Weekly Thread Gardening – 2011 (Vol. 06) February 11

Free Republic | 02-11-2011 | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

Good morning gardeners. My order of seeds and supplies from Jung’s arrived this past week. Now all I need is a sign of when the weather here in east central Mississippi will warm up! We had snow this past Wed. about an inch and a half of heavy wet snow. The over night Temps have turned it into a layer of ice crystals that has not melted away yet. It is 15 degrees this morning and is supposed to go to 45 this afternoon which should melt the remaining snow then highs in the low 60’s this weekend. I am waiting impatiently for the highs to get to 70 and remain there!

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.

[John 3_19-21]

Your’s too

[Bean Counter]

I use red RTV sealant. You can get it at any auto parts store, and it works very well because it has such a wide temperature range, and will stick to virtually anything, including the plastic the barrels are made from.

We normally get very dry up here in the Pacific Northwest for a couple of months during the summer. Rain is sparse at that time, and I’m pretty confidant that 300 gallons of water will get me through the dry spells.

Of course if it gets too dry, I can always drag the hose out and water by hand.

I do have a sprinkler control box within ten feet of this tank, and I plan on installing a 1” solenoid valve in the new system, and hook it into the sprinkler controls so the beds will be watered daily when it’s hot.

[who knows what evil?]

20 cent packs of vegetable seed at Wal-Mart; for anyone who might be interested...

[greeneyes]

Finally got a chance to get on the computer! Thanks for the thread, Red. Beautiful weekend here in Missouri with sunshine and mild temperatures. Snow is still on the ground, but melting rapidly off the roof.

The largest of the limes is now almost the size of a ping pong ball. The table where the tomatoes are sitting looks like a jungle, and has blooms and 1 tiny green tomato.

I am still looking at seed catalogs. I get 2 or 3 new catalogs every week. We decided to order Goji berries to add to our fruit, nut and berries landscape area.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. God Bless.

[who knows what evil?]

Has anyone ever implemented the ‘Vegetable Garden Planner’ software at the Mother Earth site as of yet? Worth a look...

[tubebender]

I try to listen to a radio garden show on Sunday mornings and they have been promoting the Grafted Tomatoes and had one of the developers on this morning. Here is a couple of Links

Grafted Tomatoes You'll find many more Veggies if you are patient and follow the index at the bottom

[cherry]

deer and moles.....luckily there are few cats that roam around once in a while...my husband has mole traps....yes, he KILLS the little buggers....but I heard an old wives tale that putting a stick of Juicy Fruit gum down a mole hole will kill them easily.....they eat the gum and the gum expands in their stomachs...what a way to go,...

[cherry]

that is fantastic.....where do you live in Washington?....we live on the dry side so any water we could save would be great.....we need a new gutter system anyway.....

[Bean Counter]

Southwest Washington, right across the river from Portland, OR.

I will put up a couple of pics later that show how I put the piping together over the weekend. We got a good rain Saturday night, and it put 175 gallons of water in the tank! I have not checked it yet this morning, but it rained good and hard again last night, so the tank is probably full now. If not, we have more rain coming in today, so that will do it for sure.

Developing...

[Bean Counter]

So when I got up Saturday morning after it rained overnight, I found the tank had 175 gallons of water in it, and I realized I had to get at least an overflow line on it as rain is predicted here all week long.



Here is the fill filter under construction. I cut a plywood ring to fit a plastic bucket, and screwed it to the top of the tank using the screwholes for the manhole cover. The bucket gets most of the bottom cut off so there is only a 2" flange left under the lower molded ring on the bucket. It sits in the ring and will be sealed with silicon. I take a pair of nylon paint strainers that are made to fit a five gallon bucket, place them inside and secure them with the bucket lid. I previously cut a hole in the bucket lid for the downspout to go into.

This makes the fill mosquito proof, and filters anything that rinses out of the gutters.



I could have just run an overflow pipe from the top drain hole for now, but I decided to go ahead and plumb the whole thing right off. It cost me about $20 for parts, and I had quite a bit of material onhand from other projects.

You can see a piece of clear tubing next to the vertical piece of black pipe, that is the sightglass so I can see what the water level is.



I plumbed everything in 1" PVC, and installed a 1" solenoid valve that will be controlled by the sprinkler controller for the backyard. I included a bypass valve, a sightglass tube in the back, and a clear bucket filler hose with a valve on the front. We use a lot of fish emulsion fertilizer and it's really handy to fill a watering can from the tank. You can see the vertical black plastic hose next to the sightglass; that is the overflow, and it bypasses the valves and overflows directly to the drip emitters. No water gets wasted.

As I hoped, as soon as a couple of hundred pounds of water got in there, the pedestal stones were locked tightly in place. It's very solid and isn't going anywhere.

The plan now is to finish the retaining wall and start working on the soil in the beds. The 1" plastic hose manifold is hooked up now and that gives me plenty of water on that end of the house now. It rains here through mid-summer so the tank should stay replenished.

Later this summer I will build a protective cover of some sort to put over the valves and dress it up a little...

[Red_Devil 232]

Excellent! Nicely designed job. Thanks for the clear explanations of everything along with the pictures! I am sure a lot of FReepers along with myself have learned a lot from your project!

[tillacum]

Urban Farm for March/April has an article about grafting. I haven’t read that far, yet, but the pictures along with the instructions look interesting.

[tillacum]

Urban Farm for March/April has an article about grafting. I haven’t read that far, yet, but the pictures along with the instructions look interesting.

[tubebender]

Our spring like weather ended Sunday night and the rains have returned with a vengeance so it has made up the deficit that occurred during Jan and early Feb in just 36 hours. We got as much done as possible in the way of weeding and cleaning up the clutter plus I cracked open the oldest compost pile, put the top layers on the new piles and spread 3 large wheelbarrows of finished stuff on our perennial flower bed after I dug our some woody plants and removed all the matted beds of Iris. My wife’s seeds and catalogs are still rolling in and she will be starting her flowers beginning in early March. I will use the rest of winter to work on my postcard collections that I have neglected for too long...

[Arrowhead1952]

I was going to graft my neighbor’s pear tree yesterday, but I wound up working in my yard after taking wife to eat for Valentines Day.

[Red_Devil 232]

You will love this, I know I do! Todays high was 72 low forecasted to be the low 40s. Next 5 days are forcasted to be highs in the low 70s with lows in the 40s!

Come on spring!

[tubebender]

Yes yes yes Red, it’s your turn to gloat. It has been raining for 48 hours now for a total of 2+ inches with water standing on the lawn. I’ll give you a update on the totals for our water year when I open the paper tomorrow morning. I ordered 30 10 hole plastic grow bags for my wife’s Impatiens she hangs around the house and at the Church and the source shipped 2 of them and backordered 28???

[tillacum]

Wellll, I can tell you straight from the shoulder, my dear master in arms, your wife’s Valentines Day dinner was far more important than grafting your neightbor’s pear tree.
Yesterday I but my potatoes and tomorrow I’ll put them in my tires and pots. As I’ve mentioned before our yard is clay, so everything I plant is “above ground”
Stay healthy “dear” comrade in arms.

[GOPJ]

Thanks.

[tillacum]

Bean Counter, your project boggles my mind. You and many on this thread are so clever. I don’t even know what all the terms mean. I just haul water hoses, until our yard man places the pvc pipes in place to water all of my above raised “gardens”. Tomorrow the potatoes go into the tires and then more potaotes into other pots. Gardening is great.