Gardening and Plant Thread

[Greatest Gonger]

Cedar waxwings will find your haskap plants and eat every single berry, and they will remember to come back every year and bring their friends. Netting is required.

The haskaps come in just as the waxwings are looking for berries to feed their babies. I sometimes leave one bush unnetted because I am a softy.

That has to be it because I have definitely seen those waxwings around.

 

[LowlyPheasent]

I wasn't able to dry any of these bales and got to clean up ~500 bales/$2500 worth of ruined hay instead, very cool!

They don't call cutting it a farmer's rain dance for nothing. I know the feel all to well.

 

[Rakovnik]

They don't call cutting it a farmer's rain dance for nothing. I know the feel all to well.

Yep I was praying like crazy for the rain to stay away on those custom baling jobs. On the first job the rain came a day after finishing and on the second it was 4 or 5 hours after. The second job took 8 days so I had to time that perfect, the couple weeks between the jobs had spots of rain constantly otherwise I would've had them both done in July. Part of what took so long is they were all super late first cuttings, everything was overgrown and came out to about 100 bales per acre which is typically what you'd get for the whole season.

I'm considering putting a preservative tank on the baler so I can bale at a higher moisture level but horses (and their owners) can be picky about that. I would be able to get more cuttings done in a year since I'd waste less time drying and can bale in a shorter window before rain. My new baler runs about twice as fast as my old one and should be able to make slightly heavier bales, reducing the number of bales to pickup so that should speed things up too.

 

[Sperg_rancher]

After that I got a few custom baling jobs, 3 I did all at once in mid July with around 1,100 bales total and mid august I had 1 large field that was 2,200 bales.

How many bales are a day's work with that?
I've got ~10 acres of grass rn that I just mow as a lawn, but if I can re-work the land to produce hay, even if I only cut it twice a year, could be worth it.

 

[Rakovnik]

How many bales are a day's work with that?
I've got ~10 acres of grass rn that I just mow as a lawn, but if I can re-work the land to produce hay, even if I only cut it twice a year, could be worth it.

Do you mean maximum bales in a day with my old baler? I'd say 800 or 1000 if you can start early enough in the day, I had a day with only 300 due to broken parts.

10 acres 2 times a year is what I started out doing, it can be done with small/old equipment in about 3 days total. Keep in mind all that equipment still needs maintenance and parts so if you aren't trying to bale any more than that I'd try renting the equipment or having a neighbor bale it, if those are options for you.

Alternatively to reworking it, maybe you can bale the grass that currently grows there? I don't know your grass type but I have a few customers who buy fescue/bluegrass bales so I didn't need to seed a couple pastures at all, maybe you can do the same? It'll be less bales but seed is expensive.

 

[Sperg_rancher]

Well folks, Fall is here. in a few weeks, that is..
What are you guys doing in your gardens? I think I'm gonna build a few raised beds, mulch the trees with more hay, and plant garlic here.

 

[NoReturn]

Well folks, Fall is here. in a few weeks, that is..
What are you guys doing in your gardens? I think I'm gonna build a few raised beds, mulch the trees with more hay, and plant garlic here.

I did an experiment once where I left some stuff out and took another pot of the same indoors. If you have enough plants for it, you can do the same to see if any of your things can hibernate or not as an experiment.

 

[Flan Handler]

Well folks, Fall is here. in a few weeks, that is..
What are you guys doing in your gardens? I think I'm gonna build a few raised beds, mulch the trees with more hay, and plant garlic here.

Tomorrow my neighbour is coming over. I’m showing her how to use her new pressure canner, and we’re putting up some garden produce.

My tomatoes put out amazing and beautiful fruit, and not one has turned red yet. Not sure if it’s a soil problem (new garden bed so it’s hit or miss until I can build up the soil). I’m doing some science- leaving some on the vines until frost, picking some and storing them with a banana to kickstart ethylene production, fun stuff.

I’m also running one last hot compost before winter so I have some nice stuff waiting for me in the spring.

Possibly putting in a greenhouse for next spring if the snow doesn’t come too early.

 

[Sperg_rancher]

I’m showing her how to use her new pressure canner, and we’re putting up some garden produce.

Yooo, canning is the bees knees. That and dehydrating, I have almost an entire pound of dried jalapenos now, and many buckets of pickles.

My tomatoes put out amazing and beautiful fruit, and not one has turned red yet.

hmm. I wonder if tomatoes can ripen off the vine. anyway, sounds like a success in the making.

I did an experiment once where I left some stuff out and took another pot of the same indoors.

entire plants, or just produce? I'm a little confused by why one would want to do this.

 

[a hapless toad]

My tomatoes put out amazing and beautiful fruit, and not one has turned red yet. Not sure if it’s a soil problem (new garden bed so it’s hit or miss until I can build up the soil). I’m doing some science- leaving some on the vines until frost, picking some and storing them with a banana to kickstart ethylene production, fun stuff.

hmm. I wonder if tomatoes can ripen off the vine. anyway, sounds like a success in the making.

