BS: Gardening, 2009

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 May 09 - 12:58 AM

Also, you all mention putting down cardboard, mulch, etc. Around here, even a day or two of cardboard and water and you can have a gazillion nasty bugs underneath, including earwigs/pincher bugs. I wouldn't want to encourage them nor have them in my flower beds, so how do you all get around that? Or, am I misunderstanding?

Anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 27 May 09 - 11:09 PM

I'm a long way from photgraphs to post. This place is still a bit of a shambles.

By the way, that series of photographs of your place over time is quite marvelous. The chaste tree is amazing. I think of them as being very slow growing, but your's has become glorious in what? 7 years?

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 27 May 09 - 10:50 PM

I've never had much luck transplanting bean seedlings. Keep us posted.


Alice, are you saying it is finally spring there:>)

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 May 09 - 10:33 PM

Some extra been seedlings are coming up. I'll let them get a little established then put then in the garden, hoping to do an end run around the snails this time.

Lovely day today. Lots of sweet smelling things are in bloom. Does anyone have any photos to post over on the google group?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 May 09 - 10:49 AM

We had more thunderstorms last night. I'm going to have to contour the new garden to create stepping areas that are above the level of the rest of the garden, and create a little drainage or I'll have some unhappy soggy roots in a couple of spots.

My rain barrel is collecting rain with a very simple system that can be improved upon so it fills with a single rainfall. I simply have to make sure that it is something that will stay in place and let the overflow drain harmlessly away and not splash back onto the house.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 May 09 - 11:31 AM

Out to the back of the back yard, that is.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 May 09 - 11:11 AM

Janie, that's the great thing about these yards in the neighborhood. There are streetlights, but the yards all have large trees and a wide and deep lots, so if you peer out the the back of the back yard under all of the trees and around the gardens under the big oaks, they're just sparking away (isn't that old-fashioned romantic?)

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Alice
Date: 26 May 09 - 10:50 AM

I have a south facing wall at the entrance of my house where there was an apricot tree, too close to the foundation, which I had removed earlier this spring. The flower bed there had gone half to weeds, so now it is all dug out and refurbished and a layer of weed mat down with cedar bark nuggets over it. I'm going to put in a mix of bulbs and other flowers with bush green beans mixed in.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: MMario
Date: 26 May 09 - 10:03 AM

Barry - we were lucky last week and did not get frosted, though people a mile away in any direction did...(two nights last week!)

My columbines have started blooming; I have some that are more or less natives - and then occasionally plug in a garden variety - until most of the seedlings are looking like natives again.

This year have some large red; some small red, some wine-ish; deep blue (almost black) blue, light blue, in two or three different bloom shapes and orientations. Love what you get when your flowers are promiscuous! I think I have a yellow one about to bloom. When it opens then I can look and see what if anything I can buy at the mursery to shake things up some more.

Yellow peony bloomed over the weekend.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 26 May 09 - 07:01 AM

All the artificial light at night makes it more difficult for the males and females to find each other, is what I read.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 May 09 - 01:07 AM

I saw my first firefly in the neighborhood last week, and the first one in my yard this evening.

I spent all day outside, pacing myself and moving to cooler or shadier locations as needed. I have all but about 2 square feet of the new vegetable bed dug, but it was dark enough that I couldn't see what I was doing. I have to hand dig the first time around, it's all Bermuda here and a tiller would turn a new garden into Bermuda-Hell. I worked through dusk, hoping to finish, but you reach a point where it is foolish to try to continue. I'm going to ache tomorrow. . .

I dug a new section of another bed (in a cooler shady area when I worked on it) and we'll see if delphiniums really like partial sun. That's what this is--glaring sun in the morning and mid-day, but none in the afternoon and evening. Also stuck some cosmos in. I've never grown either of these, but seeds are cheap. It's a small bed, near the driveway.

This morning in my email was a message from Photobucket that I can now track back and see who is viewing my photos. This is free even for those of us who don't pay for premium features. I thought "what the heck" and went to the page where I post the photos for my blog. I discovered that there is a link from a site in Indiana that has looked at my photos a lot.

