Gardening

gagrice · August 2008

My wife says I can build a fancy greenhouse when our other home sells, soon I hope. I want to try some of that fancy hydroponic growing. My wife spent time in Israel in the early 90s. She said they grew the greatest tomatoes and cucumbers in greenhouses.

gagrice · September 2008

Starting last week the bees have taken over the hummingbird feeders. Some have a slightly bigger hole for the Orioles to feed through. The bees seem to be able to get nectar that way. Still going through about a gallon a day feeding hundreds of hummingbirds.

Karen_S · September 2008

Ew. Do the hummers even use that feeder with all those bees?

You should try this kind of feeder. You can get rubber tips for them that the bees can't get into.

gagrice · September 2008

The bees do bother them a bit. They still manage to get in and get fed. I use one of that flat type also. The bees cannot get in those holes. I have several feeders that have the standard size holes that bees don't bother. I was just amazed yesterday when I went out and so many had clustered on that one feeder.

Karen_S · September 2008

I haven't seen any hummers for over a week, so I guess they have started migrating. IIRC, they were still around well into October last year. Wonder if that means we're in for a bad winter?

gagrice · September 2008

Mine started their heavy congregating almost a month early here in San Diego. I still have a lot of them. I get a few that hang around all year. I am thinking early winter also.
The Orioles come around off and on all year. I quit feeding all but the hummingbirds, orioles and goldfinches on my deck. The rest are so messy. I toss a can of feed out on the ground for the sparrows, quail and doves everyday.

ateixeira · October 2008

Finally getting some. Not a lot, but at least the garden was not a total loss.

stever · October 2008

The tomato plants I planted didn't do squat. One volunteer sprung up last month and I've gotten a cup or two of cherry tomatoes from it.

okko1 · October 2008

well i don't know why but in the last three weeks my pepper plant have lost their minds. i am getting 8-10 bells off 2 plants a week. the anahiems that one plant is producing is about about the same. the hungarians are definitly in the lead though. this is the most productive they have been all year. i will probably take some to the market saturday morning to trade for some tomatoes or beans. good gardening to you all

ateixeira · October 2008

Lucky duck!

I got a few more 'maters and one good cucumber, but my plants are fizzling out with this cold weather.

I picked up a garden claw on clearance for less than 2 bucks, anyone ever use those to aerate their soil? Hope it works.

Didn't cost me much if it doesn't, at least.

gagrice · October 2008

I use one of those hand claws a lot to keep our hard soil from packing too hard. Just planted some winter tomatoes. Hope we get a few before it gets a hard frost. Our tomatoes have started a second crop. Not as nice as the first. Also planted swiss chard. If you plant enough stuff you get a little before the bunnies and squirrels eat it all. We did have a nice crop of Fuji apples. Filled one drawer in the crisper. Pears are just getting ripe. I think my experiment with straw bales will be my last. I did get good tomatoes and Zucchini squash. The bails are just about disintegrated and falling down. I may try packing straw with dirt in half barrels. The plastic type. We use them a lot.

stever · October 2008

The straw bales didn't work out for me. It's too hot here for any kind of raised bed I think.

We have feral bunnies (and wild hares) in the yard, but not enough of them to be a nuisance.

gagrice · October 2008

They require a lot of water and dry out in our heat too quickly.

gagrice · November 2008

We tossed one sweet potato eye in a corner of the garden this summer. I just dug it all up and here was our surprise. The vines were also very pretty ground cover all summer with flowers that look like morning glories. Our regular potatoes did not do so well. Also shook the walnut tree again and picked up a good basket of walnuts. I cracked enough the other night for a great batch of oatmeal date nut cookies. So good warm with vanilla ice cream on them.

Steve,
I think I will pass on the straw bails next year. Plastic barrels cut in half seem to work better in our weather. I imagine the dry heat is much like your area. Got to go plant pansies in the garden for color this winter....

stever · November 2008

Yep, gonna go back to planting in the sand here next summer.

Those sweet 'taters look more like Garnet Yams to me. :shades:

We got about two dozen walnuts off our little tree that's about 3 years old.

ray80 · November 2008

My veggie garden this year was a total bust. Way to much rain here and the area I have it in has gotten way to shady over the years. Glad I didn't spend to much effort on it.

