Weekly Gardening Thread – 2010 Vol. 16 May 21

Free Republic | 5-21-2010 | Red_Devil 232

[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. Our Freeper community is full of gardeners, each with varying interests and skill levels from Master Gardener to novice.

If you have a question about gardening or just an observation to share please feel free to stop by and participate. Paraphrasing Freeper fanfan -There are no stupid questions, just honest ones.

[who knows what evil?]

Also, are these upside down tomato plant systems any good that I see advertised on TV all the time?

I have those, as well...don't believe the hype. Okay for cherry tomatoes, but real pain in the *ss. A good wind will tear your plants away...

[nina0113]

I’m just not willing to spend the ten bucks for one of those upside-down ones, let alone what it would cost for a tall and strong enough support. It looks like a Pet Rock to me.

[PROTESTBYPROXY]

How do you post a picture.

[PROTESTBYPROXY]

County Extention service or local ag college can help you on varieties.

[Ellendra]

Replanted my cucumbers and watermelons yesterday, they'd been eaten just after they sprouted.

I also got out to my land again yesterday, but I was chopping things out instead of planting them. I had recently discovered what I am now 98% sure is just a sulphur cinquefoil infestation. In and of itself, that's harmless, the whole 5 acres is covered with invasive weeds of some kind or another. The problem? Well, this is what sulphur cinquefoil looks like:



I have a dispute with a neighbor (his house is for sale, please buy it?) who would love to use something like this against me. So, this is one of the few weeds for whom my gut reaction runs along the lines of "KILLITKILLITKILLITDIEDIEDIE!!!!!!!"

And that's how I got my blister yesterday.

Any advice would be appreciated.

On a more cheerful note, my indoor tomatoes, which I've been growing for nearly a year and a half, have produced their first ripe tomato!!!

[JustaDumbBlonde]

"Your garden in fantastic...Are you selling out of it?"

Yes ma'am, I hope to sell whatever I don't can, freeze or dehydrate ... I do a tremendous amount of food preservation. We have a 3 acre field of sweet corn and about an equal area of purple hull peas. I'll probably have a couple of acres of pumpkins again this year.

[Red_Devil 232]

I do enjoy your photo posts! Envious? You bet! But I am so glad that I am not the one doing all the work you have to put into your garden/farm.

[TASMANIANRED]

May has been a dud..

2 days of sunshine this month.

[Ellendra]

Yep. The allium has been blooming for about 4 weeks now. I’m not the only one; customers constantly come in looking for them this time of year, and I have to send them away until fall. Then they forget that they wanted them in the spring.

Sounds like there's a market for potted alliums.

[StopBigGovt]

Wow! Your lettuce looks awesome!

[Ellendra]

I'm quite sure that tilapia I had was fertilized with nightsoil,

Why would they fertilize tilapia?

[afraidfortherepublic]

Report:

The rain finally stopped and I've been out to check on the garden. It is amazing what a week of relatively warm weather (60F daytime and 47F nights) will do followed by a soaking rain. The garden looks FABULOUS. Even some of my pathetic marigolds look like they are coming back.

Who was it this AM who opined that real rain perks up the plants better than water from a hose? It seems to have worked here.

1) Heads are forming on the cauliflower already.

2) Potatoes have finally poked above the dirt -- both the reds and the golds.

3) My radishes needed thinning AGAIN -- same with the 2nd lettuce planting. Carrots need thining, too; and I have no idea how to accomplish this, They are so thick. They are just little needle-like sprouts,so far; so I'll wait till they are larger before pulling.

4) Lettuce looks terrific -- 1/3 larger than yesterday. Surely I can have a salad now. Please?

5) I can hardly wait for my additional beds to get built. I'm out of space, and I have so many seeds and seedlings I want to plant.

6) Tonight my husband is supposed to finish one of the perimeter beds and fill it with planting mix so that I can get my Arbor Day trees planted. The Arbor Day Foundation suggested planting them temporarily in a flower bed until I select a permanent location. I have 20 Colorado Blue Spruce (12 in. tall) and 2 lilacs (18 in. tall) that I need to get into the ground for a year, or so, until they can be moved elsewhere. My perimeter beds will be perfect for that duty.

7) I'll wait an hour, or so, to see how the planting mix dries out and then I'm going to actually plant some tomatoes. If not today -- certainly tomorrow.

CONFESSION:
Many of my seedlings were started with 2 seeds to a pot. Both seeds grew. Should I pinch off one of them? I'm talking about broccoli and tomatoes. Y'all will have to force me to do it because it tears a hole in my my heart to pinch... Call me ugly names, or something. I'm not advocating real violence, but give me a really GOOD reason why I have to throw away a perfectly good plant.

[TASMANIANRED]

You need an earth box..

1 plastic bin.
1 dishwashing tub. You can drill or use a sodering iron to make about 1/2 million holes in it.. (Actually about 100)

1 garbage bag
1 length of pcv pipe slightly taller than the plastic bin.

Measure where the overturned dishwashing tub fits in the bin and drill/melt a drainage hole right above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3INoLKg555w

This will give you the general idea..

It is self watering so you only have to tend it about once a week.

[tubebender]

Just take a pair of scissors and pretend you are sewing and snip off one plant. See... that didn’t hurt did it.

We were going to take 10 flower pouches with Impatiens over to the Church to hang on the trellis but the skies opened andit is pouring...

[Marie Antoinette]

A dud for us as well. We even had some very cold overnight temperatures. I still have all my tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse. They are *mostly* small. My garden plot is a mud pit at the moment. I’m glad I didn’t transplant anything yet, it would’ve rotted straight away. I live in northern Missouri.

The good news is we’re going to jump right into the mid 80s starting tomorrow. I’m hoping we get to dry out a little.

[Red_Devil 232]

If you don't have the space you can't acquit! You must do what is required and knock one off!

Glad to hear your taters are growing!

Sounds like the rain did a wonderful job in assisting you and all the hard work you put into the garden!

[Nepeta]

Why would they fertilize tilapia?

That's how they feed them. Sometimes the Chinese build chicken houses over fish farms for the same purpose. Yum.

[Black Agnes]

Not sure about the broccolis but you can probably *gently* separate the tomatoes.

Let’s see what the experts say though before you do that...

[afraidfortherepublic]

Tomatoes do quite well in pots. The larger the pot, the larger your plant will get and the larger the fruit will be. They like root room. You have to watch your water in a pot, however. The plants tend to dry out and wilt in the heat of the summer. You can bring them back if you catch them right away, but if you wait too long they’ll either die, or drop all their fruit.

There are pots made that are called “self watering”. They have a water reservoir in the bottom and you water from the bottom. There is a wick in there that wicks to water up to the root zone. You might find that those will work. They are a little pricey, but worth it if you can’t be around all day.

And aesthetics aside, plastic pots work better than stone, or ceramic. I have reservations about those upside down planters. In the first place, you have to hang them so high, you’ll need a ladder to water them. And the same problems arise with them drying out too quickly. And they get very heavy, so you need a really heavy duty bracket to hold them. If you have drunks and pill poppers off intruding on your property at night, they can pick your tomatoes off of an upside down planter just as easily as a pot. To take it down from its hook and move it indoors every night is going to be a chore that gets old fast.

[afraidfortherepublic]

If you don't have the space you can't acquit! You must do what is required and knock one off!

LOL Thanks for the advice, Johnnie Cochrane!