Posted on 05/07/2010 6:30:17 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners! If you are a gardener or you are just starting out and are in need of advice or just encouragement please feel free to join in and enjoy the friendly discussion. There are many Freepers from all over the Good Ol’ USA that are willing and eager to help.
I thought a little primer on fertilizers might come in handy this time of year especially to those of you just starting out.
What do the numbers mean?
Every bag or container of commercial fertilizer has a three number code that tells you the percentage that that particular fertilizer has of the "Big Three" nutrients used by plants.
The big three nutrients are, in the order listed on the container:
A bag of fertilizer labeled as 13-13-13 will have equal percentages of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium for a total of 39%; the rest is filler.
Ideally a soil test is needed to determine how much of these nutriments your soil needs.
Also the type of vegetables or plants you are growing may require different percentages of these nutriments to grow or produce successfully. Know your plants needs.
And remember small amounts will go a long way. Don't over fertilize. Too much at one time or too often can overwhelm plant systems and cause problems.
I had an entire flat of Black Plum/Isis Candy tomatoes that was taking a LONG time to come up...couldn't figure out what the hell was going on; as all of my other tomatoes were germinating in 3 - 4 days (saran wrap/warm floor method). Turns out I had forgotten to put any seeds in the flat...
Guess that one was MY fault. :-)
And my asparagus seeds are sprouting! I’ve got about 60 seedlings so far, yay! Hopefully they won’t die.
I hope you saw the article I posted earlier on this thread about the Asparagus farm operated by a widow here in WI. It's on the first, or second, page of this thread. Worth the read.
How do you have your blackberry bramble controlled? I mean trellises, wires, etc. Is there any structure to it?
Yep. Done that too, LOL!
We’re just setting out the canes this year. We’re going to have a chain link fence just the other side of the bramble. We’ll let it ‘free form’ on that side. I plan to give it/them about 5-6’ ‘this’ side of the chain link fence as theirs and mow the edges. Clean out the trees/privet hedge/big weeds once a year. We’re aiming for country concertina wire. On the cheap.
Yes, I saw the posts about the asparagus farm. Interesting. Not sure I’d be that into asparagus.
I thought her devices for easing the job were interesting. I doubt that anyone would be that “in” to asparagus, but it once was her late husband’s parents’ farm and her retirement dream. Doesn’t sound too “retiring” to me, but I thought her set up was edifying. Since she doesn’t seem to be raising anything else for cash, at least her work is confined to a small segment of the year.
What is “country concertina” wire?
I have 2 blackberry bushes and 2 raspberry bushes and I have to figure out what to do with them, quick — something easy. Hoosiermama says that I cannot plant them closer together than 800 feet (yards?). I have plenty of space, but I need them under some kind of control. My husband gets irate about thorny canes. He’s not allowed near my roses. He hacked out all the wild roses that were here when we bought this place.
Diana — that looks mahvelous, just mahvelous! But I wouldn’t put it in soup — I’d eat it raw.
All but one of my spinach seedlings died. I planted a whole square of seeds outdoors last week, but with all this cold rain, they’ve probably all washed away. :-(
Throw in some more seed. It’s not too late. I did all of mine from seed back in March when we had that warm streak.
I saw the sun for about 10 seconds today. It totally cheered me up, LOL!
I also made a crustless quiche with the spinach, and there is plenty for salads. I think I’ll make that hot bacon dressing for a spinach salad (with oranges and red onions) sometime this weekend. :)
Good idea. There was steam rising from both the pavement and the fields today after the rain stopped about 1 PM. It really looked eery.
I couldn’t see ‘farming’ as retirement, myself. Gardening, definitely. Doing it for a living kind of defeats the ‘retirement’ out of it. I am happy she’s using the family farm land. There are probably people in that area that depend on a certain amount of that.
Country concertina wire. Hmmm. Go into the woods. Dig up (have hubby do this!) the blackberry canes with the biggest nastiest thorns on them you can find. Take home. Plant the perimeter of your property all the way around. Allow to ‘naturalize’ for about 5ft inside the fence line. Now, if someone is tenacious to climb over the fence they have a whole new set of problems... Namely being encased in ginormous brambles. Ouchie.
Benefit. Once a year we’ll get hundreds of gallons of blackberries. I think I’ll name this place ‘blackberry bend’.
