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Post by emmsmommy on Mar 3, 2022 16:20:11 GMT -5
I have never been able to grow a decent lima bean but that's not going to stop me from trying again. That sounds like me with broccoli and cauliflower but guess who planted seeds today.
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Post by martywny on Mar 3, 2022 16:37:29 GMT -5
That sounds like me with broccoli and cauliflower but guess who planted seeds today. I also have that problem with broccoli and cauliflower and planted seeds again two days ago.
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Post by gardendmpls on Mar 4, 2022 0:03:34 GMT -5
I have never been able to grow a decent lima bean Last year grew Worchester Indian Red from Mary's Heirloom seeds over one side of the chicken coop. Got a big harvest, something I never had before. With other varieties I rarely got enough seeds harvested to refill the seed packet. Mary's has a lot of interesting heirloom seeds: www.marysheirloomseeds.com/
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Post by ahntjudy on Mar 4, 2022 10:42:38 GMT -5
I have never been able to grow a decent lima bean If you like baby limas, Henderson Baby Lima Bush Beans have always produced very vigorously for me... Though I found out the hard way one year to not get anxious and plant them too early...Ground needs to warm up a bit for them...
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Post by raphanus on Mar 5, 2022 7:34:12 GMT -5
raphanus, Wow! Your garden is stunning and makes me eager to start more seeds. I had trouble with Lima beans last year. Out of three plantings I had two seeds germinate and they only produced a pod or two. I'm trying an inoculate this year in hopes of better results as well as trying seeds from a different source. Would fava beans grow well there or will the temps get too hot before they produce? Thanks so much!!! Lima beans are a little tricky because they won’t tolerate frost, but they also don’t like hot weather, so they do best at higher altitudes or places with long springs or cool summers. I’ve had better luck with pole types than with bush types. Inoculum definitely helps. Sometimes I’ll companion plant legumes with inoculated clover. I’ve only grown fava beans twice, once when I lived in California and once here in the swamp. They are pretty and it’s fun to see a bean plant that will tolerate freezing temperatures, you are right I don’t think they like hot weather. They make for a great winter cover crop, but I’m paranoid about Favism so I don’t grow them.
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Post by raphanus on Mar 20, 2022 8:55:23 GMT -5
I haven’t posted in a few weeks because I’ve been swamped, but also had a really bad altercation with the neighbor and it basically made me not want to work in the gardens for a while, and the gardens being a big part of my identity and how I spend all of my free time, it has been challenging. I changed the name of my journal because I’m no longer in the swamp, I have abandoned the trailer park swamp garden and doubt I will ever be back there. That was a little sad because it was 16 years of great soil building and ecological improvement, but I can’t live in two different places. The urban permaculture orchard is a few miles west of the old swamp garden, higher elevation, a different soil type, and much drier. The orchard is only 1/3 of an acre, right in the middle of the city, in a bad crime-infested area with regular shootings and traffic and pollution and rowdy bars, but the backyard is a pretty insulated oasis. It was my grandpa’s house and I started planting fruit trees with him when I was a kid, and he would always grow a little bit of corn, beans, squash, peppers, and to,stones. Very standard and basic vanilla southern garden, plant on Good Friday, mow everything down around Thanksgiving, waste the whole winter season, type of garden. But at least he had a garden. And he taught me to love gardening. Grandpa was my dad, and him and Mom died toward the end of 2021, and now it’s just me here. The next door neighbor has been here for 20+ years and we’ve always been friendly, I’ve helped him build fences and move heavy stuff, we’ve shared tools, we didn’t make him pay when a tree from his yard fell on our house a few years ago, we always give him fruit from our citrus trees and I thought we got along great, he asks me for gardening advice, he’s an awful gardener and the seedlings I give him every spring always die, but I still give him more. Two weeks ago I was out in the garden planting apple trees and offered him some collards. He said “you just never give up do you” which I thought was a reference to apple trees not doing well here, they often die during the heat of summer. He went on to accuse me of stealing the apples trees from my work (I don’t work at an orchard), then told me I need to stop pushing my agenda. then exploded into a 45 minute rant telling me how my grandpas house needs to be pressure washed and how the sheds need repainting and how messy the yard looks and how awful my gardens look and what an eyesore the greenhouse is and how selfish I am not