No.105229
I helped my cute mum garden in the past
No.105239
I once followed the instructions on a beginner tulip growing kit and it grew but died later.
No.105240
I have been thinking about getting a tiny cactus lately, but that's not exactly the same.
No.105246
i've lived most of my life in an apartment and it's hard enough to keep 4 small plants alive and make sure they get enough sunlight from my pitiful window angles
No.105250
>>105246I have an idea. What about mushrooms?
No.105256
>>105250Silly but interesting idea.
No.105327
>>105279Wow, I didn't think you could grow onions or shallots whatever those are in such a compact manner. There's over a dozen there i that little thing. Nice.
No.105329
>>105327not surprising, doomsday guides frequently mention potatoes as something you can grow yourself in a tiny space
No.105343
>>105342I just did.
(It's really annoying for me to get my flip phone to take a picture and get it to transfer into my computer via bluetooth. Maybe someday I'll do it again...)
No.105344
The mewkledreamy guy having a flip phone is shocking
No.105345
FLIP phones
No.105346
>>105327>>105329My mom planted some onions in a patch of dirt outside of her garden sometime in the 80's. They were still dutifully sprouting in that spot when we moved out in 06, long after the garden proper with its bag topsoil had died from neglect.
We did literally nothing to maintain them besides not eating every bulb.
Good shtf food. Or just something easy to start with.
No.105875
Boy, indoor growing seems pretty complicated if you want to focus on growingn stuff that produces fruit and such. I read and watched a bunch of stuff about the light spectrum's influence on plants, like you want red light for plant growth and blue light for fruiting, or maybe it was the other way around. So instead of a white light, people sometimes use a light bar thing that has white lights, red lights, and blue lights, or some combination there.
This guy's channel does a lot of comparison videos which are fun to watch because you see time skip ahead and he talks about conditions and nutrition and stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7O8LuJzg3E(he does hydroponics though and I don't think I want to do that since it's more involved than putting stuff in dirt)
But, these fancy growing lights are pretty expensive. Hundreds of dollars for the ones with the best properties that can penetrate layers of leaves. I think it's meant for people that are growing lots of stuff, so that's not me (yet?). Then there are these things called "grow tents" that keep in moisture and have reflective surfaces to minimize the wasting of photons by bouncing more light around. And also you need to manually pollinate these inside plants if necessary since they're away from helpful insects and birds.
This really makes you appreciate all the stuff that happens naturally if they're outside.
I still want to try growing some stuff inside, though, but I guess I need to find some layered shelf thing first and see what lights I can get to go with it.
No.105963
Got a pot for my moon cactus recently, but it's a bit large. Need to get some soil for it to fill it out, but it seems wasteful to order an ~8 lb bag of soil to then only use maybe half a pound at most.
No.105965
>>105875I have a nice cheap layered shelf from Home Depot that came with a greenhouse-like covering and cost me only 50 bucks. Somewhat like this
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B7LSC4C3/ No.105966
>>105965Wow, that's cheap. Well, I guess it's cheap because you need to buy a bunch of pots to go with it instead of the shelves being pots themselves.
I was looking stuff like this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S2TB2VNBut, most of these are ugly. Even if the plastic is rated 'food safe', it still seems like such a clash to have dirt and plants sitting in plastic containers. It should be soothing to look at it, like this
https://www.amazon.com/Notume-Vertical-Planter-Flowers-Vegetables/dp/B097MSWHG3But, that one doesn't seem as efficient space-wise, but it does seem like it'd be better at getting light to everything.
(I want this stacked stuff inside for herbs)
This stuff is more expensive than I thought it'd be.
No.105969
>>105966>Even if the plastic is rated 'food safe', it still seems like such a clash to have dirt and plants sitting in plastic containers.An important consideration when it comes to potting type is that different materials will cause the soil to hold moisture longer, or dry out quicker. For instance, typical terracotta pots are slightly porous, so soil will dry out more quickly after watering. Meanwhile, plastic pots will hold onto moisture for far longer. This may be better or worse depending on what's being grown and your own skill when it comes to watering (namely, that you're not overwatering). But, plastic does have some material benefits like generally being lighter and more durable, whereas terracotta is heavier and more fragile.
No.105972
>>105969Oh. Yeah, I forgot about that part. The wooden one with an inner cloth seems nice, and since I'll keep it inside the wood won't rot. I now have a year under my belt of watering some houseplants so I think I kind of know how much to use now.
But, I also need to think of ways to keep my cat away from it. Maybe I can't use one that starts near ground level...
No.105995
Maybe a bit of a sidetrack from a garden, but I think it fits the theme of the thread. What does /qa/ think about chickens?
I've heard they're pretty cheap and a bountiful food source that can provide you with about an egg a day, which can then be used for whatever you want. Most of 'amazing' features of backyard chickens I know of come from here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSvhneC5VCY but I've also heard my relatives talk all the time about how great they are as well. The only real issue I have with them is that they seem so good that I have to wonder if there's some hidden downside or limitation I'm missing that's keeping the majority of capable people from having them.
No.105996
>>105995We used to have them at our old house but now we don't have a chicken coup so can't keep them and so we gave them to my grandma.
They are easy to look after and they do eat food scraps so that's good. As for limitations, they poo so there is that, roosters can be a pain both because of how loud they can be but also how aggressive they can be(though not all are) but you don't need to keep roosters.
And also if you live near foxes you REALLY need to remember to lock them up before it gets too late or you can risk losing them all. We used to live in the country and my siblings and I were at or dads house and mum went to the shops so she was late in locking up the chickens, when she came back it looked like they had all been killed.
Foxes can be quick and they will surplus kill, it was really distressing to my mum and she said she would never keep chickens again. Though, it turned out that two chickens did actually survive, they had managed to hide so we did not find them and so then we did keep keeping chickens and we eventually got more as well.
No.106045
Chickens sound pretty interesting, but I don't really like the idea of having outdoor-only animals to keep when I spend so much time indoors forgetting that the outside world exists. I think I need to get accustomed to this gardening thing first and then see if I can see myself doing animal care for something other than a simple cat.
An egg a day sounds really amazing, I didn't think the numbers were that high.
>>105995Yeah, that video was pretty nice and I started watching his other stuff. He seems to live in a tropical paradise in that green zone of Australia, though, so it's important not to expect to have a similar experience on most of the planet. He has fruit trees fruiting in winter; it's hard to imagine.
No.106385
>>106384probably has to do with how expensive they are over there
No.106509
>>106384Tomatoes are popular garden plants because they're relatively easy to grow and tomatoes don't store/transport very well so it's hard to get good tomatoes at the grocery store. Also most of the grocery store varieties are bred more for looks than taste.
No.106554
When looking at all this indoor plant info it finally hit me that a lot of these people are doing it for marijuana and not herbs and vegetables. Well, the information is still good, but the mystery of seeing so many different people interested in it is now solved. Suddenly it makes sense why these videos kept talking about removing odor, and it seems to be why these "grow tent" things exist? The only other stinky plant I'm aware of are strong herbs like basil. Man, that stuff was powerful when I was dumb enough to smell the plant in a store and almost gagged.
I'm looking at this light right now, but I'm wondering if it's overkill:
https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Farmer-Dimmable-MeanWell-Spectrum/dp/B07TS82HWBI want to have a setup where I can grow a bunch of seedlings until little plants and then move them outside. But, uhh.. if I don't use a grow tent (which I don't want) then I'd have to drill holes in the ceiling? Not sure about that...
No.106558
>>106554yeah that's way overkill for starting seedlings to transplant outside. Those are meant more for permanent indoor growing operations.
If you have a south-facing window you don't even need an artificial light, can just put them in the windowsill. Other direction windows might work as well depending on your latitude, time of year, and type of plant.
Or they make smaller lamp-style lights that can be set up on any flat surface.
No.106563
>>106558Yeah, the thing is that I think I also want to grow stuff inside, like herbs and maybe some little tomatoes. But, I can't just have them on the window because that's one of my cat's favorite spots. It looks like you can get a simple 'grow bulb' to attach to a lamp, so maybe something like that would work. I'm not sure if those are actually worth it when compared to a regular bulb, though. Growth light setup seems like the easiest solution, and I can dim it.
I was looking at pots and this seems like a pretty solution:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WWHQM3WI read from this guy
https://www.gardenmyths.com/fabric-pots-plastic-pots/ that the supposed benefits apart from appearance are negligible, but they still seem nice. I'm doubtful I'd buy them, but it's a cool idea for decorative stuff. As a side note, this site seems very informative.
Pic related seems cool, but not $300 cool. (It's just one of them, not the stack).
I guess, at the very least, I need to buy seeds soon. I think I already missed the window for growing Spring stuff directly from the ground.
No.106564
pic of cat on windowsill
No.106568
>>106562I think you are overthinking it, really people just like to have space and lawns provide space while being easier to look after than a whole garden.
No.106571
>>106562Speaking personally, I'd blow my brains out if I had to live in a town without lawns. I have no idea how the English do it.
No.106770
I went to a local nursery and it's kind of surprising that at least 90% of the stuff there were flowers. Flowers are pretty and all, but I'm not really going to buy them unless they have other benefits.
I still plan to grow a lot of things from seeds, but I bought some plants!
