Gardening: (2016– )

[heidih]

A needed inspiration - plant plant plant  A tad too warm now but if it cools down radishes going in for the greens I snip,  and garlic chives. Lemon verbena may make a comeback. 

Edited September 7, 2020 by heidih (log)

[TicTac]

Curious to hear all you dirt guru's opinions...

 

What I did not plan for nor really deal with this year were the 'weeds' (various grasses, unwanted/inedible weeds, etc) growing in between my fruits/veg.

 

I have been reading about this method of addressing that, but was curious as to the best timing to implement - I have heard various approaches..

 

Basically the concept is that once you pull the harvest, you till the soil, and then lay down a thick sheet of heavy duty cardboard over the entire plot - water it, and then put mulch (or dirt?) on top of that, and let it sit over the winter and melt into the ground.  Basically from that point onward next season you just cut openings where you want to plant and add more mulch (or dirt?).

 

This needs to be done every couple years as eventually the cardboard will decompose and break down into the earth.

 

Curious whether this is the right approach, the time of year to do it - and if anyone has done it before and if so, what medium did you top the cardboard with?

 

Appreciate y'alls help (I am drawing my slang from my EG friends down south!) 😛

[chromedome]

That's actually what I plan to do with my plot when I put it to bed this autumn (obviously, I'll need to work around my garlic which will overwinter in one of the beds).

It's a technique that's been around for a long time; Ruth Stout was promoting it back when I was still in diapers. It has been rediscovered and remarketed as "lasagna gardening," as you doubtless know. It works well, and buys you a year of next to no weeds (after the first year, seeds will blow in and be dropped by birds, etc). If you're aggressive in mulching around your "intentional" plants, you can keep 'em down pretty well even after they start.

 

I'll be using straw and couple of trailer-loads of (purchased) compost and topsoil, since I don't have a place to compost for myself. I have access to horse manure from a nearby harness-racing track, but that'll need a bit of time to mature before I can use it. It's a "next year" project for out at the country place, where they *do* have space, but once I've established two working piles I'll have one each year that's aged and ready to use.

 

You can start in spring if that's the way things work out, but autumn is better because your mulch/compost and the cardboard will have a bit of time to soften up. Depending how much soil/compost you've added on top, you might not even need to cut openings. Deeply-rooted plants will just grow right through. If you put it down in spring, then yeah, definitely cut an opening for each plant.

[chromedome]

As an aside, if you have a few nice big dandelion crowns growing in your lawn or garden, cover them with a bit of cardboard and weigh it down with rocks or what have you.

 

In the spring, once everything has been growing for a few weeks, lift the cardboard and harvest the blanched dandelions. They'll be very mild and juicy, with a lettuce-like crunch. Totally different from the ones you harvest conventionally.

[heidih]

16 minutes ago, TicTac said:

Appreciate y'alls help (I am drawing my slang from my EG friends down south!) 😛

 

@chromedome beat me to it. I have done the "lasagna" thing with a client. Not attractive but it works. But this was in our temperate Los Angeles climate. https://www.amazon.com/Ruth-Stout-No-Work-Garden-Book/dp/0878570004

Edited September 7, 2020 by heidih (log)

[TicTac]

35 minutes ago, heidih said:

 

@chromedome beat me to it. I have done the "lasagna" thing with a client. Not attractive but it works. But this was in our temperate Los Angeles climate. https://www.amazon.com/Ruth-Stout-No-Work-Garden-Book/dp/0878570004

 

Thanks @chromedome & @heidih

 

What did you top the cardboard with?

 

That is what I am most puzzled by at the moment...as I do not want to introduce weeds on top of the cardboard!

 

 

[chromedome]

Straw and autumn leaves are two common choices for the mulch component. For the rest, you'd want soil or compost from a reputable supplier (nobody wants a reputation for selling you weed seeds). You can sometimes get a good price on the bagged, sterilized topsoil from hardware/department stores at the tail end of the season (ie, now) which is okay if you're working with a small plot.

[heidih]

13 minutes ago, TicTac said:

Thanks @chromedome & @heidih

 

What did you top the cardboard with?

 

That is what I am most puzzled by at the moment...as I do not want to introduce weeds on top of the cardboard!

 

 

 

This more recent Los Angeles Times article with the cred from Arboretum might help https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2020-03-06/build-rich-beautiful-soil-layer-your-yard-cardboard-seriously

Edited September 7, 2020 by heidih (log)

[heidih]

This line from the LA Times article on mulch gave me a much needed first giggle of the day. Completely true. I know a gardener who routinely goes to local stables. but  - "who would have thunk?" but straw bedding is even better because it includes the added punch of aged manure and urine. Adams recommends against using bedding from racetracks, however, because of the drugs that racehorses are given.

[KennethT]

Coming soon to a garden near me, direct from Thailand via some US company's warehouse and Amazon:

 

ps - I just moved my germinated pak boong seeds into their pot of coco coir.  I really see how hard it is to keep the coir swampy without a constant drip! Fingers crossed that I can keep the surface moist enough until the roots get more established.

Edited September 9, 2020 by KennethT (log)

[heidih]

17 minutes ago, KennethT said:

Coming soon to a garden near me, direct from Thailand via some US company's warehouse and Amazon:

 

ps - I just moved my germinated pak boong seeds into their pot of coco coir.  I really see how hard it is to keep the coir swampy without a constant drip! Fingers crossed that I can keep the surface moist enough until the roots get more established.

 

 

Channel new mothers - sleep -what is that? Ya just get up every few hours and ....

[KennethT]

3 minutes ago, heidih said:

 

Channel new mothers - sleep -what is that? Ya just get up every few hours and ....

Screw that! How bout this?

