What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

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Gardening is a cherished activity for many participants, with roots tracing back to childhood experiences and family traditions. Organic gardening methods are favored, emphasizing the use of natural techniques over chemicals. Current gardening efforts include cultivating perennials like blueberries and raspberries, alongside plans for vegetable and herb gardens. Participants express a desire for more space to garden, reflecting on the challenges of apartment living and the joy of nurturing plants. The discussion highlights cultural differences in gardening practices, particularly contrasting American and Spanish lifestyles regarding home and garden ownership.
  • #2,341
lisab said:
Oops. I had to read that three times before I realized you were talking about *the* pot, not pot :redface:. Must have spent too much time in the (cloud-filtered) sun today.
That was my post, I assume this member was trying to quote my post and failed?
 
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  • #2,342
Evo said:
That was my post, I assume this member was trying to quote my post and failed?

Hmm now I'm really confused...the post I quoted is gone :confused:.
 
  • #2,343
lisab said:
Hmm now I'm really confused...the post I quoted is gone :confused:.
scroll up to my post #2347 in response to andre. The member re-posted my post.
 
  • #2,344
Oooh, oooh, I want to grow mushrooms and make cheese.

Who wants to make an old woman's dreams come true?
 
  • #2,345
Evo said:
Oooh, oooh, I want to grow mushrooms and make cheese.

Who wants to make an old woman's dreams come true?

that doesn't have anything to do with mushrooms and cheese, right?
 
  • #2,346
Evo said:
Tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants and capsicum (peppers) are all in the nightshade family.

As is tobacco.

But that photo makes me wonder whether there's a website out there where biologist can gamble on which species will dominate the ecosystem where resources (or space) are severely restricted.
 
  • #2,347
Gardening is challenging at the moment. Yesterday, we had a maximum temperature of 99°F (37°C) in the shade - at 5 pm. The hot weather is supposed to persist until Thursday.

Now we have to water everything at least once by every third day.

Many local crops are maturing/ripening weeks ahead of normal schedule.
 
  • #2,348
We're watering here, too. Very hot and humid, but no significant rain. The broccoli is heading already and the spinach is long gone - it bolted weeks ago. There are blossoms on the tomato and pepper plants, though the plants haven't developed enough size and stem-girth to actually support fruit. Sweet peas are coming all at once instead of setting on and ripening in stages. This is a very odd year, so far.

My apple trees have set on too much fruit, and are dropping some apples spontaneously, though I may have to remove some by hand to avoid over-crowding and overloaded branches. The cultivated raspberries and wild blackberries are absolutely loaded this year. Hopefully, the milky spore got the Japanese beetle grubs, and the relatively warm winter allowed voles to decimate them, too. They destroyed the meager raspberry crops of the past couple of years, and I'd like to get these picked and processed.
 
  • #2,349
Not too far from Astronuc and we haven't had sun, in fact we haven't had spring. The forecast is looking better with 30 degrees C by the end of the week. The farmers have been freaking. My meager garden has been wimpy at best.
 
  • #2,350
Evo said:
Oooh, oooh, I want to grow mushrooms and make cheese.

Who wants to make an old woman's dreams come true?

Well Evo, if you want to make feta (goat's cheese) we have just the playground for your goats here in beautiful Vancouver BC...

[PLAIN]http://www.vancouvertrails.com/images/hikes/the-lions.jpg
 
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  • #2,351
baywax said:
Not too far from Astronuc and we haven't had sun, in fact we haven't had spring. The forecast is looking better with 30 degrees C by the end of the week. The farmers have been freaking. My meager garden has been wimpy at best.

Just south of you a bit here, my garden is pathetic now :cry:.
 
  • #2,352
baywax said:
Not too far from Astronuc and we haven't had sun, in fact we haven't had spring.
You're on the opposite end of the continent! NY borders a couple of provinces, IIR, but none of them is BC.
 
  • #2,353
turbo-1 said:
You're on the opposite end of the continent! NY borders a couple of provinces, IIR, but none of them is BC.
Well, latitude-wise we're close, but longitudinally, we're a bit distant.

We're getting weather in NY much like Texas hill country gets in July and August.

Anyway - this is great - Garden Layout - or When Geeks Garden :biggrin:
http://www.greenthumbgeeks.com/2010/06/garden-layout/
 
  • #2,354
baywax said:
Well Evo, if you want to make feta (goat's cheese) we have just the playground for your goats here in beautiful Vancouver BC...

[PLAIN]http://www.vancouvertrails.com/images/hikes/the-lions.jpg[/QUOTE] Why do a I feel like yodeling. :smile:

I love that place. It's on my list of places to go.

That reminds me of the Bitterroots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitterroot_Range

or Cascades, especially just NE of Mt. Rainier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_Range
 
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  • #2,355
Evo said:
Oooh, oooh, I want to grow mushrooms and make cheese.

Who wants to make an old woman's dreams come true?
Portabellos? and Feta?

All we need is a cool dark cave. :biggrin:

There are such places in the neighborhood - actually the mountains across the river.
 
  • #2,356
Astronuc said:
We're getting weather in NY much like Texas hill country gets in July and August.
But much more humid - at least here. It is in the high nineties here in the shade with all the RH you can stand (or not stand). My niece's husband delivered the first load of cut-and-split firewood this afternoon, and I can't believe he loaded that truck in this heat. He's a tough guy, but heat-stroke can take anyone down.
 
