Garden thread

[Nelson-Collier]

Nice plants @Nelson-Collier ! Is #12 a fig? Did you ever figure out what the white stuff on the tomato leaf was?

Nice plants @Nelson-Collier ! Is #12 a fig? Did you ever figure out what the white stuff on the tomato leaf was?

Thank you very much! #12 is a fig. I had it potted for 4 years then I got it in the ground last year Or the year prior. It’s growing like crazy and finally has fruit on it I never could find out what was on the tomato, but it never came back so whatever it was it’s gone. It could’ve been moth eggs or something

 

[OlympicChick]

Now I really want a Meyer Lemon tree. I am 8b too, so maybe I could actually leave it outside?

 

[cluckmecoop7]

Hey all!

 

[littledog]

I usually just pluck them off and give them to the chickens, but they get down in the broccoli head and are hard to get out. I always soak the heads in salt water before I cook them, that gets them out.

Oh, what a good hint! My cabbages had so many worms last year, I kept peeling off the outside leaves until I got to the worm-free area, which wasted a lot and made my cabbage heads tiny. I'm going to try your method this year - thank you!

 

[littledog]

Wherever you order from be careful that you know what you're ordering and what if any seed laws protect what you plant. This has come into more public knowledge recently with the "cosmic crisp" apples making big headlines about only being able to be grown in Washington by certified growers, but when a new variety of plant is made, even if it's open-pollinated, there are certain patent laws that can restrict who can save seeds and clones to basically reward the person who developed the variety.
Many hybrids are especially proprietary but open pollinated plants can be too. Not relevant if you're just saving for your own garden but maybe trouble if you're doing seed swaps or something. High Mowing recently started carrying some of these and lists these clearly in their catalog. If you're buying a non heirloom variety consider double checking if it's got an OSSI patent (free to use), utility patent (can't save seeds or breed with) or plant variety patent (can't commercialize, can save seeds and breed with). Not every company carries patented plants. Not every company mentions they carry patented plants. So do your own research.

Yeah they're not particularly long patents (20 years) but they're real and exist. They probably wouldn't if it weren't for big ag pushing for their own intellectual property gene patents, but such is life.

Yeah, these gardening patent issues make me so angry!
I agree that these "Big Ag" companies who invented certain varieties deserve patent protection for the processes they developed, and of course they should charge whatever the market will bear for the price of the seeds they sell, but they shouldn't be able to patent Mother Nature by demanding payment from everyone who grows these plants by seed-saving.
It's the same as if the first medieval sheep-herder in Yorkshire who bred and trained a good herding dog and charged money to neighbors to breed it, instead patented the Border Collie as his own breed that only he owned, and demanded a cut from everybody whose dog was black-and-white and good at herding sheep, regardless of whether or not the dogs bred each other by their own choice or even descended from his original herding dog.

Maybe this is a better analogy - in 1964, the Moog synthesizer was invented. It could reproduce all kinds of sounds, and became widely used in all kinds of music. A lot of record labels and bands wanted to use it, so they bought one. It could be programmed in different ways, and the bands and labels who owned one were creative in making it create different sounds, tons of remarkable songs in they 60's owe their innovative sound to the Moog synthesizer. But did Bob Moog patent the sound, and make every band who ever used it pay him for every song? Or start a lawsuit against every musician who came up with a similar sound? No, he just charged them when they bought one. And let his invention go freely into the hands of musicians to develop new ways of using it. That's what's fair - that's what advances invention.

Just like Monsanto developing "roundup-ready" plants, then sueing everybody in the area when the wind blows pollen onto other people's farms and their plants ended up "roundup-ready" too. And don't even let me get started on the destructive monoculture these processes promote for the environment, not to mention the harm that comes to people who are paid a pittance to spray this crap and harvest these monoculture plants for the profits of Big Ag owners.

Stepping off my soapbox now.

 

[cluckmecoop7]

Sorry everyone, I lost this thread for a while.

Garden is planted!

 

[Kusanar]

Well, I got my garden in, planted it the first of May, then we had a bunch of cold weather around the 10th (now I know, don't plant until after May 10th here) where I had to cover everything.

I am doing a modified Square Foot Garden where I made an 4x8 bed that is surrounded by cinderblocks. I got a bale of peat moss and tilled it into the existing soil (not using mell's mix) and planted in that.

I have the following in the bed:

4 cherry tomatoes, one of which seems to have died, but I'm hoping it can hang in a little longer as it has 3 tomatoes on it, the other 3 seem to be doing well and one of them is starting to color up the fruit on it so I will actually have fruit soon hopefully.

4 slicing tomatoes ( I believe they are "Big Boy" but may be wrong) which are growing well but not setting fruit just yet, though one does have a tiny fruit starting on it, maybe 1/4 inch across right now.

