A Gardening Thread

[Toth]

This morning I spotted three little cacti sprouting in my pot. This is going to get interesting.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

A lot of recent rain has made my tomatoes large and red. 

And the banana peppers are having a second run, which is nice. I've got a lot of jalapeños, but they're still mostly pretty small. Grow you little bastards, grow!  

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Well, my cantaloupe are coming in, which is fun though the watermelon appear to be a lost cause.  I also have so many butternut squash (again).  The tomatoes are off the hook.  Already made one batch of the jam which is SO GOOD.  Also plenty of green beans, which is nice.

On the pepper front, my yellow bells refuse to yellow.  My lunchbox are nicely oranging up though.  The shishitos are ok ish.  My okra is really not happy where I put them.  Oh well.  Next year.

Separately, my dahlias are blooming and OMG I love them so so very much.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Overall this has been a pretty successful summer. Almost every plant did its fair share even if the tomatoes were a bit slow. I think I only bought peppers one or two times from the store and I've still got over 100 in the garden though more than half of them are small chili peppers. Plucked four tomatoes out of the garden recently and there must be at least a dozen more left that look good.

I'm going to try and plant some pumpkins soon, but I think I waited too long. When they grow right the plant is hilarious. It can completely takeover a section of the garden. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Made some salsa from stuff only coming from the garden except for an onion and a lime. This shit is so hot and tasty. I'm about to make chicken kabobs with a ton of different peppers from the garden and another onion (one will also have these small tomatoes I tried growing). The ingredients have been marinating in a mix of the salsa, olive oil, lime juice, honey and dumpling sauce for hours. This is going on the grill soon and will be awesome. 

[Tears of Lys]

I have to pick my tomatoes not quite ripe, as the cardinals have developed a taste for them.  Blast you red birdies!  

My peppers haven't done much.  Got one, I think.  

[Mlle. Zabzie]

On 9/2/2023 at 2:29 PM, Tywin et al. said:

Overall this has been a pretty successful summer. Almost every plant did its fair share even if the tomatoes were a bit slow. I think I only bought peppers one or two times from the store and I've still got over 100 in the garden though more than half of them are small chili peppers. Plucked four tomatoes out of the garden recently and there must be at least a dozen more left that look good.

I'm going to try and plant some pumpkins soon, but I think I waited too long. When they grow right the plant is hilarious. It can completely takeover a section of the garden. 

At least in NY for most varietals, I think you are too late on pumpkins.  Don’t know about where you are.  I have a pretty decent size jackolantern going, but I planted the vine in June.  I expect it to be ripe in early October. 90-120 days is the usual.

[Tears of Lys]

I grew pumpkins a few years.  Most satisfying to see the big orange globes lolling about in the sun.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

27 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

At least in NY for most varietals, I think you are too late on pumpkins.  Don’t know about where you are.  I have a pretty decent size jackolantern going, but I planted the vine in June.  I expect it to be ripe in early October. 90-120 days is the usual.

Yeah, the interwebs says you've got to get them in by June. NY is a pretty good comp for growing seasons. The weather in the spring, summer and fall is pretty similar to Minneapolis, both in temp and humidity. Our winters are just a bit nastier, but strangely the city doesn't get it that bad compared to the rural areas. It barely snows here. We mainly get the horrible cold wind. Anyways, I'm going to see if I can buy something that's been growing already, but I'll probably have to wait until next year. Lesson learned. 

Was playing around in the garden a bit ago. Pulled out four more perfect looking tomatoes (except some woodland creature decided to take a bite out of one of them). While looking closer one pepper plant that I thought only had a few more left on it has a ton on the other side, so that's cool.  

[Mlle. Zabzie]

18 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Yeah, the interwebs says you've got to get them in by June. NY is a pretty good comp for growing seasons. The weather in the spring, summer and fall is pretty similar to Minneapolis, both in temp and humidity. Our winters are just a bit nastier, but strangely the city doesn't get it that bad compared to the rural areas. It barely snows here. We mainly get the horrible cold wind. Anyways, I'm going to see if I can buy something that's been growing already, but I'll probably have to wait until next year. Lesson learned. 

