The Gardening Thread

[Sinister Intents]

This is the gardening thread :) It's essentially as the name implies. This year we're going to be growing cherry and roma tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, corn, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, oregano, basil, onion, garlic, and several other things I can't think of at this time for I'm simultaneously typing an essay!
What're other people growing or are going to grow?
Also gardening tips are awesome, I'm wondering how to keep deer away without hurting them :( I don't want to shoot at them or anything

[The Jay]

Do you drink coffee? If you do you should start a pile from the used grains to use as compost.

[Creative Destruction]

Shoot the deer.

[Sinister Intents]

Do you drink coffee? If you do you should start a pile from the used grains to use as compost.

Yes :) We've been compiling compost the whole winter for our garden!


Shoot the deer.

Fuck no.

[Comrade Jacob]

As any self respecting Yorkshireman/Tyke if a hot girl/guy came up to me and asked for sex I'd reply with:"I'd rather get on with me gardening to be honest".
I got me mam a tomato plant for mothers day.

[BIXX]

This is the gardening thread :) It's essentially as the name implies. This year we're going to be growing cherry and roma tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, corn, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, oregano, basil, onion, garlic, and several other things I can't think of at this time for I'm simultaneously typing an essay!
What're other people growing or are going to grow?
Also gardening tips are awesome, I'm wondering how to keep deer away without hurting them :( I don't want to shoot at them or anything


Put a salt lick away from the gardens (but not so far off that they miss it).

Thy like the smell of pot I think- a friend of mine who grew said they wouldn't leave his shed alone :lol: So avoid pot being near the garden.

Also put up some somewhat high fences.

[tallguy]

I grow loganberries, gooseberries, strawberries, blackberries (known as brambles where I come from), raspberries, blackcurrants, eating apples and plums. In addition to that, I keep honey bees using a natural bee keeping method involving a special, low-intervention type of hive called a Warre hive.

Apart from all of the above, I really like aesthetic gardening and all of my perrenial borders are currently coming on strong. I should have my first blue cranesbills coming into flower in the next few weeks. My borders are currently about to turn into a sea of blue forget-me-nots. Other flowers I grow are giant scabiosa morgana, pacific giant delphinium, hollyhock, lupin, mallow, gladioli, foxgloves and goodness knows how many others whose names I do not know. We also have a number of flowering shrubs including a beautiful one in flower right now called forsythia

I love gardening.

[Sinister Intents]

Put a salt lick away from the gardens (but not so far off that they miss it).

Thy like the smell of pot I think- a friend of mine who grew said they wouldn't leave his shed alone :lol: So avoid pot being near the garden.

Also put up some somewhat high fences.

They jump our fence :D they're so adorable! Also salt licks a great idea :) I'll buy one or a few. Also They've decimated in our area people's weed crop lol. They get a taste and kill all weed plants

[tallguy]

They jump our fence :D they're so adorable! Also salt licks a great idea :) I'll buy one or a few. Also They've decimated in our area people's weed crop lol. They get a taste and kill all weed plantsWe have a major problem in the Uk now with deers. The problem is they no longer have any natural predators and have not had for centuries since we killed off all of the other large natural predators such as wolves etc. This means, like it or not, we humans, at least here in the UK, have to manage this unnatural environment. In other words, we have to be gardeners of the entire eco system. I frankly wish we didn't. But, for that to be the case, around 80% of us would need to disappear so the rest of life could find its own balance. However, that's not happening any time soon and so we have to manage our environment. That includes the deer population. In the Uk, it has reached such huge proportions that the deers are en-mass denuding forests of all new sapling trees for example.

The only pertinent question that remains is how the above is achieved. Unfortunately, due to a wholly inappropriate and unhelpful anthropomorphising of, admittedly very beautiful, animals such as deer, any rational debate and resulting solution is culturally very difficult to achieve,

[slum]

gettin ready to start the season up here in cold, dark new england. had a real problem with ants last year that i hope won't happen again- little fuckers go right for the roots.

planning to grow my usuals: eggplant, tomatoes, herbs, carrots, lettuce, peas, radishes, beets, bush beans, peppers, squash, cukes, and corn. there's some brambles too that grow on the fence.

i can't waitttt gonna spend the summer weeding and reading it will be glorious

[Prometeo liberado]

Do you drink coffee? If you do you should start a pile from the used grains to use as compost.

