What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

[turbo]

I spent much of my day pulling vines and plants to add to compost. No matter how much work it seems to hoe up rows, sow and weed, it is pretty mundane compared to pulling all the plants, composting them, and separating the weeds for disposal. This year, we have had some pretty extreme weather swings, but raising our vegetables in raised beds protected us from too-wet weather, and allowed us to add water when things got too dry. It's important to allow for fast run-off in heavy rainstorms but it is equally important to allow for hand-watering of those raised rows when it is dry.

 

[rewebster]

here's an aloe vera in bloom

from outside

and mom's tongues in bloom

out of all the bloom's, there were just three small (bb size) red berry size 'fruits'

 

[Math Jeans]

How deep in a pot should I plant a new habanero seed and what amount of water should I give it? (I'm just starting on the pepper planting buisiness).

 

[turbo]

Most pepper seeds do well when planted 1/4 - 1/2" inch down. If the surface of the soil is dry, but you can poke your finger an inch down or so and there is dark dirt sticking to your finger when you pull it out, that is pretty good pepper-growing moisture.

 

[rewebster]

they're kind of common--but I like them--got about 200 planted--from this last spring

 

[~christina~]

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2938/dscf5128gv8.jpg


Weee! strawberries

Good grief the first year I got this plant all it gave me was 1, 1/2 inch unripe strawberries which looked like something chewed on them..this year it gave me a few and the one in the pic was huge! but tasted oh well...

not sure what type of strawberry plant it is though..

I did go to home depot and got some strawberry plants in a box this year and hopefully they'll give me a lot of strawberries next year..(so many in that little box that I had to separate them into a few pots and it's still not enough room)
They're sequoia strawberry plants to be exact..are they sweet?
the box says so but then again the company will tell you anything to buy them..

 

[Astronuc]

Geez - nice strawberries! Strawberry season was finished here 4 months ago.

Anyway, here is some important information.

http://www.garden.org/regional/report/national/2573 (thrid article)
Fruits and Vegetables Are Bigger But Not Better

Large strawberries, huge watermelons, bigger tomatoes -- it seems we have a fascination with large fruits and vegetables. However, in the quest to grow larger and higher-yielding produce, we may have lost something very important: the nutrients.

This decline in food quality is documented in a new report from the Worldwatch Institute called Still No Free Lunch: Nutrient levels in U.S. food supply eroded by pursuit of high yields. The report contends that while yields of most food crops have doubled or even tripled over the last 50 years, the nutrient density (concentration of nutrients per ounce, serving, or calorie of food) of those crops has declined. The report highlights the decline of nutrients in modern food varieties. For example, researchers at the USDA Vegetable Laboratory grew 43 broccoli varieties and found that as broccoli head size increased, the calcium and magnesium in those heads decreased. A British study showed that today you would have to eat three apples to get the same iron content that one apple provided in the 1940s.

"Still No Free Lunch: Nutrient levels in U.S. food supply eroded by pursuit of high yields"
September 2007
http://organic.insightd.net/science.latest.php?action=view&report_id=115

Bigger is not better! Go organic!

 

[turbo]

Bigger is not better! Go organic!

And go complex! Part of the declining nutrient level in commercially-produced foods may result from the poor availability of trace elements in the soils in which they are grown. Commercial growers fertilize to keep levels of some nutrients high, but commercially-available fertilizers may not supply all the needs of the plants, beyond allowing them to grow and fruit. Also, some hybrid vegetables are developed to enhance qualities that are not related to nutrient content and may in fact negatively impact nutrient content. Certainly, taste is often sacrificed in this manner. When you buy packaged tomatoes that are uniform in size, blocky in profile, etc, you are getting fruit that was bred with packaging and shipping in mind. I believe one of the earliest of these hybrids was called hi-pack, and they have poor flavor at best.

Organic fertilizers made from blood meal, bone meal, fish waste, etc are expensive and I use them, but I do not rely on them exclusively. I also amend the soil with composted cow manure, peat, and composted leaves, garden waste, etc from our compost bins. There is an incredible difference in taste and texture between the vegetables from our garden and the ones in the stores. I have no means of measuring nutrient levels, but it's a good bet that our vegetables are better in that regard, too because of all the trace elements that come in through using a wider variety of nutrient sources.

