Gardening and Horticulture - Garden plans

Hi folks! Boy, its been a long winter... But the garden activities for this upcoming year have begun. I turned over the soil in the garden last weekend, and this Sunday, Im renovating the greenhouse for this year. Built a 2' wide brick walkway down the center, and instead of pots, everything is going directly in the ground this year. Got a bunch of plants coming in the mail for this year also. It should be one of the best seasons ever :) What are everyones plans for this year? Anyone doing anything for the first time?

Hi Eric,

Good question! :) Sounds like you'll be busy.

My biggie will be starting ALL my plants from seed this year.

Since we'll be moving (some day), I'm going to till up part of my veggie garden and start moving plants I want to take with me. Something I tell everyone else to do and haven't done myself.

I plan to expand my projects by making things out of concrete and hypertufa. I've been tinkering with that since last summer.

Lots of other things, but I'll be concentrating on sprucing EVERYTHING up outside so we have curb appeal.

If anyone needs any projects, check out the Garden Junk forum on GW (GardenWeb). I've been copying their ideas to a CD, and have made some of the bowling ball gazing balls, tea cup birdfeers, concrete leaves and a few other things. There's enough great ideas there to last a lifetime. Then skip on over to the Accroutments forum. There's a link for it in the Junk forum.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/junk/

Can't wait til Spring! Oh, and I'll repeat, you can post photos of your gardens, projects, yourself, etc. on the Sierra Garden board. Sierra is a little confusing when you first scout it out. Send me an email if you need help. Howie and Fewalt (Fred) are experienced members also. I'm sure they wouldn't mind either. ;)

http://community.sierra.com/WebX?14@@.ee741cb

We're heading to Wichita for the weekend. The Wichita Flower & Garden Show is one of the best in the U.S. I missed it due to bad weather last year. If anyone is near there, I think it will be worth the trip. Jim Wilson (Victory Garden), Paul James, The Gardener Guy (HGTV), and other celebrities will be there.

Next...

Gami

Hi Gami,
Wow, that makes me wish I lived closer than 1600 miles from Wichita :) It should be a big undertaking; the greenhouse project. Hopefully, the weather forecast changes because it is supposed to rain on Sunday. You will need to come back from the show and tell us all about it. Last summer, I took pictures of the greenhouse as well as the 7' sunflowers and the container plants. However, I didnt know about Sierra until January when posting pictures of last years results almost seemed not worth it. But if I have the same results I had last year, you will see a lot of pictures. Hell, I may just take pictures of the greenhouse whether they come out good or not :)

Happy planting people! Let the fun begin! :)

Hi Gami,
Wow, that makes me wish I lived closer than 1600 miles from Wichita :) It should be a big undertaking; the greenhouse project. Hopefully, the weather forecast changes because it is supposed to rain on Sunday. You will need to come back from the show and tell us all about it. Last summer, I took pictures of the greenhouse as well as the 7' sunflowers and the container plants. However, I didnt know about Sierra until January when posting pictures of last years results almost seemed not worth it. But if I have the same results I had last year, you will see a lot of pictures. Hell, I may just take pictures of the greenhouse whether they come out good or not :)

Happy planting people! Let the fun begin! :)

Hey Bomber & Gami (and everyone else!)

Thought that winter was over - it was up to 14C (57F) last week and the sun was WONDERFUL!!! Then Mother Nature must o' decided that she doesn't love us up here, cause she turned the thermostat down and made us haul the winter coats back out... :mad:

Marie (my better half) has BIG plans this year - she was into Hostas in a very large way (has well over 100 varieties) last year, but has taken a real fancy to daylillies now (has 60 plus varieties and a basement full of new seedlings, some of which she has hybridized herself) so guess what I'll be doing... yup... yer right... digging more beds for her! She's planning on attending the big Regional Daylily Convention in mid-July in Waterbury, Connecticut, so I may be driving there, too. Actually, we haven't travelled since we bought the house, so it might be nice to get back on the road and see what the rest of the world is doing...

