The Gardening Splinter Thread

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The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Gulliver »

Because I didn't want to clog up the Happy Things thread with mundane garden chat.
Radius Solis wrote:Ah, slugs. I live in in a place where our unofficial city motto is: "Enjoy Seattle rain. Ten billion slugs can't be wrong!"
On this one, planterboxes do get you an advantage. Slugs have to crawl up the sides, which is an opportunity for blocking their progress. You can get special strips that go around the sides and have a texture that discourages slugs and may or may not be impregnated with poison, though IIRC it isn't perfect. Or you can just put poison down around the outside of the box so it's not so close to your food.
I've got slug pellets based on iron phosphate, which is apparently people-safe but not slug-safe so I'm more than happy to use it liberally. Have you ever tried copper tape as a slug-deflector? I've heard good and bad things about it. At worst, it'll be an expensive way of making the raised beds look really shiny, I suppose.

Anyway, I've got some sickly looking tomatoes and some healthy looking artichokes at the moment. There is some rocket (rucola? arugula?) as well, but that was from the supermarket as part of a "living salad" pack and only cost 25p so if it dies it dies. Last year's from-seed rocket seeded all over the place like a weed, so it's possible we'll have a rocket carpet in the veg patch soon. I might plant out a few garlic cloves that have sprouted to see what happens, and maybe some spring onions (scallions?).

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by din »

The Brussels regional govt handed out packs of seeds to encourage people to grow their own veggies on 1 m². We don't have a balcony, but there is a roof that I can crawl onto via the toilet at the back of the building. The back of the building looks out on the backs of other buildings though (i.e. there's not much light), and my harvest may OD on pigeon manure, so I'm wondering how well these things would fare on the window sill in the kitchen (south-facing, so warm and bright).

Alternatively, maybe I can plant my lettuce between the tram tracks. :roll:
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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Gulliver »

What seeds are they? Almost all my vegetables started life in takeaway containers in polythene bag "greenhouses" on the windowsill. I think the only thing we didn't do like that were the root vegetables like beetroot and carrots.

Start them off in a plastic takeaway container or ice cream tub or something like that and just keep the soil from drying out.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by din »

Sounds promising. I'll give it a try.

Radishes, rocket, green beans and chard.

I'm not going to grow the green beans, probably, because I don't want any weirdly tall structures on my window sill. Also can't recall the last time I ate chard, but that's a good reason to grow it, I guess.
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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by vampireshark »

At my house, since we have a good amount of space in the backyard (I have no idea how much, truth be told... probably at least 50 m²), we have the following planted in a garden of sorts:
·Tomatoes
·Japanese eggplant
·Salad cucumbers
·Jalapeño pepper
·Zucchini/Courgettes
·Bell pepper
·Yellow crookneck squash
·Cantaloupe
·Watermelon
·Green Okra
Out of those, the tomatoes are doing extremely well with the eggplant, cucumbers, jalapeño, and zucchini all, so far, also bearing some fruit. The tomatoes appear to love being down here in North Carolina because, despite dying in the winter due to frost, they produce like crazy once they get going. Herb-wise, we have a sweet basil plant that's growing like a small bush, a tub of mints that's doing very well, and rosemary that's taken off quite nicely. All the other herbs are doing well, but not to a great degree yet.

Also, we have a large gardenia out front of the house that's doing beautifully despite being out of season for further flower production and various other things, such as pineapple sage (for hummingbirds), black-eyed Susans that don't want to behave, patches of calendula, sunflowers, echinacea, dahlias, and other things.

The only issues are that we have problems with some forest creatures, such as squirrels, and with tomato hookworms and Japanese beetles. We really can't do anything about the former (and we really don't need to, because the plants we grow appear are picked quickly to avoid falling prey to them), but we do use a pesticide to get rid of the insects.
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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Gulliver »

din wrote:Sounds promising. I'll give it a try.

Radishes, rocket, green beans and chard.

I'm not going to grow the green beans, probably, because I don't want any weirdly tall structures on my window sill. Also can't recall the last time I ate chard, but that's a good reason to grow it, I guess.
We grew SO MUCH CHARD last year that we kind of agreed never to grow it again. I think I'll grow it next year, though, and just plant half as much... it's pretty good but we overdosed on it.

We currently have several kinds of tomatoes, artichoke, cucumbers, courgettes, several kinds of pepper, garlic, beans of some variety, a mystery plant that may or may not be a weed, green and purple basils... hmm... a few herbs. Oh and lots of physalis. The ones likely to survive will have to go outside soon...

