Misc Official 2011 Gardening Thread - Page 2

MOhillbilly · 11:11 AM

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?

MOhillbilly · 12-21-2010, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Groves

I need to download MO's gardening brain to my kids somehow. C'mon technology!

you have my number vato

come get some hens.

BigOlChiefsfan · 12-21-2010, 11:47 AM

Mo, try a couple of "Dona" or "Carmello" tomatoes. Tennis ball sized fruit, but tons of 'em, a really productive plant - a few is all I need for salads. Great flavor - a french breed, grown for flavor rather than size or tough skin or whatever. Tough plants, too. I couldn't find 'em around here last year so I may have to grow my own from seed this time. I also like Russian-style 'black' tomatoes for taste, can't really tout their toughness from my own experience but hey.
Recommend 'french breakfast' radishes, I use them as place holders - they grow in about 30 days. I never liked radishes til I ate these (with some butter - try it). If you have vacant space, sow mustard seed (I just buy it as a spice @ the indian grocery store, it's really cheap). Turn it under in 25 days or so as 'green manure'. Will start ridiculously early.
If you like cabbage, try chinese cabbage/pak choy/bok choy. Easy, quick. I can get it in and eaten before the cabbage butterfly appears most years. And don't forget turnips/turnip greens, if you're a cabbage lover. I have a couple of good turnip recipes, remind me.
Don't put cow manure on your garden 'as is', it's full of weed seeds. Compost it, good and hot to kill those seeds. Horse poop I'll put on 'as is'. Chicken poop needs to be composted (too 'hot', ymmv). I use blood meal/green sand/bone meal w/leaf mold every chance I get. I also try to grow some herbs every year, danged things cost a fortune to buy @ the grocery store. I try to plant salad stuff (snow peas, lettuce, spinach, green onions) once a week instead of mass quantities all at once.
I only really recommend one garden book out of the zillions out there:
Self Sufficient Gardener
or the easier to get new self sufficient gardener. Don't buy the old one for $170, buy the new version for $13.

MOhillbilly · 12-21-2010, 11:58 AM

How much room for a herb garden? Im thinking of doin this in box planters. ( i am gonna do it in box planters for sunlight considerations)

Explain how the once a week for the salad stuff works.

what variety of chinese head cabbage?

seed purveyor you recommend?

a quick search on burpees came up nada for "Dona" or "Carmello". are they a determinant variety? OP/CP?

whats green sand?

MOhillbilly · 12-21-2010, 12:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigOlChiefsfan

Compost it, good and hot to kill those seeds. Horse poop I'll put on 'as is'. Chicken poop needs to be composted (too 'hot', ymmv). I use blood meal/green sand/bone meal w/leaf mold every chance I get.

i see what youre doin here. Do you use any garden fertilizer mixes in conjunction w/?
3-8,3-13,ect.

Like the idea of green sand to break up clay soil.

i used shredded paper and chicken poop as compost/mulch along with 3-13 last year and damn near burned my tomatoes up.

BigOlChiefsfan · 12-21-2010, 12:24 PM

I plant herbs here and there, some work pretty well as 'bug deterrents' - garlic w/tomatoes, but I don't go crazy. I have an herb section for perennials, one big sage plant, a couple of rosemary, a couple thyme, some chives (they get divided every year, give some away and replant the rest). 1 Oregano. I usually sow a few dill seeds (from the spice store) in with the tomatoes and beans.
I like this seed company and whatever chinese cabbage she's got is ok by me Renee's seeds Chinese cabbage isn't really a 'head' like we're used to, the leaves are more open. Still tastes great and it grows fast. Try it. Napa cabbage is similar, but the pak choi/bok choy stuff is great for a gardener.
Let's say you're growing in rows - once a week or so, go out and sow 8 feet of lettuce, 2 feet of onions, 8 feet of spinach. Keep doing this all spring. After 35 days or so you're out there harvesting the ripe 8 feet of lettuce - enough for a few days of salad but not so much you have to give a ton away. And repeat until it gets hot. Start doing the same thing in the august, there's a lot of stuff that grows well in autumn if we'll plant it while we're eating tomatoes out the wahoo.
My grandma taught me to grow a few 'salad tomatoes' and a ton of 'canning tomatoes', she liked to can tomato juice as well as plain tomatoes. I don't can stuff, so I just grow the salad tomatoes these days. 6 or so is a lot for me.
The Dona and Carmello are indeterminant, but you can pinch them back if you don't like them tall. I use a 'cage' and a rebar stake, + a sapling that just lets them grow up. The fruit is mostly low.
Go out at night to hunt slugs w/a flashlight. Kids love this, as long as they don't squick out from SLUGS! Teach 'em to use chop sticks if they're squicky. I was raised dropping slugs in a coffee can of coal oil, but you can salt 'em or stomp 'em or eat them if you're so inclined, I suppose.

