Virgin Gardener

[prepper7]

Organic Gardening have an article full of cool tips I've never before seen. E.g., "Raised beds are more space-efficient if the tops are gently rounded to form an arc, rather than flat. A rounded bed that is 5 feet wide across its base, for instance, will give you a 6-foot-wide arc above it—creating a planting surface that’s a foot wider than that of a flat bed. That foot might not seem like much, but multiply it by the length of your bed and you’ll see that it can make a big difference in total planting area." and "...Avoid planting in square patterns or rows. Instead, stagger the plants by planting in triangles (as shown here). By doing so, you can fit 10 to 14 percent more plants in each bed...when one researcher increased the spacing between romaine lettuces from 8 to 10 inches, the harvest weight per plant doubled..."

7 Secrets for a High-Yield Vegetable Garden

[slannesh]

Just one new one today. July 10th



Got my second harvest of swiss chard and a couple of small zucchinis tonight. As well as a bag of spinach and green leaf lettuce off of my gutter planters. I'm learning a lot, next year i'll be doing the zucchini differently, the plants just get too big to fit in a bed and not take over every square around them, everything within a square that's not also zucchini or spaghetti squash is stunted because the zucchini just grows so fast.

[zombiepreparation]

Got my second harvest of swiss chard and a couple of small zucchinis tonight. As well as a bag of spinach and green leaf lettuce off of my gutter planters.

Sweet. Good goin there, slannesh.

I'm learning a lot, next year i'll be doing the zucchini differently, the plants just get too big to fit in a bed and not take over every square around them, everything within a square that's not also zucchini or spaghetti squash is stunted because the zucchini just grows so fast.

Ah. Next year with the zucchini or other squashes maybe use, I 'think' it is, three, maybe four squares for each one. I had zucchini and yellow squash and used the book (Square Foot Gardening) as my guide for planting in my square foot garden a few years back. Wait, I've got it here. brb.....

Nope, it's more than that. Here it is:

"Zucchini is one favorite vegetable that takes a lot of room! In fact, you'll need a 3-foot by 3-foot space, or nine squares, to accommodate each plant. So if you want zucchini, it will take up more than half of a full block. But it can be grown just as successfully as the smaller vegetables in the square foot garden."

hmmmm.... I wonder if a container with a trellis might work next year. I'm thinking this out loud for myself too because I am also looking to next year's garden and I am definitely going mostly containers like prepper7 is doing with that self watering water system. And I hope to do some of those in the corners of the downstairs garden if I can, or SOMEwhere downstairs.

Hold on. I'm going to go google zucchini and container gardening. brb, again......

Okay, other people are growing squashes in containers.

Anyway, maybe that's something you can think about for next year with your squashes? You have done a marvelous job with your garden this year outside of the dread squashes eating up your footage.


By the way, I'm not afraid of the dark either. Just afraid of what's in it. Are night vision goggles expensive? Do they use batteries? I'm off to google again.

[zombiepreparation]

My cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, kale, lettuce, and basil are all dee-licious and producing well! Ymmmmmm

I shared my first harvests with my older neighbors in the building and am now having to 'stash' each days harvest as I walk to my apartment and past them. They 'obviously' watch what I am carrying each time I come from the garden and are unhesitating about asking for part of the harvest if they see it. I am currently only sharing with two of my neighbors, who are both seniors, one could even be called an elder; one being basically bedfast and the other somewhat housebound. They, like me, are reveling in the deliciousness of my produce!

[slannesh]

The squashes definitely do use up a lot of space. I just couldn't stand using 4 or 9?!? squares for each plant. So I looked up how to train them up a trellis and it's working well for the spaghetti squash but not so much for the Zucchini. It seems to get wide before it gets long if you take my meaning. That being said, I'm starting to see vine tendrils on a couple of the Zucchini so i'll be putting the trellis up asap to give them something to climb.

next year i'm going to take them out of this bed alltogether and build a thinner 2x8 foot bed that's fully trellised from the start to grow them in. I figure if I trellis both sides and alternate them I can still get 8 plants in the one bed and give them a bit of room to expand. They currently don't seem to be hindering each other, just the poor peppers trying to grow under them in the squares in front

But that's why i'm a virgin gardener I guess Live and learn, I'm still going to get a lot more produce than I was expecting this year so I'm very pleased with the results thus far.