6 Jalipenos, 1 has died, not sure what happened to it, it stopped growing at about 4 inches tall and then just lost all leaves and turned into a stick.

2 Bell Peppers, one of which did the stick thing that the Jalipeno did, the other looks ok still.

I planted 8 sq feet with popcorn, 2 in each hole, and 4 holes per foot for a possible 64 plants (not all germinated, but at least 1 per hole did it looks like), and it's growing great, around 2 feet tall already.

Planted the remaining 8 square feet with carrots, same planting layout as the corn... I have 2 sprouts out of the 60+ seeds I put in the ground... Eh, it was a $0.20 pack of seeds and my first try at growing carrots so it's a learning experience.

I bought the tomatoes and peppers as I don't really have anywhere good to sprout baby plants, but then I remembered, I have a 20 gallon empty aquarium setup with lights that I can use as a baby plant nursery. I'm thinking either making a floating raft out of pool noodles and put each seedling in it's own little innertube to float around and putting a few inches of water in the aquarium, or making little pots out of copy paper and setting them in the bottom with a little water, but that would require more careful monitoring. I also have a seedling heat mat that I can put under the aquarium to keep the water warm.

I can probably use the peat pellets for seed starting in the pool noodles, the seed starting kit I got years ago used peat pellets in a styrafoam mat (since eaten by the cats) so the pellets were always slightly wet from having their bottom sides in water so I think the pool noodle thing would work as well. It would just be semi hydroponic until they went out into the garden in the spring.

If everything lives and does ok, I may take cuttings from the tomatoes and maybe the peppers (can you do peppers from cuttings? I don't know, I'll google in a second) and overwinter them in the aquarium so I don't have to buy new ones next year or start seeds.

Apparently indeterminant tomatoes (which is what these are) can be perpetually grown from cuttings and each cutting "knows" how long it's been since it's seed sprouted and therefore will set fruit sooner than a seedling of the same size so that could be interesting to try.

 

[Kusanar]

So far, I have gotten 1 cherry tomato, and have several more waiting to ripen. There is a decent sized slicer growing right now, it's about twice the size of the cherry tomatoes right now so it has a long way to go but it's getting there.

1 of 4 of the cherry tomatoes, 1 of 4 of the slicing tomatoes, 2 of the 6 jalapenos and 1 of the 2 bell peppers is dead. 3 of the many carrot seeds I planted came up and per the dates should be "ready" to pull on the 15th. I will probably do that on the 18th or 19th, dig up that end of the garden again and replant them, see if I can get a decent 2nd wave of carrots rather than just the 3 I have gotten so far.

The popcorn is growing like mad and was starting to shade out the tomatoes and peppers near it, so I took a piece of yarn and tied them back to their side of the garden and used a sharp knife to trim all leaves that were overhanging the tomatoes and peppers to help contain the corn a bit.

 

[rosemarythyme]

So far, I have gotten 1 cherry tomato, and have several more waiting to ripen. There is a decent sized slicer growing right now, it's about twice the size of the cherry tomatoes right now so it has a long way to go but it's getting there.

1 of 4 of the cherry tomatoes, 1 of 4 of the slicing tomatoes, 2 of the 6 jalapenos and 1 of the 2 bell peppers is dead. 3 of the many carrot seeds I planted came up and per the dates should be "ready" to pull on the 15th. I will probably do that on the 18th or 19th, dig up that end of the garden again and replant them, see if I can get a decent 2nd wave of carrots rather than just the 3 I have gotten so far.

The popcorn is growing like mad and was starting to shade out the tomatoes and peppers near it, so I took a piece of yarn and tied them back to their side of the garden and used a sharp knife to trim all leaves that were overhanging the tomatoes and peppers to help contain the corn a bit.

Jealous. My tomatoes are flowering and that's it. 1 pepper is flowering. I might have some carrots at least but they're likely still baby sized, so I'm trying to hold off on pulling some until I see a telltale orange top appear. And snap peas look like they're already done... half the plants are yellowing and withering. Was hoping they'd produce a little more.

Harvested some turnips last week, so pretty happy to have gotten that much. Collards are growing very well so should be able to eat those soon.

 

[Sequel]

Jealous. My tomatoes are flowering and that's it. 1 pepper is flowering. I might have some carrots at least but they're likely still baby sized, so I'm trying to hold off on pulling some until I see a telltale orange top appear. And snap peas look like they're already done... half the plants are yellowing and withering. Was hoping they'd produce a little more.

Harvested some turnips last week, so pretty happy to have gotten that much. Collards are growing very well so should be able to eat those soon.

How were your turnips? I’ve never grown them because I assumed they’d get wormy. I’d sure love to have some for variety!