Garden Geeks thread

[St. Clown]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Anybody know what the gypsum actually does, or if there are any bad effects?

I have heavy clay if I go down more than a few inches, which I'm gradually working on when I put in plants by digging holes much deeper than I need to and adding organic stuff, but that's a really slow process.

A side benefit would be that dry wall is a pain to get rid of. My transfer station won't take it (oddly enough, won't take non-PT wood either).

Gypsum is a pH neutralizer for soil and adds organic material into the soil; it's usually sold as an alternative to putting down limestone to counteract the road salt put down during the course of winter. Because of the organic component to gypsum, if you have a lot of clay and use said gypsum, you can soften the soil over the course of about 10 years. Clay soil is a lack of that organic goodness your lawn craves. This won't give you that optimal soil condition of 6-12" of black dirt, but it'll make the top few inches much better for your lawn.

 

[huskyfan]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

I braved teeming blackflies to put most of the garden in Saturday and Sunday. last frost - forget about it! Monday the temps dropped and it rained to hard, the seeds most likely floated away. and I am a welted red itching mess.

 

[walrus]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Black fly count at my house wasn't that bad but they were out. Got most of my garden this weekend. Still have a few things to go in. Not as much stuff as usual. Need to get some oats or buckwheat to plant in the parts not used. We need rain badly. You'd never think that when 2 months ago we had feet of snow on the ground.

Tried something new, put down black plastic for weed control, then covered that with floating row crop cover(reemay), for squashes and cukes. Hope to get them going without cucumber beetles

 

[jen]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

My preferred local garden center sells this: <a href="http://www.brazelberries.com/varieties/raspberry-shortcake">Raspberry Shortcake</a>. Anyone have one? What does "Chill hours: 800" mean? It says it's OK for zone 5 - does that mean I can leave it outside in the winter? Are ceramic and terra cotta the only pots I shouldn't leave outside in the winter? And does "self fertile" mean if only have one, it will still bear fruit?

I haven't bought my plants yet (tomorrow!), so I changed my garden plans.. yet again. Exchanged some of the bigger hostas for monkshood and astible.

Trying to come up with some new ideas for container mixes that I can put in the shade. Thinking maybe torenia (if I can find some) or snapdragons for something taller, sweet potato vine and fuschia for something trailing, and coleus and maybe another middle-sized flower (begonias?). My usual containers are boring (one type of plant per container), so I am mixing it up this year. Also need to come up with something for 2 window boxes on the patio.

I always put impatiens in my hanging baskets, but am looking to switch it up. I need a long-flowering (or colorful non-flowering) annual that can grow in shade and is appropriate for a hanging basket. I see lots of different coleus - maybe that would work? I just had my house painted blue last year, so something brighty colored would be nice. Something yellow or orange would be great (I usually have pink or purple - the easiest colors to find). No petunias or carnations.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

It's harvest time for our garlic and we've been getting a pretty good harvest. Each year we plant more garlic and it just takes a long time, given that we planted it last September.

jen,
Chill hours means the number of hours a plant needs to be colder than a certain temperature through the winter months to regulate plant growth, with there being a few different ways of calculating it. Here in Arizona chill hours are a big deal because of our limited cold weather in the winter. Chill hours are, I believe, especially important for nut and fruit trees. In Arizona our options on fruit trees are limited in some cases by some trees having more chill hours required than we are likely to get here.

 

[jen]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

All done planting. I changed my mind, yet again, even after stuff was in the ground. I bought lizard (chameleon) plants, and apparently they're very aggressive (I think they scowled at me), so I decided to move them to a container instead. I ended up with some very mixed containers, window boxes and hanging baskets - we'll see what they look like in a couple months. Used more pretty foliage-type things, and very few flowers for annual containers. For the hanging baskets, I have yellow and white begonias and wandering Jew. Also put together two containers of succulent perennials - thinking I should overwinter those in the garage, so the ceramic pots don't crack.

Decided not to buy roses or raspberries, because I spent enough already.

