What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

In summary, we put in a huge garden and had a green thumb from the get-go. We still have a garden, although it's a little smaller now. We mainly grow vegetables, fruits, and flowers. I've been a pretty avid gardener at times but not for eating, just for looking.
  • #211
Earlier this spring, a couple of weeks after the blackberries had all blossomed and were setting on little green berries, some canes on the road-bank across from the house developed white blossoms. Otimistically, I thought "blackberries?", but then discounted that because of the late blooming. It turns out that they are blackberries, and now I have 3 varieties of wild blackberries to pick. The ones that have the large individual druplets with a fairly round drupe, the ones that have smaller drupelets, but form a long, larger conical drupe with a rounded tip, and these, which resemble the second type, but are far less prone to fall off when you touch the ripe ones, plus, they are MUCH sweeter than the other two varieties. I picked over 2 quarts of the first two varieties this morning, despite having picked the patches clean less just a day and a half before. Then when I discovered these new guys, I picked over a quart in about an hour. This was very tough going, however, since the blackberries are growing in with lots of wild roses scattered along a very rough loose rock wall and covered with blow-downs. I look like I've been in a fight with a bobcat. My wife loves blackberries, though, and she's going to flip when she gets home from work and tastes the new variety. Very rich and sweet.

Well, live and learn. The first planting of green beans is about petered out, and the second crop is flowering, but no beans yet. I've got to time that better next year. Just watch! I'll get heavy crop overlap and we'll have to pick and freeze beans every night for a couple of weeks...

We definitely need 3-4 full 30 ft rows of Swiss chard next year. You can cut the mature leaves, blanche them for a couple of minutes, chill them quickly in cold water to stop the cooking, freeze them, and have nice fresh-tasting greens all winter. When you cut them back, the smaller leaves take advantage of the established root structure and the lack of competition with the bigger leaves, and they grow very quickly. Swiss chard is a crop that gives substantial returns on your investment, and of all the garden greens that we have tried to freeze, they taste the best - far better than any frozen greens you can buy in a store. For those who would like to try them, find Johnny's Selected Seeds on-line and order the "Ruby Red" variety, also known as rhubarb chard. They have bright red stems, and the leaves are a much darker, richer green than the "Giant Fordhook" variety. My wife and I are convinced that the darker and richer the color of your vegetables, the better they are for you, and we have settled on this variety for next year's crop. "Northern Lights" is pretty, with its mix of yellow, red, and green stems, but for sheer intensity of color, the rhubarb chard wins hands-down. Johnny's Selected Seeds is a good company to deal with (a testimonial, not an advert), and they are a local Maine company doing a fantastic world-wide business. You can get seeds appropriate to any zone, but if you live in a northern climate, and are looking for very hardy varieties, Johnny's has everything you need.
 
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  • #212
I neglected the garden today and spend several hours picking wild berries. We had some to eat, and I just put a gallon Zip-lock bag full of surplus wild blackberries in the freezer. If the production rate keeps up, (and my knees hold out) I can do that about every 2 days. Anybody need a blackberry? I need another freezer, for sure. This one is getting full. We have probably 3-4 gallons of cukes refrigerated, so tomorrow is another pickle-making day. We have made a couple of good-sized batches of bread-and-butter pickles and a big batch of icicle pickles (soft, very sour ones) and will probably go either to a hot bread-and-butter batch with our jalapenos mixed in, or maybe some kosher dills or old-fachioned mustard pickles - a real favorite.

Question: I picked some zucchinis yesterday and had to throw one away. Something had eaten the bud end (or laid eggs and the larvae ate out the bud end) and the entire core of the squash was eaten out. What kind of bug might do that?
 
