Gardening

Mr_Shiftright

It *could* be an alien lifeform that read the wrong books before coming here.

Have you tried talking to it?

ateixeira

Maybe the fertilizer he used came from northeastern Japan? Gary?

Karen_S

Wow. Is this tree close to your septic field? :shades:

gagrice

As a matter of fact it is not far from the septic tank. Hope the roots don't break it. We have been eating oranges and lemons from the tree for 3 years and no issues I know of. It does get watered by our drip system so I don't think the roots would get a lot from the Septic tank. It is at least 15 feet from the end where the leech field starts.

ateixeira

Start worrying if your hair starts glowing in the dark.

Mr_Shiftright

I still insist that that lemon looks intelligent and wants to communicate with us.

gagrice

Just went out and took pictures around the place. Looking good in spite of the very cool Spring weather. We had a late frost last week that had me worried with the fruit trees. Looks like they are fine. Same for all the flowers.


Dwarf Royal Apricot planted last Spring

Peaches

This is the most Cherry blossoms I have seen on these trees. Hope we get a good crop

Plum trees are loaded this year. Last year we did not get any before the critters got them.

Karen_S

I hope you net those cherry trees or the birds will have a feast!

gagrice

We may net some of the trees this year. Though the possums or squirrels got our plums last year. I think I have cut the squirrel population down pretty well. So I may set a trap for the possums. We got a pretty good share of the cherries last year. And a lot of peaches. The grapes are coming on nicely also. In 3 years I have yet to get a grape ripe enough to eat. I had them netted and ended up killing a couple doves that got tangled up. Netting can be a hassle and may not protect the fruit from all the critters.

stever

We were going to get some cuttings and divisions from my sister in Virgina the other day, but decided to come home via Canada and didn't think customs would approve. It's a bit early to transplant stuff here anyway.

While we were in Chattanooga, my wife found some potting soil for $1 a cubic foot. Claiming it runs $10 up here, she grabbed 3 bags and we got to haul them around for 1500 miles or so. Customs didn't mind that. Gardeners....

ateixeira

Gotta brag a little...

I have some beautiful cabbage coming up. We've had good rains and I planted early, so I have a nice head of romaine lettuce and 4 giant cabbages almost ready for harvest.

:shades:

On the other hand, I lost a few tomatoes to frost, and birds ate a couple of other seedlings I had put in the ground a few weeks ago.

Time to plant a few more.

gagrice

When my wife brought this one in I knew it was a heavy one. And it was very sweet and juicy. We have never had so many oranges. Still a quite a few left on the tree. The orange next to the scale is a large orange. Weigh a couple next time you are at the store and it will give you an idea how large a one pound 6oz orange really is.

ateixeira

Dunno if you sell those, but I've been eating oranges about that size for the past week or so. Yummy.

Reminds me to go look for more before they're out of season (wherever they supply them from).

gagrice

We don't sell anything. We just share with friends and family. We get avocados from a nephew and he gets our lemons. All works out for the good of all.

fezo

We don't sell anything. We just share with friends and family.

Hey, friend! How are those oranges doing?

Mr_Shiftright

on planning a garden?

gagrice

The oranges are doing better than expected this year. Our cool Spring seems to be what they like. Our Snow peas just now quit producing. About two months later than normal. We still have last season's oranges and lemons on the tree with this season's well on their way. Probably down to the last of them now. By then the peaches and plums should be ripe ready for my breakfast fruit fix. If I ever get off my butt on Edmund's and get my greenhouse built I should be providing almost all my produce. Maybe just in time with all the hassles associated with foreign produce.

gagrice

My advice is to plant what you like to eat that grows good in your area. And produce that is expensive in the stores. I think Snow Peas would be ideal in your area next winter. So good in salads and stir fry dishes. Of course home grown tomatoes seem so much better than store bought. I have found that Miracle Gro potting soil is about the best. I have tried a lot of brands. If you have a garden area mixing your compost in will do wonders for the crops. I read a lot of books and it comes down to trial and error for your given soil and weather conditions. Some magazines are good to read. I check the past issues of Backhome out from our library.

http://www.backhomemagazine.com/

Mr_Shiftright

Thanks for that.

I was also thinking about "garden planning" in general, and not only edibles.

