Garden 2023

[Chiefsmom]

All the talk about plants has got me antsy.
So, even though it is too early in my area to get them in the ground, I'm starting the 2023 gardening thread!

I started a bunch of seeds this year for my garden.  Many years, I just go buy the plants from our local gardening store, but I wanted to get in the habit of seed harvesting and starting.

On 3/20, I used Rapid rooter plugs from Amazon, as I have way better luck with these, then the little plugs in the mini greenhouse set up you can buy everywhere.
I put these in Styrofoam egg cartons.  I put the seeds in the little holes, water them really well, close them and put them on a seed heating pad and cover them with a towel.

Some plants, like tomatoes and kale, started within 2 days.  Pumpkins take 3.  
Generally, by the third day, I left them all open on the mats.
When the seedling gets big enough to see root through the plug, I put them in bigger containers.  I save all the ones from previous years.  
The veggies go into square ones, about 3x3 inches and my herbs/flower went into the 3 pack ones like plants come from at the nursery.  Thats all I had.
I have 2 square grow lights, about 12 x 12 and a new one that is just flexable arm lights I found this year, that are thin.
They all seem to be working well, I have the square ones hanging so I can adjust the height on them.  
It won't be until about mid may, before I can get them into the ground, as I am in MI, zone 5, and we have to worry about frost.
I wanted to post a pic, but my phone and email are not cooperating, as usual.

We also have Blueberry's, raspberry's, strawberry's and asparagus to put in, which I can do a little earlier, maybe this weekend.
We already have everything but the blueberry's, but we wanted to get bigger crops, and the asparagus just shows up wild, wherever it wants, so we want to put in an actual patch.  Easier to find I'm hoping.

I'm hoping people will join in this thread, with their own garden info this year, and with tips and tricks.  There is always so much to learn!
I also try to keep a journal, so I know how much I was able to harvest and can up the previous year.  Also good information like, 1 heaping 5 gal. pail of tomatoes gave me 10 quarts of juice.
On that note,
I've been fighting blight for years, so this year I am actually going to try copper sulfate fungicide this year.  I hoping if It works, I can get enough tomatoes that I can skip planting them this year.
I do that with corn and peas.  Last year, even though it was a bad year for corn, I got 63 pints, so I won't be growing it this year, it'll be peas.

I am also extending my herb garden, with more medicinal herbs this year as well.  Starting with the mullien, all heal, more yarrow, echinacea and some evening primrose.
I will be trying to keep up with this thread all season.

[VioletDove]

Yay! A garden thread! I'm gonna probably be in here a lot lol.

I am actually the worst at gardening. I like to buy the stuff and get it started but I wish it could plant and maintain itself. Every year I say this time will be different and I'm going to have the best garden. Last year actually started good and I was really enjoying it for the first time ever, then the drought came and it got over 100F for days. The heat burned everything up. 

I started tomatoes and peppers in January. They are getting so big now but as I mentioned in the shoutbox I'm almost afraid to plant them. My lettuce and greens are just about big enough to start eating now. I planted all of that at the beginning of last month.

Last fall I dug up every pepper plant, my eggplants and stevia to try to winter them over in the greenhouse. I must have had some of them too close to the door because I lost almost every pepper plant when it got real cold. I do still have a few though and my cayenne plant is already blooming and making peppers. My eggplants made it too and look real good.

I've started a lot of different herbs but since I'm inpatient, I bought a bunch too. I plan on planting marigolds in with my tomatoes and oregano with my squash this year because it's supposed to help with pests.

I also plan to experiment with Electro Culture gardening. Not sure how it works but apparently making copper antennas is supposed to do something like charge up your soil,  when you stick them in the dirt and really make the plants grow. I'm skeptical but not so much that I won't try it.

[Ninurta]

I reckon I'll chime in - it's more permanent for reference than the shoutbox!

When I was a kid, I hated gardening. Absolutely hated it, but learned all the same because I had to do it. We had a "normal" subsistence garden back then - corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, peppers,potatoes, etc., that sort of thing.I tried peanuts one year, but got nothing out of them. The soil was too much clay, not enough sand, and peanuts like a sandy soil. Mostly it was just stuff for supper, and to be canned.

Now I'm old, and retired. I had to find something to do to keep me off the streets and out of trouble, and there wasn't a "job" any more to take care of that, so I took up gardening. It's low-impact, and I can pretty much do it on my own time. I don't get in a rush to beat the clock any more.

Last year, about all I grew was Sacred Tobacco. Not that I didn't TRY a few other things, but the tobacco was about all that actually came up, so I ran with that. I tried some quinoa, but it never sprouted. Same for the pampas grass. about 4 years ago, I tried some of the pampas grass (I gathered the seed wild when I was living in Kansas City), and it sprouted like gangbusters, but by last year, it looks like most or all of the seed had died, which irritated me - I was looking forward to gathering the stems of the flower stalks to use for arrow shafts. They make good ones - they're tough and light, and mostly straight. I think they'd do as well, and maybe better, than river cane.

