Weekly Gardening Thread
Posted on 02/05/2010 6:49:53 AM PST by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners! Another winter storm is heading for the Mid Atlantic and North East coasts! All of you FReepers in its path stay safe and warm. And just wow another earthquake off the coast of Northern California near where Freeper tubebender gardens. Winter is still hanging around. The Earth is still shaking. And more news or rumors about there being a shortage of vegetable seeds. There may be problems with certain varieties of cucumbers and carrots but I do not see a generalized shortage.
Weekly Gardening Thread
I hope all of you will stop by.
This is typically a low volume ping list. Once a week for the thread and every once in a while for other FR threads posted that might be of interest.
If you would like to be added to or removed from the list please let me know by FreepMail or by posting to me.
This morning I’ve been looking up info on the old root crops my great grandmother grew when I was a kid.
Parsnips are looking good for a late fall or early spring harvest. Plus the fact that they can overwinter in the ground is a space saver. I used to harvest them for granny in the spring.
Brussels sprouts are looking good for cool weather greens.
Forgive my ignorance, but I would appreciate some help. I plan on clearing an acre of weed trees in my back yard and starting a big garden-just in case. I am going to have a ton of firewood and compost.
What are heirloom seeds and how long do they keep? Is there a good book/website for learning how to save seeds and learning how to perserve. I assume potatoes pack a lot of calories? Any other suggestions on what to plant on an acre in the North East-we live on a ridge and get a to of precipitation-I have heard the soil in my are is awesome.
Any help would be appreciated.
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Please add me to the ping list. I’m in Florida and hedged my bets that after the week of abnormal low temps we saw in January that we wouldn’t see another freeze, so I planted my first vegetable garden a few weeks ago.
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Good morning. We’re expecting rain today and tonight, here in So. CA; we need the rain.
This weekend is “plant strawberries” weekend so I have a lot of work ahead, cleaning up the area, enriching the soil, making the mounds and, of course, trying once again to come up with a fail-safe snail and slug barrier.
Cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, romaine and endive are in and the battle with snails is on! Gardening buddy (daughter) is putting crushed egg shells around the plants and it seems to help a bit.
Checking in. Snowpocolips is on the way, so I’ll have to settle for seed catalogs.
The snowpocolips is sliding by just south of me. In any case, outdoor gadening is still a month and a half away.
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We are in Mount Airy, Maryland (near Frederick) and are prepared for a big storm to come through any time now. The animals are penned in the barns all nice and cozy and I’m using the down time to plan my gardens.
Does anyone have any experience - good or ill - with raising dwarf fruit trees in containers? We are looking at tangerines, cherries and “patio grapes.” Any advice is appreciated! I’m way better at raising stock than at raising plants...
Here is a link Diatomaceous Earth
We are finally out of the drought here. I imagine my garden will be soggy this weekend.
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Starting the spring stuff soon - cabbage, leeks, broccoli, onions, alpine strawberries, then peppers and tomatoes soon after.
Rain and snow, snow and rain. When will it end? Everytime I walk out back and look longingly at the tilled and almost ready garden that is covered in white I get impatient. St Patty’s day is rapidly approaching and that is when the spuds go in, hope we get some drying between now and then. You are right, in August I will complain because it is too dry.
Earthquake? We didn’t feel no stinkin earthquake. First Wife drug me by the ear out to the front garden to help her weed while she pruned the Rose bushes. I was on my hands and knees weeding when our daughter calls and asks, ‘did you feel the EQ’? We didn’t feel a thing and Dolly the Digger Dog didn’t seem to get excited however the south wind was blowing up to 40 mph with a sprinkle now and then. All 15 roses got pruned but I have more weeding to do. The USGS said it was a 5.9 and no further damage apparent after last months 6.5 but the little town of Petrolia is near the epicenter and I haven’t seen any reports from there yet. This is a very very active EQ area.
Got my seeds in the mail yesterday, so no worry on my part about *seed shortages*.
Whoo Hoo!!!!
Now we just need to see the ground again. It’s been pretty much non-stop snow since Dec. We don’t have a lot, but, it does get old after a while.
Light snow here yesterday. Now it is 28F and partly cloudy here at 8,500 ft in the Colorado Rockies. I won’t be able to get potatoes in the ground until sometime in early May. I have to travel to New York all next week. Flying into Newark Monday. Hope there is not much snow storm left to deal with!
FWIW, I hear there’s another one expected to form behind this one.
I don’t recall where I heard that, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
I’m starting seeds in my sunroom with good luck except for the columbines. Anyone have experience with them?
I got seeds a few weeks ago. They only had a couple of packets of cucumber seeds and it seemed like fewer seeds overall. I hadn’t heard of the shortage at that time, but that would explain things. I got 4 kinds of green bean, 3 peppers (cayenne, jalapeno, banana), sugar snap peas, cucumber, tomato, zucchini, basil, and oregano. All of these worked well in previous years.
I also got onion, lettuce, and broccoli. Does anyone have experience with these? I tried them last year without much luck.
I’m in Atlanta, GA.
Onion didn’t come up.
Lettuce grew in vines (6-10 inches) with some leaves and “heads” on the end that never got big (a few inches).
Broccoli fell over (got crushed) every time it rained even a little and never got anything other than leaves. I’d guess that a cage around the lettuce and broccoli would help?
There’s a book called ‘The Bountiful Container’ that contains information about growing fruit trees in pots.
Red_Devil, I just want to say thank you for the friday gardening threads, they brighten up these never ending rainy cold days.
You’re so lucky. We’re supposed to be buried under at least 7 or 8 inches of snow by Saturday so, for now at least, our garden is still just in the planning stages. We did start buying our seeds - 20 cents a pecket at Walmart!
