23,948 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Ok thanks Dave. I think I will give planting all my early Spring stuff a go this weekend.

60 degrees and sunny right now, tempting to bring all my seed trays outside.

EDIT: I brought all the nightshades outside and potted them up. It's nearly 70 degrees out! They seem to be having no problems with the direct sun. But I will bring them back in soon. I potted up all but the 2 week old tomatoes just now out of those crappy peat pots, and followed Dave's previous suggestion and only half filled the 3.5" pots with soil.

The soil temp is right for potatoes when the dandelions do that flush of blooming. Potatoes are not cold hardy like lettuce and beets.

weirdtrev: (Trevor?) Thanks for your comments. I think I grasp the general ideas of datatbase structure and the non-triviality of relationships between tables. (LONG time ago I once wrestled ineffectively with Dbase in DOS; can't remember why but I know it was agonising.) I see the potential for incorrect & screwy results which is partly why my head spins trying to visualise the structure.

It's a long time since I used Excel - I mostly work in a Linux distribution now and only boot Windows for a proprietary program that won't run otherwise - so I don't remember details of how it worked; queries for example. Haven't seen the word pseudocode before but I think I get the meaning, and I see how querying a spreadsheet could maybe fulfill my wishes instead of using a DB. I don't think there's a query facility built in to LO Calc but there is a filter facility. Maybe there's a way to store different filter configurations - I'll have to check. That would be similar to storing pseudocoded queries?

Jeepers, I'm spending more time writing about this issue that getting on with solving it - NOT really; and I greatly appreciate all the helpful advice that's been posted. Keep it coming!

VanIsle_BC
(Alexander)

Yes I'm Trevor, you're the first to ask in my over a decade of being on here. Anyway if you truly want to design a proper database you can research database normalization and ultimately Boyce-Codd Normal Form (BCNF). However for your small database, for personal use, I still suggest one table at least initially. It will save you a lot of headaches.

Pseudocode is a term for notation that resembles code but is not actual code. If you took what I wrote and put it in your database it wouldn't do anything, despite "SELECT", "FROM", and "WHERE" being clauses in SQL code.

Which program do you want to use LibreOffice Calc or Base? I see you mentioned both. Calc is similar to MS Excel and yes you can filter but that is not as powerful as queries in Base which is similar to MS Access. (I mentioned that for others that will read this now and in the future). If you wanted to identify what you can plant in the month of April for example, you could write a quick query in Base to get the correct results, or sort on "Earliest planting date" and do a visual scan in Calc. The latter has issues though because all the things planted in April wouldn't necessarily be grouped together and you would still have to examine both the earliest and latest planting dates and decided if April is in that range. There are other ways to approach the problem but they aren't as straightforward in Calc as they would be in Base.

You mentioned querying a spreadsheet instead of using a database. That wasn't what I was trying to convey. Just because it is a single table doesn't mean it needs to be in a spreadsheet program like Calc, it would still be a database in Base. The line is honestly very blurred between a spreadsheet and a database at times. I know when I need to share data with others I often export an Excel spreadsheet from Access just because people are more comfortable working in Excel.

I found some pretty decent tutorials for LibreOffice Base if you want to learn about queries and other features.

I had such problem my first year growing tomatoes. Actually, I left for three days and come back to them all laying on their side. I was devastated and thought of throwing them all away. But got an advice - to buy 2 gallon pots, soil, take the bottom leaves and all shooters away and plant them in a big pot laying down their stems in spiral in the pot the way only about a foot is above the soil soil. There was nothing to loose(other than money, ha-ha)) and I did it. The most challenge was to plant them later outside with a such root ball, but they grew so many roots, that the root ball stayed together. Just do not water for few days before setting them outside to have them almost dry for replanting. It will make it lighter and easy to work with. I still needed second person help to hold the greens, while I am taking roots with both hands. It was great tomato crop that year).

Lots of good advice here. You can make a quick high-profile greenhouse by turning a table upside-down and securing sheet plastic over the legs. Be sure to vent.

About the "like" button. I wasn't sure about it at first, but I can see the usefulness of it. It's an easy way to say, "thanks" or "I like what you said" when I have nothing more to add at that moment.

