I got spring fever, and the only cure is gardening

I've heard that about grass getting all mushy. I'll probably have more leaves than anything. My neighbor said we can get free leaf mulch by the truckload. The city takes all the gathered leaves and composts it at the regional airport, then gives it away the next year. I'm thinking I may need to head over there with him and his truck

My main problem is the clay and abundant rocks I have everywhere, and I don't want to keep buying top soil. I saw a video where a guy took clay soil and mixed it over time with compost and coco coir and eventually it ended up as really good soil. I may try that and use it in planting beds, but I'd still have to buy the coco coir.

Speaking of that, has anybody tried coco coir/peat? click I tried this mixed with potting soil and it makes the soil much airier and it doesn't clump up. Supposedly it's better than peat because it's more sustainable and isn't acidic. Not much for nutrients, though. I've used it for some potted plants so far, but I would imagine it gets expensive to mix in with soil on a larger scale.

In reply to Rufledt:

I got a small aerogarden as a gift some time ago- and tried using it. Last year, I used to to seed plants in the ground, and noticed that they sell a seed starter system- which is a piece of foam with grow sponges. A short google search showed me that I could do it myself- so I am. So far, so good- the bean especially like it.

Tomatos will start in about a month to be planted in May.

Once that's all done, I'll re-plant some of the pods using the same sponges that I'm seeding with.

Bad news for my gardening endeavors, the ground froze again. Also it's freezing cold, high of 27 today. I'm starting to think this winter will never end!

Obviously it isn't even the last frost date for another month or 2, but it would be nice if the snowbanks weren't taller than me for once this year.

Anyone have any tips for lettuce? I started one really really early under my light as an experiement and it started to grow as though it was bolting right away. Not tall and lanky or weak, the stem was thick and everything, big (bitter) leaves, plenty of light (36,000 lumens from a halide light), but it went straight up.

An somewhat enthusiastic update...

I may have posted before about the root invasion problems I've been suffering- gardening annual foods have been a struggle as some trees have been accosting all of the good soil nutrients and water.

I was BS'ing with my dad, and he mentioned that he has growing bags- which are basically containers that are bags. Not cheap, so I wondered if I could make my own- of course you can- the material is just good woven poly, or good garden fabric. And it's also commonly available shopping bags... But I got black fabric and plan on sewing it- as I like the black over the coloful shopping bags.

WHILE doing the google search on the grow bags, I found some really clever ideas of self watering systems- basically, a trough of water that the container wick the water from. Hmmm.. Another separation of the tree roots! Plus, I can use my rain barrels as an source of auto watering the systems. Ok, now we are onto some interesting projects.

Here's what I'm going to do for this year- make one 10-14' system with 4" PVC tube, a float valve, home made bags, with the cups in the water. This will be put in the area that I grow were the soil is the worst- so covering that isn't a big deal.

If that work as I hope, I will transform my other gardening area into the same system, and expand that one into two systems.

I'm pretty excited about trying- but it will have to wait until next weekned to get going, with Memorial vacation and all.

I did find two fruits that don't seem to care what so ever about the tree root invasion- blackberries and rasberries. Which I like both a lot. The strawberries I've tried in a few places will be moved to patio containers.

Plum and peach tree have quite a few blossoms for fruit, and all of the grapes are going like gang busters as of yet.

Oh, and an update on the hydroponics- Yea, I'll do that again in a second. The number of successful tomoatos is the best ever, I got quite a few good starts on other small seed things too. Bigger seeds stuff seem to like moss starting- which I have one of those, too.

Things are starting slow, but perhaps with this change, I'll see some significant improvement in growing.

Finals Week saw a cluster of tiny pots on my dorm windowsill, as gardening was an excellent way to procrastinate. They're home on the pool deck now in much larger pots, I've got some huge cucumbers, small tomatoes, carrots sprouts, strawberry sprouts, and a young parsley plant. I've just started some beans(I'll admit I don't know what type), bell peppers, rainbow carrots, spinach, spaghetti squash, blackberries, and radishes. If I want to bring one of these back with me to my dorm, any idea which one would grow best? I've got a big window that gets sun about 60-70% of the day.

My wife just planted a lime tree. We already have grapefruit and figs. The squirrels and dogs get the figs before we do, though.

In reply to KatieSuddard:

Maybe the blackberries, as alot of the other plants will either need a trellis of some type or will want to put out runners and spread?

mrwillie wrote: In reply to KatieSuddard: Maybe the blackberries, as alot of the other plants will either need a trellis of some type or will want to put out runners and spread?

May depend on the blackberry- ours are super agressive in brancing out above ground. The rasberries do it underground.

Katie- best question to me is- what do you want to consume? In the grow bag searching- there's a person who has a nice little indoor garden with containers.

The beans, cukes, and squash will vine out a lot, the lettuce and radishes do well in a single pot, and tomatos are in the middle of that- as you can get container bred plants.

