Weekly Gardening Thread - 2009 Launch - May 15

FreeRepublic | 5-15-2009 | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

Nothing tastes better than vegetables and herbs picked fresh from your own garden.

It is now the middle of May and many Freepers are starting gardens for the first time this year. And there are those lucky Freepers whose gardens are well established at this time.

Our Freeper community is full of gardeners, each with varying skill levels from Master Gardener to novice and I hope all of you will stop by this thread each week and share your experiences.

[Red_Devil 232]

Weekly Gardening Thread

In January 2008 a couple of Freepers (Gabz and Gardengirl) started a Weekly Gardening Thread. It was very successful, informative and interesting. During the course of the year they became very busy with their lives and work and posting the thread became overwhelming. The Weekly Garden Thread soon disappeared.

I contacted Gabz and she wholeheartedly agreed and endorsed my restarting the thread and has graciously allowed me to use the Ping List to start this weekly thread.

The original 2008 thread usually started with an article written by Gardengirl. I do not have the talent, the expertise or experience in gardening to attempt that. But I can get the thread posted each week and you Freepers can comment and guide topics and the discussion.

Those of you who are experienced in gardening or farming please stop in each week and help your fellow Freepers with their questions and problems.

If you are just starting out and are in need of advice or just encouragement please feel free to join in. There are many Freepers from all over the Good Ol’ USA that are willing and eager to help.

At the end of the day what would all of our work be without delicious recipes for the fruits of our labor? So cooks and foodies share those recipes, please! We gotta know what to do with all of these zucchinis!

[Red_Devil 232]

Ping to the Gardening List.

[Red_Devil 232]

This is typically a low volume ping list. Once a week (Friday)for the thread and every once in a while for other FR threads posted that might be of interest.

If you would like to be added to or removed from the list please let me know by FreepMail or by posting to me.

[Eagle50AE]

Thanks for the thread.

everything is growing Except my Okra plants are wilting after a few days, seems like stem rot..

going to plant seeds direct and try that !

[southlake_hoosier]

About the only way I can keep anything is to cage it all. Last year the deer ate up everything I had. I got nothing for all the work I put into them. They also ate all my flowers including the roses. Over the winter they ate up my evergreens.

[Red_Devil 232]

Wow! That has got to very dissapointing! I am lucky and deer are not a problem for me.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Neat!

I put in 8 4 X 8 raised beds this year for a veggie garden. Right now I’ve got various greens and cabbage and peas going. It’s almost, but not quite time to put down the tomatoes. We’re going to dedicate one of the beds to asparagus.

I’m used to planting further south. Having to wait has been driving me crazy, LOL.

But in the front yard, I have roses getting ready for bloom, and the basket of gold has gone through it’s first bloom, and the blue sage is spectacular. But we’re having problems with pocket gophers this year, and they got one of the rosebushes. Sigh. We’re trying a sonic keep away thing in that bed.

[who knows what evil?]

I stake that ‘plastic’ netting that garden/hardware sells around my vegetable plot last year, which sent the deer over to the neighbors for lunch...no deer problems at all.

[CH3CN]

I know what you mean. We have our greens planted right outside the front door and literally have cages setting over everything. We had to put up chicken wire fencing around the regular garden and my husband found a portable electric fence kit at a farm store to run around the top.
So far, the deer have stayed out of the garden.

We bent the bottom 5 inches of chicken wire out before putting it up so the rabbits and ground hogs hogs don’t dig underneath.

I had a beautiful magnolia tree my son brought me for my birthday a few years back and the deer have pretty much destroyed it. The only way to keep them from eating the tree is to keep it covered in netting. Sort of defeats the purpose of having a flowering tree right outside your kitchen window.

I’m going to experiment with some deer replellants pretty soon and will let you know if any actally work. My mother always used blood meal but it doesn’t seem to work on these deer.

[Red_Devil 232]

My very first veggie garden (2007) was two 4x4 raised beds. I have come a long way since then. I have been chronicling my gardening attempts in pictures on my FReeper home page.

[reformedliberal]

Chicken wire and a dog, here. Nothing in my tomatoes, peppers and corn.

No fencing around my flower beds and the dog has kept the deer away from my daylilies for several years.

Last year, I tried one of those home made deer repellents that uses milk powder, eggs, garlic and red pepper. It may have helped, but it is rather expensive to concoct. Also, frequent rain means you have to replenish it afterward.

When we had a beagle, while he did go after any rabbit he saw, he was uninterested in deer. The Akita has a high prey drive and, as long as a deer doesn’t respond with loud snorts, he will drive them off. No raccoon or possum survives. The moles get driven up into the old pastures. Unfortunately, he doesn’t care about rabbits.

We have to plant late up here (Memorial Day), so, by the time our plants are in, there is plenty other fodder for the rabbits. However, one Spring, they were very hungry and ate an entire 3-year-old Dutchman’s Pipe vine down to the root. During the last few very cold winters, the deer have come into the yard to eat the bark off the fir trees, but everything survived. There are just so many other chores that have higher priority, that we haven’t gotten around to putting wire protection around the cedar and spruce trees.

[Thermalseeker]

Last year the deer ate up everything I had.

I fight deer and raccoons every year. Usually, they prefer the sweet corn and leave the rest alone, although in recent years the deer seem to also like to browse my green beans when they are young and tender. My Labradors also like corn, carrots, broccoli and have been known to decimate my melon patch, too.

I've found that a temporary electric fence strung around the garden spot powered by one of those solar fence chargers seems to keep most of the hungry critters out.

[momincombatboots]

I put my tomatoes in yesterday. I just have a small garden, 10x10. I live in the Mtns of NC and hate the long wait. I bought a mixture of heritage and hybrid plants. I put some peppers in for my DH. Anyone have any strawberry tips? I would like to work on that. Moving in 2 years, so I am hesitant to start a real strawberry patch.

[who knows what evil?]

Strawberries in an Earth Box or those goofy hanging bags from Park Seed might be an option for you...

[trisham]

I've got a deer problem too. They ate six holly plants that I was overwintering in my hosta garden which is right near the street. They ate two bushes that are supposedly deer proof, took half of an arborvitae right to the center/trunk, and they ate the back half of all my rhododendrons. They also took chucks out of two foundation plants. What a mess.

[Thermalseeker]

I put in 8 4 X 8 raised beds this year for a veggie garden.

I'm trying raised beds this year, too. My farm is in a river bottom and we're foggy and soggy just about every morning all summer. This extra moisture was causing mold and stem rot on my 'maters and peppers. I built nine 3'x8' raised beds by driving 1/8" x 2" x 2' steel angle (painted dark green) into the ground to hold 1" x 8" rough sawed oak boards two high. The 3' width allows for the dirt to be covered with weed mat and stapled around the edges. I filled them with "mushroom compost" I obtained locally. Black gold, that stuff is. Thus far, I've got lettuce, carrots, peppers, tomatoes, basil, onions, and cucumbers going and no mold yet.

In the regular garden I've planted okra, sweet corn (2 plantings staggered 2 weeks apart with a third and fourth planting coming later), cantaloupe, gourds for birdhouses, yellow squash and green beans.

[teenyelliott]

Please add me to the list!

[teenyelliott]

I have used garlic clips from Gardeners Supply for a couple of years. They work great.

garlic clips

[Red_Devil 232]

I have my strawberries planted in a homemade earth box. They are doing well so far!

[Free Vulcan]

My parents have had great luck with a lab/German shepherd mix dog. Even at 10 years old he’s still quite aggressive and keeps the critters at bay.