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Garden Geeks thread

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Re: Garden Geeks thread

thanks for the tips :)

les: that explains why my perennial herbs usually do very well. I am an expert at doing nothing. :) I might stick to herbs this year (maybe branch out a little with them) and get all my veggies at the Farmer's market. I'm not sure I want the disappointment of another subpar veggie season.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

jen said:
thanks for the tips :)

les: that explains why my perennial herbs usually do very well. I am an expert at doing nothing. :) I might stick to herbs this year (maybe branch out a little with them) and get all my veggies at the Farmer's market. I'm not sure I want the disappointment of another subpar veggie season.
Click to expand...

You want an herb that is really easy to grow and has a really high yield, I'd recommend two: oregano and basil.

Oregano doubles as ground cover in our rock garden, and in those (now too infrequent) years in which we get a bountiful tomato harvest, provides lots of seasoning for sauce.

Basil, as long as you keep pinching the growing tips before they start to flower, gets bushier and bushier as the growing season progresses. You cannot "do nothing" with basil, however, for if you do ignore it and it starts to flower, it gets bitter.


One plant that has consistently been a top performer for us has been cayenne pepper. We still have dried peppers from two years ago, and we use them once or twice a week. If you have a place sheltered from the wind and exposed to afternoon sun, it can really thrive. For jalapenos I'd recommend the market; they just do not keep....so unless you have lots of friends and neighbors who also want some, we wind up not using over half the jalapenos we grow (you can only make so much guacamole and salsa). We've grown sweet pepper too but it doesn't seem worth the bother. This year we are only growing cayenne peppers, no others.


And as many have said, there are a variety of beans that should do well without much help other than water. We are quite partial to a bush bean called haricot vert (which is french for bean green). I remember a long series of posts from last year earlier in this thread about different bean varieties and growing methods and preservation methods if you have the patience to scroll back to find it.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

Saturday morning, i looked out a 2nd-story window that overlooks our vegetable garden...no soil visible yet. That's unusual for around here, to have solid snow cover still around in the second week of March. The idea was to turn over some soil to enrich it in preparation for planting peas in three weeks....well that project was deferred until next weekend.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

Had some stuff come up the last few weeks so we didn't do get much in for our spring crop. Mostly just some lettuce plants that my nephew gave us. Tomatoes are still producing well. And we're getting some beets and carrots now from the fall planting. And our lemon and apples trees we planted two years ago are starting to really take off. Good to see after the lemon really got zapped by cold weather last winter.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

FreshFish said:
...

Oregano doubles as ground cover in our rock garden, and in those (now too infrequent) years in which we get a bountiful tomato harvest, provides lots of seasoning for sauce.

. . .
Click to expand...
Agree, but be careful where you put it. Oregano spreads by underground roots, and it can be invasive and difficult to get rid of if it spreads where you don't want it. One side benefit though -- oregano (along with mint, which also spreads via underground roots) smells very nice if it spreads into your lawn and you mow it.:)
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

The seeds we planted indoors two weeks ago are starting to grow....

As an experiment, we bought starter pots made from compressed manure. The theory being that you just dig a hole in the ground and plop them in.

Hint: do not use them in a room where you care about the smell!
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

Got a few potato plants peeking up after my wife put some eyes in the compost pile at the end of our garden. Didn't really know if anything would come up. The new lettuce are doing well, though a good ways from harvesting anything. And the cherry tomato plant continues to be very prolific. Planted a few new rose bushes last week and yesterday put in a couple star jasmine.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

Okay, so this one is perhaps more of a home repair question, but I'll post it here first to see what you guys think.

I had one of those winterizing valve things on my hose bib, and the set screw sheared off when I tried to take it off last weekend. As a result, the only way to take it off the bib was with a wrench, and the screw wound up stripping off some of the male thread on the bib.

Now, because of the stripped thread, my hose can't make a solid seal and the water leaks between the bib and the hose when I turn the water on. It's a soldered bib (I'm sure), which means I don't have an easy way to fix it without completely repairing the bib. Any suggestions?
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
Okay, so this one is perhaps more of a home repair question, but I'll post it here first to see what you guys think.