PF_Flyer

Once everything grows in (been too wet to plant here) I'll have to take some pics of our garden. Rocks are a big crop for me every year and I've been using them to shore up the tiers I've sculpted into the slope. Helps keep the water in each level from running off. We borrowed the idea after visiting the gardens at Monticello

stever

My last house had an accidental "ha-ha" out front. Not quite on the scale of Monticello's though.

gagrice

All you Need to Know about Government Bureaucracy:

** Pythagorean theorem: .................................................... 24 words.
** Lord's prayer:..................................................................... . 66 words.
** Archimedes' Principle: ................................................... 67 words.
** 10 Commandments: ....................................................... 179 words.
** Gettysburg address: ....................................................... 286 words.
** Declaration of Independence : ..........................................1,300 words.
** US Constitution with all 27 Amendments : ........................ 7,818 words.

** US Government regulations on sale of cabbage: ............. 26,911 words.

PUTS THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE, DOESN'T IT.

Mr_Shiftright

True, but there are no parasites on the Gettyburg address :P

stever

Funny that the same number of words is used by the French to regulate the sale of duck eggs, and EEC directives on the sale of caramel and caramel products also just happens to take 26,911 words.

Snopes thinks the story is a bunch of rutabagas. :P

We got lettuce planted. The neighbors to the south have cherry tomatoes going on their deck. The neighbors to the east have Early Girls started. I'm covered.

gagrice

It sounded so authentic. And came from a sweet 85 year old lady that would never tell a lie. The Snopes piece is even more entertaining than the email. Glad I did not send it out. Just seemed to fit the whole gardening thread so nicely. Guess I'll continue to buy cabbage. Too many rabbits to raise such greens.

stever

I'm beginning to understand how Bernie Madoff got away with his scam for twenty years. :-)

gagrice

Madoff is a newcomer to Ponzi schemes. The first use of such schemes in the USA was by a fellow named Charles Ponzi in the first part of the 20th century. Then FDR liked the idea so much he started Social Security based on the same principle. And every MLM scheme is essentially the same. All based on getting something for nothing.

Which leads to gardening. You put a little insignificant seed in the ground. Let the rain and sun do the work and in a few months you get something for nothing. Well a little work may be involved. :shades:

stever

What I inferred, but didn't really say about my neighbor's tomato plants is how I'm covered.

Around here, when veggies disappear from people's gardens, we blame it on raccoons. Wink, nudge. :shades:

Off topic a bit, but there's a small "summer" place two blocks away on the beach road - been empty all winter. Underneath the east deck, a vixen has four kit foxes. They come out to play mornings and evenings.

Mr_Shiftright

I'm a little too near the coast for certain plants and veggies. I even have to be careful on the kind of bamboo that I've potten around the yard.

Nah, Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme or anything like it. SS has cash reserves in abundance (1.4 Trillion), insuring solvency until 2036, and can pay 78 percent of obligations after that just from payroll taxes, projected until 2078, even if we change nothing until 2078.

There's a lot of misinformation, and lack of clarity on SS debate right now, much of it disseminated by...well...you know the players.

But....it's not "broke" nor close to broke AND you can count on it while you are retired and GARDENING in the year 2078, for all you people planning to be born in 2013 :P

gagrice

I think you are a bit more optimistic than I am. Though I am not too worried about it for myself. I planned for the time it is not there. If I am wrong it will continue to make my mortgage payment the next 29 years.

I do have several back up plans which all include growing a lot of my own food. From fish to zucchini.

Forbes says before 2037. I would be 94 and not likely still around.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/29/board-of-trustees-personal-finance-retirement-s- aving-social-security.html

Mr_Shiftright

I think Forbes is wrong. They aren't reading the trustees report, they are *changing* it to match their assumptions.

I like your idea about growing some of your own food. I think this is an excellent idea for any number of reasons---for your health if nothing else--and then as a source of barter perhaps.

people always start in with me about "buying gold" just in case things go horribly wrong...and I keep telling them....NO NO.... buy *SPAM*....cases and cases of it.

You can't eat gold.

Farmers lived pretty well for instance, in wartime England and Germany during rationing.

fezo

I like the planting what you like that grows in your area. I might have to move to Florida yet...

I'm just, after much procrastinating, putting raspberries in. I had them at the last house but that was years ago. They grow like weeds here and cost a bunch at the store.

Before they started building like mad around here I never had to buy a blueberry. They grow wild here. I used to grab them from teh woods while walking the dog.

stever

Thornless? We had some great thornless raspberries up north and they were very tasty, and easy to get to. We're back in berry country - looking forward to the U-Pick blueberry farm this fall, with both wild and cultivated blueberries.

