Garden Geeks thread

[Gurtholfin]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

One other hint on strawberries that I discovered:

Let them migrate if possible. I found that new plants always had the biggest and best berries. Over the years, I have allowed my patch to move around the rest of the garden.

This is accomplished by the plants sending out their shoots and me allowing them to migrate to a specified new area.

Each late-summer, I weed about a quarter of the patch, always choosing an old growth segment. The next spring, this becomes home to beans, tomatoes, peppers whatever.

Our patch is probably no more than 30 square feet at any time and we always get sick of berries before they're done. Good problem to have.

[walrus]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

So I transplanted squashes and cukes last weekend, since then we've had temps in the 50s and 60s and 5 or 6 inches of rain, guess what, 50% drowned or rotted. I just went out and planted again, might get some squash, might not. If I do they'll be late. Oh well. Broccoli and cauliflower looks awesome though, apparently they like the cold weather, peas look great too. Tomatoes have taken hold and look ok, peppers not so good.

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Tomatoes have buds/flowers. The squash and cukes look anemic. Cool and rain here too. Beans are up but something ate the tops off half of them. Grr. Arugula bolted but only some of it. Lettuce is straggling along. Spinach is horrible. Tried a new variety Leaves are so little I could strip the garden and stoll not have enough to fill a bowl.

[FiveHole12]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Everything is looking good. I waited and planted Memorial Day weekend (well... I really didn't wait, I spent the first 3 weeks of May fishing up in Wally's country).
Tomatoes have some buds, spinach is delicious (the mrs. picked 3 rows yesterday), cukes and squash all looking very healthy. The eggplant has been getting eaten up by bugs, but I fixed those buggers Saturday.
Just thinned the beets... should be eating them soon.

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Put in a new shade garden. NOTHING is in flats anymore for annuals. They want you to buy one plant for 3 bucks. Be serious folks. I did alot of stuff from seed early this Spring but I hate not being able to cheat and get a few flats to fill in stuff. They didn't even have flats in May. GRR.

Anyone have any suggestions for creative ways to deal with 100' of hose. I have a large yard and gardens on the perimeter. 20 yrs later and we are still struggling with what to so with the hoses. It is too large to hang off the house. We have used the spool thing but that broke after about a yr.

[FiveHole12]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Anyone have any suggestions for creative ways to deal with 100' of hose. I have a large yard and gardens on the perimeter. 20 yrs later and we are still struggling with what to so with the hoses. It is too large to hang off the house. We have used the spool thing but that broke after about a yr.

Cut the 100 footer into 5@ 20' pieces. LOL... teasing.

Run a pipe underground to the garden area and put in a spigot there. You'll have to blow out the water in the fall so the pipe doesn't freeze and damage the piping. You could do this with plastic piping. Or... run the hose underground and run hoses off of it. You can leave the hose underground year round, just blow the water out each fall. I have one like that has been there for 10 years.

[Carter]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Cut the 100 footer into 5@ 20' pieces. LOL... teasing.

Run a pipe underground to the garden area and put in a spigot there. You'll have to blow out the water in the fall so the pipe doesn't freeze and damage the piping. You could do this with plastic piping. Or... run the hose underground and run hoses off of it. You can leave the hose underground year round, just blow the water out each fall. I have one like that has been there for 10 years.

This is exactly what I did for the roughly 200' from the house to the main lower garden. I just got tired of having to get all that hose out of the way for mowing. Between the three different areas we needed water, I had 1100" of hose out! So yeah, for that 200' I buried white 1/2" pvc pipe and set it up with a way to drain it for winter. It's worked great for at least 5 years now, and the stuff is cheap enough that I already feel like I got my money's worth. This year for the upper garden I added a 275 gallon water tank that I'll rig as a rain barrel from a 28x30 garage. I can bring the drain pipes from both eaves to the center back of the garage where I set the tank, and it should work great. That eliminates another 400' of hose.

[FiveHole12]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

This is exactly what I did for the roughly 200' from the house to the main lower garden. I just got tired of having to get all that hose out of the way for mowing. Between the three different areas we needed water, I had 1100" of hose out! So yeah, for that 200' I buried white 1/2" pvc pipe and set it up with a way to drain it for winter. It's worked great for at least 5 years now, and the stuff is cheap enough that I already feel like I got my money's worth. This year for the upper garden I added a 275 gallon water tank that I'll rig as a rain barrel from a 28x30 garage. I can bring the drain pipes from both eaves to the center back of the garage where I set the tank, and it should work great. That eliminates another 400' of hose.

I love ingenuity.

[walrus]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

.

Anyone have any suggestions for creative ways to deal with 100' of hose. I have a large yard and gardens on the perimeter. 20 yrs later and we are still struggling with what to so with the hoses. It is too large to hang off the house. We have used the spool thing but that broke after about a yr.

Get a real spool thing, one made of metal.
http://www.factorydirecthose.com/sit...52/page/394681

[Carter]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Get a real spool thing, one made of metal.
http://www.factorydirecthose.com/sit...52/page/394681

I've had a bunch of different hose reels, and you're right, anything short of metal is junk. For my money, this is the absolute best hose reel on the market.

http://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Reel-Mou.../dp/B0025ZHV3W

Sadly, it costs like the best, too. I have one right now for 150' feet of hose, and I can easily whip in the whole thing lefty when it's full of water. Just smooth as silk. When I win the lottery, I'll be able to afford one more, and I'll be content.

[walrus]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

I've had a bunch of different hose reels, and you're right, anything short of metal is junk. For my money, this is the absolute best hose reel on the market.

http://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Reel-Mou.../dp/B0025ZHV3W

Sadly, it costs like the best, too. I have one right now for 150' feet of hose, and I can easily whip in the whole thing lefty when it's full of water. Just smooth as silk. When I win the lottery, I'll be able to afford one more, and I'll be content.

I have one like that , it mounts on the wall but is oriented 90 degrees different than the one you posted. I unhook the hose from the spigot in the winter and the reel and hose freeze solid, no issues so far

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

I've had a bunch of different hose reels, and you're right, anything short of metal is junk. For my money, this is the absolute best hose reel on the market.

http://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Reel-Mou.../dp/B0025ZHV3W

Sadly, it costs like the best, too. I have one right now for 150' feet of hose, and I can easily whip in the whole thing lefty when it's full of water. Just smooth as silk. When I win the lottery, I'll be able to afford one more, and I'll be content.

A question both for you and for Walrus....how is the junction on those? We had a hose reel that worked fine as far as storing hoses goes; however there always was a small leak somewhere in each one of them.

We "solved" our problem by buying a spigot splitter or whatever you call it, along with burying a pipe. Now the pipe carries water out back (have to blow it out every winter); and for the back, front and side of the house we just have three hoses, each running from the spigot to a different part of the yard. Most of the hose remains in place, we only need to move around the last 20 feet or so (20 feet each direction times 3 hoses = 120 feet of coverage).

[FiveHole12]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

I have one like that , it mounts on the wall but is oriented 90 degrees different than the one you posted. I unhook the hose from the spigot in the winter and the reel and hose freeze solid, no issues so far

Do you drain the hose first? I drain all my hoses before storing and blow out the underground pipes.

[FiveHole12]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Heads up gals... there's men in here talking about their hoses.

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Thanks guys! I knew I could count on you for some ideas. Now to ponder which one to use....