Gardens.
There are as many different ways to put them together as you can think of to fit any size, shape, watering and light conditions. Some of us meticulously plan them out to make optimal use of space and some up of just bung some things into a pot full of dirt and see what happens. We grow vegetables, fruit, flowers, and trees, buy them from hothouses or sow everything from seeds.
We pour food and water and time and love into each plant and end up with more food than we could possibly eat in a week, or come out one day only to find that an unseasonable late frost or rogue gust of wind has decimated them.
I know this forum is home to quite a few gardeners, from beginners with questions to experts with extensive knowledge able to advise. I'm a beginner; this year I've attempted my first-ever garden (almost entirely from seed) on my small apartment's smaller deck, and living in Las Vegas it's been a real challenge to keep everything watered. I didn't look anything up to start with, but I have learned
so much by just planting everything that looked like it might be fun or delicious.
This is a thread for gardening questions, advice, tips and tricks. Feel free to describe your own garden, post pictures, and show progress! Share what you've learned this season and talk about your experiences getting to where you are now. Just starting out? Ask questions about how to get going. Composters also welcome.
Have you attracted something with more than four legs? Our resident bug enthusiasts might be able to help (let me know if you'd like to be added to the list):
@Arch@BugBoy
Don't be afraid to try new things, have fun, and SHARE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFzXaFbxDcM
Posts
I will identify your bugs and suggest solutions but if you want me to do so, here's the best practices to help me help you.
The best thing is a good picture. Highest resolution you can get, good lighting, multiple angles. Ideally you would give me a picture from the top, the underside, and the side. Almost more importantly, though, is some sort of item for scale. Something like a ruler, or barring that, even a penny or a dime.
If you can't get a good picture of your critter, you can also take a picture of the damage they are doing to your plants. Different types of damage are very stereotypical (gall formers are different than chewers which are different than miners etc etc) and while I might not be able to tell you what is eating your plants, I can probably tell you how to deal with it.
Good luck growing things!!!!
We are growing carrots, tomatoes, and bell peppers this year.
We also have two different raspberry bushes that are brilliant and hardy. Also a hybrid pear tree that might actually fruit this year! I'll probably have some bugs from that tree to identify soon.
We also removed an overgrown spruce tree that was too close to our house and are going to replace it with a manageable Japanese maple that I will take cuttings from to make various bonsai trees from. Excited for that!
This year we had bigger plans. We rented a full plot (16' x 28'). We were going to use straw as mulch to keep the weeds down. We were going to dedicate a part of our plot to growing pumpkins. We bought a bunch of seeds for pepper plants that we were going to start inside.
And then a few things happened, right after we got our fence up. After our starters began sprouting, one of our cats suddenly decided they looked tasty and ate half of them. The ones that weren't eaten all withered and died. Then my wife learned that her job was moving to the west coast in August, so we had more pressing concerns to think about than working on our garden. And when we finally got back to the garden, it was overgrown with weeds. We've been doing our best to try and keep up with it, but it's a damn mess right now.
We had planted onions in early march, and those are looking pretty good right now, at least. We took two the other night to use as scallions with some chili, which was nice. We also have some pepper plants we bought from the local farmer's market. We're hoping to get a few peppers out of it before we move. We also planted some carrots, radishes, and various herbs. We've scrapped the plans for pumpkins because by the time they've grown, we won't be here anymore. I think we're going to grow some flowers in that part of the plot instead.
I'm still considering picking up some straw to help with the weeds. It's kind of embarrassing that our garden is so overgrown because it's one of the closest plots to the park's sidewalk. Hopefully we can make it more presentable.
We are doing lemon cucumbers instead! :biggrin:
One of the things I planted was zucchini. I started the season with no idea whatsoever that zucchini plants are huge and not particularly pretty, but at least I'm getting some small zucchini. It takes up a ton of space on my tiny deck and needs constant water because Vegas, but it's so easy to keep otherwise that I almost wish I had more.
Speaking of Vegas, it was sunny and 101 degrees out today, and half my stuff just withered despite being thoroughly watered in the morning. Most of it seems to be coming back aside from what browned, but it looks like I'm going to need to water at least twice a day through the summer and that's going to get really tough. I wish we had a better watering solution.
is this pure temperature damage or because they are in the full sun all day? maybo some kind of canope to shield them from the worst parts of the day?