Lots and lots of things were lost to frost, and that which remained was semi-obliterated by the plastic greenhouse thing (it's more a green cupboard) overheating.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Torco »

don't wanna derail, but this thread made me wanna plant some motherfucking plants and then eat the shit outta them, that'd be cool [have to make it sound more manly with profanity, otherwise it's just 'growing vegetables in my backyard, darling']. problem is, I have no idea how to plant no motherfucking plants. Can anyone give me a few pointers on what to plant and stuff? it's winter here, the ground is very dark, a bit hard [though that can be solved... with motherfucking muscle] and has plenty of ash, which supposedly is good for plants. Also, it's rainy, though chilean winters rarely go below, say, 0°C. I like celery and potatoes, and radishes, and green beans. and onions, of course, lots of onions. but I know nothing about backyard agriculture. I know this is crazy and we've just met but tips greatly appreciated maybe?

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by vampireshark »

Torco wrote:don't wanna derail, but this thread made me wanna plant some motherfucking plants and then eat the shit outta them, that'd be cool [have to make it sound more manly with profanity, otherwise it's just 'growing vegetables in my backyard, darling']. problem is, I have no idea how to plant no motherfucking plants. Can anyone give me a few pointers on what to plant and stuff? it's winter here, the ground is very dark, a bit hard [though that can be solved... with motherfucking muscle] and has plenty of ash, which supposedly is good for plants. Also, it's rainy, though chilean winters rarely go below, say, 0°C. I like celery and potatoes, and radishes, and green beans. and onions, of course, lots of onions. but I know nothing about backyard agriculture. I know this is crazy and we've just met but tips greatly appreciated maybe?
To ideally determine what would work where you are, go to a gardening store or plant nursery (if you have one within a reasonable driving distance) and ask them, especially at the latter, for they should be knowledgeable about what grows best in and around Santiago. It appears onions grow well in Chile, and potatoes probably would as well...

Also, how much space do you have, and how hot do the summers get? If you don't have a lot of space in your backyard, then tearing it up for a garden might not be ideal (also, would your landlord be happy with that if you're renting?). There are a good number of plants, tomatoes and fruit-bearing plants especially, which can and are sometimes cultivated for being grown in tubs or pots. Your preferences being potatoes, radishes, and onions means that you would need a good amount of space for those because, as they are root vegetables, you need the space for them to grow nice and large in the ground before uprooting them and to grow them in a sufficient quantity to have a lot of them.

Tomatoes, citrus fruits, and the such might be fine where you are for year-round growing, but, without knowing what Santiaguino climate is like and what it does, I'm afraid I can't be too much help on that front.
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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Gulliver »

Just think of yourself impregnating the earth with your mighty seed, with the spade representing your penis and your gardening gloves representing whatever people wear to stop getting spiked by sharp weeds during sex.

You can start most herbs and things indoors... Winter is not a great time to start growing things, but you can start thinking about things for spring. Chard and similar will grow happily if you buy seeds now. Lettuce is pretty easy to grow and you get lots of winter lettuces. Manly lettuces. What I do is go to a garden centre and just read the back of packets until I find which ones grow when, and then ignore it all and buy the ones with the best colours.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Torco »

Gulliver wrote:Just think of yourself impregnating the earth with your mighty seed, with the spade representing your penis and your gardening gloves representing whatever people wear to stop getting spiked by sharp weeds during sex.

You can start most herbs and things indoors... Winter is not a great time to start growing things, but you can start thinking about things for spring. Chard and similar will grow happily if you buy seeds now. Lettuce is pretty easy to grow and you get lots of winter lettuces. Manly lettuces. What I do is go to a garden centre and just read the back of packets until I find which ones grow when, and then ignore it all and buy the ones with the best colours.
Lettuce... manly lettuce. a great idea... though lettuce must be eaten within a week of uprooting, no? I don't know how many ways I can eat lettuce before getting sick of it, nice-tasting as it is.
Also, how much space do you have, and how hot do the summers get? If you don't have a lot of space in your backyard, then tearing it up for a garden might not be ideal (also, would your landlord be happy with that if you're renting?)
happily, no problem there. I have maybe 30 square meters of soil. how do you know if soil is good soil ?