Warning for anyone thinking to boost the organic vs inorganic ratio in your soil by using peat. Peat will drive your soil's pH down and reduce the availability of the fertilizers that you have been using. I tilled in some peat last fall, fertilized and planted this spring, and lots of the vegetables seemed to be limping along, with yellowish leaves or stunted growth. I got a test kit and found out that the pH was 5.5 or so. A general application of dolomitic lime and some watering brought the pH back to about 6.2 or so, and everything started thriving within a couple of weeks.

 

[baywax]

Pumpkin contests don't take into account the quantity or quality of the nutrients in a prize pumpkin. The gourd just has to withstand being hoisted off of a flatbed. There's also a group that grows the gigantic pumpkins and hollows them out for a boat race in Nova Scotia. Here's a winner... 1202 pounds.

http://worldsbiggestpumpkins.com/

 

[~christina~]

Geez - nice strawberries! Strawberry season was finished here 4 months ago.

Anyway, here is some important information.

http://www.garden.org/regional/report/national/2573 (thrid article)
Fruits and Vegetables Are Bigger But Not Better


"Still No Free Lunch: Nutrient levels in U.S. food supply eroded by pursuit of high yields"
September 2007
http://organic.insightd.net/science.latest.php?action=view&report_id=115

Bigger is not better! Go organic!

Thanks Astronuc

and I just said my strawberries were bigger but I don't actually grow them for the purposes of eating them. However they just look so tasty that I had to take a nibble..hehe and it tasted like water since I didn't use any fertilizer on them..oh well. I do buy organic when I can but it's quite expensive I must admit and I don't have the time to concententrate on growing a whole batch of organic vegetables. And I do agree with you that bigger is not better but when your just growing them for fun it's nice that they came out that way especially without fertilzer.

P.S Sad but the rest of the strawberries didn't make it since something ate them..funny how that thing didn't notice that there was this huge strawberry hanging there and just attacked the plant after I cut these 2 strawberries off the stem.

 

[turbo]

I just finished juicing about a peck of my grapes. The vines were growing on the tree-line when we bought the place, so I don't know the variety for sure. The grapes each have a single seed and they have a dusty-looking blue-purple color very similar to blueberries. They might be Concords. The grapes are smaller this year than last, but seem to have a nicer richer flavor. Anyway, I've got a couple a big canning jars in the 'fridge - full of the freshest grape juice anywhere. I don't use paper liners in the centrifuge bucket of my juicer, so I can get some pulp in the juice for more body.

 

[baywax]

I just finished juicing about a peck of my grapes. The vines were growing on the tree-line when we bought the place, so I don't know the variety for sure. The grapes each have a single seed and they have a dusty-looking blue-purple color very similar to blueberries. They might be Concords. The grapes are smaller this year than last, but seem to have a nicer richer flavor. Anyway, I've got a couple a big canning jars in the 'fridge - full of the freshest grape juice anywhere. I don't use paper liners in the centrifuge bucket of my juicer, so I can get some pulp in the juice for more body.

Sounds like Concord Grapes turbo-1. Very nice. I bought a place with 3 varieties once. The Concord, the red variety and the green seedless. The Concord Grape has fewer seeds and they're big... almost prehistoric!

 

[turbo]

Sounds like Concord Grapes turbo-1. Very nice. I bought a place with 3 varieties once. The Concord, the red variety and the green seedless. The Concord Grape has fewer seeds and they're big... almost prehistoric!

Sounds about right - the seeds are big and heavily dimpled.

 

[baywax]

Sounds about right - the seeds are big and heavily dimpled.

We had a large section of these concords growing along a fence for about 80 feet. I'm not particular to these grapes but I know many eat them for their high fe content. So I had everybody picking them and we used the grape leaves to separate the layers of grapes and this helped to sell bunches of them at market. Really amazing and a lot of fun for us city slickers.

There's also the possibility of collecting the seed. Not just for growing further vineyards but also for grapeseed extract which has become another whoop dee doo in the world of natural botanicals. And, if you leave your grapes on the vine you attract some species of autumn birds that are really quite... attractive!

 

[turbo]

The vines run wild through the woods, and many are too high for me to reach, so there are still lots of grapes on the vines. The birds have taken bites out of some of them.

 

[baywax]

The vines run wild through the woods, and many are too high for me to reach, so there are still lots of grapes on the vines. The birds have taken bites out of some of them.

Your wandering grape vines remind me of the red grapes on the same property as the concords. They were old, like about from 1974. And they were growing on the barn so the barn was disintegrating from these tough old vines that had infiltrated its exterior siding. These red grapes were pure heaven though, like eating a saffron sunset.

