Growing your own

My shit so far -

Need to get some more grow bags and plant those peppers. Think I might have just killed a tomato plant...

Also, I bought these for 19p each thinking they probably wouldnt work, bugger me the things are growing, amazin!

Also got some more basil, water melons and some different flowers in grow pots in the kitchen window which are coming on quite nicely.

My chili plants have got quite a few leaves now, but they're probably about 7 inches high and quite tall and thin. I've put them outside but the wind is probably a bit too much for them, they haven't broken but they do bend quite a lot and the leaves move to one side. Should I leave them to man up, or bring them inside? I want them to get HUGE!

I found a pic on google which looks a bit like mine, but the stem is still quite green and very bendy rather than brown like this dudes (one at the front).

I have 16 apple trees, two cherry trees, one plum tree and one grape tree. Also one pear tree but it doesn't give any pears :( Growing strawberies, sunflowers, radishes, various salads and oregano in the garden and few tomaytoes in pots at home.

I dunno really, I'm still a n00b at all this stuff. I'd bring all my plants inside if I could. I'd love a massive walk in Greenhouse, I would probably live in it.

Its just started lashing down here, the tomato plant that I thought I killed...its pretty much dead now. :(

edit: nice, Adam!

my girlfriend does this a lot recently. Its really awesome to see all this grow. I am only able to grow carnivore plants myself

  On 6/2/2011 at 12:28 PM, Gary C said:

Mint is really easy to grow. It's essentially a virilent weed. We picked up a little plant years ago and it's constantly overgrowing it's tub and dominating anything else we try to put in it.

seriously. I found a bit of mint growing in one of my flower beds, and thought "well that's cool, smells so nice :sup:" and before I knew it that thing was attempting to do the sideways shuffle all the way across the lawn. I dug it up and put a little bit in the herb bed and it completely fucking took over (well, that and the remorseless chives). Mint's a nuisance to dig up because its roots grow horizontally under the soil and it just sprawls out like it lazily needs to touch every corner of the earth. sheit. still smells nice, anyway.

rosemary is where it's at in the herb garden imo

alright, im going to sound retarded, but i need some help anyways.

ive lived in row houses for a while so I never had to water/plant anything save for small pretty looking plant life.

anyway, im housewatching for somebody right now and they have a ton of trees and shrubs to water....there hasnt been any rain so I water every other day, giving the younger trees up to a gallon of water each and most of the bigger stuff i sorta rinse bc i assume the root systems are now self sufficient.

However, they have a couple of plants on a hedge in the front of the house...about 8 of them. 6 of them seem fine, fresh, green, etc. healthy.

the other two however, look like they are dying...i cant figure out if its the heat or if they arent getting enough water?? so i have been watering them everyday as opposed to every other day. can you over water hedge shrubs in deep mulch? WHY THE FUCK ARE THESE HEDGES DYING WTF WOE IS ME

also, i want to start growing plants along my windowsill. i am very new to this. any recommendations?

You can definitely over-water plants, even shrubs.

Make sure to water them in the afternoon. If you water them before midday they may fry in the sun.

Use a sprinkler head or a spray on your hose. Never just glug water out of a can or hose end as it's often too heavy and breaks leaves and disturbs the soil.

Try to spray from the top down so that the leaves recieve most of the water and it trickles to the base and roots. Just watering the base will cause a lot of problems as it could drown and rot.

And maybe prune the shrubs, if you think you have to. Most tend to outgrow themselves.

A gallon sounds like a lot, but I don't know how dry your area is. I'd recommend watering less in quantity, but every evening.

could be something to do w/ the soil.. i had a couple arbor vitae just turn totally dead on me - one only a year after planting, while the rest of the row (of over a dozen) were doing well. i'm pretty sure there was some sort of mold/ fungus that had attacked a nearby tree's roots and was in the soil just in that area.

