Backyard Vegetable Gardening & Livestock Raising & Sustainable Living

[Klue]

That's good to hear that you had some luck saving seeds. One seed supplier here has a symbol on the packets of seeds if they are an F1 Hybrid

 

[iheartthisthread]

Don't be scared to grow out some F2s... I have a hybrid white cherry and plan to do some crosses with other cherries and save seed. Might come up with something cool.

Pine needles make a nice mulch and they're free.

 

[poopie]

It's starting

I believe that's a whole row of pickling cucumbers (seated between some lettuces and arugula). Bloody Mary dankness awaits me in the fall. I'm trying to plan my garden out a little better this year. I'm getting an earlier start (with my seeds, at least. Those were planted on Friday and today is only Wednesday ).

The tomato situation is ridiculous though when growing indeterminate species. I tried staking last year, which worked until the plants got about 4' high. Then, I bought the big boxy cage trellises. They were a fucking joke too. This year, I'm going commercial. I'm building a new bed solely for the tomatoes, 2' by 6' or so. And each end will have a 2x4 that's about 6' high on either end. And another across the top. I'll drop twine down and loop the plants through that and then twirl them up the twine. By August of last year, I was ready to trash all of those bastard plants.

My Miami gardenia did not make it through the fucking horrific winter *shock horror*. But, my hydrangea looks bushy and bright green and so does my blackberry shrub.

 

[herbavore]

Since no one responded in the affirmative to having tried haybale gardening I will tread bravely forth on my own. Here is what I am talking about.

 

[LuGoJ]

This year my elderberries should fruit, really excited about that. Aside from that i'm going to be growing sungold tomatoes, cucumbers, sugar baby watermellons, blueberries(tophat and patriot), thai chili peppers, parsley, cilantro dill, sweet basil, thai basil

 

[Klue]

Three weeks of sunny weather later

Ended up buying a bail of tea tree and red cypress chip mulch. Not ideal because it will take a long time to break down and have to be carefully removed when I replant things, but it looks great though.

 

[TouchN' Stuff Blvd]

I have a short growing season so I am trying to prepare. This year I have started a lot of seeds, and by a lot, I mean 150 and counting small pots for seedlings which I am going to try to move outside - mostly to improve my odds of at least getting a few good plants of each of the types I want, but if a lot of them grow well I will be able to hedge my bets against last frost dates (expected to be late april in my region), as well as maybe plant at staggered intervals to have crops ready throughout the summer. Also certain things I am growing like the mustard greens may taste better when young, last season my mustard greens was overpoweringly bitter and spicy as it got towards the fall.
This year I am trying:

*Mustard Greens in Florida and Southern Giant varieties (they are the only plant I planted directly outside)

*Kale in Red Winter and Blue Dwarf Curled varieties (coming up fast from seeds inside currently)

*Romaine lettuce (also came up fast)

*Jaleno and Cayane pepper (I am having a little trouble getting these to germinate I am trying to get some more going in a wet paper towel)

*Basil and Siam Queen Thai Basil (slowly getting there, most have started)

*Snap Pea (first plant was above soil this mourning! )

*brocoli (vv)

*cucumber (v)

*thyme ( Im gonna try starting some more of these 3 and see if I can find any germination tricks)

*parsley (I just started another batch of these that I got to germinate fist in a paper towel since they were taking forever)

*marsh mallow (a couple of good seedlings are growing but many have not started)

*yarrow (tons of minuscule plants have started)

*mourning glories (some are around 4 inches tall at the moment these sprouted very well)

I will probably add a tomato plant later on not from seed.

 

[iheartthisthread]

Nice stuff...

Pro tip on the peppers... soil temp ~ 80°f seeds sprout best. I get mine going on the boiler, but water heater, top of fridge, or near a heater will work.

 

[beagleboy]

My stuff transplanted into bigger cups from the starter pods.
-zuchinni
-beefsteak and cherry tomatoes
-jalepenos
-green peppers
-okra

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

i'm gonna say i'm too lazy and inexperienced for starting from seeds this year, so i'll be buying little plants once my mother gives me the go. apparently it's supposed to freeze next week, which is crazy because today is so nice. but everyone's are looking good. and that's awesome, people who live in other parts of the world an have an active garden already. just finished building this with my dad...

pleasant way to spend a sunday.

my job entails free subscriptions to every newspaper in the city, which just get piled behind my computer monitor. i'm going to bring a bunch home tomorrow, lay them down so the grass will die, and pour a 24 cubic feet of gardening soil on top. i might need a little more soil. it's 8 x 4', and the boards are 2 x 12". dirt was calculated for 2 x 10". then there was a last moment upgrade.

quite a few layers of newspaper good enough to kill the grass? i'd like to avoid pouring toxic chemicals into my yard if possible.

