The Gardening Thread

[GVF]

What size of grow bags are you using for the potatoes? I thought about doing them last year and then again this year. But I keep pushing it out another year.

I bought a 2 pack of 1x3 12" square holes. 12" deep. There is also the round bags of various volumes that have the velcro window on the side for reaching in and picking out root veggies. Mine $20. And the fabric was more than acceptable.

 

[GVF]

I did florida weave last year. It was ok but I think better for determinant. This year using tomahooks.will post pictures

I've been doing florida weave for 3 years now. Much better than wire fence cages. It works great for indeterminates if you spend a little on some tall poles. Lowe's has those 8' 2-1/2 inch posts with pointed end for $9 each. Been wanting to start investing in those for maters and beans. If you don't have tall posts, the florida weave gets a little messy late season.

 

[zhangliao04]

I bought a 2 pack of 1x3 12" square holes. 12" deep. There is also the round bags of various volumes that have the velcro window on the side for reaching in and picking out root veggies. Mine $20. And the fabric was more than acceptable.

My supervisor told me one of his roommates in college would grow potatoes in old IKEA bags. Would have potatoes everywhere and all of the time. I like potatoes especially fries. Been thinking about doing the German butterball. Is it too late to plant potatoes?

 

[GVF]

My supervisor told me one of his roommates in college would grow potatoes in old IKEA bags. Would have potatoes everywhere and all of the time. I like potatoes especially fries. Been thinking about doing the German butterball. Is it too late to plant potatoes?

No. I just did mine sunday. Potatoes can be grown in just about anything you have around that will hold up for the season or more. Grow bags. Stacking old tires as the tops grow. You can go 4-5 tires or more up and just keep giving new soil for the roots to develop. I've seen videos where a 'tomato' cage out of wire fence was used. Straw up against the inside of the fence to keep the soil in. Soil in the center. Just keep building it up as the plant grows till you get about 2-3 feet deep. Any space saving idea where you can go up a few feet will produce loads of potatoes. I'm hoping my 12 inch sqaures on my grow bags will be fine. I didn't overload the squares. I used 3 for Yukon Gold, and 3 for red potatoes. So I'm doing 6 12x12x12 squares. I put only one potato in one of hte squares on the golds to get a little bigger potato. two of the golds only have 2 potatoes. In one of the reds I put three so I could have one squares with smaller mini potatoes. Sizes of potatoes do have a bit to do with the variety, but also with the quantity of seed spuds you put in a particular confined space. The more you plug, the smaller the tater. Doesn't require a lot of expense if you have stuff laying around or acces to say hey, you getting rid of that. Gardening can be as cheap or expensive as you choose. If I was doing just a few tomatoes and such, I'd probably just go buy plants. But, I'm doing enough that bought plants would be a big expense, and I'm getting alot of bang for the buck from my heat mat, reusable seed trays, and grow light. All in that stuff was around $60 on Amazon. Another $20 for my grow bags that I'll get several years out of. Seeds are usually $3-4 a pack for more seeds than I can use in a season. You can even container garden in rubber totes. Just poke a drain hole in the bottom. Old clothes baskets. Again poke holes in the bottom and stand some cardboard pieces against the sides as you fill with soil to keep it in.

 

[zhangliao04]

No. I just did mine sunday. Potatoes can be grown in just about anything you have around that will hold up for the season or more. Grow bags. Stacking old tires as the tops grow. You can go 4-5 tires or more up and just keep giving new soil for the roots to develop. I've seen videos where a 'tomato' cage out of wire fence was used. Straw up against the inside of the fence to keep the soil in. Soil in the center. Just keep building it up as the plant grows till you get about 2-3 feet deep. Any space saving idea where you can go up a few feet will produce loads of potatoes. I'm hoping my 12 inch sqaures on my grow bags will be fine. I didn't overload the squares. I used 3 for Yukon Gold, and 3 for red potatoes. So I'm doing 6 12x12x12 squares. I put only one potato in one of hte squares on the golds to get a little bigger potato. two of the golds only have 2 potatoes. In one of the reds I put three so I could have one squares with smaller mini potatoes. Sizes of potatoes do have a bit to do with the variety, but also with the quantity of seed spuds you put in a particular confined space. The more you plug, the smaller the tater. Doesn't require a lot of expense if you have stuff laying around or acces to say hey, you getting rid of that. Gardening can be as cheap or expensive as you choose. If I was doing just a few tomatoes and such, I'd probably just go buy plants. But, I'm doing enough that bought plants would be a big expense, and I'm getting alot of bang for the buck from my heat mat, reusable seed trays, and grow light. All in that stuff was around $60 on Amazon. Another $20 for my grow bags that I'll get several years out of. Seeds are usually $3-4 a pack for more seeds than I can use in a season. You can even container garden in rubber totes. Just poke a drain hole in the bottom. Old clothes baskets. Again poke holes in the bottom and stand some cardboard pieces against the sides as you fill with soil to keep it in.

