# Practical gardening thread



## TimV (Jun 15, 2008)

We had tacos last night with tomatoes from this plant, which I posted a pic of a few days ago, so it gave me an idea. We'll start off this thread with two examples. The idea is for people with experience in different plants to share ways of time and money saving methods of producing plants for food and looks.

At a cost of 6 dollars for six plants, and 5 minutes of time per week, you can have enough tomatoes for the family. 

Buy a six pack of tomatoes from the local nursery of a variety that they tell you will work in your area!! That's really important! This will cost you about 2.50. Slow release fertilizer tablets will cost you about 30 cents each, and you put in one at first and two in about a month.

Cut out the bottom of some buckets. Put in any old soil. Bury a slow release fertilizer pellet directly underneath the plant. Cover with whatever mulch you can find to save water and keep down weeds. After a month, add more fertilizer of your choice, either chemical or organic, but the first should be a chemical tablet to give the plant micro nutrients like zinc that often aren't in poor soils (like mine) or in typical organic fertilizers. If you have good soil, you can use organic in the beginning.

The watering is done by a drip system, which is cheap to install, and as there was an extra station on my landscape timer, I did it the easy way and it comes on three nights per week.

Be sure to take off ALL the suckers!!!!And put in a stake of some sort so the fruit doesn't rot on the ground and it's easier to find the suckers to break off.







The next is what to do with Easter Lilies after they stop blooming.

You let the plant dry out and die back on it's own. Put the pot in a shady place, like in a box in the garage. Water the plant once after it is dead and dry. In Spring, take the plant out and water it again. The plant won't be ready for Easter, but it still will look good on your table later in the year. This one will probably bloom next week. Fertilize once or twice when the plant come up. You don't have to re-pot.


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## BJClark (Jun 15, 2008)

We made chicken fajita's and used the bell peppers and green onions from our garden. 

Our tomato's aren't ripe yet so we haven't touched those, the green beans are just now starting to bloom, and we're waiting on the cucumbers and watermelon..they have flowering blooms on them, but no fruit as of yet..

our corn, I'm not sure how that is going to be, we had a really bad wind and rain storm last weekend which knocked the stalks over and I had to go out and stake them all up, I'm praying it saved some of them. I can already tell not all of them will be saved..

We put down about 20 bags of compost and tilled it into the yard, and then have used miracle grow a couple times a month. 

We are looking at doing is worm composting, right now we have them in a bucket, but are looking at other options.


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## TimV (Jun 15, 2008)

On watermelon and other crops like that, squash etc.. they have male flowers first, and then female flowers.

It's not practical on large gardens, but in a family garden here are some tips.

Remember, the size of the fruit is directly linked to the number of seeds. So pollination is very necessary. The male flowers have no bump under the flower. The female flowers are obvious at they have a bump. Now, the male flowers come first, then the female flowers. When you see the first female flower, pick a male flower and pull the petals off. Then take what's left and use it like a paint brush on the female flowers. I will only take a few seconds every second day or so. The fruit will be much, much bigger that way, and you'll get more fruit as well.

Second, scratch the name of your kids with a nail lightly on the skin of the watermelon or squash when it's the size of a golf ball. The etching will make a big scar, it won't hurt the plant, and the kid's name will be very big and cool looking when you finally harvest.


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## BJClark (Jun 15, 2008)

TimV;



> Remember, the size of the fruit is directly linked to the number of seeds. So pollination is very necessary. The male flowers have no bump under the flower. The female flowers are obvious at they have a bump. Now, the male flowers come first, then the female flowers. When you see the first female flower, pick a male flower and pull the petals off. Then take what's left and use it like a paint brush on the female flowers. I will only take a few seconds every second day or so. The fruit will be much, much bigger that way, and you'll get more fruit as well.



We only planted three plants, not many..but all three are growing and flowering..so that is something I could look at doing..so thanks for the tip..



> Second, scratch the name of your kids with a nail lightly on the skin of the watermelon or squash when it's the size of a golf ball. The etching will make a big scar, it won't hurt the plant, and the kid's name will be very big and cool looking when you finally harvest.



My kids would get a kick out of that, even though they are teenagers..

Something else we are doing is collecting rain water in garbage pails and using that to water the garden as much as possible when it's not rained in awhile, so days like today when it's raining, we're collecting as much as we can..

Saves on the water bill as well..


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## TimV (Jun 15, 2008)

Very good. And the rain water doesn't have the junk in it that most well water and city water has, so you're doing more than just saving money.


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## jwithnell (Jun 15, 2008)

I'm a big believer in starting my plants indoors -- that way I get exactly the characteristics we need for our small gardening beds. Plus, I know the plants have never been stressed by being under-watered. 

This year I'm growing a hybrid plum tomato whose name totally escapes me at the moment, classic Italian type -- it produced the healthiest tomato plant I've ever seen last year! And I'm experimenting with MicroToms -- tiny plants that produce cherry tomatoes. They have the tiniest flowers right now! 

In previous years we've had prolific crops from jelly bean grape tomatoes and cupid grape tomatoes, but this year I know I won't be able to keep up with indeterminates. Happy gardening!


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## turmeric (Jun 15, 2008)

I have to stop being lazy and go check on my saffron. It's in the low-maintenance stage at this point. Should see if the wild strawberries have fruited. If they do, and the birds get them, people will have strawberries from miles around next year and not know where they came from!


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## BJClark (Jun 15, 2008)

turmeric;



> Should see if the wild strawberries have fruited. If they do, and the birds get them, people will have strawberries from miles around next year and not know where they came from!



