What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

[Astronuc]

It's still too cold and wet to plant. I'm still having to wear a jacket and the plants that survived the freeze are in shock.

All of my fruit trees lost their fruit in the freeze.

Hang in there Evo. Sending warm thoughts your way and hope for warmer weather soon.

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/4223/papaverflowersmallyh3.jpg

Papaver - two views of the same three flowers.

 

[Art]

I was told to put out a saucer of beer. Apparently they crawl onto to it and die by drowning. Just use a cheap beer like Miller or Budweiser.
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7427.html

It worked great for catching slugs but unfortunately snails do not appear to be as fond of beer

Originally Posted by Anttec
Start eating them they will get the message after a while

Funnily enough I was watching A History of the British Isles recently and it said on there that the common garden snail is not indigenous to the British Isles but was introduced by the Romans as a delicacy.

 

[turbo]

I transplanted my spearmint and peppermint today, and have upended some unused flower pots over them because we may get a hard freeze tonight. My wife and I hope to plant our garden over the long Memorial Day weekend, but all last week (including last night) we had rain and my Troy-Bilt Horse and I are destined to spend a lot of time mudding unless the weather turns dry. We are supposed to get some dry/cool weather with warming toward the end of the week, but the water-carrying capacity of cool air isn't that great and I don't know if we can get the garden dry enough to till. We've spent over $80 on seeds, and we'll get the garden in eventually and save probably more than $1000 in grocery costs (very conservative!), but this cold wet spring has got me down. My old apple trees have already blossomed with no pollinators to visit the blossoms. My newer trees (20Y or less) are hybrids that didn't bolt when the 80-90 deg weather showed up, so I may get some apples from them.

 

[Moonbear]

It's still too cold and wet to plant.

I'm still having to wear a jacket and the plants that survived the freeze are in shock.

All of my fruit trees lost their fruit in the freeze.

It's been a bit warmer the past few days, but we've still had very cold nights. Not that I'm planning on planting much this year since local fauna ate it all last year. Might just stick some flowers in planters on the deck and call it a day. Usually by now, we're past the last frost, but I'm not totally sure of that yet this year.

Astronuc, how much lettuce do you grow and what do you do with it all? I tried growing lettuce once, and it did very well early in the season while it was still cold and wet, like it is now, but then as soon as the real summer heat came along, it died off. So, I wound up with lots of lettuce early in the season, but it was too soon for anything else, and by the time I had other veggies to mix into salads, I didn't have lettuce anymore. I never tried a fall lettuce crop.

Do you stagger planting it so it's not all ready at once? I can't think of anything to do with lettuce other than fresh eating, and it just isn't worth it for the short growing season and short shelf life.

 

[turbo]

Moonie, lettuce does really well with cool, damp soils. My wife and I are planting lettuce in the garden early, and re-planting in large windowboxes that we can place in partial shad on the deck, to keep the temps down. High soil temperatures and sun can cause greens to toughen and/or bolt, so we are trying this to see if we can have crispy tasty leaf lettuces all through the summer. We are also thinking of planting some 2nd-crop lettuce between our pepper and tomato plants so they can benefit from the shading.

 

[Astronuc]

It's been a bit warmer the past few days, but we've still had very cold nights. Not that I'm planning on planting much this year since local fauna ate it all last year. Might just stick some flowers in planters on the deck and call it a day. Usually by now, we're past the last frost, but I'm not totally sure of that yet this year.

Astronuc, how much lettuce do you grow and what do you do with it all? I tried growing lettuce once, and it did very well early in the season while it was still cold and wet, like it is now, but then as soon as the real summer heat came along, it died off. So, I wound up with lots of lettuce early in the season, but it was too soon for anything else, and by the time I had other veggies to mix into salads, I didn't have lettuce anymore. I never tried a fall lettuce crop.

Do you stagger planting it so it's not all ready at once? I can't think of anything to do with lettuce other than fresh eating, and it just isn't worth it for the short growing season and short shelf life.

Like Turbo mentioned, lettuce like cool, partly sunny weather, and not to dry. I'm not sure how it's grown in Ca, but I think they must spray it constanly with water to cool it.

I think Turbo's idea of shading the lettuce is one that many people try. Last year we had sugar peas and tomato plants in the same area, and that provided some shade. And so did my habanero pepper plants , which took off an produced a lot of peppers. This year, my son and I will be planting several varieties of hot peppers.

People sell little shade structure for lettuce. I think I posted something in this thread about them.