Was playing around in the garden a bit ago. Pulled out four more perfect looking tomatoes (except some woodland creature decided to take a bite out of one of them). While looking closer one pepper plant that I thought only had a few more left on it has a ton on the other side, so that's cool.  

If you want to do fall, I think you can do cruciferous veggies, spinach, turnips, carrots, things like that.  It's also the time to plant garlic if that's something you are into.

I don't usually do fall veggies - too busy to really pay attention and it never works out for me.  I do put in bulbs and prune heavily where appropriate.

[Spockydog]

21 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

I have to pick my tomatoes not quite ripe, as the cardinals have developed a taste for them.  Blast you red birdies!  

My peppers haven't done much.  Got one, I think.  

One of the items on our R&D schedule would have saved your tommies from the cardinals.

The Lazyframe is basically the shape of an A-frame, like a child's swing set, but instead of swings, there's a simple pulley system, attached to plants growing through multiple Lazyscrog devices.

I designed this to provide a hanging option for outdoor growers using Smart Pots and Airpots. One of the main, serendipitous benefits of this, is the ability for Lazyscrogged plants to spend their entire lives raised off the ground, completely eradicating the threat of ground-borne pests. 

These Lazyframes will range in size, from garden sized rigs, all the way up to large-scale agricultural rigs, spanning fields. 

People are telling me that this is a potential game-changer for pesticide reduction. 

ETA: Thought you were referring to cardinal beetles. Ain't nothing I can do to protect your crops from the birdies.... 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Spockydog

[Tears of Lys]

There's a mated pair who visit every morning and every night.  I've tried netting, but once a bird got trapped in it, so I just let them have a tomato now.  

But I can't handle it when they just take a bite out of one and then leave it!  It's insulting.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

10 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

There's a mated pair who visit every morning and every night.  I've tried netting, but once a bird got trapped in it, so I just let them have a tomato now.  

But I can't handle it when they just take a bite out of one and then leave it!  It's insulting.

I have slugs and snails, which are worse because they don’t even provide the joy of bright birding.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

If you want to do fall, I think you can do cruciferous veggies, spinach, turnips, carrots, things like that.  It's also the time to plant garlic if that's something you are into.

I don't usually do fall veggies - too busy to really pay attention and it never works out for me.  I do put in bulbs and prune heavily where appropriate.

Spinach, carrots and garlic are all things I eat regularly. I'll have to look into this tomorrow or the day after. 

[Spockydog]

I'm sure many of you are aware of my plans for world botanical domination.

My company, Lazyscrog Technologies, is officially launching this summer. As part of our launch program, we will, for the first time ever, be putting Lazyscrogs into the hands of strangers - a select group of gardeners, who will form two distinct, official Lazyscrog pilot groups:

- Growers of Weed (in jurisdictions where the process is legal)

- Experienced Growers of Fruit and Vegetables (ideally tomatoes, capsicums, or cucumbers)

We hope to provide our pilot users with as much equipment as possible. Seeds, lights, tents, nutrients, etc. I'm currently in discussion with a number of companies with regards to sponsoring these pilot programs.

The majority of our cannabis group is being pulled from r/growbuddies. This is one of the most supportive and collaborative weed growing communities I've found. I've teamed up with the subreddit's owner, who will help identify our pilot users.

The food group is being pulled together from all over the place. I already have some users who are going to try hydroponic peppers and tomatoes.

So - is anyone here up for joining? I'm not just looking for hydroponics growers. Fans of soil-based methods are welcome to join, too.

I should point out that it's not going to be a case of, "Okay here's the kit see you in twelve months."

No. This will be a formal, highly structured pilot program. There will be a series of online meetings and training sessions, to get people set up and comfortable with the technology and methodology. There will be ongoing, regular calls, where everyone gives progress updates, etc. We're probably looking at about three to four months participation, over summer and into Autumn.

For that, you will get to spend hours and hours in the company of a mad, visionary genius. You will, however, get to keep any kit that I send you. It could turn out to be worth a few quid.