Now I didn't just fall off of the turnip truck, so I let my curiosity lead me to his site. He has lifted one of my blog entries completely and posted it at his site, with no attribution or link back to my blog! But the scum bag is cheap and didn't save my photos to his site to host there, he linked back to my photobucket images that I used on the blog (this way he doesn't use HIS bandwidth. This is considered bad manners in web design circles). I sent him a comment (the only way to reach this guy--prolific poster--clearly none are his) and it hasn't been posted. But I fixed his wagon.

I made a Photoshop jpg with text that states that the content is mine and is under copyright. I saved it a couple of ways on my computer, then I renamed one of the photos in that blog so I could save my copyright message as one of the existing blog photos that he did link to. Get what's going on? Now in the middle of his page of lifted content is my photo, linked like he set it up, but the message is there. This is the guy. I'm new to blogging, but I'm not new to the Internet, to web pages, to links, or to copyright. Let's see if he leaves this up. You have to scroll down to the entry "A House with a Yard" that is currently on his page two. As time passes, it might require going further back to find the page he lifted on May 21, 2009.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 May 09 - 12:42 AM

Poor fireflies...made redundant.


I hear they are really lighting up the unemployment lines.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Barry Finn
Date: 25 May 09 - 09:10 PM

The light is blinding them???

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 25 May 09 - 08:44 PM

Whoohoo! Just saw the first fireflies of the season!

Figured this was as appropriate a thread as any to post this to, even though it has nothing to do with gardening.

Read recently that firefly populations are declining in many parts of the world. Speculation is that it is due to light pollution.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: bobad
Date: 25 May 09 - 07:47 PM

I envy all you gardeners in the more temperate climes. We just put our tomato plants in yesterday and have a frost warning tonight. That's gardening here in The Great White North.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 25 May 09 - 07:43 PM

Welcome, darlin' Barry!

Slow and steady wins the race with gardening. It is great to hear you are out there and able to garden.   bit-by-bit you will decide what part of the "wilderness" to tame, and what to leave because you recognize it as good habitat. Your climate is so different up north. You are planting what are cool season crops down here that are finished by the time tomatoes and cukes go in. While our long growing season has it's advantages, it must also be nice to have such a variety of veggies growing at the same time. I can't imagine going out to the garden to harvest salad greens and cukes at the same time.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Maryrrf
Date: 25 May 09 - 07:40 PM

Yesterday I saw two little tomatoes on my "early girl' variety. I can't wait for homegrown tomatoes.   I've been munching on lettuce from the garden for over a month and there's still plenty, and it hasn't bolted or turned bitter. This was the first year I planted romaine and it did great - I'll plant that regularly now. Soon I'll harvest the peas I planted in February. It took awhile but now the pods are starting to fill out nicely. I've got baby pumpkins too. The melons are flowering like crazy. The squash is doing well but no flowers yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Bobert
Date: 25 May 09 - 07:30 PM

Yeah, Barry, alot of the weedeaters come with a metal blade in addition to the spool... Not too good on weeds but sho nuff will eat thru stuff up to an inch in diameter...

We got in several dicidious azaleas this afternoon before the rain came...

Looks like about 3 day of rain from here... We'll take it...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Barry Finn
Date: 25 May 09 - 06:28 PM

Whew, this weekend just finished filling in the raised beds (2-3x12, 8" high & one 10x20 12'high) & the garden againt the house, turned the ground under them first. Hope the dead dog doesn't start howling or yelping, she's now our garden ghost.
It took 7 yds of loam & I've about a yd left over for around some trees & spots around the house & a couple spots in the yard. Put in the tomatoes, eggplant, dill, peppers, celery, carrots, snap peas, basil, cukes, parsley & some frienly garden flowers that watch over our crop.
Up north here in NH we can't move to quickly, we just has a frost last weekend all the way south to Boston & Cape Cod.
Hope you're ok MMario.

Janie. yrs ago I had a gas powered trimmer. No string, metal blades something like a propeller (for use in construction but they've since stopped making them, angerous), took out unwanted shrubs, bushes, overgrowth, weeds & small trees. My back yard in an overgrown jungle due to yrs that I couldn't physically keep up with. I'd like to plow it all under & start from scratch. I was out there with a sawsall & wishing for that old trimmer.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 May 09 - 05:41 PM

Sounds very productive, Janie!