On a brighter note (in more ways then one) while wandering around a graden center in June, I happened upon some cactus plants in with the regular perennial stuff. Thought that was interesting so I had to buy and plant one outside. Being curiuos kind of person I had to do some net sufring and to my surprise I found it this species is actually a native in Connecticut (never knew that and never found any in my wanderings). Looking around some more I found a post by somone in michigan mentioning article in my local paper about a place where some have been found and I ended up taking a hike up to the top of a ridgeline to find them (kind of rugged ugly rocky place, but they manage somehow). I ended up knocking down a 50 or 60 year old badly leaning oak tree to give my newly aquired cacti ( and a few others I have obtained since) more sun plus I can try again next year to get some veggies in this new spot.

stever · November 2008

That's fun - we "harvested" a lone prickly pear "fig" last month and ate it.

ray80 · November 2008

I may try that someday, If I can get them to survive our cold/wet winters here. Hopefuly I will also remember about glochids (couple times already I have been skewered and had the couple weeks of minor skin irritation that accompamies it). The last of the specimens I have that were standing up to cool weather we have had so far has sucummed to the temps in teens at night the past couple days and is becoming desiccated for the winter.

stever · November 2008

The prickly's don't seem too bad that way although the books say to watch for them around the base. You can get the pads in the grocery stores around here so they must not be too awful.

My wife likes succulents but they don't much like our winters either. The cow blinders and horse cripplers died the first winter. :shades:

gagrice · December 2008

I built a temporary hot house for tomatoes and greens this winter. Wife says I cannot build my big fancy greenhouse till our other home sells. That could be a while in this market.

Anyone know what kind of cactus this is? It keeps making these star like flowers.

stever · December 2008

Looks like one of these:

Carrion Flower is one of the Stapeliads, a plant group from Africa whose odoriferous nectar mimics the stench of dead animals.

Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History

ateixeira · December 2008

Neat. Q: why white plastic, vs. clear?

gagrice · December 2008

That is what I had a roll of in the shed. Main purpose is to keep the cold night air out. It is fairly heavy stuff so it does not get ripped up during the winter winds.

gagrice · December 2008

That sure looks like it. I will have to go out and smell it tomorrow. The flowers lay flat on the ground. Those others in my picture have not opened up yet. They look like little hats. That is one of about 30 different cactus that was planted here when we bought the place. It must like where it is planted as it is loaded with flowers. It is covering a fairly large spot of the cactus garden. Another link:

http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t6704.html

gagrice · March 2009

I found a bunch of Peruvian Purple potatoes at a ranch market. Most of them had eyes, which is what I wanted. The Produce manager sold me the lot of them for a fraction of the normal price. I have planted a lot and plan on planting more. They taste just like regular potatoes. Though they are very high in anti-oxidants. Plus they are resistant to many diseases and pests. I will let you know how my crop comes out this fall. They make a very unique potato salad. The hit of the party.

gagrice · March 2009

This dark eyed junco pic was taken from my chair in front of my computer. I have built a place the birds like just a few feet from a picture window in my office. Life is good in spite of the crappy economy. I have planted lots of flowers that are just starting to look good.

ateixeira · March 2009

I've seen those, but never tried them. So they taste the same, eh?

gagrice · March 2009

I don't think you could tell the difference blindfolded. The skins are very tender like a small red potato. My picture is bigger than life. That potato is only 3" long. Kind of like the peanut potatoes. I will plant a lot of them to see how they do. With a price of $4 per pound they may be the best bang for my garden space. No regular potatoes this year. Some sweet potatoes as they did very well last year.

No straw bales this year, just large plastic drums cut in half for things that need to be up to keep out the bunnies.

I also planted two semi dwarf Fuji apple trees and another type apricot. Plums are in full bloom and one peach tree. Figs are all leafed out. Just hoping we don't get a late frost and kill stuff.

PS
The Purple goes all the way through and they do not bleed their color.

ateixeira · March 2009

I'm not even in gardening mode yet.

Hoops season is done so I'll have my weekends back.

sky23213 · March 2009

We planted our tomato seeds today. We hope to have strong enough plants by early May that we will then plant outside. This will get us, hopefully, a few summer months of our own tomatoes. The last few years we were always late and did not get to harvest any until August. Now that my wife is done with Law School she can set aside more time. Last year we did not get any tomatoes until August.
Gagrice I just read all the posts from last summer, very interesting, too bad I could not add our experience, since most probably we are in the same state. Very interesting though!
Gagrice, I wonder how your plum brandy turned out!? That's one of my favorite, but have to order it from out of state. My dad makes his own grape brandy, and he's pretty good at it.
We have our tomato seeds sent to us from our home country by my wife's dad. He has quite a yard. Last year we had some tomatoes that were over a pound each. I will try and post a picture in the next few days. We have had pretty good luck with the tomato plants, almost all that we grow survive and then when we plant them they produce pretty well, even if for only a couple of months. We also planted a few cucumber and zucchini plants with mixed success. Unfortunately, we live in a "nice" neighborhood so we are a little limited in expanding.

gagrice · March 2009

I see you are in MN? I am in San Diego. I do still own a farm near Long Prairie, MN. It is my insurance against a total collapse of the government. It is rented to a neighbor that farms the land.

