#361
raised bed. i am baffled too. the basil took a bit to get going but then just went wild. ive made a good amount of pesto and given some away but it keeps coming. the mint is next to the basil which may be stealing the sunlight, although its not gigantic or anything. as for the chives, i just dont know. not wilting, not growing. just sort of sitting there.
#362

TG posted:

as for the chives, i just dont know. not wilting, not growing. just sort of sitting there.



how far apart are they?

#363
i know that's the gardener's version of "did you try unplugging it and plugging it back in" but if you're not used to growing stuff like onions, chives are bulbs so you might want to space them out a little more, bulb growth decreases based on how close the plants are together at a much higher rate than you might expect. and food is stored in the bulbs.
#364
What are some good things I can grow indoors as a gardening noob
#365

dimashq posted:

What are some good things I can grow indoors as a gardening noob


idealy a wide variety of pretty and potent feminised varieties for every occasion

#366

dimashq posted:

What are some good things I can grow indoors as a gardening noob


some nice ornamentals off the top of my head that are pretty resistant to neglect:

- an umbrella plant will make a good large pot on the ground plant, will basically get as big as you let it. if you want it to get real tall you might need to stake/cage it and repot over time, but it's not really necessary. we have one that's been sitting in the same pot for a decade and hasn't received any fertilizer or soil care, it gives no fucks.

- spider plants are a "i don't know garden" classic, the variegated leaves look nice and the babies basically plant themselves, throw em in a pot and done. if you know literally anyone with plants you can probably get a baby to start for free. spider plants are cat drugs so kitties will probably mangle them if they can, i keep mine in hanging baskets tho.

- I'm not a huge succulent fan but aloes are pretty, grow pretty vigorously, and have easy to use medicinal properties. these also split off pretty easily and you might be able to get a starter for free. google "how to not overwater aloes" and you are set.

- i love hanging plants and one of my favourites is the purple heart, aka "wandering jew" lmfao. it's good to just chill hanging in a window, or it can make for really prolific ground cover. dark purple/red foliage, looks real nice imho. only maintenance stuff is that you will need to trim out older vines over time if you don't want it to get scraggly.

- if you want something smaller that actually flowers, african violets are pretty simple to keep happy.

#367

shriekingviolet posted:

- I'm not a huge succulent fan but aloes are pretty, grow pretty vigorously, and have easy to use medicinal properties. these also split off pretty easily and you might be able to get a starter for free. google "how to not overwater aloes" and you are set.




keep in mind that only the true aloe vera(and iirc like one other species) has medicinal properties, many of the other species are cool and cute to grow but probably won't work for putting on your wounds or whatever. succulents and cacti in general are neat and many species are ideal for indoor growing assuming you have plenty of light on your window sills.

#368
rip squashes and pumpkins. pm me if u want squash bugs there are plenty here for everyone
#369

cars posted:

i know that's the gardener's version of "did you try unplugging it and plugging it back in" but if you're not used to growing stuff like onions, chives are bulbs so you might want to space them out a little more, bulb growth decreases based on how close the plants are together at a much higher rate than you might expect. and food is stored in the bulbs.



roughly 4 inches. i was looking at them today and i may have oversold their lack of growth. they have grown, but not much. i didnt grow them from seeds; the plants i got were maybe 5-6 inches tall. theyre maybe 8 at this point, after 2+ months of water and sunlight

i was learning about zucchini the other day and thought this was crazy: the zucchini plant, like all squash, is native to the americas. however, zucchini as it exists (harvested while not fully mature) originated in northern italy and was brought to america by italian immigrants in the early 20th century. also, i thought my zucchini were super great because they were so big, but i was apparently letting them grow too much and therefore they are not zucchini. they still make great zucchini bread, though

#370
what did they turn into? zuccs?
#371

TG posted:

i thought my zucchini were super great because they were so big, but i was apparently letting them grow too much and therefore they are not zucchini. they still make great zucchini bread, though


its everyone else who's picking their marrows too early

#372

ialdabaoth posted:

what did they turn into? zuccs?



zucca. thats the italian word for squash, and zucchini is a diminutive

that reminds me of a court story: during law school i watched the trial for a couple kids who were being tried for "racially motivated harassment". basically, they were a couple white college kids from the northeast who called some african exchange students "mooleys" in a bar. their attorney was ridiculously bad. his defense was basically "boys will be boys. its friday night in a college bar!" he then went on to explain that mooley is short for the italian word "mulignon" which means eggplant (its actually melanzana, so i can only imagine its new york/jersey bastardized italian, like gabagool). it is unclear why he thought that this was a good trial strategy. his clients were promptly found guilty after a short deliberation

#373

TG posted:

he then went on to explain that mooley is short for the italian word "mulignon" which means eggplant (its actually melanzana, so i can only imagine its new york/jersey bastardized italian, like gabagool).


your honor, i would like to submit into evidence this dvd box set of popular television series, the sopranos

#374
only thing I grew this year was basil in a window-box but it also went hog-wild

TG posted:

zucca. thats the italian word for squash, and zucchini is a diminutive

that reminds me of a court story: during law school i watched the trial for a couple kids who were being tried for "racially motivated harassment". basically, they were a couple white college kids from the northeast who called some african exchange students "mooleys" in a bar. their attorney was ridiculously bad. his defense was basically "boys will be boys. its friday night in a college bar!" he then went on to explain that mooley is short for the italian word "mulignon" which means eggplant (its actually melanzana, so i can only imagine its new york/jersey bastardized italian, like gabagool). it is unclear why he thought that this was a good trial strategy. his clients were promptly found guilty after a short deliberation

i'm sure he was actually just incompetent but in my head I'm choosing to believe it was a reverse-McCulloch

#375
I've started volunteering to maintain a small garden and teach elementary school children about plants, food, etc. in an after school program. None of us (the other volunteers and I) have a whole lot of gardening experience, but collectively we have a little. Apparently kale has been popular in the past because it's easy to grow and you can just tear off leaves and eat them which is what the kids like the most. I was thinking maybe some mint for the same reasons, but we also don't want the mint to take over all the space we have either. This is Florida so maybe some strawberries would be good to plant around this time, and would be a good payoff for the kids in the spring as long as we can keep the plants alive.