Yes, tomatoes will continue to ripen off the vine. https://www.epicgardening.com/vine-ripen-tomatoes/

If they're indeterminate tomatoes, start pinching off new flowers and top your vines so that the plant puts all of its energy into the fruit it already has. You should also remove any little tomatoes that aren't going to get a chance to grow before your first frost. Then once your first frost hits, go through and pick whatever is left. If they're determinate plants, topping might not help much, but you could try pruning the roots.

 

[NoReturn]

entire plants, or just produce? I'm a little confused by why one would want to do this.

Curiosity.
I'd heard "Some annuals can actually be perennials" and wanted to put it to the test. The results were mixed, but it was still worthwhile information at the end of the day.
As an example, I had a parsley I left out to see what would happen. I guess it was close enough to the house that the roots stayed alive through winter, so when spring came, the "dead" plant grew back. It did, however, flower excessively, so I think something happened hormonally as a result of the cold times.

 

[a hapless toad]

As an example, I had a parsley I left out to see what would happen. I guess it was close enough to the house that the roots stayed alive through winter, so when spring came, the "dead" plant grew back. It did, however, flower excessively, so I think something happened hormonally as a result of the cold times.

Parsley is a biennial in temperate climates so yes, that's exactly what happened.

Where it grows as a biennial, in the first year, it forms a rosette of tripinnate leaves 10–25 cm long with numerous 1–3 cm leaflets, and a taproot used as a food store over the winter. In the second year, it grows a flowering stem to 75 cm (30 in) tall with sparser leaves and flat-topped 3–10 cm diameter umbels with numerous 2 mm diameter yellow to yellowish-green flowers.

 

[NoReturn]

Parsley is a biennial in temperate climates so yes, that's exactly what happened.

The mystery is solved! Thank you!

 

[Honored guest]

Well folks, Fall is here. in a few weeks, that is..
What are you guys doing in your gardens? I think I'm gonna build a few raised beds, mulch the trees with more hay, and plant garlic here.

My tomatoes are all done, but my peppers are still going strong! Soon I'll order a full truckload of woodchips and heavy mulch everything. Once the killing frost hits I'll grab my chainsaw and start removing some invasive buckthorn. I found a wild gooseberry growing in my yard so I'll try relocating it to a better spot.

 

[Darkholme's Dungeon]

So in short the apple trees are having a really rough go at it rn and I'm not sure really what to do about them tipping over, getting eaten by the beetles, and getting fungal infections. If there are any experts around please let me know if there's anything I can improve.

For the beetles, make sure you don't have JB in your grass around the area. If so use granule pesticides. If rural and willing to take the time, copy the chinese practice of using kalonite/DE coating to kill them.

Tipping over, use the stretch tape (horticultural "green tape") and tamp down the plant root ball properly. Also mow and remove weeds around the rootball, slows growth. IDK your locale and if you have root rot in your area.

Fungal infection:
Honey Crisp is pretty resistant to scab. Hard to tell with JB eating your leaves but if you managed to get scab on them good job. Clean up leaf foliage before snowfall.

Might be rust but I don't seed sporing on underside of leaf. If so pull out all the junipers (nobody gives a shit about them), but if you have any within 2 miles radius lmao good luck.
Otherwise alternate preventative spray of manzoceb (WARNING, Manzoceb is a carcinogen and the EPA might delist it, consider another protectant) with a demethylation inhibitor (eg; myclobutanil) should work.


Fucking pierce's disease got my grape vine again... I guess I get to go back to PD resistant varieties and no more rare cultivars outside.... RIP Assyrtiko vine you will be missed.

 

[Honored guest]

Fucking pierce's disease got my grape vine again... I guess I get to go back to PD resistant varieties and no more rare cultivars outside.... RIP Assyrtiko vine you will be missed.

So is Pierce's disease totally fatal in vines it infects? I'm not familiar with grape pathogens and have toyed with the idea of growing some since river grapes do so well in my area.

 

[Sperg_rancher]

JB in your grass around the area.

oh yeah, the ~18" patches of dead grass give that away.. They're in the grass.

Might be rust but I don't seed sporing on underside of leaf. If so pull out all the junipers (nobody gives a shit about them), but if you have any within 2 miles radius lmao good luck.
Otherwise alternate preventative spray of manzoceb (WARNING, Manzoceb is a carcinogen and the EPA might delist it, consider another protectant) with a demethylation inhibitor (eg; myclobutanil) should work.

there's a lot of junipers in my area.
I'd rather not spray a carcinogen on a tree that I intend to eat the fruit of if I can help it.. I'll take a look at myclobutanil.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Darkholme's Dungeon]

So is Pierce's disease totally fatal in vines it infects? I'm not familiar with grape pathogens and have toyed with the idea of growing some since river grapes do so well in my area.

It's fatal to lots of plants, basically it's a bacteria that blocks off water flow in the plant's xylem. Your locale will determine if you need PD resistance.

