this is my official gardening thread - Forum

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Barbarella wrote:
I'm probably gonna be talking about my garden obsessively for the next several months so I figured I might as well just make one post lol.

I went to school for agriculture, so if you wanna ask me gardening questions I can probably answer them or at least sift thru the masses of good and bad info out there as I have time.

My garden is just starting, [Zone 6]

Perennials:
Asparagus, Egyptian Walking Onions, Red & Gold Raspberries, Blackberries, Garlic, Onion Chives, Thyme, Oregano, Sage, Rosemary, Rhubarb, Gooseberries, Lemon Balm, Strawberries

Seeds & Starts: (I really hope these work out...I have never had much success starting my own seeds indoors, so half I started, and half I bought plant starts)
Chamomile, Pak Choi, Lettuce, Spinach, Perpetual Spinach, Bunching Onions, Leeks, Tomato, Peppers, Potatoes, Dill, Coriander/Cilantro, Borage, Sunflower, Gold Ground Cherry, Purple Tomatillo, Cat Nip, Acorn Squash, Peas

I'm doing hella companion planting and experiments this year!

What's planted or planned for your garden?
Are you gonna do any experiments?

Private
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Barbarella wrote:
I'm also BUILDING A GREENHOUSE!
last year I canned this guys tomatoes and in exchange he gave me his old greenhouse
I am just waiting on the bolts to come in the mail

Private
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Barbarella wrote:
This year I want to try living mulch
I'm gonna go with oregano and thyme as the living mulch, but if any clover pops up as a weed I'm definitely just gonna let it grow around the base of my plants.

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Barbarella wrote:
I went to another plant sale today and picked up garlic chives, I've been growing onion chives for years in one planter and I'm gonna put the garlic chives in my other planter.
I have two waist-height herb planters on my back deck.

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Barbarella wrote:
trying to decide if i want to plant okra this year
it takes up so much room because you need so many plants for a crop worth a damn
but it also grows at a time when its too hot for other stuff

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Barbarella wrote:
"Working Off a Temper" by Grace Verne Silver 1939

“There was a week when I was intensely jealous, bitter, justifiably angry. I wasn’t ‘seeing’ red, but my thoughts were black enough. The more I thought the more angry I became. If thoughts had the power to kill anyone there would have been a death all right! As I walked up and down the floor I said to myself, finally: 'If I don’t snap out of this, there’ll be a funeral for so-and-so and I’ll get as much time for killing him as if I’d killed a real man!’

I went out to the garage and got out the pickaxe… .On the next lot to our house–vacant, with an absentee owner–were three neglected, uncultivated, unwatered trees; we had no garden of our own then. The ground was baked as hard as pavement; the trees were shriveling in the dry August heat. Instead of taking that pick and killing the man I wanted to kill … I used the pick to dig up and turn over that hard soil. Now, I weigh just a hundred pounds, when I’m fat; but I swung that pick high over my head, down and up, up and down, all through one long hot day. Black thoughts kept racing through my head–every bit of injustice I’d endured from that person–and there was a lot!–was rehashed, silently. I thought of all the things I’d like to do to him if I had him on a desert island; I said–aloud, for there was no one to overhear–all I wanted, yet did not dare to say to him. Relentlessly, as though he were the ground, I swung that pick at him, and it, the two being unified in my mind.

By night I was tired enough to sleep, sore all over–but still plenty mad. The next day was a repetition of the first, except that I borrowed a heavy hoe and started chopping, cutting, all the weeds in sight; occasionally I even forgot to wish I could cut down my enemy as easily. By the third day it was pretty well out of my system. The ground was pulverized, my anger had gone; never did I forget or forgive, for the injury was too great, too often repeated; but I achieved a state of mind best described by the man who said that his enemy 'wasn’t worth the powder it would take to blow him to hell!’ My enemy was not only 'not worth killing’; I realized that 'life’ is a worse punishment than 'death’; I’d let him live til he wished he was dead!”

Meister
National star

Meister wrote:
My goal this year is to make a little strawberry garden.

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Barbarella wrote:

Meister wrote:
My goal this year is to make a little strawberry garden.

I've always struggled with strawberries, I had a patch for like 3 years that never once made a single strawberry, so I ripped up the plants last year
this year I'm trying again in a different bed that gets more sun

Meister
National star

Meister wrote:

Barbarella wrote:

Meister wrote:
My goal this year is to make a little strawberry garden.

I've always struggled with strawberries, I had a patch for like 3 years that never once made a single strawberry, so I ripped up the plants last year
this year I'm trying again in a different bed that gets more sun

My only fear for the plants are the neighbor cats.
I need to make a cage to cover the plants.

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Barbarella wrote:

Meister wrote:

Barbarella wrote:

Meister wrote:
My goal this year is to make a little strawberry garden.

