Gardening

[sunshinedaisies]

Gardening

Hi Diz - one of our pups has low thyroid so her skin tends to get itchy - along with her thyroid meds we also give her an antihistamine tab - just a regular people one and it helps enormously!!! This might help - it is worth a try....

Sun X

[Hippiegirl]

Gardening

Hi guys,

I may starting posting here since I MAY ACTUALLY HAVE A LITTLE GARDEN, I've had them before, but now I live in a rental house and doubt if the owner would appreciate me digging up his yard.

Tried to get my boyfriend to let us do one in his yard, but while he didn't say no, he was decidedly underwhelmed. However, this last week he dug up a giant shrub by his garage and said it'd be a great place a few veggies :-)

I do have a teeny tiny flower garden by my back yard that I usually plant with annuals. This morning there was a big hole and one of my dianthus had completely disappeared. Could a squirrel have done this?

[WaitingToExhale]

Gardening

GOPHERS! It's always those darn gophers! HA!

[Hippiegirl]

Gardening

I don't think I have moles or gophers in my yard. I know, lucky me:-) I t's gotta be a squirrel or a racoon. No more holes this morning though.

I'm in the US midwest. What shall I plant in my veggie garden? It's not very big - maybe 10' x 4'. Too late for peas. A pepper, couple of tomatoes, green beans and ???

[WaitingToExhale]

Gardening

You would be AMAZED at how much you can grow in that space!

Yes ? tomatoes for sure! Don?t be tempted to buy ?larger plants?, or the tiny ones in a six pack as both have already usually already been ?stressed?. Buy a (or 2 ) 4? plants. Amend the soil if needed or add some new soil (organic if you tend that way) and plant them deep enough that only about 4? of the plant is above the soil line. Clip off any stem/ leaves below that. Don?t forget to trellis or stake them in some way as soon as they are planted. Easy and rewarding one are ?Big Boy? and they are very disease resistant and if you want fruit early try ?Early Girl?. I love Heirloom Tomatoes but they can be a bit tougher as they are not as disease resistant so you have to keep a closer watch on them.

Green beans are great and I like to grow pole beans rather than bush beans because they grow UP and take up less space! You can make a trellis out of just about anything, from cut branches in your yard and tie them together with twine to inexpensive bamboo you can buy cheap. I plant seeds with a wide spacing directly in the ground and then plant more about every 3 weeks in between through the summer. That way I don?t have too many beans ?ready? all at one time.

I do the same thing with carrots and radishes (radishes are fast!) and plant tiny rows, every other 3rd one and then go back and plant the next one. If it?s just you and the BF a row of about 18? or so is all you will need. Just remember that any ?root veggie? needs a very soft soil and a bit of depth, although you can buy a shorted variety carrot that works well in shallower beds.

Peppers love a lot of sun so don?t plant them where the tomatoes will over shadow them once they take off. Remember that most pepper plants WILL become red peppers when truly ripe ? so you can pick them green or leave them so they turn red and sweeter as well. I love the yellow ones as well.

Toss in some basil in the corners and you can clip at that all summer and keep it from ?bolting? as you use and it will keep on growing! Yummy on your fresh picked tomatoes.

If you like cucumbers, they also grow UP, so are space savers. They take a bit of time to germinate from seed, but easy to grow so you can buy in seed or small plants ? money saver in the seeds. As a kid (growing up in the Midwest) I used to drive my Mother crazy but taking the cucumbers when they were small and sticking them halfway through the cyclone fence. They would continue to grow and she would have to cut them in half to harvest. Pissed her off (she never knew it was me) but I always got such a giggle. ?Straight Eights? are still one of my favorites but I have found a new love called a ?lemon? that is a small round yellow cucumber that has a touch of lemon taste to it and great in salads.

Any type of melon or squash can be planted in your garden and allowed to ?wander? outside of the plot (as long as the BF approves! HA!) Watermelon, crock neck squash, zucchini (but keep an eye on them as they hid under leaves and become the size of watermelons) ?

I doubt a squirrel would carry off your dianthus. Loose playful dog? I don?t think raccoons bother them either. There are natural repellants you can buy and may need to look into before you start up with veggies and don?t have it fenced in.

OK ? Time to get MY bum into my garden!

[NoraC]

Gardening

I've never tried green beans. That sounds good.

I keep finding dead gophers in my back yard. But, we don't have any gopher holes. I think the cats are visiting other yards and bringing them back here.

[sunshinedaisies]

Gardening

Hippiegirl - carrots love tomatoes and I always plant a ring of carrots round my toms - it is wasted space otherwise and they compliment each other. More later - came in to cool off. Back later

hugs, sun X

[sunshine_gg]

Gardening

Hello fellow wormers and weeders!

Sunny-D... too funny, I plant carrots around my tomatoes as well and everyone who's ever noticed it thought it was weird.

Hippiegirl, I've had skunks dig out plants but mostly from planters. Not sure what took a liking to your dianthus. Ohhh... and spinach! I just adore baby spinach in salads 'n stuff. Yumm!

I've been out grubbing all day yesterday and part of today; my cleaning/weeding has turned into a search and destroy mission. I have this plant in my yard (a weed, I believe) in almost every flower bed and it has taken over something fierce. Well, I've been battling it for the past couple of seasons but there will be no more mercy. I don't mind it in some places (the more wild/unkept spaces) but otherwise, it's OUTTA HERE.

