Weekly Gardening Thread ----- Tossing Around Ideas

My "pea" brain | 1/24/08 | Gabz and GardenGirl

[Gabz]

Howdy folks!!!

I originally planned to wait until tomorrow (Friday) to get this going, but it is such a damp, dreary, plain old yucky day here on Virginia's Eastern Shore I decided to do it now --dreaming of spring, so to speak!

One of the major topics that seemed to arise last week dealt with "zones" and how even people living in the same "zone" will have different growing conditions based upon location. Also because we are all so spread out the different zones do matter when it comes to planting times and plants.

GardenGirl and Diana in Wisconsin are among our resident experts, but I am sure they are not the only ones and so we would all like to hear from others both amateur and professional, food growers and flower gardeners, folks that deal with trees and shrubs, I hope you get the idea!

Exchanging ideas and getting help on garden problems weere among the reasons for starting this thread, and I would like to expand on that and ask you all to help me come up with ideas of specific topics we can delve into.

Let's have fun --- and wish for spring!!!!!!

[Gabz]

Last week's thread: Weekly Gardening Thread

The thread that started it all: Sowing The Seeds Of A Tasty Tomato Revival posted by T-Bird45.

[Gabz]

Gerdening Ping!!!

To give you all an idea of what a dreary deprssing day it is around here — I let my 9 year old (no school today) change the channel on the “office” TV and we are “enjoying” Tom and Jerry..........and if you thik that’s bad, my husband was downstairs watching the Game Show Channel.......LOL

[Gabz]

The following is an exchange between FReepers JustaDumbBlonde and Oberon about ginger that they had on the Taming Garlic thread starting at post 109

Oberon: If I get a piece of ginger root at the grocery store and plant it in my garden, A) will it grow, and B) is it suitable to grow in eastern NC?

JustaDumbBlonde: Ginger from the grocery store grows just great! I planted some many years ago and it spread like crazy. Looks similar to a bamboo plant ... kinda segmented with a stiff leaf. Good luck.

O: Did you ever harvest it to use in the kitchen?

JaDB: Yes, I did use the ginger root, alot. I like to make that ginger sauce that the hibachi steak houses always serve.

I lived in Houston when I grew the ginger, so the weather was not really cold most times. It was, however, planted just off the patio and was sheltered from wind, etc., but received a good deal of sunlight. I also kept the area mulched with cypress bark. You might do a Yahoo! search to find out just how deep to plant, etc. I just remember not planting it more than an inch or so and kept it watered. Within two years it spread from the one five-inch piece that I planted to a nice 3' x 3' patch of ginger.

After harvest, you can grate it and keep it in an airtight container in the fridge for quite awhile. If I were growing it today (which I will as soon as I find some), I would also dehydrate some to grind and/or powder. Crystallized ginger is a real delicacy and called for in a couple of cookie recipes that I have. Yum.

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[JenB]

Does anyone have nice easy ways to keep dogs from digging up beds? I planted some lovely bulbs last year and they were beautiful until the pups dug ‘em out. They really like digging holes.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“...and ask you all to help me come up with ideas of specific topics we can delve into.”

Seed Starting Techniques
Growing Herbs
Favorite Cutting Flowers
Composting
Homemade Remedies/Fertilizers
Weed Control
Critter Control
What to Eat - From Your Lawn!
Salad Gardens
Favorite Perennial Flowers
Gardening on the Cheap
Gardening for Wildlife
Fruit Trees, Nuts & Berries
Gardening for Profit

That’s just off the top of my noggin’, LOL!

[JustaDumbBlonde]

I’d cover the ground with some chicken wire, maybe something with slightly bigger holes (I don’t know how big a plant your bulbs will produce), and cover the wire with a little mulch (covering is not necessary but looks better). I had one particular spot in the back yard that one of my dogs used to love to dig in and I covered that spot with a cow panel (fencing with approximately 5”x5” squares) that kept him from digging for awhile. The next season I was able to remove the piece of fence and he still thinks that he can’t dig there.

[Red_Devil 232]

Have been waiting for this all week.

I have a question about composting. I am in East Central Miss. Zone 7b. We have had some of our coolest weather in the last week along with a nice 3in. snow fall (rare). After the snow finally melted I checked the compost piles and they have lost their central heat. Maybe I should have covered them up? They are moist in the interior. I am sure they will recover once we get some warmer weather in a week or two. My question - do I keep up the moisture content?

[trisham]

If you have a ping list, can you add me to it?

[Oberon]

I'd like to see the following topic, please:

Grapes, muscadines, and viniculture.