Last year, I picked up some of those "jiffy" miniature greenhouses with the peat plugs that you've got to soak in warm water and get them to expand. The tobacco did fine in them, but NONE of the quinoa or pampas grass, or anything else I put in them sprouted. I'm a little leery of them this year, but tried them again for tomatoes, green peppers, and cayenne peppers. So far, ONE bell pepper (out of 10) is sprouting, four beefsteak tomatoes (out of 20 planted) are sprouting, and none of the cayenne (out of 10 planted) so far. That's not doing much to increase my faith in them.

The herbal front is looking a bit brighter. I planted the catnip, thyme, basil, sage, and peppermint in tiny greenhouses that I got from Amazon. They are about 6 inches by 9 inches, and have 4 inch high domes on them with LED grow lights built-in the the domes. The lights are built in to rotating disks at the center of the dome, and you can rotate them 45 degrees to open vents in the domes to ventilate them if needed, and close them to  hold the humidity in. The catnip, thyme, basil, and peppermint is sprouting like crazy. The sage, so far, only has two sprouts (and one errant basil sprout that crept into a sage cell), but I wasn't expecting it to do anything until April 15th, so what has already sprouted is early.

Those mini greenhouses have a base, an insert that has 12 cells, the dome and the grow lights. It comes with a USB cable for the grow lights that plug in to a USB outlet, runs through a switch that has timer setting on it, and then splits out to 5 separate cords, one for each set of grow lights. It also came with a heat pad, but I haven't used that. Handy to have if you need it, though! This is the kit I have, but you can get them cheaper, and with more trays, but without the heat pad. I've seen them at Amazon with 10 trays and domes  for 20 bucks, but no heat pad.

Grow lights - most grow lights you can get these days are big square or rectangular panels. I don't use those, so I don't know how well they work. Most I've seen pictures of look like they are throwing a purple light. I use LED "bulb" grow lights. This is the latest one I got. Only uses 24 W of power, throws 300 W of light. I have two more of those 24W lights, both a different brand that I can't think of the name of right now, but they look just like the Sansi ones, right down to the same cooling fin housing. I also have 1 15W bulb like that, but it's not in use at the moment. I've only got 3 of the special drop cords I use for them, so the 15 W bulb is waiting for power. The drop cords look like 1/2 inch sisal or hemp rope with a switch in the middle, and are 15 feet long. I hang them from plant-hanger hooks in the ceiling so i can adjust the height as needed. A twist tie at the bottom of the loop formed at the hook keeps them from slipping when I don't want them to slip, but allows them to be adjusted when I do want them to slip.

Last December I popped some hemp seeds into dirt, just to see what would happen. It was "bagseed", not anything I bought from reputable seed suppliers. The seed ain't been created that I'd pay 10 bucks per seed for - so I just saved a couple bagseeds. Out of 12 seeds in the dirt, 6 of them sprouted. I didn't take much care with them, since I was just doing it out of boredom. No greenhouse, no humidity domes, none of that. Just popped them into 3" vacuum formed plastic square pots, like you get plants from a nursery in, filled with a "seed starter" peat mix. Since they sprouted, I let 'em run to see what would happen. The last hemp I grew was over 40 years ago, closer to 50, and only got 11 1/2 inches tall before it went to seed... so it wasn't much worth the effort. I figured these would be the same, but they got to about 4 feet tall before they started blooming. 4 of the 6 turned out to be males, so I cut two of the males down to get under the legal limit - you are allowed 4 hemp plants here, unless you are growing it under license. I used those aforementioned grow lights with them, and they turned out better than i expected.

I'm going to try to make twine out of the hemp fibers from the males I cut down.

Last year, I used coffee cans for planters for the tobacco. We get coffee in those plastic coffee cans that are about a gallon or so. I just saved several up and drilled 5 drain holes in the bottoms of them - one in the center and 4 spaced equidistant around the edge. They worked pretty well to hold the tobacco until I could get it in the ground... which i did too late in the season. This is how we learn, i reckon. trial and error. I transplanted the tobacco out of the starter plugs into 3 inch pots, and later into the coffee cans. What I learned from that is to only transplant them ONCE before popping them in the ground for real. I also learned you can just pull those suckers up by the stem and transplant them a little deeper than they were before, and they'll make new roots to replace the ones that were ripped off when they were pulled up. I learned that because originally, I was just going to thin them out, but then got the bright idea to replant the culls and see if they could survive. They did. Very well.