I got the rest of the pansies and marigolds potted with help from Morgan and Rog. Also planted some seeds in a pot. Then it rained.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:27 PM

Well, not only is the rain holding off, but it has turned partly instead of mostly cloudy.

Finished potting up what I had, fertilized the azaleas, mowed the grass, washed some porch furniture, some bird feeders, some clay pots, and repotted my Christmas cactus into the Guy Wolff Mudcat pot I bought in the auction a few years ago.

Now into the house to do the floors.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:11 PM

I bought this can last year, Bobert, so it's not only still good, it's almost full. I could start a squadron of mowers at this point.

Gorgeous day here today, but with the rain we had last night, I'll need to adjust my yard activities according to what I can do that doesn't make the muddy spots worse.

I was poking around in Photobucket today because they offer site statistics for the photos. I found that several of my photos have been viewed by one site, and out of curiosity, went there. I find an Indiana landscaper has scooped up an entire blog entry of mine and placed it in his blog. I know you can link back and forth, but he has actually taken my text and continues to link back to my photos (he's taking my words and using my bandwidth to show the images--in other words, he's breaking some rules of polite web use, at the very least, an plagiarizing at the worst). I'll have to either sign and link all of my blog entries or figure some way to encourage attribution. He has posted my House with a yard entry.

Meanwhile, gotta get out into that yard for a while today.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Bobert
Date: 25 May 09 - 08:31 AM

Well, we have harvestable spinich up but with rain coming the next few days I think we'll just leave it alone and let the leaves get bigger and greener...

Oh, and thanks for the descripyion of Joe's garden... He sounds like a real character... Reminds me of some of the stuff I have incorporated into our gardens... Nuthin' goes to waste... Even broken cindar blocks... They make for very good bottom fill under oue many rock retaining walls that are very much part of creating beds on the sides of hills, something that we have no shortage of...

Good luck with the mower, Maggie... Starting fluid has no shelf tife so it should still be good...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 25 May 09 - 08:17 AM

LTS, all I grow are loose leaf varieties, of which Romaine "are one."   Don't worry about ripe.   You can cut them whenever they reach the size you want, and before they bolt.

I rarely harvest a whole head of lettuce. Instead, I start removing outer leaves as I need them as soon as the plant is big and full enough to continue to thrive. Two or three heads of loose leaf lettuce are all I need to keep two of us in lettuce throughout the season, until they bolt from the heat.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 May 09 - 02:10 AM

So.. I've never grown Romaine lettuce before.. how do I know when they're ripe and ready to eat (and before the snails get them all)?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:39 AM

Janie, beautifully described...thanks.

SRS, you've given me an idea. I have some seeds which I did not use a couple of years ago. I meant to plant them in my flowerbed, but I think I'll put them in an empty pot. Thanks for the idea!

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 May 09 - 11:43 PM

Janie, those of us who garden and have friends who garden know that feeling, though I don't have anyone around here who is so meticulous with the plants. I have exchanged a lot of plants with neighbors, and when you think about it, it's amazing that our yards don't all look alike for all of the plants we've shared, but they don't. Something to ponder.

Bobert, I have some starter fluid for the tiller (that I haven't used in ages) so I'll see what I can do without blowing the top off of the mower. :)

I managed to work through the first rain today--drizzle, really--but as the second one came along I had to call it quits. The first was just dampness falling, but the second arrived on the gust of an outflow boundary and it was packing firepower via noisy thunder. I hustled my tools into the garage, emptied the dirt from wheelbarrow to garden (no point in a bucket of mud tomorrow) and quickly scattered some fertilizer. I think it soaked in versus washed away, because I have the mulch down to help hold things in place and catch the granules.

There are a bunch of ceramic pots around the side door and a few more on the front porch. They are either empty or occupied by weeds, very little came back. I pulled the weeds, and decided my budget just doesn't support bedding plants for the pots, let alone the larger established plants, so I sorted through my old seed packets and went to town. A surprising number of seeds are still viable several years later, and I over-planted, to compensate for fewer sprouting. So far I've put out three types of flowers as I emptied packets (marigolds, various zinnias, and portulaca). I have several more pots to go--maybe I'll put onions in this year. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 24 May 09 - 06:49 PM

How long have you had water restrictions, Maggie?