Well, at least it’s a start! :-)
We’re planning on trying horseradish this year. I heard it’s pretty easy to grow. We have a small yard, though. I hope we can find room for everything we want to plant!
There will also be a DVD - he brought me one ;o) He still has his first book on foraging available at Amazon. Best one I've ever seen.
This cover features fiddleheads and makes my mouth water. First wild green in the spring is dandelions and then the fiddleheaads.
Fiddlehead patch locations are guarded like fishing holes. NO ONE tells anyone. For decades now, "my" spots, as do most, meant clamoring through woods and lengthy jaunts - but as a great granny, that isn't as easy as it used to be.
Now I have a nearby spot on land owned by someone who doesn't even like them (!) and two spots right on the roadside (back roads) that Tom 'gave' me. ( I ate my last frozen ones from last spring at Christmas. I was ailing last spring ans only got the last week of harvest. This year, I hope to fill the freezer - maybe can some.)
Thank you for the kind words. I really enjoy posting the thread. It is nice to just get away from the politics every so often.
Where are you located?
If you're just starting, start small and get the hang of it. If you go big and fail you will be discouraged beyond belief.
For seed saving there are many choices, I like Suzanne Ashworth's "Seed to Seed"
How long do the seeds last? It depends. Onions generally only last one year, grains can last almost indefinitely.
Better off doing onions from sets or if you want vidalias, from plants.
For lettuce in the south, you need to do loose head varieties or leaf. iceberg doesn’t fare well. Romaine does well, but instead of waiting for heads, you need to crop it like collards. Buttercrunch, green ice if you can find it, red sails or ruby if you like reds.
Sounds like your broccoli didn’t get enough fertilizer/light.
Better luck this year!
Hey thanks for the info on fiddleheads. I never would have thought a fern could be eaten. How do you cook them?
Columbines need chill hours—time below freezing. If you’ve already planted them, if you have room, stick them in the freezer for a couple of days. Also, they’re miniscule seeds so just put a dusting of soil over them. A good rule of thumb is to only plant a seed twice the depth of itself. :)
Make sure you contain your horseradish. Bury a big pot or tile or something and put the roots in that.
Thank you for the advice! I’ll definitely remember that!
My dad has had a calamondin (little citrus oranges) tree for nearly 35 years now. It’s in one of the humonguous nursery pots and he keeps it on a cart to assist in rolling it in and out of their garage for freezing weather. The garage has a fairly decent window so tree is happy in there. It makes a ginormous crop of little oranges every year that we generally make marmalade out of. Put them through a strainer and boil the resulting stuff with pectin and sugar. Yum.
I’ve got a little lemon tree that’s about 3ft tall right now. Actually picked our first lemon last week. I only let it make one since it’s still so small. I’ve got it in the garage with a grow light but I let it hang out outside if the ambient temps are 40ish or warmer.
I’d like to do the dwarf/potted apple tree thing but that’s a ways down the road due to time constraints.
:) Think bamboo.
I always helped my gma pick morel mushrooms. Never tired fiddleheads but’ I’ve heard they’re good.
I start broccoli indoors...my current batch was started in late December, and I now have a couple dozen plants about eight inches tall. KEY is to start them under lights with the lights just an inch or two right above the seedlings after they break the surface. If you don't keep the light source right above the plants; they will get 'leggy', and flop over. Once they are sturdy (a true leaf or two); you can put them in a sunny window.
LOVE horseradish...knew that we should grind the root outdoors, but thought that the front door alcove would be sufficient. OMG...almost blew out brains out. Make sure you do it out in the open; nowhere near an 'enclosed area'.
Or mint. Mint should come with a warning. It’s like really scented kudzu. It. will. take. over.
Especially if it’s planted in/near something you really don’t want to dig up or ‘roundup’.
Ask me how I know this.
Although, when it gets in your yard it smells like mint juleps when you mow.
I was going to use the big nursery pots, too. We have an insulated garage with windows, so I wasn’t too worried about cold weather - but thanks for the idea of keeping wheels on the pots!
There are many ferns, as you know, but as far as I know only the cinnamon fern and the fiddlehead fern are edible. the cinnamon fern I would eat only on a survival basis. yuk.But the fiddlehead - identified by it's dark green, smooth stem with a grove in one side, is delicious.
You harvest them before the 'head' unfurls.
traditionally, you steam them and eat with butter, vinegar, s and p.
You can also make soup, use them for donuts and bread like you would zuccinni, and they're great marinated.
I also like the oysters and the chicken of the woods - very rare, but oh so good.
Tom and I came across a huge one one time in the forest - we both came home with a berry basket full and I ate off mine for a week!
I live in NY and have never had good luck with onions, either with the seeds or the onion sets. Funny thing is, onions are one of NY’s big crops. I don’t have a clue how they do it.
I’m giving up on them. They are cheap enough in the stores that I don’t consider them worth the garden space.
LOL I took some chocolate mint to the greenhouse where I work b/c my guys kept mowing it over at home. Needless to say, it escaped and is now all down one side of the greenhouse, inside and out, and out into the verge around the ghouse. It smells heavenly when the guys mow. :) It loves to live around the pump for the well. One thing I have noticed—as long as we leave the mint alone, inside and out, we don’t have any fireants come inside. As soon as we pull the mint up by the pump, in a day or two—boom! There they are. Nasty things. I’d like to box them up and send them to Iran/Iraq/etc. Just haven’t figured out how to get them there without killing the pilot and crashing the plane.
Hmm. Didn’t I read something yest about a drone ship, completely unmanned? LOL
Haven’t had any in years. :(
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