#zone 8b

[theforestoracle]

Morning glories from the Deep South

[growingwildgardens]

Been really busy the last while and not updating much, but I messed up my shoulder & its causing pain all through my back and head, so I'm forced to take it easy for a bit. So, gardening updates!! First off - I built a shade tarp-covered area to keep the hottest afternoon sun off of my potted plants.

[ID: Rows of grouped plants in the shade, positioned off the ground and in raised container lids.]

The smaller the pot, the faster they'll dry out & heat up (much hotter than the soil in the ground) on hot summer days. Most pots smaller than a gallon can require multiple waterings on warmer days, which also quickly leaches away nitrogen and other water-soluble nutrients. Letting them dry out, if you have clay soil in the mix, can cause shrinking from the edges that allows water to run right through the pot without really hydrating the soil.

I'm countering these problems a few ways. The shade tarp cuts the afternoon sun while still allowing light through, and since it's got plenty of clearance for airflow keeps the area underneath cooler. I've also placed the plants in solid bin lids for their raised edges, which will hold excess water and allow it (and any leached nutrients) to be absorbed over time back into the soil. If you do something similar, keep any diseased plants away and don't use so much water that the pots are constantly wet.

The combined shade, temperature drop, and extra water cuts the watering back down to every couple days and keeps me from having to continuously add new nutrients.

[ID: Sunlight cutting in under a shaded area, hitting larger pots of small trees before reaching 1 gallon and then smaller containers grouped in bid lids]

I also positioned the tarp so that it shades out my sugar snap peas, which suffer and die off in summer heat, keeping them sweet and growing higher and higher.

[ID: Sugar snap peas reaching between 5' and 10', with white and purple flowers and green hanging peas.]

The other side of the tarp shades out the hottest western sun from the front of the greenhouse, keeping it in the more plant-comfortable low 90s (with a fan on) rather than above 100F.

[ID: A variety of flowers sit shaded in a greenhouse]

[sondeleau-blog]

Why can't I grow mint?

I'm serious.

I can grow everything without issue.

Give me the most sensitive orchid and I'll somehow keep it alive without really knowing what I'm doing.

Tomatoes just grow in my backyard from where I had tomatoes the year before. Just volunteering themselves.

But whether i try to grow mint from seed or buy and established plant and it perishes. I don't understand. This year I started many herbs from seed and it didn't even germinate.

Only 1 single time have I ever grown mint with success and it was a fluke I'll never figure out. It was at my ex's mother's house. She wanted help with her garden and i was happy to be of service (despite my very much not liking this wonan. At all). We organized it and she decided to add mint. I told her it can take over yards and that it would choke out the veggies she wanted. She simply said I was wrong.

Because I am the grim reaper for mint I didn't press it.

Well.

Mint absolutely took over her yard. It overtook the grass. It killed all her other herbs and flowers. She had to pay someone to remove it all 2 years later.

So i guess it's very all or nothing with me.

Anyway.

Here's what im growing from seed this year:

18 mystery heirloom tomatoes

2 Serrano peppers

2 Bolivian rainbow peppers

2 Oaxacan Jewel tomatoes

2 Fresno peppers

2 Borage

3 Lemon Basil

1 Cucumber

Purple potatoes and Rosa potatoes

4 Oriental poppies

Various sunflower seeds

Scattered hundreds of annual poppy seeds in bare spots

Plants I'm adding:

Lavender

Huckleberry bush

Violets

4 Peonies

1 Aster

1 Hellebore

2 Yarrow

2 Chamomile

1 Jasmine

1 Clematis

1 Rosemary

2 Milkweed

I want a wall of flowers on all my fences.

I'll be adding more clematis or jasmine or honeysuckle later. Also planting more bulbs.

I want nothing but plants all around me while it feels like the world is burning.