I've always struggled with strawberries, I had a patch for like 3 years that never once made a single strawberry, so I ripped up the plants last year
this year I'm trying again in a different bed that gets more sun

My only fear for the plants are the neighbor cats.
I need to make a cage to cover the plants.

Cats are both good and bad for gardens
They scare off moles, groundhogs, and other critters that will terrorize your garden
But they can't always understand where not to dig and poo when plants are small, mine usually avoid plants well once they're large enough for them to understand

I built a sandbox for mine lol

Pavlov
International star

Pavlov wrote:

Barbarella wrote:
I'm also BUILDING A GREENHOUSE!
last year I canned this guys tomatoes and in exchange he gave me his old greenhouse
I am just waiting on the bolts to come in the mail

omg lucky ive always wanted a greenhouse

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Barbarella wrote:

Pavlov wrote:

Barbarella wrote:
I'm also BUILDING A GREENHOUSE!
last year I canned this guys tomatoes and in exchange he gave me his old greenhouse
I am just waiting on the bolts to come in the mail

omg lucky ive always wanted a greenhouse

It’s small, but it’ll suit my needs

Meister
National star

Meister wrote:

Barbarella wrote:

Meister wrote:

Barbarella wrote:
I've always struggled with strawberries, I had a patch for like 3 years that never once made a single strawberry, so I ripped up the plants last year
this year I'm trying again in a different bed that gets more sun

My only fear for the plants are the neighbor cats.
I need to make a cage to cover the plants.

Cats are both good and bad for gardens
They scare off moles, groundhogs, and other critters that will terrorize your garden
But they can't always understand where not to dig and poo when plants are small, mine usually avoid plants well once they're large enough for them to understand

I built a sandbox for mine lol

Its only the poo im afraid of, if i count all cats its about 4-5 a few meters from my house.
And we also have ALOT OF DEER that are eating all the plants.
One year we had elks eating everything in our greenhouse! They even ate all the tomato plants!

Private
Popstar

ouch wrote:
Stupid question but does the garlic infest the other plants besides it w garlic essence
anyways, w garlic, can u just plant like one boat (??) of garlic or like the whole thing n it will grow, mby chinese garlic is good idk, like when its too long in the fridge n it starts growing a green stalk, but idk if that means it can be planted just like that too

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Barbarella wrote:

Meister wrote:

Barbarella wrote:

Meister wrote:

My only fear for the plants are the neighbor cats.
I need to make a cage to cover the plants.

Cats are both good and bad for gardens
They scare off moles, groundhogs, and other critters that will terrorize your garden
But they can't always understand where not to dig and poo when plants are small, mine usually avoid plants well once they're large enough for them to understand

I built a sandbox for mine lol

Its only the poo im afraid of, if i count all cats its about 4-5 a few meters from my house.
And we also have ALOT OF DEER that are eating all the plants.
One year we had elks eating everything in our greenhouse! They even ate all the tomato plants!

I built a little sandbox like a raised-bed garden but with sand instead, a few feet from my gardens, because the smell of cat does keep other critters away - and when they poo in my garden I scoop it into the sandbox. It isn't foolproof but it does make a difference. I have to buy a bag of sand once or twice a year to top it off, and (with gloves) pull weeds from it in the spring.

I live next to the train tracks so I don't have a huge problem with deer - the only thing I know to do for deer is to build a fence - some of the oldtimers around here will... hang bars of soap throughout the garden, I have no idea if it works.

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Barbarella wrote:

ouch wrote:
Stupid question but does the garlic infest the other plants besides it w garlic essence
anyways, w garlic, can u just plant like one boat (??) of garlic or like the whole thing n it will grow, mby chinese garlic is good idk, like when its too long in the fridge n it starts growing a green stalk, but idk if that means it can be planted just like that too

In my experience, not really - I've heard folks say if you plant it next to your greens they may pick up a garlicy taste, but if it does, it's mild, I've never really noticed it.
Garlic makes a good companion plant for most plants (except beans and asparagus) because its strong scent repels many pests.

To grow garlic, you plant one clove for each plant you want at the end of the season (where I live, we plant garlic in October), mulch with straw thick, and just wait.
If you have hardneck varieties of garlic it will send up a scape in spring/summer and that is its 'flower' - you want to pull that entire stalk off so it keeps putting energy into the bulb - but you can eat the scape and they are DELICIOUS - softneck garlic does not produce a scape.
If you don't remove the scape, the flower looks like several little cloves of garlic, and it will drop them into the soil eventually and they will act as new seeds but the bulb will be smaller - some permaculture gardeners just let garlic do its thing and don't try to control it for the largest harvest, which is fine also.

I've tried planting garlic from the grocery store, and even when it sprouts, it never seems to grow outdoors so I have no idea what they do to it lol
I however have never put garlic in the fridge? If it's properly cured (which means laid out until its COMPLETELY dry before removing the leaves) you shouldn't have to refrigerate it.