I don't have any recommendations. I just want say those are absolutely beautiful. Well done, and please let them go to seed. I can't seem to get them to grow at all in my zone, but they may be my favorite flowers.
I am really enjoying all of your posts. Spring growing is pretty much over at my latitude, and we have entered the time of scorched earth. Lovely to see that somewhere, columbines are strutting their stuff!
I love fresh artichokes - I can't find good ones here in grocery stores. I tried growing a one-year cultivar once - it did produce a couple of small buds, but wasn't worth the trouble.
Beautiful, it must have been one of your posts that lead me to the Tomatoe spirals! I saw some colorful ones, but they were from the states and 50% more than the green ones I found.
I think they should be perfect for my sunflowers too.
I probably jumped the gun with the plant supports, I’ve got poly to drape over them, but also experimenting at the same time. The seedling peppers most likely won’t fruit before fall frost takes them anyways. So I need something to account for that if/when I figure a cover system out.
What type of peppers are they? I've never messed with supporting peppers beyond just staking them vertical.
That being said, your poly as an impromptu green house could be an interesting idea and with a bit of tweaking you could probably keep them alive past first frost.
A variety, bells, habanero, jalapeño, cayanne, dragon roll.
Most planter ones come with cages, I’m also in a valley and the wind gusts, so if bamboo stakes work, that’s a lot better. I also have tomatoe and sunflowers in the same bed though with taller supports anyways, I can build something over the cages and bamboo stakes, but not those.
But in the fall those supports would be in, so want to account for them anyways. I’ll likely make a pvc frame and drape some shade/critter/frost cloths over depending on the needs.
I've always wanted to build a PVC "cube" to set over my raised beds... just one of those I've never pulled the trigger on. I might see about it to keep my basil going a bit deeper into the cold months.
I'd love to see it if you ever do get around to it.
But it’s basically the nutrient strength of your water, I’m adding nutrients to the water I’m giving to my garden and flower plants, so would like to make sure I’m not giving it too much.
The practice of deadheading is to prevent the plant from setting seed so that it keeps blooming…so by definition, probably not. Typically with annuals, the seed heads need time on the plant to develop into viable seeds and dry out enough. The flowers with petals still on will almost certainly not have viable seed. Some of the dried out brown ones on the bottom? Maybe! You can crack them open over a piece of paper and see what you get.
Based on this short article, I'm going to guess it's either waterlogged or not getting enough potassium. It is pretty dense soil and I haven't checked the pH recently (though I should--also have blueberries growing nearby).
Hrmm not a bad idea, I could lay tarps across it early season, late season frost would be tough as it would be touching leafs and fruits then. Would be fine for any shade or critter cloths I would think, but it would also make harvesting anything inside of it difficult. Great idea for some other potential trellis for cucumbers though!
I also grow my tomatoes, squash, luffa, and melons up the trellis. 10ft panels make it pretty easy. Maybe you could double the trellis and tuck or trim everything in to the inside one before frost, and the outside one could be used for the cover?
"Full sun" refers to the plants adaptation to light levels from shade. The shade is from things like trees or buildings blocking the sun not weather.
Plant species have many different requirements for their seeds to germinate. Some species need cold temperatures (freezing) to trigger germination. Some need warm weather within a certain range. So cool wet conditions could be ideal seeding conditions depending on the species. Look up the germination conditions for each species you want to plant.
About those germination conditions: often seeds won't germinate until the good conditions finally arrive. So even sowing in bad conditions is often not so bad. Keep in mind that in nature, seeds often fall at the end of summer just to lie around until next spring.
seeds often fall at the end of summer just to lie around until next spring.
I can definitely corroborate this. The compost I used for a bunch of nursery pots had some of last years uneaten produce tossed in. Seeds and all.
I started off growing peppers, and now I've got cucumbers and cherry tomatoes growing alongside them.
With cherry tomatoes especially (since they're small and some will inevitably fall off the plant) you're bound to see tons of volunteers the next year. This can really happen with anything you leave in your garden, but tomatos seem to be the most prolific.
Oh, cool. Yeah, they are wildflower seeds native to our area, so they should be fine with that logic. We’re trying to make the bees in the neighborhood happy!
I hope you'll get much better comments but so far there's nothing so to fill the void:
I kept alive a scrawny apple tree in a large pot on my apartment balcony for 20 years, because it grew from a Gala apple seed planted by my daughter in preschool. (Obviously it didn't make Gala apples, but it made some pretty flowers and tiny crabapples that were sweeter than you'd expect.)
I learned that apple trees are prone to fungus and really like good drainage. If I were doing it again I'd use something lighter than potting soil, like Orchid or even Desert Mix. Not sure how that translates to in-the-ground gardening but I do think you're right about it being waterlogged. I'm sure you could dig in something around it to let more dry air into the soil and let excess water drain.
I have a blueberry bush too, and it's much hardier.
The vineyards in Ontario and Québec use massive fans to keep the air moving and fight frost. But I think if you are building critter fencing anyways, a blanket is probably the easy way to go.
Yep that’s part of the plan, will need a new timer/splitter though. For now I just manually turn it on or just every second day. Will need to see if there’s any drought restrictions too, because we were limited to two days and only certain hours to water last year. So kinda did it irregardless of the forecast to still be able to do it within required guidelines.
So the city actually has great Resources and I love it. To answer the question, yes and no… using sprinkler is a blanket no, doing it by hand is fine.
I actually just installed 2 rain barrels! Will need a pump to use with the soaker, but the City recommends (again great for resources I find) and I’ve seen comments here and elsewhere to not use on food.
So I’ll hand water flowers with them.
The downspout should be discharged atleast 3 if not 5 feet from the house though. BUT that looks like garage? So slab on grade and not as much as a concern, but still not ideal.
It is a slab-on-grade garage, and yes I plan on adding a rainwater catchment ASAP. The downspout has been exactly in this position for 12 years when the previous owners built the garage, and has caused no issues -- at least none that came up in inspection. There's very good drainage down to the road behind, I think.
I mean the flex tube pointing into your raised bed, it should point away and closer to the middle where the should be a shallow valley graded away from both. It probably wouldn't come up on inspection, a. Most home inspections aren't that great, b. You'd really need a significant amount of water to be around to judge it proper. Other than that I can't see any real problems with the beds being there or their design or anything.
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