BYC gardening thread!!

[marktoo]

I've used them for 6 or 7 years I guess. I like em, besides I spent the money so I gotta use em. I seldom use the mini blocker, mostly in the spring. The 2" blocks I use all the time.

 

[dan26552]

Has any one ever grown artichokes?

 

[Bugseye]

Sounds like a good investment--the blockers.

 

[marktoo]

Sounds like a good investment--the blockers.

Over they long haul they probably are! I start almost everything other than beans. I despise thinning & do very poorly direct seeding fine seeds. I can get 50 of those mini blocks in 1/2 a cut down milk carton, which fits perfectly in my window sills. I often just plant the mini blocks. I can probably make a bunch of blocks quicker than someone can fill an equal number of pots but I have spent time prior sifting & mixing, so that's pretty much a wash. I would recommend making a blocker per youtube directions before running out and buying anything. You would be limited to one block at a time but get the idea.

 

[Guvnah]

... & do very poorly direct seeding fine seeds. ....

Here's a trick for that. This is how I do my carrots.

I prepare the bed as flat as possible. Then I distribute my soaker hoses and pat them into the soil a bit with the back of a shovel.

First trick: I mix the carrot seeds with sand. Mix it up as evenly as you can. Then lightly sprinkle the sand over the area. You can see your evenness of sprinkling if the sand is a different color from the actual soil. You don't need a lot of sand. Maybe 10x the volume of sand as the volume of seeds. I spread it as evenly as possible, and my carrot seeds are likewise evenly spread. And because I put the hose down first, seeds are not going to sprout under the hoses.

Pat this lightly with the back of a shovel. The entire plot. This presses the seeds into the soil.

Next I sprinkle a quarter inch (or so) of fine soil over the entire area. It doesn't take much. Essentially I just sprinkle until I can't see any of the sand.

Pat again. Then soak with a fine spray.

Then I sprinkle a light (very light) layer of fresh grass clippings. This helps retain moisture. Carrots take a long time to germinate and it's hard to keep the soil moist for that long -- especially in a dry climate like Colorado.

Finally (and this is the real secret) I cover the plot with a piece of old carpet. (I lay out the plot to fit beneath whatever carpet I have handy. Having a relative in the carpet business keeps me well supplied with old tear-outs.) I place it pile-side-down. I think it really doesn't matter, but to me, the pile side up would wick away more water to evaporation. Then soak the carpet. (I also place a few pieces of 2x4 or rocks to keep wind from blowing it off.)

This pretty much keeps the soil moist until the carrots sprout. Even in Colorado. But if I notice the soil underneath drying out, I soak the carpet again.

After a week or so, start checking for sprouting. The carrot variety I use actually takes 14 days (and 21 if I plant really early.) You just have to lift up one corner when checking for sprouts. They'll all come up pretty evenly. (This is also when you check to see if the soil is drying out.) At first sign of sprouts, remove the carpet. Most of the grass clippings will have emaciated to nothing.

Voila! You have a bed of well-dispersed, well-germinated carrots!

From there, I try to sprinkle very light applications of fresh clippings EACH DAY if possible. By "very light" I mean not much more than one grass blade's thickness each time. It's not enough to smother anything, and the carrots easily keep growing through the successive layers. But soon I have a nice mat of grass clippings between all the carrots. It results in very few weeds, and soon the carrot tops all grow together to create their own "mulch". Eventually the tops are so think that new grass clippings just stay on top of them. At that point I back off frequent applications. When the clippings start hanging on the tops, I just swish my hand around the tops and it falls through. (And continues to fall through as the clippings dry out.

Here is one of my carrot patches:

 

[lazy gardener]

Brilliant. Carrots are one of the most difficult crops for me to grow, mostly b/c I plant too thickly, and never get back to thin them.

 

[hippiestink]

Corn has been mostly harvested (only a few ears on the stalk still that were too young) and I've canned a few pints for later eating as well as freezing five cobs (so far). Also got about 5 pints of tomato sauce out of the nine plants I had this year, which isn't bad for someone who's never grown tomatoes before. I'm up to my ears in canned green beans! All in all not a horrible year for me. I still need to can some beef stew and chicken soup before I call it quits though!

 

[hennible]

Has any one ever grown artichokes?

Yes, from starts. In my greenhouse, wasn't hard.

 

[dan26552]

Yes, from starts. In my greenhouse, wasn't hard.

Nice. My mom got me some seeds to try, guess I'll see how that goes.

 

[RustedOak]

Over they long haul they probably are! I start almost everything other than beans. I despise thinning & do very poorly direct seeding fine seeds. I can get 50 of those mini blocks in 1/2 a cut down milk carton, which fits perfectly in my window sills. I often just plant the mini blocks. I can probably make a bunch of blocks quicker than someone can fill an equal number of pots but I have spent time prior sifting & mixing, so that's pretty much a wash. I would recommend making a blocker per youtube directions before running out and buying anything. You would be limited to one block at a time but get the idea.

I simply make my own seed tape from toilet paper. I mix a little flour with water to make a paste, lay out tape measure next to rolled out toilet paper that's been split in half longways, put a small dab of paste at proper spacing for whatever seed I'm planting, add one seed per dab of paste, fold over and press down. Once the paste has dried, roll up tape and roll back out into desired garden bed. Add a thin layer of compost over the top of tape, water and done