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  • Re: Garden Geeks thread

    Originally posted by dxmnkd316 View Post
    I had to look up "victory gardens" huh.


    I have some nasty roots but I'm trying to decide if we want to box them in and do a raised garden like my parents used to have. A bunch of railroad ties and fill it with garden soil. How deep would you need that?

    Will do on composting, but I don't really have a good spot to store it yet. Good advice though.

    I have a mix of soils. Backyard is mostly decent soil but a little compacted. Was going to get someone to aerate this fall. I think the back has a nice sandy loam. Nice and soft. The front might as well be concrete in the summer. Super dry clay that sucks to keep wet.
    I have gardened in the city, suburban gardens- a few.

    I have done the dig and the no dig and regularly 'need' to start another garden. Couple of comments-

    Do not use railroad ties or any sort of pressure treated wood for food producing beds. They have chemicals in them that are nasty.

    If you are in a place with a lot of roots using raised beds can provide wonderful nutrients for the trees. We had a maple that was in the corner of the yard. We put in raised beds and a compost heap 20+ feet away. As the tree grew we had an awful time with roots. We ended up cutting the tree down because it kept breaking off. Hoping this solves the problem.

    Put in a thick plastic bottom with some perforation in the bottom of the compost. It won't solve that completely but it helps a bit.

    For no dig you can do the cardboard straight on the grass. Works better if you mow the area down to the ground, put a layer of leaves/newspaper or other loose stuff, then cardboard. If you look up organic gardening there are thousands of articles about how to do this. You can also put down shredded leaves, black plastic over the top this heads things up and speeds the breakdown.

    They sell all sorts of stuff to make raised beds. You can go low tech/low effort- Long boards (not ply wood, pressure treated or otherwise chemically treated wood) put wood stakes or other stakes to hold it up- you need to alternate inside and outside. Fill with dirt/compost. leaves, etc. We tried the L brackets but this actually worked best for us.

    One of the best ones I had seen was doing the raised bed, dropping in large unopened bags of soil so it covered grass underneath. Cut open tops, poke some holes in the bottom of bag and then plant. the worms come in through the holes. It kills the grass underneath and at the end of the season you just pull out the plastic bags, leaving soil behind.

    COmpost doesn't have to be big. When we were in the city we had a couple of very narrow ones where we could fit them.

    You can grow just about anything in containers. Tomatoes are tropical plants and love the heat of the container. Lettuce does not like heat so does better if shaded.

    You can companion plant- basil and tomatoes love each other and enhance growth. THere are a bunch of articles on that too. There are some things that do not like each other

    Clay is nasty. We have that. organic matter. Lots of it

    Comment


    • Re: Garden Geeks thread

      Originally posted by dxmnkd316 View Post
      I had to look up "victory gardens" huh.


      I have some nasty roots but I'm trying to decide if we want to box them in and do a raised garden like my parents used to have. A bunch of railroad ties and fill it with garden soil. How deep would you need that?

      Will do on composting, but I don't really have a good spot to store it yet. Good advice though.

      I have a mix of soils. Backyard is mostly decent soil but a little compacted. Was going to get someone to aerate this fall. I think the back has a nice sandy loam. Nice and soft. The front might as well be concrete in the summer. Super dry clay that sucks to keep wet.
      Does Oakdale have the 3M dumping issues? That could dictate your needed depth. Most Raised gardens I’ve seen in the east metro are 8”-12” high.
      "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." George Orwell, 1984

      "One does not simply walk into Mordor. Its Black Gates are guarded by more than just Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume." Boromir

      "Good news! We have a delivery." Professor Farnsworth

      Comment


      • I just picked tomatoes on 10/23. Holy moly. Just got a little frost a few days ago on the windshields. THis is the latest we have gone without hard frost since we moved here in 1994

        Comment


        • Long time since this thread came up- and considering all of the time we ALL spent at home for the last 18 months, it's interesting that this stopped just a month into the pandemic.

