Gardening 2010

Permanent installations:
garlic
asparagus

blueberries
strawberries
more raspberries

mint
dill
thyme
chives
parsley
basil

raised bed:
onions
carrots
radishes

tomatoes
sweet peas
hot chilies
anaheim chilies
long beans

autumn:
cabbage
mustard

that's the initial plan, anyway

also: building a cold frame so I can start seeds here instead of having to drive to my parents' greenhouse

Haven't been out to mine for a bit but there's been enough rain to tide over -- the weeding is probably high priority.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/WDYGLL030610A.jpg

1: Fencing to come (4x4 hogwire if I can find it, but that's turning out tougher than I thought) to be trelliswork for sweet peas early, followed by Chinese long beans, possibly other stuff)
2: The raised bed on the left has wintered over and has less peat moss in the soil, so it looks lighter. Left will be radishes and onions, right will be carrots.
3: That whole area is a little low; there's standing water after heavy rains. I'm going to dig out the area between the two black lines by about six inches, toss the soil to each side to build it up there. Then lay down an anti-weed/grass liner of cardboard (I've been saving up for months) and then a layer of mulch (note to self, find out whether hardwood or pine rots slower).
4: new compost bin
5: The brick walkway used to be our unused chimneys. Mulch to come on either side.
6: a dog.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/WDYGLL030610B.jpg

South side of house. This is where I had tomatoes last year, tucked into postholes. Decided to go ahead and till this up and make it more permanent. Will work a few cubic feet of humus and manure into the soil, then lay down the anti-weed film followed by mulch. I'll just have to pull aside the mulch, cut a slit in the fabric and drop in the seedlings. I think this will save a lot of weeding time in high summer. Planning on putting in posts at each end of the tomato row, more fencing to act as trellis.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/WDYGLL030610C.jpg

From the carport facing the house.
1: Three long-established lantanas come up here and get really fucking huge.
2: The shaded area gets very little sun, doesn't drain well. (So why does that rosemary plant do so well?) Just planning on putting ferns and hostas there.
3: The blue tinted area (sorry for ugliness) needs to be tilled up again. That soil has been amended every year for 4 years now, very rich stuff. Herbs and chilies, probably.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/WDYGLL030610D.jpg

North side of house. Planning on making this a permanent spot for asparagus and garlic. Is going to be an almighty bitch to keep weed-free. There's a bunch of non-blooming chrysanthemum in that soil that comes up as a low ground-cover; the root system just laughs at me no matter how much Roundup I throw in its face.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/WDYGLL030610E.jpg

The outer edge of the walkway around the asparagus patch-to-be. I'm going to take out the liriope tufts, Roundup the whole stripe, till it, work in peat/humus/manure, put in blueberry bushes.

Bitten off more than I can chew, maybe. Didn't build that cold frame after all.

Hey, looks good! How did you find the planning bit? Would have given me a total headache looking at all the space and trying to think through all the possibilities. Is that dog going to be a permanent planting?

Spent all day digging here too, clearing some patches of couch grass ready for planting up over the next month or so. Planted lots of onions, shallots and garlic too. Still pulling up carrots and leeks, got some nice pak choi and dug up a huge amount of jerusalem artichokes. Don't know what I'm going to do with it all, I don't even like it all that much. Only planted five tiny tubers last spring, now I have bucketfuls of it. Never again!

This is an ambitious project and I salute you, WmC!

I may have lost my community garden plot through some fuckup--if true I will be ;____; big time.

Hey, looks good! How did you find the planning bit? Would have given me a total headache looking at all the space and trying to think through all the possibilities. Is that dog going to be a permanent planting?

Sketching, tearing up sketches, sketching some more, changing stuff up at the last minute. The only constants have been the brick walkway, the raised beds, the peas/beans trellis, and tearing up the outer curve of the north side walkway for berry bushes. The location of the asparagus bed was only finalized in the last week. Still don't know what, other than weeds, we'll have on either side of the black lines in the first photo.