[growingwildgardens]

Got the last of the front ground beds seeded and covered in layered compost, manure, and straw today - the first round of greens planted a couple weeks ago are peeking up everywhere between the winter survivors 🌱🌱🌱

[ID: Above Pic, a garden bed with straw on the surface and rows of different types of kale and celery. Below Pic, a similar straw covered bed with parsley chamomile broccoli and yellow flowering mustard scattered throughout. Both beds have loose lines of string or wire stretched between tomato cages at the ends.]

I also seeded a handful of native flowers and edible greens in the area around the newly finished greenhouse, and covered them with some manure and straw as well to aid in germination. I'm excited to see an area that was a giant thistle of blackberries turn to flowers 💐

[ID: A 20' or so patch of cleared ground between a wooden fence and a greenhouse wall. It's been covered loosely with straw.]

[growingwildgardens]

Winter Gardening - WHERE?? 🏡

Advice for growing plants indoors or out in the Zone 8 Winter ☘️❄️🌿

Indoors:

-Make sure plants are in a spot where they get at least 5-6 hours of light a day, can be supplemented with plant lights

-Bottom-watering (plants in a tray or bowl you pour the water into) and having a fan on for at least part of the day will keep surface fungus and fungus gnats away

-Make sure leaves aren't touching glass windows, and that the room they're in doesn't get too warm - these are cool weather plants happy at around 65F

In-ground:

-Adding a layer of leaves or straw (not hay) to the beds once seedlings have sprouted and cold weather sets in provides additional insulation and frost protection

-Don't work the soil when it's frozen or very muddy, most plants should be seeded by late Summer or by very early Fall

-Slugs are the biggest pest, setting out slug traps can help lure them away. OSU recommends 1 cup flour, 2 cups or more of water, and a packet of yeast in a short container

https://extension.oregonstate.edu/gallery/how-create-slug-trap-using-bread-dough-slurry

Greenhouse:

-Shouldn't need any additional heating, but lowering the ceiling during hard freezes and very low temps via a new "ceiling" layer of bubble wrap can help keep things a few degrees warmer

-Plants will grow faster in the warmer environment, just make sure to leave room for planting spring seedlings!

[johnzillaaaa]

John's 8b Garden Update | Lesson Learned May 2023

Up until now I've mainly learned about broader scale concepts with regard to permaculture like landscape management, water collection in the land, micro-climates, soil biology, etc. but because I haven't had the space or time to actually grow stuff, I haven't really learned about actually growing stuff.

So this first spring season that I've gotten serious about it, combined with my half-start last summer, I've started to learn some valuable lessons.

The lesson I'm reflecting on now is that plant spacing guidelines are like the rules of other things I enjoy, like writing or visual design. They can be bent and even broken, but only when you really know what you're doing and know which ones never to break.

Basically I placed a lot of low, leafy plants too close to each other to the point that some crowded out others for sunlight, and the jungle is so thick that I can't see and manage pests and disease easily at all.

I did actually intend to shade some plants with others to help protect them from the intense heat and sun of Cental Texas summers. I just didn't know what I was doing enough to execute that properly. The knowing-what-you're-doing way would have been to plant things with different root depths and top growth height/width so they all still had the space they need and weren't all growing into each other.

But mistakes are part of the process and that's the best way to learn because you'll never make the same mistake twice unless you truly need the lesson reinforced. 😄

[johnzillaaaa]

No damage from the hail and rain 😊 and all the flowers seem happy.

[johnzillaaaa]

Such pretty roots 😍

John's 8b Garden Update | 4/20/23

This is actually an experiment. It's Bloody Butcher corn, a dent corn good for making cornbread. You're supposed to direct sow corn but I had such a horrible success rate in-ground last year that I wanted to see if I could make tray started transplants work by starting then in the extra tall 4" high Epic 4-cells.

Looks like the side slits of the seedling cells did thier job of causing the root system to self-air-prune instead of beginning to circle. I also think bottom watering caused the roots to develop downward better. If these few transplants don't die or aren't stunted I'll try more next time.

We actually had a big but brief storm including some very brief hail tonight. Hopefully so brief there's little to no damage to my plants. I'll find out in the morning.