-Basil (some 'Pesto' variety, smells strong but I don't want to be around it when I'm not eating it)
-Dill (used in cooking, but also apparently very good at attracting bees and other pollinators)
-Strawberries (the "Everbearing" variety that is a perennial in my climate. Some wild strawberries actually pop up in the yard sometimes)
-Lavender - bought a bunch, it attracts pollinators and more importantly repels mosquitos, or so I read. Also it smells really nice, even though none of these have flowers on them
-3 types of tomatoes (grape, roma and uhh... I forgot)
-Rosemary (smells really good)
-Cucumbers - I kind of just bought these for the hell of it because we did it when I was a kid. They grew absurdly well. Maybe I'll try turning them into pickles or something.
It seems like this place didn't have any bulb plants like onions and was also missing a blueberry bush which I really want. Well, maybe it's for the best since I need to research what blueberry varieties I want.
In the 2 minutes when I brought some plants in, went outside, and moved some stuff around, the cat found a strawberry plant and ate 3 of its leaves and subsequently vomited them up. It still has 4 leaves and a flower so I think it will be fine.
He was supposed to be asleep...
No.106772
Also, I used a soil testing kit, which are apparently not very reliable for ph, but it relatively trustworthy for minerals and stuff. The part of the lawn I cleared out is really low in nitrogen, which I guess makes sense since the land has just been sitting there with grass after my parents used it for vegetables. I got some nitrogen fertilizer, some artificial stuff, but also some blood meal and feather meal which are slower acting since they have to be broken up through natural processes in the soil before plants can use them. They're not here yet, though, so I have to wait...
No.106777
>>106770>Basil>TomatoesYou should try to make a margherita pizza when those are finished growing! Bet fresh ingredients would make it taste really good...
>the cat found a strawberry plant and ate 3 of its leaves and subsequently vomited them upHeh... yeah that's why I keep my plants covered in a mini greenhouse so they can't go snacking on them.
No.106782
>>106770pic of cat with the plants
No.106785
Grew a lot of chili plants with my mom last year but unfortunately they were all killed by larva. Will probably plant something easier this year like lettuce and some herbs. We have a garden box on the lawn. It would be nice to get something to grow there, but there are so many ants on our property, and spanish slugs are a huge problem here as well. I will try anyway.
No.106787
why dont you plant some catnip
No.106791
>>106777>mini greenhouseThat sounds interesting. Is it inside or outside?
>>106782I think it'd be sending the wrong signal if I showed acceptance to him being near the plants. Well, not that he even listens...
>>106785Oh, that's a shame. Have you looked up any way to prevent that stuff? Apart from pesticides and other poison, I think people should stay away from that stuff.
>>106787Hmm... maybe, I looked it up and that has some anti-insect properties, which is apparently theorized to be one of the reasons cats are attracted to rubbing themselves on it. Interesting
No.106792
>>106777pic of cat in greenhouse
No.106795
>>106791It's an indoor one, pretty much or maybe exactly this
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01D7GHEES but I hooked up some grow lights to the interior on a day/night schedule.
No.107049
Garden blog update.
I have converted one patch successfully into a garden, or what will hopefully become a full one. It took quite a bit of work and I now understand why the first few days in Harvest Moon is mostly just your character clearing the area and using up all your energy and going to bed. (Thankfully I don't have any tree stumps or boulders in my yard)
I first tilled the soil two weeks ago, and then 2 days ago I tilled it again after giving the grass and weeds a chance to come back. After 2 weeks of somehow getting ZERO rain, which benefited this greatly (I assume), the plants have expended a bunch of resources to send shoots back up into the new surface and I have torn them up again. I'm going through with a simple hand tool with 3 prongs (I don't remember what it's called) to dig into the soil, searching for roots to dig up and remove. Walking on the soil to do this compresses it, which is bad, so I also go through with a metal rake to loosen the soil while also collecting the various plant parts strewn about.
I should hopefully never need to be this thorough in the same location again as long as I keep using this new field and properly maintain it. Any plant coming back to life that I planted will be a good thing, and the ones that die off every year will simply decay and become nutrients. I plan to be extremely aggressive with this and if I see a weed popping up I'm going to dig deep into the ground to fully remove it. I'm not going to use any herbicide or pesticides and I'm reading up on ways to get around using them.
I bought 5 HUGE bags of mulch, but even then I underestimated how much I need, because I'm going to cover the pathways between plants with it and then surround the plants with it as well. Assuming other people are as ignorant as I was about this stuff, mulch is used both to block the growth of new plants while also helping the soil retain moisture, which will be VERY important here in summer as it turns into a furnace. Mulch also breaks down over time and releases nutrients into the soil. I'll be creating my own soon enough as I've already started a pile of lawnmower trimmings and discarded fruit/vegetables from the kitchen.
Since I'm not going to use herbicides or pesticides, I've done some reading up on other solutions. Specifically, I read up on strawberries since I've now planted some small plants I bought. I knew strawberries get their name because people put straw underneath the berries, but I didn't know why. It helps keep them from soaking in stagnant water after a heavy rain, but more importantly it blocks bugs that live in dirt like roly-polies (pillbugs) from getting to them. There are cages you can get for them as well.
There are also plants that are helpful to maintaining the health of your plants for a few reasons:
-"Pollinator" plants: Many of these are just ornamental flowers, but they attract pollinators like bees to your garden and they will then notice the less vibrant flowers on your other plants. Some also attract predatory bugs that eat the bugs that want to eat your plants.
-"Repelling" plants: Not sure what to call these, but they have properties that repel pests like mosquitos and aphids and even rabbits. Lavender, chives, and other stuff that we grow because we like the smell or taste are apparently disgusting to them. I really like the smell of lavender, so I'm planting it in large pots so I can move them inside for winter.
-"Nutrient" plants (not actually a term): Plants that fulfill a role in regards to feeding the soil, such as legumes that return nitrogen to the soil while they're alive, and also plants that are simply good at growing fast and then which you can turn them into mulch to feed your lawn with "fresh" decay to provide for bacteria and fungus underground which I need to rebuild after my destructive tilling. These plants also stop the growth of weeds by blocking out the area and are called "cover crops".
I'm fine with losing at least half of my crop to birds and stuff, so my expectations are already tempered for such a scenario. My goal was to start growing food for myself, but if I also turn the backyard into a bountiful ecosystem for insects and animals I would consider that a win, too. Even if the vegetables somehow all fail, I'm growing herbs and they really can't "fail" since the plant itself is the food instead of a fruit produced long after the plant is established.
This post became a lot longer than I thought it would, but reading up on this stuff is really interesting.
No.107051
>>107049nice
I don't live in a place where I have my own garden to do things like that. My mother loves gardening but at my parents' home there's only an apricot tree and otherwise it's grass and flowers.
The grass is all crabgrass and basically always has been. When I was a kid I thought crabgrass was just normal grass and I never got why people made such a big deal about it looking good and needing maintenance.
No.107104
Hope it doesn't rain too much overnight because I'm not done preparing yet. It's such a weird feeling to actually pay attention to weather again
>>107051She maintains the crabgrass on purpose? People usually hate that stuff and regard it as a weed to destroy
No.107121
>>107104sigh ontopic sager
bump bump bump
No.107128
>>107104>She maintains the crabgrass on purpose? People usually hate that stuff and regard it as a weed to destroyThought that was weird too. I'm always trying to cut the bermuda high so it can choke out the crabgrass better. Might depend on your region though?
No.107137
>>107121Well, the thread is already full of my blogging so I figured I'd sage an unsubstantial post of mine
No.107143
>>107104>>107128the crabgrass is the only grass there is at this point
if you kill it then you have dirt
No.107172
>>107049>I'm fine with losing at least half of my crop to birds and stuff, so my expectations are already tempered for such a scenario.While I was working the field today (never thought I'd say such a phrase) I looked up and noticed someone that would be feeling very happy if he knew what was going on. (not my picture)
It's inevitable that I'm going to be losing some leaves and fruit/vegetables to bunnies in addition to birds and insects, but owing to some stuff I said here I'm not too worried. I planted chives near the strawberries and also have some herbs sprinkled around stuff like cucumber plants. The strong pungent smell/taste of herbs is a defense they evolved that doesn't work on humans, but it does work on animals. Tomato plants have their own intense defenses so they don't need anything. I think I might plant some stuff around the tomatoes to make use of them, even.
But... I did forget to plant anything "repulsive" near the lettuce and green beans. I'm not even sure if they will grow since I'm starting them from seeds out in the field instead of transplanting, but I guess I should try to make plans. I'm planning on doing a giant row of onions since the only bag of starter onions they had something like 50 little bulbs, but I could place some of them around the lettuce and beans since it's another stinky plant that humans love and animals don't.
No.107179
>>107172plant a briar patch to throw those rabbits into
No.107452
Garden blog update:
Second day of rain, it's nice. I started this gardening project about a month ago. It rained a few days after I started, but after that it was nothing until now. It was kind of nice because I didn't need to plan around it and I think it kept a lot of weeds down, but I it made the dirt really tough and working with it was harder than it should have been. The soil here seems to be clay, which has its own strengths and weaknesses. The strength is that it can hold water and nutrients well, but it's poor at drainage (which many plants need in heavy rain) and also when the water is gone it starts to solidify and turn into solid clumps resembling rocks. It's not an exaggeration, either, I tried to squeeze and crush the smaller ones and I couldn't. The tilling machine would bounce off of it and I had to use a hand tool to piece and break it up.