I'm thinking about it. I'm trying to get advice from a friend of mine who gardens here, and she's suggesting straw cover for the soil. I'm worried about it rotting when I water it, but she says the sun doesn't give it a chance while the soil stays more moist. I think I have to give it a shot, we currently have to water 3 times a day and everything still wilts. That's not maintainable for me, and it's not even as hot here as it's going to get. I'm thinking about some sort of pull-down shade, and maybe it would have the added benefit of helping our AC bill a bit. I don't really want something like that around, but I guess I need to work with what I have. I already have some plants I've had to pull indoors and leave there because the sun kills them within an hour.
i'm pretty restrained with my gardening since we only rent our current place. i'm having another go at a vertical potted garden with radishes, broccoli, spring onions and spinach. it's mostly for the green stuff - broccoli and radish leaves are awesome wilted with garlic over an egg! but it's a pretty sad output. i think i'll get a proper planter space set up, i reckon the owner will be OK. my mum had a wild garden overrun with rocket, kale, zucchini and all kinds of beans. it was awesome.
1) May beetles seem to have chewed lots of holes in my garden (particularly summer squashes and my tomatoes) as well as some ornamental plants as well. I think most of them have moved on or died out for the season, but to keep in mind for next year, is there a way to control these without going overboard with chemicals?
2) I bought a rotating compost bin but I've been having problems getting the compost to start heating up substantially. Any ways to tell whether I need to add more carbon or nitrogen sources to the mix or if I need to do something to kickstart the decomposition process?
What could I purchase that would be useful, inexpensive and not take up a ton of space? He really seems like he has everything. I thought maybe a gift card to someplace that sells seeds and supplies? Is that a thing?
Edit: Any cucumber peeled and sliced thin with a tiny bit of sesame oil and lime juice is the best snack ever.
How about trying olla irrigation? You put an unglazed pot mostly buried in the ground beside the plants and fill it with water. Water slowly seeps out through the pores because the pot is unglazed and delivers directly to the roots. It was invented in what's now the US southwest and has begun spreading across the world since it's one of the most efficient drylands irrigation systems and doesn't require high tech or energy.
This looks absolutely perfect.. my challenge at this point would seem to be finding ones small enough to fit in most of my containers, but otherwise it looks like exactly the kind of thing I'll need for this.
Something like this
http://makezine.com/2009/07/17/how_to_create_a_simple_housepl/
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
This year though much of the garden is a big solid block of green, with coneflowers getting big and penstemon ready to bloom (I didn't think any of them made it) and the one aster getting tall and germander (a local pink mint) spreading, wild strawberries sending runners underneath everything else, plus mountain mint and bee balm and a few snakeroot that are still around. I haven't done much work on it this year other than spray liquid fence twice a week while the shoots were fresh and pull up a few trees that were trying to sprout, but now it seems very healthy and self-maintaining. I'll see about taking some pictures once plants start blooming. It's not much but it's my little bit to help pollinators.
Have you ever done olla watering? Amazon also has a system up with 6 or 8 vessels hooked together so that you can water from a single source.. it looks nice and would save me oh-so-much time, but it's also $70-ish. If you can vouch for this one I'll pick up some of the smaller ones.
This is a cayenne pepper plant, but several other peppers nearby seem to have it as well. Is this bacterial leaf spot or is it something like flea beetles?
I looked at a bunch of pictures for leaf spot, but it doesn't seem to leave holes in the leaves, it just spots them and then kills them. The leaves shown above appear healthy otherwise, which got me to thinking it is maybe some kind of pest like flea beetles, which leave small holes in leaves. Anyone here seen anything like this before?
I built this for my wife, NATO. It is 8' by 16' because 8' boards are the longest thing I can fit in my hatchback.
I have no clue what we are planting, but that base is two 2'' x 12'' x 8' on top of each other with 6'' buried underground. Those ports are 4'' x 4'' x 8' with 2' underground in concrete footers.
All told, that fucking deer mesh was the worst part.