If anyone has any good ideas or tips to share both on the gardening side and fun things the kids might like in the garden I'd love to hear them!
#376
oh cool can you grow things over winter? any sort of brassica should do well i would expect? kale is a good thing but theres lots of others: swiss/raimbow chard is cool; cabbages too. not really sure how beans/peas would do, but theyre climbers, so ive always wanted to experiment with overwintering them after growing them up round trees....

and everyone loves sunflowers, sunflowers are the most fun plant
#377
Yeah, at this latitude we can grow all year long. It does usually dip a little below freezing at least a few nights late into the winter though. A chart I found online tells me you're right about the brassica. Peas are a great suggestion, and it looks like now is the right time to plant them. Sunflowers are another great suggestion, but it's a few weeks too late to plant them right now cause the days are getting too short for good blooms.
So far we've just been clearing the garden from everything that grew over a summer of neglect. I'd only ever seen dill in my grandma's little backyard herb and tomato garden, I never knew it could grow into big, woody bushes but apparently it does. Really enjoying this so far. We haven't had the chance to let any kids do anything in there since nothing is planted yet, but hopefully we can compete with kickball and the computer lab for their attention once it's all set up and safe!
#378
earlier this week it was nice and warm, i was itching to get out and do things so against my better judgement i went out and cleared out all the fall debris from my beds. even though i appreciate the cover they provide in early spring our snow melt was finished weeks ago and all that dried out dead shit was getting unsightly.

so of course turns out this weekend the temperature is gonna crater to -5c and there's a heavy snowfall warning. peonies and dianthus are in the midst of coming back up, gonna get hard frosted then pummeled real hard. will have to tear up some old bedsheets or someth to make cover for them, though if the snow is too heavy that won't even help
#379
I binged this thread and have been inspired to grow potatoes out of a trash can since ill be around my uni all summer working. I have seized the trash can and now i just need a sunny location where it wont be bothered and the other things.
#380
Congrats to the trash can on its liberation
#381
a trash can is very cool to grow food in because once you have a successful crop you can say you are already eating from it
#382
regular reminder that my terminally unfinished zizek megapost is titled "already eating from the fash can"
#383
#384

cars posted:


i wish those reporters would stop taking pics of my house

#385

Petrol posted:

regular reminder that my terminally unfinished zizek megapost is titled "already eating from the fash can"



Still waiting on that NK trip report

#386

cars posted:


everybody quoting me

#387

dimashq posted:

Petrol posted:

regular reminder that my terminally unfinished zizek megapost is titled "already eating from the fash can"

Still waiting on that NK trip report


alright pal. first off its DPRK. and its coming when its done.

#388
peonies made it through yesterday's hailstorm unscathed
#389
got our first week of warm weather, overwinter bulbs are jumping into action


surprise cameo by a friendly stray



VERY FRIENDLY
#390
my gf has taken the reins of gardening from me and has really improved things. i built more beds so weve got twice as much cubic footage (about 100 now) and she has done a lot of work on the soil, doing ph testing and adding a lot of compost, manure, and fertilizer. we now have 5 raised beds, three mounds (one for cucumbers, another for squash and a third giant one for random assorted things like pumpkins) and an in-ground bed for sunflowers. so our expected crops include: tomatoes (several varieties), chilies (at least three varities), squash (two kinds, including zucchini), cucumbers, beans, pumpkins, strawberries (maybe), radishes, kale, onions (green and red), basil, fennel, dill, sage, cilantro, mint, and some various tea plants that she wants and i dont remember (chamamile and echinacea i think?). she was also much better with seedlings than ive been, so most of these were raised from seed and only a handful were bought as baby plants

its already 90 so i think its going to be an early and hot summer here. we will likely spend $200+ on water for the garden alone each month but hopefully we will have lots of food in september. last year we had a really good crop of tomatoes (12 plants, dozens of tomatoes) get ruined by an early snowfall around october 1 or so so hopefully that doesnt happen again. we also moved into this house in early july, so we planted really late. rule of thumb for last frost is mothers day weekend here but since its so warm already, it may have been as much as two weeks ago. weve had stuff in the ground for five days and everything is looking great so far.

she tried some seedlings for flowers - begonias and peonies, i believe - but other than the sunflowers, nothing has come around. shes tabling that for next year, though, as we both think food should be priority this year for obvious reasons. i wanted to plant corn but she says that the soil isn't rich enough and we should do a shit ton of composting in the fall and try it next year

im thinking of planting a cherry tree and a peach tree, although they wont bear fruit for at least a couple years. also, spring temperatures are so all over the place here that apparently peaches are hard since they flower early and can get killed off by a late frost. but who doesn't want more trees around??
#391
#392
Anyone have experience with fabric planters aka grow bags? I'm gonna get some cause they'll fit my balcony and they promote healthy root growth.