Gardeners of AW, unite

NeuroFizz

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To both Bahamut and Maryn (from way upstream), for both extremes of soil types (sandy and clay), work in some organic matter. If you have time before planing, use BS (steer manure), but if closer to planting use a fibrous mulch (won't burn new seedlings or transplants).

The smell of steer manure just reminds me of Spring.

Around our parts, we surface mulch our flower beds and lawn borders with pine straw, so it'll be time for that soon. It comes in bales (like hay bales). The local pine trees have the really long needles (6-9 inches long).
 

Fenika

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work in some organic matter.

Hm, I guess I could borrow the neighbor's rototiller :)

Also, unless I am mistaken, you should only mix clay and organic material in the planting areas and not where people walk, yes? Both hold moisture and will create more soup with foot traffic.

And I've got some lovely horse manure that's been sitting all winter. Not quite long enough, but it's free...
 

Fenika

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We use mushroom compost round these here parts ( horse manure that's been used to grow mushrooms in, so it's nicely broken down but still has plenty of nutrients).

Up north in mushroom country almost all the barns use straw, not shavings, because the mushroom folks will pick it up and haul it off free.

I didn't know you could in turn get it off the mushroom folks.
 

Siddow

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I'm moving up from a single pot on the back deck to four 4x8 raised beds for vegetables. I built them myself with cheap lumber ($12 a box), filled them with some fantastic soil/peat mix (black dirt! In Georgia!), mixed in some fertilizer, and now I'm waiting for mid-March.

I have three flats going in the basement under lights. So far, so good, but I had to pull some for legginess and restarted with more light.

We're planting red and yellow tomatoes, bush and pole beans, cucumbers, bell peppers, jalapenos, zucchini and yellow squash, several herbs, marigolds (for bugs), lettuce, romaine, carrots, radishes, collards, mustard, turnips, onions, I hope I have enough! :)
 

Fenika

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That sounds like quite a garden Siddow. Did you see the compliment gardening link on the last page?

And what kind of lights do you have going? T5/12s?

I need to pot my basil seedlings soon. A few of them are growing in a little clump and I hope I can save most. And I plan on keeping some lagers going and culling them once they have some tasty leaves on them :D
 

James81

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I'd love to have a space to do a garden. A real garden, full of vegetables of all kinds and not just a few plants here and there.

When I had a house, I would set out a couple tomato plants and squash plants. I loved it. Made sure I watered it everyday. I got plenty of tomatos and no squash.

I have a little yard in the back of my apartment and I might ask my landlord if I can put out some landscaping ties and set some plants out. It's in town, though, so who the heck knows what'll get into it.

Can't really bring myself to plant flowers. Unless anyone can recommend some good manly flowers. :tongue
 

Gary

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I've gone from a half-acre garden when I was a kid, to a quarter-acre when I was raising a family, to a single 8'X10' raised bed now that I'm retired.

I planted onion sets last week and potatoes are volunteering from my dug-in kitchen scraps. I'll plant tomatoes and peppers when it warms up, but probably nothing else.

My yard soil is iron ore, red clay and soft rock, so digging a hole big enough to plant a shrub takes 15-30 minutes, and needs lots of amendments. It's not much fun to garden up here on the hill.
 

Siddow

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I'm using these bulbs (almost this size, lol):
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In these lamps:

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I like the set-up, because I can easily move the lights closer or further, depending on the size of the seedlings. The beans were starting to send tendrils to wrap around the lamps. And then when seeding time is over, I can switch to regular bulbs and use the lamps as shop lights again.

Bookmarked the companion plant guide. Thanks!
 

Fenika

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Those look nice Siddow. I'm using this beast, which I love, but I have to prop everything up on books or stools b/c the thyme is so big (and really, the thyme needs two-four more lights, but it will be outside soon)

I had all the garden space I wanted out in Oklahoma (and a planter box I had to leave behind, full of veggies and herbs), so I feel for you folks with less space. We just have a strip here, and some patches of partial shade to mostly sun.
 