The tobacco I grow isn't regular cigarette or cigar tobacco, it's "native tobacco" or "sacred tobacco.". The Muskogee tribe calls it "little tobacco", because it doesn't get as big as commercial tobacco. Mine got between 25 and 30 inches tall when it started blooming Regular tobacco gets 5 or 6 feet tall, and has pink blossoms. The blooms on the native tobacco are a greenish-yellow instead. it has anywhere from 3 to 20 times the nicotine of commercial tobacco, averaging about 9 times as much.

Some folks in the Anishinaabe tribe told me to start it in the week before the March full moon, or else later "when The Thunderers arrive", but this year both fell at the same time - I heard The Thunderers about midway in the week before the first full moon in March, so I figured that was the time and sewed the tobacco early on March 5th (the full moon was the 7th).  I planted two of those mini-greenhouses with it, 24 cells, and it's going like gangbusters, already filled the dome. I'll have to thin it out soon, and I figure to get at least 48 plants, maybe 72 if I'm lucky and careful. It takes a lot. I only grew 24 of them last year, and got practically no tobacco - maybe a couple ounces dried, when I should have got a couple ounces per plant. I did, however, get about 16 grams or so of seed. I've sent some of that seed out to other folks that wanted to try it, and still have a bunch of it. Tobacco has about 3500 seeds per gram.

I did test sprout some of that seed, and it seems to have a higher germination rate than the original seed I started with (I got about 4 grams of them, so about 14,000 seeds or so). This year, for my own grow, I used the original seed (supposedly "thousand year old seed" grown from seeds found in a clay pot at an archaeological dig, but I think that's a bullshit story to sell seed. it looks like the Cherokee tobacco to me). That was to keep the strain pure, as last year I grew both the ancient tobacco and Midewiwin tobacco, so the seed produced may have up to 4% cross-pollination.

I'm rambling, and this is long... so I'll shut up for now.

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[Ninurta]

A couple other notes:

Catnip repels pest bugs. It repels mosquitoes wonderfully, and there is a theory that cats roll in it because the oils produced repel mites and the like, so they don't get so itchy. So I planted 6 cells of it and plan on getting at least 12 plants to plant around the yard so the cats can roll all they want to in it. Like the tobacco, it will self-seed (grows wild all over the place 20 miles southwest of here from self-seeding), so I'm hoping I only have to grow it once for an endless supply.

Catnip also attracts bigger cats, like leopards, lynxes, cougars, and bobcats. With that big-assed bobcat that haunts this area, this could get interesting.

Basil is reputed to repel garden pests. We'll see.

Tobacco repels bigger pests, like deer and rabbits. I'm sensing a plan here.

Grace got me a couple foundations for hummingbird nests, so I've placed one in the back yard, near the tobacco plot, because hummingbirds love tobacco and that would be convenient for them, and the other is in the front yard for them.

Poppies self-seed too, if you once get them started.

The peppermint will take over wherever I plant it, via self-seeding and runners and whatnot. That's what I'm counting on. Not only is it medicinal (good for stomach troubles), but menthol can be extracted from it for all kinds of things... like the menthol cigarettes they're trying to outlaw. Since 40% of all cigarette sales are menthol smokes, I have a notion that mentholated tobacco might eventually be a business opportunity on the black market

I have no tiller, I have no tractor, and I have no horse. So I'll be breaking the ground for the garden spots by hand. I found two shovels - one round point and one square - and two hoes that grandpa had stashed in the coal-house, and today I got a "garden weasel", so those are what I'll be using to prep the garden spots. Last year, all I did was dig a hole in the ground and drop the tobacco plants in... so I reckon this year is an upgrade.

This is starting to sound a whole lot like work - at least more like work than a hobby.

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[Ninurta]

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Notes for planting catnip - "Plant Catnip Seeds: Soak catnip seed in water overnight prior to sowing. Then sow seed in cell packs or flats, press into soil and lightly cover. Kept at 60°F., germination is staggered, over a period of 14-40 days."

Notes for planting thyme - "Thyme grows very slowly from seed and after planting, germination can take up to 28 days. Because of this, it is usually grown from divisions or cuttings. If planting from seed, begin thyme indoors and scatter the seeds on top of the soil and do not cover them or only cover them lightly."

Notes for planting basil - "Basil seeds germinate best when soil temperatures are 75-85°F and take about 10-14 days to sprout. Transplants take 4-6 weeks to grow to size and should be planted after frosts in mid to late May."

Notes for planting sage - "If you choose to start from seed, start them indoors 6 to 8 weeks before the last frost under a plant light. Sage seeds will germinate in about 3 weeks, after which you can transplant seedlings to your prepared soil."