I’m sorry about the wild roses. They are pretty and seem to tolerate a lot more elemental abuse than the store bought ones.
I don’t know about blackberries and raspberries. I kill raspberries for entertainment ;) (and expense! :) )
The spinach looks delish! We’ll have to wait till end of september at the earliest for more of that in these environs. High today was 90. Low tonight will be low 70’s. Tomatoes and peppers will be happy. Melons and cucumbers too. Hopefully corn as well.
The only warm blooded animals that might climb my fence have hooves, horns, and little white tails! Of course, they seem to be immune to thorns.
Back to where I’m going to plant these blackberries and raspberries — I have a pasture fence (wire 2 x 4 grid) in place. If I plant the crowns between fence posts (so they are not in the way and interfere when he has to change a post — are these going to reproduce at the crown level and eventually get down to that post where the roots and canes will tangle around it? Or, do they reproduce by dropped berries?
I looked berry horticulture up on the web and didn’t get too many good ideas. The raspberries were shown planted between two T posts with wire strung from the ends of the crossbar on the T to the opposite T. The berries were planted in between, and the canes trained up between the wires. Looked like a good idea to keep a little control. There was no similar drawing for blackberries.
Have you seen tubebender’s blueberry cage? He posted pictures last week that are something to behold. A long narrow space with a gate at one end and aviary wire on the sides and the top! Nothing is going to get those berries until he says so!
I meant to say SHORT T posts. I’ve forgotten the measurement, but they looked to be less than waist high. The canes just draped over the wires to keep a tangle off the ground.
Why do you hate raspberries?
These seem to reproduce from canes. The ‘mother plant’ will send up new shoots several feet away. Kind of like blueberries do. ‘Suckers’ if you will. We just take a sharpshooter and dig those guys up and move them where we want them. You can also bend the canes down and use a wire piece shaped like a ‘U’ to hold them to the ground and supposedly they’ll root there too. Read that one in a fruit horticulture book but haven’t tried it yet. You could probably reproduce them from seeds but I’m not sure if they produce true to kind. Especially if you have more than one kind of berry (raspberry, blackberry, etc).
I plan for these brambles to be ‘wide’ enough that bambi’s will think twice about jumping over them. We don’t have too many of them though as there are a lot of redneck hunters in these parts.
Oh, *I* **adore** raspberries. They just hate the deep south. Between soil diseases/pests and the fact that all but one or two varieties simply stop respiration when temps are above 90 they pretty much all die down here. Ask me how I know that ;)
*sigh*
I will try the one variety that’s pretty much ‘it’ for around these parts next year. I found a nursery in Arkansas that’s pretty well rated on Daves Garden forum that actually sells them. Yay. The variety isn’t supposed to be great for fresh eating but supposedly cans and makes jelly just fine. Which is all I usually want anyways.
We’ll probably do the tpost wire thingie for my thornless blackberries just outside my window. Just enough support to keep them ‘in line’. The blackberries along the fenceline will be trimmed brutally to keep them in their place. I’m not looking to maximize production with them. Just keep them ‘neat’ looking on ‘my’ side of the fence.
I didn’t realize that. (That they hated the deep south.) That’s what I love about this forum. Youlearn something new every day.
My husband loves raspberries, but hates the thorns. That’s why I have to be careful where I plant them — some place where he’ll never run into them. I was going to plant the blackberries and raspberries all together. After all, that’s how I buy them in the store — 2 boxes of blackberries and one box of raspberries every week that they are in the produce department. But, hoosiermama says that I can’t plant them together. After all, who am I to argue?
The Black Cap Raspberries are trailing canes like blackberries and need a trellis while my red raspberries grow upright and are self supporting. We battle a wild blackberry here called the Himalaya berry and you could substitute it for prison walls. When I get to Hell I am going to look up the guy that imported them and scalp and neuter him. One rumor has Luther Burbank as the culprit...
Those blackberries grew throughout my woods when I lived in WA State, where ever the sunlight could penetrate. My schnauzer used to eat them right off the vines. They were really good and always attracted a lot of pickers. We never tried to get rid of them because they grew on a part of the land that was devoted to hemlock and cedar trees, growing wild.
Looks like Luther Burbank better be watching out for his scalp!!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.