[zombiepreparation]

Call me a quitter if you want.

I have my two downstairs in-ground cherry tomato plants that are giving me a dozen little delicious morsels daily. Ymmmm.

I have a regular size tomato plant in a container on my balcony with nicely growing larger tomatoes. Yummy looking.

Then I have those two container bush tomato plants that grow an in-between size tomato and first had blossom rot. One plant, as I mentioned, is not producing tomatoes at all and the the tomatoes on the other plant have not grown in size for at least two weeks. They are not even close to being mature size.

I have decided the two container bush tomato plants are a bust for the year. I will reclaim the containers and the plants will go into the compost. Regarding them, I am quitting to fight another day.

Other than those two 86'd plants I am happily munching lettuce, kale, tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil daily.

[prepper7]

Call me a quitter if you want. <snip>

Reallocating time and resources to where they can be better be used? Sounds like, "strategic decision making", to me. If you learned something useful, it's "win".

[slannesh]

Reallocating time and resources to where they can be better be used? Sounds like, "strategic decision making", to me. If you learned something useful, it's "win".

^^^^ This.

Not a quitter to give up on a lost cause of a plant. Sounds like you're still getting lots of stuff that's going well. Learn from the stuff that worked as well as the stuff that didn't. I know I sure have this year.

[slannesh]

Did some maintenance on the garden today beyond just watering it. Still growing very well, the Zucchini still are growing like crazy.



The Swiss Chard is still going well too. I need to take another harvest already


I planted several types of peppers but didn't expect them to do much, however after a cool wet spring we're having a scorcher of a summer so they're doing better than expected.

Banana Peppers


Red Bell Peppers


And my latest haul. Zucchini and an immature Banana pepper, I just wanted to see how it tasted


Like everyone else i'm learning a lot this year about both what works and what doesn't and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's participated in the thread helping each other out, that's one of the things I love about ZS.

[zombiepreparation]

Looks delicious, slannesh!

How are everyone else's gardens growing?

Update on balcony in containers:
Bell pepper plant has these little two bite peppers growing. Harvest is small but several times a week.
Lettuce just keeps on growing. Am beginning replanting.
Basil still is harvest-able daily.
I didn't care for taste or texture of the tomatoes in the container I brought back upstairs to get out of the extreme heat. I pulled it off the watering schedule. It will go the way of the other two container tomato plants.

Update on downstairs in-ground plants:
Kale finally took off and is producing almost faster than I can consume it. Almost.
Cherry tomato plants are producing the most delicious fruit, enough for a daily bowl full! Ymmm
The cucumbers grow a foot or longer then 'meat-up' and fill out. They are delicious too.
I simply do not care for the taste of the purple basil. I may be using it wrong in food I guess, but it's pretty!

<munch munch munch>

Am preparing to plant spinach & lettuce again.

[prepper7]

Nice looking garden, Slannesh. Nice to know you'll be armed with lots of info for next year's planting.

Z-Prep, perhaps your "purple basil" is perennial basil? I'm growing it, as well as, sweet basil. The flavour is clovey and I think it may go better with sweet, rather than savoury, dishes. If this is what you have, you might try a sprig in your cocoa, tea, or coffee. It might make a nice garnish for a dessert.

The plant also brings a nice fragrance to the garden. Since it is a perennial, you need not pinch off the flowers, but can let them bloom into a lovely display.

[prepper7]

I was at Albertsons today and saw that they have Burpee seeds on clearance for 40%-off. They have a nice selection of flower and veg varieties.

[prepper7]

There's an excellent deal posted by Urban Organic Gardener. Natural Habit carry Ups-A-Daisy inserts, an easy peasy SIP creator. The 12" is $10.50 ($.50 after discount and free shipping). It's what I ordered with my discount code.

From Urban Organic Gardener:
One of the companies that I've recently partnered up with, Natural Habit Inc http://www.naturalhabitinc.com,

wants you to try their organic fertilizer. To help entice you, they provided me with a $10 off coupon to give to you. When checking out use the promo code: U2UDIO9V3C729. They have products for $10-15 and free shipping, so you are pretty much paying nothing.