Notes for planting peppermint - "Do not cover the seeds; they need light to germinate. They should sprout within 10 to 15 days at room temperature or slightly warmer (68 to 75°F)."



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[Ninurta]

I also plan to experiment with Electro Culture gardening. Not sure how it works but apparently making copper antennas is supposed to do something like charge up your soil,  when you stick them in the dirt and really make the plants grow. I'm skeptical but not so much that I won't try it.

Why has no one invented copper tomato cages? Seems to me that would be a grand invention, and a marketing shoo-in for the Electro-Cultre notion! Tommy Copper missed the boat there!

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[Bally002]

Our Garden has been around for about 10 years when we moved onto our selection.  At times I've expanded it and also taken areas out due to drought, flood and fires.  Animal pests are roos, bandicoots, possum, rats occasionally, cockatoos, parrots and my free roaming chickens at times.

We've grown just about everything.  Had some good crops of Pok Choy, Spinach, Lettuce, Zucchini, Squash, varieties of Pumpkin, runner beans, Snow peas, tomatoes, radish, leek and spring onions.  Nothing on a large scale but enough for us, the neighbours and have sold surplus at the local bush market in the past.

The farm came with a variety of fruit, nut and native tucker trees.   Lost a few in the fires and the following flooding afterwards drowned/rotted a couple.  Sold bags of mandarins, pomelos  and experimenting with pineapples presently.  Most fruit needs to be harvested before the birds get to it especially the cockatoos and native parrots which also tear into the olives and macadamias.

We tend to grow more than we need and store some in the larder.

As I alluded to there were fires and floods last couple of years.  The rain has 'turned' the soil and growing is difficult so there is a bit of mulching going on.  Our latest day out with the dogs is taking the small truck to a location near a river and taking the exposed loamy soil from a collapsed bank and mixing it in with manure, ash and our current soil at home.  Maintaining a healthy worm farm as well. 

Another experiment I'm doing is planting potatoes and sweet potatoes in large boxes on the porch.  Never had much luck with them in the past as grubs and bandicoots ripped through the ground. 

I have a small herb garden set aside and a seedling room which we tend to occasionally. 

As for tobacco @"Ninurta"#2  I have grown it in the past and it went wild.  Big pink blooms and large cabbage leaves which I dried and mixed with regular tobacco.  Fire wiped it out.  Currently trying again but no seeds are striking sadly.  Some stunted ones but no higher than an inch.  Other garden plants are ornamentals such as native orchids, perennials and dragon fruit climbing cactus. 

Plants that otherwise failed this last year are corn, peppers/chili and melons but there is always next year.  

The gardens are a hobby and we can spend many hours just dicking around with the plants and trees.  Wood cutting and splitting will take precedence soon and some work on the house through the winter.  

Mouse plague last year took out out seed stock so starting afresh.  Put some passion fruit in pots along with mulberry cuttings and will soon prune the grape vines and plant the cuttings.  Recently put a fig tree and a plum tree in the yard and they seem to be doing well.  Had one lemon tree suffer from grub/bug infestation so cut that back and the fig is taking it's place.

Guess we'll be doing this until we sell up.  To be honest I do get lazy and lose a lot of plants and need to up my management.  Can't bend much and not tolerating heat/sun which at times triggers a virus. Now a lot of the veg's are in raised beds with some shade sail.

Raved on a bit.  I do like this thread.

Kind regards and happy planting,

Bally)

[Chiefsmom]

So glad others are enjoying this thread, and giving great advice. (Ninuta)  But I can't imaginge doing it without a rototiller.  That is my hubby's only job in the veggie garden.  I plant the rows just wider than the tiller, so he can do that for me.

@ violetdove

One thing I can suggest for the herb garden is to put something around the plant to keep the weeds down, like either black plastic, cardboard or actual mulch.
Although, you have to remember, which I did not, that if you have a plant that your going to dig up for the root, like echinacea, the cardboard is your best bet, as I ended up with a mess, with actual mulch.

I've also been experimenting with gallon and laundry detergent jugs, for slow drip watering.  Remember to put a big rock or a few smaller ones in them, or they are all over your yard.  (I didn't).  Also, the first year I used a nail and put too many holes in, so it was empty within 15 minutes or so.  I wanted it to last at least an hour or two.

I am the worst when it comes to when it comes to weeding.  I will forget or get busy for a week or so, then have to spend a day out there doing it.  But that has its own rewards, like having a young deer coming up to the fence while grazing.  I could have reached out and touched her.  But my legs were stiff from crouching and staying still until she moved on.  It was worth it.

