23,594 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening
LOL I want to put some linoleum down just to watch! I put electric fence up, strands every two inches, maybe three in a wide spot, for the squirrels. They have plenty of other food choices, but my plants are a treat. No foraging for them. So for those that do not suffer lead poisoning, electrocution is a good deterrent. Looks pretty neat too. Much better than the chicken wire I put up last year in a fit of rage. I didn't have enough strands last year and the tree rats hopped right between them.
This may or may not be for you but...There are wild rabbits ALL over my neighborhood, and I have a large garden. We have discovered that if you shoot one of them on your property, the others will not come for years. You may have to repeat every 2-3 years on one rabbit. They go everywhere else in our neighborhood, but not our yard. I don't have any rabbit fencing and they don't touch my carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, nothing.
Get a soil test and go from there.. That compost looks full of life. I would keep it moist with the lid off, and maybe even poke air holes.. If the stored compost in garbage bins does not get adequate air, simply put, it will become anaerobic and ruin..
If i was you, I would:
1-let it decompose more(don't till it in, leave it as mulch..)
2-not store it without adequate air
3-if you can't store it properly, throw it in your compost pile.. It will speed decomposition, and provide air.. It's a win win...
4-wouldn't be afraid of using it.. Now is about the prime time to use the compost, it is full of Life, even if you use it for mulching your beds, it all does good.. If you let it sit in a garbage can, there is a great possibility it will lose a lot of life, that is beneficial to the soil..
I should also use organic ferts throughout the season too correct?
You can but no, you don't have to. It is your choice.
Agree with Raw nature on the storage. Compost stored without adequate air exposure can quickly turn anaerobic. An open to the air pile works best if possible.
Dave
Most pests arrive from elsewhere, so like Dave said, hard to prevent. One of the tenets of organic gardening is that healthy plants get fewer pests and diseases, and healthy plants grow in healthy, balanced soils. So I suppose you could call bulding up your soil health preemptive pest prevention. :)
Planatus' tip is also good. Many beneficials eat pollen, either in adult form or when pest prey is lacking. And it looks nice, too.
This is my first year with celeriac, so I can't comment there. I've grown celery for a few years now, though, and for my zone, they don't need to be started really that early. I seeded mine March 30 after a 24-hour soak. I'd say it's not too late to start celery for my zone, but you're a few zones warmer than me.
I put them in deep shade (under a table on my porch, on a cloudy day) for the first day or two, then lighter full shade, then one hour direct light (on a cloudy day), and so on. Takes more than a week to get them to the full sun stage.
Small seedlings are sometimes more adaptable than larger starts, and can take only a week.
I have a greenhouse. When I move my plants from indoors to the greenhouse, I cover each tray of seedlings with a laundry basket that allows 33-50% of light to pass through. (The greenhouse itself reduces the sunlight by about 25%.)
After about three days, I remove the baskets. Then when the weather forecast predicts temps warm enough, I move them to a screened enclosure outside where they get outside temperatures, breezes, hail protection, and full sun exposure. Works great!.
Before I had the greenhouse, I would put my seedlings outside in full shade for several hours. The next day, several hours in full shade plus 1 hour in late day sun. Then I would increase the sun exposure by an hour a day for 4-5 days. Then I just left them in full exposure until I planted them.
This post was edited by tdscpa on Fri, Apr 12, 13 at 3:16
I did some reading on this recently. In a quick cruise of my bookmarks I don't see the links (I can look again when less tired), but basically what I found was that studies show tree fruits do not put much of the copper and arsenic from treated wood into their fruits, although it shows up in other parts of the tree. The fruit is pretty safe.
(The study was on particular varieties of apricots and apples, and the guess is that this is true for other fruits as well.)
Vegetables that you eat the roots and leaves of, OTOH, are more problematic. Especially roots.
Near houses and roads, lead is an issue. It is not recommended that you plant leafy vegetables there -- or, if you do, wash them very thoroughly. A lot of the lead is in surface dust on plant leaves, and on the dirt on root vegies, rather than in the tissues of the plants, so you can wash it off.
You might consider raised beds... if you know the history of the dirt you would be importing.
