WEEKLY GARDEN THREAD APRIL 20, 2019

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 won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.

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I live in Spain, in the American equivalent of a growing zone 10B. We get heat and sun and wind that makes plastic brittle and fades popsicle sticks in weeks, so I needed a more reliable way to label my plants and keep the labels readable long term. My solution is aluminum cans. It's easy and free. If you are a soda or beer drinker just save a couple of cans. If you aren't, just go for a walk. There are plenty enough pigs in the world so you should find all you need along the side of the road. That's how I got mine. Once you get your cans:

1. Take a sharp knife to make a slit in the can along the top then use a scissors to cut around the top of the can, removing the part you drink from. Don't worry if the cut is ragged, you will fix that.

2. Cut some slits from the top down to the bottom of the can. Go in a circle and cut as wide or narrow as you want.

3. Bend one of the tabs down out of the way then cut all around the bottom so each strip is cut away. I did this on an old Supermarket brochure so everything ends up on the paper instead of my countertop.

4. Use your scissors to trim the edges of any jagged bits of metal. There are your tags. Simple! If you want to be a bit fancier you can round off the tops so they look like metal popsicle sticks but squared off is good enough for me.

5. When you are ready use that same paper so you don't make a mess or dent your table. Use an old ball point pen to write your plant name, pressing hard into the metal and making a permanent impression.

6. Using a marker fill in the impression so it is now more easily readable. If the sun fades the marker the impression will still be there and you can use your marker again to restore it.

7. Stick it in the dirt and you're done. I used a new Tabasco plant as an example. Easy and free is something I enjoy :-)

I’ll have to look next time I’m there. I tossed the top yesterday, I think. It may have already gone out.

It’s a $3 pack at Walmart - seasonal, of course.

I get the bag of mixed, red, yellow, white. I know they also have bags of just yellow and just white (not sure if just red).

They do grow really well. My ground in the tiny garden was really hard. Really needed to be broken up but we’re already in the ground, so oh well. Used a tool that grabs the dirt down to 5 inches or so which was the dept. It carved out a hole for a medium-small onion - we’ll see what the growth is. The pots have topsoil which worked really well last year (I planted too many too close together though). Can’t believe they survived 2 snows and two really cold nights (like 18F). But they did, and thrived.

So, I’ve got good expectations.

Working on just a few seedlings today in a starter kit. I’m at least 30 days late but I had to restart multiple times over the years because they looked strong, but couldn’t take the heat when transplanted outside. Now I’m more careful.

Here is my update

I work four 10 hour shifts right now and am supposed to be off fri-sun. Those days were set aside to get some more work done and soe more veggies planted...

However...nightmare situation with my cell phone required Friday to be completely dedicated to replacing the phone and transferring over all data from the old phone....and.my law enforcement position intruded all of Saturday and half of Sunday due to unexpected paperwork on a possible 3rd strike who was arrested. The paperwork had to be finished before Monday so the suspect may not be able to get low bail and flee the state.

Now for garden/greenhouse update.

I have gotten my 8 x 12 greenhouse up last month, built two planting beds, installed a 30 gallon barrel drip watering system inside the greenhouse and a 55 gallon water barrel drip watering system outside the greenhouse that will water some suspended plants in the greenhouse.

The barrels outside are double stacked on a 4 foot high platform made up by 4x6’s which got the spigot at the same level as the peak of the greenhouse.

The 30 gallon barrel system inside are similarly stacked but obviously lower and used to feed the lower planting beds.

A small fan powered by a small solar panel (circulates air in the greenhouse.

The roof has a panel that auto opens when the internal temp reaches 100-110 degrees and closes when the temp drops back down to 70.

So far I just have some green growing inside.

I finished that 55 gallon plastic drum drip system install today and repurposed some netting.

The netting came from a baseball rebounder that my son no longer uses. I screwed the netting in the roof trusses along the length of 1/2 of the greenhouse. The netting system is 10 feet long and 30 inches wide.

I am going to put peppers and cukes in suspended pots and horizontally trellis them along the netting.

That will.leave lots of room in the lower planting bed areas for vertically trellis
Them with some wire fencing I used previously as tomato cages.

I am also going to use 4-6 of the 4” PVC pipe (vertically installed) in the corner of the greenhouse to plant strawberries.

These will all be installed and up and running by the end of next weekend.the following week will be dedicated to getting some root veggies going in the planting boxes I am making out of the wooden shipping crates I found in the industrial area.....weed blocking fabric lined and filled with the soil piled up in my driveway will be all it takes to get that going.

To Be Continued

It seems we’re not going to have much spring weather this year here in Central Missouri. We’ve gone from cold and wet to hot and dry seemingly overnight.

I haven’t gotten to work in the kitchen garden yet, but did spend a good bit of time cleaning up winter mess in the yard and working on landscape plantings over the weekend.

The peach and plum trees have pretty much finished blooming, so it looks like I’ll be getting some production from those this year.

Talked to fish guy last Friday. He said hopefully this week for the truck to show up with some scaly things for my pond.

So I have to gloat a little bit, and this is the only place that’ll get it...I was driving to the grocery store and passed a guy mowing his lawn with a dozen-plus BIG bags full of raked leaves sitting by his curb. So I pulled over, asked if I could have them, and stuffed my car as full as it would go. (I got all but two of ‘em.)

Drove back home with my nose informing me that these were not only old leaves but old partially composted leaves with lots of happy nutrients to feed my veggies with. I am absolutely FILLED with glee, since there’s no trustworthy straw mulch around here and I’m sick of raking pine straw. :)

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