We have about 20 lettuce plants of two varieties. We started them as seedlings indoors while we still had potential for frost, but one can buy seedling from some shops. Some of ours will probably be ready for harvest soon. Unfortunately, we don't have any tomato plants - we just started them.

Right now we have cool weather. Tonight it's suppose to get down into the 30's, and some places have frost warnings!

Our experience is that once the weather get into 70's with lots of sun, the lettuce bolts, and it doesn't taste particular good either.

Here is some advice from University of Illinois.
http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/veggies/lettuce1.html

And from Ohio State - http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1610.html

This is kind of interesting - Lettuce That Can Stand the Heat

Oh and this year our oak tree flowered, and in fact the blossoms just blew of the tree (it was like snowflakes), and so it will be packed with acorns this year. Last year with the drought and late cold weather, we didn't get any acorns.

 

[Astronuc]

One of our garden buddies and neighbor.

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/2723/rabbit1005772jz8.jpg

We have at least three mature rabbits who visit our back yard. Two were in the blackberry patch the other day. I have since reset the mesh.

 

[Astronuc]

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/9186/oenothera1005805hp7.jpg​

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Oenothera - just as the bloom started to open.

I saw a sliver of yellow about 45 minutes before I took this shot. I came back and it had opened a little more.

 

[larkspur]

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/9186/oenothera1005805hp7.jpg​

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Oenothera - just as the bloom started to open.

I saw a sliver of yellow about 45 minutes before I took this shot. I came back and it had opened a little more.

Cool! I have coreopsis,cornflower (Centaurea cyanus),yarrow,evening primrose and salvia blooming. My roses have not recovered yet from freeze so they are late this year.

 

[Astronuc]

OK - here is the images of Alium at different stages of blooming.

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/8571/alium1005721es9.jpg​

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[larkspur]

Do you have any idea what flower this is? I found it on a walk at the wildlife preserve, brought it home and snapped a few photos of it.

 

[NeoDevin]

I have a sunflower in a pot, and every time I put it outside in the sun, the leaves all start drooping. When I bring it back in, within an hour it's looking good and sturdy again... It's a short little sunflower (with no flower yet). Anyone have any idea what might be wrong with it? Not enough water, too small pot, too much sun?

 

[turbo]

I have a sunflower in a pot, and every time I put it outside in the sun, the leaves all start drooping. When I bring it back in, within an hour it's looking good and sturdy again... It's a short little sunflower (with no flower yet). Anyone have any idea what might be wrong with it? Not enough water, too small pot, too much sun?

You have to look at plant vascular systems as a process. If a plant starts to wilt or droop when it's in the sun, then it is losing water at a rate faster than it can keep up with. This could be because the water content of the soil is too low, because the pot is too small (limited reservoir of water), because the root system is not yet well-developed enough to take up the water as fast as the leaves can lose it, or a combination of these. It is important to introduce potted plants to full sun slowly, so that they can cope with the change. Even plants that have been in a hot (usually humid) greenhouse from seed to transplanting can experience shock from sudden exposure to full sun. Part of the reason is that they have not had to develop enough root structure to deal with the rapid water loss entailed in drier air in a full-sun environment. Plants lose water to the humid air in a greenhouse much more slowly than they will outdoors. Sunflowers thrive in full sun, but you've got to get them hardened to it first.

 

[turbo]

Garden report: My wife and I put in our entire +1500 ft² garden yesterday morning. Since we plant everything in wide raised beds, this entailed a hellish amount of hoeing. Thursday, I tilled in the wood ashes from last winter and the truckload of peat that I spread last fall, and Friday, I tilled in hundreds of pounds of composted cow manure. The old Horse threatened to bog down in some damp spots and even stalled out on me once on a big rock (I set the tilling depth very deep), but it came through like a champ.

The wild strawberries are blooming, as are the apple trees, and this spring the bees are here to pollinate the blossoms. We were not so lucky during last year's "spring" that was a dismal extension of winter.

The wild raspberries and blackberries have over-wintered well and should blossom in a few weeks. I transplanted spearmint and peppermint along the tree line on the west edge of the lawn, and the next day, some critter had dug up one of the peat pots of peppermint (probably a skunk looking for grubs/worms). I soaked it in our frog pond and put it back in the ground, and the plants have rebounded. Mint is tough stuff!

