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TomatoNut95
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Re: Tennessee 2020 Garden

I need to test my soil, but I see no point in it because my natural ground soil is pure concrete clay.
However, I suppose I should test my raised bed soil which consists of old MG garden soil, potting soil, Sta Green garden soil, Scott's topsoil, Scott's Humus and Manure and nasty peat moss. Oh and leaf mulch.
My new raised bed is just sand.

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O.k. that makes sense if it is not staying in your soil. It must be the type of soil you have, and the way you apply it. I have red clay soil type Oxisol. It holds on to things, and I can change the pH up by 0.5 pt just by adding chicken manure and compost. I live in a relatively high rainfall area (52 inches a year), My soil has high aluminum and it binds phosphorus. Right now, I have too much phosphorus (last soil test 1600 ppm). I limed the main garden 2 years ago when it tested at pH 6.0. My potassium when I last checked was in the high normal range, but I have added additional potassium nitrate because my root crops have not been very good and I was told I needed more potassium even though my total potassium looked adequate on testing. It has helped with improving the size of the carrots. My problem has more to do with having too much nitrogen in the soil rather than a lack of anything else.

I try to test my soil about every three years. What has changed has been the pH and because I am trying to reduce the phosphorus, it has come down from off the charts 2011 ppm about 10 years ago to around 1600 ppm in 2018. The pH has gone from pH6.4 to pH 6.0 which is why I limed to keep it from getting lower. I do add compost every year. I have changed from till to no till and the top of my beds are mainly potting soils. I am getting mixed results since I used different mixes in different parts of the garden. Some were good, some were not. None of the mixes did well with a second planting without adding an additional layer. Deep rooted plants did worse than shallow ones. So, I suspect soil stratification is happening. Next time I clean out the garden I will do a regular double dig tilling when I add the compost. I should still not need any phosphorus, and the compost will have phosphorus anyway, but I have some potassium nitrate now and I will add that to boost the potassium. I have not had micro nutrient deficiencies and my regular fertilizer contains micros so I am not concerned with that. The plants are still getting a lot of nitrogen based on the size of the leaves.

Tomato nut, considering you are growing heavy feeders like tomatoes, it would be better to add more organics to improve your soil tilth so it is not so much concrete and potting soils don't have a lot of fertilizer so you will have to add additional fertilizer sometime. Compost compacts and shrinks over time so it always has to be replenished.

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Gary350
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imafan26 wrote:
Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:12 pm
O.k. that makes sense if it is not staying in your soil. It must be the type of soil you have, and the way you apply it. I have red clay soil type Oxisol. It holds on to things, and I can change the pH up by 0.5 pt just by adding chicken manure and compost. I live in a relatively high rainfall area (52 inches a year), My soil has high aluminum and it binds phosphorus. Right now, I have too much phosphorus (last soil test 1600 ppm). I limed the main garden 2 years ago when it tested at pH 6.0. My potassium when I last checked was in the high normal range, but I have added additional potassium nitrate because my root crops have not been very good and I was told I needed more potassium even though my total potassium looked adequate on testing. It has helped with improving the size of the carrots. My problem has more to do with having too much nitrogen in the soil rather than a lack of anything else.

I try to test my soil about every three years. What has changed has been the pH and because I am trying to reduce the phosphorus, it has come down from off the charts 2011 ppm about 10 years ago to around 1600 ppm in 2018. The pH has gone from pH6.4 to pH 6.0 which is why I limed to keep it from getting lower. I do add compost every year. I have changed from till to no till and the top of my beds are mainly potting soils. I am getting mixed results since I used different mixes in different parts of the garden. Some were good, some were not. None of the mixes did well with a second planting without adding an additional layer. Deep rooted plants did worse than shallow ones. So, I suspect soil stratification is happening. Next time I clean out the garden I will do a regular double dig tilling when I add the compost. I should still not need any phosphorus, and the compost will have phosphorus anyway, but I have some potassium nitrate now and I will add that to boost the potassium. I have not had micro nutrient deficiencies and my regular fertilizer contains micros so I am not concerned with that. The plants are still getting a lot of nitrogen based on the size of the leaves.

