Gardening and Plant Thread

[April the Not-So-Hotwife]

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.

We are well into the swing fall here now, teetering on winter. Temps are consistently colder and it’s finally time to put my strawberries to sleep for the winter! All I do is put a bale of straw over the top of them in even layers and they do just fine. I was able to save almost every single plant that I had from the year before doing it this way.

As a pro-tip I fertilize before doing this and let a good rain fall to soak into the soil before topping it with straw.

I’m so excited because I was able to get a total of 17 quart sized bags of them this year! I will be making freezer jam and strawberry butter.

 

[Sperg_rancher]

We are well into the swing fall here now, teetering on winter. Temps are consistently colder and it’s finally time to put my strawberries to sleep for the winter! All I do is put a bale of straw over the top of them in even layers and they do just fine. I was able to save almost every single plant that I had from the year before doing it this way.

As a pro-tip I fertilize before doing this and let a good rain fall to soak into the soil before topping it with straw.

I’m so excited because I was able to get a total of 17 quart sized bags of them this year! I will be making freezer jam and strawberry butter.

Welcome to the forum!
I'm doing the same with my grape vines now, I'm kinda worried that rodents will get in and eat the stalks, as I only have hay and not straw.. We'll just have to see. They're all new transplants this year, so the root system is still very new. The bonus is that the shade kills any weeds under the hay, so that's a plus.

17 quarts is quite a lot to pick! do you trellace your strawberries, or trim them in any specific way?

 

[April the Not-So-Hotwife]

Welcome to the forum!
I'm doing the same with my grape vines now, I'm kinda worried that rodents will get in and eat the stalks, as I only have hay and not straw.. We'll just have to see. They're all new transplants this year, so the root system is still very new. The bonus is that the shade kills any weeds under the hay, so that's a plus.

17 quarts is quite a lot to pick! do you trellace your strawberries, or trim them in any specific way?

Thank you! Long time lurker. Josh’s post finally convinced me to not be gay and just join.

Honestly I had the same doubts about them getting in and eating the strawberries as even completely frozen they stayed green all winter. I didn’t seem to have much issue. I’m assuming you’ll be able to see a point of entry they keep burrowing in if you pack it just right! You’re also very brave for growing grapes. I’ve never had much confidence in myself in thinking I’d keep it alive. House plants? No problem I have like 50. Actual fruiting plants out in the elements it’s a 50-50 shot.

Keeping the weeds out of the roots is a big issue! I feel like that’s all I do all spring and summer is spend time outside weeding. Our weeds choke out so much of our growth. It’s smart to have them covered like that!

It is! Every night I had a little basket full to bring in and clean up. I would soak them in apple cider vinegar overnight just to kill any bugs and cleanse them. Then I’d pat them dry and throw them in the freezer. It’s probably not the most effective way to do it and I’ll probably loose some of them due to freezer burn. But that’s okay all of my jam turned out perfect last year. Plus I have chickens that will happily eat the strawberries.

Mine are all in the ground. I’ve tried to pack the straw under the crowns of them to prop them up off the ground a bit but that didn’t really work this year. I just made sure all the new starts buried themselves in convenient spots.

Have you had any actual grapes yet or just the vines? What do you plan on doing with them once you get a good amount? Grapes are my favorite snacks to have in the house!

 

[Google.com]

Im trying to find a good water PH tester for my hydroponics system but I heard a lot of them are completely inaccurate Chinese garbage. Anyone know a good brand?

 

[Zhores Medvedev]

Im trying to find a good water PH tester for my hydroponics system but I heard a lot of them are completely inaccurate Chinese garbage. Anyone know a good brand?

this is the one I use
I use this for brewing, very accurate never had any issues, had it about a year now

To avoid double posting
Has anyone grown wine grapes in this thread? I was thinking about planting some and was wondering if anyone had any tips or helpful things to know before planting

 

[Sperg_rancher]

Have you had any actual grapes yet or just the vines? What do you plan on doing with them once you get a good amount? Grapes are my favorite snacks to have in the house!

Has anyone grown wine grapes in this thread?

I've gotten grapes on my vines, but you have to nip them. Especially in the cold climates, grapes will attempt to develop roots around 2 meters below the surface. This is both to get more water, and to be able to store nutrition below the frost line. This is my first year with grapes so my only tip is to find a local farmer who grow grapes and ask for their cuttings. Normally cutting & pruning happens Feb-March, when the weather is going to be above freezing for 24 hours. They'll usually hand them out nearly for free, and as long as you plant them within 3 hours of cutting, they'll grow into their own stalk. Also make sure that you have enough room for a trellace that's in the sun for at least 3/4 of the day. That was a mistake I made with my first plants.