Unfortunately, my "learn as I go" approach means that the first two rows of plants I made are still full of the native clay soil. I learned since then that I should add compost to make the soil less clay-y, so I bought some bags of that since the grass clippings and other misc organic material I now have laying around is not yet compostable. Compost is really heavy, by the way.
The transplanted plants (strawberry, tomato, cucumber, sweet pepper, basil, oregano, dill, chives, others I've probably forgotten) seem to be doing okay. I've got some seedlings peaking out, but apart from the beans which still have their shells on at the end of the seedling, I can't say for sure which are the desired plants and which might be sprouted weeds. At least it's obvious when it's a blade of grass.
I think I'm going to buy some more seeds now because I've got more space that I thought I would and I've only tilled about a third of the available space in the yard as the preliminary learning experience.
No.107459
>>107452the plants in my mother's garden have a hell of a time trying to grow through the kuso clay layer
they dont till or fertilise the soil though
the most successful plant is the apricot tree which makes apricots that are ok I guess, not super sweet with a great texture or anything but edible and the parents make jam out of them
i want a big yard with room for lots of trees. my aunt has a lemon tree, a pear tree, a walnut tree, and a mandarin tree. wanna live like that. and a cute kitty to roam that yard
No.108013
>>108012and of course... TOMATOES!
I have 11 plants total with three different subspecies or varieties or whatever you call them.
Closest to camera on bottom left and bottom middle are grape tomatoes. Top three starting from left are roma (sauce) tomatoes. 2 you see on the right are "supersweet 100" cherry tomatoes that are supposed to taste really good, but they don't seem to grow as fast. Supposedly it has a long production time throughout the season so maybe it will make up for it. Some of the grape tomatoes are already starting to make tomatoes, so I'll take a picture of them in a week or so when they get bigger. After taking the picture I did the staking thing where you prop them up with string, so the next time you see them they'll be propped upward more.
Also in the bare area at the top I'm going to plant some watermelons and cantaloupe because there's so much space and I don't really want to fill it with a bunch of $5 plants, so I'm going with crops that take up a lot of space.
No.108054
>>108011>>108012>>108013gonna make a awesome pizza one day
No.108055
>>107049>I'll be creating my own soon enough as I've already started a pile of lawnmower trimmings and discarded fruit/vegetables from the kitchen.I've never actually considered how mulch is made... Is it really possible to make it with such simple reusable ingredients? Because I've always wanted to get rid of the lawnmower trimmings I've dumped in piles in my backyard, and if I can put them towards actually helping to grow stuff that'd be great.
Aside from that holy crap you've put a good deal of thought into this garden. I'd have never considered such a strategical layout to attract maximize output and minimize losses to my garden before going at it blind. Although now that I know this will be really helpful when I go to start making my own outdoor garden, thanks.
>>107452>it starts to solidify and turn into solid clumps resembling rocksMaybe if you've got enough of it you can at some point try making bricks out of it to create a homemade brick oven for delicious pizza. Especially with all the perfect pizza ingredients you're growing.
>>108013Dang those tomato plants look like they're growing fast, where they the first planted? Also I've been sugar snap peas and not sure if they're similar to green beans or not. Do you need to set up a special sort of fencing for them to coil around and grow on? It's what I needed to make for the peas.
No.108061
>>108055>I've never actually considered how mulch is made... Is it really possible to make it with such simple reusable ingredients? Because I've always wanted to get rid of the lawnmower trimmings I've dumped in piles in my backyard, and if I can put them towards actually helping to grow stuff that'd be great.It is, yeah. Although, apparently what I was describing is compost and not mulch. Compost is decayed stuff that basically turns into something resembling dirt while mulch is more solid stuff that takes a lot longer to decay and is used as a protective layer on top. I'm using wood chips as mulch as walking paths and I put them around the tomato plants and will put them around the other stuff, maybe, when they get bigger.
To make compost you just put all the stuff in a pile and wait. You're supposed to keep it moist, though, so you should water it. The ideal setup is to have three piles. One pile is fresh, second pile is stuff that's halfway there, and third is the finished product. You move it from 1 to 2 and then 3 and then from 3 to where you want it on the garden.
I'm just using one pile, though and it works, you just have to move stuff around to get to the bottom when you want to use it.
>homemade brick ovenThat sounds kind of interesting, but also too much work. I guess I could look it up maybe
>Dang those tomato plants look like they're growing fastI bought them as small transplants, so they were already like 8-10 weeks old I think. It's the little plants in the tiny square containers. They definitely do grow fast, though. I'd say apart from the cherry ones they've already doubled in size from when I transplanted them about three weeks ago? I guess it's no mystery why they're so popular to grow
No.108121
>>108014Wow, that's really pretty. I've only heard of the white yarrow stuff. Supposedly that stuff has medicinal properties, too, but everything does depending on who you ask.
I think I got most of the garden set up now, and just in time.
May is apparently the rainiest month here so now it's time to test the drainage.
No.108465
Sister is visiting and got this picture. I have no idea what's going on with her phone, though, as this looks like a tiny image that was upscaled. You can at least see one of my adversaries and it's clear that I must formulate a plan to take action. I'm not going to do anything to hurt them, but I definitely don't want bunnies to eat all my stuff before it can even finish growing. They seem quite satisfied eating grass, anyway.
Chicken wire fencing is the basic solution, but it's so ugly. Other stuff I read is about plants that could repel them, but behind it you can see a pot of basil that they're supposed to avoid and it's not working very well. But, it's true that it completely ignores all herbs.
I'm going to try a spray that has cayenne pepper and garlic powder in it and see if it deters them. I do say "them" because the other day I saw a big one and a small one together, which means there's at least three. Lettuce regrows extremely fast so I don't care if it nibbles on it some (and I'm not a huge fan), but it DOES bother me that they're eating the tops off my green bean plants before they have a chance to grow big and produce beans.
But, even if nothing works, this stuff was all for the fun of it as I am mostly after growing herbs and tomatoes and bunnies don't like those.
No.108466
>>108465huhhh bunnies is there anything else wandering around
No.108469
>>108466Squirrels, but I haven't seen them around the garden. Mice are probably around somewhere since any environment that can support rabbits and squirrels would certainly support mice.
Rabbits are the main problem, though, since they bite plants clean off at the stem instead of nibbling on leaves. If it's a small plant then it can't recover and dies, while it majorly delays the growth more established stuff. Little jerks.
They sure are cute, though.
No.108472
>>108469hmmm interesting
andean herders told me llamas were better than other livestock for grazing precisely because they bit it clean off rather than uprooting them like other animals do
but it's a radically different niche so it makes sense it wouldn't work like that in this case
No.108473
>>108465>as this looks like a tiny image that was upscaled.Happens when zooming if the camera doesn't have an optical zoom or multiple cameras at different zoom levels.
>Chicken wire fencing is the basic solutionYou could try getting netting. I've seen it used a lot when places are trying to grow flowerbeds and don't want them to be trampled or eaten by animals. Looks a lot nicer in my opinion. May not be as practical though depending on how much area you need to cover.
No.108481
>>108465if that rabbit turned around it would be well camouflaged
No.108662
Oh, forgot the sunflowers. There's like 25 of these total around the South side of the house (which is where the most sun is if you're in Northern hemisphere).
Pic from two weeks ago:
>>108012 No.109426
Here are the cucumber, watermelon and tomato rows now. The speed that this stuff spreads is amazing. Just compare it to this, which is two weeks ago
>>108659Cucumbers seem like extremely efficient plants in terms of leaf coverage and they even produce little sticky vines to climb stuff like bean plants. The thick stems that hold the flowers/fruit and leaves are also very spiky and I can't grab them without gloves. Very impressive.
No.109431
>>109428Do you have any cats? They can deal with rabbits pretty well.
No.109433
Can you spot it? It might not be too difficult.
That's it for now, picture-wise.
>>109431Yeah, but they're indoor cats. I don't want them to potentially get hurt and I also don't want them killing what little wildlife is left
No.109460
>>109427Strawberries! Man, I kinda wish I tried planting those too, but not sure about what the yield per plant is and my garden isn't
too big yet. They're one of my favorite fruits and I can down a whole quart easily in a day if I'm careless. At the very least there's a lot of orchards nearby where I can get fresh locally grown ones.
Sometimes wonder if it'd be nice to live a life like that where you just grow nice food and make a living off it too.
No.109461
>>109460Strawberries don't seem like a plant you can rely on unless you have tons of them, like an entire garden filled. But, it's pretty rare to be able to grow fruit without trees or huge bushes that takes years to get established so strawberries are probably still worth it if you want something sweet. I only bought 6 plants to see how it would go. Unfortunately one of them focused way too much on flower and fruit production from the beginning and died, even though I kept trimming those away so it could focus its energy on getting established after transplanting it.
I also read that you should trim away the "runners" if you want to focus on getting strawberries in the year you plant them, but I'm keeping them because there's some space next to some of them and I have nothing growing there except weeds.
https://strawberryplants.org/what-are-strawberry-runners-stolons/If you want greater short-term production from your strawberry plants you may want to trim those if you see them.
