Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

Gardenomicon

Page: (1)2 3

14:46 / 03.04.07

We just moved to a place with a garden and made a veg patch (my SO is an organic gardener), and on Sunday acquired an allotment in addition to that- more vegetables woot!
So I thought I'd see if there were any other greenfingered peeps or novice diggers here, do any of you people grow things? Like a gastronomicon thread, I thought we could swap tips and boast of giant carrots* or whatever, get your gloves and wellies on and let's go!

*yes yes, it looks a bit like a thingy

14:59 / 03.04.07

Yes! I was going to post a thread about this, actually.

I have started very gently, trying to germinate some basil indoors. It has worked. I also tried to germinate some nice giant pink poppies, the seeds of which I had harvested from some wild-growing ones that had self-sown from the nearby Botanic Gardens outside my window. That worked amazingly well then stopped, the little seedlings shot up like rockets and all fell over dead in 2 days. There is now one solitary, not-very-growing-at-all seedling poking a little hopeful green shoot up, less than 2mm long. I shall hold a candlelit vigil.

I like the idea of growing wildflowers, so I also harvested some red poppy seeds as I think they are pretty and the seeds of some gorgeous shoreline dandelion type things which haven't shown the least interest in doing anything so far but that's probably because I haven't planted them on a nice salty pebble beach. I shall try some other approach with them later, they don't seem to like compost at all. I've still got lots of seeds.

You can get big barrels that you can put compost in so you can have potatoes in them. Apparently potatoes like it lots and you get lots of them. Also you can grab a bag of compost, slit it open and plant tomatoes in it to grow them inside your house if you stick 'em next to the window and they seem to enjoy it tremendously, at least they did when I was little, but that was '76, the famous summer of amazing heat. Which we might get again this year, allegedly.

15:00 / 03.04.07

Didn't Ganesh start a thread for this? It had a thread summary like 'uphill gardener seeks red-hot tips'. Oh, that Ganesh.

*

15:11 / 03.04.07

I really thought this was going to be a thread about the Summoning and Binding of Elder Garden Gnomes.

15:14 / 03.04.07

No, that thread's in the Temple, silly id!

*

15:52 / 03.04.07

I tried starting one in Temple, but Mordant Carnival was meeeeeeeen! You are all oppressing me for my reality tunnel.

14:00 / 04.04.07

What is an "allotment"?

I have a few fruit trees, some pineapple and flowers. My milkweed is sprouting, which is unsurprising (it being a weed an all) but gratifying. I also have chickens (shhh! they're illegal!).

Trash in my house now gets separated five ways -- throw outables, paper recylables, plastic & glass recyclables, compost, and chicken scraps. It's not as much of a hassle as you'd think.

Between the compost and the chicken droppings & eggshells, you'd think that I'd have enough organic fertilizer for to make the fruit trees flourish. They still need *help*, the big bastards, and for whatever reason, my old orange trees are just dyin'.

My Parsimonious Spouse delivers vegetables for a local CSA farm one day a week in season; the farmers say they *try* to be organic, but it's impossible here. Sandy soil plus a wealth of pests (nematodes out the wazoo!) divided by warm weather and frequent rain equals a pitched battle between plants and pests. Well, half battle, half race....

14:40 / 04.04.07

Eh, basically a large shared garden with individual plots of land that are individually rented and managed/cultivated on a (primarily) part-time basis. More here.

My uncle had an allotment. We’d visit on summer days and I’d shell sweet peas in the car on the way home. We also had gooseberries. It was most fun.

16:53 / 04.04.07

What is an "allotment"? Wow. It's a staple of British culture, Blake Head's story is familiar across the land. Living in a town or city where you are unlikely to have a big garden means you might like a seperate plot to grow vegetables and such. It's kind of old fashioned and gradually dying out as a tradition I think, which is a bit of a shame and one reason we've got one (also luck, there's more demand than allotments in my city).

It used to be the place your grandad would go to have some time away from the wife, other than the pub.

16:57 / 04.04.07

Allotments are hella popular here though, Quants. I don't reckon they'll be dying out in Brighton any time soon even with the price of land shooting up.

How'd you afford a place with a garden? Must be paying over the odds for that'n

17:52 / 04.04.07

Six way shared house dude. We inherited the lotment froma friend who didn't have the time, but I agree Brighton loves lotties. They're not making any more though are they, and I'm not sure it's like that elsewhere- we're a pretty green city.

17:54 / 04.04.07

No, sadly I don't think it's at all like that in most other towns/cities in the UK.

