I asked someone about ladybugs and they said they will basically disperse, and that it is better to just attract them. I'd love to know from someone who has tried if purchasing and releasing does long term good. I went and bought a solar timer for my bug zapper outside....upon recent inspection, there were a lot of ladybugs in there. Hopefully the slaughter of the good bugs will cease and instead target the mosquitoes and moths. Sometimes I'll sit and watch the predator insects do their thing in the garden. The wasps fly under the canopy of leaves of the peppers, okra, and beans, hunting for caterpillars. I see ladybugs around, and bees are constantly humming around.
Finished making my "hanging" herb garden boxes. Each box can be removed individually. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Tomorrow I'll be potting everything up and running the watering lines. The only thing I kind of screwed up was putting the French cleat pieces on the wrong parts, so the chevrons were open end up instead of pointy end up (to help with water drainage). As a result I made up some quick trim pieces to help keep water from collecting.
Bewildered, I always plant marigolds at every corner and empty spot in my raised beds. Ladybugs like them, but they are also good at helping you naturally protect your produce from bad bugs. Ymmv.
Yup, Marigolds are everywhere. Only some of them are blooming right now but I'd say in 3 weeks it'll be an explosion. I am sure the ladybugs will follow.
I have never purchased them but they seemed to love my eggplants last year. Never saw so many in the garden before and they were all over the eggplant leaves. I bought a ghost pepper plant today and bucket planted it. I like hot peppers but I think it will be way to hot for me but it will be fun to grow.
The shop became a gardening centre for a bit this morning. First time I've ever had a garden, and I'm kind of excited to see how it goes. The little box on the ground is catnip, and not pictured are a few cherry and beef tomatoe plants along the end of the garage.
Also remember, guys: if you have leftover veggies, check with your local food bank. They will often happily take fresh produce donations.
Just plumbed in an irrigation line and valves so that the herb station now has its own water source. Saves me from having to lug a hose 75' every time I want to water everything. Tomorrow I'll hook up the timers and small drip hoses so that it all waters itself twice daily. Sure is a hell of a lot easier than manually watering everything every day.
I have a cheap home depot dual spigot dual timer one that was on sale for $30 or so last year. Bought it to run a soaker hose for some shrubs that were dying and it worked really well. One of the spigots will have a 1/4" reducer on it and feed the 100' of 1/4" hose I've picked up, and the other spigot will run a normal 3/4" soaker hose for some trees in the back yard or a sprinkler, if and when needed.
Maybe it's a law here, not sure, but none of our local ones will take anything resembling home made/home grown. I'm jealous of your big gardens. I have a 4'x8' raised bed I built this year. It has 5 tomato plants, 3 green pepper plants, a zucchini and two cucumbers. If it goes well I'll make another next year.
I made a bit of a fancy end to the irrigation line where I have a valve that will feed the coiled hose and sprayer manually, and will also feed the dual spigot timer (when I dig it out tomorrow). Having a bunch of Pex pipe and clamps and odds and ends is really fucking handy. For now the hand hose is on timer outlet (so I can use it without the timer) but tomorrow the timer will be installed there and the hose will be moved to the valved outlet.
What kind of wood are the herb boxes made of, and do you put the soil in directly or sleeve the insides with something?
They're all made with cedar. There are 3-4 3/4" holes drilled in the bottom for drainage, and the boxes are lined with a landscaping fabric and stapled in place. This keeps the topsoil in while allowing good drainage.
Good call, thanks. Besides donating, the other thing to do with excess produce is to can it. If you haven't tried it yet just do it already, it is way easier than I ever thought and cracking open a jar of fresh smelling Brandywine tomatoes from the garden in the dead of winter is glorious.
A few pages back, Bewildered mentioned adding lime to the soil to improve the quality. I've read that spreading it on your grass can help as well. Can anyone attest to this? Our grass is an absolute disaster. Besides overseeding (which we plan to do), would spreading lime help choke the weeds?
Lime will affect the acidity of your soil. You should only have to do that if your soil is too acidic. Most garden places have cheap soul test kits that will help you determine that. It shouldn't do anything for the weeds, I don't think... it's meant to improve nutrition uptake of grass. At least that's my understanding.