Tomato nut, considering you are growing heavy feeders like tomatoes, it would be better to add more organics to improve your soil tilth so it is not so much concrete and potting soils don't have a lot of fertilizer so you will have to add additional fertilizer sometime. Compost compacts and shrinks over time so it always has to be replenished.
If you have high nitrogen problems it is because Potassium Nitrate KNO3 is, Nitrogen & Potassium. Buy a bag of 0-20-20 fertilizer it has no nitrogen. Wood ash is very good to break up clay soil to make good soil it needs organic material too like peat moss. The TN house I lived in year 1977 clay soil was hard as the cement driveway. Every time it rained I tied to till the soil. I put wood ash, peat moss, grass clipping, on the soil each time I tried to till. At first it seemed to be impossible slowly the clay turned into very good garden soil.

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I dug up a volunteer winter potato in the garden to see what was there, it turned out to be enough to cook a French crisp for breakfast. I cooked it a little bit to hot but it was good anyway. Bacon & gravy biscuits were good too. When I find volunteer potatoes in the garden I like to put markers on them so they can be found after tops freeze off. If volunteers are in a bad location I move them. It is interesting potato plants grow good winter new potatoes with no above the soil surface plants. Our soil never freezes very deep in winter. A few weeks ago 2 days of 18° weather top 1/2"of soil was frozen. If I could get a 50 ft row of volunteers it would probably grow 50 lbs of new potatoes. 2 years ago I planted a 40 ft row of winter potatoes, we had rain every day that year garden was under water for 3 months & the potato row rotted.
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I ate some of the garden Napa cabbage it has a really good flavor & tender too. I don't care if my Napa is not making heads these is better than grocery store lettuce or cabbage. I ate some Boc Choy it is very good too. I ate a broccoli leaf it is also very good. About Sept 1st when most of the next garden if finished I will plant a whole 30 ft row of each, Napa Cabbage, Boc Chow, Cilantro, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Savoy Cabbage, head cabbage, I think I have finally learned how to grow these cold weather crops. Getting smarter everyday.

I picked Napa, boc choy & cilantro then dices it & lettuce for tacos. We made 12 more tacos and put them in savers with the lettuce & cilantro mix into the refrigerator. Tacos make great fast food I microwaved 2 tacos 35 seconds, added the salad mix & lunch was finished in 3 minutes. I had 2 tacos for breakfast & 2 tacos for lunch then wife made a good dinner, chicken, peas, potatoes. We need to eat more rice it will be nice to eat something different & not so many potatoes.
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I am surprised yours do not head up. You are colder than I am. Mine will head up. It might be the variety. The Michili should head up.

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I built 3 new birds houses to match the bird house with the blue color roof. All 4 entrance holes are a different diameter, I hope birds find 1 or more of these houses suitable to live in. I am a terrible artist my paint job looks much better from 20 feet away. I was looking for something to do, tired of staying in the house.
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imafan26
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They look really nice. I on the other hand, have a couple of doves hanging out on top of my air conditioner on most good days. I can see them from the computer. I prefer they hang out in someone else's yard. They like to nest in my walls and in the McArthur palm.

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Gary350
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imafan26 wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 7:04 pm
They look really nice. I on the other hand, have a couple of doves hanging out on top of my air conditioner on most good days. I can see them from the computer. I prefer they hang out in someone else's yard. They like to nest in my walls and in the McArthur palm.
This reminds me of something very funny that I saws on TV News. People in Nashville TN are having trouble with 1000s of pigeons they make nests on peoples roof & poop big white color places all over their roofs. People have complained to the city trying to get rid of the pigeons but no luck so far. One person bought a good pellet rifle he shoots 6 pigeons every day they cook them for dinner. LOL. With so many people out of work because of covid-19 free food is great. Other neighbors decided to buy pellet rifles too.

Put out a motion detector horn to scare doves away.

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They do that too. That is why my water barrel is only for ornamentals. There are actually rules in my HOA that prohibit bird feeders. The zoo actually banned people from feeding the pigeons and there was even a news story about a bird lady who had a court order prohibiting her from feeding the birds in the park. In older neighborhoods the birds are perched on the telephone wires. I used to have a cooking banana in the yard. The finches would be perched in a line on the banana leaf. I still find bird nests in my citrus and bay leaf trees. The hotels used to regularly poisin bird food to reduce their numbers in their outdoor dining areas.
Not all the birds are small either. I hear feral chickens every morning. Feral chickens are everywhere. Most of those are released Jungle Fowl. They compete with the feral cats for food.

