Mine are only like 3-4", but growing fast. You doing 2 ft spacing? I was considering trying 18", but that's probably too close.

4/15/2015 9:29:34 AM

Yeah 2 ft. I have 8 going in a 4x8 raised bed, then the rest in another bed trying a new caging method

4/16/2015 10:13:05 AM

3 irrigation loops laid, buried, hydro tested and no leaks at any joints.

4/17/2015 1:21:58 AM

If I'm installing 8" raised beds onto existing sod, I should probably till to at least get rid of the sod right?

[Edited on April 17, 2015 at 4:37 AM. Reason : ]

4/17/2015 4:37:17 AM

We had some lettuce/spinach salads from the garden last night.

4/17/2015 10:05:31 AM

I'm gonna seed some lettuce in pots soon. gave all my house plants their second and third bug bath. hope I can put them outside in 2 or 3 weeks.

4/20/2015 2:21:16 PM

Synapse for your bed you could till it first or else do 2 layers of cardboard. Over time it will decompose and smother the grasses

4/20/2015 11:31:21 PM

^ Thanks...with how deep some roots get, I'm thinking I wanna till first, for this year if nothing else. My raised bed walls are 8", and I want the roots to be able to go deeper than that.

Also protip: When fertilizing with fish emulsion, make sure you wash your hands after.

4/21/2015 11:06:45 AM

Started the garden on Friday, prior to putting the deer fence back up.

The top half of everything was gone this morning, 12 hours later. I'm just glad I only planted a few, and have some left in reserve.

4/25/2015 11:19:24 PM

Got my raised bed finished over the weekend and got tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, basil, peas, and some rosemary planted. I hope the deer stay away, but if I have to net/fence it I will. Got some strawberries up on the deck as well, and will add some other stuff in the next week or two if I can find the plants in good shape locally. Horrible selection at local garden centers and hd/Lowe's has had trouble keeping things from being too dried out.

4/27/2015 8:44:05 PM

The Home Depot off Strickland has had a steady supply of quality $2 Bonnie Plants, if that's your thing. Also Logan's downtown and the Farmer's Market (my fav) are good go-tos.

4/28/2015 2:48:01 PM

http://www.fix.com/blog/vegetable-garden-tips-for-every-size-garden/

nice (basic) guide to planting a vegetable garden

5/1/2015 8:18:25 AM

yeah, seems like lowes only buys 55% tomatoes, 35% peppers, and then 10% herbs and random things no one eats.

Couldnt find watermelon/cantelope or other random good things at the one on 54 this year. Ill have to visit HD this week.

5/1/2015 10:24:16 AM

You're too far from the Farmer's Market or Logan's downtown? Either one will have all sorts of interesting stuff. If they're too far away google around for a indy nursery near you. HD is going to be more of the same, but maybe a little better.

5/1/2015 10:53:32 AM

would definitely recommend logan's - know the folks over there pretty well. they're good people. the nursery and farm i work at sells some stuff to them.

5/1/2015 1:02:46 PM

If you are into Irises you should come check out Rocky Toad Iris Farm (off Falls of Neuse near 540, Rocky Toad Rd 27614). I'll be out there tomorrow tending to the chickens/goats/bees and will be helping out with the irises at some point. My father-in-law said the blooms are looking nice.

http://issuu.com/dreamlakemedia/docs/919magazine_zone3_issue005/18

5/1/2015 3:29:58 PM

I've always understood that you ought to plant stuff like watermelons and cantaloupes from seed, transplanting the vine-type stuff doesn't work well.

5/1/2015 7:49:00 PM

^yeah they can be difficult to transplant - if you're gonna start from seed inside (and then transplant) i'd be sure to seed extras/replacements for the transplants that don't make it

5/2/2015 6:48:04 AM

Downstairs neighbors complaining to me about the water from my plants getting on their patio (outdoor, we all have wood decks) floor. I only have three plants so... not sure what to do about that. Seems unnecessary (it's just an empty part of their patio it drips on).

The best was the way they informed me, by yelling up "WHATEVER you're pouring, it's dripping on our patio!" I like to think they assumed it was, what, piss?

5/4/2015 2:06:13 AM

Closing on a house on June 5, so we'll be moving in way too late for most stuff, but what types of things (if anything) can be planted that late in the season from seed? The full garden will be a project for next year, but if there's anything worthwhile that can be done this year, no reason not to.