Egg shells also do the trick.

[Quail]

I'm growing herbs on the windowsill and I've planted broccoli and peppers, and going to plant some tomatoes soon :)

[Prometeo liberado]

What edible plant can I grow indoors, if any?

[tallguy]

What edible plant can I grow indoors, if any?
how much room have you got to grow it?

[Prometeo liberado]

I'd say 3ft circular. Don't wanna do the grow lights though. Maybe Basil and Rosemary?

[Quail]

You can grow herbs on the windowsill, they barely need any space :) I've got basil, parsley, oregano and coriander growing at the moment.

[tallguy]

I'd say 3ft circular. Don't wanna do the grow lights though. Maybe Basil and Rosemary?
Well, as long as there is plenty of light, you could always grow potatoes in a large plastic rubbish bin. You start off with the seed potatoes in just a few inches of soil at the bottom of the bin. As soon as the plants hove got some healthy growth above the surface, you add an inch or so of soil around them. Then let them grow some more. You keep doing this over the course of the entire season. This forces the plants to keep growing upwards to reach the light. Eventually, you end up with a bin full to the top with soil. When you dig it all out at the end of the season you will find it is full of potatoes all the way down to the bottom. This way, you are able to grow potatoes in an area that is several times smaller than would have been the case if you had simply planted sufficient potatoes plants on the ground outside.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

We have a major problem in the Uk now with deers. The problem is they no longer have any natural predators and have not had for centuries since we killed off all of the other large natural predators such as wolves etc. This means, like it or not, we humans, at least here in the UK, have to manage this unnatural environment. In other words, we have to be gardeners of the entire eco system. I frankly wish we didn't. But, for that to be the case, around 80% of us would need to disappear so the rest of life could find its own balance. However, that's not happening any time soon and so we have to manage our environment. That includes the deer population. In the Uk, it has reached such huge proportions that the deers are en-mass denuding forests of all new sapling trees for example.

The only pertinent question that remains is how the above is achieved. Unfortunately, due to a wholly inappropriate and unhelpful anthropomorphising of, admittedly very beautiful, animals such as deer, any rational debate and resulting solution is culturally very difficult to achieve,

Isn't that usually the responsibility of hunting societies, though, not individual gardeners etc.? I know that's part of their mission here, it might be different in the UK.

[Creative Destruction]

Fuck no.

Venison is a very healthy meat. It's lean, low in saturated fats. Although it might take some "help" from butter or lard, it's on the whole much better than beef. You could probably feed a family of three (perhaps four) an entire season, with properly portioned venison, on just one deer depending on whether it is a decent size or not.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

My garden here is a bit shit, just a few square metres of earth for what I assume was once a flowerbed - the rest is concrete. I kept a little herb-garden there for a while (mint, parsley, sage and basil) but my landlord took a fucking weed-whacker to all of it when he was gardening (he did apologise though and to be fair I suppose I should have told him.)

My parents have a pretty big garden, it's a bit of a mess because neither of them have much time to garden and my dad's knees are pretty bad now which makes it harder for him to garden, but they grow a lot of herbs and a few fruits (including an apple tree of some obscure and incredibly tasty variety) along with loads of ornamental bushes and stuff. My grandparents are all enthusiastic gardeners and my mum is essentially an amateur horticulturalist, she knows a vast amount about plants (like her dad did.) I enjoy gardening too, although again I don't get a lot of time for it. The other downside is all the heavy stuff gets relegated to me now because my brothers won't help :/ Least pleasant thing I did was chopping down and uprooting six 15-foot leylandii over an entire day, that fucking sucked, although it's closely followed by the time I built a retaining wall for a big raised flowerbed that had collasped in heavy rain, or the time I had to completely dig up a bed that was infested with bindweed (You have to remove the soil to several feet's depth then pass it through increasingly fine sieves to remove every fragment of root or it'll regenerate, I probably moved 3 or 4 tons of earth that day.)

[The Jay]

Whenever you eat anything that isn't meat or processed put the remains in the compost: banana peels, tomato stems, apple cores, peach pits, ect. I used to have clay without any black soil. About three years later the soil is black. It is a game of patience and diligence. You just have to keep it up for years. Home grown food is better than any other food.