We just planted 6 Tomato plants. Better Boy salad tomatoes. It is still cool at night slight bit of frost on the ground. They seem to be ok. I would like to start some heritage tomatoes from seed. Our plan is to build a large heated green house when we sell our other home here. Then use that for my tropical plants and starting seeds in the winter.

We are planting most things in 55 gallon plastic barrels cut in half. It is harder for the squirrels and rabbits to get into. My big thing this year is planting purple potatoes. I have them in containers and in our big garden to see how they do. We will also grow sweet potatoes as they did very well last year. Our plum brandy is so good on ice cream. Our friends even bring ice cream when they visit. My wife made some bread and puts some of the peaches out of the peach brandy. It was so moist like a coffee cake almost. I only drink small amounts of the brandy as it is very sweet. best on pound cake or ice cream.

We also planted Japanese cucumbers. My wife likes them the best and they are expensive in the stores. I just planted a blood orange tree for my wife. She had one at our other house and likes them also. We are getting this place in pretty fair shape. The plums are in full bloom and look better than last year. We have peaches about 3/4 " long on one of the peach trees the other is just starting to bloom. I love this time of year.

I wish you the best of luck with your garden. Where is your home country?

sky23213 · March 2009

Ah, I had the feeling that the little greenhouse was not in MN, just too cold yet.

I just heard there was a flood warning in the county where Long Prairie is. Actually, I thought is was much closer to the Twin Cities. I hope everything works out and the farm is not affected by the floods!

I never thought of plum brandy on ice cream

The one we get is by order from a store out state that imports it. My dad makes his own,but mainly grape brandy.

My home country is Bulgaria. We manage to get seeds for some plants, tomatoes and cucumbers mainly, but haven't had luck with cucumbers that much. We planted two in improvised flower beds by the house and I think three more in a pot and let them crawl up on ties cross-tied on the deck posts. That was I believe two years ago and only the ones by the house rewarded us with some veggies. Last year as far as I remember we tried zucchini and they were OK.
We just moved out some of the pots outside, we planted garlic for green top garlic, which unlike green top onion is not sold at stores.
When I figure out how to post pictures, I'll post some.
Good Luck!

stever · March 2009

If you run out of brandy, try some high quality Italian balsamic vinegar on your vanilla ice cream.

Trust me. :shades:

Mr_Shiftright · March 2009

Somebody gave me a lovely orchid plant last year. I've taken great care of it and the plant looks healthy and lush---but after the first bloom it never gave orchids again.

I'm wondering--do they like a tight pot or a lot of room in the pot?

sky23213 · March 2009

Never thought of it, really. My wife tends to put some kind of liqueur on the sundaes she makes, but it's mainly Baileys. No way I'm wasting the good stuff!

And in my house there's no such thing like running out of liquor

ray80 · March 2009

I now next to nothing about them, but perhaps this will help:
link titleflower help

Mr_Shiftright · March 2009

GEEZ -- these things are little prima-donnas aren't they? Not too much, not too little, a bit to the left, a bit to the right, don't touch me there, you're standing in my light, ouch, ouch, don't press too hard, my pot's too big, my pot's too small, my pot's too medium...

I'm going to try the re-potting route. Thanks for that link.It was actually quite helpful.

gagrice · March 2009

I learned enough about orchids to stay away from them when I bought my anthurium farm in Hilo Hawaii. Not only are they hard to get to bloom. They like specific elevation. Some species that will bloom at the 1300 foot level will not bloom at sea level. There are some orchid growers here in San Diego that do very well. I have never gotten one to bloom the second time. Most of the orchids sold today are cloned. That is why the prices have gone down so dramatically. I really like orchids. I have a lot of respect for folks that get them to bloom year after year. I try to get up to the Wild Animal Park when the Orchid club displays there. Good luck

PS
I watched a re-potting demo at the Wild Animal Park one year. It does seem that is part of the secret to good blooms. I will try again when I get my fancy greenhouse built.

gagrice · March 2009

Plum and Peach brandy with the chopped up fruit is great on ice cream. Makes Vanilla ice cream edible and then some.

Our neighbors in Long Prairie raised cucumbers for commercial pickles. They would end up with too many big ones and we ate more cucumbers than I like to think about. The little ones bring the best price.

