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Gardens, Lawns and Such...

Started by chefist, June 10, 2015, 09:46:44 PM

chefist

Quote from: nbirnes on June 11, 2015, 05:13:34 PM
Hold yer horses, there. Cosmo mangled my words and added clever stuff. I have yet to scan in a copy because I sort of lost the original. It was Caitlyn-cover scary.

I will read your articles with great joy, because you can even make garlic interesting. Come on, ink jets!

LOL...Awesome! Thanks...the best way I make garlic interesting is by cooking it! If I ever get out East I'll stop by and cook for you and Bill! LOL

coaster

I have been gardening for years and have never heard of azomite.

SciFiAuthor

Quote from: PathoJen on June 11, 2015, 05:51:56 PM
5-10 is a decent yield. I don't know about where you live, but I live in Southern California, and we have no seasons, so when the tree does produce, it will do it all year. It really never goes dormant.

I'm in Missouri, so the harsh winters require that I bring the lemon inside. Using a grow light and barring any leaf drops it produces year round for me. If I keep it in a window, however, it will go dormant. I'll snap a photo of it when I go out and water later. It's blossoming as we speak. 

chefist

Quote from: coaster on June 11, 2015, 06:02:54 PM
I have been gardening for years and have never heard of azomite.

ok, so lime and gypsum are ground up rocks...just ones that contain mainly CA and MG...rock dust has a lof of other minerals that help the plant grow big, strong and flavorful...it is not a miracle, just a suppliment that is organic and does not burn the roots...

I am a chemist and gardener...but try it and find out! That is what is fun about gardening!

chefist

Quote from: SciFiAuthor on June 11, 2015, 06:03:27 PM
I'm in Missouri, so the harsh winters require that I bring the lemon inside. Using a grow light and barring any leaf drops it produces year round for me. If I keep it in a window, however, it will go dormant. I'll snap a photo of it when I go out and water later. It's blossoming as we speak.

god bless brother! it's like trying to make a woman love you that doesn't want to...

coaster

I'll have to look for it next time I'm out and about.

chefist

Quote from: coaster on June 11, 2015, 06:09:51 PM
I'll have to look for it next time I'm out and about.

depending where you are you can find it in the big box stores, or you might have to go to a specialty greenhouse!

onan

Quote from: chefist on June 11, 2015, 06:12:03 PM
depending where you are you can find it in the big box stores, or you might have to go to a specialty greenhouse!

Or, my frikken driveway.

chefist

Quote from: onan on June 11, 2015, 06:16:46 PM
Or, my frikken driveway.

not too far off the mark...you can use a fine wire mesh strainer and filter rocks from the drive! absolutely! the rocks themselves take too long to break down..filter the dust and you can use it!

coaster

Wouldn't dust like that end up leaching nutrients from the soil? I can grow some beautiful plants, but my knowledge goes as far as compost and occasionally some miracle- gro. I put some mulch around a walkway in the yard a few years ago, and it killed the soil. I worry about damaging it anymore.

chefist

Quote from: coaster on June 11, 2015, 06:28:28 PM
Wouldn't dust like that end up leaching nutrients from the soil? I can grow some beautiful plants, but my knowledge goes as far as compost and occasionally some miracle- gro. I put some mulch around a walkway in the yard a few years ago, and it killed the soil. I worry about damaging it anymore.

oh sure if they are a larger percent of the soil....you are right...they are micronutrients....a suppliement...I'm in AZ on caliche...mainly ground up rock! horrible stuff with too alkaline! but rock dust as an additive is just vitamins for plants!

SciFiAuthor

You can order a bags of Azomite on Amazon fairly economically because a bag will last several years for a small to moderate garden. I amend the soil with it when I till up the dirt in spring along with gypsum for tomato beds. What Azomite specifically is is a special stone strata in I believe Utah that is extremely rich in micronutrients like Selenium etc. that most soils in the US are deficient in due to centuries of farming. It really makes a difference in yielding healthy plants of all types to the point that the big companies like Miracle Gro are offering micronutrient enriched fertilizers now (I have not tried those, I prefer to try to grow organically).