It took much longer than I would like to admit, especially be cause I was off by one or two inches and one of the sides looks bowed in.
I'll just tell you the same thing I tell my anal retentive stepdad
It's a [doghouse/garden enclosure/whatever], not the Taj Majal
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
One thing some of the gardeners do here is extend a shorter fence by trying wooden poles to their fence supports and tying cords around the perimeter using these poles. They tie reflective streamers to the cords as well. Perhaps I'll take a few pictures this morning, as I'm headed off to our garden in a bit to do some work.
I finally bought a bale of straw to use to help keep weeds down. We put the straw around our pepper and tomato plants so far, but there's still a lot more to do!
Of course, some just buy taller fencing.
I'm not handy with the specific variety names that are best, just my mom has a bunch of blueberry bushes so I know some general things. Blueberries like acid soil, but that can be established with pine needle mulch, which also handles mulching.
Most will have zone information on the tags, or at least the low end of their temperature hardiness.
Your best bet is to go with a local nursery (preferably independent), as they will tend to have the right plants to grow in your area.
Avoid the big box stores, they ship their plants in from different places that may not be compatible with your area.
We're in zone 5-6 and most of what we have is either Bluejay or Bluegold, which are both hardy up to zone 4.
The tag should tell you if the plant needs a crosspollinator and which varieties go together.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
The main things blooming right now are penstemons (those are the white flowers on the stalks). Bees like them. There will be grey-headed coneflowers (yellow) and bee balm (red) blooming soon as well, with a little germander (pink). Probably will have to wait until we get rain again though.
@Arch @BugBoy
We've got a young hybrid pear tree in our yard. The bark seems to have some wounds that we are guessing are caused by a creature of some sort. They are on pretty much every branch including the non pear trunk that the pear varieties are spliced onto. I don't know. That's why I'm here. Example pictures of the wounds:
My wife saw a little bug crawling around inside, maybe a termite? We haven't really heard of termite issues here before though. Any ideas on what this might be, how to fix/prevent, or is it completely normal?
That doesn't look like insect damage, it looks more like regular bark splitting. Check with a local nursery and see if they have recommendations to help the tree heal and prevent secondary infection or infestation.
I did put out some water for her though.
But, it is!
I've gotten into woodworking in the last two years at our new place. Currently building a new work bench for the miter saw.
A few chairs, that fucking monstrosity I posted above.
But when I look at them I'm just like "Huh, shit, that could have been more even."
Living in a desolate wasteland really sucks.
k now imagine how good it would have looked if you'd put the mesh on the inside...
We had a two week stretch of hot, dry weather so the garden didn't advance as much as I was hoping. But recently we started getting rain again and the bee balms are now blooming, and the germander (little pink stalks in the bottom left) have just started as well. The taller spindly things will be grey-headed coneflowers and they should start blooming soon, hopefully while the bee balm are still blooming so I can have red and yellow together. The penstemons are mostly done and gone to seed but there are a few shorter plants (not visible in the picture) of white mountain mint that are starting to bloom too.
/audible groan.
For some reference, here's what some of our pepper plants looked like when I planted them in early May:
From left to right: Black Hungarian Pepper, Fish Pepper, Aurora Pepper (RIP), and Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Pepper. I don't have any current photos of the Fish Pepper because it hasn't produced anything yet.
Cayenne peppers. They just started turning red! This was planted about a week or two after the other pepper plants. It's about 2 feet south of the Jimmy pepper.
Jimmy Nardello sweet peppers. They're supposed to get about 8" long and turn red. The bottom one is probably about 6-7".
Good ol' trusty jalapeño peppers. There was originally an Aurora pepper plant here, but it died because of our neglect.
Black Hungarian peppers. Still waiting for them to change color:
Super Fantastic tomatoes. We read somewhere that decorating tomato plants with red Christmas ornaments can be effective against birds because they peck at the ornaments and realize they're not real and will then stay away from the tomatoes once they ripen. These plants were left at the entrance to the community gardens area and were half dead when we planted them. Pretty happy with how they turned out so far. Unfortunately, our tomato cage is woefully inadequate; we had planned on building our own instead of using a store-bought variety, but then we found out we were moving.