Posted on 02/10/2024 5:34:18 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
The temperatures here in the summer is very warm...90F to 100F is not uncommon, so I used White 5 gallon buckets, and painted the 15 gallon pots with a White Roofing paint to try and reduce the soil temperature. (It can get up to 110 in a white 5 gallon bucket exposed to the sun, 130 if the color is dark.) I attempted to grow German Butterballs, Clancy Potatoes from Seed, and Golden Korean Sweet potatoes.
I had a problems with growing mediums. The more compost I used in the mix (along with rice hulls, wood chips, pine bark) the more likely things were to rot or not thrive. If I did not use enough medium that retained water, I also had a problem with the plants forming tubers. I had problems keeping things evenly watered. I would note that after starting I read that potatoes will not form tubers in temperatures above something like 80 degrees. (IIRC!) The results were a number of small potatoes and a few small sweet potates. I will not be repeating this experiment!
So just passing this information on and hope your can resolve these issues so that your bucket gardening works well! (Sounds like Metmom's method worked well. Maybe I will see if this works for for sweet potatoes!)
Diana’s Gardening on a Budget Tips:
* Save your eggshells. Dry them and crush them up as well as you can. Some people even put them in a coffee grinder. Add to planting holes of tomatoes, peppers and zukes & cukes to add calcium which prevents Blossom End Rot.
* Save those yogurt and cottage cheese tubs and cups! Thanks to Mom With Hope, I’ve been doing that and have a flat-full of transplanting pots for future tomatoes and peppers. (I start tomatoes and peppers in Jiffy Pellets, then transplant them once and harden off in the greenhouse before they go into the ground.) Poke holes in the bottom for drainage!
* Newspaper and cardboard have a ton of uses in the garden. Cardboard is GREAT for snuffing out weeds, as are thick layers of newspapers.
* Use up seed from ‘last year.’ The price of garden seeds and shipping costs are even more than LAST year, so I am growing out whatever I have on hand this season. I call this a year of having a ‘Hand Me Down Garden.’ They usually turn out just fine and I’ve not wasted a thing. :)
* When you come to the end of a gallon of milk, fill it back up with water. The leftover little bit of milk has calcium in it, so it promotes blooming. Use it to water whatever needs watering. I then save that milk jug and fill them with water from my rain barrel, then transport the jug to my greenhouse for later use for seedlings or whatever. The rain barrel is on my way to the greenhouse, anyway.
* If you have a great germination year and have more seedlings than you need, pot them up (in something you’ve recycled) and donate them to your local food pantry. I was dropping off food last Spring and they had a HUGE selection of potted seedlings that anyone could take. Made my heart SING! :)
* Make Compost Tea as a fertilizer for your plants. Fill a 5-gallon bucket 1/2 full of compost. Add water. Let it sit out of the sun. Stir it when you pass by from time to time. The solids will re-settle to the bottom, but that liquid is some yummy stuff for your plants.
* Don’t be proud - hit Dollar Tree or Dollar General for some of your gardening needs. You can find inexpensive buckets and tubs there, gardening gloves, hand tools and those ‘cheap’ seed packets actually DO produce produce! ;)
* I find that seed potatoes are usually CHEAPER if I buy them from a Feed Store or some place like Tractor Supply or Farm and Fleet.
* Toilet Paper Rolls. I always start Snap Peas and/or Sweet Pea flowers in TP rolls cut in half. Put in a flat, fill with soil and one seed each. Neither like to be transplanted, but this way you have a good root structure started and can plant the whole thing in the ground. Make sure that none of the TP roll is above the soil when you plant as it will ‘wick’ water away from the roots!
* Keep a file by SEASON or VEGETABLE TYPE of seasonal recipes for the produce you’ll be growing. Again, nothing should go to waste. If you can’t can it or freeze it (like salad greens, etc.) make a plan to use it as it comes in.
* If you’re looking for trees, shrubs or berry bushes - shop in the Fall when nurseries are clearing out old inventory. Get it in the ground before your area freezes so it gets established. Give winter protection where needed. Shop the ‘Scratch and Dent’ area of the garden center/nursery. I filled my other farm with trees, flowering shrubs, perennial grasses, fruit and nut trees that way - on the cheap! :)
Bonus Tip - Not for the Faint of Heart! :)
Fertilize With Urine
This one is probably not for everyone, but if you supplement your plant’s nutrients with shop-bought fertilizers of any kind (organic or not) you might want to consider a source closer to home. As mentioned in my post on 5 ways that urine can help save humanity, not only can pee replace synthetic fertilizers, but research has shown that tomatoes grown with urine actually out perform their conventionally grown counterparts. Most sources I’ve looked at suggest diluting 1 part urine with 9 parts water. (Many folks suggest simply peeing in a watering can and then filling up the rest from your rain barrel.)
https://www.treehugger.com/no-cost-ways-boost-yields-your-garden-4857518
Diana here: This would be great for potty training boys! They can work on their ‘aim’ by peeing into the watering can, LOL! (I raised three of them - I know of which I speak!) :)
I do send hubby out on occasion to water the front of the garden if we spot a deer checking it out. Does that count??
Here in NH we don’t have to worry about too warm.
Ever.
We MAY get an occasional day here and there but never enough to make growing a crop a problem.
Long season warm weather crops are definitely out though.
I even got a second year out of some onion seeds I had.
It’s worth a try as opposed to throwing them out.
Compost tea: You can purchase a fish tank aerator with tubing and a aeration stone and use it to aerate your compost which increases the bacteria in the resulting tea. It does need to be used within 2 days of aerating or you end up with a lot of bio film all over all your equiptment.
Toilet tube rolls: Use to help blanch your leeks and protect from dirt inbetween the layers. If you are growing Leeks and they have gotten to the point where they are small pencil sized and you have your planting trench filled with fertilized with high K and P compost, ready to go, you can put the roll over the transplant making certain you have green leaves sticking out the top. You can fill in the trench around the tubes. They will break down with watering but provide some measure of protection from dirt in the outer layers and possibly, blanch it for the lenght of that tube. (When they start to dissolve, you can just pull them out and keep filling.)
Okra, peppers, sweet potatoes work well here. I read that sweet potato variety Covington is fast growing for colder areas. They sell it in Canada apparently.
We had a very hard late freeze last year which wreaked havoc on the fruit crop and some trees on our property. The trees looked pretty sad with dead brown leaves hanging from them all summer.
Fortunately, a freeze that hard is extremely rare.
The syrup producers are tapping trees already this year and the weather looks to be cooperating for a while for a good sap run.
Is that straight vinegar or diluted?
I’ll look into it but our soil is rather hard and clay like. Not root crop friendly.
We’re having ‘Tree-Tapping Weather’ already, too. Beau is going to tap one of the nearest trees as a test run this week.
Whatever works! I’m going ask Beau to be more ‘disciplined’ about where he ‘sheds a tear’ this upcoming season and see if this helps my tomato plants, LOL!
Oh I don’t ask him to “water” the plants, just the front edge of the garden. Our soil is really good and well nourished.
Mr. mm waters around the fence around the garden.
Seems to help keep the deer away.
You can get stronger Vineger that will do a total burn down of plants, but you might have to apply several times until the root dies. There are stronger vinegars that you can use. They will kill pretty much burn any foliage they touch, weeds or grass.
Amazon....Horticultural Vinegar
Note that 6% can kill growing plants. I would not spray this on a green growing lawn, but the lawn is mostly dormant and the weeds are starting to grow since its 40-50F during the day.
Yeah, I was wondering about the spraying it on the grass part.
I have used it to try to kill weeds with limited effectiveness.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.