Our garden dirt is really great now.  We have heavy clay in our area, but over the years, when I clean the chicken coop, that goes in to get tilled.  I only add it directly in the fall to over winter, then it goes in a pile on the side for the next winter.  And the birds earn their keep, by spreading it all over the garden when I let them in, in the fall to clean up whatever is left out there.  
Our garden is actually in the chicken run, but fenced off from May to October.  I love taking pictures of the hubby when he tills it up for the first time, and all the chickens and ducks are in a line behind him.

Oh, and these are the plugs I use.  General Hydroponics Rapid Rooter, Starter Plug for Seeds or Cuttings, Great for Soil or Hydroponics Growing System, 50 Plugs (amazon.com)
Did not know they have a tray system one like jiffy.  Might have to try that next year.

[BIAD]

I spent a couple of hours filling one of those collapsible garden bins this morning (Tuesday)
with tiny flowering weeds like the one below. Thousands of the buggers and I've only cleared
a quarter of my sea-cobbles-covered front-garden!

[Ninurta]

Another experiment I'm doing is planting potatoes and sweet potatoes in large boxes on the porch.  Never had much luck with them in the past as grubs and bandicoots ripped through the ground. 



As for tobacco @"Ninurta"#2  I have grown it in the past and it went wild.  Big pink blooms and large cabbage leaves which I dried and mixed with regular tobacco.  Fire wiped it out.  Currently trying again but no seeds are striking sadly.  Some stunted ones but no higher than an inch.  Other garden plants are ornamentals such as native orchids, perennials and dragon fruit climbing cactus. 

That tobacco sounds like commercial tobacco, nicotiana tabacum. That's what we used to grow all over the place here as a cash crop. When the government did away with allotments, the economic value of it dropped, so most farmers here stopped growing it. I've noticed a lot of fields that used to be sewn in tobacco are now being sewn in corn instead. Others just lie fallow now, and are going back to woods. Some mega huge hemp combines did try to move in and replace tobacco with hemp, but the government restrictions here on hemp growing made that option economically unviable at scale, so none of the farmers took them up on it, and the corporations withered and died. See, the Federal government has restrictions on how much THC a hemp crop can contain, (no more than 0.3%)  and if it is tested outside those limits, the entire crop had to be destroyed resulting in a huge loss for the farmer, and no one wants to take that kind of risk when their livelihood is on the line.

The tobacco I'm growing is nicotiana rustica rather than nicotiana tabacum. There are a couple other wild species of tobacco here, like nicotiana quadrivalvis and a couple others I can't recall the name of, but they grow mostly out west, and so are not a threat to a crop here as far as cross pollination goes. Rustica has greenish yellow blossoms and  is a much smaller plant, tabacum has big pink blooms and stands about 5 or 6 feet tall with bigger leaves, and most of the wild varieties have white blossoms. ALL of it will self-seed and go feral if the seed is allowed to develop and not collected. When tabacum was grown commercially here, we always "topped" the plants by breaking off the flower heads before they bloomed and "suckered" it by breaking off the developing branches as soon as they appeared. That puts more energy into leaf production and makes bigger leaves.

There is also a species of tobacco native to Australia, but like everything else in Australia, it would probably kill users.

I've always wanted to try potatoes here, but the soil is too clayey and dense for potatoes - I'd never be able to roll them out of the ground. Grace has ordered some "grow bags" made out of some sort of fabric to test out, and I plan on planting those in potatoes to see how it goes. I think they are about 10 gallons each, big enough for a test run.

From the description of what you can grow there, it sounds like you have a "Mediterranean" climate, like Spain or Italy. I've got some seed here for Mediterranean Palms, but haven't put them in the ground since I don't know if they'd survive here or not.

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[Ninurta]

So glad others are enjoying this thread, and giving great advice. (Ninuta)  But I can't imaginge doing it without a rototiller.  That is my hubby's only job in the veggie garden.  I plant the rows just wider than the tiller, so he can do that for me.

I'm just planting in small patches - think flower bed sized - so it's not that big of a deal, really, to break them up by hand. The "garden weasel" I got yesterday was just a lightweight, cheap one. If it manages to last a season, then it's paid for itself.

@ violetdove

One thing I can suggest for the herb garden is to put something around the plant to keep the weeds down, like either black plastic, cardboard or actual mulch.
Although, you have to remember, which I did not, that if you have a plant that your going to dig up for the root, like echinacea, the cardboard is your best bet, as I ended up with a mess, with actual mulch.

I did landscaping for a couple years. We used a substance called "landscape fabric" to keep weeds down in installations. It was a black fabric sort of like Tyvek, and came in rolls. We'd just roll it out in rows to cover the area necessary, then cut holes in it for the individual plants, and cover the whole shebang with mulch to hide the landscape fabric. It worked pretty good to keep weeds down, but as you mention it could be a pain in the ass when trying to dig something up.

