A general gardening thread

[The Backroad Astronomer]

Spent most of the afternoon trying to get the belt resized and now it won't stay on, there was a guard but had to take it off to get the belt off and someone kicked them off the step going into the woodshed, trying to find them with a magnet.
Probably plant some chard, peas and carrots tonight they like a bit on the cool side.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

Everything that is in the garden is doing well but we still have chance of frost over the next couple of days and later in the week rain hopefully get everything by then. Today just saoking some neet seed to help them out.

[Glom]

All I know is that the grass is growing, the polyanthus is flowering again, which is a miracle and the heuchera is also flowering.

And I filled up two bags with weeds last week as I finally decided to pull them up. I can now view the Figment rock from the lounge.

[BigDon]

Ah man! Now I want a heuchera...

[The Backroad Astronomer]

D'oh get pole beans instead of green beans.looks like they are just green beans that need some support.

[slang]

On the other hand NOT disturbing the root ball at all when repotting and transferring to a larger pot, let's say, can lead to the roots growing in a circle and not colonizing the new soil.

I was about to say that that was a bit odd, but then I remembered taking out last years peppers from their 10L (2.5 gallon?) buckets, and considerably less than they entire clump of earth coming out. I guess I'll try to massage the root clump a bit in a bucket of water before transferring to a larger container with the next plants I'll transplant.

I'm not much of a gardener but slowly gaining some experience with chilies. With container size I think the problem is trying to give roots enough room to grow, but not too much. Seedlings that go into huge containers tend to do worse than those that go to large containers in several steps. Perhaps it's because the plant focuses more on developing roots rather than stem when it's relatively unbound containerwise? Yet when the container becomes to small voor the roots, the plant growth suffers.

As for hair roots, the usual advice for transplanting chili seedlings for the first time is to wait for the 2nd set of real leafs, and that takes a few days. Someone I know recently told me he transplanted them pretty much right after the actual first leafs deployed, on the theory that there isn't enough root system around yet for it to be damaged. Sounds clever but just begs for scientific testing Going through my DeWitt and Bosland chili bible to see if they say anything about that.

[BigDon]

I'm not much of a gardener but slowly gaining some experience with chilies. With container size I think the problem is trying to give roots enough room to grow, but not too much. Seedlings that go into huge containers tend to do worse than those that go to large containers in several steps. Perhaps it's because the plant focuses more on developing roots rather than stem when it's relatively unbound containerwise? Yet when the container becomes to small voor the roots, the plant growth suffers.

The issue becomes one of proper watering and drainage. This can still work with plants that specifically don't mind water-logged soils.

In a container situation, a plant's roots modify the environment by transporting water not affected by gravity and drainage out of the pot upwards. You replace this by normal watering, of course. Water that sits too long without being transported in either direction soon becomes anaerobic. Water molds form. Not a good neighborhood to push your roots into if you're most seedlings.

NOT having this level of moisture and the soil gets too dry. Only watering a little and the salts build up rapidly. Less than a year. Some work arounds include watering with the aim of flushing out the anaerobic water.

But all that monitoring is a big pain in the keister when the simple solution is to just repot in stages.

[Spacedude]

Yes 10-4 on that Big Don, Tomatoes also do better when transplanted in stages using ever larger containers. I repot most of ours from their cell packs from pint to half gallon at least twice before their final planting in the garden soil. The leftover orphans end up in gallon containers looking for a good home.
Speaking of which the tomatoes are now at an easy height for tying up to their stakes, may get a ripe one before July. Will pick snaps tomorrow for the first time, cukes are on a roll now, pickling time soon. Butter Beans are climbing tall on their poles. The melons are setting fruits, the squash are now blooming and the Sweet potatoes are on the run. Early corn is tasseling too and the potatoes are cracking ground, need to cover those again. Picking beets and the carrots are close behind. Cabbages are near their peak of plumpness, we slawed one yesterday. Pears are looking great this year, the fire blight has finally taken a break. Even the apples look good, but they're closer to the squirrel line.
It's good bye to the peas, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and radishes, see you guys again in the autumn garden!

[BigDon]

Yes 10-4 on that Big Don, Tomatoes also do better when transplanted in stages using ever larger containers. I repot most of ours from their cell packs from pint to half gallon at least twice before their final planting in the garden soil. The leftover orphans end up in gallon containers looking for a good home.
Speaking of which the tomatoes are now at an easy height for tying up to their stakes, may get a ripe one before July. Will pick snaps tomorrow for the first time, cukes are on a roll now, pickling time soon. Butter Beans are climbing tall on their poles. The melons are setting fruits, the squash are now blooming and the Sweet potatoes are on the run. Early corn is tasseling too and the potatoes are cracking ground, need to cover those again. Picking beets and the carrots are close behind. Cabbages are near their peak of plumpness, we slawed one yesterday. Pears are looking great this year, the fire blight has finally taken a break. Even the apples look good, but they're closer to the squirrel line.
It's good bye to the peas, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and radishes, see you guys again in the autumn garden!