I just read an article in National Geographic about the damage done by the "green revolution" of the 60's and 70's that encouraged mono-culture, dependency on heavy irrigation and petroleum based fertilizers supplied at no or low cost by governments in places like the Punjab region of India and sub-Saharan Africa. The soils got depleted and with climate change and drought, everything went to hell in a handbasket. (The article was actually about the food crisis brought on by population increase, made worse by climate change, unsustainable farming practices that promote the use of genetically altered seed and fertilizers produced in 1st world countries and sold to third world countries.)

It isn't that I don't know a lot of this already, but it all recedes into the background over time when I am not personally affected. An article like this one wakes me up again, and reminds me that the time is coming when either I, or my progeny are likely to be affected.

I've been talking about rain barrels for years and done nothing about it. I can't afford to buy them, but I bet there are plenty of plans and ideas to make them from cheap trash cans, etc.

Many of the blooms on the mop head hydrangea are just starting to show some blue. It is a water hog compared to the native hydrangea I have growing elsewhere. I get sentimentally attached to plants that were passed along to me by other gardeners who I love and respect, and this mop head is one of those. My friend Joe, who is in his upper 70's, is a true lover of plants. Loves collecting and propogating them, then passing them on. When I was still growing cut flowers for market, he'd come over and help me in the garden, just for the love of it. I don't really much like mop heads in the landscape (tho' they are wonderful in the vase, or dried and tied onto the Christmas tree.) But Joe loved this mop head. He pegged a branch, potted it up, and brought it to me in the fall of the year. I couldn't just cast it aside. So I pegged a branch to root from the one he had
brought me, and dug it up and brought it along to this house when I moved. The native hydrangea I brought with me was also from him. He's having health problems now, and is getting ready to leave his house and garden and move into an apartment in a retirement community.   

Joe is a real plantsman. He calls himself a "hunter-gatherer." His gardens are not particularly aesthically pleasing, but every little nook and cranny has something interesting growing. He uses a lot of found and scavenged materials for edging, etc. He got a bunch of cinderblocks from a demolition site that he used to build raised beds helter-skelter in his small backyard, and there is something growing in every hole in every cinderblock. There is a place in town that makes fake marble for countertops, and he has scavenged long, 6" high waste pieces from their dumping area to edge beds with. Roofing shingles mulch paths through the wonderful hegemony of his backyard. Tomatoes and larkspur entwine (intwine?) in the sunny spots, rare roses grow above a ground cover of strawberries, and scallions come up among the hellebore in spring.   He's got pawpaw's growing on the back of the yard, some native, some oriental, and some that are natural hybrids between the two that he grew from seed after the insects cross pollinated them. He is the only person I know who will propagate roses from seed just to see what they look like after cross-pollination. When they finally bloom, he likes to guess from their appearance which of his roses were the parents. How can I not tend his hydrangeas with loving care?

Just rambling. Hope ya'll don't mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Bobert
Date: 24 May 09 - 06:21 PM

SRS,

I'm assuming that the mower is a push variety with a single cylindar... The carb sits on top of the gas tank and there is a little plastic tube that goes down into the gas tanl which feeds a jet (oriface) and when the intake valve opens while the piston is on it's way down the suction pulls fuel into the combustion chnmber to be burned... There is no float bowl... These carbs are purdy simple... The only things that can wrong are (1.) the plastic tube getting clogged or (2.) the jet getting clogged...

If you take the air cleaner off by removing the single screw on top of it you are no looking into the carb... There will be a round opening that the air goes thru... Be sure that the foam rubber air cleaner is clean itself... If it's all crudded up with dust and dirt wash it with varsol or in gasoline itself or buy a new one fir 2 dollars...

If yer going to the parts house buy a can a "sarting fluid" if the mower hasn't been run in some time and take the air cleaner off and spray a short one second burst into the carb with out the choke "on", then choke it and it should start...

If you have replaced the spark plug and tried to start it with the "starting fluid" and fresh gas and it doesn't start then that means that you have no spark which means that you porobably have rust on yer magnito... Rust on a magnito is something that yer prolly not gonna want to deal with cause yer gonna have to take the cover off that has the pull cord in it... They can be a little tricky and if you've come this far and nuthin' then you'd better take it to yer local small engine repair shop...

