Weekly Gardening Thread
Posted on 02/26/2010 7:00:29 AM PST by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners! Most of us are still dealing with winter weather and freezing temperatures and we are eagerly looking forward to the arrival of warmer weather. While we wait for the arrival of spring we are planning our gardens, buying our seeds and other supplies and we are also asking questions and sharing advice.
If you are just starting out gardening and are in need of advice or just encouragement please feel free to join in. There are many Freepers from all over the Good Ol’ USA that are willing and eager to help.
Freeper madamemayhem asked me to let the Hoosier gardeners know that the Indy Home and Flower Show is March 5-7 at the Lucas Oil Stadium. There is $10 fee to get into the 25,000 sq. ft. of gardens and outdoor products.
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.
just posted this to Alice in last week’s thread...lol
got me a jiffy greenhouse last weekend and got some seeds started on tuesday night...they’re already coming up! planted only a third of the 72 spaces so that I don’t get inundated with produce all at once...it’s just me and the wife for the time being.
planted one tomato, a cucumber, some broccoli, lettuce, spinach, red beets, carrots, and a couple bush beans all except the beans were $0.20 a pack at wally-world. beans were $2.00 a pack to get the variety that my grandad says is the best...So, I think I have a total of about $10 in this so far. Talked to my friend at the old Lesco place the other day. He said that he used some turkey manure product that they sell on his garden last year and couldn’t believe the results! it’s $27 a bag, but I may need to give it a try.
Where’s this week’s thread? lol
Are you on this ping list? There are several people from your area here and many would be interested in your hydro projects.
Wow! Great pics in your profile, Red.
Living here in central Texas, I’m fixing to harvest the remainder of our winter garden - collards, turnips, mustard greens, swiss chard, & carrots.
Then i can get on with prepping the spring/summer garden. I’ve already put out onion sets - 1015’s & white granex.
How big of a garden are you planning?
Good Morning Red D and All
Looking forward to getting some spring like weather soon. I did
manage to get some onions planted before our little snow hit early
this week. Last year I had onions, potatos and turnips in by the middle
of Feb. Been much too wet this year though to do anything.
Thanks for the ping, RD232.
I saved some seeds from last years zucchini, but I’m not sure if they were a hybrid or not, so I planted one, and it is growing.
Does anyone know if it will reproduce?
thanks red
well, we’re moving to a home outside of the city limits, but it will still be on a smallish lot. Using google maps, I found where the drain field is so will site the garden on top of it. I do not forsee it being very large as there is only my wife and I to feed. there will be a little trial and error involved to determine exactly the size needed for us as this is the first time i have planted a garden in FL. My grandad lives about an hour away and has planted one every winter for the past 20 years while doing the snowbird thing, and he offered to help.
Are you still in FL? Coming back to WI any time soon? I admire your restraint in the seed department. I have a whole box full of seeds and more on my list to get.
It’s snowing to beat the band here! Your gardening threads are helping me through the winter!
We got a little more than a foot of snow overnight, here in Rochester. It’s the most snow we’ve had at once in quite a while after being spared the two earlier storms that went through New England.
Hopefully it wont last too long, it’s almost time for my crocus to start sprouting, followed by tulips and daffodils.
Thank you for the compliment!
I will never rerelocate to that national socialist hellhole.
Well, I have never commented on your thread before but, something is puzzling me about gardening.
I have been gardening for fifty years and, last year (2009) my late Cabbage didn’t fully mature to what I expected, so I left them in the garden. We have had temps of five degree above zero many times and plenty of snow. To my surprise the Cabbage is (above ground) still good. After a thaw with a little rain I cut a head for home use. I have always buried the Cabbage under ground and have Cabbage still good up until April and May. I also have Creases Greens in the garden that I eat on all winter, along with Turnips which is always a custom.
I suppose what I’m saying is, does any-one leave their fall Cabbage above ground for winter use?
We’re buried....
*sigh*
No I have never posted a video.
Most of us are still dealing with winter weather and freezing temperatures, and maybe wish we weren’t, but if it helps to rid the world of global warming believers, I’m all for it.