I feed the birds through the winter, LOTS of them of ALL kinds, Starlings rarely feed here and English Sparrows never (we're out in the country), and they return a lot of the seeds & suet in digested form and deposit it on our parked automobiles, but they also reward us by hanging around and nesting in the Spring and eating LOTS of bugs too.
Birds eat bugs.
It would be of great help to know your location, or at least your garden zone. Note how the rest of us include that info. Especially so since it is quite unusual to have all those crops growing at the same time, much less doing it right now.
Each crop has different nutrient needs and different feeding schedules. As already mentioned, usually fertilizers are worked into the soil prior to planting and then each crop fed its supplemental needs on the schedule for that crop.
For ex:
Tomatoes at first fruit set and then approx. every 6 weeks. Corn side dressed when 12-18" tall. Cukes every 2 weeks. Peppers low N every 6 weeks. etc.
Never heard of Medina so had to look it up. It is listed as a lawn fertilizer and thatch remover when lawn clippings are not picked up. It also includes a pre-emergent for weed control. It is listed as safe for vegetable gardens but that is not its primary purpose, especially with the weed killer in it. It is rated at 4-2-3. Personally I would return it to the store.
Manure tea is to be used only when extremely well-diluted and only as a root drench, not on the leaves, and never around low-growing crops where it can contaminate the edible parts. Bone meal takes from 6 months to 1 year to have any effect.
I recommend some extensive reading over on the Organic Gardening forum here about safe and proper use of organic gardening supplements..
Dave
I live in south coastal texas. I know I'm a bit early for okra but am basing the rest of what I plant on the other community gardeners in my town. I don't really think its that unusual to have these crops growing in the south at this time especially since most everything I have is doing well. I will do some extra reading and get other opinions. Thank you for your insight.
As others mentioned, I wouldn't be to concerned, that is if, mulch bags were the only products you found. Just pull up as much of it as you can... I frequently get compost from the city, and there is tons of plastic in that, I'm sure other pollutants as well.. But aye, my plants love it... Besides you are doing so much good, to worry about such a trivial amount of pollutants, if there are any to begin with ..
I just moved in a house a couple years ago, the former owners loved their weed fabric! They put half a foot of topsoil on top of it, with long stakes securing it down... Let me tell you, it was a pain in the a**! but it's worth it.. You're only doing it once..
Good luck,
Joe
All of the above is good stuff!
I try to group plants with similar needs together. The tomatoes are all in one bed cause they like the same watering pattern. I let them dry out a bit rather than sprinkle a bit each day.
I actually have a set up for each of 4 large beds. I bought a hose splitter that has 4 different spigots, each controlled by it's own control.Each connected to a soaker hose.
The tomatoes get about 1/2 hour once a week, the asparagus, 2x per week etc etc.
This way I only have to dedicate about an hour a day (or less) to watering.
I also make sure to hand water about once a week in order to inspect all of my plants and look for critters etc!
Garden ON! Nancy
Joe listed a lot of good ones. Others you may want to consider are cottonseed and alfalfa meal(N), bone meal(P), kelp meal(K). Fish and seaweed emulsions and extracts. Bat guano, manures, and worm castings.
Everything but the guano(including the supplemental city-produced compost and mulch) I buy in bulk to keep costs down.
Kevin
Max,
Also get some good books,or research online.. Look up Composting,cover crops/green manures, sustainable Permaculture, organic gardening... There is much more to gardening than fertilizers.. Watch the back to Eden film it will give you some ideas(backtoedenfilm.com)..
Kevin, check out the link below.. I was going to do the same thing in the video, but instead of the nylon string, I would use pure 1 inch PVC.. I'll post a picture of mine when it's built.. It's going to be strong enough to hold anything! At least that's the plan...
Joe
Here is a link that might be useful: Melon Trellis
They'll work on any trellis, but it needs to be strong enough for the vine/fruit + wind concerns...and if the angle the vine gets to grow on isn't enough to "lay" on your trellis you will have to tie them to your trellis (you may want to do this anyway).
I've grown them straight up strong rope/wire in greenhouse environments (vines need ties) and I've grown them on angled supports where they need to lay at an angle on the trellis that will support it's growth.
As noted, it's very important to tie/support the fruit, regardless of trellising method. It will get too heavy to hang on it's own without breaking the vine or separating from the vine.