My rain barrel has a place for planting stuff in the top, and I was going to put marsh marigolds there (and they're native), but they're dormant in summer. doh.

 

[goldy_331]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

We have a 30" high fence around our vegetable garden. We mostly have tomatoes, peppers, some cucumbers and herbs. This year the wife planted green and yellow beans and some spinach. GD rabbits got in and ate them all last night. We had put some of the animal repellent granules down and refreshed them after each rain. Still did no good. Not sure if the rabbits went through, under or over the fence. Might need to have Jr start hunting with his pellet gun.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

We have a 30" high fence around our vegetable garden. We mostly have tomatoes, peppers, some cucumbers and herbs. This year the wife planted green and yellow beans and some spinach. GD rabbits got in and ate them all last night. We had put some of the animal repellent granules down and refreshed them after each rain. Still did no good. Not sure if the rabbits went through, under or over the fence. Might need to have Jr start hunting with his pellet gun.

Much depends upon the size of the openings in the fence. We have a fence around our garden about 48" high to keep out deer, but the 1" x 3" grid is too wide to keep out rabbits, and so we put an additional layer of chicken wire around the bottom of the fence, which has worked in keeping the rabbits at bay.

Something about your post reminded me of the movie Phenomenon, where John Travolta's character is trying everything he can think of to keep the rabbit out of his garden, without success. Finally he realizes that the rabbit has been inside the garden the entire time and he has fenced it in, not out.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

The first strawberries are starting to ripen. With luck we will begin harvest in a week or so.

 

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Hardware cloth sunk in by a foot. Only thing that has seemed to work Completely enclosed the garden with no opening and then cut a 'gate' opening about 1 foot up that we close by threading a post through.

And in other news the GD*&T)&T_*(Y groundhog got up on my deck and ate Verbena- supposedly not something they like. UUTF

 

[Timothy A]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

My raised asparagus bed is officially a disaster. The first 2 winters it was mild and it came back, but not as fully as one would have thought. Last year's crop was meager (and the winter was harsher), this year it's completely dead (very harsh winter). The big question is to I bother with trying to do a standard in ground one? My topsoil level is not very deep, maybe 6", then it's clay. And I don't have a great spot to do it.

 

[jen]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Lawn question. I need to finally do something about the bare spots in my lawn (once my new perennial beds are settled, because I can only water so much). There's a bunch of shady spots under trees that need some love. Has anyone had luck with any of those "lawn fix" things like EZ Seed?

I am not putting sod in. I have had enough sod moving for one year. Or ten years.

My next immediate task is tiny maple seedling eradication. From the gutters, pots, gardens... every effing thing.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Lawn question. I need to finally do something about the bare spots in my lawn (once my new perennial beds are settled, because I can only water so much). There's a bunch of shady spots under trees that need some love. Has anyone had luck with any of those "lawn fix" things like EZ Seed?

I don't have the brand name handy, there was some kind of "shake 'n' seed" product that had encapsulated seeds embedded in a green fiber mix that I shook over bare spots and watered regularly until it became established that worked pretty well.

Regarding watering, we have found that soaker hoses work way better than sprinklers, and it is better to water more thoroughly and less frequently than frequently but superficially.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Lawn question. I need to finally do something about the bare spots in my lawn (once my new perennial beds are settled, because I can only water so much). There's a bunch of shady spots under trees that need some love. Has anyone had luck with any of those "lawn fix" things like EZ Seed?

They do all right, but you might not like the grass that sprouts from them. If your lawn was established using regular sod, then you likely have some variety of Kentucky bluegrass. These patching products use a mix of annual rye (fastest growing/sprouting), perennial rye (fast growing/sprouting), fescue (shade grass that takes a couple to three weeks to sprout) and Kentucky bluegrass (slowest sprouting, usually around three weeks), with Kentucky blue being the lowest percentage of seed present in the mix other than various weeds. So if you're not particular about the type of seed that grows, then it's a fine product. You could do something similar in making your own patch using some loose topsoil, some mulching material like dead grass clippings, and then toss down the seed of your choice. The patching products usually have some seed starting fertilizer in them to help get the growth started quicker, so you might consider a seed starting fertilizer if you do your own.