Siddow

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That looks sweet! If my garden works out well this year, I may invest in a big permanent set-up. I have a big stainless table rescued from a restaurant that we use for clutter in the garage. I think I'd like to hang a long florescent fixture over it, on adjustable chains, so I can drop it for growing, and then raise it for regular shop work/clutter building the rest of the year.

Right now I have everything set up in my downstairs office, on a bench.

I have a good-sized yard with lots of sun, but our soil is such crap I figured it would be easier to build up than to amend down. This clay is like breaking up concrete.
 

Fenika

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Clay is just nasty. There was a fair bit on the 6 acres I used to own, but it wasn't too thick so I was lucky.
 

Carole

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My garden was terrible last year. Not sure what to do this year. It's really rocky here. I have plenty of land, and it gets plenty of sun, but the rock is awful.
 

Fenika

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Raised boxes! The roots can still go deeper if they insist, but don't skimp on the soil depth when filling.

Or plow up the rocks and build a nice wall :D
 

Siddow

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Raised boxes! The roots can still go deeper if they insist, but don't skimp on the soil depth when filling.

Or plow up the rocks and build a nice wall :D

I did that along the side of the house. Pulled out some major boulders, ended up having to backfill the bed with 1200lbs of dirt for all the rocks I removed.

But they made a nice natural edging. :)

I built very simple boxes. One cut, eight screws per box. Sorta like these: http://www.jeffnet.org/~hgpf/howto.htm.
But I used all 2x8x8 lumber, 3 pieces per box, and cut one piece in half. Slapped some wood protector on them, and tossed 'em in the yard. Each box took, no lie, about 15 minutes to make. They took considerably longer to fill.
 

Fenika

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Hehe, I guess it helps if you have a natural rise to plow up rocks on. I'm glad you got some nice edging out of it though ;)

The weather will be nice tomorrow and Thursday, so I'll be walking around making plans and getting some stuff done. Can't wait.
 

Sophia

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plow up rocks on.

This is just a cross-pond difference, but I wanted to check I had the right meaning of this. The image I get is of a tractor pulling a large rake that drags up rocks from a field. In a garden, do you mean picking out the stones, the ones that are typically an irregular, slightly rounded shape and about half the size of your palm, from an area of soil, and then building up a little barrier with them?
 

Fenika

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Depends on the size of what you want plowed up, and the size of your rocks.

So yeah, you can use your hands, a mule and plow, or a giant tractor with the right attachments, depending on your needs (and if there's a mule or tractor around)

In the post in question I was imagining a small tractor and a nice long strip of soon to be garden. So I guess we are sharing that image ;)

And I've seen some lovely gardens with all manner of stone wall around them.
 

Sophia

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Oh, stone walls, gorgeous... Part of an idyllic garden, for me.
 

Pagey's_Girl

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My late father was into gardening - problem is, he put in tons of hosta and daylilies all round the house - and this area is overrun with deer, who love both. His solution was to nag my mom into spraying everything with deer repellent just about every single day. Now my mom is looking into putting in plants that deer won't eat so readily. She's thinking of another butterfly bush, pink lilacs and looking at some ornamental grasses. She was considering cannas, but in Zone 5 you have to either dig them up in the fall or put them in containers that can be brought in.

I'm more of an indoor gardening type - I have close to a hundred houseplants. My oldest is a citrus tree (not sure what kind; I think it's a grapefruit) that grew from a seed I planted in a paper cup when I was eight. My ever-encouraging father kept telling me not to be disappointed when "nothing comes up." Last time I measured, "nothing" was over eight feet tall. Whole lotta nothing. :D. Apart from that, I've got the usual mix of snakeplants, spider plants, pothos, philodendrons, weeping figs, several crown of thorns in different colors, a couple of variegated peace lilies, crotons (this time, they WILL live and thrive and not break my heart, :) ) six hoyas, none of which have yet bloomed for me, a bunch of cacti and several orchids.

