Gardening

[Desaster Plan]

Gardening is one of my passions although I really no nothing about it.  Total amateur, but I am so willing to learn.  My dream is to have a lovely and productive garden. This includes, flowers, vegetables, herbs, and fruit. 

Last year I began a series of videos and a web page called The Paranormal Gardener.  They are amateur and yet kinda fun.  Tetra is going to help me on the upcoming new season. I'll let him edit it. lol.  Here is my favorite one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLkgf-5S4mU

 

And here is the website: http://theparanormalgardener.com/   Unfortunately, I forgot to renew the photo space and now the pictures arn't there.  Oh well, I'll take care of that in a bit. 

 

I would be grateful for any feedback or tips on how to's. 

[JohnR]

Good work, PaTriciaT.  The main thing I've learned is soil temperature is vital in the spring.  You can start to get the soil warm by spreading black plastic or fabric over the soil bed in the spring.  I've also learned that weeding has to be done almost every day until the desired plants get higher than the grass and undesirables.  I'm sure you're on top of that, but there's my two cents.

Loved your vid.

[JohnR]

Yes, I just found that, being a hater of weed-pulling, to be pleased to learn that the chore got easier once I established my plants.  One other thing I'm exploring is getting heirloom seeds.  If anyone has any info on it, I'd love it if you posted.  The problem is that the big agro companies want to sell us hybrid seeds which don't produce viable seed after they flower.

[Kal'Narred]

Excellent video paTricia, and it’s good to put a voice to a face. I am having a go at hydroponics, though I am a complete novice I tend to have good luck with things. I’ve started with a red and blue LED grow light, a bathroom extractor, a space blanket and a cheep thermometer/hygrometer, not expecting success, low and behold it works. Do any of you think tomatoes are good candidates for an indoor growing experiment?

[JohnR]

I do because they are so delicious.  I know I can grow tomatoes through December in my solarium.

[Kal'Narred]

Ok I have 2 questions for you JohnR about compost. 1 is it worth grinding up clean animal bone to produce bone meal? Will that enrich the soil? (and incidentally can you do the same with the shells from shellfish like mussels?). And 2 can all organic matter go into your compost? (i.e. porridge, leftovers etc) The reason I'm asking is because I'm heavily into re-cycling and I hate the idea of any organic matter trapped in a non-degradable plastic bag and going into a landfill

[JohnR]

Hey KN,

The problem with animal waste is that if you have scavengers in your area, it will attract them like a magnet.  The other compost attracts critters too, but less problematic ones like turkeys, skunks and rabbits.   It WILL enrich the soil, no doubt, but do you have a way to grind up bones?  That could be difficult, but more power to you if you can and can deal with attracting scavengers.  All other organic material can go into your compost, I even compost a certain amount of paper products.  

You need three things for a good compost heap: air, water and nitrogen.  We used perforated pipe to get an airflow into the bottom of the pile, venting the pile by allowing both sides of the perf pipe to emerge to daylight. (The perf pipe is flexible, so you can bend it the way you like.)   We use straw bales for the walls of the heap, and so once the stuff gets cooking, the straw will insulate the pile and maintain a good temp. P.S. It is possible to create spontaneous combustion, so keep your heap away from outbuildings and cleared of old brush.  

You can obtain nitrogen from comfrey leaves or other plant sources, or you can pee in a bucket, dilute the urine with about four times as much water, and pour that onto your compost.   Urine is sterile when it comes out of your body and isn't likely to produce any pathogens in the compost heap.  I wouldn't overdo it though.  Maybe one person's urine, be sure and dilute, three times a week, depending on the size of your compost.  Many people use a hardware screen mounted on a frame and on a table-like structure to screen good compost from pieces still breaking down, that way you can start using your compost before the whole heap decomposes. Anything that looks like soil is ready to grow food.  Be sure and keep turning your compost over with a shovel.  If worms are occurring naturally in your compost, great. If you don't see any, get some from the bait shop or a friend's compost pile.  Redworms are the best.  They like wood pulp, so shred some newspaper and layer it in your heap.  Once you have worms, you will always have worms.

We used to buy bone meal and blood meal from our Co-op, but they stopped selling it because of the Mad Cow scare, but if you can get either from a butcher shop or slaughter house, you could turn it directly into your garden soil without attracting meat eaters.  Both bone and blood have good stuff for soil.

[Kal'Narred]

Awesome tips there John. I was thinking about getting a cheap blender (just in case it doesn't work) for cutting up the bone, I know it won't be meal as such, but if I took what I had and turned it into the soil would I still attract scavengers? I'm liking the tips for the compost heap, unfortunately though at the moment my gardening is limited to indoors.

Do you know anything about the ultra fertile soil in South America? It is thought to have be initiated by one of the early inhabitants (the mayans I think). There was evidence of regular burning, but there is some living organism that can spread the nutrients into barren soil and make it ultra fertile.

[Kal'Narred]

This sounds intriguing P, something exciting and based in the kitchen, my two favourite things.

[Kal'Narred]

I have a question paTricia and JohnR. I've heard that many farmers (including the Mians) burned leftover crops and whatnot to put some charcoal into the earth. Can I do something similar for indoor plants? Maybe burn some dried plant matter and mix the ash into my soil?

[Kal'Narred]

Thanks for the advice P, I'll check out those links