          My greenhouse has some good tomatoes, but this year was kind of weak for me, as I spent a LOT of my seeding time on an RV we got last fall- renovating it, and we've been out every other weekend since the end of June in her.

          But my brambles are still expanding, I've doubled my strawberry raised bed, and I have plans to re-design some of my planters for more space. Next spring.

          Comment


          • God, we tried doing herbs inside with zero success.

            we tried sterilizing the soil before by putting it in double ziplocks and bringing it to like 170 for an hour in the sink using the sous vide. Maybe that was part of the problem. Otherwise I think we probably needed a better quality soil. I didn't like how wet it stayed.

            we also got a good crop of bell peppers which were ungodly good. First time for peppers. We saved the seeds and will be doing a grow lamp this winter to start.

            I would really like to do some lantana inside. Absolutely love that flower. Might experiment.
            Code:
            As of 9/21/10:         As of 9/13/10:
            College Hockey 6       College Football 0
            BTHC 4                 WCHA FC:  1
            Originally posted by SanTropez
            May your paint thinner run dry and the fleas of a thousand camels infest your dead deer.
            Originally posted by bigblue_dl
            I don't even know how to classify magic vagina smoke babies..
            Originally posted by Kepler
            When the giraffes start building radio telescopes they can join too.
            He's probably going to be a superstar but that man has more baggage than North West

            Comment


            • Originally posted by dxmnkd316 View Post
              God, we tried doing herbs inside with zero success.

              we tried sterilizing the soil before by putting it in double ziplocks and bringing it to like 170 for an hour in the sink using the sous vide. Maybe that was part of the problem. Otherwise I think we probably needed a better quality soil. I didn't like how wet it stayed.

              we also got a good crop of bell peppers which were ungodly good. First time for peppers. We saved the seeds and will be doing a grow lamp this winter to start.

              I would really like to do some lantana inside. Absolutely love that flower. Might experiment.
              I haven't grown lantana in yrs- the groundhogs decimated it.

              Have grown Sage, Thyme, Rosemary and Basil by rooting it in water using blue glass bottles. The sage especially- grew it from left overs from a clamshell- same with everything but the basil.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by leswp1 View Post

                I haven't grown lantana in yrs- the groundhogs decimated it.

                Have grown Sage, Thyme, Rosemary and Basil by rooting it in water using blue glass bottles. The sage especially- grew it from left overs from a clamshell- same with everything but the basil.
                It was basil and cilantro we tried. Lol. Two of the most difficult to grow. Probably had more to do with it :-D
                Code:
                As of 9/21/10:         As of 9/13/10:
                College Hockey 6       College Football 0
                BTHC 4                 WCHA FC:  1
                Originally posted by SanTropez
                May your paint thinner run dry and the fleas of a thousand camels infest your dead deer.
                Originally posted by bigblue_dl
                I don't even know how to classify magic vagina smoke babies..
                Originally posted by Kepler
                When the giraffes start building radio telescopes they can join too.
                He's probably going to be a superstar but that man has more baggage than North West

                Comment


                • As for the lantana, we put it in baskets on shepherd hooks and it did well. The bees and hummingbirds love it almost as much as the allium and coneflowers.
                  Code:
                  As of 9/21/10:         As of 9/13/10:
                  College Hockey 6       College Football 0
                  BTHC 4                 WCHA FC:  1
                  Originally posted by SanTropez
                  May your paint thinner run dry and the fleas of a thousand camels infest your dead deer.
                  Originally posted by bigblue_dl
                  I don't even know how to classify magic vagina smoke babies..
                  Originally posted by Kepler
                  When the giraffes start building radio telescopes they can join too.
                  He's probably going to be a superstar but that man has more baggage than North West