I heard about the place while in the barber's chair. Someone came in and they got to talking about this blueberry farm that they had first visited the previous fall. Not knowing any better, they raked in a couple of buckets of berries. Went to check out and found out that they had collected 40 pounds in less than an hour (sounded like they were using 5 gallon buckets!). They said they froze well. :-)

Mr_Shiftright

What would you plant if you actually wanted a garden to *seriously* supplement your food supply? I don't think one could waste too much energy on things like berries. Most fruits seem to take a lot of time and/or effort. I guess some apple trees would be nice for the longterm.

I've never grown a potato--can't be that hard, right?

stever

We grew a lot of Yukon Golds up in Anchorage, but it's about cheaper to buy them (that's probably true for most stuff, but you control the seed and the fertilizer and what may get sprayed on them). But yeah, easy.

Best bang for buck is probably growing your own herbs (and in our case, cut flowers are a bigger attraction than veggies).

Not a lot of experience with berries, but the raspberries needed fall thinning. Other than that, you just picked the fruit. We had so many in our alley we just hung a "free" sign on the bushes.

We have two pears and an apple here that have been pruned and wired up to within an inch of their lives. I don't like messing with sprays, but everyone says you need to if you want to get a decent crop. I'll settle for what the birds and worms leave me.

My wife recommends flowers and lettuces, kale and spinach for the Bay area; they like the cool fogs. Asparagus is easy if you have the room and like the look and don't mind waiting a few years for the first decent crops (some people think they look too weedy for a yard). May not be hot enough there. Brussels sprouts and artichokes should do good there.

Check out a used book store for a Sunset Western Gardening book; even the "out of date" ones would be a good resource.

Mr_Shiftright

Those are good tips, thanks. As for potatoes, have you ever shopped for them at Whole Foods? Yikes! Not so cheap, some of them.

I don't think I could live on rosemary and basil though. :P

stever

C'mon Joe, from where I live, I'm lucky to get to a Whole Foods once a year. Trader Joe's maybe once every 3 years. There are a couple of food coops around with Whole Foods prices, if not the selection.

Guess we got spoiled in Boise. Cheap spuds. Don't really eat a whole lot of them. There are lots of "garbage can" methods for intensive growing of potatoes that don't take much room and supposedly work well.

Mostly I'm too lazy to harvest the crops and put food by. We unplugged the freezer that was left here and prepping food for canning or freezing (if you have to blanch) can easily turn into an all day project. Rather grow perennials and lie in the hammock.

Mr_Shiftright

Gee, cheap potatoes in Idaho. Who would have guessed? :P

I don't usually shop Whole Foods, unless I can't get good clean food elsewhere (which I usually can). I just don't want to eat some of that poison they are selling in supermarkets.

ateixeira

** US Government regulations on sale of cabbage: ............. 26,911 words.


Funny!

I have 3 beautiful heads of cabbage but I'm waiting for that ball to appear in the middle. Right now all I have are giant leaves.

Are they getting too much sun and opening up too much?

The funny thing is - I'm on topic! LOL

Kirstie_H

We don't have a Whole Paycheck Foods anywhere near here either.

I just read an article on best bang-for-your-buck stuff to plant. It was an article on building your own gardening box, what kind of soil/medium to use, and what does well. We ended up building our own that same day.

Pretty logical - the article suggested planting stuff that is expensive in stores. We have a bunch of tomatoes and a variety of colored peppers. This is the first year I've done lettuce, and that is FANTASTIC if you like salads. It grows fairly quickly, no maintenance, and you can plant seed continuously. I've got some ready for harvest in about a week, and another round ready in a month. I'll replant when I harvest.

I do herbs too - basil, oregano, rosemary, parsley, cilantro, and peppermint. I keep these all in pots on a little corner stand I bought. They're low-maintenance too. I have a pretty brown thumb, so low-maintenance is a must.

I've seen some decent garden planning books in Home Depot, but nothing really looked like it would work in my backyard - I have almost zero shade. For tree/shrub/flower planting, next year I'll likely buy a pre-planned garden kit from somewhere like Michigan Bulb Company: http://michiganbulb.com/category.asp_Q_c_E_6_A_Gardens+Collections_E_
and just plant as pictured.

Mr_Shiftright

Yes definitely lettuce and colored peppers--that sounds like a good suggestion.

I don't care if my veggies or fruits cost more than at the store, because they'll probably taste better.