For now though, I'm just looking forward to sitting in the gazebo on those (soon to come, I hope) warm evenings and watching the fish in the pond and the birds coming to the feeders and playing with the dog outside... I may even try to figure out how to stop on Roller Blades without the help of a telephone pole or tree...

Wairton Willie (our local groundhog and weather soothsayer) predicted an early Spring - that was 4 weeks ago, so it should be any moment now, right?!? :rolleyes: And I saw FOUR Robins this morning, so it CAN"T be much longer now...:cool:

Howie

Btw, I'd be glad helping you navigate Sierra if Gami's busy, so just email if you need to...

Hey Howie, Gami, and everyone else...
Thanks. My gallery, well soon to be gallery, is up on sierra. It's "Bomber's Beauties" (I think thats what Marilee called it). The rain has let up finally, and my friends should be here in a bout a half hour to begin the greenhouse renovation. Bought my onion sets from home depot on Friday night, and the third plant of the season came in the mail yesterday. Its a lime mint. Rather bizarre fragrance, but I love mint, and itll be put to good use. Got a HUGE order from richters.com coming in the next few week also. I think what I am going to do in addition to the greenhouse makeover is add on to the veggie garden and make another herb garden. Also put an additional section on for the tomatoes, sunflowers, and corn so they dont shade the low growing plants. OK. Is anyone else getting antsy yet? Its finally March. Planting cant be too far away now.

Welcome to gardening 2002! The fun starts now........ :)

I envy you all. We moved into this house in August, so I will be spending most of the season just weeding and watching. I do need advice on two points.
One: Good news, I finally have a house that faces south so I can put a rose garden in the front; bad news, I kill roses when I try to plant them (I can keep existing bushes beautiful). Any tips on varieties or techniques? (I live in New England.)
Two: they are predicting a drought this summer, so I want a rain barrel, with a spigot hooked up to a buried soaker hose (I have a city-size yard). Any ideas on how to do this? I'm most worried about creating a breeding spot for mosquitos.

Well, week 1 of operation greenhouse was a successful one. My friends and I got the beds made on one side; Ive put the 2' wide walkway made out of 1 square foot patio bricks down the center, and the space off to the right is now divided up into 4 2'x4' beds for the planting to begin. The week 2 agenda is as follows:

-stabalize the door again
-make beds on the other side
-get the shelving mounted

Then after that comes the garden. Need a new fence around it, and its going to be expanded. That should carry me into April, since we only get to work on it on Sundays. I hope to have pictures up @ sierra soon.

Quick plant update.... lemon verbena, bay laurel, popcorn, and beets need to be transplated mucho soono. Garlic from last year is still alive and kicking in the greenhouse, and so is the rosemary, but just barely. More details as they become available :D Howie, how do you post pics to sierra?

Hi All,

WOW! Look at all these great projects everyone is endeavoring. I didn't list all of mine for fear I'd have to admit I didn't accomplish half of them. Ya' know! Everything takes longer than you think, or you get side tracked doing something else.

Well, the Wichita Flower & Garden Show was better than I expected. I took 3 rolls of film so will post some of them on Sierra when I get them back. I don't have a flash attachment for my digital YET.

I made resevervations at the Hyatt (due to the weekend rate) and also because it appeared to be walking distance from the Show. I stopped at the Front Desk to ask which direction we should go to get there. I got this look like I was the stupidest person on earth. Not to knock the Wichita Hyatt, because it's one of the grandest hotels I've ever been in and everyone else was very friendly. She told me to take the hall to the left and when I got to the doors to the parking garage to go left and follow the signs to Century II. Duh! We didn't even have to leave the building. Thank goodness! It was 6 degrees and the wind was howling! There was about 5" of snow on the ground. A gentleman was walking in front of us and heard our conversation and told us to follow him. He was an exhibitor. We walked right into the Show without paying the $15, not to mention parking was free. We were able to make some purchases, take them back to our room, have a coke, relax a little and go back the same way without paying--ALL day long. They must have got wise, because on our final exit for that day, they had a ticket booth set up. BUT, they must not get there early, because we walked in free again today

As soon as we entered the show, lo and behold, there was Paul James being interviewed by a radio station. Naturally, I grabbed my camera and had obviously knocked the button on my flash earlier and it was dead. I turned my F-stop to the lowest setting, hoping for the best. I got Paul James on film--well maybe, and he even waved at me (but not until after I took the photo)! I persuaded my husband to trek ALL that way back to the hotel gift shop and buy some batteries so I could keep an eye on HIM.

