What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

[baywax]

Its not my garden but its my fascination... the world's largest pumpkin...

By The Associated Press

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. - Thad Starr's giant pumpkin really began putting on weight in August - a lot of weight.

The pumpkin gained about 30 pounds a day on its way to victory Monday at the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-off in Half Moon Bay.

Starr's pumpkin finished at a record 1,528 pounds (693 kg). Starr won last year with a pumpkin that that was four pounds lighter and also set a record.

Starr, of Pleasant Hill, Ore., bought a trailer to transport the pumpkin. It has a circumference of 15 feet.

He says his secret to growing big pumpkins is good soil: "We really pamper them."

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/081014/koddities/odd_giant_pumpkins

Trust that this one is from Oregon!

 

[turbo]

My organic-gardening neighbor grows pumpkins. Not the big giants, but ones suitable for jack-o-lanterns and for making pies. He doesn't bother tilling the ground. He dumps a truckload of that black rotted manure where he wants the patch and plants his seeds in that. He gets pretty darned good crops.

BTW, I did get a full wheelbarrow of rocks and wood out of the manure earlier today. After it dries a bit more, I'll rake it out better, and till it into the soil.

 

[tribdog]

considering the crappier bagged stuff at the landscaping place would have cost me hundreds of dollars a load.

When it comes to manure though isn't crappier better? You've got to pay if you want to get the crappiest manure they've got.

 

[baywax]

My organic-gardening neighbor grows pumpkins. Not the big giants, but ones suitable for jack-o-lanterns and for making pies. He doesn't bother tilling the ground. He dumps a truckload of that black rotted manure where he wants the patch and plants his seeds in that. He gets pretty darned good crops.

BTW, I did get a full wheelbarrow of rocks and wood out of the manure earlier today. After it dries a bit more, I'll rake it out better, and till it into the soil.

This is all just makes me want to do some gardening. Agh!

 

[turbo]

This is all just makes me want to do some gardening. Agh!

I still have quite a bit of gardening to do this year. After tilling, I'll hoe up wide beds for my garlic, and when it gets colder, I'll plant the cloves and mulch them. I waited a bit too long last year - the ground was frozen and I had to punch the holes with an iron digging bar. The crop came out perfectly, though.

 

[turbo]

When it comes to manure though isn't crappier better? You've got to pay if you want to get the crappiest manure they've got.

I wish it were that simple...

 

[turbo]

Well, the truckloads of manure are now raked out, and tilled into the garden, and I'm beat.

The old (at least 30 years, I estimate) Troy-Bilt Horse is mostly cast-iron, so with the weight of the machine, it doesn't beat you up like lesser tillers, BUT you've got to manhandle it at the end of each pass to get turned around for the next pass, and the old beast weighs a ton! The frame, engine, transmission, etc are all heavy cast iron, with steel tines, handles and controls, and a modest amount of sheet metal. They don't make 'em like this anymore. Troy-Bilt's most recent Horse incarnation looks flimsy in comparison. For any US gardener who wants a tiller for a medium to large garden, this is the machine to buy. If the transmission engages crisply, etc (even if the motor needs to be rebuilt) buy it. Just make sure you've got one of the older cast-iron engines, grit your teeth when you pay for the rebuild, and run your tiller for the next 30 years.

 

[turbo]

Garlic! The gift that keeps giving.

I have hoed up a couple of rows for my squash and cucumber (just so I'd have the spacing correct), and then hoed up three wide raised bed for garlic. Last year, the single bed was wide enough to plant double rows. This year, there are three beds wide enough to plant triple rows of cloves. This is probably about the limit for my garden, since I still need space to plant tomatoes, chilies, sweet peppers, carrots, beans, and leaf crops, as well as herbs. Last year, I got a bit busy, and the ground was frozen hard by the time I planted garlic, so I had to punch the holes with a heavy iron bar. I'll probably plant later this month, put newspapers between the rows, and mulch heavily with oat straw. Before I started planting garlic, I was generally done with gardening by the first killing frosts - now, I get to play in the dirt right up until November or later.

