Our Urban Food Garden - 2013 | Page 3 | Food Production and Preservation

Our Urban Food Garden - 2013

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spotted-horses

Rancher

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20 Mar ’13 - 6:43 pm

My thought is that if you fertilize them and they are not getting enough light you will get very leggy seedlings.

I like how organized you are. I'm not nearly that together!

Also if you haven't grown leeks before, the meet to be trimmed regularly or they won't get fat!

Be RADICAL Grow Food

Kamikaze-Emu

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20 Mar ’13 - 9:21 pm

Quote:

Quote from spotted horses on March 20, 2013, 18:43

My thought is that if you fertilize them and they are not getting enough light you will get very leggy seedlings.

I like how organized you are. I'm not nearly that together!

Also if you haven't grown leeks before, the meet to be trimmed regularly or they won't get fat!

Thanks for the heads up on the leeks. I had heard about mounding dirt around them as they grow so you get a lot of white, but I had not heard about fattening them up.

Should I not fertilize until they are outside? The potting soil is pretty rich so it might keep them rolling.

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21 Mar ’13 - 9:46 am

you should be fine with just whats in the potting soil, DD had a good idea on one of our podcasts about using a fan to blow air over them a couple times a day to mimic wind in nature which helps strengthen the stalk, well actually DD just uses his hand and runs it over the seedlings, I'd like to see a picture of him petting his plants lol

Kamikaze-Emu

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21 Mar ’13 - 3:31 pm

Sounds good KVR. Not a bad idea on the stalk training, I'll give them a gentle pet tonight!

groinkick

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21 Mar ’13 - 9:24 pm

Quote:

Quote from khunmaimeesamong on March 19, 2013, 19:42

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Quote from groinkick on March 19, 2013, 09:31

Hey KE, good luck with your garden. I know I'm excited to see your progress.

I did watermelons for the first time last year. I had three plants and got 7 melons. They were delicious.

I trellised them and actually tied them up with pantyhose (no, not used) This seemed to work fine. It supported them and expanded as the melons grew. Here's a pic of mine from last season

that is a really cool idea, i've never seen that before. normally with my melons i have just laid a screen over the plants at a 45 degree angle. so you're placing the melon inside the panty hose and then tying the hose to the trellis? does it help with pests at all?

I didnt get any pests on the melons, but I did get some squash beetles on the vines near the end of the season.

It didnt affect anything though, the melons were all at full size already.

spotted-horses

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24 Mar ’13 - 9:57 am

I've grown squash that way but never melons. I was always worried that their weight would break the vines! It is truly amazing how strong plants are!

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groinkick

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24 Mar ’13 - 1:34 pm

SH, I had to tie them up with pantyhose or else they would have snapped right off of the vine once they got big enough. Actually, I did lose one early in the season because it fell off before I could secure it with the sling.

Kamikaze-Emu

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7 Apr ’13 - 12:25 pm

Today the parsley, basil, chamomile, and oregano started.

Not much else has gone on over the last few weeks. We are about six weeks out from planting, so we should have one more planing for the 3 to 4 week folks coming up, then everything else will start in the dirt outside.

I've been reading a bit on watermelon and we pretty much did everything wrong. They don't like to be transplanted and prefer to start outside. Since we'd already start some I put them in bigger pots to give them a bit of breathing room, and we'll go forward with the attitude that anything from these guys is just bonus. Worst comes to worst we've got some additional biomass for compost!

I'm getting a bit worried about the red onion. They don't seem to want to stay vertical and they are getting a brown colour to them. We had a full day of sun yesterday so hopefully that will perk them up a bit.

The leeks are trucking along with what seems like no complaints.

The tomatoes are popping up and giving it their all. I love tomatoes so I really hope these guys do well.

We have two peppers up, and we have pretty much resigned ourselves to buying seedlings when it is time to plant. We will have to look at doing things a bit differently next year to get a better germination rate. These two plants better produce some damn tasty peppers.