[Leftsolidarity]

Moved to Mutual Aid/DIY

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

Spent malt is reaonable fodder for compost afaik, commercial breweries send it off to be made into animal feed but as a homebrewer i don't really use that volume of stuff so I tip it in the compost. Between the brews I do and the ones friends and the real ale society do I reckon I deposit a few hundred pounds a year in the compost bins.

[robbo203]

Where I live in Southern Spain, goats manure is the stuff everyone swears by. They even say it significantly improves the taste of veggies. I got several packs of heirloom seeds of various kinds - squash, tomato, pepper, corn, herbs and much more - from a local woman who for years has been building up a very impressive seed bank to preserve old fashioned traditional varieties with that old fashioned traditional taste you just dont get any more. She has, for tomatoes alone , a selection of over 200 different varieties which is quite amazing. Many of these have come from exchanging seeds with other amateur seed collectors across the world. Its one in the eye for the likes of Monsanto and co and I would encourage everyone here to do likewise

[Prometeo liberado]

Where I live in Southern Spain, goats manure is the stuff everyone swears by. They even say it significantly improves the taste of veggies. I got several packs of heirloom seeds of various kinds - squash, tomato, pepper, corn, herbs and much more - from a local woman who for years has been building up a very impressive seed bank to preserve old fashioned traditional varieties with that old fashioned traditional taste you just dont get any more. She has, for tomatoes alone , a selection of over 200 different varieties which is quite amazing. Many of these have come from exchanging seeds with other amateur seed collectors across the world. Its one in the eye for the likes of Monsanto and co and I would encourage everyone here to do likewise

This was hands down one of the coolest things I've read in a while. And kudos to that lady for having the foresight to secure those seeds.

[Sinister Intents]

Our strawberries are looking awesome already :) we've several things sprouting up and it looks awesome! We're gonna be planting several things soon as well! I'm so happy that it's spring ^-^

[Quail]

I have strawberries in a pot :) They produced loads of small ones last year, but I'm hoping they'll do better outside and stuff. I'm also growing goji (sp?) berries because I let my son choose a plant. I don't even know what they taste like or if they'll be good but hopefully the plant will grow well anyway.

[slum]

just started my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants in egg crates for transplant later in the season. they're sitting in my window now. planted some peas outside; it's a little late but i figure it can't hurt. need to get some manure before i can seed the other mid-april starters- beets, lettuce, carrots, and bush beans.

[The Jay]

I just planted a black berry and raspberry canes. They will be needed.

[Sinister Intents]

Can this thread be stickied? I'm assuming it'll have use for a long time :) also could I legitimately post garden and m"ini greenhouse thing" pics?

[Leftsolidarity]

Can this thread be stickied? I'm assuming it'll have use for a long time :) also could I legitimately post garden and m"ini greenhouse thing" pics?

You should ask the local mod.

---

We started basic prep work on our community gardens. Cleared out all the trash and tilled the beds. We ran into a foundation in the ground that goes around the entire plot but is only close to the surface in one spot. Does anyone have experience gardening on abandoned city lots? We run into things all the time that we unearth and I was wondering if that poses health dangers to the food and if there's certain food that's best to grow.

[BIXX]

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/14/be2adavy.jpg

My garden as of now.

I'll work today and post results.

[tallguy]

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/14/be2adavy.jpg

My garden as of now.

I'll work today and post results.
Brilliant. Can't wait.

Tell you what. I'll do the same and post some pics

[BIXX]

God damn there's a lot of crap to move. At least I can work the actual ground once it's all out.

[Sinister Intents]

The weather here has been shitty :( it jumps to the eighties and then it's back to the thirties and we have to use our wood stove to heat our house. Our mini indoor greenhouse plants aren't doing well. Our strawberry plants died :( hopefully soon we can move our plants outside

[BIXX]

Almost have all my weeds cleared planting this week.

[Sinister Intents]

Almost have all my weeds cleared planting this week.

Awesome :) we barely have weeds at this moment, but soon we'll plant outside, we need to make sure we're not gonna dip down below the 30's again. I'll take a picture of our garden later and post it here if I remember

[Sinister Intents]

Here is a bad pic of our inside green house thingy. Our strawberries aren't in it right now.:

[Sinister Intents]

We haven't weeded our garden and it's all over grown :( we have a ton of work to do, and we have plants we need to officially plant, half of our garden is ready at least. Doesn't appear we'll be having apples this year :/