[Gabz]

I pulled out my “bible” and found the following:

Jerry Baker’s Dog-Be-Gone Tonic

2 cloves garlic
2 small onions
1 jalapeno pepper
1 tbsp cayenne powder
1 tbsp Tabasco
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp dishwashing liquid
1 quart warm water

Finely chop garlic, onion, and jalapeno and combine with the rest of the ingredients. Let it “marinate” for 24 hours, then strain. Spinkle resulting liquid on any areas where dogs are a problem.

[Gabz]

That’s just off the top of my noggin’, LOL!

Yeah, right!!!!

Start writing, m'dear, next Friday is nearly here!

[JenB]

Hmm, other than the dishwashing liquid that sounds yummy... but it also sounds like it might work! Well, in four or five months when the atmosphere unfreezes I’ll have to give it a try.

[Gabz]

HELP!!!

I have yet to start a compost pile and so can’t answer the question, but I bet Diana can!!!

[Gabz]

Your wish is my command!!! LOL

[trisham]

Thanks!

[Gabz]

4 or 5 MONTHS?????

[Tijeras_Slim]

As opposed to the Eastern Shore where everything grows, I can attest to the travails of gardening at 7500’ in New Mexico.

I’m going to write a book... “Plants Die, That’s What They Do.”

Chapter 1: The Indestructable Pocket Gopher
Chapter 2: Ground Squirrels and the Bulbs They Dig Up
Chapter 3: First Frost September 5th
Chapter 4: Last Frost June 11th
Chapter 5: No Rain for 6 Months
Chapter 6: Apple Crop Every 8 Years Whether You Want It or Not
Chapter 7: The Greenhouse Heater Always Fails When its -10
Chapter 8: CALICHE is it Soil or Rock?
Chapter 9: Bears in the Compost Bin

You get the drift.

[Red_Devil 232]

My wife wants to plant a few fig trees this year any ideas or info will be great!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“My question - do I keep up the moisture content?”

Depends upon how quickly you want it to decompose. If warmer weather is coming (anything above 40 degrees and a good stir once in a while keeps compost piles breaking down) you can wet it down if you need to.

I have four bins (about 4’ tall, 4’ wide circles of pig wire) which I completely ignore, other than to throw “browns and greens” into them. Every year, we dump over the oldest bin, and use that, then that oldest bin becomes the youngest, etc.

Since they’re under yards of snow right now, they’ll have plenty-o-moisture to start up again when we get steadily back up to the 40’s (April, if we’re lucky.)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I can’t grow fig trees up here, so I don’t know a thing about them. Too cold for them in Zone 4. Sorry! Amazingly, though, I can grow peaches. “Reliance” is the variety. From Jung’s of course (where I work.)

http://www.jungseed.com

[JenB]

Well, really only three or less. It was -19 this morning so I’m feel deep in the throws of winter. Nobody told me Iowa got this cold :(

[Gabz]

OUCH.........that’s gotta hurt.

[Red_Devil 232]

So you do not turn your piles every so often?

[Jemian]

Please add me to the ping list.

Does anyone have any ideas on getting orchids to bloom? I live (currently) in a tropical area.

[Gabz]

OK - I won’t complain about our temps, although our weather is rather weird. So many folks hear “on the coast” and Virginia and immediately think way down south where it’s always warm HAH!!!

[SunkenCiv]

In cold climates, frozen soil permitting, try turning over the soil where the squash and pumpkins are going to go in order to let old man winter kill off the squash beetles during this part of their life cycle. Do this more than once. Keep an eye out for earthworms so you can take appropriate life saving measures for them.

[Gabz]

The only help I can give you is to tell you I’ve added you to the ping list. My knowlege of orchids consists I know One, well some, when I see one :)

[Gabz]

Do the squash beetles attack other plants, or just the squashes? I ask this because I rotate where I put different crops each year and so won’t be putting my squashes in the same area they were in last year.

[SunkenCiv]

They bore into the vines and kill ‘em, or at best stunt them so they can’t bear. They make little perfectly round holes in the ground right next to the vine, and get on squash (even summer squash and zucc), and sometimes pumpkins, not on watermelon (which is not a cucurbit) that I’ve ever noticed. Nothing else I know of.

[Gabz]

Thanks.

We are actually going be able to turn over our space more than once this spring before it’s time for serious planting, thanks to the generous offer of the use of equipment from the folks that bought the acreage across the road from us. The past 3 years we’ve paid to have it done and thus could only have it done once.

[Roses0508]

Does anyone have nice easy ways to keep dogs from digging up beds? I planted some lovely bulbs last year and they were beautiful until the pups dug ‘em out. They really like digging holes.

