The gardening thread

[nelsapbm]

Aside from planting bulbs in the fall, I'm not much of a landscaper/flower gardiner. I do however, have a vegetable garden which I love to play with. I try different things each year - things that grow under the soil (carrots, onions etc) don't do so well as I have clay soil, but lettuce, pumpkins and squash do real well. This year I'm going to corn as well.
As for finding things in gardens, my cat found a milk snake. Lets just say I screamed an ran (snake phobia here!). Took me a day or two before I'd go back in the garden!

 

[loafer89]

I just checked on my "flock" at the wildlife refugee and they have started to take soy milk and are doing well. The people at the place said that another person in my town had turned in another litter of 6 rabbits after their dog dug up the nest.

Maybe they should rename my village Bunny Grove:-D

 

[Greg]

Just finished edging out and tilling (by hand cuz I'm glutton for punishment) a 10' x 25' kidney bean shaped flower bed. I have over 30 perennials to plant including black-eyed susans, daisies, coreopsis, coneflowers, aster, flox, a hydrangea and a bunch of other stuff that I forgot the names for. I'll do maybe one other similarly sized bed later this spring once the deck is finished which commences on Saturday.

 

[ckofer]

Hostas rock.

This is from last year...

 

[Marc]

I just put in some annuals at my grandmother's house on Tuesday.

Impatients, marigolds, cleome and salvia. I like trying new annuals to see where I have successes and failures. Obviously impatients prefer shade and damp, the marigolds seem to do well where ever but apparently full sun is best. I've never planted salvia or cleome, both said "sun to part sun" so I put them in a bed that gets shade part of the day from a great big sugar maple. We'll see what happens.

Fortunately it is pretty easy to grow stuff there. It's been a family farm for several generations, and I guess I had some reasonably intelligent ancestors, who picked a valley farm, bottomland, being quite fertile. The soil there is very dark and rich in nutrients.


I also am trying a year round herb garden in my house. Parsley, sage, cilantro, chives, basil and oregano. I put them in 4" dia. pots in MiracleGro potting soil, and the bag claims the soil is good for three months with no fertilizing. We'll see.

I also bought two polished aluminum clamp lights for the herbs and flourescent bulbs (equivalent of 100W incandescents).

I read that metal halides are best for growing plants which makes sense because the spectrum is much closer to sunlight than anything else, but arc lighs are so damn expensive, I went with flourescent. Should be better than incandescent and obviously are better than nothing.

Anyone else have experience with growing indoors with artificial light?

 

[ctenidae]

Anyone else have experience with growing indoors with artificial light?

Nothing I'd post in a forum.

 

[Marc]

Nothing I'd post in a forum.

I think that's been covered in this thread already....

 

[ChileMass]

One thing for sure - all this rain is sure good for growing grass. I have been filling up some bare patches in the lawn with seed and they are really grown in. My lawn looks great, and it's about a foot high way out back......

 

[ski_resort_observer]

You can also use "grow bulbs" sold at garden centers but it will probably get you put on the "list" so going with the shop lights is good.

A few years a friend in the food business and I were going to produce Vermont grown saffron on his 3 acres. We would have to grow 40,000 Crocuses to make it work. Way too much bending over.

When I get some free time, maybe in 2008, I am interested in growing mushrooms. Yeah, yeah...the legal kind. Anyone doing that?

 

[Marc]

You can also use "grow bulbs" sold at garden centers but it will probably get you put on the "list" so going with the shop lights is good.

A few years a friend in the food business and I were going to produce Vermont grown saffron on his 3 acres. We would have to grow 40,000 Crocuses to make it work. Way too much bending over.

When I get some free time, maybe in 2008, I am interested in growing mushrooms. Yeah, yeah...the legal kind. Anyone doing that?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the "grow bulbs" they sell are just flourescent lights. There are only so many types of light bulbs that have been invented, and I know they're not incandescent nor halogen, so I can't imagine what else they'd be. Like I said, the real serious gardeners use metal hallide, but those are just way too expensive.

I've never tried growing mushrooms but I know they like a lot of urea. I guess for the acidity and the nitrogen.