Snowed yesterday/today. Am starting to wonder if we'll ever get to transfer our plants outside...

I've seen the bags, they do look pretty nifty. My biggest problem right now is still light, the dang maple tree leafed out and shaded everything, plus it -might- frost in a few nights and I already planted a couple tomatoes and peppers outside... If they die I do have plenty of back up plants, but it would be nice not to kill them all.

I'm starting not to feel so bad about my late start. I've got tomatoes, bell pepper, cukes, snap peas, lettuce, onions and some herbs and flowers. I decided to do a raised bed this year, and while doing my research I ran across these:

keyhole gardens: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/3726/#b

hugelkultur gardening: http://www.inspirationgreen.com/hugelkultur.html

Mix the three together, and I will have a low maint( watering and weeding ) raised bed, that will feed itself as the wood and compost break down. Thats the theory, anyway. We'll see how it goes. So far, my plants look real happy and the worms have been multiplying like crazy.

Now, I just have to get that doggone fence up....

Rufledt wrote: plus it -might- frost in a few nights and I already planted a couple tomatoes and peppers outside... If they die I do have plenty of back up plants, but it would be nice not to kill them all.

Get some empty 2 liter soda bottles, take the cap and label off, cut the bottom off and set them over the plants. Mini-greenhouse!

I tilled and planted our garden last Thursday. 10' x 20', but I fill it up. Three 10' rows of green beans, 2 cucumber, 2 cherry tomatoes, 8 green bell peppers, 8 Roma tomatoes, and 10 Better Boy tomatoes.

Rather crowded but the garden got 10 bags of Manure/Compost and a bag of plant fertilizer applied before I tilled it. Been doing that for 20 years now and we usually get good results.

Beans have already started to come up! Day time temps in the 80's and 1.6" of rain since I planted helped a lot.

Hal wrote:

Rufledt wrote: plus it -might- frost in a few nights and I already planted a couple tomatoes and peppers outside... If they die I do have plenty of back up plants, but it would be nice not to kill them all.

Get some empty 2 liter soda bottles, take the cap and label off, cut the bottom off and set them over the plants. Mini-greenhouse!

good idea! that just might save my tomatoes, friday night is now supposed to hit 32 just 3 days or so earlier than the record latest frost

My tomatoes are blooming already and I have peppers on my pepper plants.

You guys need to move to Canada where it's warm.

I think you're right! a couple peppers and a basil plant here just got damaged, but it didn't frost yet... weird, they weren't the strongest of plants, though.

If you want warm, come to Florida. My strawberries are blooming and I have a month old cucumber plant(from seeds) that's already a foot tall. Not to mention I planted some radishes on Sunday that are already an inch tall...

My seedlings got killed this week :( It turned out to be a Guinea Pig that got loose in the neighborhood. Seriously. Cute little guy too.

In reply to Rufledt:

The best thing to do with the dirt in that part of the state is to plow it into a banked oval about 5/8 of a mile and get modifieds. Sprint Cars could also work but cars without starters and clutches get tiresome after a couple restarts.

As a cheap fix my father in law tilled a bunch of sand into his yard. He gets tomatoes squash and cucumbers like crazy. Carrots don't do as well. They can't push through the ground and wind up being round like baseballs.

Update on my new garden. Got 14 bags made- but I'll have to do them again sometime- turns out that the really good gardening fabric isn't that great. But for this season, good enough.

Got my 4" PVC pipe in the ground with holes. And the float to self level the water- and that works.

So far I have 6 tomatoes in, and plan on adding one more plus a bunch of bags in between- probably peppers and eggplants.

Now for the rest of the summer to see how this experiment works. I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow- it was work today before the F1 race started.

In reply to alfadriver:

I'm looking forward to seeing pics of the setup. I dont have quite as much growth as I expected to have by this time, and it may be water related.

Tires put off some nasty stuff. I wouldn't plant edibles in them.

Here's a shot of the garden- it's 14' long, 14 spots to put a bag, and there's a 4" PVC tube underneath. <img src="" />

A couple of the bags I made- basically a 3'x 1.5' piece of garden fabric, sewn up the 3' seam to make roughly a 12" tube, and then the bottom is sewn in a diagonal pattern for a 9x9 square. The middle is open so that I can put a little basket in there- where the soil is packed into it, and that is in the water all the time.

The mix is basically 1 part compost, 2 parts peat, some pearlite, and then some chemicals for balance. It should wick the water up slowly.

At one end is this float valve- which I can change the depth of the water. It's now about half way up the tube, which seems pretty good. The water is attached to a rain barrel- which is on all the time. Gotta keep an eye on the barrel level, to see if it's leaking someplace.

I have some old black watering tube that I plan to use to replace the garden hose.

And if this works, I'll put another right in front of this one, and then a few more in a different part of my yard where I have a garden. All in all, one garden can have 28 bags, the other closer to 30, so I can grow about 60 square foot gardens. Pretty cool.