                  Comment


                  • Something is eating my alliums. Roots and bulbs. Leaving the leaves which brown and fall over. I think it is voles. Trying to figure out a strategy. I can cage them but then I cannot plant in that area. We have stone dust and gravel walks. They dig right thru that.
                    So irritating.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by leswp1 View Post
                      Something is eating my alliums. Roots and bulbs. Leaving the leaves which brown and fall over. I think it is voles. Trying to figure out a strategy. I can cage them but then I cannot plant in that area. We have stone dust and gravel walks. They dig right thru that.
                      So irritating.
                      What the hell eats allium? It's the only thing we haven't had to cage. In fact, we pull it out all but a small patch because it so aggressively spreads
                      Code:
                      As of 9/21/10:         As of 9/13/10:
                      College Hockey 6       College Football 0
                      BTHC 4                 WCHA FC:  1
                      Originally posted by SanTropez
                      May your paint thinner run dry and the fleas of a thousand camels infest your dead deer.
                      Originally posted by bigblue_dl
                      I don't even know how to classify magic vagina smoke babies..
                      Originally posted by Kepler
                      When the giraffes start building radio telescopes they can join too.
                      He's probably going to be a superstar but that man has more baggage than North West

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by dxmnkd316 View Post

                        What the hell eats allium? It's the only thing we haven't had to cage. In fact, we pull it out all but a small patch because it so aggressively spreads
                        Voles. They are brutal. They eat everything from underground. It looks lush... then it doesn't, turns brown and falls over

                        Comment


                        • Well, managed to stay under budget at Gertens this year, for a change.

                          Quite a nice spread. A lot of the classic hits we always get but this year we added some marigolds, which I grew up with an always kind of wanted to do again.

                          trying our hands at some cayenne peppers this year. I've never seen them fresh at the grocery store and I've been dying to make homemade hot sauce from scratch.
                          Code:
                          As of 9/21/10:         As of 9/13/10:
                          College Hockey 6       College Football 0
                          BTHC 4                 WCHA FC:  1
                          Originally posted by SanTropez
                          May your paint thinner run dry and the fleas of a thousand camels infest your dead deer.
                          Originally posted by bigblue_dl
                          I don't even know how to classify magic vagina smoke babies..
                          Originally posted by Kepler
                          When the giraffes start building radio telescopes they can join too.
                          He's probably going to be a superstar but that man has more baggage than North West

                          Comment


                          • Gertens has been a absolute ****show this week. Went there Tuesday at noon and overflow lots were full.

                            fml I need to go there again tomorrow

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Deutsche Gopher Fan View Post
                              Gertens has been a absolute ****show this week. Went there Tuesday at noon and overflow lots were full.

                              fml I need to go there again tomorrow
                              Street parking was all the way back to the turn onto their street. If you're willing to walk a couple blocks, no big deal.

                              It is extremely hard to beat their prices and quality. We try to shop as local as we can. Small family owned shops > Gerten's >> Menards >> Home Depot. For about a quarter cheaper, we got herbs 2x the size of the Despot or Menards. Which isn't to say the quality is **** at either, it's just not Gertens.

                              for the out-of-towners: it's a mega greenhouse and garden store that's almost impossible to believe. Take a look at the satellite

                              https://goo.gl/maps/UAYe4iKjTHT3JwYb9
                              Code:
                              As of 9/21/10:         As of 9/13/10:
                              College Hockey 6       College Football 0
                              BTHC 4                 WCHA FC:  1
                              Originally posted by SanTropez
                              May your paint thinner run dry and the fleas of a thousand camels infest your dead deer.
                              Originally posted by bigblue_dl
                              I don't even know how to classify magic vagina smoke babies..
                              Originally posted by Kepler
                              When the giraffes start building radio telescopes they can join too.
                              He's probably going to be a superstar but that man has more baggage than North West

                              Comment


                              • Oh I know all the secrets to Gertens. Love that place.

                                i have 1-2 things I will go to bachmanns for, that’s it.

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