 

[NeoDevin]

You have to look at plant vascular systems as a process. If a plant starts to wilt or droop when it's in the sun, then it is losing water at a rate faster than it can keep up with. This could be because the water content of the soil is too low, because the pot is too small (limited reservoir of water), because the root system is not yet well-developed enough to take up the water as fast as the leaves can lose it, or a combination of these. It is important to introduce potted plants to full sun slowly, so that they can cope with the change. Even plants that have been in a hot (usually humid) greenhouse from seed to transplanting can experience shock from sudden exposure to full sun. Part of the reason is that they have not had to develop enough root structure to deal with the rapid water loss entailed in drier air in a full-sun environment. Plants lose water to the humid air in a greenhouse much more slowly than they will outdoors. Sunflowers thrive in full sun, but you've got to get them hardened to it first.

A couple of the leaves are kind of mangled (thanks be to my cat), would this be contributing to the problem, and should I cut them off, or leave them be?

 

[turbo]

A couple of the leaves are kind of mangled (thanks be to my cat), would this be contributing to the problem, and should I cut them off, or leave them be?

The leaves of sunflowers are capable of healing/sealing to prevent water loss from insect damage, etc. They are pretty hardy. I would keep the leaves on, because when the water-loss problem from the damage is minimized by the scarring/sealing process, the leaves will still contribute to the energy-balance of the plant through photosynthesis. The trick is to introduce the plant to dry air/full sun more gradually to allow the plant to develop the amount of root structure necessary to uptake water at a rate that will balance the rate of evaporation from the leaves. Sunflowers are relatively easy, so you're in luck. Sometime, try starting basil from seed, transplanting, and moving the plants outside. My wife and I grow lots of herbs, and that's one of the more touchy ones in regard to sunlight, water requirements, and humidity of the ambient air.

 

[turbo]

Today, I used my motorcycle ramps to load my Troy-Bilt Horse into the back of my little Nissan pickup, and surprise my brother-in-law. He has a very wet, rocky garden spot that has so much clay and silt that it can turn from a sticky mess to hardpan in less than a week depending on the temperature, wind, and sun exposure. I deep-tilled his ~1200 ft ² garden spot today while he was at work. He has an old front-tine tiller that beats the crap out of him every year when he tries to break up the soil that has been compacted by winter/spring. It was fun to get a phone call from him tonight describing how he felt when he got home and found out that his garden-space had been tilled.

 

[larkspur]

Today, I used my motorcycle ramps to load my Troy-Bilt Horse into the back of my little Nissan pickup, and surprise my bother-in-law. He has a very wet, rocky garden spot that has so much clay and silt that it can turn from a sticky mess to hardpan in less than a week depending on the temperature, wind, and sun exposure. I deep-tilled his ~1200 ft ^{2[garden spot today while he was at work. He has an old front-tine tiller that beats the crap out of him every year when he tries to break up the soil that has been compacted by winter/spring. It was fun to get a phone call from him tonight describing how he felt when he got home and found out that his garden-space had been tilled.}

^{That was so nice of you Turbo!}

 

[turbo]

That was so nice of you Turbo!

I'm sure he would have done the same for me if the situation was reversed. (I edited the "bother-in-law" to "brother-in-law", since he isn't really a bother. ;-) ) Stuff like this is easy and fun to do, and it always results in a nice "payback" that makes you smile when it comes. My sister's boyfriend's tiller died recently, and when things dry out where they are, I will travel the 20+ miles to make sure that their garden spot is properly tilled, too. My wife and I are very fond of making hot salsas from green tomatoes, and I'll bet when the late-fall frosts threaten, we'll get lots of green tomatoes to work with. Of course, we will give them jars of salsa made with our habaneros/jalapenoes, and the cycle will go on.

 

[Moonbear]

That is really nice of you!

My garden this year is my single Tiny Tim Tomato plant in my windowsill. It already had a few tomatoes on it and LOTS of flowers when I bought it about a month ago at a farmer's market sale they were having at the ag school greenhouses. I figured they got it started for me, and all I had to do was not kill it. This weekend, the tomatoes finally started ripening. Not the best tomatoes I've ever had, but better than store bought. They're a little bigger than your standard cherry tomato, but not much, and the plant itself is a dwarf plant...only about a foot high in the pot. Next year I'll get several of these. It's ideal for container gardening since I don't have any luck with an outdoor garden between the shallow soil (there isn't much soil left over the rock from when they built the place) and the rats and birds and bugs.

While at the greenhouses, I also got two little planters containing a variety of "sedum" called a rock garden blend. They're cute and I just need to repot them one of these days. The attraction was that they had a big note with them saying they do best if allowed to dry out some between waterings. I figured that's a plant I might be able to keep alive! Actually, that was the really nice thing about the ag school sale...there were little notes on many of the tables of plants giving special instructions about how to care for the plants beyond the "part sun" "full sun" type labels you usually find on plants. That's really helpful when you don't know much about the plants that grow well locally, and what type of locations to put them in and how often to water, etc.