Oh, and of course, Rei Toei - the only little lady palm tree on earth named after a William Gibson character.
 

Tepelus

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I'd have a lot of house plants too if I didn't have cats that thought they had to eat them. I have a peace lily, two hoyas (one is setting flower buds) and a pot with a mix of pothos and arrowhead plant (I forget the real name). I have a fish tank that has a few live plants in it, but without a co2 unit, it's been hard to grow them lush, and to keep the algae away, and our well water is partially to blame for that. I have to use ro water or distilled, but money has been tight so the fish get well water.

As for plants that deer don't like, do a search on the i-net for deer resistant plants. A hungry deer will eat anything, but there are plants they will avoid in favor of plants they like better. The only things I can think of off the bat are a few bulb plants: daffodils and narcissus, hyacinths and any members of the allium family. A lady I worked with at a garden center once told me a recipe for deer repellent using eggs, but I can't tell you how to make it, it's been some time. Maybe a search on Google will bring something up.

And seriously folks, take a look at winter sowing. Before I discovered this, I was going to start my plants under lights, but since I'm cheap and discovered this technique, I will never grow from seed under lights unless the seeds cannot be grown this way. It'll save you money, your new babies will already be acclimated to the outdoors, you'll end up with more plants than you know what to do with (I had that problem with nicotiana last year), and it's fun!
 

Silver King

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This thread topic is a very cool idea that might be well suited for the Cooking forum.

It's welcome to stay here, of course, but if it loses steam down the road, and if the OP agrees with the change, we have another willing home for this discussion. :)
 

Tigercub

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i am here in my overalls and gloves, trowel in hand. on tuesday i am buying a house, my first in ten years. the yard is huge and blank! there is not even a tree. i am going to go slow because i could cobb things up if i don't think it out. this spring i am putting in fruit trees--apricot, peach, cherry. and a vegetable garden--some cosmos, zinnias and snaps of course, and a porch full of geraniums, maybe window boxes. eventually i want roses and a patio and maybe a bog garden---s6

I bought my very first house three years ago. Even before I moved out of my condo, I'd bought a rake for the yard. It came with a huge peach tree in the back yard, and there are so many other trees that there really isn't room to plant any new trees, although I plan to plant blueberries and raspberries.

I did some work out in the yard today. It was warm enough. Basically I clipped some dead leaves and scooped some fallen leaves away from my bulbs, which already have leaves popping up. Then I dumped stuff into my compost bin.

This year I plan more vegetables. I want to grow more potatoes, but I might not be able to afford seed potatoes. I'll grow (or try) peas, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, zucchini, spinach, and melons. Last year, after two years of failed zucchini, I worked in a lot of my homegrown compost and direct sowed the seeds. I had zucchini up the wazoo! So I guess the compost is the secret.
 

Sophia

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I'm quite fidgety about having plants indoors as we had a couple of infestations of those little black flies a couple of years ago. Now, everything's clear and I want to keep it that way. We have one supermarket-bought basil, and that's it as far as anything in soil goes. We grow cress and mustard in takeaway boxes, on a sheet of damp kitchen roll. They grow from seeds and are ready to eat after a week, and make for a tasty regular addition to potato salad and sandwiches.
 

Siddow

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I'm quite fidgety about having plants indoors as we had a couple of infestations of those little black flies a couple of years ago.

I end up with those buggers, too. One reasonable solution is to add a bit of dish detergent to the water when watering them, but the best solution I've found is to take them outside and repot with new soil, shaking off all the soil you can from the roots. Not so easy to do with fragile plants.

I built my bean trellis yesterday! I just need to add the nails for stringing, then mount it on the box and string 'er up! Whee! here's a few more of !these! cause I'm so excited!!!