Oh, and these are the plugs I use.  General Hydroponics Rapid Rooter, Starter Plug for Seeds or Cuttings, Great for Soil or Hydroponics Growing System, 50 Plugs (amazon.com)
Did not know they have a tray system one like jiffy.  Might have to try that next year.

Those look interesting. I might give 'em a shot next year. I think I already have a tray sized for them.

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[VioletDove]

I have planted most of my herbs. When I got them gathered up, I realized I forgot spearmint during my buying spree. My husband said he’d pick some up while he’s in town and I should just stay here. I guess he’s afraid of what else I may come home with. I may not go today but there is always tomorrow lol. I think he forgot that my daughter and I have made plans to go plant shopping in the next week or two. 

I did as @"Chiefsmom"#67 suggested but I used paper feed sacks with mulch around my herbs. I cut the tops off of some old flower pots to make sort of a barrier around the peppermint to hopefully keep it contained some, as my growing area isn’t that big. I don’t know if it’ll work but it can be another experiment. 

Also I never knew what part of the echinacea to use so I’ve learned something.

Okay @"Ninurta"#2 you have me a little worried about the catnip now. I didn’t think about it drawing in big cats, but it does make sense. 

This is such a good thread. It’s really interesting to read how gardening is done in different growing zones and there is already so much good info and tips.

[Chiefsmom]

As far as the echinacea, After t years, I dig up the roots, (they are tough!)  Cut them up, put them in enough alcohol to cover it, and shake it every day for 2 months.  (storing in a dark cupboard)

A teaspoon several times a day works amazing when you are starting to feel "off" from a cold or flu.

But... if you have young ones, that you don't want to give the tincture to, you can harvest the flowers and dry them, crush them up and make a tea out of them.

[Ninurta]

Okay @"Ninurta"#2 you have me a little worried about the catnip now. I didn’t think about it drawing in big cats, but it does make sense. 

From Wikipedia:

Catnip contains the feline attractant nepetalactone. N. cataria (and some other species within the genus Nepeta) are known for their behavioral effects on the cat family, not only on domestic cats, but also other species.[26] Several tests showed that leopards, cougars, servals, and lynxes often reacted strongly to catnip in a manner similar to domestic cats. Lions and tigers may react strongly as well, but they do not react consistently in the same fashion.[27][28][29][30]

But not to worry - y'all have a rifle, right?

Same source, more about bug control:

The plant is drought-tolerant and deer-resistant. It can be a repellent for certain insects, including aphids and squash bugs.[11] Catnip is best grown in full sunlight and grows as a loosely branching, low perennial.[15]

Biological control

The iridoid that is deposited on cats who have rubbed themselves against the plants and scratched the surfaces of catnip and silver vine (Actinidia polygama) leaves, repels mosquitoes.[18] The compound iridodial, an iridoid extracted from catnip oil, has been found to attract lacewings that eat aphids and mites.[19]

As an insect repellent

Nepetalactone is a mosquito and fly repellent.[20][21] Oil isolated from catnip by steam distillation is a repellent against insects, in particular mosquitoes, cockroaches, and termites.[22][23] Research suggests that, while a more effective spatial repellant than DEET,[24] when compared with SS220 or DEET, it is not so effective as a repellent as it is when used on the skin of humans.[25]

Medicinal uses:

...
In addition to its uses with cats, catnip is an ingredient in some herbal teas (or tisanes), and is valued for its sedative and relaxant properties.[8][9]
...

Catnip has a history of use in traditional medicine for a variety of ailments such as stomach cramps, indigestion, fevers, hives, and nervous conditions.[26] The plant has been consumed as a tisane, juice, tincture, infusion, or poultice, and has also been smoked.[26] However, its medicinal use has fallen out of favor with the development of modern medicine.[26]

So I reckon it's worth taking a chance on having to knock a big cat in the head with a piss-elm club every now and then!

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[VioletDove]

Okay @"Ninurta"#2 you have me a little worried about the catnip now. I didn’t think about it drawing in big cats, but it does make sense. 

From Wikipedia:

Catnip contains the feline attractant nepetalactone. N. cataria (and some other species within the genus Nepeta) are known for their behavioral effects on the cat family, not only on domestic cats, but also other species.[26] Several tests showed that leopards, cougars, servals, and lynxes often reacted strongly to catnip in a manner similar to domestic cats. Lions and tigers may react strongly as well, but they do not react consistently in the same fashion.[27][28][29][30]

But not to worry - y'all have a rifle, right?