I bought some 7-gal grow bags for my peppers this year. Been seeing a lot of good coming from those types of bags. Also saw you can use them for potatoes. My only issue with them is keeping the roots from going through the bag, but I assume keeping it up and off the ground will help with that. I looked at 10-gal bags for potatoes. Don’t know if that is too big or how many potatoes I’d expect from that size of a container.

 

[GVF]

I bought some 7-gal grow bags for my peppers this year. Been seeing a lot of good coming from those types of bags. Also saw you can use them for potatoes. My only issue with them is keeping the roots from going through the bag, but I assume keeping it up and off the ground will help with that. I looked at 10-gal bags for potatoes. Don’t know if that is too big or how many potatoes I’d expect from that size of a container.

Not sure if roots is an issue in thesse bags or not. A 10 gal bag would do a fair amount of potatoes I'd think.

 

[Go aeiou]

I used "double dig"(about 18" deep) for my vegetable raised beds . I tilled in about a foot of fall leaves. It looked like 90% leaves and 10% soil at first, but by spring I had nice black soil. I kept adding leaves every year. They compost to almost nothing. I also mulch with wheat straw, and turn that in in the fall.
It's been that way for about 12-13 years. With the raised bed that gives me 26" of amended soil.
Works for growing just about anything. A neighbor gave me some Granex onions, and that's all I have planted now. Well, garlic(perennial).
Hope to plant tomaotes in about 2 weeks and peppers in 3-4 weeks. Nashville.

 

[SlipKidVol]

This looks like the more active garden thread. How many folks have chickens?.do we need a chicken thread or post here. Don't want to be like others a0nd start 30 threads

 

[VolNExile]

This looks like the more active garden thread. How many folks have chickens?.do we need a chicken thread or post here. Don't want to be like others a0nd start 30 threads

Well, back in the day, it wasn't.

Chickens! Post your chicken stuff here! They are definitely part of gardening, if you're gardening on the backyard level (as opposed to 40 acres.)

Hubs and I are horribly fascinated by the idea of having 3-4 laying hens in our backyard. (And a guy at church has 50+ hens, including "retirees" who don't pop out eggs regularly; they collect 2 1/2-3 dozen eggs a day, so at least we have him as an alternative to sending worn-out hens to "chicken camp.")

Do you have chickens, and if so, meat or eggs? Or are you tire-kicking the idea?

 

[Go aeiou]

This looks like the more active garden thread. How many folks have chickens?.do we need a chicken thread or post here. Don't want to be like others a0nd start 30 threads

Well, Nashville has a residential chicken law. Pro hen and no roosters.

Intro to Backyard Chickens

How do I get those delicious farm fresh eggs when I live in the city? The answer is simple…grow your own! The ‘fresh food’, ‘buy local’, ‘know...

www.nashville.gov

 

[LouderVol]

Got my garden set up and planted. Didnt have enough room for everything I wanted, but I am pretty happy with it.

 

[Tin Man]

Forgive me, gardeners, for I have sinned. The past two years, I’ve planted my vegetable garden denser than recommended, placing my tomatoes and peppers very close together and planting delicata squash in the same bed though there wasn’t sufficient room for them to spread. My experience has been that the peppers have benefited from the shade provided by the foliage to the fruits. The tomatoes became higgledy piggledy as the vines grew but produced well. The squash vines had to be guided, but have been modestly productive.

 

[VolNExile]

Forgive me, gardeners, for I have sinned. The past two years, I’ve planted my vegetable garden denser than recommended, placing my tomatoes and peppers very close together and planting delicata squash in the same bed though there wasn’t sufficient room for them to spread. My experience has been that the peppers have benefited from the shade provided by the foliage to the fruits. The tomatoes became higgledy piggledy as the vines grew but produced well. The squash vines had to be guided, but have been modestly productive.

Recommended planting differences drive me crazy. They’re often oriented toward (agricultural) row planting, with vegetable plants lined up in a row like little soldiers and gaps between the rows that are such a waste of space!

I do keep enough space between individual plants for good air circulation and access for picking, but otherwise I just mix them up, too.

If you want to be fancy, call it a potager (poh-tah-ZHAY)! - a traditional French kitchen garden, mixing vegetables, flowers, and herbs all together. It’s worked for centuries.