Santiago's climate is remarkably mediterranean; low rain, I think its below 500cm yearly, mostly dry all year round air-wise. Winters rarely go below -2 celsius and summers not often above 36°C, plenty of sun in the summer, and some in the winter as well. It's basically like spain without the snow. there almost never is snow. I've only seen any twice since I was born.
Just think of yourself impregnating the earth with your mighty seed, with the spade representing your penis and your gardening gloves representing whatever people wear to stop getting spiked by sharp weeds during sex.
Imma not only adopt this mindset and fuck the crap out of the earth, but I'm going to incorporate it into a conreligion as well !

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Gulliver »

Torco wrote:Lettuce... manly lettuce. a great idea... though lettuce must be eaten within a week of uprooting, no? I don't know how many ways I can eat lettuce before getting sick of it, nice-tasting as it is.
You just pick a few leaves at a time, as much as you need. Rocket is a goof accompaniment to lettuce as the two together are a bit more interesting.
Torco wrote:
Just think of yourself impregnating the earth with your mighty seed, with the spade representing your penis and your gardening gloves representing whatever people wear to stop getting spiked by sharp weeds during sex.
Imma not only adopt this mindset and fuck the crap out of the earth, but I'm going to incorporate it into a conreligion as well !
I think it's actually a basic concept of most European non-Christian religions. Adonis, Priapus and about a million other gods oversaw both making sure both your land and your wife gave a good yield, if ya know what I mean.

Unless you meant a religious mandate on the use of agricultural paraphernalia in the bedroom, in which case I completely support that.
Last edited by Gulliver on Wed Jun 20, 2012 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Torco »

damnit, all good ideas are taken, though this one
You just pick a few leaves at a time, as much as you need. Rocket is a goof accompaniment to lettuce as the two together are a bit more interesting.
is especially good, and I'm especially retarded for not thinking like a browser.

also, rocket? that shit's BITTER

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Gulliver »

I love the peppery bitter taste! Rocket, spinach, lettuce, parsley, chives, a good glug of olive oil, a good glug of hemp oil, some capers and some balsamic and you've got yourself a nice little salad going on.

I don't know about in Chile, but here in sunny England you can get growing pots of herbs like basil in supermarkets for not very much. They generally die as soon as you get them home, unless you put them into fresh compost, in which case they'll survive for a long, long time. I've got two plants out of mine after I took a cutting, so they can be kept going semi-indefinitely. I think that's how my parsley started also. I buy them when they're discounted because they don't water them in the shop and suffer and get marked down.

That might be a good place to start.
Last edited by Gulliver on Wed Jun 20, 2012 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Torco »

Gulliver wrote:I love the peppery bitter taste! Rocket, spinach, lettuce, parsley, chives, a good glug of olive oil, a good glug of hemp oil, some capers and some balsamic and you've got yourself a nice little salad going on.
hell, man, you do work on your salads
mine are basically chopped onion, plenty of avocado, lemon and whatever vegetable I can get my hands on... and that's a fancy one! most often, oil, salt, lemon and lettuce. BAM, salad.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Gulliver »

Avocados are prohibitively expensive here. Capers are amazing and hemp oil is pretty good too, and I think it's only produced one or two counties away.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Torco »

they're not cheap here either... some three dollars to the kilo. they're exceptionally good, tho, never tasted better avocado than in chile... hell, we even put it in hotdogs.

capers *google*... alcaparras ! damn, man, those things are nasty!

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by zompist »

Spices are also a good thing to plant. It's the only convenient way to get just enough fresh spices for a meal.

One gardening book I read pointed out that most new gardeners overdo it. They turn the whole backyard into a garden or something. Not only does this create a huge amount of work for weeding, but it tends to produce more stuff than can be readily eaten.

Once you get used to garden-grown tomatoes, supermarket tomatoes seem like mushy styrofoam.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

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zompist wrote:Once you get used to garden-grown tomatoes, supermarket tomatoes seem like mushy styrofoam.
I'm not used to garden-grown tomatoes and the supermarket ones already seem like styrofoam with pomarola-flavor. perhaps I'll give the tomatoes in my yard a chance or two

also, I've decided to grow some motherfucking CORN in the yard. it's a nice thing to eat, corn, and july is the month to plant it, according to some local know.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

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zompist wrote:One gardening book I read pointed out that most new gardeners overdo it. They turn the whole backyard into a garden or something. Not only does this create a huge amount of work for weeding, but it tends to produce more stuff than can be readily eaten.
This is what I did last year. Plant different things in small amounts rather than few things in huge amounts.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

