Thanks for that, confirmed what I thought. Spacing isn't an issue for me, but heat is. I'm thinking I might plant the stuff a bit closer together so they hopefully provide shade for each other. Do you just plant the okra seeds a few per hole and let them germinate where they like, or dig a trench and spread it out? Can't wait to start pickling. Mouth is watering thinking about a jar of pickled okra, banana peppers, jalapenos.
Right? I have tons of okra seed. I put 4 or 5 seeds in each mound. I have been growing this: https://blog.gardeningknowhow.com/tbt/star-david-okra-plants/ Gets to like 8 or 9 feet tall.
Repotted a bunch of seedlings tonight. We have fucking SNOW forecasted for a few days this week. No way shit’s getting moved outdoors for at least a couple of weeks. At least a few things seem to be recovering from some fertilizer burn or over watering effects. I also took the time to plant some new tomato seeds I just got delivered; a few cherry tomatoes, and some paste tomatoes. We'll see how they do in the next few weeks. Meantime, I have a few peas actually growing pods, and my cucumbers are starting to flower like crazy. Out of frame, my basil, catnip, and cilantro are going nuts. Wondering why grow shit outside at all this year? Seems my garden is WFH themselves.
By the way, if you shop ahead, AliExpress has some CRAZY cheap gardening supplies... I got 200 of those plastic pots for less than $20 delivered in under a month. Way cheaper than any local nursery dollar store, or Amazon.
to add, I'm picking up a few bags of small rocks today. Gonna lay down weed barrier then do a super light layer of gravel for drainage, as well as spreading it in the 4 feet between walkways and around the beds if I have enough, just for decorative purposes. The lowes near me has a massive garden center with some smart people working there, so I'll ask what they recommend as far as soil mixture goes. Backup plan is there's a wholesale place nearby that sells a garden mix that I've seen work, but it's crazy expensive and also since my beds are in the fenced in back yard it's going to be easier to transport soil in bags rather than if it's just dumped and moving by wheelbarrow. Might go dig up some worms from the creek and toss them in there too. Beds ended up being 10 inches deep (another 2 inches if I fill flush to the rail on top), 4 feet wide, 10 feet long. Got everything leveled, not sure how important that is but it made me happy. I have enough space to do a more narrow raised bed at the front and back, but as it is I think I have a good amount of room to work with.
Yeah, I know I said it in rep, but nice work man. 4 ft across is not just handy when buying the boards, but it is about as wide as a raised bed can be and me harvest the middle very well once the plants are full size. I have done soil both ways, truckload and bagged. My bagged was not quite as good, but a hell of a lot easier for me to carry back 2 bags at a time. Both grew stuff just fine. GL with it, however you go.
Yeah 4 feet just came out right. I'm very disorganized in almost everything I do, but when I build things I am extremely anal retentive. The beds had to be perfectly parallel with the sidewalk, and the edge lined up exactly perpendicular from my home office door. 4 feet across didn't use all the boards, but it looked like the perfect length and allowed me to match it with a 4 ft wide walk space between them. Checked the prices on the wholesale landscaping place and their "garden soil" isn't as bad as I thought. $40/cubic yard for "a mix of topsoil, manure compost, red sand and aged saw dust." I'll probably need about 2.5 yards of it, I'm guessing about two loads in my f250. Still would be cheaper than like 60 some odd bags I think.
Good call. Rather spend a bit more and do the work now to have a nice setup, than have issues with it later and end up chasing sunk costs in both time and money. Got the pea gravel today, gonna spread a real light layer over the top of the weed barrier to help drainage just in case. Figure it's better safe than sorry.
So for hardening the plants, how far do y'all go before you plant? I've been adding an hour each day, just put them outside so it's 5 hours today (bring them in at 7:00, backtrack from there for the time). I've been hardening them on our shaded and covered porch where there's some wind that comes through. I've heard everything from go to 7 hours to go a full 14 before you put them in the ground. I was thinking go 7 hours on sunday then plant them on Monday, but I'm not sure if the weather is going to cooperate. Supposed to rain all next week. Not sure if I want them in the ground before the rain, or keep them inside or at least covered on the porch in case the storms get bad.
I basically put them in the shade all day for a couple days, then move somewhere that gets some morning sun but nothing scorching for another couple or three days, then set them while still in the pots where I'll be planting them for a day or two before digging holes and putting them in. So over a week total is how it normally goes for me.
gotcha. Yeah I’m working in midday sun right now filling the beds with soil and it’s still shaded: Don’t know why image rotated, wasn’t like that on my phone. But yeah, nice canopy so I’m not terribly worried about them getting sun scorched. Oak trees for the win.
I just go ahead and plant them but then set up my 14'x14' popup over the bed for 2-3 days to provide some shade (the legs about half-way extended). That has been plenty good enough for me, but it's not like I have to deal with the noon sun you guys must get down there. (The pop-up is also handy for major rain storms or hail or other potentially damaging weather events).
Wow, never even thought about using mine for that. Good idea! I was just gonna put some rebar stakes in and get some quarter inch pvc for a quick hoop house if I needed it. My pop up is a 10X10, which will cover most of it but not quite all of it I doubt. Normally I use it over my bbq pit so I can still smoke brisket when it rains
Yeah, I sized my beds to fit my popup as part of my initial design. Tried to think ahead a bit before I put together what was going to be a pretty immovable object.
@Nettdata can you tell me a little about your experience growing greens? How long does it actually take to get edible greens? Can you do partial harvests where you just take off a few mature leaves off many plants for a longer season? I've never really done lettuce or spinach or anything like that. I did do some bok choy inside this winter that were decent but I chopped the whole plant down. Are these softer greens something you can stagger a bit for continual food?
I'm glad I picked the garden spot I did. Shade has been perfect there and it gets a great breeze. Plus the dogs keep the critters away (reason I didn't need a higher bed). If I need to I can buy a larger popup. Or just toss a tarp over the existing one to extend the range a little and get the edges of the bed
I did all sorts of lettuce and swiss chard as seed starters, but never again... way too much time/effort to transplant. But yeah, I selectively harvested romaine leaves and we had fresh lettuce all season. The swiss chard was more of a "one and done" per plant... it didn't really take well to the selective harvest method, at least for me... I may have been doing something wrong. But I had a few hundred lettuce plants that were doing great until they went to seed. I never replanted anything as we went on... just planted it all at once at the start and that was it. I'm probably going to do things a bit differently this year, as in plant the seeds in the box, and then harvest/replant as I go. Swiss chard is already popping up in the box from last year's seeds.
Oh, and I can't tell you how long it took to get edible greens... I started with seeds and they were substantial size (baby lettuce) before going outside... but I'd guess it was 2-4 weeks until we got big/solid/substantial fare for dinner.