 

[Klue]

Nice one hydro. Newspapers should do the trick. Being starved from light will kill basically any plant eventually, but you could always dig it out or turn it over to make sure.

We had floods here and my tomato started wilting and is almost completely dead now. I'm assuming it would be that fungal tomato wilt I have heard of. It ended up being a fairly big tomato yellow truss anyway that I got a couple of, I wanted a bulletproof small cherry type.

 

[iheartthisthread]

I started maters today. Lots of em. :D

 

[ChemicalSmiles]

BUMP*

Always enjoyed these threads before.. just started out a tami G tomato, sweet basil, and cilantro. Im going to be growing in containers, and cant take up a ton of space.. But I will work with what I have.... no pics yet, not much worth seeing lol...

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

this thread is gonna be fun. i've got sweet basil too. tomatoes. not tami g.

this is the day i planted. earlier this week, sunday. they look much happier now.

ball's beefsteak tomato
grape tomato
sunsugar hybrid tomato -- yellow cherry
better boy tomato
two bananarama hybrid peppers
super chili
orange blaze bell sweet pepper
classic eggplant hill (kinda) with two plants
zucchini hill with two plants -- one ball's squash, one easy pick gold
sweet, thai, and pesto perpetuo basil -- thai is the best, though it's not looking so hot today

rolling the dice this first season. i figure some of these plants will live to be eaten. having done some reading, i'd say i don't really have enough space for both the eggplant and zucchini. i have scissors.

 

[kytnism]

klue how are your plants progressing? and is the fast onset of winter affecting them at all?

hydro your garden looks amazing and the choices of produce you've planted sounds delicious. :D

...kytnism...

 

[TwisteTexan]

Oh man, what a cool thread.
I will be back later with pics.

Big time gardener here.
Soil scientist by trade.

This year my garden is
Watermelon-Charleston grey, black diamond, NC giant, desert king
Cantaloupe-hales best
HoneyDew melons
Pumpkin
Beets-Detroit red
Green beans-blue lake and Kentucky wonder
Tomato-444, celebrity, old German, sweet 100, and BLACK KRIM -if you have a chance try the black Krim super tasty.
Onions red and 1015
Zucchini
Squash
Sweet corn(full blown GMO roundup ready)
Cucumber
Cilantro
Cotton
Dill
Potatoes
Okra
Collard greens
Mustard greens
Asparagus
Garlic
Poppy
And cannabis.

Wow. I didn't realize how deep I am.

 

[Klue]

Pictures would be great. Nice work on studying soil science. How is your mycorrhizae going too? :D

I don't have a huge amount of stuff at the moment kytnism. One tomato that I bought as a tiny tim that is covered in flowers. It's been slow for vegetative growth because of the cold. It's unusual because it kind of has round leaflets on it. I will try and get a photo one sunny morning. Also letting three self sown tomatoes go and have just put in a couple of stakes for them. All my tomatoes have been getting white fly attack them from a very young age. I have an organic spray based on plant oils that I use on that and it works fine.

Apart from that I have a half a dozen curly parsley plants coming on, thyme in pots and in the ground that are coming on nicely and a big thai basil bush in a pot. Not sure how to use thai basil so haven't tried it out yet

 

[LuGoJ]

Pictures would be great. Nice work on studying soil science. How is your mycorrhizae going too? :D

I don't have a huge amount of stuff at the moment kytnism. One tomato that I bought as a tiny tim that is covered in flowers. It's been slow for vegetative growth because of the cold. It's unusual because it kind of has round leaflets on it. I will try and get a photo one sunny morning. Also letting three self sown tomatoes go and have just put in a couple of stakes for them. All my tomatoes have been getting white fly attack them from a very young age. I have an organic spray based on plant oils that I use on that and it works fine.

Apart from that I have a half a dozen curly parsley plants coming on, thyme in pots and in the ground that are coming on nicely and a big thai basil bush in a pot. Not sure how to use thai basil so haven't tried it out yet

Thai basil has a bit of a licorice flavor to it. Thai food would probably be a good start

 

[beagleboy]

cucumbers


Tomatoes for the second season. beefsteak and cherry. Had blight last season, but quarantined them. I am using the same dirt and plan on making fried green tomatoes.

 

[Klue]

Thai basil has a bit of a licorice flavor to it. Thai food would probably be a good start

Excellent thanks. I know it would have been as simple as a google search but because I knew it probably wouldn't make great pesto I haven't been so enthusiastic.