Maybe one of you will know what it is.. this was last November, believe it or not. It's quite pretty when it blooms, but as I said... it's just incredibly invasive:

[DizzyBee]

Gardening

Sunny-G, I know you're going to hate me for saying this but if I had that I'd probably just let it loose. Its so pretty. It reminds me of Morning Glory, I want to plant some of those again. But yes, I understand, after a while the prettiness loses its edge when it starts killing other plants and taking over space you'd rather use for something else.

Sunny-D, I'll try that carrots thing but y'all's got Summer now and I've got winter and really thick clay so unless I'm going to plant it in a crate on a raised bed in a special corner of my garden, its not going to work right now.

WTE, what an inspiration you are. Did you ever watch the Smurfs? When you talk about Gophers, you remind me of Gargamel I'll get rid of those Gophers, if its the last thing I ever do! Ha! I'm just teasing, I know you are trying to get rid of them in a humane way and they're being very nasty. My mom said to me yesterday that you should try Eucalyptus oil? The old-school kind is pretty inexpensive, you can dab it on paper napkins and toss it in the holes, the smell is offensive to them and obviously the oil won't harm your garden.

Hippiegirl, look at you, one day sober and already bugging your bf for a garden. :H LOL You know what is really super? Try to start it now and do something every day. Plant some seeds and some bigger plants. And then if you make 30 days sober you can look back at your veggie garden and go, like this garden, 30 days ago, I was also a *blank* - insert appropriate word.

NoraC, I also always see dead moles everywhere. Not in my garden but alongside the road. It must be people putting out poison, it bugs me because I know my cat will have no qualms trying to eat it, I wish people will be a bit more careful. I'm rather glad we don't have gophers!

I took some plants out of my neighbours garden this weekend. Well we live on a small holding with 3 cottages and the one has been empty now for 9 months. The previous tenant was an small scale organic farmer. Its a pity neither of us were sober then because something went wrong for her and she stopped being able to pay her rent and her whole operation crashed. She had to sell her shade nets and the whole incredible operation went to weeds in about 2 months.

Anyway...so because of all the recent rain I went to take out some bamboo (hard work to remove!!!), marigold, honeysuckle, comfrey (good for the soil), lavender etc. I left plenty in the garden and I tidied the place up a bit, I'm just afraid everything may die before someone else moves in. Oh, there was actually an a$sholle who lived there for 2 months in Summer but he didn't water ONCE. So he killed most of the nice stuff which I left behind because I thought I was doing him a favour. :durn:

Happy gardening!

:flower:

[sunshine_gg]

Gardening

Funny, you said moles by the road, I just saw 2 last week by our mail box. Normally, I would have blamed Miss Bubbles, but she had stayed in the house the night before. Mind you, nobody around here is poisoning them, that I know for sure.

Ok, the S&D mission is complete. For a week or so. I'm sure I haven't even got half of the purple stuff. You should see the root system on it!

But for a couple of days it'll look cleaned up





WTE, I think Dizzy's idea of looking at your garden parallel to your AF time is awesome!

[DizzyBee]

Gardening

Sunshine, that really is stunning!

Just a quicky as you mentioned moles again. My cat hunted a mole and only left me its head on my car's bonnet! I think its time to sit Max down for another talk.

Phew, so tired now, I got this big table structure thing i my neighbours garden that I want to park in a sunny spot on the lawn to convert into a type of a greenhouse. The men (my brother and the two neighbours next door) would not help me carry it so I had to drag it all the way to the parking area to ensure it would block their cars. And what do you know, then they quickly helped me carry it through the gate AND finally agreed with me that it would fit through there if you tilt it. LOL.

:flower:

[Hippiegirl]

Gardening

I agree, the AB timeline being parallel to the garden - great idea. I doubt if I can do it every day, but certainly week by week. It's raining here, but the bf dumped a ton of topsoil and compost on the bed yesterday and I'm hoping to take off next Monday to actually put in some plants.

I'm pretty sure my dianthus thief was either a raccoon or a possum. I've been up a few times in the night the last couple of nights (can't imagine why :-)) and about 3 am, this big fat animal waddled away under a bush when I stepped out onto the back porch. Whatever it was hasn't taken anymore, so hopefully he'll leave it alone.

[spacebebe01]

Gardening

Raccons, gophers, possums, how exotic, the only uninvited mammals I ever get in my garden is rats. Do you want to swap anyone??

[DizzyBee]

Gardening

Hi HG! Glad to see you here. I'm really glad you are grabbing onto this gardening thing. Yeah, I didn't mean gardening everyday, I just mean perhaps taking a picture once a week and then when you reach 30 days looking back going - YEAH!

Well, I'm not sure what your goal is, 7 days is a good starting point.

I'm also really happy to hear your boyfriend is so supportive in your quest.

Your dianthus thief sounds scary! I've never seen a raccoon or a possum before because I'm in SA but then where I live is too suburban for that kind of thing anyway.

Perhaps in a week or two you can load up a pic for us?

:l

[sunshinedaisies]

Gardening

Can you believe this? I did it ALL on my own!!!! the plants in the front are brussel sprouts! Toms in the back, carrots will be coming up in between.....

just the one 'cos I didn't think it would work - goodness me, it did........ Attached files [img]/converted_files/1847639=6789-attachment.jpg[/img]