Garden Geeks thread

[Fishman'81]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Unfortunately they live under the shed and are quite clever. They got so savy they would wait to hear the car go down the driveway to come out.

Ah, but you're more clever on any day of the week, and twice on a Tuesday.

We had two females and 6 kits under our shed this Spring, and a visiting male. They learned our habits, yes, but they can easily be out-maneuvered if one has the patience.

Easiest way to start the carnage is to drive off a few yards, throw a couple of shovel-fulls of dirt into the most accessible opening, and park yourself a few feet away on a camp chair... Within minutes, they'll start to dig out, and offer multiple easy shots.

I got all nine of them before mid-May this year using this approach, or via some variation of it. (And, as gruesome as it sounds, it helps to stuff the carcasses back in the burrow, too. Seems that practice discourages newcomers.)

 

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Ah, but you're more clever on any day of the week, and twice on a Tuesday.

We had two females and 6 kits under our shed this Spring, and a visiting male. They learned our habits, yes, but they can easily be out-maneuvered if one has the patience.

Easiest way to start the carnage is to drive off a few yards, throw a couple of shovel-fulls of dirt into the most accessible opening, and park yourself a few feet away on a camp chair... Within minutes, they'll start to dig out, and offer multiple easy shots.

I got all nine of them before mid-May this year using this approach, or via some variation of it. (And, as gruesome as it sounds, it helps to stuff the carcasses back in the burrow, too. Seems that practice discourages newcomers.)

I will have to tell lil les this technique. We can't see the opening of the burrow. He sat on the porch with the pump gun and they figured out not to come out. Then he started out the 2nd story window. That worked until they figured out to listen to the footsteps on the stairs.

 

[Fishman'81]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

I will have to tell lil les this technique. We can't see the opening of the burrow. He sat on the porch with the pump gun and they figured out not to come out. Then he started out the 2nd story window. That worked until they figured out to listen to the footsteps on the stairs.

Yes, they can pick-up on habitual threats after a day or two. The young of the year are quite naive, but the older ones learn pretty quickly.

Still, their curiosity is usually their downfall. Throw any foreign object into your shed burrows, and they'll get busy removing it... Then they'll stare and stare, and offer a good shot from very close range, as long as you sit quite still.

That entire process generally takes less than 30 minutes, in my experience. Even veteran 'chucks can't help themselves, and peek-out for several minutes, directly at an interloper who's at least 15' away.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

It's interesting to hear about people starting "Victory Gardens"- which is happening all over the place. I've been gardening for a while now- but for the taste of fresh veggies and fruit.

Assuming that you don't have challenges like invasive trees and their nasty roots, look up "no dig" gardening. It has the bonus of being incredibly high yield with the need of lack of work to the soil. Being lazy pays off! And if you have not started one, start composting immediately- make it so that you can have two or three piles so that they "ripen" at different times. And look into making a worm bin.

Also, try to figure out what kind of soil you have for your favorite perennial fruit. I tried raspberries and blueberries- and only the raspberries worked. Now they are spreading all over a controlled space to great yield, too.

It's a great way to spend some time.

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.

 

[alfablue]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

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.

There's a pretty interesting "debate" about aerating vs soil health out there. I'm sure there's a forum out there that talks about it- what I'm seeing is just different ideas about how to grow stuff. Given the way I put the idea, I'm more of a soil health person- which means not digging anymore. So if you have a decent area of drainage (not great, just decent)- then the no-dig procedure is to cover the proposed area with cardboard, and then put a few inches of compost on that. Worms will come on their own- breaking the lower soil up some more. But by leaving it alone- you let the natural fungi that helps stuff grow stay alive- even with the worms digging holes.

Even lazier, the cardboard can be directly placed over grass- so even less work.

I saw it first on Charles Downing's youtube page.

I have had to adapt it to containers, as I have some nasty invasive tree roots from neighbors. It eventually binds up the soil completely, taking nutrients and water. So I have what's called the rain gutter grow system- where the containers wick water from a source below it. And I have not moved the soil for a few years- just added compost to the top. No fertilizer, too. Just normal compost and worm castings that come from my back yard.

The idea is more to be cheap and lazy at the same time- it also turns out to be nicely organic.

 

[leswp1]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

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

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

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.

 

[leswp1]

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

 

[MichVandal]

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.

 

[dxmnkd316]

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.

 

[leswp1]

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.

 

[dxmnkd316]

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

 

[dxmnkd316]

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.

 

[leswp1]

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.

 

[dxmnkd316]

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

 

[leswp1]

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

 

[dxmnkd316]

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.

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

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

fml I need to go there again tomorrow

 

[dxmnkd316]

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 shit 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

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

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.