 

[turbo]

For anybody who has not tried growing garlic, it's easy, and a fun crop to deal with. Get some bulbs of garlic and separate them into individual cloves. Each clove will sprout and develop a whole bulb of garlic next year, so you can get quite a lot of garlic from a small investment. Hoe up a nice, rich area of your garden that you can leave undisturbed next spring and plant your garlic cloves. It's good to wait until the soil is cool and you're getting regular frosts, then plant the garlic cloves about 4-5" apart, with the pointed ends up (root end down), about 2-3" deep. Mulch with clean oat straw to help keep the bed temperatures relatively stable and suppress weeds. In the spring, check the beds, and gently clear away some of the mulch to let the shoots emerge. When the shoots emerge through the mulch, you can re-adjust the mulch so that it is up against the shoots, and prevents weeds from growing. Keep your garlic well-weeded. In early-to-mid-summer a central stalk will emerge from each cluster of leaves. This is called a scape. When the scapes have emerged so that a swelling in the scape is visible (usually as the scape begins to curl), it's time to start snapping them off, so that all the nutrients in the bub go toward further development of the bulb and not to the development of a flowering head. Search "scape" in this thread or the food thread for suggestions on how to use these tasty shoots. Eventually, the leaves emerging from the garlic will start to dry and turn brown. When they are about 50% died back, that's when I pull my garlic. Clean the roots as thoroughly as possible, though gently, and tie the tops together to form bunches of garlic to be hung in a shaded airy place to dry. I hang garlic bunches from nails in the studs of my detached garage, and leave the overhead door and windows open to dry and cure the garlic. For the first week or so, I ran an oscillating floor-mounted fan to keep the air moving and dry the dirt left on the bulbs. None of my garlic developed any mold or mildew this way, though a few of my neighbors' did - they left their garlic drying on racks and probably did not move them enough to promote drying. Anyway, that's the whole garlic cycle. You get to do some planting in late fall, get a harvest of scapes in summer, then get a harvest of bulbs later in the summer.

http://www.garlicfarm.ca/growing-garlic.htm

 

[hypatia]

Can you use garlic that you buy at the grocery store, or do you need special garlic?

 

[turbo]

Can you use garlic that you buy at the grocery store, or do you need special garlic?

Refer to the link I posted for some details, but the garlic that works for these plantings are the hard-neck varieties. I'm planting Russian and German garlic that I got from my neighbor a couple of years back.

Here is a web-site that tells you which varieties are hard-neck and soft-neck. Generally, if you have purplish tints or stripes on the outside of the bulb and a firm stalk, it's a hard-neck. They tend to be pretty potent, flavor-wise, so if you are a garlic-lover, you can economize by using these more flavorful varieties.

http://www.bigjohnsgarden.com/shopgarlic.html

 

[Ouabache]

I just baked one of my "Tennessee Vining" pumpkins. The groundhog took a nibble of this one, so rather than put it with the others, in the root cellar, i decided to bake this one. It yielded 27 cups of baked orange goodness. Great in muffins, dessert breads, pie and soups.

 

[Evo]

All right, it's time to tell of my ordeal with the squirrels, to be known from this day forth as the "rat bastages" and the RAVINE OF DEATH.

The other day I was sitting at my computer when I noticed a squirrel racing across the yard with one of my huge, almost fully ripe tomatoes clutched in it's jaws. I raced to my patio and when I opened the door there was a human bridge of squirrels (ok, the Evo Child says squirrels can't form human bridges, but you know what I mean) with the top squirrel wrenching another tomato off of my plant. They scattered the moment I opened the door, but the damage had been done. Over 2 pounds of perfect ripe tomatoes had been taken. I looked down into the Ravine of No Return and saw my tomatoes scattered amongst the trees.

Horrified by the ghastly scene, I climbed down the treacherous, muddy, loosely packed dirt, and gathered up my poor tomatoes, then realized I had a death defying 75 degree incline to negotiate in my knitted cat and mouse booties if I was ever to get back to safety. Crawling on my hands and knees, feeling for toeholds of ground that did not crumble and careen down into the RAVINE OF DEATH, I finaly made it back to my patio.

Unfortunately, I pulled a major muscle in my left thigh and have been crippled for the last few days.

Of course, realizing that all of my tomatoes had fang marks in them, I was afraid to eat them. DAMN THE RAT BASTAGES!

 

[turbo]

OK, so a couple of critters have lugged some of your tomatoes down into the Ditch of Darn. What's the problem? Every gardener knows that in order to get a crop, you have to plant enough to grow, enough to fail, enough to get eaten, and enough to harvest.

 

[Evo]

OK, so a couple of critters have lugged some of your tomatoes down into the Ditch of Darn. What's the problem? Every gardener knows that in order to get a crop, you have to plant enough to grow, enough to fail, enough to get eaten, and enough to harvest.

I was INJURED! Badly! And my hand knitted cat and mouse booties were soiled!

 

[turbo]

Gardening is dangerous work. Suck it up.