Another secret is adding soil microbes, but that's another animal entirely. 

albrecht

Quote from: chefist on June 11, 2015, 06:39:03 PM
oh sure if they are a larger percent of the soil....you are right...they are micronutrients....a suppliement...I'm in AZ on caliche...mainly ground up rock! horrible stuff with too alkaline! but rock dust as an additive is just vitamins for plants!
One of the frequent "experts" on the Norry version of 'the show' is big into this. Though he says he has a similar product for people. (Though I swear I've heard the other ag product you mentioned before by a guest or caller for use in people.) His main theory is that certain areas are rich in rare-earth minerals/nutrients and that is why those people have long, healthy lives- via the plants grown there and much of the world have been depleted and/or just don't have them naturally in the soil so they stuff grown doesn't deliver what "we need" for healthy life......So, oddly, the same theory to grow better yields, in his opinion, helps us also.

SciFiAuthor

Quote from: albrecht on June 11, 2015, 08:28:07 PM
One of the frequent "experts" on the Norry version of 'the show' is big into this. Though he says he has a similar product for people. (Though I swear I've heard the other ag product you mentioned before by a guest or caller for use in people.) His main theory is that certain areas are rich in rare-earth minerals/nutrients and that is why those people have long, healthy lives- via the plants grown there and much of the world have been depleted and/or just don't have them naturally in the soil so they stuff grown doesn't deliver what "we need" for healthy life......So, oddly, the same theory to grow better yields, in his opinion, helps us also.

I don't know about long, healthy lives as nutritional supplements should accomplish the same thing but really don't when you look at the studies. But it is true that our soils are pretty depleted. Corn for example is basically stuck in the ground year after year and fertilized pretty much exclusively with anhydrous ammonia (nitrogen). It's a method that works, but basically strips the soil of minerals over time. As a result of soil amendments and decent fertilizer I can grow a corn plant that makes the field corn look like Dave as opposed to Art.

There's another theory about this stuff floating around out there that may have some validity. When your intake of trace minerals increases, your appetite decreases resulting in weight loss, i.e. the body consumes more to get enough nutrients and as a result ingests more calories in the process creating obesity.

Azommite is great.Nitron Industries, Fayetteville,Arkansas. They have many other soil suppliments also.I mix Colloidal Phosphate,Greensand,Gypsum,Paramagnetic sand, Earthworm castings, mushroom compost some fugii from Fungi Perfecti, Kelp,SulPoMag I mix about 3 cups of each. Then I take my old potting soil and mix that with equal part new potting soil and ad 4 cups of the mineral mix when I get my pots ready for my garden. I am growing tomatoes,peppers, Kale, collards, cucumbers, and other things in a variety of 3,5,7,10,15 gallon pots and grow bags. I fertilize with fish,seaweed and or Espoma fertilizer.I have grown out citrus, dates,avocados, ginger,mangos  But they suffered terribly last winter, I need more light for the winter saves. Sometimes I take a straight pin and stick in a jar of spirulina and stick that in a spray bottle of water and spray the soil. The spirulina grows out in the phosphate and the earth worms hatching from the castings thrive on it and thus enrich the soil. My apartment management tolerates this. Two years ago I planted corn, peanuts, and sunflowers in the shrub bed in front. They did not like that. I planted about 12 golden bantam sweet corn and hand pollinated it, I got 3 ears on each plant and got a pint jar of seed off one spectacular ear I left for seed. The peanuts I planted was from a bag I was eating at the time. I have got peanuts 3 years from that planting as it is hard to get them all up and they readily volunteer from missed goobers.I wanted to expand all along the south front but have not had the extra $ for the campaigner. Neighbors all say go for it.Sometimes when some vitamins go stale (B's) I will dissolve them and pour that on the 'garden' too. I worked , managed nurseries, garden shops from 1975 to 1997 and a coffee plantation 1998-2000, Florida, Hawai'i. Live in SC now.