The two things that have worked for me: 1) Give them a nice soft place of their own to dig. When they dig inappropriately scold and show them "their" digging place. 2) "Mommy loves it". Show great care and concern as you plant the bulbs. "These are mommy's bulbs". "Your job is go guard mommy's bulbs", etc. It doesn't matter what you say, its your tone of voice and your obvious concern. Most dogs will try to protect what you value.

[Roses0508]

These folks should be helpful. I haunt a couple of the other forums. I haven’t become obessessed with orchids yet :-)

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/orchids/

[JenB]

Hmmm...

They’re labs. (Mostly). They have great awareness of what they are and aren’t supposed to do. So when they’ve gotten into the trash because it’s so irresistable and we’re out of the room, they then run and hide in their cage until we find the mess and haul them out.

They’re very funny about it. So I’m sure I could make them understand they shouldn’t dig up my bulbs but I’m not sure they won’t anyway. But it’s worth a shot. Or I just replant the front beds where they can’t go.

[Roses0508]

My neighbor has two labs - “the boys” - that’s what I call them. Adorable but a little dingy. My dog is part pit bull and has the typical bull dog goofiness. His name should have been “Duh!”.

At our house the kennel/crate/cage is the safe zone. Felco will run and get in when he is in trouble also. That means that nothing else bad can happen to him while he is so housed. Since he HATES to be separated from us, the most useful punishment is to SHUT him in his kennel for some period of time. He was bolting every time we opened the door. So after every bolt (once we’d recovered him), he was roundly scolded and locked into his kennel for a couple of hours. Everyone once and awhile he looks around like he’s thinking of bolting, but the price is not worth it. He was pretty easy to persuade that he should not be digging in my flowerbeds, but then he really is pretty easily persuaded.

Good luck with your labs. Try to figure out what motivation is most effective and use that. My husband did a lot of dog training, so he usually has helpful ideas. Dogs are all different though.

[Roses0508]

Add me to your ping list please.

Thank you.

[Gabz]

Thank you for that link. I had forgotten about the Garden Web forums because I had lost all my bookmarks awhile back!!!!

[JUMPIN JEHOSPOHAT]

bookmark

[Gabz]

LOL!!! I was just about to ask you if you wanted on when I noticed you weren’t!!! You are now.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

Here in Louisiana we have so many weeds that it makes gardening a nightmare. The worst of the worst is nutsedge, which will keep you working the entire growing season. I absolutely hate spending time tilling, using the hoe, or just plain pulling grass and weeds, when I could be doing something more productive. Clean it all out -- spotless -- and 3 days later it's hard to tell you did all of that work. Once the vining plants start to spread, tilling is almost impossible.

So this past year, here is what I experimented with. I bought landscaper's quality landscape fabric and covered my beds. These beds were left over from rowing-up the year before and I did not kill the existing vegetation -- I just laid the fabric over it. This drew criticism from everyone. Most said that the black mulch would prove the death of my plants once the temps reached the usual 100^o that we see here. Others said the nothing would inhibit nutsedge. I too was skeptical, but determined to find some easy weed control.

For my experimental plot, I used 5 rows of 100 feet each. To maximize my area, I placed cattle fence panels upright to run the cucumbers vertically. (BTW, I will NEVER, EVER, plant cucumbers to run on the ground again!) The rows are on 40 inch centers. The landscape fabric is 48" wide and overlapped and pinned in the middles of the rows.

This first photo is very early on in the garden, I had just started putting in the tomato and pepper plants. The tomatoes are on the far right row and the fence panels on the far left-hand row.

This photo was taken about 4-5 weeks later, and is intended to show how the fabric was overlapped and pinned in the middle. Also note that the ends of the rows contain earthen dams in order to facilitate furrow watering.

This photo shows the cucumber plants climbing the fence panels. This is the ONLY way to crow cukes! They climbed the panels perfectly and the cukes were so easy to harvest.

The following photos just show the garden in full production. And you don't see a single weed among the plants!

This year I will plant my entire garden under landscape fabric. The test plot was 500 row feet and the fabric cost $70. I intend to do twice the area this year. While the price may seem high to some ... it is worth each and every penny. I produced thousands of dollars worth of produce with that $70, and I didn't spend a single minute pulling weeds.

But the benefits didn't stop with the lack of weeds ... I saved water because there was little loss to wind and sun evaporation. I increased production because the garden plants were not competing with weeds.

I invite your suggestions and comments.

[Gabz]

I invite your suggestions and comments.

One comment: AWESOME!!!!!!!