Same source, more about bug control:

The plant is drought-tolerant and deer-resistant. It can be a repellent for certain insects, including aphids and squash bugs.[11] Catnip is best grown in full sunlight and grows as a loosely branching, low perennial.[15]

Biological control

The iridoid that is deposited on cats who have rubbed themselves against the plants and scratched the surfaces of catnip and silver vine (Actinidia polygama) leaves, repels mosquitoes.[18] The compound iridodial, an iridoid extracted from catnip oil, has been found to attract lacewings that eat aphids and mites.[19]

As an insect repellent

Nepetalactone is a mosquito and fly repellent.[20][21] Oil isolated from catnip by steam distillation is a repellent against insects, in particular mosquitoes, cockroaches, and termites.[22][23] Research suggests that, while a more effective spatial repellant than DEET,[24] when compared with SS220 or DEET, it is not so effective as a repellent as it is when used on the skin of humans.[25]

Medicinal uses:

...
In addition to its uses with cats, catnip is an ingredient in some herbal teas (or tisanes), and is valued for its sedative and relaxant properties.[8][9]
...

Catnip has a history of use in traditional medicine for a variety of ailments such as stomach cramps, indigestion, fevers, hives, and nervous conditions.[26] The plant has been consumed as a tisane, juice, tincture, infusion, or poultice, and has also been smoked.[26] However, its medicinal use has fallen out of favor with the development of modern medicine.[26]

So I reckon it's worth taking a chance on having to knock a big cat in the head with a piss-elm club every now and then!

.

Ohhh yes, completely worth it. I may have to buy some more and a little extra ammo just in case.

[Chiefsmom]

Well, I may have to delay expanding my herb garden for a little while.  
I went out to my sacred area, where the herb garden is, and started pulling some weeds and overgrown grass.  I looked down, and it looked like fuzz underneath, so I grabbed some, and UH OH!  Baby Bunnys!
I hurried up and put some back, but I had already taken a lot off and thrown it.
SO I ended up putting a planter over it as well, at an angle on a brick, so mom could get under it.  (mostly in case of rain)

They didn't even have their eyes opened yet.  I think there where 3.

Told the barn cat not to touch them.  Don't think he will listen.
There is a fence around the area, so hopefully he doesn't know they are there yet.

From what I've read, probably a 2 to 3 week delay now.

[Ninurta]

We got the 'tater bags. Great big things, I think they are about 10 gallons or so, with grommeted drain holes in the bottoms and handles at the tops to move them with. Dark green and made out of the kind of stuff you see those blue tarps being made out of. I figure it'll take about 2 cubic feet of dirt to fill each one so I can cut up some taters and drop 'em in the dirt.

I started breaking ground for a couple planting spots with that "garden claw" gizmo. It breaks the ground down for about 6", and does a fine job of it if you put a little bit of "oomph" into the twisting of it. My problem is that there is a black walnut tree just across the fence from where I'm planting, and it's sending roots into the yard, and I'm encountering those tree roots in some places. Due to that, I may have put a little too much "oomph" into twisting the garden claw gizzy, The result of that coupled with the fact that I bought the cheaper one turns out to mean that I've bents the claws a bit, but it's not unusable.

I also discovered that 84 degrees F is a bit more than my old ass likes to break ground in. I'm surprised it didn't leave me sore as a boil, but I reckon maybe the heat didn't allow me to break ground long enough to get sore.

Using that thing, I found that the first twist is the hardest, and if you only take about half a bite with it as you go along breaking dirt, that makes it a lot easier, and only a little slower if any.

Bell peppers are still sprouting, and there are 4 or 5 starting to sprout now. Likewise the tomatoes, and I have 4 seedlings fully up and 5 more breaking the surface. Only 3 of the cayenne peppers are breaking dirt, but I still have hope. About 4 sage seedlings are above the surface now, and growing fast.

If any of the "test" tobacco from the sprouting tests of the seed I harvested last fall survives, I think I'll use it to experiment and see if topping and suckering it like commercial tobacco improves leaf size and yield. That way I can learn from it while at the same time making sure there is no cross-pollination of the plants from the "true" seed this year.

Now I've just got to figure out what I'm going to do with the herbs before they outgrow the greenhouse domes.

When I plant the corn, I'm just going to put it straight into the ground around the first of May. The way we used to do that was to plant 3 grains of corn per hill to insure that at least one sprouted per hill, and at the same time we'd put 3 beans in the same hole with the corn. As they grew, the bean vines would twine around the corn stalks so we didn't have to stake the beans. That's for "pole" beans without cutting poles for them. I reckon it wouldn't matter so much for bush beans,  However, the only bean seed I have to plant is pinto beans out of a store bag, and I don't know if they'll sprout or not. The batch I tried last year didn't.

Something is hanging around the yard that the indoor cat doesn't like. She'll sit in the window, and when she senses it outside, she growls like a bear and makes that "Imo get in a fight" yowl that cats do. It's not the outdoor cat, because when she shes him out the window, she just ignores him. Sometimes, the outdoor cat seems to be pretty keen on being an indoor cat for a little bit, so there is something hanging around that he don't like, either. It might be Old Bob the bobcat still hanging out here, but I dunno why he would since spring is here and there are much easier pickin's for him out in the woods.