It's hard to see, but my fabric pot is sitting in a bowl of nutrient, so its got nowhere to drain. Between that and the plastic bag, hopefully it will stay saturated.

[heidih]

Looks good. I am always the do it the harder way girl. No idea why. Even my body won't process hard core pain relievers like morphine. Like sugar water. We'll just bite the side of our hand until it stops....  Sure you will keep us in the loop.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

48 minutes ago, KennethT said:

Coming soon to a garden near me, direct from Thailand via some US company's warehouse and Amazon:

 

ps - I just moved my germinated pak boong seeds into their pot of coco coir.  I really see how hard it is to keep the coir swampy without a constant drip! Fingers crossed that I can keep the surface moist enough until the roots get more established.

 

 

I read today in the WSJ that amazon is no longer selling seeds or plants in the US from outside the country.

 

[KennethT]

Just now, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I read today in the WSJ that amazon is no longer selling seeds or plants in the US from outside the country.

 

Well, it arrived yesterday... And technically it shipped from somewhere in the US - who knows how long it has been in the US for. And there is English on the package so I assume it was packed for export.

[Paul Bacino]

First Batch of Brussles and 4th cutting from my Cabbage palnt

 

[KennethT]

My water spinach are sprouting really well. I'll have some nice veggies in about 2 weeks!

 

Here's an update on some others. My kaffir lime tree was getting a bit of iron chlorosis. I changed my nutrient formula and also foliar fed a bit of cheated iron.... It's starting to green up nicely

 

Finally, this is the top of my new curry tree, I got from Logee's. I highly recommend them! Some new growth forming...

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Branches are falling off my curry trees.  I still think not enough light.  Maybe this weekend, if I can get motivated, I'll try to rig something up.

 

[KennethT]

Check out the difference 1 night makes!

[KennethT]

10 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Branches are falling off my curry trees.  I still think not enough light.  Maybe this weekend, if I can get motivated, I'll try to rig something up.

 

Curry plants need a lot of light.  Is it outdoors or indoors?  I've seen a lot of videos where people in our zone leave them out, and they will completely deleaf down to the stems.  In spring, it comes right back.

 

ETA: the cheapest way to add more light is with a compact fluorescent - I got a really big one for like $30 and keep it in a clamp on fixture I got at the home depot for like $3.  If you want something a bit better, I'd look at Mars-Hydro - they have some pretty inexpensive LED lights - I'm testing one right now - it's working really well, even though it's made in China... no word yet on longevity - but it's like $150.

Edited September 12, 2020 by KennethT (log)

[KennethT]

And check out this basil tree. This is 1 plant about 2.5 feet tall and just as wide.

[chromedome]

Harvested my first ripe tomato yesterday, a Black Krim (sorry, no pic before it got eaten). So I missed my target date of having a ripe tomato by Labour Day, but not by much. It remains to be seen how many more I can coax from my plants (a mix of Krim and San Marzano) before the cold kills them.

 

I'm going to be staking up a couple of those reflective plastic-foil "moon blankets" behind them to reflect the sun and maximize its effect, and will improvise a plastic cover at some point in the next week or two as the nights get colder. If I can keep fruit on the vines for a week or two into October, I'll be very happy indeed.

 

Added another batch of greens to the freezer last night, bringing me up to a cumulative 6.5 kg or so, and will be back today for kale (as explained above, I pick kale and the chard/beet tops on alternate days). My late plantings of peas, kale and broccoli raab are coming along nicely, and the late-planted pattypans are beginning to fruit prolifically. It also looks increasingly like I'll manage to snag a few cukes from my late planting, after the original batch were demolished by slugs.

 

I'll probably harvest my beets this coming week or two, to free up a bed for my garlic to go into.

 

All in all, things are going as well as I have any right to expect after such a challenging spring.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

6 hours ago, KennethT said:

Curry plants need a lot of light.  Is it outdoors or indoors?  I've seen a lot of videos where people in our zone leave them out, and they will completely deleaf down to the stems.  In spring, it comes right back.

 

ETA: the cheapest way to add more light is with a compact fluorescent - I got a really big one for like $30 and keep it in a clamp on fixture I got at the home depot for like $3.  If you want something a bit better, I'd look at Mars-Hydro - they have some pretty inexpensive LED lights - I'm testing one right now - it's working really well, even though it's made in China... no word yet on longevity - but it's like $150.

 

The curry trees are indoors by a south facing sliding glass door.  My currently unused Click and Grow is sitting there as well, and if I cleaned it up I could use it for the light source.

[KennethT]

26 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

The curry trees are indoors by a south facing sliding glass door.  My currently unused Click and Grow is sitting there as well, and if I cleaned it up I could use it for the light source.

OK.  Around now is the time when the light, even in a south facing window, is not intense enough for a tropical plant and doesn't have the long daylight hours to make up for it.  Plants care about DLI - Daily Light Integral - how many moles of photon they receive cumulatively over the day.  So if you have a weak light, you need to lengthen the day.  Depending on how weak the light is, lengthening the day to 18 hours or so may not be enough.  I don't know how intense the Click and Grow lamp is.  The only thing you can do is try it and see if it's enough.  I would tend to assume that it won't be enough looking at pictures of it - the closer a light has to be to the plant, the less intense it is to avoid photo bleaching.  If the Click and Grow's light is intended to be about 6" away from the canopy, it can't be very strong, which would be fine for lettuce (which doesn't like that much light anyway) or some seedlings (although new studies have shown that basil seedlings getting a lot of light (like 600umol/s) result in much larger, healthier adult plants than seedlings grown under the standard seedling intensity of 150-200 umol/s).

[Shelby]

Harvested the pumpkins yesterday.  I only got 4 big ones.  That's ok...but so weird.  Sigh.  I chalk it up to 2020.  Did get a few of the cute little guys, though