I'm looking out the the door to my upstairs deck and can see my "garden" -- I can actually see each section of the black mulch that I left from last year----because it is currently WHITE!!! The 40% chance of rain today has turned into a snow/sleet mixture and definitely not conducive to being outside, let alone even thinking about gardening :(

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Nope. I just tip them over, stir them around, then sift it through a medium mesh screen into the wheel barrow and it goes out to the garden, or into pots and planters by the back door for herbs or flowers. Black Gold.

Any “chunks” go back into the new pile as a starter, because sometimes leaves don’t break all the way down, or there’s a stray potato or avocado pit in there.

It’s like making Amish Friendship Bread, LOL!

[xtinct]

amazing garden... going to look into landscape fabric

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“I invite your suggestions and comments.”

Absolutely brilliant. I plan on doing something similar this season, too. Since I had to go back to work full-time (for a Garden Center) I have little time to devote to my own garden, but I will never give up fresh tomatoes, peppers, cukes and beans in season, let alone my love for buckets of cutting flowers.

I’m cutting my gardening space down to a 40’ X 100’ patch, versus the 1/4 acre I’ve had some seasons when I had the time to maintain it.

Thanks for the pictures. They were very, very inspiring! :)

The only thing I would do is cover the plastic with straw. I have access to cheap straw, so that’s do-able for me. And then, at the end of the season, or the beginning of the next, I’ll till it in after pulling back the landscape fabric. Well, HUSBAND will! :)

[AmericaUnited]

This is the ONLY way to crow cukes!

I did what you said crows decimated my entire cucumber field. Drat You!

[trisham]

Wow! That’s incredible.

[gardengirl]

Gabz is right about the weather. Nasty here, too, and I’m sick to boot. I hate being sick!!!! Some kind of sinus/viral/bacterial thing that makes me just want to bawl.

I’ll try to answer some of the questions as I remember them, but if any of my answers don’t make sense, I’ll redo next week when I’m not on so many good herbs!!!

Figs—they do great in a coastal climate. Not sure how far inland or north they will survive. Figs are very easy to start from cuttings. They are parthenocarpic—don’t you just love throwing around big words?!—it just means they don’t have to be pollinated! Just take cuttings from branches that are about the thickness of your thumb. Now is a good time to take cuttings because figs have a white sticky sap like latex, and the leaves are itchy like okra. We usually make ours about 12” long. Stick 10-12 in a 10” planter. Keep moist. The ones that leaf out in 2-3 months have rooted. Leave them in those containers another month or two and then gently seperate into individual containers or into the ground. Containers are easier to keep watered. :)

Muscadines and scuppernongs are the same thing, but different if that makes any sense. If you’re planting, make sure to get self fertile varieties, or you have to get 2. Check your local ext service for tips on pruning—too involved to go into here. Grapes grow on new wood, so pruning is vital. Now is the time to be trying to root grape cuttings.

Di—your ideas are great!!
Tiera—you should write that book!!

The garden with the landscape fabric looks fantastic!!! Landscape fabric works better than plastic because it lets the soil breathe and water can go up and down. It will last longer if mulched. We have a lot of trouble here with nutgrass. For those of you who don’t know what it is—nutgrass has a nodule at the end of the leaves, underground. A lot of hunters spend a lot of time planting it for turkeys and such. I offered to give them as much as they wanted, but so far no takers!!!

When you pull nutgrass, if you don’t get all the nut, and it can be as much as a foot or more down in the soil, it jsut comes back up. The only things I know for sure will kill it are 1) shade, or, 2) putting hogs or turkeys on it and letting them root out the nuts.

Don’t know about the compost heap gettng too cold! The worst problem we have here is fireants. Lime your compost and voila! It burns their little feetsies off!

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Crystallized ginger is also great as a tummy calmer/breath freshener before you go out.

[gardengirl]

Squash vine borers are larva laid by a moth. The moth flies by, lays her eggs, they hatch out and bore into the squash. They run in cycles—worse around a full moon and about the middle of June and then Aug. if you can get your plants up big enough so that the stalks are tougher, thevb’s will have a harder time. Also, as soon as your seeds emerge from the soil or you plant your plants, dust the stems with rotenone or sevin. i prefer rotenone because it’s easier on bees.

[TheInvisibleMan]

Please add me to ping list

[gardengirl]

You might be interested in purchasing larger rolls. Check with your local garden center and see if they can order it for you. We get some in 6’ and 12’ widths. comes about 100-150’ per roll.

My boss puts a big pot in a child’s wagon. Plants his cukes in it and throws some circled hog wire around it. This makes a great close to the house salad topper and plus it’s moveable when you have to mow.

We always lose cukes in the fall here to mildew and blight and pickle worms. I’ve tried everything. Any ideas?