BYC gardening thread!!

[dan26552]

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:

Do you thin them?

 

[dan26552]

I sprouted an avocado! The last time I tried my little brother kept kicking the pot over and killed it

 

[Guvnah]

Do you thin them?

Nope. The method I use to spread the seeds ends up giving a "pre-thinned" result from the start.

For the record, I spread a standard packet of carrot seeds (usually a tenth-ounce or eighth-ounce) in an area about 3-feet-by-8-feet.

Sure, here and there two seeds end up relatively close, but they have room to "bump shoulders" and grow in thickness in opposite directions.

I'm all about low-work gardening, and this is one of those tricks that saves a ton of time (and avoids having to deal with placing tiny seeds that old eyes and shaky hands have a hard time handling.

) I also get maximum "value" out of a packet of seeds, instead of losing half to thinning.

 

[dan26552]

Nope. The method I use to spread the seeds ends up giving a "pre-thinned" result from the start.

For the record, I spread a standard packet of carrot seeds (usually a tenth-ounce or eighth-ounce) in an area about 3-feet-by-8-feet.

Sure, here and there two seeds end up relatively close, but they have room to "bump shoulders" and grow in thickness in opposite directions.

I'm all about low-work gardening, and this is one of those tricks that saves a ton of time (and avoids having to deal with placing tiny seeds that old eyes and shaky hands have a hard time handling.

) I also get maximum "value" out of a packet of seeds, instead of losing half to thinning.

Oh, ok. I see

 

[member 373180]

I sprouted an avocado! The last time I tried my little brother kept kicking the pot over and killed it

Beautiful! Mine grew to 6 ft tall before I killed him by trying to transplant him. :/

 

[dan26552]

Beautiful! Mine grew to 6 ft tall before I killed him by trying to transplant him.

Thanks. Aww that stinks

 

[RichnSteph]

I sprouted an avocado! The last time I tried my little brother kept kicking the pot over and killed it

That's awesome! We actually had one sprout in the compost bin and it's continued to grow in a raised bed that we built for it. I've got to transplant it this week into a pot so we can bring it in the house for the winter. This is the first one we've gotten to sprout and we're hopeful that we can put it in the yard next year and have fruit from it in a couple years.

Congrats on your sprout!

 

[dan26552]

That's awesome! We actually had one sprout in the compost bin and it's continued to grow in a raised bed that we built for it. I've got to transplant it this week into a pot so we can bring it in the house for the winter. This is the first one we've gotten to sprout and we're hopeful that we can put it in the yard next year and have fruit from it in a couple years.

Congrats on your sprout!

Thanks! Awesome, good luck! Actually I got three to sprout

 

[marktoo]

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:

Thanks! Nice looking bed! Yeah, I'm aware of the of the sand trick as well as the others except for the carpet, of which I have none available to me. Perhaps an old beach towel would serve. I seldom plant carrots. I use some of these planting cover crops. The transplants allow me to wait till the last minute to tear out, prep & replant my beds.

 

[marktoo]

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

Did this many years ago with the kids as young'uns. They were none to interested at the time but the seeds sprouted as they both garden as they are able!