Green sand is a way to get potassium IIRC into the ground. I'm not all nutso about organic gardening, but I do think a lot of the organic fertilizers stay in one spot longer than the 'chemical' 20/20/20 that I otherwise use. Organics improve the soil's condition instead of just giving us a quick fix. You want that good black loam that comes from lots of compost/peat. Make it easy for the plant to do well and you wind up looking like you know what you're doing. My ozark granny could grow potatoes on a rock, literally.

Get that book.

ETA: For tomatoes, after fixing the soil early on I just use Miracle Grow for tomatoes (in water). If you've got chicken, cattle or horses, half-fill a bucket w/poop and fill it the rest of the way w/water. Dip that water out and use a little on your best tomato plants a few times each week. That 'compost tea' is good stuff.

BigOlChiefsfan · 12-21-2010, 12:35 PM

If you plant in rows, think about converting a few sections over to 'beds' for your perennial veggies/herb garden. I also plant a few hot chile peppers in with my herbs - I buy hot chiles from the thai grocery store and just use their seeds (I'm cheap when it comes to seeds! Plus, I know what those thai chiles taste like). A few plants are plenty for me. Peppers don't set a lot of fruit until night temps are low, so don't despair if the plant doesn't look like it's doing much in july/august around here. They'll do their thing late, be prepared to dry some out for winter.

I also recommend trying 'tokyo white' turnips. Sweeter than your purple top, grows quick.

I can't eat much corn these days, but my folks loved 'butter and cream' and it did really well for them over near Rolla.

MOhillbilly · 12-21-2010, 12:46 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shIBFdGBGfo

compost tea brewer. im gonna build one. I hear nothin but good things about tea.

ive got a trailer im thinkin about doin a 'raised bed' on wheels with. Either the entire thing or with box planters so i can move it around. I like the thought of box planters cause i can bring them in the house in winter.
what do you think?

BigOlChiefsfan · 12-21-2010, 12:53 PM

Well...me, I'd just dig in the dirt and put a 'frame' over it instead, use that trailer to haul in more horse poop. I said I only recommend 1 book - until you start talking about winter gardening. Then I add this old boy

ETA: Here's another seed catalog I've had pretty good luck with. Johnny's He has more variety - note, he and Renee's (above) sell out pretty early most years.

MOhillbilly · 12-21-2010, 12:58 PM

see i have 2 trucks, 4 trailers, and no horses. thank god. I do have 17 head of chicken and a barn full of pig shit.

and i dont like diggin holes. its more like pickin rocks

BigOlChiefsfan · 12-21-2010, 01:10 PM

Run a few bales of wheat straw (not hay!) thru a lawn mower w/a bagger and start mixing that w/pig poop & chicken shit. Add your shredded paper if ya got. Mix that in as you plant next spring, throw some bone meal in if you're planting root crops and you should be in bidness. If you don't like to dig holes...pile enough compost on top of your rocky dirt, the worms will come find the poop and do your digging for you. I've had the best luck w/horse manure, a few friends clean their stables every week or so and I can haul all I'm willing to load. They put sawdust down in the stable, so I don't need to mix much chopped straw or leaves with it.

Groves · 12-21-2010, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MOhillbilly

I do have 17 head of chicken and a barn full of pig shit.

I know, hens are on the list, not ready yet.

Did you get your monster all sliced up? How'd the rendering go?

MOhillbilly · 12-21-2010, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Groves

I know, hens are on the list, not ready yet.

Did you get your monster all sliced up? How'd the rendering go?

came home the night she who cannot be named and the kids left and the bulldog prospect got into the barn and killed it.

chewed its face clean off.

hell of a week bro.

had em both in the barn one of em got a latch open.

MOhillbilly · 12-21-2010, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigOlChiefsfan

ETA: Here's another seed catalog I've had pretty good luck with. Johnny's He has more variety - note, he and Renee's (above) sell out pretty early most years.

im gonna spend a hundred dollars after the 1st and buy all my seed.

if any of you locals want any let me know.

vailpass · 12-21-2010, 02:40 PM

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.