 

[turbo]

Where is your house located? If it's south of the Mason-Dixon line, you can safely rule out the Civil War years because metals were at such a premium then that merchants in cities were issuing scrip (promissory notes on cheap paper - not bank-notes). I like puzzles, but I have not been able to come up with a reasonable stab at the words represented by L.D.S.J., and assuming that the 5 is representative of 5 cents, that would be a high price for a trolley ride or a ferry-crossing until late in the 1800's at least. Think "city" because minting tokens would imply that there were a lot of them in common circulation, at least for a time, and the portability and durability of metal tokens outweighed the cost of their production, as opposed to printing tickets, etc.

 

[rewebster]

rewebster is Online
Location: (sin)t(^-1/2)R'aλ Illinois (deductively within reason)

(from the 'nexus prime' page)

 

[turbo]

By the way (to get back to gardening), the wild turkeys have been coming to forage on the grapes as the frost softens them and causes them to fall from the vines. I'd like to invite one of them to dinner, but if you don't have a turkey permit and hunt them in the proper way, you will get charged a $500 fine and a $500 "replacement fee" for each bird. $1000 for a turkey is a bit high. As for the "replacement fee", these things are breeding like rabbits, and they'll replace themselves quite handily. It is not uncommon to drive past a field or somebody's front yard and see 20-40 wild turkeys foraging.

 

[rewebster]

do you need a permit if they are 'destroying your private property'?

 

[turbo]

rewebster is Online
Location: (sin)t(^-1/2)R'aλ Illinois (deductively within reason)

OK, so you cannot safely exclude the Civil War years, except on the basis of affordability. 5 cents was a lot of money for public transportation services in that era unless that token (or a combination of them) bought you access to a toll-road, toll bridge or barge service to get wagon-loads of grain or other produce to market. I'll be very interested in hearing what you find out. I thought of a regional rail service, but those outfits often resorted to "passes" which are printed tickets on heavy paper/cardboard stock. You could buy one at a station, and it would either be good for a specified period or a specified number of runs, and since it was soft, the conductor could punch it on every run until it was used up and you had to buy another one.

 

[turbo]

do you need a permit if they are 'destroying your private property'?

I think the state would take a dim view of me killing them simply for eating frost-damaged grapes that were too high for me to pick. They were VERY good grapes, though. I juiced them and mixed that with cider and other juices to make some very tasty concoctions.

 

[rewebster]

do you mean those small wild grapes, or cultivated ones?

 

[baywax]

I think the state would take a dim view of me killing them simply for eating frost-damaged grapes that were too high for me to pick. They were VERY good grapes, though. I juiced them and mixed that with cider and other juices to make some very tasty concoctions.

turbo... ever heard of ICE WINE? Its pretty popular now and the bottles run you around $150 and up. The grapes are left on the vine through the first freeze then picked. The low temps bring out the sugars in the grape.

http://www.hellobc.com/en-CA/SightsActivitiesEvents/ArtsCulturalHistoricalExperiences/WineriesVineyards/ThompsonOkanagan.htm?media=cpc&campaign=food-wine07&adgroup=okanaganwineries&market=can&referrer=google-adwords

 

[turbo]

turbo... ever heard of ICE WINE? Its pretty popular now and the bottles run you around $150 and up. The grapes are left on the vine through the first freeze then picked. The low temps bring out the sugars in the grape.

http://www.hellobc.com/en-CA/SightsActivitiesEvents/ArtsCulturalHistoricalExperiences/WineriesVineyards/ThompsonOkanagan.htm?media=cpc&campaign=food-wine07&adgroup=okanaganwineries&market=can&referrer=google-adwords

I get very tiny amounts of grapes that fit this guideline. If you want to come up here and plant grapes on south-facing hillsides and start a winery, I'd be glad to pitch in with money and labor.

 

[Far Star]

In case you've wondered what to do with those pesky garden insects:

http://www.hollowtop.com/finl_html/insect_books.htm

 

[Math Jeans]

Just a quick question: My current habanero plant is doing great, and it has gotten fairly big. However, about a month (maybe more) ago, I harvested my habaneros to make chili powder. I had a couple of green habaneros left on the plant after that. Both of the habaneros are still green and show no signs of turning orange yet. Is this a problem? (They are pretty big as well).

 

[turbo]

Just a quick question: My current habanero plant is doing great, and it has gotten fairly big. However, about a month (maybe more) ago, I harvested my habaneros to make chili powder. I had a couple of green habaneros left on the plant after that. Both of the habaneros are still green and show no signs of turning orange yet. Is this a problem? (They are pretty big as well).

