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- Sep 22, 2021
This may be TMI but when I am running these, the male members of my household love peeing on the pile, and that’s all nitrogen lol.
Gardening and Plant Thread
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- Sep 22, 2021
I discovered that @Null moonlights on a fruit channel.
(What, it’s an interesting video, I had no idea there was so much ginger out there)
(What, it’s an interesting video, I had no idea there was so much ginger out there)
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2022
Squash bugs (Anasa Tristis, BTW, kek) has a native predator, a tachinid fly Trichopoda pennipes (Feather legged fly). They lay their eggs on the squash bug and the larvae drill in and eat their insides. You can attract them by planting buckwheat. Try planting it at 2-3 week intervals for best results. You want a patch of buckwheat blooming as much as possible. Not a quick fix, and you have to use other methods to reduce populations, but you will see the flies and results. Like empty bug shells and eggs on the sides of live ones.Half of my garden is doing great (peppers and tomatoes are going gangbusters due to a mini greenhouse I used to get my plants in the ground weeks before our last frost which gave them a very nice head start) as well as my alliums and strawberries (I am not passing judgement on my peas, lettuces, and carrots because we're in a hot spell, but they're still seedlings and I hope cooler weather will come by the time they will really be affected by heat) but I worry about my squash and melons.
The watermelons are growing, but it's very slow going and they seem very stunted for this time of year. That said they don't seem to be suffering from any disease or pests, they're just... small.
As for my squash, while I don't live in an area with vine borers, we DO have squash bugs and I've found a few lurking about (as well as some clutches of eggs on the leaves). I'm kind of squeamish so I knock the bugs off and step on them when I can and I cover the eggs (and leaves) with diatomaceous earth. Is there anything else I can do to rid myself of these turbulent pests that doesn't necessarily involve me squishing them with my dainty fingers?
Get hemostats to grab the adults and then drown them in a bucket with a squirt of dish detergent in it to break the surface tension. Towards the end of the season you can leave imperfect winter squash in the garden and dip them in the bucket when they get covered by the squash bugs. Kill as many adults as possible right up to frost as they overwinter in garden debris and in leaf and compost piles. Be sure to dig a hole and bury the dead! Their stink attracts more.
Using painter’s blue tape does work to remove eggs but it’s tricky business since they prefer to lay them in leaf vein crotches. And no matter how careful you are sometimes the leaves will rip. I’ve found brushing them off with a tooth brush (or even a chop stick) into the bucket of death is better.
If you really get invaded, skip planting squash and pumpkins for a season. Keep your garden cleaned up over the winter and unless you’re sure none are rolled up in the dead vines don’t compost the dead vines. Bag em and send them to the landfill. You want to eliminate your local population. And even when things are going well there’s no guarantee that they’re gone for good. They can always fly in. After reducing my population over a few years to the point of seeing maybe 5 or 6 a year a pumpkin farm near me stopped planting pumpkins in one of their huge fields up the road and their squash bugs found me. And it was incredible, the invasion. I seriously considered using a shop vac to suck them all up. (Which some people do too). After that I had to skip a summer and start all over again.
Rakovnik
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2021
I didn't realize there are different 'hot' and 'cold' composting methods. I don't put too much work into my compost pile, I try to stay close to a 1/3 ratio of dry plant matter, wet plant matter/food scraps, and soil/chicken pen waste, turned the pile about 3 times, and it's done in under a year. I don't check temperatures but it always stayed hot as long as I didn't turn the pile too often.
I might've mentioned that I got a bunch of plants for free, I've been too busy with hay to the point that my peppers are ready to harvest while still in the pots. I finally got some jalapenos and banana peppers into planter boxes but I have another 50+ plants that need a spot still.