 

[Tin Man]

Recommended planting differences drive me crazy. They’re often oriented toward (agricultural) row planting, with vegetable plants lined up in a row like little soldiers and gaps between the rows that are such a waste of space!

I do keep enough space between individual plants for good air circulation and access for picking, but otherwise I just mix them up, too.

If you want to be fancy, call it a potager (poh-tah-ZHAY)! - a traditional French kitchen garden, mixing vegetables, flowers, and herbs all together. It’s worked for centuries.

View attachment 634455

Made a tiny garden of corn, sunflowers, morning glory, tomatoes, and marigolds at a house that I rented while enrolled at UT. The landlord’s wife loved it.

 

[GVF]

Got my garden set up and planted. Didnt have enough room for everything I wanted, but I am pretty happy with it. View attachment 634451

You'll enjoy that new set up. And easy to expand. Make sure to fill in at hte bottom of those boards before some of it washes out. Also looks like you might have room for one more raised bed to the right. Great start. I can tell you have fence wire on the trellis posts, but what's the board for? And is that a tomato trellis?

 

[GVF]

I got some investigative work to do. My new peach and apple look extremely healthy and budded and leaved out very well for their first spring in ground. Peach even has 3 tiny fruits. However, over the weekend they lost alot of leaves, and there was no discoloration or leaf curling going on. Oddly it was all the lower main globe leaves. The leaves at the very top remain. And no left overs are showing signs of beetles or anything. But, we also had some very, very strong winds Saturday and Sunday, and for young trees on their first season, I hope it may just be that the wind stripped them. Didn't even notice it till I walked out this morning. IIRC, they were fine Sunday morning, but I was doing a backsplash yesterday and didn't venture out to hte garden other than repotting some some seedlings in the house before starting on the backsplash.

 

[zhangliao04]

I got some investigative work to do. My new peach and apple look extremely healthy and budded and leaved out very well for their first spring in ground. Peach even has 3 tiny fruits. However, over the weekend they lost alot of leaves, and there was no discoloration or leaf curling going on. Oddly it was all the lower main globe leaves. The leaves at the very top remain. And no left overs are showing signs of beetles or anything. But, we also had some very, very strong winds Saturday and Sunday, and for young trees on their first season, I hope it may just be that the wind stripped them. Didn't even notice it till I walked out this morning. IIRC, they were fine Sunday morning, but I was doing a backsplash yesterday and didn't venture out to hte garden other than repotting some some seedlings in the house before starting on the backsplash.

I still haven’t received my peach trees. Supposed to ship between today and May 20th. Looking forward to it.

 

[Go aeiou]

I got some investigative work to do. My new peach and apple look extremely healthy and budded and leaved out very well for their first spring in ground. Peach even has 3 tiny fruits. However, over the weekend they lost alot of leaves, and there was no discoloration or leaf curling going on. Oddly it was all the lower main globe leaves. The leaves at the very top remain. And no left overs are showing signs of beetles or anything. But, we also had some very, very strong winds Saturday and Sunday, and for young trees on their first season, I hope it may just be that the wind stripped them. Didn't even notice it till I walked out this morning. IIRC, they were fine Sunday morning, but I was doing a backsplash yesterday and didn't venture out to hte garden other than repotting some some seedlings in the house before starting on the backsplash.

Deer?

 

[GVF]

Deer?

I called the garden center. Huge local one, etc, etc, and I know the owners and he sold me the trees. He asked if they were dry, or overwatered, which will stress newly planted fruit trees and they will drop leaves even though they look healthy. I pointed out constant heavy rains we've had for months, and that I haven't been watering otherwise cause I didn't want to over water. He said didn't matter, and to stick my finger down into the root ball near the trunk and see if it feels relatively dry compared to the wet soil around it. Or, if was over wet.

Soooo....I ended up adding half a bucket water to each. THey were barely moist to the touch even with the rainfalls we've had. Lessened learned. If you have fairly well draining soil like me, and put out new tress, especially fruit trees, give the root ball the finger and make sure you keep up the hydration regardless of rain fall. They will recover and put out new leaves in short order, but I will be going back to my several times per week water bucket for a few more months.

Upside, peach tree didn't drop it's 3 new peaches, and apple tree didn't drop hte 3-5 blooms that will be apples. If htey did fruit up I was gonna let them keep a couple just to taste test my variety picks. My established apple is a gala, and should do well this year since I added back a pollinator.

