I love real balsamic vinegar! I have a friend that travels the world and brings back balsamic vinegar from everywhere she travels. I make a little mixture of 'real honey' and good balsamic, spread it on a nice piece of Salmon and broil. Add just enough honey, so that the mixture won't run off the meat. Simple yet almost unbeatable. I also love a little balsamic on fresh baked bread. cheers os
3 1/2 days later...... I just checked the tray last night and almost half the seeds have popped the root plugs already. Now this morning a few more popped and a few have stood up enough I need to get a T5 over the dome today before those first ones start to get leggy. always exciting to me to see seeds pop, no matter how many it's still a wondrous process to experience and watch, especially knowing I started it on it's path. I also equated it to a similar thing I have tons of experience in in my life, b&w photography darkroom work. No matters how many thousands (tens of thousands most likely) sheets of photographic paper I exposed under an enlarger, placed into a tray of developing solution, and than under the safelight watch this image literally just magically appear on the paper.... from the very first print I ever put into a developing tray and watched the image appear until the last one I did years ago the miracle of it never ceased to amaze me on EVERY single print I ever did. Seeds are the same. put them somewhere warm and moist and they pop open and grow - from seemingly nothing. where did this now big seedling come from? it's too big to have fit inside that little round seed. hell lok how small something like a tomato seed is, or some of the herb seeds are TINY yr these big plants come from inside it. no matter how much I've seen it or read and learned the real growing info from the science side, it's still amazing. of course, this is the easy part. only one tray to deal with. soon enough it will be almost 50 plants, and I have to get a another seed tray started.
'morning all! thought I'd post what my morning has been so far... A tomato cutting in a test cup of my first ever homemade soil mix. First cutting in the first version of the soil died in the first 24 hours - this is the second cutting in the second version of the soil. She is 3x her size from when I planted her in the cup. I guess the soil mix isn't too screwed up She's ready to go into her new home, the 12 gal tote with my soil mix. My indoor veggie patch is this 2' x 4' tent with QB board lighting and a 2'x2' rack next to it for overflow with a 2' 8-bulb T5HO and than a single T5HO for seedlings, cuttings, etc I can fit 3 of these 12 gal totes in the tent perfect and gives me more more soil volume than I could fit with individual grow bags per plant. I'm planning a single tomato, pepper, and basil per tote. on the rack will go smaller stuff like the strawberries and some other small stuff but the rest will have to go outside on the deck in containers or maybe big totes the cutting seems to like my soil better than her mom who lives off bottled organic stuff (Neptune Harvest) and before that Maxibloom. oh, i see a bit of breakfast waiting for me..... and progress on my spring plants seedlings first tray: a couple I realized I mis-planted so had to cull a few and re-do them so 4 of them are 4 days behind the others. Considering that, germination rates are a heck of a lot better than I've been getting on my med plants seeds this winter.
Thought this would be the best place to post this. I'm trying to start a vegetable garden outside and need to know what to do to start it. I've been successful in growing cannabis inside. Now I want to move my organics to the sun LOL. And just need to know how do I start what would you guys recommend? Sent from my moto x4 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
I usually try to avoid the outside which is why I prefer my veggie garden indoors... lol but since no one seems to be chiming in I'd first ask what zone you are in if you know, what kind of area do you have to work with, do you want to do inground, raised beds, container gardening? Do you have an actual yard with space for a garden or is something like a container grow on a deck or balcony? how much sun do you get where you have outdoor space to grow, how many hours a day does it get sun, and does it get sun throughout the season or just partially? generally though, mix up some good soil and plant some seeds. you don't need an expensive soil mix. how to proceed best could depend on answers from at least some of the above questions or else people are just throwing info or ideas at you that may or may not be relevant. sorry, this is just adding more questions rather than answers, but hard to answer you without at least some of above hope some other jump in for you. I'm off to work!
Try some fast fun stuff in containers! Super Sugar Snap peas are hard to beat and are super easy. Just need a pot and a string or trellis of sorts to train them on. There is also a Pea called 'Peas in a Pot', that don't grow as a vine, and grow great in a container with just a little stick for support. Green beans are also super fast and grow great in containers. Cucumbers go great in containers, I train them to grow up a fence, but anything works. Baby Bok Choi, or 'Toy Choi', is a superfast little green that grows great in containers. Another super rewarding thing to do is start a container spice garden. Its so nice when you whip up a dish, to just go cut off whatever you need. cheers os
Don't know the zone but I'm in MD USA. We're getting about 12 hours of sunlight. Have a huge backyard. Bout half an acre for just the backyard. Only want to use a couple square feet for the garden. I'm gonna actually plant in the ground, no raised beds or containers (I may do some containers just because I have some 5 gallons available). Now give me help!!! Just kidding, thank you for your help. Sent from my moto x4 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
You must have some deciduous trees also I’m assuming? If so, stake out your garden area, and gather as many fallen leaves as you can find and pile them up on that spot. The more the merrier. Add to it again this fall when the leaves fall. Then next spring you can push leaves aside and plant anything you want and it should do fine and it’ll only get better year after year. If you have access to some compost or composted manure to put down first that’s icing on the cake. Then just add 6-12” of leaves every fall, and manure or compost every 2-3 years and you should have an easy garden. For this year I would follow the advice @Organic sinse gave you and grow a few veggies in pots. Those can still be useful once your garden plot is going. I keep over a dozen pots in addition to my garden and I usually add some almost every year.