That's not a problem. You can use them green if you want - they still have a pretty good kick. Your plant may need a period of down-time before it sets blossoms again for your next crop, so keep tending it, and when it starts budding, set it outside if weather permits so that the insects can get it well-pollinated.

 

[Math Jeans]

That's not a problem. You can use them green if you want - they still have a pretty good kick. Your plant may need a period of down-time before it sets blossoms again for your next crop, so keep tending it, and when it starts budding, set it outside if weather permits so that the insects can get it well-pollinated.

Well, I was just wondering if they will turn orange as I am running low on powder .

 

[turbo]

They may start to ripen (or not), but either way that's not a problem. If you dry them and grind them, they'll still be great seasoning. Hot chilies do not have to be orange or red to be hot, but their flavor may be a bit better-developed when ripe. Due to my short growing season, I am forced to process many of my chilies green. I like my green-chili relishes and sauces, and some of them (especially the ones with green jalapenos) are VERY tasty. My wife's favorite chili relish is my "clean-up" relish made from the green jalapenos, green super-chilies, and green habaneros that were left on the plants when I pulled them out of the garden ahead of a predicted frost. Lots of peppers have a tarter flavor when green than when ripe, so try your habaneros green. You may like the taste.

 

[Math Jeans]

They may start to ripen (or not), but either way that's not a problem. If you dry them and grind them, they'll still be great seasoning. Hot chilies do not have to be orange or red to be hot, but their flavor may be a bit better-developed when ripe. Due to my short growing season, I am forced to process many of my chilies green. I like my green-chili relishes and sauces, and some of them (especially the ones with green jalapenos) are VERY tasty. My wife's favorite chili relish is my "clean-up" relish made from the green jalapenos, green super-chilies, and green habaneros that were left on the plants when I pulled them out of the garden ahead of a predicted frost. Lots of peppers have a tarter flavor when green than when ripe, so try your habaneros green. You may like the taste.

Ok. I'll try one of them green. However, I am going to let the other stay on the plant. The reason? Here in Phoenix, we have a year round growing season (mainly...it is very very very rarely frosted), so I have plenty of time to wait.

 

[rewebster]

When I was in Jamaica one time, I saw a 10 foot tall, 8 foot wide green pepper plant/bush. I didn't know they could live for YEARS in the right climate (10-20 was what the woman said--whether that's right or not)---I've dug up some of mine in the fall (and re-planted in the spring) and had one live for six years.

 

[Math Jeans]

When I was in Jamaica one time, I saw a 10 foot tall, 8 foot wide green pepper plant/bush. I didn't know they could live for YEARS in the right climate (10-20 was what the woman said--whether that's right or not)---I've dug up some of mine in the fall (and re-planted in the spring) and had one live for six years.

Cool! I love my climate! I can't wait until I plant my other seeds. Savannah Red habaneros, tabasco peppers, super peppers, white lantern habaneros, I had a few more.

 

[Astronuc]

When I was in Jamaica one time, I saw a 10 foot tall, 8 foot wide green pepper plant/bush. I didn't know they could live for YEARS in the right climate (10-20 was what the woman said--whether that's right or not)---I've dug up some of mine in the fall (and re-planted in the spring) and had one live for six years.

I think in the tropics, tomatos and peppers grow for a long time. In temperate climates that have cold winters, the plants die off.

Here is an idea!

http://verticalfarm.com/index.php - The Vertical Farm Project

It's time to seriously think about moving to the west coast of Australia. Plenty of solar power and inexpensive land.

 

[baywax]

I get very tiny amounts of grapes that fit this guideline. If you want to come up here and plant grapes on south-facing hillsides and start a winery, I'd be glad to pitch in with money and labor.

OK Turbo... as long as you get rain for 10 months of the year, freezing cold winters and lots of mud slides, sleet, and the Winter Olympics in 2010... that would be the right environment for me to come and set up an ice winery with ya! Otherwise... I'm interested in a bannana crop on one of the Hawaiian Islands or some other warm and getting warmer spot on earth!

Speaking of Gardens... ever seen the insides of KoKo Crater near Hanowma Bay(sp)? I'll find some photos of the silver cacti and gardens that sprung up in there after all the eruptions. Volcanic soil is really good for plants. Totally a trip walking around that garden. Then dipping into the bay for a snorkle. Totally outragious!