Gardening Chat: Seed Starting and Other Spring Topics

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) Preparation Forum : One Thread

For some of us, seed starting is a couple of weeks away yet; for others, we had best be getting ready soon.

Along the same line of Big Dog's chats of last year, some of us have discussed the idea of getting together at a designated time, on AOL chat perhaps, and bringing together new comers and old hands at gardening for sharing questions, suggestions and ideas as we start another gardening season.

ExCop and others, with their New England based group, FuturePrep, have been busy making plans to continue to support and further promote personal and family preparations through cooperative means.

Most of us, are not fortunate enough to have found others in our area to share with, but perhaps we might be able to come together over the internet, in real time, and share of the vast diversity and knowledge represented in TB2000 prep forum.

Likewise, if anyone has any other topics you might be interested in discussing, gardening related or not, perhaps you could make some suggestions here. We all have special skills and abilities to contribute, and we certainly have alot to learn yet!

Give your suggestions and comments here; or send me an e-mail if you like. With more freezing rain on the way tonight, an evening or two of discussing gardening sounds alot like spring. Well, almost. :-)

-- Lilly (homesteader145@yahoo.com), February 17, 2000

Answers

I would be interested in talking to people about specific vegetables/ fruits that they are growing or are planning to grow.

For example, I am going to grow broom corn for the first time this year. Does anyone have any personal experience with this plant that they would like to share?

-- Chicken Lady (chickenlady@cluck.com), February 17, 2000.


Hi Lilly,

Within a week, I plan to plant carrots and radishes (in California). Later in the spring, I'm going to plant tomatoes and hot peppers, and probably some herbs (bazil, oregano). I'd like to grow asparagas, but don't know if I've got space in the garden for it.

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), February 17, 2000.


Lilly, I'm always up for a gardening chat (at least on AOL).

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), February 17, 2000.

Broom corn is easy to grow. Probably the hardest thing to do is not to weed it out when it first comes up since it looks like coarse grass. I've always just scattered seed in a wide row. Care for it just like corn, although it doesn't need the best ground/fertilizer/water. when the seed heads are nearly ripe, snap or bend them down. this keeps the straws straighter. If you left the tops up, the weight of the seeds would bend the straws. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), February 17, 2000.

Good idea!

-- helen (sstaten@fullnet.net), February 17, 2000.


Lilly, count me in. Were into herbs, tomatoes, green peppers. Some flowers are always a must too. For the last three years we have been trying to get a minature orchard going, but have been loosing a few trees, very disheartening! Still have a peach and one bing cherry. Will need to replace a cherry this year, as the bing needs another tree for pollination. Will be planting more trees, drout withstanding, and hoping to get a little fruit orchard going. For the last couple of years. have done a lot of dehydrating, and like that as well as canning for some things! Would love a garden and canning chat! Thanks.

-- suzy (HAYSandCO@aol.com), February 19, 2000.

Hey Lil...count me in, I am SOOOO ready for garden season. I'm building a cold frame tomorrow and can't wait to start eating fresh goodies again. Bring on the "real" tomatoes!!!!!

-- Mother Hen (JudiAnn_G@Yahoo.com), February 19, 2000.

I'm located in northwestern Ohio, and it's too early to start any seedlings. I don't have a cold frame. When I start some seedlings, it will have to be under the basement lights at my mother's house. And she's not keen on gardening. She believes in shopping for produce. You won't catch her or her sister digging in the soil.

Too many spoiled Americans will not be able to grow sufficient food to survive. That is what we will witness in the years ahead...

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), February 19, 2000.


My seed bed of the cole crops will soon be ready to plant out into the garden. My tomatoes and egg plants will be ready in another 3 weeks. They are already being left outside at night here in Florida. My lettuce bed is an inch high. Now all I have left to do is to switch the chickens to the other half of the garden area and put my lime and fertilizer on the garden and till one more time. I can plant most everything any time now. However, I will wait another 2 weeks before putting in melons. I am having a very large garden this year. I have a dozen hens, and a pot bellied pig on one side and 8 mini donkeys on the other side. So nothing goes to waste. My problem is usually too much produce. But the critters, esp the hens and pig will take care of that problem. I garden more for the excercise and the soul than for the food. I like the planting and the weeding. But just as soon someone else would pick it. I know...I have a screw loose. We have a neighbor widow lady who lives down behind our place. Her drive goes by my garden and the rule is that anything that goes through the fence is hers. I make sure that lots of things, including beans and squash and melons go through the fence. Have to watch the watermelons to make sure I get them onto her side of the fence before they get too big. LOL Taz..who does like digging in her dirt.

-- Taz (Tassi123@aol.com), February 20, 2000.

We are in northwestern Wisconsin,where the last frost date is around the first of June. Our onions are up, we have the first plantings of cabbage family stuff up (just small amounts for a few to set out earlly in the spring if the weather co-operates) and I just planted all the peppers the other day. Peppers take a while to germinate, and grow slowly so I start them in Feb, a month after I start onion seeds (not onion sets). We start some things in plastic flats sitting on top of the refrigertor, for a little extra heat, and then they are moved to a south facing window, or now that we have it, into the attached sunroom/greenhouse. The peppers are all in plastic "6 packs" in plastic flats with the transparent domes over them to conserve moisture. For heat they sit on a 24 inch by 48 inch thermostatically controlled heating pad (from a garden supplier catalog) set at 80 degrees. When they germinate, a flourescent light fixture gives them more light for 12 to 14 hours a day. Peppers go in the garden in early June most years. Tomato seeds will be started in another couple of weeks, then main crop cabbage family after that. We start almost everything with small seeds inside so we don't have to thin things in the garden as much.

-- Jim (jiminwis@yahoo.com), February 21, 2000.


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