18:03 / 04.04.07

Hey Bob of the Oss, you should totally get a lotment if you don't have a garden. There's a guy near ours who's 92 and inherited his from his dad 45 years ago- they say it keeps you healthy. You could make it nice and then shell peas with the littlun when he's older. In theory the waiting lists are dead long but there's some plots that aren't being used I saw, I'll ask around if you'd like. Free veg, bit of digging on a Sunday, make friends with old people, become a salt of the earth type.

18:16 / 04.04.07

Ah, now I would get on a waiting list - Bobosso was very keen a little while back - but, ya see, my new house has a garden. So I'm likely to be pretty occupied with that for the forseeable. Besides, from what I've heard the waiting lists are very long.

Bobosso has already put together a brilliant plan which we plan on getting started on the minute we're in what with Summer just around the corner. It's gonna be tres cool.

18:16 / 04.04.07

I think I'm a chicken auntie right now. Which means I get help love them up into big 'uns. Probably also means if need be I will be assisting with helping them into the next life before the pot. Well, the boys anyhow.

Sadly while we have a giant yard we also have a landlord who loves to have the house chipped and repainted. I won't dare to grow things even in raised beds in the yard. Every year there are paint chippings lying like snow among my flowers. Pisses me off. How hard is it to put drop cloths down? I'll probably just covet my friends' veg patches again this year and grow my strange and happy flowers. My bearded irises are usually shoulder high! Triple headed deep purple and smell like grapesicles. I'd marry them if I could I love them so much.

It's snowing outside right now though I doubt it will stick.

01:12 / 05.04.07

We had no rain this summer plus draconian water restrictions, and so most of the vegies I planted died because I was too lazy to carry buckets of water from the shower. But we still got plenty of onions and potatoes and silver beet and basil, and a few cucumbers and capsicums and eggplants. I have this crazy idea that being home with two bubbas will mean that I have more motivation to really grow shitloads of vegies (I certainly have the room) - I have images of chucking a baby in the sling and getting stuck into it. Sounds much more appealing than sitting at my desk all day. I could be naive though - I fully admit that! We're heading into autumn now, and it's finally started raining a bit, so I'm planning on putting in some broccoli, cauliflower, broad beans, and heaps of lettuce. I love growing flowers too but there is something deeply satisfying about vegetables.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

03:38 / 05.04.07

is it wrong that i want his thread to be renamed to "GardenGnomicon"?

Sorry, been drinking.

05:52 / 05.04.07

Elijah, that is a very brilliant idea.

Someone move for a change!

*

06:15 / 05.04.07

*testily*

I already did that one. Bastards.

*stompy stomp*

08:10 / 05.04.07

Sor-ry.

15:37 / 05.04.07

We inherited the lotment froma friend who didn't have the time, but I agree Brighton loves lotties.

Good lord, they've turned you into sharecropppers!

23:21 / 13.05.07

DISASTER!

My sea dandelions have finally appeared, which is good, BUT...

My dwarf rose has had a strange speckled look about it for some time now. I was always a little worried it had some sort of pest problem and it does, it has SPIDER MITES! So I've stuck it outside and written it off as it's nearly dead but now the little blighters are all over my lovely sea dandelions!

The Internet has been unhelpful, providing swathes of mutually contradictory bits of advice. "Use insecticidal soap..." "Don't use insecticidal soap, it doesn't work..." "Use dishwashing detergent" "Don't use dishwashing detergent, it'll damage the plant..."

Has anyone any ideas?

00:15 / 14.05.07

...but I'll ask my more sensible partner tomorrow, ze's the organic gardener.

02:08 / 14.05.07

Has anyone any ideas?

Yes, yes I do.

I'd recommend the following, as a mixture to be sprayed, gently, on the plants in question, in these measures, which would be up-gradable as necessary;

Half pint water
Three generous shots of cheap vodka
Five cloves of garlic, very finely chopped
Tablespoon of chili powder
Tablespoon of assorted mixed herbs

It sounds demented, I know, but as a mixture, it seems to be something that the plants can handle, in a way that the insects can't, really.

Alternatively, you could simply blitz the the thing with Paraquat, which, TBH, this summer, is what I'm going to do.

09:00 / 14.05.07

Insecticidal soaps can work fine on mites, just like horticultural oils (you can find vegetable-oil based ones, as well). The trick is on getting thorough coverage, you have to actually hit them to get them. Soaps an oils are usually not damaging to plants(oils are not recommended when the temperature is cold or hot, and neither more than once a week), and are ideal for mites.

09:34 / 14.05.07

Hooray! Thank you!

(QC - actually, the Interwub did mention jets of water as a way of dislodging the little buggers, so your suggestion weren't so comedy.)

16:39 / 14.05.07

Who said it was comedy? I recommend the pump action spray nozzle Saturator model for preference, although I don't think they make it any more because I can't find it on the internet. That *is* comedy, Cha-Chunk "Take that bugs!" SPLATCH!

