cat who is an excellent mouse catcher, has discovered the chipmunks.

The dog has picked up their scents, so when the dog goes out she races to particuarly spots to look for chipmunks, and she has cornered them. She has also killed a few in the past, so we are now careful to check the yard before we let her out. We give any chipmunk time to get out of range.

 

[turbo]

Chipmunks are fun, and the females can be easily trained - the males seem to be a bit tougher because they don't need to hoard as much food for the winter - the females will have little ones to feed and once they learn to trust you, they will come to you for food. We had a female living in the rock wall at a previous residence. I would get home from work, load up my shirt pocket with sunflower seeds and go out the front door and whistle. She'd come at me on a dead run, climb up the front of me and dive head-first into my pocket. It only took an hour or two a day for a week to get her that comfortable.

 

[Astronuc]

Chipmunks are fun, and the females can be easily trained - the males seem to be a bit tougher because they don't need to hoard as much food for the winter - the females will have little ones to feed and once they learn to trust you, they will come to you for food. We had a female living in the rock wall at a previous residence. I would get home from work, load up my shirt pocket with sunflower seeds and go out the front door and whistle. She'd come at me on a dead run, climb up the front of me and dive head-first into my pocket. It only took an hour or two a day for a week to get her that comfortable.

Very cool!

I think our neighborhood chipmunks live in the wooded areas, and perhaps they use a few holes in our yard. I notice them in the upper part of the back yard, when they are coming from or entering the forest on the hill behind our property. One or two may be living in our front yard, and we may have a mole or two, or did. We have little holes around the yard.

Our chipmunks just take off running when the back door opens - experience with the dog, I presume. We probably have a combination of male and female. I haven't made any effort to try to attract one, although last weekend, the dog had cornered one between the garage and tool closet. I got some seeds and laid them out, but the chipmunk kept avoiding me, so I left the creature alone with the seeds. It's just a great joy to watch them. We also delight in the numbers and varieties of birds.

 

[Astronuc]

Another very cool thing -

http://www.fryarstopiaries.com/subtemp.asp?cat=1&id=7

 

[Astronuc]

Well it's mid winter, so I doubt people are doing much in the way of gardening outdoors - except if one lives in So Cal.

Anyway an piece of botanical trivia -

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070215/ap_on_sc/ancient_peppers;_ylt=AuqIyZG7aR.TDGpd9XPkUTnMWM0F

WASHINGTON - Who says food fads can't last? Thousands of years before the advent of Tex-Mex, ancient Americans were spicing up stew with red hot chili peppers. New fossil evidence shows prehistoric people from southern Peru up to the Bahamas were cultivating varieties of chilies millennia before Columbus' arrival brought the spice to world cuisine.

The earliest traces so far are from southwestern Ecuador, where families fired up meals with homegrown peppers about 6,100 years ago.

The discovery, reported Friday in the journal Science, suggests early New World agriculture was more sophisticated than once thought.

"Some people who have described ancient food ways as being simple will probably have to rethink their ideas because of this work," said lead researcher Linda Perry of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

"It tells us a lot about what was going on around the prehistoric hearth," adds co-author Deborah Pearsall, an anthropology professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, who found evidence of chili-laced stew in pots in an ancient Ecuadorean village.

Archaeologists trace food origins not just from curiosity about the ancients' everyday lives. How a crop spreads sheds light on prehistoric travel and trade. In the Middle East, figs were domesticated 11,400 years ago. Wheat wasn't far behind. In the New World, corn was being cultivated around 9,000 years ago.

. . . .

Now the hunt is on for the first site of homegrown chilies. It can't be Ecuador, too far from where wild chilies flourish in Bolivia and Brazil.

"Whether this is migration of people or early trade is one of the fascinating questions," said Pearsall, . . . .

 

[turbo]

I saw that, too. I always pay attention when peppers are involved. My wife and I are always returning to the subject of gardening - just planning. So far, we have decided on no zucchini this year, doubling up on the carrots, and increasing the number of jalapeños, so we can make more poppers. More buttercup squash is in the plans, and no peas - they take too much room, involve too much work for the meager yield. We still have lots of jars of habanero left, so the jury is still out on whether we need to get another bunch of those in the ground.

 

[Astronuc]

Well, it's almost gardening season again.

Here's an idea for those growing lettuce, which prefers a cooler environment.

http://www.gardeners.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Gardeners-Site/default/Link-Product?SC=KNA7011A&sku=36-558

I've been thinking about something like this for squash and tomatoes, as well as cucumbers.

 

[Pythagorean]

me and my girlfriend want to start a garden outside our apartment complex (sure the landlord would be cool with it) but we're close to busy roads. Especially if I'm planning on eating the produce from the garden, what kind of cheap material can I use for makeshift walls? I was thinking visqueen, but I'm not sure if it blocks out certain required spectrums for plants or not.

 

[turbo]

Well, it's almost gardening season again.

Here's an idea for those growing lettuce, which prefers a cooler environment.

http://www.gardeners.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Gardeners-Site/default/Link-Product?SC=KNA7011A&sku=36-558

I've been thinking about something like this for squash and tomatoes, as well as cucumbers.

I've been considering something similar for the squash and cucumbers. Other plants that might like it cool are Swiss chard and spinach. I love fresh spinach in salads, but it generally bolts by mid-summer and it's hard to get a late crop that grows well and tastes as good as the early one.

 

[Astronuc]

Happy Spring!

The crocuses just broke the surface yesterday.

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/9365/crocuses1005678em0.jpg


The tulips are not far behind.

 

[turbo]

Damn! We are many weeks behind you, and I am hoping that the current rains will bring a reduction in the snow-pack without triggering floods and ice-dams. We should have a drier day tomorrow, and if these short wet/dry cycles continue, we may escape flooding in the river valleys and still manage to recharge our groundwater. I have a drilled well in a deep aquifer and a dug well (for irrigating the garden, washing cars, etc) and I would like for both of the to be usable. Last summer, a prolonged dry spell would cause the dug well to be depleted with only about 45-60 min of watering through one rotary sprinkler in the garden. I've got a small but deep pond in the back yard as a back-up, but using that would add another level of complexity in a drought summer, plus require me to stress the critters living there.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I managed to sneak in a spray day today [hurray!]. Here in Oregon, in the early spring, it is a constant game of cat and mouse to catch a day dry enough and warm enough to spray for weeds - actually, to control the boundaries of the property, the driveway, fence lines, etc. If you don't get things in time, the grass is literally four feet tall before you know it - two hundred dollars for Crossbow and Roundup if done early, and double that if I get to things too late. Unfortunately, it still takes about three hits over the growing season to keep everything in check.

This year I finally broke down and bought a four gallon backpack sprayer. Wow, what a pleasure that is compared to lugging around a three gallon spray bottle. It only took about three hours to apply twelve [correction: sixteen] gallons of mix. That is a record!

 

[turbo]

Sorry for my lack of enthusiasm, but is there no other way to control weeds? I'm lucky to have neighbors on every side of me that won't use herbicides, but then again, we all have to drink the water from our wells, and we have vegetable gardens.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Unfortunately, there is no other option. In fact, it's only barely possible to control the property with herbacides.

This year is particularly bad because last year we reclaimed about a bit of land above the house. It is always difficult to get new areas under control.