 

[CLS]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

They do all right, but you might not like the grass that sprouts from them. If your lawn was established using regular sod, then you likely have some variety of Kentucky bluegrass. These patching products use a mix of annual rye (fastest growing/sprouting), perennial rye (fast growing/sprouting), fescue (shade grass that takes a couple to three weeks to sprout) and Kentucky bluegrass (slowest sprouting, usually around three weeks), with Kentucky blue being the lowest percentage of seed present in the mix other than various weeds. So if you're not particular about the type of seed that grows, then it's a fine product. You could do something similar in making your own patch using some loose topsoil, some mulching material like dead grass clippings, and then toss down the seed of your choice. The patching products usually have some seed starting fertilizer in them to help get the growth started quicker, so you might consider a seed starting fertilizer if you do your own.

Or you can use the patch product and supplement it with some seed to improve the mix of grasses. I used this successfully a couple of years ago when I lost some big patches due to disease.

I had a lot of winter kill this year and my lawn folks said to wait at least a month before I attempt to reseed, because the pre-emergent weed control stuff they use tends to prevent anything, even "good" seed from germinating, so you might want to keep that in mind if it applies to you. Since that put me into mid-June, I'm just going to wait until the fall.

Got a nice soaking rain today. Looking forward to a good crop of hot peppers and tomatillos from my small "salsa garden." Flower garden looks very nice.

 

[walrus]

We got a ton of rain today, several inches. Can't go into garden without sinking. Needed it but I had outdoor stuff to do and it didn't happen

 

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Same here. Soaking! cleared for the afternoon and now another deluge.

 

[jen]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Or you can use the patch product and supplement it with some seed to improve the mix of grasses. I used this successfully a couple of years ago when I lost some big patches due to disease.

I had a lot of winter kill this year and my lawn folks said to wait at least a month before I attempt to reseed, because the pre-emergent weed control stuff they use tends to prevent anything, even "good" seed from germinating, so you might want to keep that in mind if it applies to you. Since that put me into mid-June, I'm just going to wait until the fall.

They do all right, but you might not like the grass that sprouts from them. If your lawn was established using regular sod, then you likely have some variety of Kentucky bluegrass. These patching products use a mix of annual rye (fastest growing/sprouting), perennial rye (fast growing/sprouting), fescue (shade grass that takes a couple to three weeks to sprout) and Kentucky bluegrass (slowest sprouting, usually around three weeks), with Kentucky blue being the lowest percentage of seed present in the mix other than various weeds. So if you're not particular about the type of seed that grows, then it's a fine product. You could do something similar in making your own patch using some loose topsoil, some mulching material like dead grass clippings, and then toss down the seed of your choice. The patching products usually have some seed starting fertilizer in them to help get the growth started quicker, so you might consider a seed starting fertilizer if you do your own.

Thanks for the tips. I may get some of the easy stuff and mix with bluegrass. But - I have a lawn service as well for weeds/fertilizer, so should probably wait until fall. Plus, I was looking for a good reason to procrastinate some more on this.

 

[jen]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

I added bark in my yard yesterday for the first time (although I've helped many a family member with mulch) and I got the exact right amount. Feeling like a superstar. Take that, tiny maple trees.

Also, I found it works very well to put Tupperware containers over small plants as you dump the bark. Much easier than trying to work around them or digging them out of bark. I only had to dig out 3 or 4 plants before I discovered this.

 

[CLS]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Well, no giant pumpkin for me this year. Just for the heck of it, I planted an Atlantic Giant and yesterday the leaves were pretty much stripped. I suspect a groundhog I've seen around, or maybe several rabbits, because I don't know of anything else that can do that much damage that quickly. Some blossoms bravely opened up this morning and I'll give it a shot of fertilizer, but I don't think there are enough leaves left to support the plant, and if the critters do that much damage to leaves, what will they do with a fruit?