On the hay side, I had a week of no rain in the forecast so I went ahead and cut ~600 bales worth of hay. It was going great until the hurricane changed weather patterns all over. After I had everything cut and raked, my 7 days of no rain turned into 2.5 days of no rain. The storm came in mid-baling and rained just long and hard enough to ruin all of the bales not yet collected. Then over the past couple days I got enough rain to ensure those bales would never dry. ~200 bales worth of hay are still sitting in windrows, I may be able to dry it out and sell as cow quality but at this point the other 400 bales are trash.
Just this week my bale grapple got delivered. It's used to collect and stack bales from the field. It would've been nice to have before the rain but oh well.
(pic is from manufacturers website)
Last but not least, the chicken stuff, the pullets are all finally laying so that's somewhere from 200-250 active egg layers. I caught a raccoon in one of my barns on the fourth of July. All of the chickens are fine, just a few stolen eggs.
This Monday I had a coyote attack twice, in the morning it tried grabbing a turkey through their electric fence but must've ran when it got shocked, I didn't know it happened until seeing the bleeding turkey a little while later. Then in the middle of the day it came back for the hens, it only managed to grab a few tail feathers from one before I was there shooting at it. It got away unfortunately, I don't typically have a long gun on me and coyotes are quick. As annoying as the roosters can be, they do a great job of alerting when they see predators.
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2021
This may only be of interest to fellow cold-weather zone inhabitants, but I was harvesting my haskap (aka honeyberries) and it’s looking like a great crop this year.
For some reason, hardly anyone has heard of these but they are amazing so I’m going to post some pics.
Where I live there are a limited number of perennial fruit plants that can survive the winter. Short season apples, some pears, raspberries, strawberries, some hardy sour cherries. Most of them have to be babied and coddled a bit to survive.
Edible honeysuckle is an exception. Native to Siberia, it thrives in the cold weather, the deer leave it alone, and it’s quite tasty. Like a tart cross between blueberry and raspberry.
The flowers have lived through -10 frosts, they are the first things to flower in spring, and the first fruit to ripen in late June to early July.
I planted these 12 years ago, they are 5 to 7 feet tall. Love ‘em. I have to net them or the cedar waxwings will eat every single berry before they ripen.
For some reason, hardly anyone has heard of these but they are amazing so I’m going to post some pics.
Where I live there are a limited number of perennial fruit plants that can survive the winter. Short season apples, some pears, raspberries, strawberries, some hardy sour cherries. Most of them have to be babied and coddled a bit to survive.
Edible honeysuckle is an exception. Native to Siberia, it thrives in the cold weather, the deer leave it alone, and it’s quite tasty. Like a tart cross between blueberry and raspberry.
The flowers have lived through -10 frosts, they are the first things to flower in spring, and the first fruit to ripen in late June to early July.
I planted these 12 years ago, they are 5 to 7 feet tall. Love ‘em. I have to net them or the cedar waxwings will eat every single berry before they ripen.
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2019
So happy and big!
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2018
Just planted some Carolina Reaper seeds to see how hard it is to make homemade CS-esque gas and some spicy chili. I skipped the whole germination and seedling steps and just went straight to the planter cause I was feeling lazy so hopefully they grow
سلیمان عثمان
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2022
Always nice to see other Northern gardeners! Have you tried gooseberries or any of the cold-hardy grape cultivars like Valiants or Betas? (apparently Betas are hardy up to Zone 2!)
My old Valiants managed to survive a couple of -45° cold snaps with no damage during the last winter and were thriving this spring when I had to move house.
Other than having to deal with them being sporadically defoliated by pests, I have had great results with gooseberries; I never once lost a plant to the winter. They require quite a bit of pruning but are also quite easy to propagate, I liked to multiply my plants from the prunings and had succeeded in turning a pair of bushes in to over a dozen.
Has any one here ever had success in attracting mason bees or other kinds of solitary bees? I have never had any luck over the years in spite of following a number of guides and going through the yearly spring ritual of cleaning out / replacing all of the old unused habitats I waste my time installing.
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- Joined
- Sep 22, 2021
Grapes are my white whale. Something about me or my location doesn’t work for them. They keep dying, and I am not smart enough to give up
I haven’t tried gooseberries, but my black currents thrive in this location. I can’t remember if this is a special cultivar, or if they do great in the chill.