When I get grapes? A lot of jelly, and a lot of wine. I didn't pick any table grapes, so they're all going to have seeds in them, and they're going to be very sweet.

 

[Darkholme's Dungeon]

Has anyone grown wine grapes in this thread? I was thinking about planting some and was wondering if anyone had any tips or helpful things to know before planting

Prepare to suffer (read: plant localcultivars) if you live in the gulf coast US, see the post about Pierces disease I made a few pages back.
Your region, climate zone and soil will tell you what rootstock you can plant (more important than the scion sometimes). I usually run 1103P or 1103Ru since high pH/drought resistance are my concerns (alongside tempature). You can grow those on a boulder too (the scion will suffer though).
Depending how skilled you are you can induce fruiting in ~18 months instead of 3 years by playing with some growth hormones and bending vines around to mimic apical dominance stuff.

Personally, I like whites and rare shit. Ex: Smederevka (Cue remove kebab) and Assyrtiko. Itasca and Edelweiss are the "give to neighbor stuff" while I keep the others for myself. I also don't live in a traditional grape producing area or state lmao.

but you have to nip them

Depending how dedicated (autism) you are, there's a method in upstate NY to grow them near a ditch and then remove them from the trellis and put them in a ditch.

Or just grow the other University of Minnesota varieties lmao. Frontenac gris/blanc/noir and Itasca come to mind. -35F cold resistance. Aromella is another good choice.

 

[Dagoth AMOGUS]

Rate my set up:

 

[Blue Flying Leaf]

I have had another tree come back after a string damage as well, and it did close it's wound. Toss up really.

Some trees don't heal up well and once fungus infects the wood it's just a matter of time. May not be a huge deal for some apple orchards because the span of plant is about 10 years tops after which it stops producing as much and just makes more and more leaves and is just ripped out of soil afterwards. Such wounds should be filled with resin. I have a whole row of trees (For firewood) damaged by such malpractice as someone was dragging logs against the roots, they will never heal.

You can also make a ring out of quicklime and copper sulphate on the trunk. That stops a lot of ants and snails crawling up.
Yeast infections are treatable with copper solutions. Not a big deal.

They said they were following the instructions but when I got it back one of the four leaves were yellow and rotting while the other 3 were fine, some of the roots were dry while the rest had really bad rot and for the past 2 months I've been struggling to keep it alive.

Too much water and not enough drainage. It's crucial for orchids to not sit in water. These roots aren't even real roots actually.
My best recipe was to put such plants in a pot of warm water (20°C) and leave it for few hours than let it almost completely dry out before next attempt.
Bottom of the pot needs to be ventilated. Cut holes if there aren't enough.

The leaf I decided to amputate because no matter what I did it was getting more yellow and I couldn't figure out why the others were fine and it wasn't so I didn't want to risk it spreading to the others if that is a thing, so they are fine now the other three have been good for 4 weeks now.

I left those leaves. My assumption is that plant is pulling nutrients from a dying leaf to grow new one.

Im trying to find a good water PH tester for my hydroponics system but I heard a lot of them are completely inaccurate Chinese garbage. Anyone know a good brand?

Use PH paper test kits. They usually aren't the worst.
You test them against known solutions like vinegar, citric acid etc... if you need to be sure.

 

[Oxyjen]

To avoid double posting
Has anyone grown wine grapes in this thread? I was thinking about planting some and was wondering if anyone had any tips or helpful things to know before planting

I have both red and white grapes growing inside a hoop house, no idea what varieties, they were just cuttings.
They have to be drastically cut back each year or they take over. Consistently get a lot of fruit, with no real maintenance or special feeding or anything. Give it a go.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

I wanted to see how well my greenhouses would do in the winter but it's looking like we'll have another nice winter. Should be getting lots of rain this week.

 

[Mr Clark]

Im the worlds worst gardener.

I plant seeds to grow what I want. 20 seeds per plant and pray at least 10 make it.

Meanwhile last years soil grows tomato seedlings for fucking free fuck me.

 

[McLean Deluxe]

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.

Parsley is a relative of carrots. It does the same thing that carrots do. They grow a big taproot year 1 to store energy. Then year 2, they use the energy stored in the taproot to grow really big, then flower, and then make seeds. This is their life cycle, and if you want to actually get edible carrots or parsley, you can't leave it in the ground over the winter. Only do this if you want to harvest your own seeds, because the roots will be woody and inedible in year 2.

 

[ForgedBlades]

Im trying to find a good water PH tester for my hydroponics system but I heard a lot of them are completely inaccurate Chinese garbage. Anyone know a good brand?