The food at Whole Foods isn't even all that good---they have a lot of junk in that store, no matter what their corporate image.

gagrice

For those that want the straight scoop on "ORGANIC" produce should read Pollan's book the Omnivore's Dilemma. When the FDA got involved in the Organic Food Production industry, it went Downhill fast. If you can buy at farmer's markets from people you get to know that do in fact grow their produce, you will be a lot better off. It may be short lived as local governments try to shut down these small farmers under every pretense imaginable.

City of Oakland Shuts Down Novella Carpenter's Farmstand

In certain gastronomic circles, Novella Carpenter is well known as one of the top urban farmers in the Bay Area. Having studied under Michael Pollen at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, she penned the lovely Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, which well received by fans and critics alike. So, we're a bit saddened and surprised to see that, as of this week, the city of Oakland shut down her farmstand for bogus "illegal activities."

I sit down at my kitchen table and I see this guy in a City of Oakland car taking photos of my garden. I go down and he said I’m out of compliance for “agricultural activities”. I’m supposed to get a Conditional Use Permit for growing chard. The annual fee: $2500.

http://sfist.com/2011/03/30/city_of_oakland_shuts_down.php

I guess you expect that kind treatment living in a hotbed of liberals. :shades:

Kirstie_H

I buy my pepper plants from a local garden shop - sometimes it's hard to start them from seed and get them strong enough to plant in the ground, unless you start super early.

Lettuce? I just get a packet of mixed variety seeds and plant them straight in the ground. About a dollar's worth of seeds will last me all spring/summer/fall.

Mr_Shiftright

Well someone filed a complaint against her with the animal control department. It's not political--it's a neighbor dispute, obviously.

I mean, if someone decided to raise pigs next to me, I wouldn't be all that happy, or if say they were doing something to attract tons of mosquitos (open ponds--whatever).

Oakland isn't particularly liberal. Very high crime rate, and also a huge port used for much of our overseas military shipments. This city has struggled for decades--mix of light and heavy industrial, poverty and affluence. A real hodge-podge that place. You'd best know where you are driving.

It's the neighbor Berkeley that's the bastion of the over the top lefties. :shades:

stever

I read that she was selling rabbit dinners for $8 and that made some bunny lover mad, ergo the complaint.

Caught a bus at 10 pm after watching an Oakland Seals hockey game in '69. Right across from the Panther's headquarters. :shades:

Lettuce and orach is coming up. And the pears and apple tree buds have set fruit.

gagrice

Doing a little more research, it seems the property she is using for her farm is commercial, not residential. Looks like a garden on commercial property was illegal even though they gave her a license. She plans to take off the summer while the legal stuff is sorted out. From reading her blog she does not know who turned her in or why. She does not sell meat, eggs, or milk. She only raises animals for her own use and consumption. So I think there are some politics involved.

With a big sigh of relief, I turned in my Conditional Use Permit to the City of Oakland. I’ve been told that it will take 6-8 weeks for them to review my plans, and then I might just be legal. Based on my experiences with bureacracy, I’m sure it won’t be that easy. Oh, and for those wondering, how much did the CUP cost? $2858.13.

http://ghosttownfarm.wordpress.com/

Remember it is Northern CA, where they bash your door in at 6AM to try and collect on student loans.

stever

Was reading her blog (or something) the other day and it sounded like she was having more fun when she was illegally squatting on that abandoned lot. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to go legit.

The high was in the mid-50s today. Now you know why we don't plant eggplant and squash.

Mr_Shiftright

as they should collect. It didn't say "grant" it said "loan".

I go to the San Francisco farmer's market now and then at the Ferry Building and while it is expensive there, they have some wonderful things. Last time I got "virgin" eggs from new hens (their first try), some gorgeous fresh lettuce and the best ever cherries. It's always a revelation when one eats actually "fresh" food. There's nothing like it.

gagrice

Ahh, fresh eggs. We have a lady in our church now from Switzerland. She has chickens that lay brown and green eggs. We trade our fruit for her eggs. The chickens run loose over about half an acre so I guess they are range chickens. The eggs are wonderful. Dark orange yoke that stands at attention. I am trying to develop a cooperative system in our church. People are bringing more and more fruit and vegetables to share with each other. We shared a whole bushel of avocados last Sunday. We eat a lot of avocados year round here.

We have some yellow pear tomatoes that are just getting ripe. The vine came up by our compost pile. It is huge and I have it tied up to horse fencing. That makes it easier to reach through to get the fruit.

fezo

Guess we got spoiled in Boise. Cheap spuds.

That's like my brother up in Portland, ME. They practically give away lobster up there.