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Gary350
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Today I rented a stump grinder. Hour meter on the machine shows I used it 2.3 hours. The first 4 stumps was learning how to run the machine then it was easy. It took a total of 4 hours 2 minutes from the time I left the rental company until I returned to the rental company with the machine. 31 hp engine ate those stumps up fast 6.3 minutes per stump average for 21 tree stumps. There was no physical work to do just move the levers, up/down, left/right, forward/ back. Now I can plant my fruit trees. Next summer grass will be easy to mow.
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Those are awesome birdhouses, Gary! Have you ever built an owl box? I would like to encourage more owls closer to my house to help rid of the mice.

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TomatoNut95 wrote:
Fri Jan 29, 2021 6:51 pm
Those are awesome birdhouses, Gary! Have you ever built an owl box? I would like to encourage more owls closer to my house to help rid of the mice.
I built an owl house when we lived in town 30 years ago but never had owls in it. I built 2 squirrel houses there was a squirrel family in each house they both had 4 babies each every spring and 4 more babies in fall total 16 babies every year. About 40 years ago I built a bat house I put it in full shade, bats found it about Oct they stayed until it got too cold then they were gone but returned in spring when temperatures were cool then gone again in hot summer. Bat house needs central heat & AC so temperature stays 60°F year round. LOL.

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Is Chinese Napa cabbage that does not head suppose to be thin as paper and taste like green paper? I picked 8 leaves, folded each leaf 3 times, the stack of leaves was 30 layers about 3/8" thick on my lunch sandwich it tastes like nothing. We are having lots of rain this time of the year 5 days a week but napa leaves are thin as paper. Boc Choy, broccoli, green cabbage, are all several times thicker than Napa leaves and they taste good.
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I took about 15 old bird houses apart, trashed the bad wood, recut wood and built 13 bird houses. Each house is slightly different dimension inside, 3", 3.25", 3.5", 3.75", 4", and 5 different door hole diameters, and several different door locations. I cut lots of wood pieces then put houses together like a toy building block set it only took a few houses work. Then I painted all the houses white color with Kilz in about 30 minutes. Next day little by little I painted, grass, flowers, vines, trees, brush, etc, with 5 colors, white, red, green, blue, yellow. I painted a little bit every day, 7am, 12 noon, 5pm for 3 days houses were all finished. It was a nightmare trying to mount houses to this rotten oak tree the outer 5" is so rotten it is soft as Styrofoam. I had to mount the houses in rows on 1x2 boards. I was lucky I had some 6" long screws to attach the boards to this 10 ft tall tree stump. I hope birds like these houses rent is free and all the garden bugs they can eat. We have a good view of the bird houses from the patio. I hope paint protects wood so houses are low maintenance.
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I picked Boc Choy leaves & Red Kale leaves sliced & diced them then mixed them together to put on tacos like lettuce. This will make a good salad too. Good flavor. I am finally leaning to plant winter crops.
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9 deer eating in the front yard this morning. Auto focus camera takes pictures of the window screen when trying to take pictures of deer through the window. I try to unlock the door very quiet but deer have excellent hearing and excellent eye sight. When deer stop looking I slowly open the door but boor squeaks & deer look and run. I got a quick picture. I had no time to wait for camera to focus I pushed the button before deer were gone. Deer are often up here nest to the kitchen door, I throw food out & they find it.

We have lots of deer, they are never a problem in our garden because of the barking dog but neighbor 3 houses to the west have no fence deer eat his lettuce. He does not care lettuce attract deer him & wife get to watch.
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What a splendid thread! Thanks everyone for sharing such great pictures!

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The deer around here are scared of nothing. They're kind of passive-aggressive arrogant. You can wave & shout at them, even heave small stones: They just stand stock still and stare at you with their big eyes saying 'what kind of an idiot are you?'