We’re getting dumped on again today here in Michigan.
I bet the help and advice you are going to get from your Grandad is going to be very valuable.
Maybe AlGore will decide to stay in Manila!
I’m full of questions again. I ran across a site on the web — Tim’s Square Foot Garden Page. He posted a website devoted to his interpretation of the SFG, using most of Mel’s principles. Tim is located an estimated 100 miles south of me — just west of Chicago.
He published an estimated planting guide for his own garden (2007). I’m in the same zone as Tim; but, according to his guide he would be starting his seeds THIS WEEKEND. Then, after they get started he moves them directly to a cold frame outdoors — no indoor, sunny window stop, as I’d planned. That seems early, as I still have nearly a foot of snow on the ground, and my planting boxes are encased in ice.
What would you advise? (Short of a blow torch on the ice!) I could return the mini greenhouse and change it for a cold frame, if you think that would work better. A cold frame on my south-facing, brick, front verandah might work really well, as the bricks receive some heat from the basement underneath.
2nd question: What size cells do you use to start your seeds? 3/4 in., 2 inch, 4 in.?
I have purchased several different seed starting trays and figure to return those I do not use, or I deem unsuitable.
I have 3 trays, 72 cells. I have 2 trays of 2 1/2 in. pots — self watering — 28 pots/tray. I have one 72 cell kit equipped with a heating pad. (They had only one left, otherwise I would have bought more.) I have one 50 cell tray of peat pellets that expand into little pots. I have 1 tray (72 cells) eco-friendly peat cells with planting mix already in them.
I also have an old tray of 4 in. pots saved from some long-forgotten garden project. Those will need to be sterilized before I use them. Any suggestions as to what to keep and what to return?
I figure that the tomatoes and the peppers need bigger pots because I’ll have to keep them indoors longer. So, either I’ll have to transplant them at least once, or I need to start them in bigger pots in the first place. How big?
Everybody, please chime in. I need all the help I can get. Especially from northern gardeners, but southern gardeners are OK too — I just have to adjust your experience to my time zone (5).
Stefan, stefan — we need your conservative vote here! (But I don’t blame you.)
Normally I’d be planting this week end too...But not through the ice and snow...Will have to wait a while.
We’re finally getting some sun , but day before yesterday we looked like your picture. Still have a few snowy patches left.
Starting seeds indoors, or planting outdoors? (out of the question here)
The hard plastic walls are kinda like corrugated cardboard with little tubes running through the stuff. It makes it insulated at least a bit.
I set it up against the south brick wall of the house. I usually start the seed trays around the 3rd week of March. Late April they are ready to plant in the garden after last frost.
On nights that go below 30 degrees I bring the flats in overnight. If you do something similar, be sure to brace it well. Stiff spring wind gusts have tipped mine over . . .
Your zucchini will certainly produce, but if it was a hybrid that you planted last year, you won’t get exactly the same variety that you had.
Here in Central Mississippi I will be starting seeds (indoors) this weekend. I should have started them last weekend. I am looking at about 6 weeks before I can plant them outside in the garden.
About 6 inches of new snow yesterday and overnight low of 15F here at 8,500 ft in the Colorado Rockies. I still have the Cherokee Purple tomato that I dug up before the freeze last fall. I found it as a seedling at a farmer’s market and planted it even though it was late in the year. It is growing in front of a sunny window and is about 3ft tall, but kind of leggy and skinny. I may need to cut it back before planting.
I have something similar, although flimsier. I was going to put it in the boxed window in the “warm” dining room, or living room for 2 weeks after the seeds sprout under lights in the basement for 2 weeks. Then my plan was to move it to the front porch for 2 weeks and then plant (bringing the flats in on cold nights). My husband was going to tie the whole frame (which is covered in soft plastic with a zippered door)to the house with I bolts and tie wraps to brace it against the wind, which can be considerable on top of this hill.
I saw a cold frame at Menard’s last week for the same price I paid for the little green house and thought I might exchange it. The cold frame is hard plastic and low to the ground — thus not quite so vulnerable to the wind. I could tie it to the porch furniture and avoid drilling holes in the brick, but I don’t know if it would work as well.