We did buy a few herbs and a cayenne pepper for containers while we're still here in the apartment but hauling over a ton of potted plants would just be a pain in the ass.

5/4/2015 3:26:52 AM

http://www.ufseeds.com/Vegetable-Planting-Schedules.html

pretty helpful link with a rough estimation of when you can plant different stuff. just select your state or zone and it'll have a list of stuff. but you'll be fine starting a garden in june.

5/4/2015 8:30:11 AM

Set up a little container garden off my back patio yesterday. Couple variety of tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, and eggplant. Couple smaller pots with basil and mint.

5/18/2015 1:46:57 PM

I've got four 6'X4' 8" raised beds built. Two of the bed areas are tilled, with two to go. Got way too many plants for that space going well in containers for now, will still have lots of containers it appears. I'm wishing I went taller than 8", but lumber (and dirt, to a lesser degree) is expensive!

Speaking of which...I got treated lumber before really researching it. A little googling says that the treated stuff used to be more dangerous, and since 2004 or something the scarier stuff has been taken out. Anyone here use the stuff? I guess you can line your walls if it concerns you...

Now I just have to get dirt. I need about 2 cubic yards...maybe a bit less. Going to follow the below recipe, probably topsoil from one of the mulch places, plus bagged compost plus a little peat moss.

5/18/2015 1:54:34 PM

dammit, blight is already attacking my tomatoe and pepper plants... i have a pretty small area, and rotating crops isn't really an option... so i think blight will come back every year

5/18/2015 2:26:24 PM

Is it treatable?

5/18/2015 2:36:23 PM

not from anything I've read. It supposedly can live in the soil for years. And chemicals (copper-based) only prevent the spread of it marginally, it doesn't actually prevent it or kill it. I've heard the only way to stop it is to rotate crops. I also read that you can till the soil and freezing tempatures would kill it, but I did that over the winter. I tilled it multipole times over the winter and it froze plenty, and I've been using chemicals since I first planted, but it's already come back.

[Edited on May 18, 2015 at 2:44 PM. Reason : ]

5/18/2015 2:44:09 PM

if you bought seedlings, they could have been infected when you bought them. I decided to plant all of my vegetables and herbs in 3 gallon containers with fresh potting mix.


the dumbass renters next door dug out all the perennials on 'their side' of what I was considering a shared bed a few weeks ago, and tried to plant grass this past weekend. they just piled all the plants at the edge of the complex, though, so I was able to make a new bed with them. Anyway, their 'half' is right next to my main vegetable bed, so I just kind of abandoned it for this year, I bought some onion sets and ganzia that I will try to plant in that bed sometime when the neighbors aren't out there being weird and 'watching grass grow'.

5/20/2015 12:40:37 PM

Anybody got a tomato yet????

5/26/2015 11:53:01 AM

I got a bunch in progress
I'll probably have some peppers before the maters

Got my beds tilled, built, and filled. Ended up getting some nice compost/soil delivered from Norwood Nursery for $25/yard. Now I just need to plant!

5/26/2015 11:56:26 AM

I've got about four growing. Maybe a few days from being picked. Our tomato plants get ravaged by insects...so we put this year's plant in a pot on our second story porch...and so far, so good. We'll see if it lasts.

5/26/2015 11:56:32 AM

I transplanted about 2 weeks ago and I'm just getting my first flowers now, but I got a bunch of seedlings of different varieties in various stages of development, and some of them are still fairly puny. My roof is getting redone this week, starting today and I forgot to move the pots further away from the house, so here's hoping they don't get shredded before the end of the day.



Anybody got experience with propagating Ocimum × citriodorum 'Pesto Perpetuo'? Plant patents don't mean shit up here, but I think you can do it for your own use down there. The wild type is supposedly easy to root in soil, but the last time I tried with this variety (a couple autumns ago), I didn't have success.

5/26/2015 12:20:36 PM

I have some tomatoes that will be ready soon, but that was a transplanted plant that was off to a good start. My seedlings of roma and cherry tomatoes are growing fast and should start producing soon.

Lettuce is going crazy, beans are slowly getting there. Peppers are a little slow, and the strawberries are not doing well. the basil went from healthy to nearly doubling in size in the past week. Need to pick some leaves and do something with them.