No.109463
>>109428city rabbits just get like that when people keep their cats indoors, and there aren't any local coyotes or foxes to pick up the slack either.
My neighborhood is stock full of rabbits too.
I hunt rabbit occasionally, and can tell you that the ones even a half hour outside the city are much more alert.
No.109469
>>109461look how low that berry is no wonder they need straw
No.110344
Man, that's a TON of plants. How are they even arranged, are they mixed or something? I cannot tell them apart.
No.110346
>>110344I think it looks bigger than it actually is because I'm getting up close to show detail. The sunflowers are at the side of the house if that wasn't clear, so they're not a part of it main garden. I guess I forgot to upload a full picture of it. Here is
almost a full picture of it from back in May. It's missing the one row in front with lettuce and green beans, but you can see the poles for the beans at least.
I can't remember the exact measurements that I did a few months ago, but it was around 400 square feet, or, uhh... *googles it* 121 square meters.
Yeah, stuff is getting messy, but when stuff gets big it prevents weeds from growing under it so I like it. I really, really hate weeds and removing them. The tomatoes are a lot messier than they should be because of the damage from wind. The cucumbers and watermelon are also messy, but I'm leaving them that way because the leaves block sunlight, which again blocks weeds. It's okay if it takes me some effort to walk through it if it means I don't need to bend over and fill 3 bags of useless plants I picked from the dirt.
From North to South by row it goes like this:
-Tomatoes
-Tomatoes
-Watermelon
-Cucumber
-[blocked by tarp]
-Onion and Chamomile
-"Wildflower mix" (to block ugly weeds), herb seeds that never grew so I planted sunflower, Basil, Oregano, Parsley, Sweet peppers, Marigold
-"Wildflower mix", "Pesto Basil", Sage, different type of sunflowers, Chives and Strawberries intermixed, Marigold
-Lettuce, Marigold, Green Beans
The wildflowers and Marigold are to attract pollinators, but I need a bad job of organizing the stuff. I know better now. The bees and wasps and other things seem to vastly prefer the cucumber flowers to anything else, but everything is getting pollinated very well.
No.110348
>>110346>but I need a bad job of organizing the stuffBleh. did a bad job*
This was and is a good year of learning stuff from trial and error.
No.111172
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No.111569
Too many tomatoes and other things. I didn't grab any pictures (and there's nothing new to see) but there's simply too much stuff. I really don't think I like cherry/grape tomatoes after trying various recipes, but they keep making more of them so I decided to plug up the hose in the last row that has the little tomatoes in them so it no longer waters them each day automatically. But, we've also been getting rain and tomatoes are pretty hardy so, well.. I just grabbed the pruning sheers and removed them at the base. Since it's the last row I think I'll convert it into a row of compost and throw a bunch of dead stuff there to decay. There's also way, way too many cucumbers and I keep failing to find them before they turn big and orange and can no longer be used. I'm going to cut those away, too.
Gardening was fun in spring and early summer, but this heat is just pure misery. Not just that, but the mosquitos and chiggers are out so I need to wear pants and long sleeves. I find myself skipping days inspecting the plants when I used to enjoy it because every second outside in the humid heat prevents me from enjoying myself. Weeds have become overgrown and I don't care, I'm already planning to cut a bunch of stuff up and then go through with the lawnmower once it's all dried out and brittle. Summer sucks.
But, the great news is that the automatic watering thing worked very well. A couple plants, namely Sage, did die, but that might have just been the heat. I don't need to go outside every day in summer to water the plants buried in the ground, just the potted ones, so it's very passive.
I learned a lot and I think I'm going to wrap up the summer garden as I make preperations for autumn, which will actually be enjoyable again. Peas, carrots, garlic, etc...
No.111570
>>111569What about the capsicums and watermelons?
No.111571
>>111570The pepper plants didn't produce much, but it did make them. The problem is it that it grew the peppers right at ground level and they're deformed and some of them decayed because they were contact with wet dirt or something. I wasn't planning to use the peppers for anything so it's not much of a disappointment.
The watermelons grew and still are growing really well. The perspective in pic makes the pepsi can look bigger than it actually is.
They're pretty good, but I'm not huge on watermelon so I can't really judge the flavor fairly. I've been putting it into a blender and freezing it to make it into sorbet or yogurt-like stuff . There was only one little cantaloupe patch compared to the watermelon, but it's making about the same amount of fruit so cantaloupe seems more efficient.
I don't think I'll grow watermelon or cantaloupe again, but I had a bunch of extra space and it looked better than a tarp or weeds. I think I'll just fill it all with strawberries next time, but I'll need to grow them from seed or it will be expensive to fill all of it.
No.111577
i love summer and i wish it was 30 to 40 degrees celsius all the time WITH NO HUMIDITY
No.111605
>>111569>Too many tomatoes Yeah, I had the same thought with my gardening escapade. Tomatoes really are the most fruitful of anything I grew and I grew way too much to eat personally. Think in the end I'll just can a bunch of them to make a nice tomato sauce with. Although it is good to try and make sure that when you can tomatoes you do it right to avoid botulism, that stuff's really scary.
No.111606
>>111605>Although it is good to try and make sure that when you can tomatoes you do it right to avoid botulism, that stuff's really scary.Yeah, I was looking at that stuff, too. You put the completed sauce in glass jars and put the jars in boiling water for a bit.
I've decided to try freezing it. I'm reducing the sauce until it's really thick and like a paste and then I'm putting it in ice cube trays and I'll use this instead of buying little tomato paste cans.
I'm just sauteing it right now to reduce most of the liquid and then I'm going to "bake" it like this guide suggests:
https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-tomato-paste-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-206853And yeah, it's insane how fruitful tomatoes are. No wonder it's in so many shows.
No.111609
>>111572red are her peppers
No.112549
I got some basic houseplants for the first time. One step closer towards bringing my apartment to bare minimum respectability.
No.112560
>>112549Do you know what kind?
Did you buy any plant lights or are you putting them near windows? There's also species that require less light so it's okay to rely on existing lights in the house (although I think they recommend kitchen lighting with their big florescent bulbs)
No.112568
my houseplant is dying
No.113701
>>113698Sure. Man, it's hard to believe how little I knew back then compared to now, and how much more I still need to learn. Growing stuff indoors during Winter sounds like it could be fun.
I also read that I'm supposed to plant bulb plants in autumn and then I can ignore them until spring. So, at the last I think I'll get some garlic bulbs and bury then and forget them.
I'm feeling lazy about doing autumn gardening...
No.113736
>>113718It was a pot plant, a small one that came in a pot about the size of a boob. I kept it right next to a window. Two years after getting it I transplanted it to a bigger pot and I feel like it never really recovered. That happened a year ago. I would water it irregularly based on whenever I'd remember to. I don't know if it died from overwatering or underwatering, probably underwatering, but it's weird that it would be underwatered during winter rather than summer.
I think I didn't cover it with enough dirt because it always looked like the root started a centimetre above the dirt. Or maybe the dirt settled and subsided over time. The leaves started to shrivel up, going from the base of the plant to the top, and after a failed attempt to rescue it with some water I gave up on it.
No.113737
anons grow op
No.113738
it wasn't a weed
No.113743
examined the pot now that the plant's dead
well no wonder it died
first of all the dirt was dry as hell except at the bottom of the pot
second the original boob-sized pot had the plant's roots inside a cylinder of fabric, presumably to prevent the plant from ever growing oversized in that pot. the roots never exited from the fabric
no wonder it was underwatered
i mixed and churned the dirt and maybe ill plant some seeds... but what
No.114024
>>113986My cactus perished recently ;_;
No.114054
>>114024That sucks to hear anon. I originally had 6 cacti but gave away the other four, and mine were the only ones that made it through the winter. Since they're new cuttings (6 months old approx) I took them inside for most of the cold season.
>>114047I water them once every 10 days, but I'll need to water them more often once the temperature starts rising. Otherwise, San Pedro are robust and don't need much maintenance if they're in a good soil.
>>114051I especially like the cactus on the left, very nice. Cacti growing is a slow but rewarding hobby.
No.114072
well
its autumn tomorrow
what are you gonna plant in your autumn garden
No.114077
autumn just snapped back to summer because of the storms
No.114084
what....
autumn IS the season of big storms
No.115468
>>115467Mushrooms are cool!
I have no idea. I love seeing mushrooms pop up, but we generally only get these little white ones around here that aren't as exciting as those wide ones you have there in the image. Sometimes I don't even notice them until I'm emptying the lawnmower bag and there's a bunch of foamy-looking white specks.
>>114072I think I might plant some bulbs in a few weeks. You plant them before the first freeze and they pop up in Spring. I've been feeling really lazy lately so planting something that you don't need to deal with for a few months seems like a good idea.
No.115648
After looking around online, I discovered that the tiny annoying flies in my room are 'fungus gnats' which are apparently finding a home in my potted plants. It even specifically mentions spider plants as something that they affect and I have three of those!
https://www.almanac.com/pest/fungus-gnatshttps://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7448.htmlI shall begin a campaign to wipe them out since they went from just an annoyance to me to something potentially harmful to my plants. I find it interesting that two possible natural remedies utilize nematodes and bacteria. I'd never expect to be growing specific bacteria inside a water pot as part of plant maintenance, but it seems like the easiest cure if my current methods don't work.