At least you still have vegetables. I had to chip frozen dirt to plant my garlic today. I picked all the remaining apples in the morning, got about a bushel for us, and 1/2 bushel for a friend's horse. Then, when it warmed up to the mid-30's, I started punching holes in the garlic beds for the cloves. I cracked all the bulbs of garlic left in the garage, and planted the cloves and mulched them with oat straw. I hate stoop-labor, and I can't kneel because of my arthritic knees, so I'll be really lame tomorrow. Still, if the cloves all develop, we'll have about 500 bulbs of garlic next year.

 

[Evo]

Gardening is dangerous work. Suck it up.

But, but, I have a tiny patio container garden.

 

[Moonbear]

I don't even have tomatoes anymore. Most suffered from the bad weather this summer and rotted on the vines. We've now had several frosts that have finished off the vines. All that's left to do is cut the plants out of the pots and turn them into the compost pile.

 

[turbo]

But, but, I have a tiny patio container garden.

Ah guerrilla gardening. An extreme form of gardening fraught with risks. You knew what you were getting into!

 

[Proton Soup]

heh, we had troubles with a squirrel that was wasting pecans. it would cut a green one, see that it wasn't ready, then move on to another. in rapid succession.

with a havahart trap, i have relocated 3 squirrels and 3 possums this year.
http://www.havahart.com/

 

[Evo]

heh, we had troubles with a squirrel that was wasting pecans. it would cut a green one, see that it wasn't ready, then move on to another. in rapid succession.

with a havahart trap, i have relocated 3 squirrels and 3 possums this year.
http://www.havahart.com/

The problem is that I love watching them and feed them. So I am guilty of attracting the little beasts.

 

[turbo]

The problem is that I love watching them and feed them. So I am guilty of attracting the little beasts.

I like hand-feeding and training chipmunks. When I first started doing that here, I used to tell them apart by their scars. I got sick of the red squirrels beating on the 'munks and and I started relocating the squirrels with a live trap. After a dozen or more relocations, I started "relocating" them with a 1000 fps pellet gun. I lost track at 70-75. The only way I can tell my chipmunks apart now is by their behaviors. Which ones run to me on a dead-run and climb me? Which ones approach cautiously, but will hand feed? Which ones tolerate "some" closeness, but won't get within reach?

 

[Proton Soup]

The problem is that I love watching them and feed them. So I am guilty of attracting the little beasts.

ah, so that's it. if you don't mind the look of it, an enclosure made from chicken wire will keep them out.

 

[turbo]

ah, so that's it. if you don't mind the look of it, an enclosure made from chicken wire will keep them out.

Be aware that the flimsy light-gauge twisted-hex chicken wire will not keep squirrels out, if they are intent on getting past it. Their teeth can shear light wire easily.

 

[Moonbear]

Be aware that the flimsy light-gauge twisted-hex chicken wire will not keep squirrels out, if they are intent on getting past it. Their teeth can shear light wire easily.

Though, usually, if you're feeding them something else, they'll go with the easier meal first (like raiding the bird feeder).

I have to say it breaks my heart a little that you shot the red squirrels. As a kid, once in a while a red squirrel would stray into our area, but they were very rare. So, for me, red squirrels are special. My grandfather was from Maine, so I know they are more common there, because he'd talk about them being more prevalent, but since I didn't grow up there, I always seem them as a really rare, special squirrel, worthy of protection from the grays. *sigh*

 

[Proton Soup]

Be aware that the flimsy light-gauge twisted-hex chicken wire will not keep squirrels out, if they are intent on getting past it. Their teeth can shear light wire easily.

seems to keep them out of the blueberries here, but maybe they're just not hungry enough. tomatoes haven't been a problem, either.

if that fails, then something more like hog wire should keep them. the havavart is about that gauge. no idea on how small a mesh would be needed, tho.

 

[Evo]

seems to keep them out of the blueberries here, but maybe they're just not hungry enough. tomatoes haven't been a problem, either.

if that fails, then something more like hog wire should keep them. the havavart is about that gauge. no idea on how small a mesh would be needed, tho.

Yeah, I'm going to have to put wire mesh around my plants next year. What kills me is that they take a tomato or tomatillo, eat half of it, then get a new one. One of them even ate half of a jalapeno the other day.

 

[turbo]

Though, usually, if you're feeding them something else, they'll go with the easier meal first (like raiding the bird feeder).