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Napa cabbage has yellow flowers & is growing seeds. Boc Choy looks very good I have been picking leaves to eat on tacos & other things. Red chard, broccoli, cauliflower, Savoy cabbage, round cabbage, are slow growing but still alive. Garlic & Cilantro are slowly growing & getting taller than chickweed. 3 month old cilantro is not as tender as young plants but still taste good. Yesterdays high was 31° dark & overcast, today high 56° & sunny. Saturday & Sunday will be 15°. We had 18° 3 times it will be interesting to see how well cold weather plants do this weekend. I can already predict I will be planting a whole 25 ft row of Boc Choy & cilantro next winter.
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I don't care if it is 25° F outside & ice everywhere I can not stay inside the house. New camera takes better pictures on over cast days than sunny days so I decided to see if I can get a better picture of the bird houses. Camera needs a little bit more light. I just finished digging out another load of scrap lumber from trash dumpsters at the construction site, I need several wooden stakes for garden beds & plant markers about April. I have pulled lots of nails from boards. I have stacks of lumber on garage floor in 2 places. I have lumber stacked along a wall 2ft wide 10 ft long, 8 ft tall. I have another load of lumber in truck that needs all the nails pulled. Mud at the construction site is frozen. Short pressure treated lumber will be garden stakes. We are having freezing rain this lumber load is getting covered in ice already. I have a lot of free lumber for projects, onion bed, garlic bed, potato bed, carrot bed, maybe even bean bed. I ordered several seed catalogs none have arrived yet. I might build a seed growing table with. LED lights, heat & fan.
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I missed your previous Birdhouse post — they look fantastic ! I hope the birds appreciate your artistic embellishments.


Nappa — pluck the flower cluster while still in bud — only a couple yellow flowers open — and you could use to garnish salad, soup, or sandwich. If stem is tender enough you could sauté like .... like ... shoot what are they called? Starts with an “R” I think?

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25° F and ice will put these cold weather plants to a good test to learn which plants survive. Weather report claims 15° tonight with 3" of snow & 14° tomorrow night. In the past Russian Red Kale has survived 5° F but there was no ice or snow. Boc Choy is looking very good with no ill effects from the cold & ice. Broccoli, Cauliflower, Red Chard, Savoy cabbage, Round Head Cabbage, all look good. I have read in several places Green Chard is about 10° more cold hardy than Red Chard. It appears to me once cold weather plants get acclimated to cold weather they do much better than plants that were grown inside then transplanted outside. Last spring I bought 8 broccoli plants at the garden store after planting them in the garden about April 1st, frost & a few cold nights killed them all. I think it is safe to say, cold weather crop seeds grown in the garden will do much better than cold weather crop transplants from the house or garden store in freezing weather. Garlic, parsley, fennel, thyme, cilantro, chickweed are all doing good. Last year we had a mild winter then summer we had a terrible plague of bugs. Maybe this winter cold weather will reduce summer bugs.
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Gary350
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I though I had growing onions figured out then I find educational videos, how to grow onions.

Long day onions need 14-16 hours of sun to trigger plants to stop growing tops & start growing bulbs.

Medium day onions need 12-14 hour of sun.

Short day onions need 10-12 hours of sun.

Online daylight chart shows my longest days have 14.3 hours of sunlight June 15-24.

If I plant LONG day onion seeds they will grow tops only. They would grow as many as 25 leaves and never grow bulbs.

If I plant SHORT day onion seeds they will start growing bulbs March 15 my seeds should have been planted 26 weeks ago but onions do not grow in cold weather, they won't start growing until last frost April 20 when days are warmer.

If I plant MEDIUM day onion seeds they will start to grow bulbs May 11 seeds should have been planted 23 weeks ago.

If I buy MEDIUM day PLANTS with 4 leaves they should be planted NOW but they will not grow until weather gets warmer about April 20.

If I plants short day onion PLANTS with 4 leaves when weather is warm enough for plants to grow bulbs right away and make small onions with only 4 leaves & 4 rings.

MEDIUM day onion PLANTS with 4 leaves if planted April 20 will bulb May 11 with 6 rings and make small onions. Plants need to be covered with tarps several hours every day to keep sun hours less than 12 hours to grow big onions.