I've always been a better flower gardener than vegetable farmer. My father did well in both fields. His father was a vegetable farmer on an industrial scale. Produced canned goods during WWII at a factory level. Green beans among other things.

An army marches on its colon you know. (Or something like that.)

My main issue with vegetable farming is anticipation versus disappointment in a high rat environment. Simply can't do it.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

Looks like it will be warm enough for the frosty weather to be gone for a while. time to put stuff in the garden hopefully most of it will be in before it rains this tomorrow afternoon.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

got the tiller going but only forward and reverse to till. the gear shifter is really stiff.

[BigDon]

"Fire Blight"

That's a phrase I haven't heard in a while.

Problem is, I know of at least three different plant afflictions that go by that name.

One is untreatable, another is too dimly recalled for me to opine on, but the third, fire blight in peaches and related stone fruits, is a nutritional defect brought on by a critical lack of potassium. Heavy fruit producing trees all have a large potassium requirement.

Try supplementing it to the pears. Sulpomag is a gardening -product I highly recommend for fruit trees and bushes. If nothing else the fruit will be sweeter, often by the very next day, I kid thee not.

[Spacedude]

Hey Big Don! Fireblight here on my pears (just a tad bit so far this season) is a bacterial infection. In early spring it starts on the pear flowers that didn't set fruit and/or were killed by a late freeze. It turns the leaves black as if burnt in a "fire". By early summer it infects the new tips of stem growth. About the only thing I can do to curb the damage it to prune off the infected stems and limbs before it hits the main trunk. It's like plant gangrene in a way. I lost 2 really nice Asian pear trees a few years ago. My Bartletts and Kieffer pears are more resistant to FB but it still wounds them big hits under the right (or wrong) conditions.
As for flowers, I scatter zinnias and cosmos throughout the gardens and leave some old carrots to bloom for pollinators and attract various beneficial insects. Thanks for the tip on Sulpomag!

[BigDon]

Thanks for the tip on Sulpomag!

Sulpomag is phenomenal at sweeting fruit still on the tree. Even fruits already set if you can believe it. It's the last ingredient, the magnesium, that's very often the limiting factor in producing sweet fruit even when enough potassium is available. So if you can't find Sulpomag, the key ingredient here is the magnesium.

So in summery, if you're fruit trees or bushes are producing bland or flavorless fruit, Sulpomag is a miracle in a bag. 'Cause when it come to sweet fruit the first place to look is the potassium intake, the second magnesium. And this stuff has both. Work it in to the soil then water it in well, and if done early enough in the day, by that afternoon you'll notice a marked improvement in the flavor. The next day for certain.

This I did with several large berry bushes. Trees can take slightly longer but the biggest tree I used it on, a forty year old pear maybe fifteen feet tall, only took four days. After giving sub-standard fruit for more than 15 years due to neglect on the part of the owner, who was a neighbor. He was so happy. It brought him back to his childhood, when his late father tended the trees. Earlier in the year I had advised him to feed his trees and he got fairly large fruits, but almost no flavor.

This fixed that.

The end.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

Didn't get as much in the garden as a should of today and yesterday, but got in the zucchini, cukes, Brussels sprouts, broccoli replanted the squash and pumpkins and few tomatoes the heat today was a bit much and hopefully it will start raining.

[slang]

It's the last ingredient, the magnesium, that's very often the limiting factor in producing sweet fruit even when enough potassium is available. So if you can't find Sulpomag, the key ingredient here is the magnesium.

Yeah. A common problem with chili plants is lack of magnesium, and it's lacking in several commercial nutrients, even some specially branded for chili growing. One suggested solution (at least for for hobby growers) is adding some epsom salt. Here's a fun graphic I found somewhere.

[BigDon]

Thanks for the link Slang.

Now stowed away for later reading.

Excellent suggestion on the Epsom salts. Completely slipped my mind somehow. Usually that was part of my lecture to the new guys when I was a greenhouseman, along with the sulpomag.

Ugh, I'm getting old.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

Having a hit and miss time with transplanting most of the broccoli didn't make it but i had see so I put some in the ground in the same area. Might but a few more tomatoes out tonight.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

Just transplanting some peppers and eggplants.