Our strawberries aren't doing well, I'm considering transplanting them into hanging baskets as opposed to the garden, I just need to get the baskets..


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## TimV (Jun 15, 2008)

I'd be interested in details of the Saffron.


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## turmeric (Jun 15, 2008)

You plant the corms in August and not that year but the next, the flowers appear in the fall. It's grown as an ornamental around here, but I'd like to grow it commercially. The foliage lasts through the winter and dies back in the late spring and summer. Then you leave it, dormant in the ground and it "wakes up" in September or October. The red threads inside the flower are harvested and dried, on a screen in a sunny window. The yellow parts inside the flower have no flavor, but they're mixed in when saffron is powdered and sold. You could probably grow it commercially where you live but it's very labor-intensive when the flowers appear. They have to be harvested every morning as soon as you see them.


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## BJClark (Jun 15, 2008)

Watering tips..

Home and Garden | Watering Garden and Lawns in Summer - Garden & Landscaping Ideas - Gardening

Off topic, but here is a Water Conservation Calculator--it doesn't include watering your garden, but hey if your able to use rain water it won't matter.

The Green Pages - environment and sustainability news from news4jax.com


here is an interesting article on hydroponics..

Home and Garden | Hydroponic Gardening - Garden & Landscaping Ideas - Gardening


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## bookslover (Jun 15, 2008)

Theoretically, gardening sounds like a good idea. Even the word, "gardening," sounds so pleasant.

If only, though, gardening, in the reality of it, weren't so darned labor-intensive and time-consuming.

Thanks, Eve, for making Adam eat that fruit...


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## BJClark (Jun 16, 2008)

bookslover;



> Theoretically, gardening sounds like a good idea. Even the word, "gardening," sounds so pleasant.



it is, and very relaxing to boot..



> If only, though, gardening, in the reality of it, weren't so darned labor-intensive and time-consuming.



This really isn't true, I spend maybe a three hours a week actually working in the garden, the most time consuming part for us was the initial 'ground breaking, tilling and composting' which took about three afternoons, as we had to dig up the grass that was in that section of the lawn (think pick axe and shovel to loosen the ground), and then the first tiller we borrowed was to small for what we needed; we finally went out and bought one and it took about 30 minutes to finish.

If it were up to my husband he would use the tiller to weed between the rows of plants as opposed to getting out on hands and knees and actually pulling the weeds out, which is something I really enjoy doing.

when I'm out there pulling weeds I'm reminded of the garden of eden and why we have weeds and even thinking about how weeds are like sin in our lives how God desires to remove them, which brings comfort and peace to my heart and praises to God on my lips..


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## turmeric (Jun 16, 2008)

C'mon, a little nostalgia for the Covenant of Works! Get out that hoe! By the way, Eve didn't make anybody eat anything, and why didn't he kill that snake, instead of watching her argue with it? But that discussion could go on and on...


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## BJClark (Jun 16, 2008)

turmeric;



> By the way, Eve didn't make anybody eat anything, and why didn't he kill that snake, instead of watching her argue with it? But that discussion could go on and on...



That is so true, and it's a good question..not that we will ever have an answer, but it's a good question..


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## bookslover (Jun 17, 2008)

turmeric said:


> C'mon, a little nostalgia for the Covenant of Works! Get out that hoe! By the way, Eve didn't make anybody eat anything, and why didn't he kill that snake, instead of watching her argue with it? But that discussion could go on and on...



Why didn't he kill the snake? That's easy: as every wife knows, it has to be "the husband's fault"!  You know: "if a tree falls in the forest, and no one's around to hear it, is it the husband's fault"? Universal answer: "Yes!"


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## bookslover (Jun 17, 2008)

BJClark said:


> ...on hands and knees and actually pulling the weeds out, which is something I really enjoy doing.



Hmmm. Likes pulling weeds. I think someone's meds need adjusting...

As long as there are grocery stores, I don't think I'll need a garden!


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## jaybird0827 (Jun 17, 2008)

I love herbs and I hate weeds.

Therefore I pull weeds and replace them with herbs and let the herbs take over.

The herbs make great additions to salads and other dishes.

Using herbs in the landscape. Think of it!


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## BJClark (Jun 17, 2008)

bookslover;



> Hmmm. Likes pulling weeds. I think someone's meds need adjusting...
> 
> As long as there are grocery stores, I don't think I'll need a garden!



 no, no medication adjustments needed..

So I take it your not eating Tomatoes these days? Most of the stores here, don't carry many with the new outbreak of disease.

And with the price of corn, oat, wheat, rice, rye and other grains going up, and with the floods in the central U.S. preventing the use of certain ferry's transporting these items where they can be sold in the stores, and the price of diesel going up where many truckers are not hauling as many loads those shelves may very well become barren, or out of the price range for many folks.


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## jaybird0827 (Jun 17, 2008)

More herbs in the landscape ...


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## turmeric (Jun 17, 2008)

Jaybird, I'm impressed!


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## TimV (Jun 17, 2008)

Me too. Wild yet under control!


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## bookslover (Jun 17, 2008)

BJClark said:


> So I take it your not eating Tomatoes these days? Most of the stores here, don't carry many with the new outbreak of disease.



Actually, I still eat tomatos. The ones grown locally are supposed to be OK. When I shop at Albertsons, they've put signs up saying the tomatos are grown in Oxnard (north of LA). I haven't died yet...

I avoid all organic food, by the way (the current fad). "Organic" is from a Latin word that means "more expensive than the regular stuff."


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