  • #213
Astronuc, grab your berry bucket and head for central Maine! It rained most of the day yesterday, so I did not do my regular every-other-day picking of wild blackberries. The rain and the extra day boosted berry production and berry size so that I ended up with 4 gallon Glad Freezer Bags of wild blackberries. It took me from about 9:00 am to 3:00 pm to pull that off, but looking at farmer's market prices of $3-4/pint that is a good haul. I may have to learn how to make wine from these puppies. If I can get over a gallon a day during harvest (which goes to the first hard frost here), we'll be hard-pressed to actually eat them all.

I have some animal complications. First, it appears that a moose (or perhaps deer) is "trimming" lots of the canes, eating most or all the leaves. Second, there is a bear that is trampeling good productive canes to eat their berries. Neither of these rascals is preventing me from getting a good harvest of berries, but I'm thinking perhaps a third freezer is in order...

Bears are pretty cute and smart, so I'm probably leaning toward wasting a tasty big-nosed swamp-donkey. If you have never had moose meat, you are missing a treat.
 
  • #214
turbo-1 said:
If you have never had moose meat, you are missing a treat.
I've eaten moose (with a wild berry (something like blackberry) dressing). It was delicious. :-p

I definitely need to get up your way turbo. My berry season ended a few weeks ago with the heat. :frown:
 
  • #215
Astronuc said:
I definitely need to get up your way turbo. My berry season ended a few weeks ago with the heat. :frown:
Come on up! I went out today in the woods opposite our house and picked over 2 gallons of blackberries, and my wife picked along the roadway and the patches down back and got at least another gallon. I had to make a run to my father's house with 4 gallons of frozen blackberries in my saddlebags to make room to freeze today's batch. We have another chest freezer on order, but it's a week late in arriving and the garden is coming in like crazy. :eek:

While I was picking berries in the woods, I was shadowed by an animal big enough to break some good-sized branches as it crept through the thickets. I worked my way around to where there was a little rise that I could get onto quietly and quickly, and saw a white-tail fawn running for cover toward the next thicket. It could have been the same one that barreled up my driveway a couple of weeks ago and almost slammed into me. Anyway, I started looking at the lower bushes as I continued picking and a lot of blackberry stems were neatly nipped off, as were many blackberry leaves on the younger canes. I think that his mother might have been killed by a car because there was a deer carcass in the ditch about 1/4 mile from here about the time he showed up on the property, but he seems to be doing OK. He still has spots, though, and is probably not too skilled at finding forage, safe cover, etc. I'd like to feed him and get him used to me, but acclimating him to humans would be a sure death sentence come hunting season. :frown:
 
  • #216
The cool weather and rain is playing havoc with the blackberries. I picked from 9:00 until 2:15 and barely got 1-1/2 gallons of berries, despite covering far more territory than normal. I expected more like 3-4 gallons. It's supposed to be warmer and mostly sunny this weekend, so maybe they'll kick back into gear.

I've decided to leave cracked corn in the woods where the fawn is and replenish it every couple of days. My hope is that the fawn will stay nourished, and that other deer will find the food, and that they will socialize with him so he can learn some of the things he needs to know. He sure doesn't know how to be quiet yet - he was shadowing me again today while I was picking blackberries in his patch of the woods, and he periodically snapped dry branches that were 'way too loud to have been broken by rabbits or other small animals. The little guy completely stripped one of the most productive blackberry canes in that area - berries, leaves, shoots - all gone. At least I'm assuming that it's him - taller older canes in that patch with berries chest-high and higher were untouched. I'm determined not to make friends with the little guy - just try to keep him alive until he can survive on his own. If we get another warm winter like last year, he's got a chance.
 
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  • #217
We had a doe and two fawns (still with white spots, but mature) in our back yard yesterday. I presume they or others have eaten my rhubarb - leaves and some of the stalks - which is interesting considering the leaves are toxic - oxalic acid.

I have a bumper crop of habañero peppers. One plant has about 50 peppers on it while the other four plants have a dozen or so peppers each. A second crop of serranos is ripening as is the first crop of Hot Portugal, which are finally turning red. The kung paos didn't produce much this year. I'll post pics later.