[slang]

Here some chilies and tomatoes, after collecting some chicken poo to mix in. 10L (2.5 gallon?) buckets it is. And one well producing Lemon Drop (Aji Limon) chili into a 50L pot.. let's see if it takes off like the famous Nigel.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

For the jalapeno peppers and some of the eggplants I put in containers with a some soil form the garden with some organic and chemical fertilizer and some potting soil form some plants that did not do so well. Believe or not sometimes my garden does very well.

[BigDon]

Here some chilies and tomatoes, after collecting some chicken poo to mix in. 10L (2.5 gallon?) buckets it is. And one well producing Lemon Drop (Aji Limon) chili into a 50L pot.. let's see if it takes off like the famous Nigel.

Slang, a bit of a warning. Chicken poo is one thing, but avoid using products made with composted chicken feathers in the home garden. Promotes the growth of keratin eating fungi in the soil, as in greatly amplifies them, and in turn leads to small cuts becoming BIG problems.

I used to think that was internet hoowie but I don't think that anymore.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

Everything is in now some cleanup. Please no whatever not that.

[Spacedude]

Hey Big Don I'm going to pick up some Sulpomag on my next run to the other side of town, there's a specialty nursery over there that should have it on hand. Will use some on my pears trees, missed the boat on the strawberries which are long past, blueberries at their peak now. The pears are golfball size so we'll see how they do with some sweetening by Sept. btw, I do use epsom salt (MgSO4) on my peppers too, it's a time honored gardening tip, but having potassium included in the SPM is a nice bonus.

On the rest of the garden front, as mentioned BBs are plentiful this year (will apply SPM next year). The BBs, snaps, cukes, squash, beets, and some carrots were picked today. The next 2 daze of picking will have to be extra early or late due to the coming heat wave. Picked the first 2 tomatoes yesterday too. and the peppers are pickable at anytime. Our 2 eggplants are setting fruits, you only need 2 of those. Cantaloupes are almost softball size and 2 early watermelons are about the same. The potato tops are fading now, still healthy but once they die back it's digging time. Sweet potatoes are sprawling out setting 2ndary roots and the early corn has tassled out so the ears should be ripe in 7-10 days. Zinnias are blooming as the carrot tops fade away. Wil need to water soon if it doesn't rain.

[slang]

Slang, a bit of a warning. Chicken poo is one thing, but avoid using products made with composted chicken feathers in the home garden. Promotes the growth of keratin eating fungi in the soil, as in greatly amplifies them, and in turn leads to small cuts becoming BIG problems.

I used to think that was internet hoowie but I don't think that anymore.

I appreciate the warning. Scooped it straight from the inlaws' henhouse, there may be a feather or two in there. But you're speaking of products where feathers are a main component?

[BigDon]

I appreciate the warning. Scooped it straight from the inlaws' henhouse, there may be a feather or two in there. But you're speaking of products where feathers are a main component?

Yes, feathers as the main ingredient. They call in feather meal, feather manure, and "chicken by-products", among other things.

I've seen it happen to 3 people who ignored the warning over the years. And after the negative conditions are established, it can take up to two years of cow manure treatments, (to establish competing and/or antagonistic organisms), to correct the imbalance.

[BigDon]

Hey Big Don I'm going to pick up some Sulpomag on my next run to the other side of town, there's a specialty nursery over there that should have it on hand. Will use some on my pears trees, missed the boat on the strawberries which are long past, blueberries at their peak now. The pears are golfball size so we'll see how they do with some sweetening by Sept. btw, I do use epsom salt (MgSO4) on my peppers too, it's a time honored gardening tip, but having potassium included in the SPM is a nice bonus.

On the rest of the garden front, as mentioned BBs are plentiful this year (will apply SPM next year). The BBs, snaps, cukes, squash, beets, and some carrots were picked today. The next 2 daze of picking will have to be extra early or late due to the coming heat wave. Picked the first 2 tomatoes yesterday too. and the peppers are pickable at anytime. Our 2 eggplants are setting fruits, you only need 2 of those. Cantaloupes are almost softball size and 2 early watermelons are about the same. The potato tops are fading now, still healthy but once they die back it's digging time. Sweet potatoes are sprawling out setting 2ndary roots and the early corn has tassled out so the ears should be ripe in 7-10 days. Zinnias are blooming as the carrot tops fade away. Wil need to water soon if it doesn't rain.

Man, I *wish* I could do that!

Not enough room and too many pests.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

Wet out today and everything is either sprouting or taking root time to focus on some indoor stuff.

[Glom]

The weed out front was amusing in its growth for a while, but after passing 2 metres it turns to threatening so I pulled it up (and probably my back in the process). It was scary how deep the roots got. Fortunately it went straight down so shouldn't have caused foundation problems.

[The Backroad Astronomer]

Today all I did was put the tomato cages up, made a little fence for the peas to grow on and planted some sunflowers that I forgot about.