So be sure to make your purchase today, then head on over to their Facebook page and thank them for the great offer.
https://www.facebook.com/NaturalHabitInc

[zombiepreparation]

Z-Prep, perhaps your "purple basil" is perennial basil? I'm growing it, as well as, sweet basil. The flavour is clovey and I think it may go better with sweet, rather than savoury, dishes. If this is what you have, you might try a sprig in your cocoa, tea, or coffee. It might make a nice garnish for a dessert.

The plant also brings a nice fragrance to the garden. Since it is a perennial, you need not pinch off the flowers, but can let them bloom into a lovely display.

Okay. Thanks. Truthfully I don't have first hand knowledge of what it is. I was 'told' by two of the other garden plot holders it is basil. None of the current plot holders seem to have planted it but there are a several non-english fluent gardeners whom I can't communicate with concerning specifics on anything. They speak Mandarin to me, I speak English to them, each of us holding conversations with the other, nobody understanding. I teach them English words they don't learn and they teach me Mandarin words I don't learn.

The so called 'basil' just seems to be growing.... here... there... over there. Now perennial mean every year right? So that would fit with this stuff. I'll give it a try in sweet rather than savory.

[zombiepreparation]

So now I have begun breaking down the balcony garden parts that have stopped producing for the year (spinach is just starting its fall crop, lettuce keeps growing, so does the green basil)

I have gathered (acquired) a storage tub for storing the soil over the winter... and had an idea. About composting.

I began last fall with attempts at composting on the balcony because I am loathe to toss food scraps into the garbage. It was a good start but it didn't quite work. The man who 'said' he'd give me Red Wrigglers to breakdown the scraps never did and I wasn't getting the scraps to break down, eventually leaving what I had to that point but not adding more.

Today I thought "Hey, what if I used the cheap Wal-mart smoothie maker I have to turn each handful of scraps into soup? Maybe that'll work better!" So today I souped some scraps and added it to the soil. I did like what I saw and I think I may have stumbled onto something for my size of compost work.

We'll see.

And as always, feedback on this blender composting not only welcom but desired!

[zombiepreparation]

Looking at the balcony gardening from this end of the season I can say I am please with this first run at it. The 'mold' war is just a distant memory now, with actual plants that grew taking the place of the mold memories.

I have learned my balcony will produce lots of basil, lettuce, kale (which I had to learn to like, successfully, it being a new taste to me), spinach, and asparagus.

I never got around to growing radishes this year. The mold war pushed that out of my mind. Next year though, probably.

Next year almost everything will be grown in homemade self-watering buckets.

I will try tomatoes again. I will see if I can get the same kind of bush tomato plant that grew so well downstairs in the in-ground garden. They are simply delicious.

I will be better prepared for extreme heat.

I will plant dill. There was so much free-range dill growing everywhere downstairs and before it bolted I ate it every single day. Memories of it still linger.

I will plant other herbs too.

I will watch for the city autumn compost sale and bring tubs of the stuff home to wait for LATE winter/EARLY spring plantings. I will plant e.a.r.l.i.e.r.

That's what I have so far.

[prepper7]

I received my $10 rebate from the Osmocote promotion; $12 of plant food for $2!

[curryman]

I received my $10 rebate from the Osmocote promotion; $12 of plant food for $2!

That's what that was. Shit, I gave it to my wife thinking it was hers. DOH

Curryman

[prepper7]

I received my $10 rebate from the Osmocote promotion; $12 of plant food for $2!

That's what that was. Shit, I gave it to my wife thinking it was hers. DOH
Curryman

Dude, you're missing something... Wife = either way, it's hers.

[prepper7]

Fascinating gardening 'cast on TSP Episode-945- Weeds that aren’t Weeds and Other Unusal Edibles

[zombiepreparation]

I am now the proud recipient of an in-ground garden plot for next year.

It is time for me to re-read this thread from the beginning.

[prepper7]

I am now the proud recipient of an in-ground garden plot for next year.<snip>

Congratulations! Is the plot at your apartment complex?

[zombiepreparation]

I am now the proud recipient of an in-ground garden plot for next year.<snip>

Congratulations! Is the plot at your apartment complex?

Yes. !!

[prepper7]

I am now the proud recipient of an in-ground garden plot for next year.<snip>

Congratulations! Is the plot at your apartment complex?

Yes. !!

That is fortunate indeed; you will be able to watch over your crops much more easily than if they were in some remote location. You will also have an opportunity to spread the idea of gardening and build community (always useful in the event of an Event).