Then again, Old Bob might really be Old Roberta trying to hook up with Tom the outdoor cat. Who knows? Tiom seems to be having none of that, though, if that is what's going on.

ETA: the other 24w LED grow light bulbs I'm using are made by SGLED, but I couldn't find the Amazon listing. They look exactly like the Sansi grow lights I linked to above, though, right down to having the same cooling fin housing and arrangement. I also have a Pronor single light made like a ring which is made for clipping to individual plant pots. [url=https://www.amazon.com/Yadoker-Growing-Spectrum-Adjustable-Automatic/dp/B08NCR9S1D/ref=sr_1_21_sspa?crid=3RJ9HN134SKZQ&keywords=pronoro+grow+lights&qid=1680801731&sprefix=pronoro+grow+lights%2Caps%2C289&sr=8-21-spons&psc=1&smid=A1XRZFV7426CV&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyRUhXOVNTOVNJS0lIJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMjA4MzcxOURSWlZTWEVGNzVMJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAwNzk4NDYyOEY2UzVKRENGTUFWJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfbXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==}It's made and looks and acts just like this one[/url].

.

[Ninurta]

I'm trying the pampas grass again, one more time. The seed is about 9 years old at this point, so I'm not holding out a lot of hope, but there's a chance that an outlier or two may still be viable, so I sewed all the seed off of an entire seed head - probably 200 or 300 seeds. This time, I planted them on top of dirt in one of those coffee cans, and then put about 1/8 or 1/4 inch of peat potting soil on top of them.Then I wet the peat with a mister, and did that every hour or so until it was moistened all the way down to the dirt, and the dirt took the water over for drainage. That process floated some of the seed to the top, so some is buried and some is on the surface, just in case one way works better than the other. The I stretched some saran-wrap across the top to hold in humidity, and tied a string around the neck of the can to hold the plastic wrap on, and set the whole mess under a grow light. Now it's a waiting game.

The tobacco got tall enough that it was scraping the top of the humidity dome in the little greenhouses, so I thinned it out this evening and took out the tallest plants. I transplanted those into a flat of cells, 36 in all. I'll do it again in a week or so, depending on how many plants survive the transplanting. There are still 100 or 200 in the greenhouses, so some of them are just gonna have to die. I can't transplant all of those, and the greenhouse cells have to be thinned out to 1 plant per cell - 24 plants in all. That will give me 60 plants to poke into the ground after the danger of frost is over.

Ditto for the tomatoes - some of them were bumping into the greenhouse tray lid, so I popped the 4 tallest into 3" pots in a flat to wait until I can put them into the ground outdoors. I'll probably have to do the same with some of the sage in a day or two - it's growing faster than i expected it would.

Thyme is about an inch and a half tall, and the basil is about 2" tall now, so it can stay in the greenhouse for the time being. The peppermint is still pretty tiny - maybe half an inch tall, so it's still good, too.

I got some black beans seed today to go with the corn ("Cherokee Wax Beans", which I have doubts are "Cherokee" at all). They are bush beans instead of pole beans, so I'll probably plant them between the corn instead of in the same hole with it.

Only 3 weeks to go until outdoor planting, so I'll have to get on the stick and finish breaking the ground in the next day or two to give the broken dirt time to settle back before it's showtime.

.

[VioletDove]

I just went out to check on my seedlings and guess what…the catnip finally sprouted! I should have plenty with those plus what I bought.

I also started some Calendula on Monday, in one of those hexagon seed trays and it’s already up.

Now I just have to feel better so that I can walk without cussing every step. I need to get everything else planted but it seems to be taking awhile to completely recover from all the work I put into the raised bed.

[Bally002]

Made an mistook in the vege garden this morning.  I have 2 cut-off 44 gal drums into which I put scraps and compost.  At times tomatoes sprout and we harvest them.

The other day the tom plants were past their life so we cut them up and just let them dry out in the bins.  Maybe later burn.

This morning I was cleaning around the bins and noticed this large sprouting plant in one of the drums which I didn't recognize.

It was about a foot and a half long, large deep green leaves and we had never noticed it growing in there before.  So I ripped it up as I do with all weeds.  Out it came, roots and all with a big avocado seed attached.  Dammit.  I could never grow Avs from seeds.  

So immediately placed it if a bucket of water and prepared a large pot.  True Love and I placed the big pot and Av plant on the verandah and watched it slowly wilt.  Fingers crossed it may pick up.  I looked up advice and it was recommended to cut the top off.  Will see in the morning.

Bally)