Speaking of, since a freeze hit a couple days ago I had to take what I could inside beforehand. I've got my lavender and rosemary inside my room and some other stuff in the garage. I had to make the decision to keep half of them outside and now they're dead and I kind of feel guilty. This is my first seasonal "die off" after taking care of plants and while it's part of nature it's a bit depressing.
Except the parsley. The parsley which I sliced apart due to overgrowth and then mowed over with a lawnmower has regrown multiple times and while everything else is wilted over and dead the parsley is still a bright green thriving out there. I wonder why this is why people use it as a garnish- this stuff is hardy. Actually I just looked it up out of curiosity and its frost tolerant down to 10F/-12C and lays dormant in winter and flowers immediately in spring. But, once it starts producing flowers it no longer produces new leaves and has completed its life cycle. Plants are cool.
I guess I'll just keep the rest of the plants indoors for fall and winter. As amazing as it sounds to be able to enjoy the freshest lavender possible (alive) inside my room, the plants only produce the wonderful smell when stimulated by touch, as it's a defense mechanism against insects.
Also, the rosemary is flowering and I had no idea it had such pretty purple flowers. Attached pic isn't from me but it looks similar.
No.115649
This Fall I threw native seeds in a suburban backyard. I'm trying to make a pollinator garden. It's over 40 species selected to be adapted to the light and soil conditions. They're being sown in the fall so they can stratify. Hopefully they won't be eaten by birds.
>>115648Fungus gnats are a common pest of indoor potted plants. I've gotten them before and found that nematodes get rid of them quickly.
No.115809
Fungus gnats, those must be what I had flying around my house all the time when I brought in some soil for my now-dead potted plant. That was so annoying.
No.115815
Yeah, these gnats are a pain. After only a few days I must have over 30 dead ones in the little vinegar traps I have placed around the plants. This will take a while to clear out. It's so weird, I would have guessed there's like 3-5 of them in my room, but they're so tiny that I must only be aware of a tiny amount of them.
I'd never guess this would be a side effect of having houseplants, but it's rather minor to me. I don't think there's any damage to the plants yet, but I definitely want the plants to be as healthy as possible.
These lavender and rosemary plants are supposed to repel bugs, but I wonder if it works indoors when they don't really have a choice.
No.115832
>>115809>>115815Oh, I wonder if that's the reason I had such a problem with them as well since I just started gardening this year too and had the same gnat issue around the house. Put out so many traps in different locations and I had to have killed thousands of them but they never entirely left until just recently when the first frost came.
No.117002
It's only been two months since I posted my San Pedro cacti here (
>>113986), and the growth is very noticeable. Once temperatures start rising after winter San Pedro cacti go through a big growth spurt that settles down when summer arrives, so mine probably won't grow this rapidly for too long. Apart from that, you can see I cut one of the pots so the base of the cactus can get more sunlight. I also got two very small cacti as a gift that are pretty cute.
No.117012
>>117002Those are really awesome. I love the effect of cacti indoors with nice cozy soft warm things. A sharp danger amongst the softness, like cat's claws.
No.117061
>>117002My grandma loved cacti and she had a bunch of real ones and fakes ones all over her house. Like, 30 of them or more and she had decorative stuff with cactus drawings and stuff. I'm paranoid about having the spiky ones since I have a curious cat, but maybe there's some soft spike-less types? Does it damage them to remove the spines?
No.119287
I was reading about all these fruit preservation methods and I thought the guy with a garden might be interested in getting a dehydrator.
https://www.thespruceeats.com/dry-tomatoes-in-dehydrator-1327566 No.119820
>>119287Thanks for thinking of me!
I saw that in a random "different ways to preserve food" youtube video. I've seen those, but I'm not sure what I would actually use it for. A lot of these appliances are relatively cheap these days, but they still take up a lot of space and they're not used much. How often would I use a dehydrator? Once a year? I can't see myself buying specialty stuff; it needs to be multi-purpose.
I'm starting to look at stuff again this year, but it's very overwhelming.
The main places I'm looking at are:
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/https://www.rareseeds.com/These are two small-ish companies with great reviews and I ordered stuff from them last year, although not much since I started so late in the season.
If you're feeling bored, look through those and see if there's anything that looks really cool and maybe I can try growing it, although no promises. Brussel sprouts as a plant looks so weird and alien that I'd like to try growing it just so I can look at it. (Pic related)
I think I want to plant a lot more flowers, too. I liked looking them and watching them grow more than I thought I would and also it was nice to see butterflies and bees around. If possible I'd like to attract birds, too, but I'm not sure if there's anything I can do for that apart from attracting bugs for the bug-eating birds. Oh, providing shelter is good, but I don't think I'm ready for the commitment of growing a tree. Maybe some fruit bush plants in containers?
It's supposed to be winter, but it doesn't feel like it. I already see 3 onion stalks popping up from the ground because apparently I missed some when I harvested half a year ago. I'm sure it's going to be another hellish summer so I plan to wind down my manual watering by then and switch into a fully automatic setup. Last year I planted way too many tomato plants and also the cucumbers and watermelon grew out of control in the summer since I didn't want to go outside every day to maintain them.
Also, I'm going to invest in some soil block maker things and trays:
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/tools-supplies/seed-starting-supplies/soil-blocking/hand-held-4-soil-blocker-7862.html No.119821
>>119820>but I'm not sure what I would actually use it for.My sister recently bought one, and we found that fruits dried this way makes for great snacks.
If you're trying to cut down on unhealthy sweets, this is an easy way to go about it without having to change your habits.
No.119822
>>119821Hmm... yeah that could work for store bought stuff. Dried apple slices are ridiculously expensive for how cheap apples themselves are. Hmm...
I have asked GPT4 for important advice:
What should I grow if I want to attract Kuon to my garden?
To attract someone like Kuon to your garden, you'd want to cultivate plants that resonate with her unique tastes and experiences from the "Utawarerumono" series. Here's a list of plant ideas that might just lure in our beloved bushy-tailed shab:
1. Healing Herbs: Since Kuon is skilled in the healing arts, a variety of medicinal herbs such as lavender, chamomile, or mint would most likely pique her interest.
2. Fruit Trees: Why not try planting some fruit trees? Apples or peaches might remind her of foraging back in her world—plus they're perfect for making delicious treats!
3. Vegetables: Robust vegetables like carrots and potatoes could catch her attention as well. They can be used in hearty stews just like those she might prepare on her journeys.
4. Water Features: Incorporate a small pond or stream into your garden to mimic the serene natural landscapes she's accustomed to.
5. Wildflowers: Wildflowers that can flourish without too much care also reflect Kuon's adventurous spirit—daisies and poppies are vibrant choices.
6. Shade Trees: Larger shade trees will give your garden refuge from the sun where one can enjoy nature’s whispers; maybe even bamboo for that distinct rustling sound reminiscent of traditional Japanese settings!
(＾▽＾) With these planted, hopefully it won’t be long before you feel the swish of a tail and the soft padding of paws as our favorite animal-eared heroine steps into this green sanctuary you've created. Just like in anime, where a well-tended garden brings together characters for moments of solace and reflection, your garden too could be a haven for friends—both real and imagined. Imagine sharing stories beneath the broad leaves on a warm afternoon or gathering around the pond's edge as dusk falls, chatting about the day’s adventures while enjoying the twilight ambiance that only nature can provide.
So while we might not summon Kuon herself beyond her 2D realm, building such a space will certainly capture the essence of her character and bring joy to any who visit—including fellow otaku gardeners and lovers of fantasy!Some of this just isn't doable, but it did remind me that I failed to grow mint last year. I'm definitely going to grow more herbs, although I never got around to using them much (I wanted to try making potpouri)
No.120020
I bought the first round of seeds from one of the places.
I'm not sure how many of these I'll plant in Spring or if they'll even sprout, but it will be interesting to try. I need to plan out the area soon and try to get the colors complimenting each other and stuff.