The disease is found thoughout most of the world, but virulent strain that causes Pierce's disease is ultimately fatal to European grapes (Vitis vinifera) alongside a bunch of crops not-native to the US (Olive Quick Decline, Citrus variegated leaf chlorosis, comes to mind) is located in the gulf coast states (spread to CA, Europe nowdays). It depends on the cultivar and the specific strain of the disease. The Gulf Coast strain can kill a European grape in a single year instead of over 5 years.

Native grapes to this area of the US (V. labrusca, V. riperia, V. mustangensis, V. berlandieri, V. arizonica, et al.) tend to have resistance, or in the case of the Mustang (mustangensis) and Muscadine (labrusca) grapes just straight up not give a shit aside from a minor red "rash" like response on the leaves. Don't eat Mustang grapes unless you want to go to the ER.
There is limited resistance in some hybrid varieties both new and ancient. Black Spanish, Champanel, UC Davis varieties all work.

I'd rather not spray a carcinogen on a tree that I intend to eat the fruit of if I can help it.. I'll take a look at myclobutanil.

You will 100% need Manzoceb or another group M protectant fungicide unless you want to draw the ire of everyone when you develop some super-spreader resistant strain of rust. Myclobutanil is susceptible to pesticide resistance.
Also Manzoceb is literally in anything that's fruit or vegetable in the USA. There's a reason the PHI of that shit can be 70+ days.

If you live in the midwest you could probably just blame your local farmers for being tards instead though lmao. They don't seem to get the "rotate your fucking fungicides" memo ever.

 

[CEO of Gay]

Maybe see if you can get enough bio material to run a hot compost? 3 weeks and you have something amazing.

View attachment 6174494
Edit: archive

There is a company called HotBin, originally based out of the UK, but now available in the US, which makes bins for hot composting. The bins are made out expanded polypropylene foam. Polypropylene is supposed to be food safe, so you don't have to worry about poisonous chemicals leaching into the compost. The insulation of the foam walls helps retain heat, which lets the contents of the bin stay hot, even in the deep of winter, so long as you keep the bin fed. Starting the bin or restarting a stalled bin in the deep of winter can be tricky, but the kits do include a bottle you can fill with boiling water to use as a heat source to kick start the microbial action.

@♂CANAM productions♂ do you have any tips for dealing with Verticilium wilt? Verticilium hit my tomatoes hard this year. I suspect it hit my nearby peppers as well, as I had 4 pepper pants suddenly refuse to take up water and die off over the course of the season.

This is completely my own fault for growing tomatoes and peppers in the same area, year over year. The main reason I kept growing them there was they seemed to do well in that spot, getting the right balance of sun & shade,

The only options I have found in my own research so far:

1. Leave the area fallow for at least 3 years
2. Grow something not susceptible to Verticilium there for at least 3 years
3. Solarize, or find some other way to heat and sterilize the soil
4. Chemically fumigate the soil

1 and 2 suck because I like nightshade crops. Tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes are all delicious. 3 could potentially be done, but then I would need to find some way reinoculate the sterilized soil with all the good bacteria and fungi that help plants with nutrient uptake. 4 seems like something only available to commercial farms, in both cost and physical scale. I would probably have to find a way to reinoculate the soil as well.

Now I have a bunch of dead tomatoes and peppers that I have to throw away instead of composting. I use the bins above, and supposedly Verticilium is killed at the 140F a Hotbin can hold, but I don't want to risk spreading Verticilium around the entire garden.

 

[Darkholme's Dungeon]

do you have any tips for dealing with Verticilium wilt? Verticilium hit my tomatoes hard this year. I suspect it hit my nearby peppers as well, as I had 4 pepper pants suddenly refuse to take up water and die off over the course of the season.

That's a fun one (At least it isn't cotton root rot...). Send some soil to your local plant pathology lab and see how bad the vw is. If it's really high fumigation/fallow is the only option (or hydroponic). And the chance of you getting the fumigants (Metam sodium) is not possible without a WPS permit and can kill you.

Solarization only helps long term, VW is present at up to 40cm (15") down so you're just killing off the vw in the top soil layer, it'll come back eventually if not yearly if the infestation is bad.

I'm not convinced of the hotbox approach. VW likes water and it can survive up to 40C (107F) that the company advertizes. VW surivives until 48C (120F). The standard approach for that on farmers is to propane torch the entire field. You could possibly get away with a large metal box that gets heated to kill most of the fungus and use that for organic matter.

What you can do:

1) If you have little wilt presence you can plant resistant varieties (aside from peppers, vw resistance genes in those are a crapshoot) on a raised bed. (Plastic cover depends on your local conditions, VW is fairly active until 30C (85F)
2) Control your irrigation extremely well, VW likes wet soil so you should irrigate as little as possible. Building raised beds helps if you have good drainage. Microirrigation also a good idea. Rain splash from infected/dead tissue/soil is a major spreader of VW.
3) Cultural control - Remove all dead plant matter promptly
4) STERILIZE YOUR TOOLS between cuts! - Leading cause of spreading wilt by man. As a matter of fact, reserve a set of cutting tools specifically for disease and use bleach in a bucket.
5) Fertilize carefully in terms of ratios to avoid plant stress.