An Experienced gardener will tell ya.....

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Hi all,

(I let my mind ramble today (yeah, ut oh)... and the neighbor (same one about the tomatoes last year) was asking me gardening tips and it occoured to me that we all learned how to garden by listening and through trial and error. So, I thought this would be a fun thread to start.
A place for the novice gardner (and some experienced gardenenrs to) to pick up some tried and true advice. So c'mon, now it's your turn to share.

What advice would you give? about planting, about bulbs, about lawncare? What about specific plants? Let's share some wisdom, and some laughs.


An experienced gardener will tell ya.... if you plant giant sunflowers. Cut them down in fall and pull the roots out in spring. If you try to pull them out at the end of the season it's like trying to lift and anchor.

Kaza

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I left all my sunflowers up through the winter for the birds. They've eaten every single seed. When I cleaned up the garden a week ago, I just kicked the stalks down by the bottom and they fell over. They only had a small rootball left and it was very easy to knock the dirt off and cart them off to the brush pile. ;D

~Lannie

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Compost, compost, compost. The more organic matter in your soil the less problems with pests and dying plants.

Add non-greasy vegetable matter only to the compost. That includes leaves, grass clippings and other naturally growing yard debris. Sticks will help with air and moisture circulation and will decay slower than leaves or grass. Don't put in cat or dog poop. Keep compost very slightly damp--I sprinkle a small amount of water on the top of mine each non-rainy day. Stir (or turn) compost once a week to keep its fragrance nice and to hasten decay.

No "special" ingredients (such as compost "starter," for example) are required. There are enough microbes in the general environment to make your compost "cook."

Healthy soil makes healthy plants.

And that's my advice for new gardeners.......

PS. Gardening is the best therapy there is, IMHO.

[bergere]

Horse manure worked in or just spread in your gardens, makes very tasty, big Veggies and fruit! ;D

Always cut out the old dead raspberry canes at their base in Dec and top by half. (This is for the Pacific NW and parts of the West Coast)
Field Dress with Horse manure and crushed oyster shells as soon as they start growing.
You will be surprised how big and tasty your raspberry's are.

For a Healthy thick green lawn....
Sprinkle a thin but even layer of Crushed Oyster shells. The Oyster shells will break down over the year and slowly ad much need micro nutrients into the soil making for very healthy grass.
Then cast Alfalfa Pellets thinly. Water in until they fluff up... then rake over a bit. This will green up your lawn nicely.

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Flaming weeds

Flamers are portable gas torches that produce intense heat (about 2,000°F). When you pass the flame over and around weeds, it quickly boils the water in the plants' cells, causing them to burst. Once the heat destroys any section of a weed's stem, for instance, water and nutrients cannot reach the leaves, and the top part of the weed dies.

For the home gardener, killing weeds is as easy as holding the flamer and walking slowly (1 to 2 miles an hour) between garden rows. Killing a weed requires heat for only 1/10 of a second.

"You know you're successful when the weed changes from a glossy to a matte finish," says Tom Lanine, weed ecologist at the University of California at Davis. "The weed may not droop immediately but will wilt and die within a few hours. Then you just leave the weed to compost naturally. You don't want to disturb the soil and bring more weed seeds to the top."

For effective weed control, use flamers in spring and early summer as annual and perennial weeds emerge. Killing larger, mature plants requires more heat, so save time and fuel by flaming weeds when they're still young and tender.

A couple treatments 2-3 weeks apart is sometimes needed.