If I plant LONG DAY onion plants with 4 leaves April 20 they will not bulb at all UNLESS I put lights in the garden June 15 to make 3 extra hours of light AFTER onions have 13 leaves. Then plants will grow BIG onions.

No wonder AZ has 700 & 900 acre fields of onion plants it is 65°F every day all winter. Plants bulb in March then harvest May.
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Garden has never looked this cold. I has warmed up to 27° it feels like a heat wave. I hope this kills all the bugs.
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I'm trying to follow your onion question? If you plant onion sets say in the mid-March time frame, you should be fine. Onions can tolerate cold/frosty weather, they will grow slow until the weather pops, seeds? Not so much, they won't sprout till the soil warms. I use Dixondale's & Old Farmers as the guide for them. If I do seeds, I start them way early and transplant the seedlings in that same time period. Hope this helps? Good Luck

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greenstubbs wrote:
Fri Feb 19, 2021 6:34 pm
I'm trying to follow your onion question? If you plant onion sets say in the mid-March time frame, you should be fine. Onions can tolerate cold/frosty weather, they will grow slow until the weather pops, seeds? Not so much, they won't sprout till the soil warms. I use Dixondale's & Old Farmers as the guide for them. If I do seeds, I start them way early and transplant the seedlings in that same time period. Hope this helps? Good Luck
I have grown sets off & on many times in 42 years they never get much bigger than about 2" diameter. Sets are 1 year old onions so they will never get very large. Also there is no way to know what I am buying at local garden store they could be short day or long day or intermediate onions. This year I decided to grow large 4" diameter onions with plants or seeds. I read about this 9 months ago but forgot how it is done so I read about it again and learned it is too late to plant seeds it will take 28 weeks to get 13 leaves and plants need to have 13 leaves by June 15 to make bulbs. If I buy intermediate plants with 4 leaves they are good down to 20 degrees F. If I can plant onion plants by March 15 and we have no more below 20° weather for 3 months 4 leaf plants will grow 6 more leaves & bulb by June 15 when our day length will be 14.3 hours. Intermediate onions bulb when days are 12 to 14 hours so they might bulb early depends on outside temperature when plants have 9 leaves or 8 leaves. I have not yet found intermediate seeds, If I can get seeds started in the house by March 1st then transplant them April 1st I can only get 7 leaves by June 15. I did more research then learned if I plant intermediate seeds inside in trays Sept then transplant to the garden if cold weather does not kill them they will have 14 leaves by May 15 they should make very large onions. I have missed the boat already I could grow sets again this year for more golf ball size onions but don't want anymore golf ball size onions. So maybe I go ahead and buy Dickson Dale 2 month old plants and hope for the best this year still maybe golf ball onions. If we get below 20° weather next winter onions will never live all winter. Dixondale says, onions grow a new leaf every 2 weeks depending how the temperature, in warmer weather they can grow 2 new leaves per month. I should have had intermediate seeds growing inside already to get the size onions I want. I need to grow seed experiments just to see how fast plants grow leaves in different temperatures onions will probably not like TN hot weather 98°F heat June to Sept. It is going to be 60° next week maybe when ice melts Farmer Supply will have onion seeds & potting soil, I trays to plant 140 onions. I have about 400 long day onion seeds that will grow a good crop of green onions, if I buy a 21750 Lumen grow light for 2 extra hours of sun I can make long day onions bulb in TN.

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I'd have to say that your soil isn't fertile enough to get big onions, when I was in CA. I'd get huge onions. Since moving to Reno area the onions aren't as big. I do have bad soil, lots of magnetic stuff in it but get good baseball size onions. Having such a short Temp season here, I'm using short day sets from D-dale. From what I've read, 13 leaves is the most you'll get on a onion, and each leaf is a ring on the onion for those that don't know.
I'm looking and hope to locate there this year.