Hope this helps...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 May 09 - 05:00 PM

Hey, Janie, great minds think alike today. And weather has cooperated. It was quite overcast and drizzling when I started, but now it is bright, some overhead clouds, and I'm moving along at a steady pace, but stopping at predetermined points to do some other garden tasks. I get started on one thing sometimes and wear myself out doing it alone--but today I figure I'll dig a while, then weed and mulch, then address the paths into the garden (newspaper on the ground, covered with the woody compost from the city site where I get it free), then back to digging. This way at the end I don't have just a swath of exposed dirt and and exhausted body, I have exposed dirt and a more polished looking rest of the garden. I'll spread an organic fertilizer when I'm finished and water it in after 7, when my side of the street can water today (even addresses on even days, in the evening).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 24 May 09 - 02:36 PM

Thanks for the link re: lollygag, maeve. You're right. Very funny!


Well, I haven't lollygagged as much I thought I would. At least so far.

Dug up those little ferns that I think are probably Ebony Spleenwort and potted them up. They were right against the house in heavy clay of a very shallow depth before I encountered fill, and have very small root systems. I figure a season being pampered in a pot on the carport where they will be cossetted will be a good idea.

Also pulled spinach and lettuce out of pots, and potted up some more basil, caladiums and impatiens that I bought this morning on my way back from dropping my son off for his 10 day field trip. (grrrr....neither of us bothered to recheck the time we needed to be at the school. We could have slept until 6:30. Instead, we were up at 5:00. No one should be up at 5:00 am on the Sunday of a three day weekend.) I'm particularly proud of the arrangement in one big, square pot. "White Christmas" Caladium, a small, variegated hosta for which I have already forgotten the name, and white impatiens.

I'm using the carport as a covered patio. A low brick wall runs the length of it, facing north. Looking for Dragon Wing begonias to set on it, without any luck. The great nursery and garden art store where I used to buy them, and that was just down the road for years went out of business 2 years ago. Now, the good nurseries are all at least 1 1/2 hours away. It seems the the big box stores here don't carry them.

I have what appears to be a dwarf mulberry growing on the northeast corner of the property. I'm hoping to be able to prune it so that it doesn't block what sun I get. The berries are ripening now, and it is drawing all kinds of birds. I hope not to have to cut it down for the sake of the sun.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 May 09 - 11:05 AM

Bobert,

My daughter brought down their mower (a used one from the parents of one of the housemates) that doesn't start. I checked it over and so far this is what I've done:

changed the spark plug
added oil. I had to add oil to get to the "add oil" line, then fill it up. I don't know how they ran without it catching fire, but maybe that's why it won't start now.
cleaned the air filter

I added a little fuel but I didn't empty the old. If I empty that out and put in fresh (I have a preservative in it) do you think that will help, or should I spray or swish some kind of solvent (and what would it be)?

Where is the carburetor on mowers? This is a Briggs and Stratton (no surprise) off brand. And amazingly it doesn't seem to have a choke. There is a little lever on the front of the engine, around from the rubber thing to prime the engine. There are no instructions with this thing.

Does any of this make sense? Any thoughts? I have a neighbor across the street who offered to take a look at it, but I probably won't catch him for a couple of days since he works on weekends. Sooner we get this back to the kids the sooner the homeowners association gets off of their backs for growing wildflowers in the yard.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: maeve
Date: 24 May 09 - 10:51 AM

I wanted to respond to a few posts but haven't been online much.

SRS- Thanks for the congrats. I really wasn't sure we'd pass with things in such confusion.

Janie- The apprentice notion is a good one, thanks. We may be ready for that next spring. It's worth investigating. I know I am tired of being the main muscle in the veggie and perennial gardens, and TL needs to not be carrying all the wood around by himself. As the orchards mature we'll need help there, too. Oh- and enjoy your enforced lollygagging!( You've got to read this explanation for the word; too funny! One take on "lollygag"   )


MMario- The peonies sound lovely. I crave many more of both peony types, especially those that have beautiful single or semidouble forms and unusual colors. We have four tree peonies; a red/white, a fringed single white, a lavender, and an apricot (so the label says; it hasn't bloomed yet.)Do you have a favorite source?