I can't believe it, but I was actually too bashful to walk up and talk to him. My husband shook his hand and told him he enjoyed his show. I'll bet I never do that again. He's shorter than I thought. We ran into him several times as he was also staying at the Hyatt. He was always serious and never acted the least bit corny. I did take one photo after I got batteries. I didn't want to appear to be a stalker.

We missed Jim Wilson. He was there on Thursday.

We sat in on only one seminar. Where to locate your pond. It was so hot in there and the speaker wasn't real exciting. We both kept nodding off. I wanted to apologize for the insult, but I felt like I couldn't have been sleeping very long as I don't think I missed too much, but the hour went very fast.

The main attraction was a waterfall, rockery, stuffed deer and other animals as tall as the building. It was amazing. The other displays were equally as impressive.

Talk about bargains! Especially late Saturday and Sunday. One was selling $20 items for $5. If I picked something up, he'd tell me if I took them all, he'd sell them for X. I took him up on most of his offers. Why didn't we take the truck!? Live and learn!

I had to leave one thing for the next show. They'll be one hour North of us on St. Pats weekend! We're taking the truck! They had welded baskets, trikes, spheres, trellises, etc., and at a VERY reasonable price.

We've decided to skip the KC show and wait for Wichita's from now on.

Eric, good luck with your greenhouse this year. I haven't had time to check out Sierra yet or much lately, but pics from last year are certainly permissible and encouraged. It helps the winter go by faster. I can't believe the drop in temps here. It makes you appreciate the mild winter we've had. The low tonight will be 4. The fireplace is blazing.

Howie, I had to laugh when you mentioned roller blades. I think I'll stick to the 4 wheels. Yes, I still take my grandkids skating. I think I should probably up our insurance. :) I bought some rollerblades at a garage sale, tried them out in the driveway, and almost immediately landed on my rear! Not fun! That might be better than hitting a tree tho!

Jlob66, if nobody else helps you out by tomorrow, I'll give it a try. I'd better give somebody a little attention! :)

P.S. I'm editing. Going to bed. Busy weekend! Had to sneak a peek at the Garden Junk forum and guess what was there? I mainly read, but may have to add a bit to this one tomorrow. I guess she saw his corny side!

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/junk/msg0321425420177.html?12

Gami

Hi Jlob66

I've got waterbarrels connected together with flexible garden hose at the bases - attached 'Y' joints to them so I can run the hose between them and to outlet hoses at the same time. I am using the 50 US Gallon poly (plastic) industrial drums (old soap drums) and just drilled undersized holes close to the bottom, then threaded brass couplings into the holes and sealed the outside with "GOOP" (it's an all purpose do-everything fixer upper in a tube that I found at Home Depot) - You could ask the associates at your hardware store what would work best...

I left the tops on the drums, so they are more-or-less sealed except for the 2 1/2" holes in the tops - left the stoppers in except for the inlet for the downspout from the eves and an old style iron hand pump (like the ones we used to have on the well at Grandad and Grandma's farm). To get the water into the first barrel (remember that with them interconnected, they are self levelling and will feed from one source), I am using a debris filter attached to some PVC piping placed in one of the 2 1/2" holes in the top of one of the drums - here's a link to an underground downspout system I am using to get around tripping over the evestrough downspout extensions when I mow the lawn - I just ordered an extra Debris filter and use it for the rain barrels. As long as the bottom of your barrels (where the outlet is) is higher than where you want to water, it will be a gravity feed and you shouldn't need a pump.

http://www.waterproof.com/downspouts/index.html

Or if you want a pre-made system, you could try Lee Valley Tools - they have all sorts of great toys that I love (oops, shouldn't be promoting anyone here... ;) ) Here's their website, just click on the Gardening tab, then Watering

http://www.leevalley.com/home/main.asp

I'm sure there are lots of other retail outlets where you can get rainbarrels and rainbarrel supplies.