What do you think?
I’m trying seeds this year. I usually buy small plants from Walmart, so we’ll see. I bought a bunch of seeds off ebay. I’ve started various things indoors. I have lemon cucumbers, tomatoes, yellow bell pepper, lettuce, herbs, and a house plant called ylang ylang.
Wild night in the People’s Republic of New England...storm wound tight as a minimal hurricane came off the ocean last night with wind gusts from 60 to 90 MPH...precip was all rain, but wind knocked down power lines and trees everywhere...hundreds of thousands without power. In His mercy; G-d took care of us; no power loss; so my seedlings stayed warm. The radar image of that storm coming on shore was something to see...had all the characteristics of a hurricane except the eye.
We had a cold snap last night; frost on the ground this morning when I got up, but nothing too serious I don’t think. I had just planted my corn, potatoes, green beans, carrots, black eyed peas and asparagus roots last weekend and nothing had popped up quite yet so it should all be safe. The green beans and black eyed peas were a re-sow from freeze damage a couple weeks ago. Everything else seems to have done just fine through the previous cold so I’m hoping last night was no big deal.
Ahhh. Interesting, thanks!
Probably. Most hybrids aren't sterile, they're just not true. Frex, if you plant a hybrid zucchini that is long and yellow, and its parents were a round yellow and a long green, the seeds from the long yellow will grow, but the resulting plant may be long yellow, round yellow, or long green. If you plant an open-pollinated long yellow, AND it was the only zucchini the bees chose to pollinate that day, the seeds from that zucchini will grow more long yellows. BUT, if the bees cross-pollinated with any other zucchinis, who knows what those seeds will grow? Certainly zucchinis, but that's all you can count on.
Very interesting.
I think I’ll plant some of my saved seeds, and some of the packaged seeds I didn’t use last year, and see what the differences are.
Thank you.
well, I was gonna plant a total of 3 but staggered over my 3 startings of seeds. my friend had bushels of them from only 7 plants...but his peppers were’nt ready at the same time...
What kind of tomato plant are you planting?
i forgot was on the seed packet...lol
maybe brandywine?
www.riongreenhousekit.com
It's made in Israel and snaps together similar to legos.
Hope will be able to get back in gear in the next couple of days, will be able to get things moving again.
I have a bad back, so I would stay with what U got. As long as it is braced, you will do ok.
I set mine against the south facing wall for max sunshine. It does warm up nicely. I also set 1 gal. milk jugs filled with water on the bottom inside a black garbage bag. They warm up during the day and slowly provide some heat throughout the night.
This is my first year doing all the gardening. In the past, Mother was the real pro. She passed away, so I guess you could say she was the only thing we planted last year. Between her passing and my cancer surgery during planting season, the only thing that grew here was weeds.
This year is gonna be different! I am planning, and carefully choosing which seeds to use. I will either get a lot of tasty veggies or some terrific designer weeds. [grin]
Ooooooooo , me jealous.
It is just me here so a walk in would be too big.
Am planning on putting in a door directly from the garage and electricity outlet in this spring....
You might check your average summer temps for the area of Fla you are in. Oh and check with your Grandad about what has been successful for him. Your area may not be a problem but when the daily temps are continuously around 90 and above most tomatoes will stop producing. When the temps start falling back into the mid 80's they will perk right back up.
There are varieties of tomatoes that are heat tolerant. My best producers last year were Marion and Arkansas Travelers in that order. I have to add that last summer here was kind of mild. By mild I mean we did not have a week of constant 95 degree and above weather.
We had 1 inch of rain from midnight to 6 am with a overnight temp of 56 degrees. Our clay soil here on Humboldt Bay is heavy stuff but all the beds are loaded with years of compost and slightly raised for good drainage. We are slowly getting the weeds under control and I got the Heritage(?) Raspberries tipped and paths cut through them for access. I am looking for volunteers to dig and divide 45 Dahlias, only a wetsuit is required and we supply the mud etc.
My first wife got the strawberry bed renovated and fertilized and the lawn mowed before the rain returned.
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