in the fall I plant chard, collards, spinach, kale, turnip greens, beets. I like to mix a batch steam them with a few carrots, blue potatoes, onions, turnips, serve it up with a little butter and pepper sauce I make from cayenne's I grow in the summer. Stuff old wine bottles with peppers, a couple cloves of  garlic, teaspoon of unground peppercorns. I then boil some apple cider vinegar and fill the bottle with the hot vinegar ,watch out for needing to top the bottle 2 or 3 times , helps to cut a slit in each pepper, Use both green and red peppers. Cork it or cap it. Let it sit for a couple months and dribble a bit on your greens, green beans etc. Cut up a tomato into bits, cut an onion into bits. Lay some on the plate top with your green beans pile on your steamed greesn and other veggies and dribble the cayenne sauce and a little butter. Make some nice buttermilk cornbread, butter that.Unless I eat at a relative that can't see to get away from using seasoning  bacon to season things  ,I don't but I eat when at my sisters.

I have some stainless steel kabob scewers that push into the wine bottles before I pour the boiling cider vinegar into the bottles. This prevents the hot liquid from shocking the glass bottles.

sydtron

Quote from: SciFiAuthor on June 11, 2015, 10:39:06 PM
I don't know about long, healthy lives as nutritional supplements should accomplish the same thing but really don't when you look at the studies. But it is true that our soils are pretty depleted. Corn for example is basically stuck in the ground year after year and fertilized pretty much exclusively with anhydrous ammonia (nitrogen). It's a method that works, but basically strips the soil of minerals over time. As a result of soil amendments and decent fertilizer I can grow a corn plant that makes the field corn look like Dave as opposed to Art.

There's another theory about this stuff floating around out there that may have some validity. When your intake of trace minerals increases, your appetite decreases resulting in weight loss, i.e. the body consumes more to get enough nutrients and as a result ingests more calories in the process creating obesity.

I am a vegan. And I agree with the statement that our bodies crave what it cannot get!  Before I went vegan, I was tired all the time. No pep! Would fall asleep after meals. No matter what I ate.  Then I watched "Forks Over Knives" and it changed my life.  I would love for Art to have Dr. Eccelstein or McDougal on his show.  They have good info. And science to back it up.  Oh and ive lost 40 lbs in the process. Since April 1st. Of this year.  Im not looking back. Growing my own food is satisfying too. 

SciFiAuthor

Quote from: sydtron on June 12, 2015, 12:00:08 AM
I am a vegan. And I agree with the statement that our bodies crave what it cannot get!  Before I went vegan, I was tired all the time. No pep! Would fall asleep after meals. No matter what I ate.  Then I watched "Forks Over Knives" and it changed my life.  I would love for Art to have Dr. Eccelstein or McDougal on his show.  They have good info. And science to back it up.  Oh and ive lost 40 lbs in the process. Since April 1st. Of this year.  Im not looking back. Growing my own food is satisfying too.

I'm not a vegan per se, I just really like vegetables and I don't eat a lot of meat. But I know what you're saying, I'm pushing 40 and feel better than I did when I was in college subsisting on junk food. It's a good feeling when you visit the doctor and he jokes about how you're in better shape than he is.

paladin1991

Quote from: PathoJen on June 11, 2015, 05:51:56 PM
5-10 is a decent yield. I don't know about where you live, but I live in Southern California, and we have no seasons, so when the tree does produce, it will do it all year. It really never goes dormant.

Same here, lemons all year round.

paladin1991

Quote from: nbirnes on June 11, 2015, 05:58:18 PM
After about 10 years in SoCal, I finally met a kumquat tree and I went wild. You can eat right through the tangy thin skin and the combination of sweet and sour is something like Sour Skittles. Beware of too many, though.

Got two of those in the back yard.  Yep...know what you mean.

paladin1991

Quote from: chefist on June 11, 2015, 06:09:20 PM
god bless brother! it's like trying to make a woman love you that doesn't want to...
What are you talking abou?.  They all want to love me.   They just don't know it yet.  Let me know how that 'little' problem works out for you, though.