  • #2,357
turbo-1 said:
But much more humid - at least here. It is in the high nineties here in the shade with all the RH you can stand (or not stand). My niece's husband delivered the first load of cut-and-split firewood this afternoon, and I can't believe he loaded that truck in this heat. He's a tough guy, but heat-stroke can take anyone down.
I forgot to mention that the backyard thermometer in the shade is reading 103°F (39.4°) and pushing 104°F(~40°C).

The grass was green last week - now it's brown and crisp, and the ground is dusty.


Meanwhile - http://attra.ncat.org/
 
  • #2,358
And today, thanks to yesterdays oppressive heat probably, the first generation of Japanese beetles are out in force. I usually hand-pick them and try to knock them into a bucket of soapy water before they can fly off. I leave the parasitized ones alone (raised white dots on the carapace) since they will be eaten alive by the maggots of parasitic flies before they can breed.
 
  • #2,359
Thanks to the heat, our arugula has bolted, too. We're pretty much stuck with leaf lettuce for salad greens, radishes, scallions, and store-bought stuff. Salads get a lot nicer when the cukes, peppers, and tomatoes come into season, but they are pretty sparse right now. With both the spinach and the arugula bolted, that reduces the leafy greens considerably.
 
  • #2,360
Sorry Astronuc.. for some reason I thought you were in Oregon! Where the blackberries are picked with a forklift...

Yah... that's the Lions... there's an old story from the Firstnations about the princess who married a rival chief so the wars would stop... she's buried between the Lions... things should be so simple.

Lisa... what to do... like Astronuc said... deep dark cave, mushrooms and goats... we might live another few years on that... hee...

In fact there's a place called Deep Cove out here that I call Deep Dark Cave because it attracts all the rain when elsewhere is dry and sunny... :rolleyes:
 
  • #2,361
baywax said:
Sorry Astronuc.. for some reason I thought you were in Oregon! Where the blackberries are picked with a forklift...
Om and lisab are south of you...
 
  • #2,362
We just got drenched. One second it was dry, the next, you couldn't see 10 feet, it was like a monsoon.
 
  • #2,363
Evo said:
We just got drenched. One second it was dry, the next, you couldn't see 10 feet, it was like a monsoon.
Ship some this way.

It was 104F on a bank thermometer - at 8 pm.

We looking at 2 more days of this, before it cools to the mid 80's - and maybe thunderstorms.
 
  • #2,364
turbo-1 said:
And today, thanks to yesterdays oppressive heat probably, the first generation of Japanese beetles are out in force. I usually hand-pick them and try to knock them into a bucket of soapy water before they can fly off. I leave the parasitized ones alone (raised white dots on the carapace) since they will be eaten alive by the maggots of parasitic flies before they can breed.
Interestingly, we've seen a much lower level of Japanese beetles this year. Usually I'm filling a bucket with them - drowning them in soapy water. But this year, there aren't that many.
 
  • #2,365
baywax said:
Sorry Astronuc.. for some reason I thought you were in Oregon! Where the blackberries are picked with a forklift...

Yah... that's the Lions... there's an old story from the Firstnations about the princess who married a rival chief so the wars would stop... she's buried between the Lions... things should be so simple.

Lisa... what to do... like Astronuc said... deep dark cave, mushrooms and goats... we might live another few years on that... hee...

In fact there's a place called Deep Cove out here that I call Deep Dark Cave because it attracts all the rain when elsewhere is dry and sunny... :rolleyes:

I think I'd rather have our weather, baywax, then the 100+ others are reporting!
 
  • #2,366
lisab said:
I think I'd rather have our weather, baywax, then the 100+ others are reporting!

I hear you lisab... out in the OKanagan when it was hovering around 40 C you couldn't get to the mail box without melting.. and it was about 100 ft away.

I guess we're just ducks now... the epigenetics of that are astounding! (by this I mean our webbed feet coming into fruition because of our environmental conditions:smile:
 
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  • #2,367
I have to water the garden again. It's already just about 90 in the shade here and the humidity is oppressive. I'm glad I did my tilling and pruning before the holiday, because the weather has been brutal ever since. Luckily, we have a dug well feeding the sill-cocks so we don't have to risk draining our drilled well while watering.

My dog is hardly touching his food and when we go out for a walk, he gets his business done quickly so we can go back home. When even he doesn't want to go out for a walk, it's pretty bad.
 
  • #2,368
I inadvertently ate a Japanese beetle. I was eating raspberries off the cane, and one seemed usually crunchy with an unusual taste. I removed some of the crunch bits and found a crushed beetle carcass.

If I don't get violently ill, I might start eating them - they are rather cruchy. :rolleyes: :smile:
 
  • #2,369
Astronuc said:
I inadvertently ate a Japanese beetle. I was eating raspberries off the cane, and one seemed usually crunchy with an unusual taste. I removed some of the crunch bits and found a crushed beetle carcass.

If I don't get violently ill, I might start eating them - they are rather cruchy. :rolleyes: :smile:
Ewwww.
 
  • #2,370
Astronuc said:
I inadvertently ate a Japanese beetle. I was eating raspberries off the cane, and one seemed usually crunchy with an unusual taste. I removed some of the crunch bits and found a crushed beetle carcass.

If I don't get violently ill, I might start eating them - they are rather cruchy. :rolleyes: :smile:
You are welcome to come here and eat ours! I'll provide you with hot BBQ'd or and/or smoked meat every day as long as you consume the bugs.
 

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