I may have lost my community garden plot through some fuckup--if true I will be ;____; big time.

That would suck. Good luck, hope you get to keep the garden spot.

I keep trying to plant the dog but he won't stay put, so I guess he's not a permanent installation.

Planted peas Monday.

Sweated out last night's mourning booze in the garden today -- finished the last of the tilling, dug out as much of the root system of those weed-mums as i could from the sections that are going to be asparagus bed and blueberry bushes. Planting a bunch of stuff tomorrow. (Waxing moon, good timing.)

My question to the gardeners: what are some good flower seeds to get that will grow pretty much anywhere with minimal maintenance? My friends and I are doing a guerilla gardening workshop and making seedbombs and we don't know what to get (besides wildflower seeds); we were thinking morning glories coz i hear they'll grow pretty much anywhere/on anything. Any other suggestions?

This depends on your climate/region and on whether the location is full sun, no water, some water, mostly shade, etc.

You can look up what they put in those commercial wildflower mixes for various regions and base your mix around that. But tailor it to your local needs, too.

If you're going to be bombing quasi-urban areas, maybe look for something that doesn't need a lot of soil depth, say, or things that are already present in the local ecology just maybe aren't cultivated enough or something.

For instance: Queen Anne's Lace grows by the side of the road where I come from, and the blooms are just short of spectacular but the foliage is very weedy.

But I repeat: stay local. Plant native strains. Not like heritage roses or something, but native plants, if things weren't paved over and/or grass-seeded to oblivion.

Off the top of my head, Cosmos, Californian poppies (Eschscholzia), rose campion (Lychnis coronaria) and poached egg plant (Limnanthes douglasii). All should be able to handle poor soils and none of them need a lot of water. All annuals so they'll flower in the first year and seed themselves around after that, so they'll be self-sustaining if they like the conditions they're dropped into. You need to watch out that they're not classified as an invasive species in your area though, last thing you want to do is to screw up the local ecology.

Further context: we're in central NJ, and these are going to be clay/compost/seed balls that are thrown in dilapidated-ish areas or dirt patches to be more or less abandoned to grow on their own. Also, it should be stuff we can pick up at Home Depot/Lowes/a local nursery coz we need it in the next few days.

Meantime, latest video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSdaUCeWZU0

Stevie, for starters: Pine Barrens Wildflower Fact Sheet (includes my namesake blossom)

Wildflower seed mixtures, by zone

I need to figure out a way to keep our dog out of the garden. I think he's killing my vegetable plants with all of his clomping around.

Time for a new round of photos today, I think.

I'd be happy to have even an indoor, low-light container garden...waiting until budget straightens out to buy potting soil & starts for herb garden.

Am considering some non-edible indoor plants for the first time, as I've only bothered with cookable growables in the past. Candidates:

Aloe vera for obv useful properties

http://www.needahandspanishproperties.com/Aloe%20Vera%20Picture%20-%20full%20page.jpgp

Snake plant, for its interesting vertical lines

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Snake_plant.jpg

Diffenbachia, for the visual interest of the variegated leaves

http://www.apopkafoliage.com/plants/2plants/dieffenbachia05.jpg

What else? Would really love to have lavender and chamomile etc but have very low-light exposure in apt.

Plus snake plant is one of a handful of plants tested by NASA and determined to reduce the levels of certain household air pollutants, incl formaldehyde.

carrots & potatoes coming through finally. time to demolishment by slugs 10-9-8-7 etc bah I'm rubbish at this.

I need to figure out a way to keep our dog out of the garden. I think he's killing my vegetable plants with all of his clomping around.

― ô_o (Nicole), Monday, 26 April 2010 15:10 (31 minutes ago) Bookmark

just watched the cat dig up a load of radishes and do a big dump in the hole she'd made.

Are there plants that cats HATE as much as the love the mint family? Maybe you could plant a good 4-foot border of them around your radishes.

apparently this http://the-plant-directory.co.uk/coleus-canina-scardy-cat-plant-10cm-pot-p-1566.html

she's cleverer than that though, she'd probably take to shitting in the house again. to punish us.