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 24 May 09 - 09:55 AM

Change in forecast to mostly cloudy with showers likely, and we got just enough rain last night to make a bit too wet to dig or work around plants. Can't paint the shed with this forecast either.


Gee, I guess I'll lolligag for the rest of the weekend:/)

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: gnu
Date: 24 May 09 - 09:23 AM

Great info.... thanks all!

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Bobert
Date: 24 May 09 - 08:27 AM

The spark plug will come pre-gapped, Janie... Drain all of last years gas into a can and put it in yer car's gas tank... The oil mix won't hurt a thing... Then put fresh mix in and it will start... May take 5 ot 6 pulls... Unless, of course, you own a Poulon weedeater... There's a reason they are called Poulons 'cause you spend half the time pullin' on the strater cord trying to get the sumabich to start... lol...

I have detoxed from my landsacpe-job-from-hell and ready to get back into planting... They are callin' for rain later today and for the next 2 days so that means plant, plant, plant so the P-Vine and I will be trying to get in the 30 some plants we have accumulated this spring into their new homes...

Bought 6 bales of straw yesterday to mulch the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants that we put in over the last few days... Best mulch out there for veggies... Gotta put it down deep... Like 6 inches minimum...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 May 09 - 12:34 AM

Janie, those are meant to be tossed rather than repaired. That makes me all the more determined to repair.

You don't need to gap the spark. I try to get my mower spark plugs at Sears--they have a heavy duty one that seems to last longer than others. I don't know if there is an equivalent for line trimmers. I have the previous trimmer that has probably to have the carburetor cleaned. It's like a firm mesh that if you can reach it you can clean it. But you have to know what you're looking at and have time to take it apart. I'll let you know if I ever get it fixed. I figured if I waited to trim until I fixed that one I'd have code enforcement knocking on my door.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 May 09 - 12:26 AM

That's a neat website, maeve, but it surprises me that they no longer will ship live plants for this season. There are a lot of places out here in the West which are just barely getting started with growing season and might want to order. I know they have to be careful when it gets very hot, but it still surprises me before the end of May. Neat stuff they've got, though!

Also, you all mention putting down cardboard, mulch, etc. Around here, even a day or two of cardboard and water and you can have a gazillion nasty bugs underneath, including earwigs/pincher bugs. I wouldn't want to encourage them nor have them in my flower beds, so how do you all get around that? Or, am I misunderstanding?

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: maeve
Date: 24 May 09 - 12:09 AM

gnu- You've gotten some good answers already. You have a limited area, you have the apple tree, and you're wanting to plant some veggies this year? Think about what you've been told here already, figure out what else you really want to grow, and do the best you can.

Remember that you don't have to plant everything right now. You could try some things in small amounts, and replant the area as you harvest. You could try bush beans instead of pole beans to make the best use of the sun. You could plant cukes to grow up strings tied into the outer branches of the apple, or in a hanging basket. You could put some sun lovers into buckets, and move them around a bit to increase their sun exposure. Lettuce and beets can go at the feet of taller plants where they get some shade from the hotter sunlight of summer.

Container gardens are handy, and the Harris Seeds website had some good info recently. Square foot gardening might suit your garden space in that you plant just the seeds you need with careful spacing. Let me know if you'd like some links. Plant veggies in bags of compost and you could carefully slide the bags around to adjust for the angle of light changing throughout the growing season.

If it was my garden, I'd start by planting just a few seeds each of the foods I want to try, and more of the crop I most enjoy eating. Then keep adding a few more seeds (or purchased seedlings)every week or two. Study the way the sunlight hits the plants, and make adjustments as you go. It is required that you have some fun with it.

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 23 May 09 - 11:30 PM

Ain't string trimmers a bitch? (but beat the alternative, that's fer sure.)

I've got a Weedeater Featherlight. It won't start this spring, for the first time. I suspect it just needs a new sparkplug and cleaned up, but I don't know how to do that. I can change the plug, but don't know how to gap it, and don't have the confidence to follow on-line instructions on using carburator cleaner to clean up the little engine. The internal combustion engine is a mystery to me and I can't tell a carburator from an air filter from a gas line.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 May 09 - 10:56 PM

I tried three different types of string before I decided on the one that will work best in this new trimmer, and then I did the whole front yard, and mowed out front. Saving the back for tomorrow. I didn't dig more garden, but I did pound in some short posts and strung up a light fence of chicken wire to keep stray critters (dogs, in particular) from strolling into the front yard garden. I have it only about 1/3 in place, but already it looks more like an official garden. Tomorrow I also hope to finish emptying out the plastic bags of top soil, mulch, and manure.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 23 May 09 - 10:44 PM

What is it you have in mind to plant, Gnu?