I have to say it breaks my heart a little that you shot the red squirrels. As a kid, once in a while a red squirrel would stray into our area, but they were very rare. So, for me, red squirrels are special. My grandfather was from Maine, so I know they are more common there, because he'd talk about them being more prevalent, but since I didn't grow up there, I always seem them as a really rare, special squirrel, worthy of protection from the grays. *sigh*

I don't enjoy shooting them, but they are horribly destructive when they get in your house and out-buildings, and they love to chew wires. I don't want my wife or myself to die in an electrical fire because our place is over-run with red squirrels. I have a neighbor who is a pacifist, organic gardener, and a vegetarian who shoots red squirrels on sight. He really loves animals, though he is a little puzzled by my penchant for hand-training chipmunks. He is a farm-boy who tends to lump the rodents together as pests. He stopped into drop off some of my canning jars one day ( I keep him supplied with hot relishes and he has been very generous with garlic, fruits, horseradish, etc) and a little female 'munk who lives in a rock wall across the road came at him on a dead run. At the last second, she realized that he was not me, and she put on the brakes and ran under my truck to recon. She's one of my original trainees, and she won't hesitate to scale me and search my pockets for goodies. In this shot, she was coming up my leg so fast that she over-ran my camera's auto-focus.

 

[Proton Soup]

Yeah, I'm going to have to put wire mesh around my plants next year. What kills me is that they take a tomato or tomatillo, eat half of it, then get a new one. One of them even ate half of a jalapeno the other day.

sometimes you get a crazy squirrel. that turned out to be the problem with the pecans. i didn't realize it until the second squirrel was moved. there are still other squirrels here, but they aren't displaying the obsessive and destructive behavior that squirrel was.

 

[Moonbear]

I don't enjoy shooting them, but they are horribly destructive when they get in your house and out-buildings, and they love to chew wires.

I know. I'm not criticizing. It's purely an emotional reaction.

I used to train the chipmunks when I was a kid too. I haven't seen that many chipmunks around here to train. Too many neighbors close by with dogs I think. Chipmunks are just so cute though. I used to have one that would sit on my lap to get peanuts.

 

[turbo]

I know. I'm not criticizing. It's purely an emotional reaction.

I used to train the chipmunks when I was a kid too. I haven't seen that many chipmunks around here to train. Too many neighbors close by with dogs I think. Chipmunks are just so cute though. I used to have one that would sit on my lap to get peanuts.

I have had chipmunks (females usually, because they have to store LOTS of food to raise big broods) who would not only tolerate handling, but would let me search their fur for mites, let me invert them and check their belly-fur, etc. They are wonderful little critters.

BTW, chipmunks learn from example, so if you can get one 'munk trained, all the 'munks that trust that one, including siblings, offspring, etc, will "come around" very quickly. I have found that hand-training chickadees is very similar. If one or two birds out of a flock will hand-feed, others will, too. When the visits of separate flocks overlap, it's possible to educate a second flock pretty quickly once they figure out that the first flock is getting the bulk of the food while I'm standing too close to the feeder for them to approach. I can get red-breasted nuthatches hand-feeding, too, but have never had a single white-breasted nuthatch or tufted titmouse take seed from my hand. Don't know why.

 

[Moonbear]

...but have never had a single white-breasted nuthatch or tufted titmouse take seed from my hand. Don't know why.

They've always been very skittish birds, in my experience. I could never even open the door and have them stay in the yard, let alone venture close enough to take seed even when I was nearby, let alone from my hand. Though, the bigger birds also used to beat up on them once they figured out there was good food if I was around. The blue jays would play "fetch" for peanuts, but they also would chase away every other bird if I was around to feed them. Oh, and I remember one crow we named "Stupid" who would visit for peanuts (s/he was a fledgling of another pair of crows who had a nest in our yard, and seemed really awkward learning to fly...since I've never seen other crow fledglings, I have no idea if that was normal or if Stupid really was stupid).

 

[turbo]

The white-breasted nuthatches hang around pretty close, and will let me get a few feet away. If I'm within arm's reach, I've gotten real close. Usually any tufted titmouse visitor will show up with chickadees. Chickadees are plentiful and pretty resourceful, so the tts get a handy "posse" to hang with. None of them will even stay within 50 feet of me. Generally, they go to the top of the tall white ash tree on the edge of the lawn and act invisible.

They're such cute little guys with those pointy hats... I really would love to feed them.

 

[physics girl phd]

I like hand-feeding and training chipmunks.

I had a gray squirrel trained in grad school (we didn't have any chipmunks around, so you take what you get). He would even scratch at the window when he wanted me to come out with cereal (raisin bran) or nuts. Like your chipmunk... he would even come up and paw my leg. My friends were freaked out because of a plague scare (via prairie-dogs in our town), but considering we lived on the WAY other side of town, I figured I was okay. It seems cruel to stop feeding an animal after he gets used to you as is supply source. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to make it through my last summer there. I stopped seeing him.

 

[Moonbear]

I miss my chippies! (Turbo calls them 'munks, I call them chippies. )