Posted on 04/06/2019 7:16:35 PM PDT by greeneyes
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds.
From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.
This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you wont be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isnt asked.
It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no telling where it will go and... that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us!
NOTE: This is a once a week ping list. We do post to the thread during the week. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest are welcomed any time-and don't have to be about gardening.
That screened in sunroom/back porch is high on my wish list too. In fact, I wanted to build that this summer, but hubby insisted on a storage shed-size of a 2 car garage with basement/root cellar area underneath the shed.
Hope I will have enough left over for the porch.
Tubebender-thanks for posting the pic.
Eric- Peppers are looking great. Thanks for the pic. Your pics are what convinced me we needed to get that little green house shelving unit to go with our sunroom/greenhouse.
It has really worked great. Hubby put a couple of the seed starter heat pads on the shelves, loaded it up with plants. During the night when the temps were below freezing, he zipped it up, and it kept them nice and toasty. The cool weather starts didn’t need heat pads.
Then unzipped during the day. Lot’s cheaper than trying to heat the whole 8 x 12 structure.
The rain finally died down and the yard finally got dry enough to mow. Hubs and I weedeatered, pulled weeds and mowed. I finally got the manure and straw down but didn’t get any starts in the ground.
It was nice and warm today.
Didn’t want to cook dindinz so we’re having take and bake pizza.
There’s five pints of boneless chicken in the pressure cooker that I was going to can tomorrow but I had to do it today to make room for leftover pizza.
I thought I read somewhere that newspaper pots have something that is resistant to mold....
I am always amazed by your cages to protect your plants. I think I’m going to ask hubby to put making me a cage for strawberries a priority this year.
Thanks for the pic. We have 75 strawberry plants ordered - Special pricing-cheaper than ordering the 25 we needed. So we need to figure out where the others go.
Really? I had never heard that. What a good thing if true.
That’s a lot of stuff. Do you sell it to a grocery or at farmer’s market or something?
Will your root cellar double as a storm cellar?
I’d want both items in your neck of the woods!
I am always amazed at how much other people get done. I never do much at one time. Just a little bit at a time during the week.
Missouri is fortunate to have 177 days of gardening season. So I really don’t have to do starts in order to get a harvest for most things. While hubby likes to start stuff and get a jump on the season, I prefer to wait for nicer weather and plant directly.
I prefer to plant in the fall. One reason I grow things like wheat and rye. Typically they aren’t ready for harvest till around June 1. Garlic is the same. So I skip the early spring sowing, harvest in June, and replant the beds with summer veggies in nice weather.
That still leaves 4.5 months for the “in season” crops.
Yes, it will double as a storm cellar. Of course we have a basement in our home that is “finished” so that’s where we go for tornadoes/stormy weather.
However, we have floor plans that could convert the shed to a guest house/ 1 bedroom home, if we ever needed to - we could do that for rental income. Like you, I believe that a storm shelter/basement is a necessity for anyone living in our area.
We are supposed to have 80 degree day tomorrow - sounds like a good day for a morning or evening walk here too.
LOL. Baker’s Creek-the gift that just keeps giving. I love those little chicks. My grandparents used to get some every year. The furnace was in the floor of the living room and had a grate on top that you could stand on to get warm in the AM.
So a little box of chicks right by the furnace was always a spring thing close to Easter time. Good luck with the chicks and getting all that stuff from Baker’s Creek dealt with.
Go to walmart.com and search for ‘citrus tone’.
Great stuff.
Hubby planted a bunch of peas in the ground - they rotted - only one sprouted. I gave up on peas a few years back. I could always get them started in pots.
The transplants always took off and grew nicely and then boom dead. For a 3 year period, all I ever got was 3 pods. Even tried growing them in containers. They grew longer, but still not long enough.
I don’t like peas anyway except a handful in a big pot of soup-so I can’t really taste them. I’m thinking I’ll just buy a bag of frozen and dehydrate them, or else a bag of dried peas for soups.
OK. Thanks.
I hope you get your screened in porch.
All this time, I thought you already had one.
I’d like something similar to a greenhouse but that would be too expensive if it was made of glass.
Our neighbors had the largest greenhouse you can buy from Harbor Freight. I think it was around $400.00 when they got it around ten years ago.
My husband helped them build it and someone else trenched the concrete patio it was built on so they could install taps and irrigation.
That thing was nice.
It had vents you could open in summer and it was warm in winter.
They bought those big self watering rubbermaid style planters and put them on furniture dollies so they would be easy to move and the irrigation was set up on all four sides. They had tubes that fed water into a reservoir at the bottom. Every few weeks someone would dump a spoonful of miracle gro down the tube.
There was a big table with a shelf for potting plants, storing supplies and housing seedling flats.
They grew tomatoes, squash and green beans mostly.
They were older, so I “rented” a corner by helping them with little odd jobs. I put some 5 gallon buckets in there and planted okra in them.
They used to sit in there everyday when it was cold outside.
The Mister was very good at gardening, but then he was pretty good at everything.
He grew beautiful onions.
No enclosed back porch. I have 2 back yard patios. One is on the first level with patio doors from Great Room to the patio.
The lower level has a walk out basement. With a patio from the family room/computer area.
So until our purchase of a “lean to” greenhouse in 2017, we just grew what we could in front of the sliding glass doors of the patio.
Here’s a link to the pic of the green house that TubeBender posted for me:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3667189/posts?page=65#65
Since it was put in on an existing patio, we were limited as to what we could do. Main problem for winter use is that Mo. gets too cold and the greenhouse has basically no insulation. An enclosed back porch would resolve that here’s a concept link - think wider and tile floor-http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3603640/posts?page=20#20
In addition, after putting in the greenhouse we extended our patio using red patio pavers link here: http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3669028/posts?page=60#60
Is it still brown or is it starting to green up yet where you are?
It's gorgeous here, lush and green and I read an article the other day about how the California "bloom" of wildflowers is actually visible from space!
https://www.space.com/satellite-spies-wildflower-superbloom-california.html
Too bad it's going to be all crunchy and brown in a couple of months.
I'm dreading fire season. Hopefully there won't be any bad ones this year with fatalities and whatnot.
Things are greening up. Dandelions are in the green stage where the leaves are rather tender and not too bitter to be used for greens.
The almond trees are now in bloom, and looking pretty. Our tulips, daffodils and hyacinths are blooming and looking nice.
I still need to figure out what to plant between the spring flowers so the beds will be pretty in the summer too.
I always wanted to try dandelion but I was too chicken.
How do you fix yours?
Marigolds are nice for summer. I always have to grow mine from seed though. Every single marigold plant I’ve bought from a store died right away. They’re either diseased or eaten almost overnight by the piranha slugs we have here.
We don’t have as many lately due to nearby raccoons, but there are still plenty enough.
I have a little plastic water dish I put out in the yard for the cat and every morning it’s tipped over.
I think the raccoon does it washing off his snails and slugs.
There must have been something good in the cinderblocks where I planted my marigolds because the little rascal dug clean through to the bottom.
I’ll have to top it off and plant more seeds.
It’s supposed to rain tomorrow. I’m planning to can some hamburger and maybe I’ll scrounge around for something to put my starts in. I waited too long and the roots went into the peat so I need something big. I’ll have to stop by Dollar Tree or something.
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.