@ gary - water in the afternoon? i've read that it's good to water in the morning, but i may take your advice. i live in an area where it doesn't get much hotter than 80 in the summer... so i don't think the plants will fry, but can you say a bit more about watering? you seem to have some knowledge up your sleeve

im bound by work, so i tend to water whenever i get free.

the gallon for the trees i think its understandable...i mean we are talking potentially huge trees...

maybe i did overwater them...but that still doesn't explain why the other 6 are perfectly healthy....i wonder if they are overexposed to the sun?

ill have to do the sprinkler method from now on! thanks for the tips!

I must have heard this somewhere before as I have no real evidence that it works best, but it makes sense logically.

I water in the afternoon in summer and in the morning in winter.

Summer = fry during the day. Winter = freeze during the night.

Watering is down to common sense. All my veg and herbs are doing well at the moment with my nightly watering regime. I soak them each for almost a minute with a mist hose. I make sure to see the soil go glossy and angle the hose so that the water rises and then falls naturally on the plants rather than just pummeling them.

I went away for a long weekend and had a friend come to water them, but he couldn't have done it as religiously as me because it took me four days to rejuvenate my hanging basket of flowers and my sunflowers now have an obvious kink in their stems.

Now that my tomato plant is safely established I'm feeding them one handful of plant feed (mixed into a litre of water) once a week.

I tend to spread that litre around a little though and drop a few seconds on whatever looks like it might need it.

I have a bonsai tree that isn't doing as well as the others at the moment. It was bought from a supermarket so I imagine that it was in a pretty bad state to begin with and as yet I don't have the correct tools to prune it, but I have decided to leave it outside rather than in the kitchen. Regulated heat and little to no wind can't be good for a plant.

So far this year I'm growing:

-black beans

-chickpeas

-herbs (ten different kinds)

-jalapeño peppers

-peanuts

-red kidney beans

-red peppers

-tomatoes (two different kinds)

Also an apple tree & a grape plant. Thinking about growing avocados & some of the boring obvious stuff like onions and potatoes.

Bit ot, but my roses came out nice this spring.

Last summer we grew some tomatoes, potatoes, jalapeno, inferno, and red peppers. They were all dinky because SF weather in the sunset district isn't very forgiving for plants.

Also, some gophers killed our tomato plants. Bastards.

  On 6/7/2011 at 5:29 PM, Gary C said:

I must have heard this somewhere before as I have no real evidence that it works best, but it makes sense logically.

I water in the afternoon in summer and in the morning in winter.

Summer = fry during the day. Winter = freeze during the night.

 

Watering is down to common sense. All my veg and herbs are doing well at the moment with my nightly watering regime. I soak them each for almost a minute with a mist hose. I make sure to see the soil go glossy and angle the hose so that the water rises and then falls naturally on the plants rather than just pummeling them.

I went away for a long weekend and had a friend come to water them, but he couldn't have done it as religiously as me because it took me four days to rejuvenate my hanging basket of flowers and my sunflowers now have an obvious kink in their stems.

 

Now that my tomato plant is safely established I'm feeding them one handful of plant feed (mixed into a litre of water) once a week.

I tend to spread that litre around a little though and drop a few seconds on whatever looks like it might need it.

 

I have a bonsai tree that isn't doing as well as the others at the moment. It was bought from a supermarket so I imagine that it was in a pretty bad state to begin with and as yet I don't have the correct tools to prune it, but I have decided to leave it outside rather than in the kitchen. Regulated heat and little to no wind can't be good for a plant.

Good advice. Watering really does come down to common sense. I think early morning is a good time for my what I'm up to - I just reseeded & fertilized the lawn after an epic battle with moss, so I'm trying to keep the new grass happy and wet for a couple weeks. I generally try to avoid giving the lawn, herbs, and flowers any more water than they need to be healthy, though. I've lived with people who believe that more water is always good water, but that can easily turn your plants into thirsty pussies that can't survive without constant nourishment. The roots dig deeper when you give them just enough hydration (or so I've been told).

It's nice to know that so many watmmers are growing their own produce or gardening.

we are going to try an herb garden soon due to the mass amounts of cilantro and basil we consume. I've read that deer don't like to eat them so it's worth a shot.