Mosquitoes don't seem to be a major problem since they can't get into the drums (or maybe since we've had such dry summers ths last few years, the barrels get drained before they find them) You could try putting a light coating of vegetable oil on the water surface in the barrels to create a barrier to stop the wrigglers from breathing... (but you'd have to blow out the soaker hoses every now and then to purge the oil from the holes...) or even a few drops of dish soap to break the surface tension on the water and drown the wrigglers...

Good Luck maybe others have some suggestions for non-chemical mosquito control.

Pretty sure Gami will be back with Rose links when she recovers from her adventure, but if not, Fred shouldn't be far behind...


Gami, sounds like you had a ball in Wichita!!:) Didn't think there were Victory Garden and HGTV groupies around ...LOL... Hope you're not planning to move TOO far away - sounds like you've got plans to acquire lots more stuff to take with you...

Eric, sounds like YOU'VE been busy - looking forward to seeing your efforts on Sierra. If I remember correctly, when you post a message, there is an attachments box below the main message area. I usually save the pic I want to post to my hard drive so I can edit it's size a bit more easily (although I think you can just transfer from CD or floppy), then either type the file name in or use the Browse button to select the file. One thing that I've noticed with Sierra is that after you post (hit the 'Add Discussion' button), the attachment doesn't appear to be included. I usually will go back to the 'General Gardening - Come on In' page then click on the new thread that I just created - the attachment is usually there but if it isn't, you've got 1/2 an hour to edit the post or you can delete it and try again (save your text message to your clipboard before you delete so you don't have to re-type it...also, there is a built in safeguard to stop spam, so you'll have to wait a few minutes before you try to repost after you delete). And you can only save one pic per post, so start a thread, then just keep adding discussions with your pics to it... :)

Regards to All

Howie

Howie,
It was a busy day yesterday, but if everything goes according to plan, the expirement will be well worth it. The only bad thing is that I dont have a digital camera, YET. I have a regular old 35mm. Therefore, I would be scanning photos. But its better than nothing. I will have a digital camera soon :) Thanks for the info on posting pics. I think when I get home tonight, I will give one a shot. But for right now, its 915 on a Monday morning, and Im stuck here at work for the next 8 hours. Hopefully it wont be too bad.

Eric

P.S. Before everyone goes thinking that I have this huge monstrosity of a greenhouse in my backyard, its 10x8x7 :)

Eric

Actually, having to scan your pics might be a blessing as you might be able to save them in a condensed email mode (depending on which program you are using) and even edit the size down before you save the file to disc.

...and 8X10x7 is plenty big - a garden lounge will fit in there PERFECTLY :D

Howie

Hi All,

On Sierra, there are different folders you can go into. It might be a good idea to start in Garden Tips and Techniques. Scan down and you'll see probably see some discussions on something you're interested in. It's also where we've posted helpful info on getting around on Sierra. (For some reason these links aren't clickable, but if you cut and paste, they'll work.)

http://community.sierra.com/WebX?14@164.MChVacbAtAP^4@.ee8166e!skip=16

Irfanview discussion - This is a photo program I scan my photos into. It's a free download and it's one of the best I've found (and easiest) to reduce a pic, and especially to sharpen it. You can crop, etc. There's a limit on the size photo you can post. I usually reduce a 4 x 6 by half. That's usually large enough for everyone to see detail. If not, you can undo your reducement and try 75%, etc., until you get it to the size you want. Some members on Sierra live out in the boonies and it takes a long time to download large photos, and they usually give up and go on to a small image.