The weather seems more like fall. The temperature is in the 60's °F (less than 18°C) for most of the day, and we have high winds. It's interesting to watch a row trees bending and leaning. One tree in the forest is moaning/creaking.

Edit: hypatia's post (next one) reminded me that our tomatos have ripened as well. We probably will have to make sauces or salsas, an some hot sauces.
 
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  • #218
We've had a cool snap here too the past week. All the tomatos have ripened! So I'm spending my few days off makeing all kinds of sauces.
 
  • #219
My niece had a frost last night, but her garden is in a hollow and they often get the first frost. Our habaneros are starting to ripen to red, and we hope to keep them on the plants for at least another week or two. Our grapes (hundreds of pounds of them bunched in the trees!) are ripening, and I hope for another couple of frost-free weeks to sweeten them. An older neighbor showed up a few days ago and told us that these are good table grapes, so if the season is warm enough to ripen them, we will be spreading them around. I ate a few of the most purple grapes today, and they tasted great, if a bit tart still.

BTW, it took me almost 8 hours coursing though the woods on Friday, but I picked over 4 gallons of wild blackberries. If we don't learn to make wine, we may be in a quandry.
 
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  • #220
There is a frost advisory in the northern part of NY. I think we may have a colder than usual winter. Trees are starting to lose leaves, and some have lost leaves starting a few weeks ago. I think that is mostly stress from dry periods (semi-drought). We've had dry spells punctuated by thunderstorms so much of the rain has simply run-off rather than re-charge the aquifers or soak into the ground.
 
  • #221
We escaped the frost last night - it only got down to the high 30's. It helps that we are on a hillside - the cool air just spills down the slope to the valley about 1/4 mile out back. I can no longer cross that valley to get to the back half of my property because beavers have dammed the brook and flooded the valley. If the snowmobile club wants to continue using the trail on the east border of my property, they're going to have to arrange to get the beavers moved or wait until the new pond freezes solid.

The weather is supposed to moderate a bit toward the end of the week. Last year, we didn't get a hard frost until October, and if we get that lucky this year, we'll have great crops of grapes and habaneros - we just need the ripening time.
 
  • #222
I checked the grapes again today, and the riper ones are wonderful! They appear to be Concords (or similar) with a nice flavor. If we can get another week or two of on-the-vine ripening without a hard frost, we're going to be giving away hundreds of pounds of grapes. I hope that I can persuade some of the younger relatives to bring extension ladders, to harvest them, because there are some tremendous bunches ~20 feet up in the trees. The grape vines are really aggressive and are overwhelming some poplars and birches with the weight of their fruit.
 
  • #224
[ um I am new here i just signed in yesterday do you know how many electrons are in sodium and iodine?:confused:
 
  • #225
Yes, but you might want to post your question in the chemistry forum, so you can receive a relevant answer, and so your question can be in the forum that would most benefit people with questions like yours.

Welcome!
turbo-1
 
  • #226
Hands Ame 15 a bag of spinach. Good luck. :wink:
 
  • #227
Ame15 said:
[ um I am new here i just signed in yesterday do you know how many electrons are in sodium and iodine?:confused:
The number of electrons in a neutral atom must equal the number of protons (Z) in the atom.

Z(Na) = 11
Z(Cl) = 17

A nice resource for basic questions on the elements:

http://www.webelements.com/

Welcome to PF Ame15. :cool:
 
  • #228
Evo said:
Hands Ame 15 a bag of spinach. Good luck. :wink:
Those tasty-looking grapes are still pretty puckery! It will take at least another week or two before they are table-quality, but they are getting closer.

BTW, if you stop handing out freeze-dried jellyfish flakes to new members and make them take recently-packaged bags of spinach, the membership level is going to suffer. You can have MiH stalk them, hang them up with padded handcuffs and bludgeon them with a frozen fish, etc, but that treatment is going to appeal only to a small (but dedicated) minority of PF members. The sisterhood has got to adopt a "big tent" policy. Perhaps, "we will beat the crap out of you with a carp under a huge tent if you don't conform" or somthing similar.
 