thinking about my neighbors’ view, and how I need to try to fit into the culture of the neighborhood, and then despite my abject silence, he kept going and said I need to get my life together and how I have nothing to show for myself at 35, and how if I got a real job (I work on a farm), I would be able to afford eggs and produce and wouldn’t have to grow it, and then told me how mad he was that I planted corn in the front yard and then told me I was a hoarder and told me how disappointed my recently deceased parents were with how I turned out and how I have no respect and all I care about is my “hobby” (referring to the garden), and was all excited to tell me that he reported me for having chickens because the fine is $500 per bird and he knows I don’t have $2000 and maybe I’ll get evicted, this went on for 45 minutes despite the fact that it was 40 degrees and starting to rain. I concluded that he must literally be out of his mind with dementia or Alzheimer’s. I thanked him for the life advice, and then spent sunup to sundown trying to appease all of his demands, pressure washed the house, repainted the sheds, took a weedwhacker to half the garden, pulled up all the corn, did a bunch of mowing and weed whacking rearranging and tidying. I haven’t decided what I am going to do about him, but it really changed my relationship with the gardens. The gardens wee my life boat, gardening is how I stay busy to avoid grieving and drinking and dealing with anxiety and depression. The gardens are what keep me sane, and lately I just haven’t felt comfortable working in the gardens unless I’m sure he’s not home. Anyway, sorry for the rant, but that’s why I haven’t posted in a bit.
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Post by emmsmommy on Mar 20, 2022 10:38:19 GMT -5
raphanus, I'm so sorry. Unfortunately sometimes the comments and opinions of others can be devastating. I did work the "real job" to the point that my back was shot and my stress level was through the roof. I've also been in the situation where drinking seemed preferable to grieving and am glad I realized that before it got out of hand. If you're doing what you love and your income provides for your needs, then I suggest you continue doing what you love instead of being miserable. I'm assuming you're in a residential area with some strict codes, so maybe do what you can to abide and possibly consider a fence between you and the neighbor if one doesn't already exist.
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Post by reuben on Mar 20, 2022 13:00:15 GMT -5
Wow, I'm sorry to hear all of that.
People change due to age and other reasons, and not always for the better.
My mother is almost 94, and she gets a little sweeter and nicer every day. But there's at least one person where she lives who has gone in the opposite direction, occasionally berating the staff or another resident for no good reason. I feel sorry for her and those that she negatively affects, inuding her family.
I'm pretty sure that she wasn't like that her entire life, and that her brain has just aged poorly as she slips toward her end. Perhaps your neighbor is traveling a similar path.
Good luck. Don't hesitate to call the police or get some sort of restraining order.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Mar 20, 2022 15:39:41 GMT -5
Sorry to hear about that ignorant neighbor of yours, raphanus. Hopefully, you'll be able to block someone like that out of your life, and continue what you love to do. I like reuben's idea of a restraining order, if necessary. I'm not sure what your situation is there, but many areas here in Jersey have become "urbanized", from farmland selling off, and developments being built all over. Then some of those moving in would complain about the farmland they had moved in next to, even though they had been there before the ignorant newcomers were born! Though they would try, they'd never succeed, in trying to get their codes applied to the farms. But, like I said, I don't know the situation there.
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Post by desertwoman on Mar 20, 2022 15:57:33 GMT -5
Wow raphanus , that was a lot to deal with. Please don't let that man get in the way of your happiness and sanity. I think everyone here gardens for our health and sanity so come here for support. We understand! And I must say- I am impressed with your response to 'thank him for the life advice'. I don't know that I would have been so gracious. But growing a beautiful garden (and yours is a beauty) is a wonderful thing to do and though the other neighbors may not be doing that, you can! One of the most important life lessons I've learned is to Follow your Heart-it knows where it's going! Don't let go of your life boat! I just opened a container of sorbet recently and the seal over the top had the message 'Different is Beautiful' Dare to be yourself. You sound like a good man.
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Post by Wheelgarden on Mar 20, 2022 16:01:47 GMT -5
That's awful, raphanus . I hate it for you and the risk you feel, and I kind of feel sorry for the neighbor. By the way, the food, produce, and plants look wonderful.