Plants
https://www.rareseeds.com/turnip-hida-beni-red I thought pink turnips were only in Rune Factory
https://www.rareseeds.com/beet-golden Looks interesting! Beets that don't stain everything seems nice
https://www.rareseeds.com/rosemary-rosy Rosemary smells so good and used in cooking sometimes
https://www.rareseeds.com/carrot-new-kuroda Gotta have carrots
https://www.rareseeds.com/pea-lillian-s-caseload Peas, too. Might order some different varieties later
https://www.rareseeds.com/tomato-orange-hat Dwarf tomato plant that I'd like to grow in a little container so I can give it to my aunt
https://www.rareseeds.com/ground-cherry-aunt-molly-s This seems really fun to watch grow. Little fruits that come pre-wrapped?
https://www.rareseeds.com/melon-kajari Very cool-looking melons. Unlike last year I'm only going to have 1-2 melon plants.
https://www.rareseeds.com/bee-balm-lemon Pretty and really good at attracting pollinators. Might try making tea out of it. Last year it never sprouted...
https://www.rareseeds.com/chamomile-zloty-lan Pretty and like above I want to try making tea
https://www.rareseeds.com/lavender-torch-blue Really like lavender and this is a different type that I already have in pots (they're in garage right now)
https://www.rareseeds.com/parsley-giant-of-italy Parsley grows so amazingly fast that I think I want to put these in a giant pot this time
https://www.rareseeds.com/stevia Sounds interesting, not sure if I'll actually plant these but I like the idea of using them to sweeten tea
https://www.rareseeds.com/cacti-mixed $3 for random cactus seeds. If it works I'll give some to my mom
https://www.rareseeds.com/canterbury-bell-deluxe-rainbow-mix These look fake with how pretty they are, but being a biennial it only blooms in the second year kind of sucks. Not sure how I'll plant these
https://www.rareseeds.com/honeywort-kiwi-blue Really like how these look, especially the leaves
https://www.rareseeds.com/milkweed-butterfly-weed For attracting and helping Monarchy butterflies
https://www.rareseeds.com/morning-glory-mount-fuji-mix This below apparently pair well together, so I'll do that. Vines with flowers!
https://www.rareseeds.com/morning-glory-giant-moonflower
https://www.rareseeds.com/love-in-a-mist-mulberry-rose Ehh, not sure if I'll plant these, but they seem interesting
I bought a lot more flowers than I thought I would, but I have a fair amount of space to work with and I kind of want to buy small plants instead of seeds for a lot of the vegetable/fruit stuff which is either not available online yet or is only available in actual physical nurseries. Also some stuff like corn I can wait to plant because they like the heat.
SOON! No.120033
>>120020Maybe you could plant some sage.
No.120037
>>120033I did have one sage plant last year and it grew very well, but I ended up not using it much at all. I really don't like the smell of sage and its recipe uses for me seem really limited (poultry I think). I think I still have some seeds from last year somewhere so maybe I could grow some in a pot.
After looking at this stuff, it turns out I probably will buy a dehydrator. It's used for herbs and apparently the dried stuff you make yourself is still a lot better than the dried stuff in the store. And if I want to try making potpourri I think it's used for that as well.
I think I'm going to buy more Reimu turnips too
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/turnips/hakurei-f1-turnip-seed-706.htmlI grew them in a container last year and they REALLY grew well even when they were stuffed together, but apparently I never took a picture of them.
Might try growing this "leaf celery"
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/herbs/herbs-for-salad-mix/cutting-celery-herb-seed-922.html because my attempts to grow celery failed last year. Although, I'll try again. With onion, carrot and celery being such a common mix in so many recipes I'd really like to be able to grow them all myself. Celery is apparently infamous for being difficult to grow...
No.120039
Yep, just checked and I had Reimu seeds in the fridge alongside sage and some other stuff. It's recommended to keep seeds in the fridge if you're going to attempt to hold onto them.
I also read that you almost need to do it for stuff like lavender, it's called stratification and it mimics winter conditions
https://www.gardeners.com/how-to/seed-stratification/9646.html No.120323
>>120316Actually I do have something cool to report! The picture last night was using it, but you couldn't tell because I had no idea how to use it. After procrastinating a bunch (and forgetting about it)
I successfully cracked my brother's old smartphone that has a very nice camera on it. I don't have any phone service, but I'm using it as a camera.
Oh, man, this is going to be amazing this year. There's no way I'm not going to have a growth blog now.
Here you can see that last year's strawberry and chives are coming back already. (The green area is a separate pic obviously).
No.120324
>>120323Actually I don't think I need JPG quality that high for these.. 5.4mb is a bit too much.
Here are more onions that I completely missed on harvesting... or maybe they split off or something. I don't remember how onions work.
No.120328
Nice pics! You are definitely going to take pictures of your cat, right?
No.120344
>>120323>I don't have any phone serviceIt should be able to connect to wifi I think?
No.120811
>>120344I guess I could try that, but it didn't seem to work. I need to do more troubleshooting, I guess.
Here is a week of growth for the tomatoes. Middle pic was about 3 days ago and right pic is today,
These seem to grow far faster than other stuff. You can see in the right image that it's starting to grow its 'true leaves' in the middle.
The other plants are still tiny sprouts that look nearly identical. The heat mat I got is already making the other plants in the tray seemingly grow faster than other stuff, so maybe I should buy a few more of them. Then again, if I just close the air conditioning vent in this south-facing room the plants are in it will get quite warm up in a few weeks.
No.120813
>>120812and lastly a pic that is boring
except that it's catnip. I thought about growing this outside, but I've heard stories of it bringing neighbor cats into the garden, which sounds nice except that they can be destructive to plants
No.123636
Earth Day (thanks
>>>/spg/3014) update.
I decided not to do weekly updates for sprouts because it's not that exciting. The garden is a bit of a mess right now because stuff isn't sprouting as much as it should be. I don't know if something is eating the sprouts or if it's the weeks of windy days with no rain; there's a limit to how much watering I can do to cancel out the drying process.
Anyway...
I think I mentioned that the onions came back earlier, and since it's year two of their life cycle they'll produce flowers this year. If you want the best onions you're supposed to cut the flowers off so it doesn't spend energy on it, but I think the novelty of seeing onion flowers is more interesting and I thought I pulled out all the onions last year anyway.
It's out of focus unfortunately, but you can see the bulb-like thing that will turn into a flower near the middle. Just like with chives the flower stalk is far more firm than the other ones. I looked it up and onion flowers don't look that amazing, but it will still be cool to see.
No.123638
Transplanted the tomatoes seen here
>>120811It's really cool to have grown them from seed. You can get tomato plants quite cheaply since they're so popular and abundant, but I'm not sure if this specific variety would have been available locally (San Marzano II) and even then I don't regret spending time to grow them from seed. The price is cheaper, sure, but just seeing the process was worth it.
You can see how DRY the dirt is even though I watered last night, so like 12 hours later it looks like a desert. Thanks, wind.
No.123666
>>123636>I think I mentioned that the onions came back earlier, and since it's year two of their life cycle they'll produce flowers this year.Ohhh yeah, this is just your second year doing this. How much of What you're growing came back from last year's yield? Seems like you have strawberries, chives, and onions, but was there anything else? And will you be able to get some seeds from the San Marzano II's you're growing this year that you'll be able to use the next? Also from what I understand of the sauce process for San Marzano's they're best made into sauce when canned, though I grew some last year and made them into sauce fresh and it wasn't bad at all either. I really like the variety you have going here compared to what I tried last year and failed with just making a huge thing of tomato sauce and some parsley/catnip... Think targeting certain meals would be much better (and strawberries, love strawberries though don't know if my porch garden has the space for them).
>I cut off all but one of the flowers because I'm worried it might have died otherwise, like the strawberry plant I had last year that had 6 strawberries and 4 leaves and died from its own mistake (and my ignorance in not cutting off the flowers).Uhhh, just a bit confused here are you supposed to cut off all the strawberry flowers or leave one of them...
>>123643Really cool pic
Also do you need to worry with the onion at all about your cats getting near and trying to nibble on it, or is it safe and they won't intentionally poison themselves?
No.123673
>>123666>How much of What you're growing came back from last year's yield? Seems like you have strawberries, chives, and onions, but was there anything else? Just those, and they were surprises because I wasn't planning on any of it. I was pretty sure I pulled out every onion and I tore through the entire garden with a lawnmower and then a tilling machine. I really wasn't expecting anything to survive. Nature is pretty impressive. Also I have an onion growing in the lawn itself and I forgot to take a picture of it. It's just three little tendrils poking out but it's pretty funny.
It was only one small strawberry plant, and it's not doing too well. Somehow it's missing 70% of its leaves which isn't a good sign. I bought some more strawberry plants, though, but I think I'm going to keep them in containers since it's easier to manage.
>will you be able to get some seeds from the San Marzano II's you're growing this year that you'll be able to use the next?Yeah, it's an heirloom plant which means it's genetically stable. The newer hybrid stuff has reduced fecundity or fails to keep its hybrid traits for the next generation. I triple planted the seeds in each little cube and all 3 germinated each time so I used 24 seeds out of the 80 or so in the pack. I'm thinking of adding more since I have so many seeds left over.
>from what I understand of the sauce process for San Marzano's they're best made into sauce when cannedYeah, they're specifically known as paste tomatoes. Lots of juice and flesh within a thin skin and few seeds. I actually learned of them because of this cooking youtuber which someone linked here once:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMMFUKibW-cBasically the gist of it is that he thinks they're the best, but they're obviously far more expensive than the others when you buy them. But, it's not like it costs me more to grow than other types of tomatoes.
Also, speaking of tomatoes I tried something new with these that I learned last year too late. You tear off the lower leaves of the plant and submerge the plant deeper into the soil when transplanting. Tomatoes, clearly an advanced vine species meant to survive forever, grows new roots out from the parts of its stalk that makes contact with soil. So, you cut off the leaves and bury the lower part of the stem when transplanting and you trade off a slower start for a far more robust plant later on.
(also this plant looks a little yellow, I hope it's doing okay...)
No.123674
>>123666> Think targeting certain meals would be much betterThat's not a bad idea. My current plan is growing a lot of stuff to throw into a food processor I bought and then attempt to make good vegetable smoothie things. If I can't, I'll just chug it down since I'm pretty good at that.
Ohh now I remember. These little things here are golden beets:
>>123639 https://www.rareseeds.com/beet-golden>Uhhh, just a bit confused here are you supposed to cut off all the strawberry flowers or leave one of them...Not exactly, but that's probably what you'd do if you wanted to grow the biggest one possible.