I had one of those winterizing valve things on my hose bib, and the set screw sheared off when I tried to take it off last weekend. As a result, the only way to take it off the bib was with a wrench, and the screw wound up stripping off some of the male thread on the bib.

Now, because of the stripped thread, my hose can't make a solid seal and the water leaks between the bib and the hose when I turn the water on. It's a soldered bib (I'm sure), which means I don't have an easy way to fix it without completely repairing the bib. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Lots of thread tape? Put a thick rubber band around the threads?

Or, put an extension on it. you can get a part in a plumbing store that would work. One end is male thread, same size as you have now, the other end is female that fits over your existing male. You just glue it / seal it in place that way.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

What FreshFish said ^^^

But I'm curious as to why you add anything to the bib for winterizing? I just turn off the water shut-off inside, open the spigot and leave it alone. Never had a problem. If you don't have a shutoff for each spigot on the inside... you should add them, IMO. And if you do that, you might as well sweat the old spigot off the pipe and solder a new one on.
 
ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
Okay, so this one is perhaps more of a home repair question, but I'll post it here first to see what you guys think.

I had one of those winterizing valve things on my hose bib, and the set screw sheared off when I tried to take it off last weekend. As a result, the only way to take it off the bib was with a wrench, and the screw wound up stripping off some of the male thread on the bib.

Now, because of the stripped thread, my hose can't make a solid seal and the water leaks between the bib and the hose when I turn the water on. It's a soldered bib (I'm sure), which means I don't have an easy way to fix it without completely repairing the bib. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Thread tape is made for tapered thread, hose bib is not tapered but running. It seals with a washer in the female part. I assume you took the threads off the male end so the female end on a hose will never tighten?
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

walrus said:
Thread tape is made for tapered thread, hose bib is not tapered but running. It seals with a washer in the female part. I assume you took the threads off the male end so the female end on a hose will never tighten?
Click to expand...

The female end will go on, but when I open the faucet, water sprays out the top of the female end of the hose.

Short of magically re-forming the thread or otherwise finding another way to seal up the joint with the female end of the hose, I don't see too many options that don't involve me replacing the bib.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

got up to 50 today, the top of the kids' swing set is now visible above the snow. It's going to be a long April in Keweenaw County.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
The female end will go on, but when I open the faucet, water sprays out the top of the female end of the hose.

Short of magically re-forming the thread or otherwise finding another way to seal up the joint with the female end of the hose, I don't see too many options that don't involve me replacing the bib.
Click to expand...

So it will screw on but will it tighten? If it gets tight is their a washer in the hose? Is the face of the bib deformed to the point the washer won't seal on it.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

effing snow. fingers crossed for the flowers that have started to come up already.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

This is shaping up to be a real quagmire of a spring here in So. WI. Weather forecast today says the next chance of sunshine is a week from now - Saturday. Tough to get into the garden when it's all 6 inches of mud.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

MadTownSioux said:
This is shaping up to be a real quagmire of a spring here in So. WI. Weather forecast today says the next chance of sunshine is a week from now - Saturday. Tough to get into the garden when it's all 6 inches of mud.
Click to expand...
Can relate. Supposed to have cool coudy weather until next week. Still soggy. Need to rebuild the raised beds- not happening yet. :(
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

Our tomatoes are starting to peter out, as we've been getting some days in the 90s. Getting a few strawberries from a hanging basket I had about given up on, so that's fun. Still have some lettuce, carrots, and beets going in the garden and hopefully some potatoes. Most other stuff is done. Oh, and asparagus plants are looking good, at least the five that survived the winter and a little boy's desire to help pull weeds or things that look like weeds. :)
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

Subscribed because why the hell not? It's been an absolutely brutal winter and I'm hoping winter ends soon. I'll need all the help I can get this year desperately trying to revive my yard.
 
Re: Garden Geeks thread

Glad I got the garden tilled last Sunday as it's rained every day since.

The good part is that the loose soil has settled nicely.
 
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