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greenstubbs wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 3:03 pm
I'd have to say that your soil isn't fertile enough to get big onions, when I was in CA. I'd get huge onions. Since moving to Reno area the onions aren't as big. I do have bad soil, lots of magnetic stuff in it but get good baseball size onions. Having such a short Temp season here, I'm using short day sets from D-dale. From what I've read, 13 leaves is the most you'll get on a onion, and each leaf is a ring on the onion for those that don't know.
I'm looking and hope to locate there this year.
Dixondale said, if I plant long day onion seeds in TN they will probably have 25 leaves by Dec. they will never bulb with 14 hours of sunlight. That is actually not a bad idea to grow 750 green onions, we can have onions all summer until January. Pull 5 or 6 green onions every time we need onions never need to buy grocery store onions until about January and never need garden onions in the kitchen until the day we need them. Onions that never bulb can be planted 4" apart in beds 3' wide with rows 4" apart = 232 plants in a 3'x10' bed. Long day plants will try to grow plants until first frost in Nov.

I could grow short day onions from seed in TN if I cover plants every day after 10 hours of sunlight. I need to cover plants for 4 hours every day. When plants have 13 leaves then start letting them have 14 hrs of light so they bulb. I can build a wooded frame on wheels covered with a tarp to roll over the plants ever night then uncover plants about 10 am so plants get sun until 8pm.

When I lived in Phoenix AZ area garlic & onions were easy to grow in winter they had 4 months of 65 degree days full sun with NO clouds all winter. Plants were larger than anything I ever saw. AZ soil has no food value for plants it is basically powered rock fine as kitchen flour. I grew grocery store garlic cloves they grew almost as large as a tennis ball. I kept onion sets in refrigerator 6 months then planted them in Nov. Ammonium Sulfate & little bit of Empson salts is good onion fertilizer.

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I have grown onions but they are more like tennis ball size. And that is being generous. Only the big ones get that size. Most are much smaller. Short day onions don't keep well either so while they are very sweet for the first two weeks they get very hot after that and they rot because it is nearly impossible to find a cool dry spot in the middle summer in a tropical humid climate. My soil is rich, but it is too rich in nitrogen.

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I signed up for catalogs from every garden supply place I can find. NO catalogs are really coming my email is flooded with online catalogs 10 to 15 every day. Burpee is the worse sometimes I get 7 emails every day they must be desperate for sales. Lots of hybrid onions with names I never heard of and not much useful Information, The perfect onion, bountiful harvest of beautiful, round, firm bulbs $29.95 for 150 onion plants $14.95 shipping. Yea right, $45 for 150 plants, $45 will buy 45 lbs of grocery store onion why would I want to pay more to grow my own. Now I get Burpee advertisements on the Garden Forum. Technology is interesting Burpee knows I am here.

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I have already gotten the catalogs I asked for and a couple I didn't. I put most of my order in around November and again in January since some of the items were still out. I went online again and found a few more things but a lot of the selections are already sold out. I am actually paying more for shipping than seeds. I also had to go to some new sites to get particular seeds that are hard to find on a good day. I went to home depot. They have a lot of vegetable seeds but no flower seeds and I am looking for pollinator seeds. I do have some that I already bought so I can use those. I would have liked to grow hollyhocks but it is already to late to plant them. I did find nasturtiums and it is the right time to plant them now.

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Gary350
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I buy almost everything on Ebay it is so cheap & often free shipping. I look for free shipping. I seldom pay more than $2 or $3 for 200 to 1000 seeds. I get 100% germination with seeds from, China, Korea, Vietnam, Spain, Ireland, Russia, & others. I don't recall ordering anything from a foreign country this year. There are lots of people in USA selling very low cost seeds. Here is a list of what I have bought in the past 2 months.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/300-WALLA-WALL ... 2749.l2649

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ONION-SEEDS-20 ... 2749.l2649

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PAK-CHOI-SEEDS ... 2749.l2649

https://www.ebay.com/itm/CHINESE-MICHIH ... 2749.l2649

https://www.ebay.com/itm/70W-LED-WALL-P ... 2749.l2649

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1000-Romaine-L ... 2749.l2649

https://www.ebay.com/itm/200-SEEDS-Ruby ... 4651896921
Last edited by Gary350 on Tue Feb 23, 2021 5:58 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Gary350
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After a week of below freezing weather, 12° one night, 14° several nights, 15° two nights & 18° all the cold weather plants are still alive. Round head cabbage, savoy cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Red Kale, all look good. Red Chard has leave damage to a few leaves. Boc Choy has a few light brown places on 3 leaves but the plant looks good. I don't think it gets cold enough to do anything bad to Russia Red Kale even when we had 5°F weather a few years ago it did great. The sweet potato plants I have in the kitchen window are doing very well wife wants them for house plants. Boc Choy looks like it is starting to grow seeds, not sure what to think about that I want a big Boc Choy like I see in grocery stores.
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Gary350
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Will garlic with no tops live or die?