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Post by raphanus on Mar 24, 2022 7:07:59 GMT -5
I found a massive poison Ivy infestation in the backyard yesterday, I’ll make a separate thread asking for help. It’s very extensive, all underneath my loquat trees and under my chicken coop and I think the roots of the Ivy occupy a space that is easily 15x40 ft. I thought I dug out all the roots last year but more have invaded. I got shortness of breath while trying to hoe some of it out yesterday. I hate chemicals but might have to resort to buying glyphosate for the first time in my life. I’m pretty sure urishiol is a lot more acutely dangerous to my health than glyphosate.
I replanted the front yard garden yesterday.
I ripped out about 50 corn seedlings and replaced them with more aesthetically-pleasing vegetables.
There’s a bad florida bettany problem in the front yard and despite my best efforts to dig deep holes and remove as many florida bettany rhizomes as possible, the bettany is already usurping the compost mounds I placed on top of the double-dug holes.
There are 8 rows, the four rows on the left have 9 or 10 planting holes / compost mounds, and the 4 on the right have 12-13, so the spacing is a bit tighter on the right. A friend helped me and he did one side and wasn’t paying attention 😂.
The first row from the left is all zucchini, four different types, three of which are Italian heirlooms and one is a modern F1 powdery mildew resistant golden variety.
The next row is tomatoes alternating with zinnias. The next two rows are a mix of zinnias and zucchinis.
From the far right, there is a row of zinnias, a row of peppers, a row of purple bush beans, and a row of zinnias alternating with zucchinis.
The two large raised beds are mostly zinnias and zucchini with a border of crimson clover.
My friend unfortunately hid some luffas in random places. It’s kind of a weird tradition, he goes around and plants random gourds all over the place, in peoples’ gardens, in fancy ornamental landscaping arrangements in public, pretty much anywhere there is dirt.
I’ve been giving away a lot of tomato plants. I had 80 plants and will probably keep a dozen for myself. The seeds are cheap, but I filled all the four inch pots with Fox Farm and the price of pots keeps going up as well.
Unfortunately the labels came off most of them, the sun and rain took off a lot of the sharpie. I really should invest in wooden pot labels and pencils, but I’m lazy and cheap and I find it kind of fun to guess which variety is which. I just hope I didn’t give away all of any particular variety.
I can tell the green giant and brandy wine yellow because they are potato leaf. They are novelty and won’t yield well. I think I can tell the gooseberry and cherry types because they grow the fastest, have thinner more serrated leaves and make lots of suckers. Everything else is a guess, but I’m guessing the Roma VRs are my big yielded this year
Last year we had the latest frost I’ve ever seen in my life here, the middle of April. The last two years have been unusually cold.
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Post by gardendmpls on Mar 24, 2022 9:38:59 GMT -5
Unfortunately the labels came off most of them, the sun and rain took off a lot of the sharpie. What kind of labels do you use? I use wide masking tape and a good permanent marker with black ink, as other colors may not stay on as well. The pots are in foil trays that hold 15 and are bottom watered, which also helps preserve the label. I pull off the tape right after transplanting. Otherwise, the next year it's hard to get off and sometimes I just have to tape over them. For in the garden labels, I used to use cut up plastic blinds, courtesy of the Lowes' parking lot where they were dumped. Later I would buy a box of 500 plastic knives to write on. The writing would fade enough by clean-up that I could write over and re-use. This year I bought garden labels- remind me of my cut up blinds, but in different colors. They could stand to be a few inches longer. Also bought a marker that is supposed to be made for outdoor plant labeling. We will see how it goes.
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Post by martywny on Mar 24, 2022 11:14:04 GMT -5
For in the garden labels, I used to use cut up plastic blinds, I use cut-up mini-blinds right now and will buy some proper plant tags when I run out of those. Get yourself a Staedtler marker. They are much better than the Sharpies.
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Post by emmsmommy on Mar 24, 2022 16:45:00 GMT -5
I use mini blinds as well for plant markers, but usually write the tomato variety under the lip of the pots I plant them in. They're usually only in the pot for a month.
As for your poison ivy problem, I'm absolutely no help. I seem to be able to walk within a few feet of it and end up with a rash.
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