Forum: Gardening

Fall will soon be upon us. I live in Central Iowa, zone 5a(?) and would love to plant some garlic this fall for next summer's harvest. Suggestions on which varieties to consider, and just how do I plant it, and over winter it for a successful harvest? TIA

Alrighty, got the last bits of the garden harvested yesterday, and now everything is mulched or will soon be mulched and is ready for winter. What seed catalogs are y'all looking at right now? And what's on your must plant list? For the first time in ages ALL of my raised beds are filled...

My Swedish Ivy appears to have spider mites, I think. Its suddenly looking bad, and there's this web like crap around it. :shk: I'll try to get photos tomorrow but I think it might be spider mites, what do I use to treat my ivy? TIA

Just wondering if anyone is starting seeds yet, or not? It's been so warm here, in Iowa, that I'm thinking of having OC put the hoop house lid on the one raised bed, he'd also have to install the heat activated vent, and covering that puppy with some clear plastic and starting some herbs and...

https://www.farmersalmanac.com/calendar/gardening/ May 2019 Planting Guide 1st - 2nd Poor planting. Fine for cultivating or spraying. 3rd - 4th First day is a good day for transplanting. First day is also when planted root crops will yield well. Second day is favorable for planting...

I am considering building a new garden complete surrounded by a chicken run, as a 'chicken moat' it seems to be called. Has anyone here built one of these?

So anyone here in Texas saving their seed from year to year? I ask because I am looking for some varieties (of vegetables and herbs) that have been climatize to the Texas weather through several generations of local breeding. I am curious to see how much (if at all) better they might grow...

Thank you Huricane Harvey. My garden was pretty much completely destroyed. Time to plant anew... ...but my chickens (only 2) survived.

Has anyone tried it? Pros and cons? Thanks in advance.

For those of you who have them: Are they worth the effort to make them? Do they really increase the yields or are they just a time saving device? Thanks in advance for your replies!

After reading it on TB I'm doing the back to Eden garden. I've gotten all of the old grass encrusted raised beds broken down, the paper is spread and chips are on top. I have one really nice pepper plant that I want to try and save through winter. It has two tomato cages on top of it, so I...

Down here in Hot Georgia I plant carrots in fall and they are usually ready to pull in mid December. I could plant them in the spring but the heat tends to make them bitter. There are always some that aren't big enough to pull so I just leave them. I pulled up some of those in early spring and I...

Have any of you tried to direct seed collards in the garden? How do you do it? I tried starting some in seed starting pots and it didn't work. They got leggy and died. I always end up buying plants but I sure would like to grow my own from seed. It's August 1st so I think I still have...

Learning by experience. I don't usually buy pelleted seeds but I got some when my favorite carrot seeds weren't available locally one year so I tried something new. I got some pelleted carrot seeds, not my usual variety but they did great. They are a couple of years old now and I tried them...

It has rained here just about every other day for a month. It hasn't been unusual to get at least a half inch of rain or more in an afternoon. I thought for sure I was going to have a bunch of cat-faced cracked tomatoes. But no. I've got Rudgers the size of softballs. The kind of luscious, great...

I was looking into the program here in Ga. and was wondering if it is worth the time and money to do it.

I did something different this year, I grew my blackeye peas on a trellis. I stretched netting down a row and I didn't go to too much trouble about putting it as low to the ground as I normally would with beans. I am so pleased with the results they grew like pole beans and I got a better yield and...

This year I grew heirloom collards called Alabama Blue. It is a beautiful plant the stems and the veins in the leaves are purple. They grew well and the flavor was excellent. I have never tried to save collards seeds before and had no idea that the plants actually form seed pods. So I am going...

I have some heirloom onion plants in the garden and the aphids have just about finished them off. I haven't been sitting idly by watching this and I will share with you the homemade remedies that haven't worked and hopefully, lastly applied, the one that did work. The first failed remedy was...

The garden has really produced this year and the tomatoes are abundant and beautiful. I'm trying not to allow any of them to go to waste or rot. Besides giving many away I have found the best way to do that is to freeze them. Wash them load them up in plastic grocery sacks and put them in the...

good news is that tomatoes are off to a great start this year. I've already tied most of mine twice and have some small blossoms on the cherokees, amish paste and san marzanos. although I haven't seen any signs of it yet the "bad news" is that all this rain and cool temperatures in the SE are a...

we've grown sweet potatoes (Beauregards) for 12-15 years with great success averaging harvests of 350 lbs with regularity. I always thought we were pretty good at it - UNTIL THIS YEAR. we planted our own slips in the same fashion as we always do - and at the same time (the last week of may) -...

we have typically harvested our sweet potatoes by manually digging them - one hill at a time - using a 5 prong fork and starting about 3 feet away from the hill. that can be incredibly labor intensive - typically taking an entire day from start of the dig to having them ready to cure. is that...

This is my first full year at my new digs. I'm here by myself - with some occasional help from friends & family - whom I hope to benefit from what I'm planning here. I've got 10 acres to play with. I'm taking care of the big structural improvements/remodelling/maintenance issues this year......

How much weather data do you try to keep track of? Do you manually record it? or have a set up to transfer to computer?

Anyone have experience growing shell beans? Dried beans? Since the price in the stores has gone up so much, I figure I should experiment with them as soon as possible. Be nice to not take up as much storage space with them too.