BYC gardening thread!!

[CheleB]

Hey Marktoo

Sounds like your growing conditions in summer are similar. Do you grow in raised beds also? Yes a bore is a pipe sink down into the ground and attached to an electric pump with lines running out under the ground around my yard. Most people here have one. The fish most popular up here is the barramundi. Not really into boats although most people are into that too. I'm too worried it will sink and I'll become croc food. I'm finding it's going to be trial and error as to what will grow. We will soon be in the wet season in a couple of months so if some of my shade trees will grow that will help my veggies. Townsville (where I am) and cairns are only 4 hours drive apart but totally different climates. Cairns rains heaps and is green all the time. Townsville is a small zone ringed by a small mountain range and we pretty much only get rain over the wet season which is sometimes up to 3 months and we can get 300mm in 24hrs (12 inches). Then for about 9 months straight it doesn't rain at all. Easy to get a tan.

 

[Penny Hen]

Hey Marktoo

Sounds like your growing conditions in summer are similar. Do you grow in raised beds also? Yes a bore is a pipe sink down into the ground and attached to an electric pump with lines running out under the ground around my yard. Most people here have one. The fish most popular up here is the barramundi. Not really into boats although most people are into that too. I'm too worried it will sink and I'll become croc food. I'm finding it's going to be trial and error as to what will grow. We will soon be in the wet season in a couple of months so if some of my shade trees will grow that will help my veggies. Townsville (where I am) and cairns are only 4 hours drive apart but totally different climates. Cairns rains heaps and is green all the time. Townsville is a small zone ringed by a small mountain range and we pretty much only get rain over the wet season which is sometimes up to 3 months and we can get 300mm in 24hrs (12 inches). Then for about 9 months straight it doesn't rain at all. Easy to get a tan.

Sounds like you could use a water catching system in the rainy season. I dug a small catch pond just above my garden bed (I am on a hill). It fills up with a good rain and then slow feeds through the soil to the garden below. Maybe next year will enlarge it some. The frogs sure had fun laying eggs in it and then I had tadpoles. If it had been large enough for fish I could have fed them most of the summer on the tadpoles.

 

[CheleB]

Sounds like you could use a water catching system in the rainy season. I dug a small catch pond just above my garden bed (I am on a hill). It fills up with a good rain and then slow feeds through the soil to the garden below. Maybe next year will enlarge it some. The frogs sure had fun laying eggs in it and then I had tadpoles. If it had been large enough for fish I could have fed them most of the summer on the tadpoles.

Hi Penny Hen

Mosquitos and cane toads are the blight of the north. I have a raised pond 600mm high as a frog habitat. Up high so the toads can't jump in. Toads are really poisonous. Practically every house here has a ground bore. Water is very expensive to have to pay council for. If they could charge us for the air we breathe they would. Hang on - they now do - its called a carbon tax!

 

[SunnySkies]

Quote:
I'd be interested to to know what is doing the digging.  You don't have gophers, do you? 

My perennial herb garden drip has in it from dripworks.  Are you using T-tape?

I removed the few large trees in my yard, as they were becoming problematic.  Someday I'll plant some small ones in the front.

I've been putting stuff in the soil here for years, it just washes out but I just gotta keep at it.  Seems to be a matter of just figuring out what will grow & what won't.  I try to stay away from heavy feeders.  A couple years back I planted a mix of winter squash & we had them coming out our ears,  past couple years not so good.  I rotate crops ever year.  I don't test my soil & I don't keep records so I guess I'm doomed to repeat my mistakes.    

I don't know if we have gophers. I have periodically tried to trap whatever was living under the front stoop, but was unsuccessful, saw no further evidence of digging ( until recently) and got not one, but two, Great Pyrenees as poultry protection. Yet, something is out there. I need to move the compost bin thing, as it is next to the greenhouse on the south side of the garage and figure out what to do. I haven't seen gopher holes, do I am more suspicious of woodchucks or badgers.

Yes, I have the T tape. Very easy, no emitters to clog. If it springs a leak, they have a fix-it gizmo. I'm thinking of running some lines to the dwarf apple trees and the blueberries I added to the place this year.

I don't keep good records either. I know I should...but I hate paperwork.

 

[Nutcase]

Hi everyone, I have a few questions and thought that maybe you could help me out. I have two tomato plants, a young seedling and a mature plant. The mature one is flowering and sticking out suckers everywhere. How big do the suckers need to be before I root them?

Also, does anyone have any experience with growing veggies in the chook yard? I was thinking of starting up a pumpkin patch. Pumpkin sprouts pop up all the time from the food scraps and although the chickens peck them up from boredom, I think if I let a plant grow bigger and stronger they would leave it alone.

 

[CheleB]

Hi everyone, I have a few questions and thought that maybe you could help me out.  I have two tomato plants, a young seedling and a mature plant.  The mature one is flowering and sticking out suckers everywhere.  How big do the suckers need to be before I root them?  

Also, does anyone have any experience with growing veggies in the chook yard?  I was thinking of starting up a pumpkin patch. Pumpkin sprouts pop up all the time from the food scraps and although the chickens peck them up from boredom, I think if I let a plant grow bigger and stronger they would leave it alone.