Another reason to try stuff in containers is to get a feel for where the 'good spots' are in the yard. Ex., if you want to eventually grow tomatoes in the ground, try one in a container in that spot. If it sucks, move it to another spot etc. cheers os
Mainah and Organic both answered better than i ever could so I'll jump out. The container idea while you use the time to get your soil ready for next year sounds best and meanwhile growing in containers is in many ways easier and as organic mentioned it can allow you to move plants around as you want/need In my current living situation i have no real usable backyard and what's there is mostly in shade and deer walk through all the time so bad for a garden so I can only realistically do container gardening on the deck. Going to use a lot of 18 gallon tubs and maybe a few 55 gallon ones for the tomato and pepper plants and than a bunch of railing planters for small stuff like herbs and companion planting stuff.
soil porn....and maybe even some 'pink thang' ... one of my two ~6' square raised beds. i needed to replace the frame this year.... talk about total living organics and leave it the fuck alone, look at that black gold. it's got so much life in it the soil it looks alive because it's moving around. even spiders and such! this is about 8yrs old. muy, muy, bueno! look at this fat boy. my goodness! and after all that work, what's left of a solid lunch. umm, umm, gewde life's short. play tall! grow, grow, grow....
some of you may remember a couple weeks back I was having issues I thought getting my soil mix OK because of course I went "off book" and didn't follow all the good, simple instructions and advice that was already posted..... anyway..... on my first mix I tested it with a newly rooting tomato plant cutting. Thing was wilty in hours, dead in 24 hours.... The second version of the mix seems to have a slight improvement at least. The second tomato is ding much better. She has been transplanted from the dixie cup she started in to this small container. I was going to put her in her new final home 12 gal tote in the indoor veggie tent but giving serious consideration to moving that tent to the basement for the summer - the upper bedroom gives me temp issues in the summer. Thinking it will be easier to deal with warming up cooler temps in the basement instead of fighting heat in the bedroom - plus I can expand the veggie tent a lot that way Meanwhile, while I consider my summer veggie tent location she is happy in her temp container I'm glad she seems happy because that's the soil my meds plants will be growing in!. She was the soil tester. one very strange observation I made on her immediately after transplanting her from the dixie cup into this container: the top leaf on the right, the one immediately below the blossom cluster, it looks fine now but when I first transplanted her that leaf starting curing down, a little bit each day getting worst over the course of 3-4 days until the entire length of the leaf was curling up into a ball. none of the other leaves did it at all, only that top one. than it started to unroll itself over the next few days. finally, about two days ago or so it came back to normal as you now see it just like all the other leaves on the plant and doesn't look any worst for wear. odd!! I need to cut those blossoms off the plant and let it concentrate on rooting and growing but always hate to take away what the plants spends so much energy creating. like killing it's babies lol but it needs a good pruning, the blossoms need to go and I'm getting suckers from every leaf node now which also need to go. This will be trained as a "2-stem" plant and both stems staked separate. The main stem already started staked and the other branch with a white twist tie will be the 2nd main stem and will get staked. and only 11 more tomato plants, a dozen pepper plants, 2 cherry plants, strawberries, and various herbs and companion plants to go...... and for the rest of the outdoor plants I finished mixing up the soil. approx 110 - 113 gallons or so. The big trash container is 96 gal and the storage tote is 18 and both filled. now just have to wait a few more weeks to make sure we are past last frost before anything goes outside. Just all going to be containers and totes on this deck. also a bunch of railing planters for smaller items like the strawberries and herbs like basils, lemon balms, mints, etc and some companion plantings
Looking good man! I’d be tempted to put the soil in the pots now and cover with mulch and water a little just to let the microbes get to work and hope for a little mycelium action to start before you plant. That would give you a good boost!
We started consolidating 3 beds into 1 yesterday to make room for a 8x12 greenhouse, and we finished the bed and most of the ground prep this morning. The raised bed in the background is about 18” of some of the best soil I’ve ever seen. I sprinkled a little kelp and some other goodies in about a foot below the surface to let it cook for awhile before the roots find it later in the spring. I haven’t planted anything in it yet but soon I’ll start some peas, carrots, and beets. As you can see snow is still covering some of the garden.
actually going to cover both containers with a cover layer and let it sit for the next week or two until it's safe from frost. figure it should amount to the same another reason is i'm not sure yet how many containers and where on the deck they are going yet. never really grew out on THIUS deck before and trying to watch lately to see how the sun tracks, what areas get light and when and for how long... etc. i have a couple weeks yet before the small girls inside have to come out
NICE!!!! wish i had room like that to put in a bunch of nice beds. damn i really miss the farm i grew up on.... and a greenhouse is a dream I'll probably never achieve..... sigh LOL looks like a great plot to grow on. look at all the leftover snow.... right now here it warm, sunny, and a beautiful 70f or so. perfect! i'd be happy if it never got any hotter. I could live with todays weather 365/yr
So man - I ***REALLY*** didn’t feel like it lol - but I’m SO glad I spent the morning putting this together - it’s all horse manure (thanks Joy!), autumn leaves and old hay - It takes a damn lot to make a heap I’ll tell you whut! A good soaking this afternoon will get her goin’. ***WHERE ALL THE MAGIC BEGINS*** So get the heaps started folks - JUST DO IT. J