Groves · 12-21-2010, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MOhillbilly

the bulldog prospect got into the barn and killed it.

chewed its face clean off.

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?

12-21-2010, 11:09 AM
MOhillbilly Mama Tried Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Missouri Casino cash: $9949903	Official 2011 Gardening Thread 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? Last edited by MOhillbilly; 12-21-2010 at 11:11 AM.. Reason: shit wrong year. jfc.
Posts: 23,371

12-21-2010, 11:47 AM	#17
BigOlChiefsfan Certified Bourbon taster Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Shawnee KS Casino cash: $7200157	Mo, try a couple of "Dona" or "Carmello" tomatoes. Tennis ball sized fruit, but tons of 'em, a really productive plant - a few is all I need for salads. Great flavor - a french breed, grown for flavor rather than size or tough skin or whatever. Tough plants, too. I couldn't find 'em around here last year so I may have to grow my own from seed this time. I also like Russian-style 'black' tomatoes for taste, can't really tout their toughness from my own experience but hey. Recommend 'french breakfast' radishes, I use them as place holders - they grow in about 30 days. I never liked radishes til I ate these (with some butter - try it). If you have vacant space, sow mustard seed (I just buy it as a spice @ the indian grocery store, it's really cheap). Turn it under in 25 days or so as 'green manure'. Will start ridiculously early. If you like cabbage, try chinese cabbage/pak choy/bok choy. Easy, quick. I can get it in and eaten before the cabbage butterfly appears most years. And don't forget turnips/turnip greens, if you're a cabbage lover. I have a couple of good turnip recipes, remind me. Don't put cow manure on your garden 'as is', it's full of weed seeds. Compost it, good and hot to kill those seeds. Horse poop I'll put on 'as is'. Chicken poop needs to be composted (too 'hot', ymmv). I use blood meal/green sand/bone meal w/leaf mold every chance I get. I also try to grow some herbs every year, danged things cost a fortune to buy @ the grocery store. I try to plant salad stuff (snow peas, lettuce, spinach, green onions) once a week instead of mass quantities all at once. I only really recommend one garden book out of the zillions out there: Self Sufficient Gardener or the easier to get new self sufficient gardener. Don't buy the old one for $170, buy the new version for $13. __________________ A man can never own too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition. -- R. Kipling
Posts: 5,036

12-21-2010, 11:58 AM	#18
MOhillbilly Mama Tried Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Missouri Casino cash: $9949903	How much room for a herb garden? Im thinking of doin this in box planters. ( i am gonna do it in box planters for sunlight considerations) Explain how the once a week for the salad stuff works. what variety of chinese head cabbage? seed purveyor you recommend? a quick search on burpees came up nada for "Dona" or "Carmello". are they a determinant variety? OP/CP? whats green sand? __________________ True Son of Liberty
Posts: 23,371

12-21-2010, 12:24 PM	#20
BigOlChiefsfan Certified Bourbon taster Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Shawnee KS Casino cash: $7200157	I plant herbs here and there, some work pretty well as 'bug deterrents' - garlic w/tomatoes, but I don't go crazy. I have an herb section for perennials, one big sage plant, a couple of rosemary, a couple thyme, some chives (they get divided every year, give some away and replant the rest). 1 Oregano. I usually sow a few dill seeds (from the spice store) in with the tomatoes and beans. I like this seed company and whatever chinese cabbage she's got is ok by me Renee's seeds Chinese cabbage isn't really a 'head' like we're used to, the leaves are more open. Still tastes great and it grows fast. Try it. Napa cabbage is similar, but the pak choi/bok choy stuff is great for a gardener. Let's say you're growing in rows - once a week or so, go out and sow 8 feet of lettuce, 2 feet of onions, 8 feet of spinach. Keep doing this all spring. After 35 days or so you're out there harvesting the ripe 8 feet of lettuce - enough for a few days of salad but not so much you have to give a ton away. And repeat until it gets hot. Start doing the same thing in the august, there's a lot of stuff that grows well in autumn if we'll plant it while we're eating tomatoes out the wahoo. My grandma taught me to grow a few 'salad tomatoes' and a ton of 'canning tomatoes', she liked to can tomato juice as well as plain tomatoes. I don't can stuff, so I just grow the salad tomatoes these days. 6 or so is a lot for me. The Dona and Carmello are indeterminant, but you can pinch them back if you don't like them tall. I use a 'cage' and a rebar stake, + a sapling that just lets them grow up. The fruit is mostly low. Go out at night to hunt slugs w/a flashlight. Kids love this, as long as they don't squick out from SLUGS! Teach 'em to use chop sticks if they're squicky. I was raised dropping slugs in a coffee can of coal oil, but you can salt 'em or stomp 'em or eat them if you're so inclined, I suppose. Green sand is a way to get potassium IIRC into the ground. I'm not all nutso about organic gardening, but I do think a lot of the organic fertilizers stay in one spot longer than the 'chemical' 20/20/20 that I otherwise use. Organics improve the soil's condition instead of just giving us a quick fix. You want that good black loam that comes from lots of compost/peat. Make it easy for the plant to do well and you wind up looking like you know what you're doing. My ozark granny could grow potatoes on a rock, literally. Get that book. ETA: For tomatoes, after fixing the soil early on I just use Miracle Grow for tomatoes (in water). If you've got chicken, cattle or horses, half-fill a bucket w/poop and fill it the rest of the way w/water. Dip that water out and use a little on your best tomato plants a few times each week. That 'compost tea' is good stuff. __________________ A man can never own too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition. -- R. Kipling
Posts: 5,036