I pulled chickweed from garlic in a small spot. 80% of the garlic is gone chickweed probably killed it. There are about 10 good garlic and 10 garlic with no tops.

I should probably mow it all down with lawn mower then Till soil.
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TomatoNut95
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Chickweed is a pain. I try to keep it from growing into my wild onion patch. I've never seen anything more indestructible and stubborn than chickweed. And of COURSE it would survive the ice and snow like the winter storm never happened whereas my garden plants suffered. Probably the best way to choke out chickweed is to lay down sheets of plastic or thick layers of paper.

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Gary350
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TomatoNut95 wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 11:32 am
Chickweed is a pain. I try to keep it from growing into my wild onion patch. I've never seen anything more indestructible and stubborn than chickweed. And of COURSE it would survive the ice and snow like the winter storm never happened whereas my garden plants suffered. Probably the best way to choke out chickweed is to lay down sheets of plastic or thick layers of paper.
I have fence wire covering my garlic to keep cats from digging. Fence wire makes it very hard to weed garlic & onions. If I keep a soft soil place in the garden tilled so soil stays very soft easy to dig cats will dig & poop there. But if the whole garden is tilled very soft easy to dig and there are garlic & onions some where they are cat magnets, cats dig & poop in the garlic & onions. I think garlic & onions have a strong smell cats think that is the poop box. LOL. I have tried to spray cats with water to keep them out of garlic & onions but now all I have to do is pick up the water hose and cats run fast even if water is not turned on. I can not stand guard at the garden all day. Cats will not digs in, corn, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers or any other crop only garlic & onions. I need to figure out another way to keep cats out of the garlic & onions. After it rains a few times soil gets hard where garlic & onions are then cats stop digging there.

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applestar
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Did you till already? Garlic tops might winterkill but the cloves will regrow as long as rot doesn’t set in. Further north up here, it’s better to mulch the garlic tops during winter. Mulching also Minimizes the heaving from the ground freeze-thaw-freeze cycles.

If you miss harvesting entire bulb, the individual cloves will sprout in a cluster — these have better chance if you dig up and separately replant as early as possible.

If the garlic tops are not above ground, and you have planted the cloves deep, you can use surface shaving/skimming type hand weeder or long handled hoe to cut the weeds from their roots. For close work around existing plants like garlic tops, I use an inexpensive looped metal band shedding dog/horse grooming tool*, but you can buy specifically designed gardening tools as well.

*Pictures posted here :arrow: Subject: 2014 Spiral Garden Garlic Onion Pea Corn Squash Cuke Beet

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Gary350
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applestar wrote:
Sat Feb 27, 2021 11:01 am
Did you till already? Garlic tops might winterkill but the cloves will regrow as long as rot doesn’t set in. Further north up here, it’s better to mulch the garlic tops during winter. Mulching also Minimizes the heaving from the ground freeze-thaw-freeze cycles.

If you miss harvesting entire bulb, the individual cloves will sprout in a cluster — these have better chance if you dig up and separately replant as early as possible.

If the garlic tops are not above ground, and you have planted the cloves deep, you can use surface shaving/skimming type hand weeder or long handled hoe to cut the weeds from their roots. For close work around existing plants like garlic tops, I use an inexpensive looped metal band shedding dog/horse grooming tool*, but you can buy specifically designed gardening tools as well.

*Pictures posted here :arrow: Subject: 2014 Spiral Garden Garlic Onion Pea Corn Squash Cuke Beet
I have not done anything yet we have flash floor warnings and 6 days of rain in the forecast. I have electric hedge trimmer that might cut chickweed short enough to pull up the fence wire. Garden is a cold wet swamp now I will work on this another day when it is dryer & warmer. I though I remembered reading once garlic tops grow back just like onions & potatoes do.



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