5/27/2015 2:45:48 PM

How do you all support your maters? I have some of those 4ish foot tall cages with 3 tines but those kinda suck. I could buy larger cages at the big box stores but they're kinda pricey.

5/31/2015 8:15:19 PM

I've always relied on the cages, they seem to work just fine for me.

6/1/2015 8:14:36 AM

I'm using cedar trellis along the back of the box and tying the biggest branches up every foot or so.

6/1/2015 10:53:28 AM

Just planted flowers for the first time ever, at the new house we just bought. The area of the yard in particular is apparently quite stubborn with water retention (and very dry/hard to dig through, especially with a spade lol) so I think the previous owners tended to plant annuals. The ones that were in place were nearing the end of their life cycle, so we just bought several types of perennials at Lowe's to plant in their place. Dug up the old flowers and cleared out the pine straw surrounding it. Then once we were done, we watered all the plants and replaced the pine straw and watered them some more.

I think I'd eventually want to replace the pine straw with something else, perhaps some type of mulch. Any suggestions?

6/1/2015 11:09:57 AM

What type of companion planting do you all do?

6/1/2015 10:43:49 PM

Harvested some red potatoes that I planted as sprouts really early in the year (march). Got a large pot full from 4 plants. I left the rest in the ground because the plants are doing better and survived last weeks drought while I was out of town (whereas the ones I dug up died during the past week). We also harvested about 5 quarts of strawberries from our FAST SPREADING berry patch. Planted them all last year when we moved from our other house, so this is our first year getting a harvest... SO DELICIOUS!!

Also got some sugar snap peas off my 3 plants that I planted in March (the rest of the seeds from that planting didn't take because it was too cold and wet). Ill post pictures of our big garden plot as soon as I remember to take them. Its our first year, so we just finally got a few of the items planted/transplanted so much of the garden is very small.

6/2/2015 9:30:43 AM

I've got some blossom end rot going on with one on my 11g container tomato plants, about half of the fruits affected.

probably due to there being like 5 main stalks (wasn't getting suckers until recently).

Should I cut out 1-2 of those stalks? What else? Calcium? I've got one of those electric soil testers, and it's reading 7, fwiw.

6/4/2015 8:52:32 AM

here's a good article about what to do about blossom end rot. I'd just go ahead and cut off the affected fruits, quit applying nitrogen, and check out a calcium spray and get some bone meal going.

http://bonnieplants.com/library/conquer-blossom-end-rot/

6/4/2015 1:05:32 PM

Hmm ok. I just top dressed with some dank compost. I guess I'll pull that off.

6/4/2015 1:23:48 PM

well, you can probably just work a ton of bone meal into it. inorganic nitrogen is more of a problem

6/4/2015 1:27:56 PM

Call me a kid, but I like to grow avocados... well, I plant about every kind of seed left over from food just to see if my plant killing ass can get something to survive...

Anywho, does anyone else grow avocado trees in NC? I'd love to be able to plant'em and forget'em, but with my luck, the cold winters will certainly kill them (I've read several posts about some having success in NC... if those can be believed). For those of you that do/or those of you that know, to keep it as an indoor tree, can I just continually cut off the top of the main trunk to the keep the height manageable? Here is my first and best looking tree thus far (about a year or so old I guess):



My next largest has never looked that great, though it started in a greenhouse. The leaves have always curled up and when I put it on a covered porch to get some direct morning sun, the leaves baked and turned brown. Finicky one.

6/16/2015 9:40:28 AM

where did you buy your avacado tree?

6/16/2015 9:44:27 AM

food lion. came in a weird green package with some yucky green mush inside, that I'm assuming is some kind of packing material. Within that is a brown ball that holds the tree. You pull that out and put it in water, and just like those magic foam dinosaurs and kids washcloths that grow in water, so do these trees!

6/16/2015 9:54:10 AM

do you know what kind it is? I know that some do okay in NC and others do not.

6/16/2015 10:24:48 AM

I haven't a clue. Is there a primary species typically carried in grocery stores?

6/16/2015 11:20:44 AM

Quote :

"I like to grow avocados"

Have you actually grown one?

6/16/2015 11:33:05 AM

haha, let me rephrase.... I like to grow avocado trees.

6/16/2015 1:44:26 PM

I may or may not have imported some palm tree seeds from the Caribbean. Any thoughts on how to successfully grow them in the NC area?

6/17/2015 1:49:15 PM