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  • #229
turbo-1 said:
BTW, those tasty-looking grapes are still pretty puckery! It will take at least another week or two before they are table-quality, but they are getting closer.

BTW, if you stop handing out freeze-dried jellyfish flakes to new members and make them take recently-packaged bags of spinach, the membership level is going to suffer.
True. :frown:
You can have MiH stalk them, hang the up with padded handcuffs and bludgeon them with a frozen fish, etc, but that is going to appeal only to a small (but dedicated) minority of PF members. The sisterhood has got to adopt a "big tent" policy. Perhaps, "we will beat the crap out of you with a carp under a huge tent if you don't conform" or somthing similar.
Ooooh, I could go for that! Halloween is coming up, we need something to go with the season. I'm thinking ala Freddy Krueger, Jason and Pumpkinhead. They're selling something called "pumpkin ale" at Boozeworld, that's scary. :frown:
 
  • #230
My best habanero plant :biggrin:
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/6039/habanerosdg6.jpg

This one plant produced more than 100 peppers and is still producing. It is about 2 ft (60 cm) high and 3 ft (90 cm) wide.
 
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  • #231
Astronuc said:
My best habanero plant :biggrin:
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/6039/habanerosdg6.jpg

This one plant produced more than 100 peppers and is still producing. It is about 2 ft (60 cm) high and 3 ft (90 cm) wide.
Man! I wish my habaneros produced like that! As it is, we got some really hot peppers from them (FAR hotter than the ones in the local stores!) and and made some of the best pepper sauces and salsas ever.
 
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  • #232
The garden is winding down, with just root vegetables left to gather, but we've still got to contend with all the grapes. I picked several bunches of grapes today, and though they are still a bit on the tart side, they were great juiced with some sweet ripe Macs from my dad's tree.
 
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  • #233
Yeah, it's too bad since our tomatos and the one habanero pepper plant are still producing.

This is for DocToxyn
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/2264/unknownturtle1005542bu8.jpg

We found a couple of turtles (?) up the hill in our back yard. They apparently just hatched because one can see what appears to be a white egg tooth at the tip of their beaks.
 
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  • #235
Hey Turbo, thanks for that! It certainly appears very similar to what we have found. It does appear to be a variation of the box turtle, maybe an Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrapene_carolina_carolina) but the NE/New England variety.

Another good reason not to use insecticides or other complex organic compounds.

These guys eat lots of bugs and slugs. :smile: They also eat the good bugs too. :rolleyes: :frown:
 
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  • #236
I am going to have to look into growing this plant.

http://www.allrepellents.com/2006/07/beautyberry-natural-repellent/

Scientists at the Agriculture Research Service (ARS) have confirmed that the beautyberry acts as a natural repellent against such bugs as ticks, ants, and mosquitoes. The beautyberry has long been a home remedy used to deter biting pests in such places as the hill country of Mississippi. Now, with this scientific finding, it’s hoped that the berry’s mosquito repelling qualities can be transformed into a mass-produced bug deterrent. Don’t get too excited yet though, this is still millions of dollars off. An economical production system will have to be established.

Scientific studies showed three chemicals responsible for repelling mosquitoes. Spathulenol, callicarpenal, and intermedeol were all extracted during the testing. By chance, one of the botanists at ARS learned about using beautyberry as a bug repellent when he was a child. The grandfather of Charles T. Bryson showed him how leaves from the beautyberry could be used to repel such insects as deerflies, mosquitoes, and horseflies. Crushing leaves of the beautyberry and placing them between the harness of a horse, and it’s skin, would protect the horse from flying pests. Crushing the leaves and rubbing them on his own skin had the same effect. Bugs were less likely to bite. Years later, a mention of this home remedy to a supervisor at ARS led to the scientific evaluation.

http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CAAM2

Agricultural Research Service - http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/main.htm
 
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  • #237
That might be a tough one to grow up here in the NE. I wonder if there are related plants that are more tolerant of colder weather...this one appears not to occur naturally any farther north than coastal VA, so it probably has very little tolerance for freezing..
 