It's hugely energy intensive for a plant to produce seeds/fruit. When you want a plant to focus on establishing itself you cut off the flowers so it can redirect the energy to growing more roots or leaves. This was all news to me, I saw a strawberry plant that had 4 flowers on it and 4 leaves and thought "Wow, so productive, I have to buy
this one" but there's a reason the other plants weren't that way. The plant had no chance to survive when it was pulling all of its resources into so many fruit when it didn't have the, uh, "infrastructure" to support it. I also read that you're not supposed to allow strawberry runners to spread until year three.
I've removed about a dozen strawberry flowers across 5 plants so far and will probably allow them to be pollinated in a month or so. It feels bad to know I'm removing future fruit, but it will allow the plants to grow stronger and might make the fruit taste better, too.
>Also do you need to worry with the onion at all about your cats getting near and trying to nibble on it, or is it safe and they won't intentionally poison themselves?Oh, I only have an indoor cat. I'm pretty sure onions and chives are strongly repellent to other mammals, though. Humans have learned to enjoy pungent stuff, but it's a protection against other animals. That's why last year I planted the strawberries next to the chives, although it turns out I still had to cage them.
No.123678
>>123640>but if I didn't overwater it would have turned into a block of dry dirt. Thanks again, wind.Isn't molch supposed to help with that sort of thing?
No.123679
One of the tomato plants snapped in half...
>>123678Yeah, but mulch also blocks sprouts and since most of my plants are still in the sprouting stage I can't really use it. And a lot of the stuff I'm growing isn't really compatible with mulch to begin with since it's small and compact. I'll put mulch around the tomatoes in a couple weeks. My priority was getting as much stuff in the ground as I could because of pic related.
Quite worried about the 'breezy' stuff... might have to stake the tomatoes even though they're so small.
No.123756
>>123719Looks like free meat to me
No.123757
>>123756Nah, I like seeing them around and I don't mind if they nibble on leaves once plants are actually grown and won't die from it. This area isn't as rural as it used to be and I appreciate any animals I'm able to see. There's some holes in the fencing between yards that could be fixed, but there seems to be an understanding to keep it open for rabbits to run around. (or maybe people are just lazy, but it doesn't seem to be the case)
No.123845
>>123843very very nice sounds but also very very bad situation
is the mulch and that still floating around? if there are clusters i would try kinda pushing them against something they could stick to (or maybe bunch them up) but i can't tell if there is any such spot at all
No.123872
>>123844AAAAAAAAAAAA! Man that's gotta suck when nature just decides to take a big wrecking ball to your plans. I guess at the very least this maybe fertilizes sorta the soil maybe? Or maybe not. Feels like a few days of being submerged would be devastating to a plant, but maybe they can survive somehow... Hopefully at least.
Also are peas not the plant you grow on a fence-like setup? Feel like I've seen them grown that way before, but maybe it's another type of bean.
No.123963
Everything survived the flooding, even the peas here
>>123844But, it's a huge hassle to do stuff outside in all the mud and some things simply can't be done due to soil softness, like planting the stakes. I really need to get the stakes in the ground and netting placed so the peas and beans can attach to them.
The neat and orderly rows of mulch between the dirt rows have been wrecked by dirt transported by the water. The whole reason to have rows of mulch is to NOT have dirt there since weeds love to sprout from it. So now I uhh... well I guess once it dries out I'll try to rinse out the mulch in plastic containers or something? This sucks.
5 days ago: 4 inches of rain
2 days ago: 2 inches of rain (in 15 minutes)
Tonight: 2 inches of rain
Saturday: ??? inches of rain
I guess we're safe from drought. I didn't take any pictures because it's so messy and wet and ugly, but I guess I could do it soon.
>>123845Yeah it's mulch that was visibly floating around. The dirt is the reason why the water is brown. The rows of dirt for plants are higher in elevation so there isn't much danger of the mulch flowing into it. It's aforementioned dirt moving to the rows of mulch that SUCKS.
>>123872My success rate for these peas and beans were like 30% so I didn't put anything down until I knew stuff was actually going to survive. I had to do a lot of transplanting which stakes and netting would interfere with.
No.124091
Sigh... so much rain. I just looked and the rainfall total from last 10 days excluding today is 7 inches, and today will add another 2 inches I bet.
This is going to be such a mess...
No.124136
I wonder how much industrial farming builds stuff like drainage canals and stuff. If that's even possible
No.124137
on topic sager deserved it
No.129046
Sigh... It's so hot out, lately. I keep getting bitten by SHABs when I go out to do garden work. Hmm.... I need to start wearing a SHABkeeper suit when going outside and also start putting a SHAB net around my bed at night. But that would also keep out Kuon. Bleh...
No.129203
>>129201>Most of the pea pods got flooded in the soilPea "seeds", that is. They never germinated and just rotted away in the ground.
No.131301
>>129201holy flip its zundamon
No.131304
>>131301Ah, yeah I was going to bump this thread again, but somehow this old smartphone thing started having issues interfacing with the computer. I have new pics, but I can't upload them. It was having issues charging, too, but I was at least able to fix that. It was saying the USB thing is wet despite not being wet and I had to find a way to bypass that and blahblah I'll try to fix it later and upload pics again.
No.131308
>>131304if you do bring meowers plz
No.131311
>>131304you should figure out why wifi doesn't work. That's how most transfer is done. Otherwise pic yourself up a cheap digital camera
No.131312
>>131311Oh, not wifi, just using a direct USB connection. Didn't think about using wi-fi since it's less elegant than a direct connection.
No.131313
>>131312i tend to email myself stuff because I'm primitive. But there are probably filesharing options like mega... or probably something like google drive...
No.131314
although, if one wanted to try they could try for an FTP or similar type of solution
No.131340
>>110294You just unlocked a fond memory I have of childhood. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my Great-Grandmother with a bucket of "snap beans" that we prepared for lunch together. She made homemade fried chicken and biscuits along with sweet corn and green beans. Along with a massive jug of sweet tea. Then she wrapped it all up picnic style and we walked over a mile into the fields where the men were working to have lunch together.
I want to go back.
No.132131
Here's a picture, but it's not much better. But, you can see some of its orange coloration here.
Apparently these are called "hummingbird hawk-moths"
https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/humming-bird-hawk-mothAnyway, that's all I wanted to post for now.
No.132132
>>132130>>132131that really is a cool bugger neat
No.132148
>>132130sounds like a shab getting biting
No.132595
I think this will be the last update for a while. I'm just harvesting stuff and I'll plant some new things for autumn in a few weeks. Probably.
I'm definitely not buying marigold seeds again, unless it's a different variety. Each flower turns into 40 or so seeds and you can see all the flowers here
>>132128. (the seeds are long and thin, each little 'stalk' thing). These marigold plants have been producing flowers for a month now and show no sign of stopping, so presumably until the first freeze. I don't understand how people can grow things like tulips where they bloom for a week in spring and then spend the rest of the year as large grass.
No.132607
>>132601do the wabbits love them?
No.132610
>>132607The problem with rabbits is that they greatly prefer sprouts. So one rabbit could just go down the row and take bites out of them and kill 20 plants for one meal. Once plants are established they're not as damaging. I've seen a couple rabbits around, but not as much as last year. I don't think the garden has much they like this time.
No.137036
so what sort of dumb fruitards are you going to plant this year
No.137037
>>137036Not sure yet, I've been kind of procrastinating about things. Do you have any suggestions?
Sadly most fruit is from trees or other things that take years or even decades to get established and of course they're HUGE so it's really not going to happen. Stuff like strawberries or blueberries are about the limit.
Oh, I do want to grow potatoes. I thought they were something you plant in summer since it's an autumn crop, but nope you do it in early spring and build up a hill of dirt as they expand.
No.137038
>>137037passionfruit vines seem like theyd get you fruit fairly quickly my older brother had some
i thought about saffron for when i get my garden but the climate in australia's all wrong. saffron wants frost during winter. also the bulbs are still pretty expensive it doesnt seem like you get much of a return on investment unless you do it at scale for a long time
No.137039
an apricot tree my parents planted some time ago is taller than me and produces like 200 apricots each season
some time ago means.... fuck, probably 10 years ago at this point
No.137040
>>137038Oh, I thought about saffron briefly when I noticed the price of it at the store. I've never actually eaten it, I was just curious about it. I assume there must be some complex process to it that makes it annoying, like vanilla. It must be expensive for areason.
One of the youtubers I watch about gardening is Australian and I'm quite envious of all the stuff he's got going on. I think I linked him in the thread somewhere. My area gets really hot in the summer but we still have weeks of freezing temperatures so anything tropical is out of the question. Oh, and lavender, which I really like, dies here because of the humidity.
>>137039Yeah, you can get dwarf trees (my family had them when I was a kid) but they're more susceptible to diseases and it explains how we lost all 3 of them during one summer. There's grafting, too, which is kind of horrifying as a concept but it's how most people grow apples.