Edited January 22 by Spockydog

[Toth]

I just realized I never gave an update on my dragon fruit cacti. Well: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/988019526346092544/1173590503372095608/20231113_124753.jpg

I have a whole army of these now. Not sure when I'll dare to put the rest of them into separate pots... Of the three I repotted early on, one of them died.

I had also planted four sweet chestnuts again, but again they looked really bad during winter. Fortunately two of them just got new leaves, but unfortunately the other two seem to have died.

Mmh... in the meantime I ended up doing a stupid yesterday again. But... I hope this time will work. Last year I did dabble a bit more with non-fruit trees, mainly planting acorn, beechnut and maple seeds... except one tiny decrepit acorn none of them sprouted and the acorn died during winter. On my way to work they cut down a whole bunch of really old oak trees to add a lane to a road and saddened about it as I was, I noticed that the ground around the stump was covered with acorns, some of them having already germinated and desperately trying to take root. I grabbed two of them, as well as one maple seed that I found that had already taken successfully taken root and now planted them in the pots of my last attempt. I'm particularly crossing my fingers I can make the acorns grow...

My date palm army is all fine, btw.

 

[Tears of Lys]

Spocky, is this strictly grow under lights?  If not, I'd sure have to wait until at least June hereabouts to grow anything but seed starts.

 

[Tears of Lys]

6 minutes ago, Toth said:

I just realized I never gave an update on my dragon fruit cacti. Well: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/988019526346092544/1173590503372095608/20231113_124753.jpg

I have a whole army of these now. Not sure when I'll dare to put the rest of them into separate pots... Of the three I repotted early on, one of them died.

I had also planted four sweet chestnuts again, but again they looked really bad during winter. Fortunately two of them just got new leaves, but unfortunately the other two seem to have died.

Mmh... in the meantime I ended up doing a stupid yesterday again. But... I hope this time will work. Last year I did dabble a bit more with non-fruit trees, mainly planting acorn, beechnut and maple seeds... except one tiny decrepit acorn none of them sprouted and the acorn died during winter. On my way to work they cut down a whole bunch of really old oak trees to add a lane to a road and saddened about it as I was, I noticed that the ground around the stump was covered with acorns, some of them having already germinated and desperately trying to take root. I grabbed two of them, as well as one maple seed that I found that had already taken successfully taken root and now planted them in the pots of my last attempt. I'm particularly crossing my fingers I can make the acorns grow...

My date palm army is all fine, btw.

 

They cut down oak trees??  Those M-Frs.  

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Tears of Lys said:

Spocky, is this strictly grow under lights?  If not, I'd sure have to wait until at least June hereabouts to grow anything but seed starts.

No, not at all. We're looking for as many outdoor growers who might like to try the Lazyscrog to grow familiar crops in a new way. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and strawberries are four crops that work really well with my invention.

I'm hoping to have everyone set up with all the equipment and training they need by the end of May, so starting a grow in June would definitely work. 

The more food growers we get using this thing, the better. Because while the home cannabis growing market might be absolutely fucking exploding, the numbers are tiny compared to the food cultivation sector.

We're launching the crowdfunder in Autumn, just in time for some lovely pilot reports featuring fantastically healthy plants, their branches full of fruit. Honestly, once people see this thing in action, it's going to blow up. Anyone who's ever lost a plant to slugs or snails will probably be willing to give it a go. And that is a lot of people.

 

Edited February 17 by Spockydog

[Mlle. Zabzie]

I’d be potentially up for outdoors.  But I’m a lazy gardener…

I currently have (anemic) strawberries - would like to do better.  The plants are a few years old and have never really flourished where I have them so I was toying with digging them out and starting over in a different bed.

I put in tomatoes every year (but only do cherry/grape types) and get a bonanza, squash (both gourds and summer squash), okra, cucumbers.  I often put in shishito peppers.  I like putting in melons, spring peas and beans of some variety.  I have had poor luck with root crops. 

My big pest issues are rodents (freaking evil bunnies) and squash bugs.  I have seen cut worm and cabbage worm (when I do broccoli/cauliflower/brussels sprouts).  Depending on the year I have issues with aphids/powdery mildew though I have an (organic) system for that now.  I have had black spot and mosaic issues (had to dig out soil and refill - ugh).