Reason 98489489034 not to have a cat: they're vengeful little buggers.

i want plants in my apt v v badly but i'm afraid they will DIE

There are some that like best to be LEFT ALONE -- I can always kill these with over-watering and over-caring.

bottle biology

planting plants in used soda bottles and hanging them in your window is a good way to do indoor gardening. I haven't tried the hanging garden but I made a terra aqua column and grew bird seed for a class I taught and after a few tries it worked pretty well.

there's another website out there that these girls started where they actually used this method to grow vegetables in their apartment in new york but I can't remember what it's called.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/garden050510backpanorama.jpg

Greening up as the temps rise. Chile patch to the left, temporary fencing and containers of herbs blocking dog access; sweet peas are blooming back behind the maple and the raised beds; redbud in full leaf to the right.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/blueberries050510.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/garden050510asparagus.jpg

North side of the house, the asparagus (and garlic and sweet red onion) patch. I intentionally let the weeds come up big before getting in there to try to removed them. Outside the curve, four blueberry bushes with a fair amt of fruit, and one that has a year or two to go before bearing.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/garden050510fite.jpg

Lambs ears vs. oregano FITE. The hostas are very happy, need to be divided next year. Foreground, a bunch of volunteering tomatoes -- not sure what variety since the seeds fell two years ago, but they're probably a cherry variety. Beer-bottle border on the left.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/garden050510mint.jpg

West of the carport, in some soil that's full of grass roots and an invasive non-flowering chrysanthemum or somesuch crap. The best way to fight invasive stuff is with other invasive stuff, I figure, so there are some tiny spearmint and peppermint seedlings in there, and two packets of mint seed broadcast. I'm going to dump in a few more packets of mint seed and possibly some mint bedding plants if the garden centers haven't sold out yet. I think the mint can win this fight.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/garden050510peppers.jpg

The pepper patch -- left row is 7 Anaheim chilies, middle row is 2 cayennes and 2 Chinese 5-color (hot) chilies, right row is sweet red peppers.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/garden050510raisedbeds.jpg

The raised beds -- foreground is lettuce and Georgia sweet onions, the far bed is radishes and carrots.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/radishes050510.jpg

White icicle, scarlet globe and Jaune d'Or Ovale, a French heirloom radish that is by far the best variety this year. I'm going to plant 3-4 seeds of that variety on the north side by the blueberries and try to let them grow up all summer and produce seeds. Theoretically possible. Apparently radishes grow 4'-5' high if you let them go.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/garden050510tomatoes.jpg

The tomatoes -- my seedlings crapped out completely, so it was off to the garden center. Four San Marzano (paste), four Parks Whopper (globe), two Big Beef and two Grapette. The farthest section of that fence isn't tomatoes, it's Chinese long beans. I planted those last week and they lunged out of the ground, already 2-3" tall.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/garden050510squash.jpg

Three hills of yellow squash (2 straightneck, 1 crookneck). Off to the left of those are three hills of watermelon (Ali Baba, an Iraqi melon). Around the left of the Althea tree are two hills of cucumbers.

Ahh, the gardening thread - I missed you...

My garden looking at it's best at this time of year.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4016/4578785656_98e64ffeb2.jpg

Apple tree - older than the street - hanging on in there...
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4578151531_2c5a30652d.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/4578769440_21fe46ed56.jpg

One side of the garden is in perpetual shade - due to neighbours leylandii - but these flowers seem to thrive in it, don't know what they are...

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/4578147673_fd6d17421b.jpg

Some recent posts and video and things:

http://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/the-garden-on-april-30-2010/

http://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/the-garden-on-may-7-2010/

these flowers seem to thrive in it, don't know what they are...

Ned T, that's Solomon's Seal.

Ned R, your plot is looking v. lovely.

Thanks Nick.