My partner says, what type of spider mites? It could be larvae of something you may want in your garden, can you describe the mites? Are they damaging the dandelions, if so in what way?
Companion planting might work, try French Marigolds which are attractive to hoverflies and ladybirds which will eat the mites.

10:32 / 17.05.07

You know... I could be wrong. The mites are very tiny and have slightly elongated bodies. The reason I thought they were spider mites is because they fit all the signs... the dwarf rose eventually developed webbing all around its leaves along with the stippling so I thought they would have to be spider mites as that was the only thing that fit the description, but I note that occasionally a very very tiny flying insect type creature is appearing from my window garden and flying about, so possibly they are the larvae of this creature. Unless they are predators *feeding* on the mites.

The dandelions aren't in the garden, they're inside, I was working on the assumption that they'd be happier but this may not be the case. They're still largely doing fine but some leaves have the same stippling that the rose did, although to nowhere near the same extent. Also the little white bodies are much more obvious on the dandelions than they were on the rose so I brush them off. Maybe they're somthing different...

I shall be attempting your chilli garlic vodka thing soon. I really want to get rid of the fuckers cos i have a moth orchid, an ivy and a jolly nice geranium to feed... I don't want any of THEM going tits up, particularly the orchid as it's the first one I've ever owned that hasn't dropped down dead. It seems positively happy. I'm not too worried about it as its leaves are nice and think and waxy, probably too well protected for very little parasites, and ivy tastes horrible to almost everything so *it'll* probably be okay, however, I note that geraniums, lusty things though they may be, do suffer from spider mites, although not as badly as roses. (The dwarf rose is now almost completely "boooooooo...").

In other news, the last of my giant poppy seedlings has perished. They're so sensitive! I may have another go at seeding them, but outside in a nice big terracotta pot, I think it might be too warm for them inside. It's definitely too *something*. They come shooting up all optimistically and then die dramatically from the roots upwards in a brown bombfuse-like rush of decay all up the stem. Too wet? They're supposed to be a hardy bunch, too, poppies...

The only rampaging success story thus far is Basil. He's as happy as Larry. Although he certainly takes his time over things.

15:20 / 17.05.07

They come shooting up all optimistically and then die dramatically from the roots upwards in a brown bombfuse-like rush of decay all up the stem. Too wet?

Sounds like it.

How often were you watering, and what was their drainage like?

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

18:07 / 17.05.07

I have a steep hill running down beside my house, and I loathe mowing/weed-whacking/whatevering it. I'd love to plant some low-lying evergreens or some sort of shrubbery to cover it, but I'm not sure what to go for. Ideally this would be something hardy enough to handle summer heat (direct sunlight) and survive the winters.

Any ideas?

22:26 / 17.05.07

You're up there in cold country, right Matt? What you may put there depends on your climate, soil texture and ph, the light it gets- like, which way is the slope facing? Most people in North America stick things like creeping junipers and cotoneasters on banks like that, or really, there are lots of things. You might consider planting it with a number of smaller species of trees and shrubs that will keep it shaded and reduce growth of other things (though it will still have to be maintained), and then mulch areas around them if it's not too steep, which improves the soil fertility and porosity, and supresses other growth. You just have to replenish it occasionally, which can be a bitch on a steep slope. There's also the possiblity of trying to encourage native grasses and wildflowers, and just letting it grow, cutting the woody species when they pop up.
Or you can just stick a ton of blue rug junipers or the equivalent on the bank and leave it alone. Personally I think that's boring but it functions alright.
You should check with local nurseries to see what's available and recommended, but just be aware that many nurseries are prone to boilerplate recommendations that can be pretty uncreative, sometimes.

02:37 / 18.05.07

I second the wildflowers idea - easy, fun, looks crappy until spring when BLAM! the neighbors will suddenly understand.

If you feel particularly ambitious (and have a good source of stones/bricks/ exceptionally solid logs) you could try terracing the slope and bedding with mulch or gravel.

But that would be insane.

Wait, though -- you're a home winemaker, right? Grapes! There are some vineyards in Quebec, I know. I bet they'd do just fine!

04:44 / 18.05.07

Any advice about morning glory plants? - I gather they're creepers, in a quiet way, which suit a warmer climate?

04:52 / 18.05.07

Man, the last time I had a lot of Morning Glory seeds on a slice of toast, or in a cup of tea, or whatever, I panicked!

And then I rushed out to buy the new album by U2/The Arcade Fire.

04:56 / 18.05.07

grant;

Have you ever drunk ...

I shouldn't say this ...

But,

Page: (1)2 3