Official 2011 Gardening Thread

[MOhillbilly]

The times gettin close for indoor seeders & planning for early varaties.

tips, tricks, varaties you like. Where to buy. What to buy. Does & donts.

Your personal picks.

All things gardening.


What you got?

[KC_Lee]

Already mapped out my garden. Expanding it 10 more feet. Putting in; corn, tomatoes (globe, Roma, yellow pear, and grape), bush beans, squash, cukes (lemon and english), potatoes, brussel sprouts, garlic and peas.

Looking to start a third plot for an herb garden, maybe 10' by 10' for starters.

Each year I rake my leaves to the corner of my fence and let them just rot. Then I till the in to keep on rotting. Good free compost.

Hope to have better luck then last year. After getting everything in and started Nashville got flooded and I have 4 feet of water in my house. Most of the garden was a wash but I was able to get some yellow pear tomatoes out of it.

[MOhillbilly]

Originally Posted by Groves

I've never had hog jowls anyway. I assume it was a total loss, then. Dang.

Was it a mild mannered animal? The ones I've been around would have eaten the pup. Special dog or special hog?

One of them dogs. total loss. called my old timer and he came by to see if we could salvage anything. said not bleedin it or hangin it before rigor sat in spoiled the meat.

****in mess. Gonna have to let her freeze and take the chain saw to her to get it out.

Shot the dog on the spot. mother****er.
just gonna swallow it down take my loss and move on. already lookin for one to replace it.

[MOhillbilly]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Anybody have experience with box gardening? Here in the Valley of the Sun the soil isn't worth a shit even if you could get a shovel in the hard-as-rock ground.
I'll have to figure out what will grow in this climate but I would very much like to grow a few fresh veggies to show my kids what a garden is.

super easy once you get a box built and put you soil in it.

USDA hardiness zones
http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html

When you buy plants/seeds most of the time it gives what zones and when to plant.

[MOhillbilly]

Originally Posted by KC_Lee

Already mapped out my garden. Expanding it 10 more feet. Putting in; corn, tomatoes (globe, Roma, yellow pear, and grape), bush beans, squash, cukes (lemon and english), potatoes, brussel sprouts, garlic and peas.

Looking to start a third plot for an herb garden, maybe 10' by 10' for starters.

Each year I rake my leaves to the corner of my fence and let them just rot. Then I till the in to keep on rotting. Good free compost.

Hope to have better luck then last year. After getting everything in and started Nashville got flooded and I have 4 feet of water in my house. Most of the garden was a wash but I was able to get some yellow pear tomatoes out of it.

brightside, floodzones have good soil.

[2112]

Originally Posted by MOhillbilly

what zone? what kind of annuals?

Northeast (New Jersey) Vincas and Begonias. I planted begonias one year and put the steroids in the holes with them and they hardly even grew. have shitty soil in the area, a lot of shale and clay and the bed is sloped on a downward angle. so when I d water the flowers the water would run right down the bed and not go into the soil. the flowers hardly grew all year.

The next year I rototilled my compost mix in and threw the steroids in, and by September the begonias were 2ft high (as big as a smallshrub). the sand was the key for drainage, after I did all that I watered the flowers and the water wouldnt run down the bed anymore. it just sunk in.

[tooge]

Ok, I got one for ya.
Not as much garddening as , uh, orcharding?
I have some apple trees, some peach trees, some nectarine trees, and some plum trees I planted over three or four years. The youngest are the apples and they are about 3 years since planted. I get tons of blossoms on all the trees most years, but then shit goes haywire. For example, this year, only about 10 blossoms total on peach and nectarine trees, all fell off. A shit load of blossoms on the apple trees, they all turned brown and fell off. I got 1, thats ONE, effin apple. The plums seem to blossom every year, then I get tons of little plums the size of maybe three bbs, then they start to wither up and fall off. What gives?

[MOhillbilly]

have you pruned them back?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o3rX3eMcj0


my plum tree didnt do anything until i had it pruned.

[tooge]

Originally Posted by MOhillbilly

have you pruned them back?

no. is now a good time to do that? what is the best method?

[MOhillbilly]

Originally Posted by tooge

no. is now a good time to do that? what is the best method?

i had a pro do mine but i remember him saying that he cut out all the underneath stuff that wouldnt get sunlight. It exploded the next year.

could be young trees,blossom rot,bugs, & lack of pollination or fertilizer.

last year we had a leaf blight in missouri from some wasp or something. might have been that.

did any of the trees leaves turn rusty looking?

[BigOlChiefsfan]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Anybody have experience with box gardening? Here in the Valley of the Sun the soil isn't worth a shit even if you could get a shovel in the hard-as-rock ground.
I'll have to figure out what will grow in this climate but I would very much like to grow a few fresh veggies to show my kids what a garden is.

Yep, I use raised beds. Mine are mostly peat moss and some garden soil (my dirt was not great either) I built the boxes fairly shallow using fence slats and just let the worms come dig the soft dirt under. For a few tomatoes and some peppers, some garden stuff it works fine. My herb garden is in 'regular dirt' but with several bales of peat dug into it. They're doing great. If you have to dig hard dirt, get out the hose & run some water on it tonite and dig it tomorrow or the next day (don't dig 'mud', dig it before it turns back to concrete).

[tooge]

the leaves were fine, but the blossoms fell off after turning brown. Interestingly, they actually reblossomed in september but I pulled them all off. I'm wondering about blossom rot or something.

[tooge]

thanks for the info MO. I'm gonna look into the pruning thing

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by MOhillbilly

super easy once you get a box built and put you soil in it.

USDA hardiness zones
http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html

When you buy plants/seeds most of the time it gives what zones and when to plant.

Sweet. Thanks man.
*edit* shit I live in a hot zone.

[BigOlChiefsfan]

Re: Orchard - prune in Jan/Feb, give 'em some stuff to fight scale (a parasite - ask your local garden center) and try to lure in some bees when the trees are in bloom. Be prepared to lose about half your apple & apricot crops around here due to freeze in bloomtime. I grow Japanese plums & cherries because they seem so hardy. And blackberries.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by BigOlChiefsfan

Yep, I use raised beds. Mine are mostly peat moss and some garden soil (my dirt was not great either) I built the boxes fairly shallow using fence slats and just let the worms come dig the soft dirt under. For a few tomatoes and some peppers, some garden stuff it works fine. My herb garden is in 'regular dirt' but with several bales of peat dug into it. They're doing great. If you have to dig hard dirt, get out the hose & run some water on it tonite and dig it tomorrow or the next day (don't dig 'mud', dig it before it turns back to concrete).

Thanks BOC. When you say 'garden soil' do you mean soil you dug yourself or soil you bought in a bag?