http://community.sierra.com/WebX?14@164.MChVacbAtAP^5@.ef04b27

How to post a pic - Howie gave you excellent info, but Howie, I've found the easiest way to have your pic show up, after your original post hit EDIT. That takes you right back to your post and you should see your link to your photo. If it's not there at that time, it didn't take. Then do as Howie suggested, Delete, etc.

http://community.sierra.com/WebX?14@164.MChVacbAtAP^5@.ef07292

If you want to add your photo in place of the Sierra logo, you go through the same steps, except that it needs to be quite a bit smaller. Keep reducing your pic until it takes. There are instructions for what size it should be and for all of this in Sierra. Down on the bottom of the index page, there is a button for Preferences. Click on that and it should tell you everything you need to know. You can set Sierra to refresh as often as you want and lots of other features. I set Sierra to refresh every five minutes. That way I don't get kicked off of AOL. If I plan on doing a lot of searching or checking out the Garden Junk forum, which takes a lot of time, I close Sierra, as it refreshes and messes up your searching.

Once you get familiar with Sierra, you might want to put the link to the Message Center in favorites rather than to the Home Garden Board. That way, only the new messages will show up. BUT of course, you have to read all the old messages first. So, it's best to clear out the message center, and then go into the folders and read what you're interested in.

Eric, I see your gallery is set up. Can't wait to see some pics.

Howie, we just happen to have some of those soap barrels. I just use them to store things in. Would you mind posting a pic of your water saving system on Sierra? I use Marine Adhesive when I need to glue or plug something that goes outside. It's real thick like Goop. It may not be better, but I've had great success with it. It has held my tea cup bird feeders together all winter. BTW, the birds go to those before the hanging feeders. Must be because they're prettier. :) They were selling those for $35. The main expense is the copper tubing since you can find cups and saucers at thrift stores and garage sales. I used PVC pipe for some of my stakes and pounded a piece of rebar in the ground and slid the PVC pipe over it.

Gami

Hi Jolb66,

I have several links on roses. At your leisure, they should have all the info you need.

Someone told me a long time ago that roses need more water than you think. Once established, the roots go deep, so they won't usually die, but you won't have as big or as many blooms. I have found this to be very true. Also, you'll want to fertilize once a month as they are heavy feeders. The nurseries in your area should be selling varieties hardy for your area. Ask for roses that are disease resistant, then you won't be fighting blackspot, etc. They're really not hard to grow. I truly believe watering is the key.

Some of these may not be current. I've had them for quite some time.

http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC1173.htm (pruning)
http://www.ces.uga.edu/pubcd/b671-w.html
http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/id/id118/id118.htm
http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/roses/site.html (good one)
http://www.ars.org/ (American Rose Society)
http://www.ars.org/experts/experts.html (Ask the Experts)****
http://www.mc.edu/campus/users/nettles/rofaq/rofaq-faq.html (Faq's)
http://www.ars.org/experts/propagation.html (Propagating)
http://www.bridgesroses.com/archive.htm (Miniatures + Rose tips)
http://www.biology.leeds.ac.uk/teaching/MSc/Blgy5001/rose1.htm (Pic of blackspot)
http://www.texas-rose-rustlers.com/prop-tip.htm
http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~ohioline/hyg-fact/1000/1205.html
http://www.markw.com/clrose.htm
http://cygnus.tamu.edu/Texlab/Shrubs/Rose/rsp.html
http://www.ars.org/experts/propagation.html
http://www.randomaccesssolutions.com/Diagnosing%20Rose%20Problems.htm
http://www.jps.net/rosebug/irosepests.html
http://www.antiqueroseemporium.com/
http://findmyroses.com/
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/PUBS/GARDEN/07416.html (Rose culture)

Rose Rosette Disease

http://www.ianr.unl.edu/pubs/plantdisease/g980.htm
http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~ohioline/hyg-fact/3000/3063.html
http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/dp_hfrr/extensn/problems/roserost.htm

Ziploc Propagation Method

http://www.h2net.net/p/cnetter/rose_tour/rose_cut.html
http://www.ars.org/experts/roserooting.html
http://www.ars.org/experts/propagation.html (regular method)

Good luck,

Gami