I could not find any news on flooding. I will have to call back there and check. Our farm is right on the Long Prairie River. We have about 50 acres of low land while the rest is up quite a bit higher. I have not been to visit the place in 25 years. They say it is changed a lot as I planted 3000 blue spruce around the property for Christmas trees then went back to Alaska. They should be pretty good sized by now.

Hope you get loads of Tomatoes. They are so good for us men. I eat at least one a day as they are cheap here most of the year.

sky23213 · April 2009

My lovely wife finally helped me load the picture of the tomato. You may see we are a little limited for space, but it's still pretty and we get some tomatoes. On the left are the plants, fully grown. They've completely covered the supporting structure which I enhance every year.

pat · April 2009

Wow. Beautiful tomato and gorgeous little girl!!

gagrice · April 2009

Wow, I would love to get tomatoes like that. And you do have a lovely daughter as well. Is that from this year or last? Mine are just about 2 feet tall and getting blossoms. Our weather has been so crazy this year. We had record lows last week and set record highs the last 3 days here. At 95 degrees everything dries out so fast. Only 15% humidity.

stever · April 2009

Record highs? It's global... oops wrong discussion.

Last frost date here is May 10, so I'm not in any hurry. Plus my neighbor put in a huge (well huge to me) raised bed garden and he's going to have lots of cherry tomatoes. I used to share mine with him so he owes me.

I think the raised bed is a mistake in our hot climate, but he does have automatic sprinklers on it.

He gave me the deer in the headlights look when I asked him if he was going to fence the bed off to keep the deer out. :shades:

gagrice · April 2009

No reason to fence the deer out. Just pop them and make some great venison tacos and enchiladas. They cannot be much worse than the squirrels and rabbits around here. I have killed about 6 squirrels in the last week. Got two rabbits.

You are right about raised beds using more water. I have about half my tomatoes in plastic barrels cut in half. The rest in two separate gardens.

My purple potatoes planted in Miracle Grow potting soil are already about a foot tall. The ones in the garden are just coming up. I transplanted out of the gallon pots into the garden. I have about 20 purple potato plants of the two different varieties I found in the stores. My wife made purple potato salad for a gathering and it was a big hit.

I'll try to get pics of the plants in the next couple days.

Mr_Shiftright · April 2009

Well I got it into my head to dig up some friend's bamboo and re-plant it into pots so it wouldn't go hog wild.

This is not as easy as it sounds. I did separate the root system as instructed and got three bunches into pots, but they look pretty sorry after 2 days. Maybe they'll perk up?

Maybe I should have just bought some, but MAN bamboo, even in 5 gal pots, is not CHEAP--- a 6 foot bunch could set you back $60 bucks!

ateixeira · April 2009

Those purple 'taters are soooo cool, I'm not surprised.

Do you need to have really loose soil for potatoes to grow well?

stever · April 2009

It probably depends on what variety you have Shifty. We have some, er, yellow groove arrow iirc and something else and we've divided and moved both, both in the yard and in pots. Give 'em time; 2 days is nothing. It usually takes me a couple of weeks to kill something.

You should have been here a couple of years ago. None of our bamboo thrives and we dug up most of the smaller ones - probably a dozen plants - and gave them away on craigslist. I had to take the ad down almost immediately, and gave them to someone who lived near the river where they could find some water.

They aren't cheap to buy here either.

The purple taters never did much for me, but your kids would probably love 'em Juice. We grew Yukon Golds up north in a tilled raised bed, but it just seems silly to plant spuds in Idaho.

The kiddo across the street would come over every fall and help us dig them, starting when she was 9. It was like an Easter Egg hunt and a great memory maker. Especially when the kids grab onto a rotten one, lol.

Kirstie_H · April 2009

Wow, hard to believe the difference in different areas. I had bamboo that wouldn't stop growing and spreading. I tried to kill it by spraying it with high concentrations of various plant/shrub killers, but that just made it angrier and more resolved to continue in its quest for total yard domination.

I hird some people who spent a couple of days digging it out and making it go away. Just before I sold it, it started coming back. I was on the verge of buying a panda, as that seems the only way to get rid of it around here.

stever · April 2009

I know - my sister in VA tried to dig up a short bamboo variety along her driveway and it still comes back up every year. She sent me a bunch of the same plants and every last one croaked.

Mr_Shiftright · April 2009

sounds like a dysfunctional love affair--you just can't be mean enough.

Right now a panda would be ordering take out from my back yard. These re-planted bamboo look pretty sorry.

Okay I'll take heart that maybe this venture needs a few more weeks before we know if its successful or not.

Gardening

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