Not once. I even bought some mason bees from West Coast Seeds just to be sure I ever saw some. They flew away immediately and never came back. And I maintain a mason bee spa! Sheltered nesting box, damp clay, a little gentle water fountain. Haughty little creatures.
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2021
This sounds like the Garden of Bee-den.
IdiotPlusPlus
kiwifarms.net
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- Apr 27, 2024
Just trying to grow random things in my laundry to start
Was given birds eye chilli's which I dried and turned into flakes, a few months ago I threw some of the seeds into a 'self watering' bottle thing to try and grow one and its coming along nice:
Also had some potatoes start to rot as couldn't use them in time so I threw the whole bag worth into a plastic tub with dirt, to either grow or add nutrients to the dirt, and I have a couple of sprouts after a month or so
Considering it's winter here and the laundry is unheated I think they are growing fine, hopefully I can get a crop out eventually.
I also have a random single rgb led set to purple to give them light overnight and it's cute they bend towards it by morning but bend towards the windows by the end of the day lol
Was given birds eye chilli's which I dried and turned into flakes, a few months ago I threw some of the seeds into a 'self watering' bottle thing to try and grow one and its coming along nice:
Also had some potatoes start to rot as couldn't use them in time so I threw the whole bag worth into a plastic tub with dirt, to either grow or add nutrients to the dirt, and I have a couple of sprouts after a month or so
Considering it's winter here and the laundry is unheated I think they are growing fine, hopefully I can get a crop out eventually.
I also have a random single rgb led set to purple to give them light overnight and it's cute they bend towards it by morning but bend towards the windows by the end of the day lol
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- Joined
- Jan 19, 2023
They'll turn out fine if you have good weather and conditions. I grew Reapers a few years ago and am still using them up gradually.
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- May 15, 2020
I haven't read the thread but I'm guessing OPs garden is completely overtaken by tomatoes, mint, and morning glory
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2018
I'm wiring up some lights for their seedling+ stages so hopefully that is the case. After all I live in the Carolinas
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2023
They should do well, peppers are pretty robust. If you have other related types they can hybridize and cross-pollinate - I grew habaneros and Reapers together and the habaneros were noticeably hotter than ever before. It shouldn't affect jalapenos or bell peppers as much or at all because they are a different species.
If you're in the Lowcountry/coastal Carolinas you might even be able to grow them as perennials with some care in the winter.
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2018
I'll look into that for the next season since I'm just now on the tail of summer. I also want to grow some tobacco to keep the bugs away and run some data on the actual effects of including tobacco in your crop
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2023
I've never grown tobacco myself, but ornamental tobacco is a very attractive plant and you can use it to produce both natural pesticides and tobacco products if you wanted. Its yield is lower than tobacco grown for cigars or other products, but for personal applications it'll be plenty.
One thing to make sure of is to keep some distance between your tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, tobacco and potatoes. They are all from the same family and both deplete similar nutrients from the soil and share common pests. Hornworms are really destructive if they get on your plants and can spread between them, I lost whole plants from them one year when I had a bad problem.
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- Feb 5, 2020
Late, but I gotta white knight for sunchokes a bit. They've got 2 main benefits I don't see called out often enough:
1 - They don't look like a food crop, so your local post-collapse warlord won't be as likely to steal them during a raid.
2 - The dried stems (which get almost an inch thick at the base in my 6b garden) make really excellent kindling. I don't have a lot of mature, twig-dropping trees on my property so that's a huge bonus.
I like them roasted, then either cooked in butter like breakfast potatoes and served with scrambled eggs or shredded and made into latkes. I tried to air fry them once and that only ended in tears. This year I plan on pickling a few, which Self Sufficient Me recommended. Generally I like leaving them in the ground until after the first frost to get the best flavor out of them. They don't cause me any stomach upset but maybe I'm built different.