What are you willing to spend?

 

[Google.com]

What are you willing to spend?

I ordered one of the Milwaukee instrument testers I'm just waiting for it to show up.

 

[April the Not-So-Hotwife]

Im the worlds worst gardener.

I plant seeds to grow what I want. 20 seeds per plant and pray at least 10 make it.

Meanwhile last years soil grows tomato seedlings for fucking free fuck me.

It’s okay, I feel your pain.

We planted several decorative pumpkin seeds this year. The cute little white ones. What happened? They all died and wouldn’t do anything. Our other pumpkin seeds did fantastic.

Meanwhile the area where we dump pumpkin corpses has sprouted several of said decorative pumpkin plants with a few good pumpkins on them. This spot is out of sight, out of mind. Not tended too. Watered. Not great light. It’s like the memes of this is my purebred dog vs my dog I found at the dumpster. Gardening do be like that sometimes.

 

[Meriasek]

I've always been fascinated by this whole "Three Sisters" planting style. Y'know, beans, maize, squash planted together so the beans bind nitrogen, the maize provides a stalk for the beans, and the squash covers the ground and keeps pests away. Anyone ever tried that? Not sure it fits the raised planter I have and also unsure if I wanna dig that much into what little lawn space I have, but I kinda wanna try it at least.

 

[NoReturn]

I've always been fascinated by this whole "Three Sisters" planting style. Y'know, beans, maize, squash planted together so the beans bind nitrogen, the maize provides a stalk for the beans, and the squash covers the ground and keeps pests away. Anyone ever tried that? Not sure it fits the raised planter I have and also unsure if I wanna dig that much into what little lawn space I have, but I kinda wanna try it at least.

Co-planting works for other things, too, I've found. It's not bullshit, but it is hard to figure out unless you feel up for doing some experimenting.

 

[Anasa Tristis]

I've always been fascinated by this whole "Three Sisters" planting style. Y'know, beans, maize, squash planted together so the beans bind nitrogen, the maize provides a stalk for the beans, and the squash covers the ground and keeps pests away. Anyone ever tried that? Not sure it fits the raised planter I have and also unsure if I wanna dig that much into what little lawn space I have, but I kinda wanna try it at least.

Just keep in mind that method is intended for mass production of dry beans, dry corn (for grinding) and winter squash that all get harvested at once late in the season after the plants die back. It's not suitable for snap or shell beans, sweet corn or summer squash that you pick when immature because the whole thing gets snarly and over grown and you won't be able to get in close to pick without damaging one (still growing and producing) plant or another.

If you want to try it just for fun, it's do able. Well, sort of. There will be limits to how easy or successful it'll be. The corn, beans and squash they planted back when that was done for winter food supplies weren't as vigorous or high yielding as they are now. Corn was much shorter, the ears were much smaller, the beans didn't produce a zillion pods with a lotta fat and heavy beans in them, and the squash vines didn't run like mad in all directions. Using modern seed you may find that the taller corn stalks get pulled down by the more vigorous and weighty bean vines that climb to the top and keep going. (!) And modern winter squash plants (even bush varieties) take up alotta room and their roots don't go straight down, but travel and fan out horizontally 3-4 feet away from the crown. Growing them all in a planter (raised bed?) will stunt them all a bit which could work in your favor. Just don't expect much. Or plan on watering and feeding a lot to lessen their competition for water and nutrition (modern varieties are more demanding there too)- which will make them all grow like mad.

A little FYI about nitrogen fixers, which is a garden myth pet peeve of mine. Plants that fix N do so for themselves. They are not inclinded to share. And they will fix N (pulling it from the atmosphere and storing it in nodules on their roots) only if there is not enough N available in the soil already. And only if the proper bacteria is present. In order to release maximum fixed N, the plant has to die a well timed death. The N is released as the roots and the nodules decompose. And if the plant is not killed before seed set, the N will leave the root nodules and go into the seed. With all that modern N fixing knowledge in mind, I'm highly suspicious that beans were included in the three sisters method specifically and primarily for their N fixing properties. It's more likely that the corn made a handy trellis, the vertical growing bean vines didn't pose much competition for food and water to the other plants, and the squash's shade helped prevent the corn and bean roots from drying out when it didn't rain.

 

[Rekieta’s Broken Penis]

I’ve been throwing small food scraps directly onto my garden beds. What do you guys think about it? When I try google University, all I can find is crap about compost heaps. It’s just old rice, diced vegetables, coffee grounds, tea leaves (not from bags), crushed eggshell, etc. tossed thinly across the garden bed.

I have a compost bin but this method seems easier.