  • #238
Apparently some species are suitable for Zone 5. There are apparently 40+ species including one native to west central china, which would make it tolerate to Zone 5.

The following two are appropriate for Zone 5 (down to -28.8° C (-20° F)

Purple Beautyberry (Callicarpa dichotoma) - http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/1210/index.html -

China Beautyberry (Callicarpa shikokiana) - http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/117485/index.html -

This one is not appropriate for Zone 5 -
American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) - http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/2657/index.html -

One can search for more species of genus Callicarpa in Dave's Plant files

http://davesgarden.com/pf/ - Plant files

http://davesgarden.com/pf/hof.php - registration/subscription required for this section
 
  • #239
I wonder if they have the insect-repellant compounds found in the southern variety? If so, I might be interested in planting some, although we normally get winter nights much colder than -20F, so hardiness might be an issue up here.
 
  • #240
Based on the comment "The beautyberry has long been a home remedy used to deter biting pests in such places as the hill country of Mississippi," I imagine it is a southern variety. I'll have to dig around the ARS/USDA to find out what variety was tested, and if the other varities like Purple or China beautyberry's have been investigated for compounds like spathulenol, callicarpenal, and intermedeol.
 
  • #241
I bought a second compost bin yesterday and today I ripped up all the tomato plants and string beans and a lot of weeds and started the second batch of compost. I got out the old Horse and repeatedly deep-tilled the northern 1/3 of the garden. We'll probably rip out the rest of the garden this weekend and I'll till the remaining 2/3. There is so much clay here that I want to get the garden ready early so I can amend the soil with some sand, so it will work more easily and give root vegetables some "breathing room". I'm thinking I'll need to spread 10 yards of sand (2" x 35' x 50') and give that a try, with more next fall if needed.
 
  • #242
Have you been adding gypsum to the soil? When I lived in Houston, the soil is clay, gypsum is the only way to go, but it takes time. I'd start applying it now, if you haven't already.
 
  • #243
Our soil is mostly clay, and we simply amend it with composted cow manure and organic material (composed kitchen vegetable waste/scraps, cut grass, decayed leaves, twigs, branches, . . . ). It does take a few years, but the composted manure speeds it up.

There are some mighty huge earthworms in our compost pile.

I start with a pick and break up the clay down to at least 1 foot and then mix in a bag of composted manure and other organic matter.
 
  • #244
I also mixed in peat, but then had to add blood meal to compensate.
 
  • #245
Evo said:
Have you been adding gypsum to the soil? When I lived in Houston, the soil is clay, gypsum is the only way to go, but it takes time. I'd start applying it now, if you haven't already.
Our soil is already fine in the calcium department, and I am routinely adding organic materials to the soil like peat, composted cow manure, etc. My neighbor gardens organically, too and he has similar soil. The addition of manures, compost, etc, helps with aeration and drainage in soils with a high clay content, but he had even more success after amending his garden soil with sand. It helps keep the clay from compacting and forming a moisture barrier, and makes it easier to pull weeds without leaving lots of roots that allows them to come right back. He says that it also improved the quality and size of his root vegetables (carrots, turnip, beets, garlic), and I can attest to the great garlic that he grows. A couple of weeks ago I heard someone hollering, and since he often works alone with heavy equipment and his sawmill, I was concerned that he might be pinned under a log, injured, or something, so I ran right down to his place. It turns out that he was hollering for his dog (he is a big guy with a booming voice). A little later, he brought us up a big handful of fresh garlic bulbs as a thank-you and we have been using them as we make our hot pepper sauces. He has a little greenhouse, and I'm going to offer him some of our habanero and jalapeno bushes - many still have buds, flowers, and tiny peppers and they will produce all winter if they are kept warm and happy.
 

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