 

[Go aeiou]

I called the garden center. Huge local one, etc, etc, and I know the owners and he sold me the trees. He asked if they were dry, or overwatered, which will stress newly planted fruit trees and they will drop leaves even though they look healthy. I pointed out constant heavy rains we've had for months, and that I haven't been watering otherwise cause I didn't want to over water. He said didn't matter, and to stick my finger down into the root ball near the trunk and see if it feels relatively dry compared to the wet soil around it. Or, if was over wet.

Soooo....I ended up adding half a bucket water to each. THey were barely moist to the touch even with the rainfalls we've had. Lessened learned. If you have fairly well draining soil like me, and put out new tress, especially fruit trees, give the root ball the finger and make sure you keep up the hydration regardless of rain fall. They will recover and put out new leaves in short order, but I will be going back to my several times per week water bucket for a few more months.

Upside, peach tree didn't drop it's 3 new peaches, and apple tree didn't drop hte 3-5 blooms that will be apples. If htey did fruit up I was gonna let them keep a couple just to taste test my variety picks. My established apple is a gala, and should do well this year since I added back a pollinator.

The garden cener that advertises on the I-40? Johnson?
I never grew fruit trees. Probably because we've moved 13 times in our 43 year marriage.

I used to use 5 gal sheet rock mud buckets with a small hole drilled in the bottom to water new large shrubs and trees(10-12'). Fill and let it slowly drip to soak the ground.
We woud plant them along the street in a new beighborhood. After one summer they would be on their own. Usually oaks and maples. Some flowering trees. An occasional Gingko if plenty of room.

 

[SlipKidVol]

Got a new boy (and only) for my 15 hens

 

[GVF]

The garden cener that advertises on the I-40? Johnson?
I never grew fruit trees. Probably because we've moved 13 times in our 43 year marriage.

I used to use 5 gal sheet rock mud buckets with a small hole drilled in the bottom to water new large shrubs and trees(10-12'). Fill and let it slowly drip to soak the ground.
We woud plant them along the street in a new beighborhood. After one summer they would be on their own. Usually oaks and maples. Some flowering trees. An occasional Gingko if plenty of room.

Yep that Johnson's. One of the best places to shop. The 2 sons are running it. It's a family business going back about 100 years. I worked for the dad part time when I was in grad school at Tech and went to church with all of them. Fruit trees online just big enough to plant are 3X more than what he sells already at 5' with established leaf globes. $15 dollar bluberries that'd be 40+ online. Etc. And they are very knowledgeable on what varieties to choose for the area. Place is huge. And the lady that looks over the fower area is a whiz and a green thumb galore. Biggest problem for me is they also run family business hours. Close at 5 during week, and I work Saturdays when their open. Sometimes I just run over at lunch.

Your bucket watering method is prob the best method, although I must be too lazy to just go get another bucket and do that. Right now they are soaking up half buckets like like a sponge. Dumbfounds me after all the rain we've had the gound is soaked around the trees, but the root ball was almost dry. In normal weather, I'd have toted water out 3 times a week and been done by now. These went in in the fall.

 

[GVF]

Got a new boy (and only) for my 15 hens

View attachment 634797

My brothers rooster bowed up on me when they were gone last week. Like a cartoon. Went out to put them up. He turned his head sideways at me and eye balled me. Swear I saw his eyes twinkle. Feather ruffed up, and I thought oh crap. And here he came. Had on shorts. He won.

 

[Go aeiou]

Yep that Johnson's. One of the best places to shop. The 2 sons are running it. It's a family business going back about 100 years. I worked for the dad part time when I was in grad school at Tech and went to church with all of them. Fruit trees online just big enough to plant are 3X more than what he sells already at 5' with established leaf globes. $15 dollar bluberries that'd be 40+ online. Etc. And they are very knowledgeable on what varieties to choose for the area. Place is huge. And the lady that looks over the fower area is a whiz and a green thumb galore. Biggest problem for me is they also run family business hours. Close at 5 during week, and I work Saturdays when their open. Sometimes I just run over at lunch.

Your bucket watering method is prob the best method, although I must be too lazy to just go get another bucket and do that. Right now they are soaking up half buckets like like a sponge. Dumbfounds me after all the rain we've had the gound is soaked around the trees, but the root ball was almost dry. In normal weather, I'd have toted water out 3 times a week and been done by now. These went in in the fall.

I went to Tech half century ago.
We've stopped at Johnsons while traveling on I-40.
We had the benefit of water in 55 gallon drums with a hose fitting. they were in the back of a PU to water trees along the street planted (about 15-20 feet behind curb to avoid underground utilities).
I always planted in the fall to help the trees get established. Never had to water after the first summer unless there was a extreme drought.

 

[GVF]

I still haven’t received my peach trees. Supposed to ship between today and May 20th. Looking forward to it.

What variety did you order.