I

Dear nutcase

My pumpkin vine is planted in a raised bed and the vine spills out and runs all over and the chooks don't bother it. You could take the suckers off your tomato plant and put them in a jar if water to get roots. When planting out spread a handful of potash around each plant for lots more fruit. Also take off the bottom leave from the stem and then stem plant tomatoes for much stronger plants. It will send out more roots from the stem and therefore be a much stronger stemmed plant but the extra roots it will have means it takes up more water and nutrients. Hope this helps.

 

[hosspak]

Hi everyone, I have a few questions and thought that maybe you could help me out. I have two tomato plants, a young seedling and a mature plant. The mature one is flowering and sticking out suckers everywhere. How big do the suckers need to be before I root them?

Also, does anyone have any experience with growing veggies in the chook yard? I was thinking of starting up a pumpkin patch. Pumpkin sprouts pop up all the time from the food scraps and although the chickens peck them up from boredom, I think if I let a plant grow bigger and stronger they would leave it alone.

I'm located in So. Cal. and we have 12 different varieties of tomatoes this year, twice I had a gopher take out 2 tomato plants at the roots. I stuck the stem of the rootless plants back into the gopher hole and pressed it all down and they grew up pretty well but not great. If you can just keep to using the seedlings. But if you want to experiment take the suckers that have a least one fork and put them into starter pots with a good soil and use B-12 or a root starter liquid.

FYI, don't plant tomatoes where the chickens can get at them, mine love, love, love all the tomatoes we have especially the Top 100 cherries. And they also love pumpkin....

This was the start of our garden March 2013.


This is what it looked like in August, 8 varieties of tomatoes on the left and Armeian cucumbers on the right.


Pruning the tomato plants, we have some plants that are over 8 feet tall so pruning is quite a chore.

 

[flgardengirl]

I'm located in So. Cal. and we have 12 different varieties of tomatoes this year, twice I had a gopher take out 2 tomato plants at the roots. I stuck the stem of the rootless plants back into the gopher hole and pressed it all down and they grew up pretty well but not great. If you can just keep to using the seedlings. But if you want to experiment take the suckers that have a least one fork and put them into starter pots with a good soil and use B-12 or a root starter liquid.

FYI, don't plant tomatoes where the chickens can get at them, mine love, love, love all the tomatoes we have especially the Top 100 cherries. And they also love pumpkin....

This was the start of our garden March 2013.


This is what it looked like in August, 8 varieties of tomatoes on the left and Armeian cucumbers on the right.


Pruning the tomato plants, we have some plants that are over 8 feet tall so pruning is quite a chore.

Nice tomatoes!!

 

[marktoo]

Hey Marktoo

Sounds like your growing conditions in summer are similar. Do you grow in raised beds also? Yes a bore is a pipe sink down into the ground and attached to an electric pump with lines running out under the ground around my yard. Most people here have one. The fish most popular up here is the barramundi. Not really into boats although most people are into that too. I'm too worried it will sink and I'll become croc food. I'm finding it's going to be trial and error as to what will grow. We will soon be in the wet season in a couple of months so if some of my shade trees will grow that will help my veggies. Townsville (where I am) and cairns are only 4 hours drive apart but totally different climates. Cairns rains heaps and is green all the time. Townsville is a small zone ringed by a small mountain range and we pretty much only get rain over the wet season which is sometimes up to 3 months and we can get 300mm in 24hrs (12 inches). Then for about 9 months straight it doesn't rain at all. Easy to get a tan.

We get our rain in the winter months, sounds like you get yours in the summer. The valley that runs up through California is about 450 some odd miles long Redding to the north gets 34" of rain a year Bakersfield to the south about 6.5", we get about11" here where we're at. That being said we're in the middle of a drought. We also rely heavily on snow pack in the mountains.

I have a couple of beds made with cinder block & a few made with 4x4s but that's just to border the beds not really raise them. The main garden has 12" x 12" patio stones framing the beds.

I don't know if we have gophers. I have periodically tried to trap whatever was living under the front stoop, but was unsuccessful, saw no further evidence of digging ( until recently) and got not one, but two, Great Pyrenees as poultry protection. Yet, something is out there. I need to move the compost bin thing, as it is next to the greenhouse on the south side of the garage and figure out what to do. I haven't seen gopher holes, do I am more suspicious of woodchucks or badgers.

Yes, I have the T tape. Very easy, no emitters to clog. If it springs a leak, they have a fix-it gizmo. I'm thinking of running some lines to the dwarf apple trees and the blueberries I added to the place this year.

I don't keep good records either. I know I should...but I hate paperwork.

I would think woodchucks also. I think gophers are a western thing.

Must be a lot of T-tape for a garden of that size. Did you buy that 4,100 ft roll? How bulky was that? I had been looking at that, it would keep me forever but was concerned about storage. Take me about 1,200' to redo my garden.

 

[Nutcase]

Quote: Thanks for your info everyone! I've read in heaps of places that chooks love pumpkin seeds but mine won't touch them, so they sprout constantly.