The garden is really the work of Mrs T, I just weed where I'm told and mow the lawn and try and rein in her more slash'n'burn tendencies! Loving it at the moment though. We managed to get through the spring without too much weeding. Only sad thing was our lovely sage bush got hit by the frost/snow pretty hard and is struggling. Last year it was glorious!
2009 Gardening Thread

wow this thread kills! damn Wmc you are one green thumb motherfucker! will take pic of my ghetto seed starting station and begin to contribute to this . . .

so i don't know if it's news to you guys but i was happy to see how cuttings can grow roots! i thinned my basil plants and rather than throwing out the tiny seedlings that i thinned from their cup i put them in a bit of water and back under the lamp. now they have little roots and can be put in their own cup ;)

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd210/jdchurchil/food%20porn/DSC_0301.jpg?t=1274544007
here is where they start as seeds

The pot I had basil in last year is full of jumping little basil plants now...they're bigger than the stuff I started from seed in the greenhouse in February, even though the soil is probably pretty depleted.

The bees have been neglecting the melons for the cukes, I guess. I've been reading up a little on hand-pollinating melons and will attempt to help the male and female flowers pitch a little woo tomorrow morning.

any tips for repelling chipmunks? apparently they have eaten all of our strawberries.

I will take a few pictures of our garden later when the jet lag has worn off.

they can surely be put off them by an all purpose critter be gone spray
also perhaps next year try planting the strawbs in one of those upside down containers, or maybe distract the chipmunks with tiny musical instruments . .

Hey, we just got whiteflies too! Soapy water *seems* to have had an effect, though maybe they've just flown off somewhere else.

Also, half our bean plants have been deflowered (fnarr, fnarr) by earwigs.

been enjoying homegrown veggies for a week now, some pix of the parent's garden (I take no credit at all for any of the work shown, except the taking of the pictures)

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/4765874836_8805629f4b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4765235297_e44825f61f.jpg

what a rude eggplant!
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/4765873262_1fdb6ebbca.jpg

what a white eggplant!
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4137/4765234267_8503349549.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/4765872492_06e7fe16a9.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/4765231271_8a6b7cf023.jpg

Fine stuff there! Eat it with gusto.

My latest from our garden -- longer video next time, I hope:

http://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2010/07/03/the-garden-on-july-2-2010/

Awesome trip the veg patch today. Came home with big tubs of cherries, strawberries, raspberries, whitecurrants, gooseberries, mangetout and a huge bag of broad beans. Going to have to freeze most of it.

Never had a white aubergine dyao. Do they taste any different to the purple jobs?

the eggplants have just started to fruit so I dunno. hopefully I'll be able to have one before I go back

Yeah you should pinch one and blame it on the snails.

Looking good on your plot Ned! What did you call that purple-leaved herb at the start? Think it's what's known as perilla here, but it's not a very common thing at all. Found a packet of seeds for it recently, but haven't gotten around to growing any yet. Got sort of a lemony flavour iirc, maybe a bit like sorrel but not as tart.

Shisho is the name of it -- apparently a Japanese herb, though perhaps it is the same as you describe with a different name?

Thanks Ned, it is too:

The Japanese name for perilla is shiso. The Japanese call the green type aojiso, aoba ("green leaf"), ōba (corruption of aoba) or aoshiso and often eat it with sashimi (sliced raw fish) or cut into thin strips in salads, spaghetti, and meat and fish dishes. It is also used as a flavorful herb in a variety of dishes, even as a pizza topping (initially it was used in place of basil). In the summer of 2009, Pepsi Japan released a new seasonal flavored beverage, Pepsi Shiso.

There ya go. I was intrigued by the description and wanted to see if we could grow some and do something with it.

I don't know if the bees finally got fresh with the Ali Baba melons or if my hand-pollinating worked, but I finally have some of them developing. The melon that just volunteered in a bare patch in the back yard turned out to be a yellow-meat variety -- there are at least a dozen melons on the one plant.

We seem to have a lot of flea beetles this year, leaving a trail of destruction in radish and rocket leaves.