At least when I get a house with a yard here, I'm pretty sure I can get rhododendrons to grow well...they grow wild around here.

 

[turbo]

We grow cherry tomatoes, too. This year's variety is called Sweet 100, IIR. It's nice to go out and just pop a few tomatoes in your mouth while you're weeding, tying up vines, etc. We're going to bag and freeze a bunch of them this year because we love them in stir-fry dishes and the ones from the store taste only marginally better than the packaging they come in. As an experiment, we have planted our tomatoes closely together in wide rows this year (like a hedge) instead of a foot or two apart like usual. Another thing we're going to do this year is freeze our string beans unwashed and whole in small batches, so they freeze very quickly to preserve the flavor and texture (slow freezing=big ice crystals=soft vegetables). As we take them out of the freezer next winter, we'll wash them and snap or cut them to size.

 

[Astronuc]

The strawberries are ripening. The blueberries are just starting to form.

And the raspberries and cultivated blackberries are just starting to flower.

We also have some wild blackberries at the back of the property. They tend to be smaller, and a bit tart. They are also the brambles with tiny sharp thorns on the runners.

The lettuce heads are huge, and the garlic seems to be doing well.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The algae is blooming here.

 

[turbo]

Our apple trees seem to have been well-pollented this year. I'm going to try to spray them regularly with Canola oil and water to suffocate the bugs without killing beneficial insects. Maybe we'll get some good apples this year.

 

[turbo]

Here is our garden as seen just an hour ago. I just finished spending most of today hoeing and raking to control weeds. We bought our pepper plants and tomato plants from greenhouses (no room to start them here, and their maturation rates are too slow to allow full harvest from sown seeds). Recently, the rainfall has been spectacularly variable and the nights have often been so cold that the soil temperature cannot get to the point where seeds can germinate effectively. The garden is doing OK, though, in part because I have extended last year's experiment of hoeing up wide raised beds and planting densely in those beds (plants can always be thinned). We had an atypical monsoon season last summer, and lots of neighbors lost a lot of produce, but our vegetables seemed to survive pretty well in their raised beds. I can always supply extra water in a drought, but it is impossible to remove water from the soil when you get a couple of weeks of torrential rains almost daily.

 

[Astronuc]

Very nice Turbo!

We just had a couple evenings of rain which will help the berries growing. I planted hot peppers a couple of weeks ago, and the rain is very welcome. My wife's lettuce plants are huge, but they are not as sweet now as they were earlier in the season.

It is rather cool this evening 56°F (13.3°C).

 

[turbo]

I'm hoping that we transition into our normal summer pattern, when the soil can warm up and the plants can take up nutrients quickly and my daily tending can fall back to weeding and keeping the moisture content optimal. When we bought this place a couple of years back, the previous owner touted this "garden" spot pretty heavily. It was all clay and rocks and he had over-limed it and routinely flogged the plants with Miracle-Gro to get any vegetables out of it. Over the last couple of years, I have tilled in at least a ton of organic materials (peat moss and composted cow manure, mostly, with admixtures of other organic fertilizers, elemental sulfur, etc) to try to make this crap resemble soil. It's coming around, but I anticipate a few more years of work before this plot will yield the vegetables that the garden-plot at my parents' place would produce. Still, last year's produce is keeping us in food out of our two chest-freezers, and I expect this year will be better. It's really nice to go to the freezers to pick out some food for future meals instead of paying some supermarket for some imported stuff full of pesticides and e Coli or other problems.

 

[Astronuc]

I do agree that it nice to pick fresh produce from one's garden and not from the supermarket. Our strawberries and tomatos are much better (sweeter) than anything from the store.

 

[turbo]

I do agree that it nice to pick fresh produce from one's garden and not from the supermarket. Our strawberries and tomatos are much better (sweeter) than anything from the store.

And we are learning ways to freeze food that preserves their flavor and texture as much as possible, so the food will still be better than store-bought, even in the dead of winter. Our cellar is cold and dry enough to allow us to store winter squash at least until February (when we ran out last year) so we've planted extra this year, and I will trellis them when they start to vine, to try to maximize the yield.

 

[Art]

Anybody know when and how you should prune grapevines? I planted a couple in my cold greenhouse last year and they are growing like mad.