I don't want people to go to the trouble of opening a thread with the expectation of a new comment to read, and then all it is, is me saying "thanks," or saying "nice picture." So I "like" it instead.

I hate the new format. I'm not a fan of unexpected change in a place of my life where I've given trust and grown attached to a resource that helped me do a new thing. It's just my luck though, whenever I find something, it always seems to experience a "big change" shortly thereafter. Not sure why, but I've noticed the trend over the years.

I came here to find help for my very first garden, and in my mind was planning to come right back here about this time, revving up for garden #2 in zone 2/3. Came here, and thought I was lost. Found the garden forum buried in the website, but at least the vegetable garden forum still exists. I hate the white on grey scheme, it's hard on the eyes. Don't you know lots of us gardeners are older and reading shouldn't be made any harder?? :( R.I.P. Old Gardenweb.com. *sheds a tear*

I cut and plant immediately. But to protect them against rot, I dip the cut part in wood ash first. I planted today the whole potatoes which had sprouted well, but I am holding back the big ones that will have to be cut, and the small ones which have not sprouted, the soil is just too cold right now.

That's interesting to know!

thanks. I meant to buy some this year, but could not find them locally (and then just took my chances -- DOH!)

Seems like at least half of them are perking up and starting new growth. I'll trim the dead off later today.

daves10z7annv said "not sure why in your zone-same as mine-you start them indoors."

Could be to avoid seeds rotting in cold wet soils? That can be a problem here on the southwest coast of Canada, with early plantings. I don't picture that as a problem in Virginia though.

Having to buy plants will limit your choices to what is available locally. So we could list all sort of suggestions for you but few of them may be available. Most local plant suppliers can tell you which of their varieties are ok for containers.

But that raises another issue. What size of containers are you talking about? That alone will make a BIG difference in what plants you can grow. The usual "flower pots" don't work for tomatoes. 5 gallon containers is the smallest recommended but bigger is better.

In zone 7 you can grow any variety you wish so it will be the big containers and soil-less potting mix plus the watering and feeding you provide that will make all the difference. Check out the Growing Tomatoes forum here as well as the Container Gardening forum for many discussions about which varieties work best in containers.

then I;d suggest you go to your local supplier and make a list of what plants are available and let us know the names. We can then tell you which of them might work for you.

Dave

Okay, I'm using 18" tall x 18" diameter grow bags so I think I'm good there. I'll need to wait until the tomato plants are stocked at the nurseries and then I'll post the varieties available. Thanks for your help!

Baker creek heirloom seed company Suyo Long cuke

I'm sure you've already ordered your seed by now, but I thought for the sake of someone in the future pulling up this thread, I would add the cucumber that I had great results with last year. We had no pest or disease issues and had so many cucumbers we were sick of them. [g]

Ministro from Fedco

Ministro Cucumber

Thanks, Rina, I am still trying to find that white box. Anyway, I have found another post where someone recommended just pruning off the bolting part. That was my first instinct too, but I know nothing about horseradish, so I thought I would ask. Hope this is right! Cutting it off in the morning!

Cecile

Ah! Found it, Rina, thank you! Cecile

The basil does not seem worse. I might even say slightly better than a week ago. I did snip off all the funky looking leaves. But they don’t seem to be taking off yet. They’ve been in the ground for 2 weeks now. I’ve heard it can take several weeks for basil to take off. Is that true?

As for the watering, I noticed during the day they were wilting. I know plants can wilt a bit during the daytime when it’s warmer, but my gut was telling me to water them anyway, because they were looking pretty sorry, so I did. And they perked up again. But what has me confused is that even after the sun had gone down they remained wilted, but the moister meter I’m using was indicating good moisture level, so I was reluctant to water. But after a few days of noticing this I decided I was watering, regardless of what the moisture thingy was telling me, and the plants perked up as I mentioned...

What the heck?

Basil can wilt slightly in sun, then perk later. Have you tested your moisture meter to make sure it's reading correctly? My digital has been pretty good for me so far, but my manual multi one started being rather inconsistent.

And yes, basil can stunt a bit and grow in fits and spurts. It doesn't surprise me that you haven't seen major improvement. But, as long as it's not getting actively worse, I would say you're on the right track to learning it's habits and it is not diseased.