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Torco wrote:
zompist wrote:Once you get used to garden-grown tomatoes, supermarket tomatoes seem like mushy styrofoam.
I'm not used to garden-grown tomatoes and the supermarket ones already seem like styrofoam with pomarola-flavor. perhaps I'll give the tomatoes in my yard a chance or two

also, I've decided to grow some motherfucking CORN in the yard. it's a nice thing to eat, corn, and july is the month to plant it, according to some local know.
Corn gets tall

and, depending on where you're going to put it, will for that reason block the light from getting to other plants you've impregnated the earth with.
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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Radius Solis »

Gulliver wrote:Have you ever tried copper tape as a slug-deflector? I've heard good and bad things about it. At worst, it'll be an expensive way of making the raised beds look really shiny, I suppose.
Copper tape, I could give that a try. Mostly, I have dealt with the slug problem by only planting things they cause little damage to.

Speaking of DIY garden carpentry and all that manly stuff, last year I built a small greenhouse for tomatoes and peppers. I think I reported this a year ago in the Happy Things Thread. I should take a picture, it's quite fetching aside from the fact I need to put on new sides and clean all the mildew off the formerly-transparent roofing. Unfortunately last year's bell peppers got root rot and died, but the Anaheims and Jalapeño got far enough along to turn red, so I have some hope for non-green bell peppers this year.

My full inventory this year...
In the open planterbox:
50 Walla Walla onions
26 garlic plants
one Peperoncini, an impulse purchase
three cucumber vines

In the greenhouse:
a Roma tomato, I was also going to plant an Early Girl but didn't get around to it
two bell peppers
two Anaheim peppers
two Jalapeño peppers

Perennials:
a 30-foot row of raspberries
an enormous clump of rhubarb

Outside the main garden:
corn, 15 stalks


I do not know why I always have so much trouble getting onions to stay alive long enough to mature - the tops grow well in spring, but then they all fall over long before they're supposed to and the bulbs stop growing when they're about the size of golf balls. It is a mystery. Onions are supposed to be easy! This is the fourth time in a row, I think I've decided to give up on them next year. Contrariwise, my garlic is doing fantastic, as I have finally done what the garden books say to do and planted it in late fall the prior year. Previously (planting in spring) I got 18-inch tops on spindly little stalks, and cloves too small to bother using, whereas this year I've got 36-inch garlic tops on finger-thick stalks. I can't wait to see what comes out of the ground when it's time.

I've also had fantastic results with corn, meaning 8-foot stalks with 2+ ears apiece. But this has been the sixth-coldest June on record with only two sunny days, so my corn is considerably behind schedule. If only I could put it in the greenhouse...


edit: oh duh, I forgot the herbs. I've got chives, rosemary, oregano, mint, and thyme, all of them in large pots in the garden.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Torco »

din wrote:Corn gets tall

and, depending on where you're going to put it, will for that reason block the light from getting to other plants you've impregnated the earth with.
well, yeah, but corn is food... and food is more useful, not to mention awesome, than like garlic and stuff.
also, corn is phallic, so my impregnating the earth will be like fucking her into giving me a MANLY SON!

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

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Torco wrote:
din wrote:Corn gets tall

and, depending on where you're going to put it, will for that reason block the light from getting to other plants you've impregnated the earth with.
well, yeah, but corn is food... and food is more useful, not to mention awesome, than like garlic and stuff.
also, corn is phallic, so my impregnating the earth will be like fucking her into giving me a MANLY SON!
Corn is also useful to hide weed plantations.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Gulliver »

I've just planted some manly lettuce, brussels sprouts, cabbage and pak choi indoors in containers. I'm sure you're not supposed to transplant lettuce or cabbage, but I wanted to plant something and it is raining and horrible outside. I've got my eye on three more garlic cloves that have gone sprouty, but I think I'll do them on Sunday.

My blueberry plant cutting hasn't rooted yet. It hasn't died, but is hasn't rooted. Boo.

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Re: The Gardening Splinter Thread

Post by Radius Solis »

FWIW, what I (now) do for garlic is, in October, buy 5 or 6 heads of it and separate out only the fattest cloves and plant those. It's best if they aren't already sprouting because they need to be dormant during a winter and preferably get frozen a few times - this is the signal to the plant that next summer it's going to have to grow good fat bulbs to store enough energy. Without that cue, your results are likely to be as disappointing as mine were. Unless you just want to use the leaves as garlic greens in salads, or you're co-planting to repel pests; spring planting is fine for that.

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