Yeah, I've had lots of those guys. Doesn't look pretty, but doesn't affect growth. Fleece or mesh work if you want to keep them off though.

tabasco peppers >>>>>>>>>>>>>> cayenne peppers, in flavor and heat

I have enough watermelons growing out back to give one to every single ILC regular.

Anybody ever grown Chinese long beans? I have miles of vines and no sign of blooms or beans. Are they really that much slower than the usual domestic suspects, Kentucky wonders, rattlesnake beans, etc?

is it really hot where you are?

Sorry, I missed this question back when you asked it -- moderately hot, low 90s days/mid 70s nights. We're still not getting a lot of beans -- 2-3 per day. Weird.

Anyway, I came back to this thread to show off the latest 30-pounder from the melon patch.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/melon072510a.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/melon072510c.jpg

Woahhhhh!

Spent today at the veg patch digging up a ton of potatoes (always plant way too many), picked a big bag of sweet cherries and subsequently gave half away, and got loads of wild blackberries too. Also picked courgettes, mange tout peas, rhubarb, broad beans and lots of salad leaves (lettuces, wild rocket, sorrel, leaf amaranth, Swiss chard, baby kale...). Love this time of year once the spring/early summer madness has died down, and there's not much to do apart from water and pick. Been so dry that the grass has forgotten to grow, so that's a bonus too.

Great melon there, WmC!

My latest garden update and I'd like to show off the shisho plants as they've suddenly gone through the roof:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4074/4823076854_64d11582cb_z.jpg

We visited a garden this morning where they had loads of that stuff growing in a bedding display. Looks fantastic but wah, the taste is pretty fearsome! A lot bitterer than I remembered, but that might have been due to the dryness of the weather. Good stuff though in small doses.

Hmm, noted! I've scrounged up a few recipes and will experiment.

Looks like you grow a fine carrot Ned! Also tomatoes that I could only dream of growing without a greenhouse. Applause!

Thanks, Ned! I would like to try shiso leaf sometime...sounds interesting.

This was the first of the Ali Babas (Iraqi heirloom melon) that I managed to wait until it was ripe before picking, and it still wasn't as sweet as the unnamed melons that have been coming from a volunteer plant. Picked one of those yesterday to take to a family reunion -- 32 lbs., almost perfectly spherical. Should have gotten a pic of it first, but we were running late.

Sorry, I missed this question back when you asked it -- moderately hot, low 90s days/mid 70s nights. We're still not getting a lot of beans -- 2-3 per day. Weird.

I asked because we are also growing beans but getting low yields; parents say it's due to the heat (similar to your temps)

http://i770.photobucket.com/albums/xx343/Mount_Analogue/2010_0725nick0245.jpg

http://i770.photobucket.com/albums/xx343/Mount_Analogue/2010_0725nick0248.jpg

^ This was our front garden today. It's all going over a bit and had a lot more colour going on about 3 weeks ago, but I'm pretty happy with it. Mostly planted to attract as many bees and butterflies as possible. You can't see it but I've got some cosmos and some fiery red lobelia in there to come through after the orange heleniums have finished, and I've got some nicotiana from seed to whack in there as well, so it should be good through to the autumn. The canes in front of our windows have got cordon tomatoes growing up them, but they're still only little - was a bit late in sowing this year. Oh, and there are runner beans in there too that one of kids started off at school.

Gone a bit OTT in cramming plants in there tbh, could do with a bit more space.

Can I just say that after growing really delicious heirloom tomatoes for 3 years, this year's flavorless hybrid shipping units are just not getting it. I've put up a couple of gallons, but at this point I'm just letting them rot on the vine unless I need a tomato for a specific dish I'm working on. They just don't have any flavor!

We're down to watermelons, chilies and herbs. I'll plant some fall things in early/mid August.

I've planted a mixture of pumpkin (from a packet) and various squash (salvaged from fruit in our veg box).