12-21-2010, 12:35 PM	#21
BigOlChiefsfan Certified Bourbon taster Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Shawnee KS Casino cash: $7200157	If you plant in rows, think about converting a few sections over to 'beds' for your perennial veggies/herb garden. I also plant a few hot chile peppers in with my herbs - I buy hot chiles from the thai grocery store and just use their seeds (I'm cheap when it comes to seeds! Plus, I know what those thai chiles taste like). A few plants are plenty for me. Peppers don't set a lot of fruit until night temps are low, so don't despair if the plant doesn't look like it's doing much in july/august around here. They'll do their thing late, be prepared to dry some out for winter. I also recommend trying 'tokyo white' turnips. Sweeter than your purple top, grows quick. I can't eat much corn these days, but my folks loved 'butter and cream' and it did really well for them over near Rolla. __________________ A man can never own too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition. -- R. Kipling
Posts: 5,036

12-21-2010, 12:46 PM	#22
MOhillbilly Mama Tried Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Missouri Casino cash: $9949903	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shIBFdGBGfo compost tea brewer. im gonna build one. I hear nothin but good things about tea. ive got a trailer im thinkin about doin a 'raised bed' on wheels with. Either the entire thing or with box planters so i can move it around. I like the thought of box planters cause i can bring them in the house in winter. what do you think? __________________ True Son of Liberty
Posts: 23,371

12-21-2010, 12:53 PM	#23
BigOlChiefsfan Certified Bourbon taster Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Shawnee KS Casino cash: $7200157	Well...me, I'd just dig in the dirt and put a 'frame' over it instead, use that trailer to haul in more horse poop. I said I only recommend 1 book - until you start talking about winter gardening. Then I add this old boy ETA: Here's another seed catalog I've had pretty good luck with. Johnny's He has more variety - note, he and Renee's (above) sell out pretty early most years. __________________ A man can never own too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition. -- R. Kipling
Posts: 5,036

12-21-2010, 12:58 PM	#24
MOhillbilly Mama Tried Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Missouri Casino cash: $9949903	see i have 2 trucks, 4 trailers, and no horses. thank god. I do have 17 head of chicken and a barn full of pig shit. and i dont like diggin holes. its more like pickin rocks __________________ True Son of Liberty
Posts: 23,371

12-21-2010, 01:10 PM	#25
BigOlChiefsfan Certified Bourbon taster Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Shawnee KS Casino cash: $7200157	Run a few bales of wheat straw (not hay!) thru a lawn mower w/a bagger and start mixing that w/pig poop & chicken shit. Add your shredded paper if ya got. Mix that in as you plant next spring, throw some bone meal in if you're planting root crops and you should be in bidness. If you don't like to dig holes...pile enough compost on top of your rocky dirt, the worms will come find the poop and do your digging for you. I've had the best luck w/horse manure, a few friends clean their stables every week or so and I can haul all I'm willing to load. They put sawdust down in the stable, so I don't need to mix much chopped straw or leaves with it. __________________ A man can never own too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition. -- R. Kipling
Posts: 5,036

12-21-2010, 02:40 PM	#29
vailpass Psycho Bag Of Squanch Join Date: Sep 2001 Casino cash: $9594244	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.
Posts: 69,591