All I did today was pull out some bolting lettuces from a pot and replace them with caladiums and impatiens.

I'm glad I didn't sell my grow light shelving unit, trays and ABS blocks. I think I can find a place in the house to set the unit up this winter to start plants from seed. The house faces south, and the windows along the front of the house are all good and big. I enlarged the window in the dining area of the kitchen, which I use as "family room", so that space, the living room, and the spare bedroom all get good, bright light during winter when the leaves are off the trees. I might even be able to grow lettuce and greens during winter using the lighted shelving in front of one of those big windows.

What made me think of it was caladiums. I can never find the varieties I want at nurseries and garden centers, and in the past have bought "bulbs" and started them under grow lights in late January or early February. I've always grown them in pots before, but with all this shade, they would be nice additions to some garden beds.

Hope to dig out poison ivy tomorrow. Have been saving cardboard boxes, and may also lay out some beds by laying down the cardboard, covering it with layers and layers of newspaper, then shredded leaves I saved from last fall.

The slugs are devouring my basil.

Something appears to be nibbling away on the new growth of the Japanese Painted Fern I planted a few weeks ago. The Ghost fern lloks just fine.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Bobert
Date: 23 May 09 - 08:12 PM

Yeah, gnu-zer... Depends on how much light the plant wants... Take spinich, for instance... If you have limited space you ight want to grow beans up a piece of fencing between the sun and the spinich... This will allow the spinich a chance to grow closer to the way it likes... Hierarchy isn't everthing... Yer lettuce, beets and radishes will appreciate a break from full sun...

Does this help???

I didn't do much today... Raked out a new raised bed for the P-Vine to plant some stuff that doesn't want full sun...

Not too much else other than mowin'...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: MMario
Date: 23 May 09 - 05:00 PM

gnu - it depends on the plant - s ome do better with an east west row orientation; others with a north sourth row orientation when grown in mono-blocs

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: gnu
Date: 23 May 09 - 04:01 PM

Janie... that is just what I meant by "tiering"... just think... ah... say, apple trees... all the same.

hmmmm... okay... tall, all the same, tight space... what do you do?

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 23 May 09 - 03:55 PM

3Gnu, not sure what you mean by plantation planting, but infer you are talking about planting in straight rows in a small veggie garden. If that is the case, rows are best planted running east-west. Tallest plants would go into the northern-most row, and shortest into the southern most row.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: gnu
Date: 23 May 09 - 02:43 PM

I suppose I could Gaggle, but maybe someone has the answer at hand.

If the spacing is "tight" in a limited space plantaion, is there a preferred orientation of rows with respect to grid north?

Or is it all with respect to plantaion spacing?

I know this can get complicated... tier your plantings with different types to take advantage... whatever. Just think one type, limited space... anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: MMario
Date: 23 May 09 - 11:56 AM

Potted up six martha washington geraniums for the porch - three winish coloured one in a big pot, then graduated shades of pink in three singleton pots.

Plugged a Lenten Rose and a toadwort into my shade garden. Spread a couple wheelbarrows of mulch. Have moved the hose three times already today - Going to take a break since it's noonish -

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 May 09 - 11:30 AM

Sounds good--but check in on MOM if you think of it. She'll enjoy hearing what you're up to. Oh, wait, wrong thread.

Let us know how it goes. I'm spending a couple of days mostly on my own this weekend, but my daughter may be dropping off their kaput mower for me to work on.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening, 2009
From: Janie
Date: 23 May 09 - 09:48 AM

To parden. verb. The act of obtaining pardon through tending the garden.

Today, housework, oil change and other chores.    Early tomorrow morning I drop Sum Yung Sun off at the school very early for a 10 day stay with the freshman class at a migrant worker's camp. Which means two days of what looks of be perfect weather to garden and finish painting the garden shed, and not speaking to another soul if I don't want to.