I love growing citrus. I once had a house in Florida and I planted 28 citrus trees in my yard. The house alreaty had a Thompson Grapefruit (white seedless) . The grapefruit produced well but was typical incipid market like, thick rine,typical grapefruit after taste. I started spreading rock powders,colloidal phosphate, compost, greensand bottom. That tree started giving bouquet blossums and setting vast quantities of fruit. the fruit became thin skinned with  ,Sul-Po-Mag. Rigged a "Fogg-it" nozzle on an 10 section of pipe .Had a syphonex on the hose bibb and a 5 gallon bucket that I would mix fish emulsion, seaweed and other nutrient liquids and would mist the tree from top to very little thickness of rine and pith. They also became sweet as oranges and absolutely no aftertaste.
I would plant citrus trees with a lot of ammendment to the soil and put six cups (one cup per) in six holes 3 feet from the trunk of sul-po-mag or sulpahte of potash. this would attact the feeder roots to grow out. The next year by August the tree branches would grow out to the feeder root stretch. The next February I would put 6 more holes 2 feet out from the drip zone of the tree. I got pretty good canopy development. I had Lemons:Meyer, varigated pink, Bearass, ponderosa, Persian lime, Key lime, Red Navel (cara cara) Washington Navel, Valencia,Pineapple orange, Satsuma,Poncan,Dancy, Minneola, Sunburst,FallGlo,Navel Grapefruit, Thompson Grapefruit, Hamlin, Meiwa and Nagami Kumquats,Nova and Orlando Tangelos,Limequat,Honey Murcott,Moro Blood orange,Temple .

sydtron

Goddamn!  That sounds like paradise!'!!!  May have to try an apple tree or two next year.  What other tree fruits are good for Indiana??

Indiana you can probably find apples,pears, cherries,plums, and such for your zone, Long "chill-hour" types.

chefist

Two quail females nesting in my garden... Life promulgates life!

WOTR

This silly thread prompted me to get off my ass this weekend and plant.  Half of the front flowerbed has been barren for two years...this year it got garlic, potatoes and a couple of tomatoes.  They should go well with the flowers in the rest of it. ;)

I also picked up some specialty, tiny, alpine plants and I think I may try planting a small container with them.  They are supposed to be hardy.  Perhaps next year, I will plant the actual vegetable garden in the back that has been overgrown with grass for the last decade rather than the front flower bed... 

Finally, I bought a few ornamental grass' to plant along the back fence.  I may try my hand at a bamboo or two- but I am almost in the wrong zone for any species to be happy...  But I really want to grow a small plot of 20' high bamboo...

nbirnes

Quote from: wotr1 on June 14, 2015, 11:39:53 PM
This silly thread prompted me to get off my ass this weekend and plant.  Half of the front flowerbed has been barren for two years...this year it got garlic, potatoes and a couple of tomatoes.  They should go well with the flower in the rest of it. ;)

I also picked up some specialty, tiny, alpine plants and I think I may try planting a small container with them.  They are supposed to be hardy.  Perhaps next year, I will plant the actual vegetable garden in the back that has been overgrown with grass for the last decade rather than the front flower bed... 

Finally, I bought a few ornamental grass' to plant along the back fence.  I may try my hand at a bamboo or two- but I am almost in the wrong zone for any species to be happy...  But I really want to grow a small plot of 20' high bamboo...

Bravo on the planting! We live beside a creek with very very rocky soil, big rocks everywhere you jab in the shovel. I was told to not plant bamboo, ever -- it's so invasive that it might even be illegal in some places.

sydtron

Have any of u tried planting potatoes in old tires?  Adding more dirt and tires when the top of plant goes above tire? 

pate

Quote from: sydtron on June 15, 2015, 12:26:42 AM
Have any of u tried planting potatoes in old tires?  Adding more dirt and tires when the top of plant goes above tire?

Sounds like a wonderful idea...

BUT

What sort of tires do you use?  I imagine most modern tyres don't fit the gluten-free hippy-dippy mindset you're angling for there...

If you can find actual natural rubber tires, that aren't adultertioned I 'magine you'll be okee-dokee....

----

Personally, 'taint worth the risk, 'taters grow best in the ground...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqTWQiTlhKQ

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