A pumpkin ended up in a raised bed and has taken over 1 metre by 2 metre. Wondering a) how brutal should we be in cutting it back (it only appears to have one pumpkin on it, though lots of flowers) and b) do you have to wait for them to fully ripen or can they be eaten early (ie green)? One of the squash is kind of egg shaped (though much larger) and yellow - any idea what kind of squash that might be? And when it should be harvested*?

* UK-based.

I've been pretty brutal with cutting back around our pumpkins. Left four pumpkins on it (it's a big plant). Water it quite a bit esp. if, like us, you're having a really dry summer. I've read contradictory things about the foliage around the pumpkin, some say cut it back, it needs the sun, some say, leave the leaves around the fruit to stop it getting burnt, so who knows? I've cut the leaves back on two of them but I figure it's England, so how much sun are we gonna get? And feed it when you're done with the pruning (otherwise you're feeding the shoots that don't need pruning). One more thing, presumably your fruit is one one long stalk so if you build up the earth around that stalk it might root itself along there thus increasing it's uptake of water.

As for eating them early, I have no idea!

edit

(otherwise you're feeding the shoots that YOU don't need pruning)

We grow only tomatoes, hot peppers, and herbs. (In containers--growing things in the ground is very difficult in Florida.) Tomato season is over and the heat got the peppers and herbs. Oh, well.

Nice to get a free ad from the Times (stupid spelling error in the freaking NYT notwithstanding). This is the place I got all my seed from this past year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/magazine/15food-t-000.html?_r=1&hpw

harvested my serranos today dig
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd210/jdchurchil/food%20porn/DSC_0004.jpg?t=1289687757

I planted a Serrano and it produced for three or four years. It died over five years ago and I'm still using the dried chilis.

Is there not a gardening 2011 yet?

In the planning stages of growing all kinds of shit in my enormous yard and in containers all around the house.

Using the old tools from my landscape design class to make a nice garden plan.

I know that I want to grow the following -
herbs:
horseradish
chives
basil
coriander
catnip
lavender
rosemary
thyme

veg:
carrots
lettuce
potatoes
cucumbers
hot peppers

flowers:
hyacinth
cosmos

Kind of want to start a "prairie meadow" full of wildflowers.

I'm making a tent-shaped trellis, but I'm not sure what kind of vine I want on it yet. NOT english ivy.

I was reading about straw bale gardens today and think that's what I'm going to do instead of framed raised beds, especially for greens and maybe herbs. This house has a huge garden area that's sunken and has been taken over by weeds. And it's not safe to eat greens planted directly in the soil in this neighborhood (benzene and solvent contamination and heavy metals due to years of heavy industry). Straw bale maze built on flattened boxes and paper as sheet mulch, topped with compost ftw.

I had too much planned last year and lost interest when it got really hot. This year I'm going to plant a few radishes, a few sweet peas, a few tomatoes, a few chilies from the seeds I bought in New Mexico last year, and that's pretty much it. No watermelons, nothing that will completely take over the back yard.

are sweet peas easy to grow?

The peas themselves were super easy. Building a trellis for them to run on was a bit of work, but not too bad.

Straw bale maze built on flattened boxes and paper as sheet mulch, topped with compost ftw.

This sounds like an excellent plan Jaq! Would have done that myself but it would have been tricky to get hold of all the materials here.

are sweet peas easy to grow?

Are US sweet peas the same thing as UK sweet peas (i.e. climbing plants with highly scented flowers and inedible possibly toxic seeds)?

No. These are green peas. They're called sweet peas or English peas in some southern necks of the woods, but that gets them mixed up with the flower sometimes.

Ah okay! Easy old-fashioned thing to do then is to sow in blocks and then just poke a load of 120-150cm twiggy branches into the soil for them to climb up.

got sooo many seeds today

there is a short story in Zoetrope about gardening (ish), u ppl might be interested. Well actually it's more about a couple's life centering around their gardening, but it was still an all right read.

ugh, just no interest in the garden this year at all.

I'll carry the torch for ya. Let me start a new thread!