No.137041
>>137040>I assume there must be some complex process to it that makes it annoying,think its literally just you cant automate picking the little threads out of the flower (yet...) and each thread weighs almost nothing
No.137043
reading about it on wikipedia
saffron farms will have tens of thousands of flowers in a football field sized plot of land
the harvest takes place over just a few days because of the short bloom
so you have to employ many laborers on short notice to pick out the threads and take them to a drying kiln because they cant sit for too long
i feel like this industry is poised to become disrupted by fleets of cheap autonomous drones with AI and manipulator arms... short that saffron....
No.138685
Meteorological
Spring is basically here now. I should have bought some early-Spring seeds already, but it's not too late.
Do you guys have any suggestions on what I should try growing? Some flowers and some relatively easy crops would be good since I want to focus on some computer stuff this year and don't want to spend an hour each day watering and weeding and such.
This area does get very hot in summer, so crops that aren't can't tolerate that are a no-go.
I buy my online seeds from
https://www.rareseeds.com/ and
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/ so give a look if you're bored and have any suggestions for stuff I can grow and blog about this year!
I already know I want to try growing the following this year:
Turnips, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Pumpkins, Strawberries, Peas, Green Beans, and I guess some herbs. I don't really like leafy stuff, but maybe I could try something? I'm not going to grow tomatoes because it's not good to grow the same stuff in the same area year after year. Maybe I'll grow some in a container.
No.138686
>>138685potatos so you can snack on a lot of french fries :3 *pokes you in the tum*
peas and green beans because
>zundamon No.138691
Planning to plant pole beans again this year after skipping the past one. Will prepare separate seedlings during May to plant at the start of June.
No strawberries this year since they have not been productive in recent years and blackbirds have found a taste for it.
>>138685 >[...] it's not good to grow the same stuff in the same area year after year.
That is probably the reason, the health and output of the plants went noticably down after four years in a row.
Might be time to try tomatos now, potatos sound good too since I have a lot of comoposted soil now.
No.138693
>>138691>girlDo you have proof of this
No.138694
>>138693Your Zundamon has grown a bit different I guess.
:D
No.138742
The grubs pupas I keep inadvertently exposing/killing when tilling are apparently june bugs. They're supposed to be really damaging to roots so I guess I won't feel too bad when I accidentally kill them. May their corpses nourish the soil.
Last chance for crop/flower recommendations as I'm going to buy seeds in the next couple days!
>>138691Nice! What type of bean exactly?
>That is probably the reason, the health and output of the plants went noticably down after four years in a row.I'm not sure if that's true, but maybe you need new crops if it's the same strawberry plants coming back? I've had terrible luck with strawberry plants producing much fruit after the first year. Maybe it's a fertilizer issue?
The thing I heard about tomatoes is that if you keep growing them in the same area nematodes will start showing up and they can be devastating as they spread around underground. There are anti-nematode crops like marigolds, but it's best to avoid the conditions where they can show up.
No.138755
>>138742>May their corpses nourish the soil.Spoken like a druid.
>Last chance for crop/flower recommendations as I'm going to buy seeds in the next couple days!A bit of Lemon balm can be nice to spice up a salad if you like a lemon-like scent. Sunflowers are nice to brighten up your outside area a bit (they might get huge in good conditions though) and if you like small birds you can let them pick out and eat the seeds later.
>Nice! What type of bean exactly? A variation of Phaseolus vulgaris called 'Blauhilde'. From my experience they are very productive and tasty.
>I'm not sure if that's true, but maybe you need new crops if it's the same strawberry plants coming back?Forgot to mention it weren't the same plants/generations, also don't know which species I tried so far.
In my region, a new batch of strawberry-plants usually need a season to settle and are then productive for two following seasons. I then completely wipe them and let a new set of plants and their offshoots grow there in a managed way.
>The thing I heard about tomatoes is that if you keep growing them in the same area nematodes will start showing up and they can be devastating as they spread around underground. There are anti-nematode crops like marigolds, but it's best to avoid the conditions where they can show up.Good tip, will keep that in mind. I actually noticed some when I spaded my wiped strawberry-patch last year. Am not a flowers guy but I guess it is time for marigolds in that part this year.
No.138756
>>138694What happens when they pollinate each other?
No.138776
>>138765get them
they're resistant to vtubers
No.141033
>>141030Oh yeah, it’s planting season. Ought to get to it myself as well.
No.141401
>>141396on topic sager
deserves it
No.141519
>>141517nice
how long do you think it'll take for the water to drain?
No.141521
>>141519Probably days. I need to get more wood chip mulch to put in them as they soak up the water and keep the plastic from getting damaged from the sun. This would be really bad to have sitting water like this if it was further along the year, mosquitos and stuff would be breeding in it.
No.145104
Normally don't mind windy days as long as it isn't dangerous, but I've got seeds in the ground and need to keep the soil from drying out, so now I need to go out and water every few hours.
No.152456
>>152455Potatoes after...
FOUR weeks. HOW DO THEY GROW THIS FAST?! This must be the benefit of the energy storage of the potato.
I'm starting to understand why these things prevent famine.
No.152461
>>152460it would be a nice thing to do but you need to own a house for that
No.152464
>>152461Not true, you just need to be a loser that lives with someone that owns a house!
But that's a concept misconception. You only need a big outside garden for growing lots of bulky, sun-hungry plants that need a lot of space and energy. If you have any free space, like the size of a small bed, you can grow a lot of things indoors. It's common for people to grow herbs indoors on top of tables, but you can do fruits and vegetables, too. Lots of species have varieties specially bred for container growing, even things you wouldn't expect like tomatoes or corn.
LED lights are VERY cheap and extremely efficient so people need to graduate from the old way of thinking. Due to the covid lockdowns a lot of people became interested in growing plants indoors and there's an entire industry around it these days. These are the growth lights I have for starting things indoors, but they can be a permanent fixture of a room to use for growing plants while also providing light for yourself:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B095C2DLH5 There are people out there doing extensive reviews to rate the different kinds in regards to spectrum of light and energy efficiency over time. There's also tons of guides to assembling your own container soil, hydroponics, and anything else related to indoor gardening. It's pretty cool.
No.152465
>>152464>concept misconceptioncommon misconception* bleh
No.152923
I was thinking of throwing a planter on my balcony to grow some veggies/herbs (fruits would be even better but I don't think they'd work in the limited space). I've done flower gardens before, but I'm not sure what all considerations need to be made with limited-space growing. Would be cool if I could grow
>>152456in one. Seems like 1ft is enough for growing root vegetables and flowers based on site descriptions, though it seems shallow to me. Anyone do this before and have advice on what sizes work best or what some good starter crops are?
No.152945
>>152923Well, what kind of crops do you like? Many of them are easier than you think. If they weren't, nature wouldn't really exist at all.
You said balcony, so outside, what are the temperature and humidity like? Stuff like green beans, carrots and peas do better without intense heat, but can sort of tolerate it if they don't get exposed to the burning sunlight all day.
No.152973
>>152945I like carrots and taters, but I'll probably give most of it away to people who cook so I'm more focused on the growing than the eating.
It's very rainy now with comfortable temps, but will get hot and sometimes dry in another month or so. Highly seasonal weather. I can put them in partial cover where they'll be in the shade half the day or farther out where they'll get more sun.
No.153790
I'm the OP from
>>>/spg/3490My little buds are becoming big fat buds!
No.153797
>>152973You'll need a huge container for potatoes, at least in an effective way. Carrots, sure, they're very compact, you just need to make sure to give them enough room to grow downward and keep the soil loose with the container-only things like perlite or coconut coir. Root vegetables work very well inside containers. I grew turnips in one a couple years ago.
>>153790Looks good! I can't seem to use that finer mulch stuff you have there due to Spring localized flooding transporting it away. I don't know what the solution would be apart from giant containers.
As for me, today I had to "hill" the potatoes. You basically just bury them in dirt halfway and this is supposed to encourage them to grow more tubers. This is the 'before'....
No.153799
>>153798How do you go about digging them out? My dad used a potato plow pulled by a riding mower to dig ours up, but we also had a big patch with a lot of space around.
No.153803
>>153799This is the first time I've ever grown potatoes so I have no idea. Brute force, I guess? Maybe digging around them? I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
No.153813
I think you pull them up if it's healthy and the entire plant will come with you. The mound will make it harder for them to stay rooted
No.154408
>>154305This is something I need to read up on, but I'm not sure. In the US Idaho is well known for potatoes, but I don't know much about their soil. It might just be that since it's located further up North they're limited on what they can grow.
Cost to have 8 bags of mulch, mostly air, delivered locally: $40
Cost to have 5 bags of topsoil, weighing 200 pounds (90kg) delivered locally: $15.
I guess they care about space instead of weight.
I'm now starting a project to fix my soil since I've had parts where nothing grew (or rabbits got to it). The rows with peas, carrots, potato and onion are working, but the two rows in the middle are only growing weeds. I guess this is a good time to start since the heat of summer is approaching.
Coconut coir and vermiculite and used to help prevent soil compaction and aid in water retention, while the word castings are just good for soil fertility and it being organic material also helps with soil compaction. I HATE CLAY!
Not pictured: The 200 pounds of topsoil I mentioned above and 40 pounds of cow manure I also ordered.
No.154420
>>154419Oh, and I'm using coconut coir instead of peat moss. One of the ways humans are screwing over the environment is scraping peat moss from the environment to shove it into bags, wrecking ecosystems. Really not a good thing to support.