Arcanepotato
2d ago
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85%
Best discord server in existence 10/10 would post again
(Seriously, where else would the beananna soup exist and also be met with respectful curiousity and awe????)
Arcanepotato
4d ago
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100%
Think about adding something like vermiculite or coco coir for fluffing up the heavy clay soil.
This is outside of my raised beds: My soil is really compacted clay as well. Plants don't build deep roots and the soil gets super water logged. I am working with straw and my own compost to kind of add some organics. I'm also using deep layers of wood chips that will eventually break down.
Arcanepotato
5d ago
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100%
I hope this isn't unwelcome advice, but this is a vegan gardening community:
I practice veganic gardening (as much as is possible - I'm sure my triple mix had some animal manure in it) so I don't have direct experience with using manure in my beds. I do want to flag that mixing top soil with manure has a few potential downsides:
- It's probably not going to drain very well. You will likely need to add something to bulk it up.
- There are a few hazards associated with using animal wastes as fertilizer. I'll spare you the lecture, pathogens, etc but you do risk having too much nitrogen and "burning" your plants.
If you google raised bed soil recipe or something like that, you will find ideal ratios for different components that will allow good draining and aeration.
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Just call me Auntie Sandra, except instead of cocktails I'm smoking weed. Excessively.
Arcanepotato
6d ago
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100%
I bought some corrugated metal beds and I've liked them for the couple of years I've had them.
The biggest lesson learned is that 4ft is too far to reach comfortably. I put a trellis arch between two of them and they are too deep to really reach the middle.
Mine are 3 ft deep. I filled them with logs and sticks and then added triple mix. A few years in they are pretty compacted, I will need to get a lot more compost in them. I am experimenting with adding straw for bulk.
Arcanepotato
2w ago
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100%
I'm reading this as a NIMBY thing, not an animal liberation thing. If anyone was up to it, I'd like to understand what I am missing?
Arcanepotato
2w ago
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100%
To be honest I don't really talk to local people about growing, but I'd assume so. Powdery mildew is a major problem for me on zucchini and tomatoes. I assume this likes similar conditions?
Arcanepotato
2w ago
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100%
Oh, thank you! I thought I lost it.
Arcanepotato
2w ago
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100%
LMAO I HAD NSFW OFF SO I COULDN'T SEE IT
Arcanepotato
2w ago
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100%
So beautiful 😻
One of my favorite things is watching what is coming back each year and how different flowers come up at different times. There is always something in bloom!
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Captions in the link
Arcanepotato
2w ago
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100%
Team pinto but all beans are beautiful
Arcanepotato
2w ago
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100%
Burgers and fries in paradise
Arcanepotato
3w ago
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100%
Some of my year round decorations
New bats, who dis???
I'm very spooky.
Arcanepotato
3w ago
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100%
I am very thrilled because it is now socially acceptable to start wearing Halloween themed things to work. Or maybe it isn't, but that's fine too.
I've also got my Halloween decorations out (the ones that aren't year round)
Arcanepotato
4w ago
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100%
The weed matrices are top notch!
Arcanepotato
4w ago
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100%
This looks like a delicious experiment!
Arcanepotato
4w ago
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100%
Congratulations on unlocking the eats raw tofu with hot sauce level of veganism 🎆
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Captions in imgr post Friendly reminder for visitors from the fedverse - this is a vegan instance. Don't provide tips on "pest control", aka murder.
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Captions in imgur link. The weather was absolutely perfect this weekend. I did a tonne on Monday too, but didn't take many photos.
Potato, tomato, beans and greens (dill) all from the garden. Hummus and burgs store bought.
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The link is just to the image dump, all the info is in this post. *** I have a very turbulent relationship with growing tomatoes. They have excellent germination and transplant success, and start to grow very well, but if I don't keep on top of them or if there are a lot of bacterial issues, we don't get a lot of fruit. My climate is very hot and humid in the summers. *** Here are some links to reputable websites about diagnosing tomato issues: - [Texas A&M Extension Office](https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/vegetable/problem-solvers/tomato-problem-solver/) - [University of Maryland Extension Office](https://extension.umd.edu/resource/key-common-problems-tomatoes/) - [Ontario Integrated Pest Management - Tomatoes](https://cropipm.omafra.gov.on.ca/en-ca/crops/tomatoes) - [Some fertilizer company with really good diagnostic photos - sorry!](https://www.yara.co.uk/crop-nutrition/tomato/nutrient-deficiencies-tomato/) *** Okay, on to my tomatoes. Here are a few photos of their general appearance and growing conditions. These photos are mostly after clean up. I am growing a few varieties of plum tomatoes as well as Super Sweet 100s which are a cherry tomato. They are woven into the trellis as they grow and we try and keep them airy by removing suckers and pruning. Another priority is keeping the bottoms of the plants clear to minimize slugs.        *** The following photos are of some of the problems on the plants and what I think they are, based on the above links.  I think this one is pretty clearly powdery mildew. These are "extra" plants in a different bed than the ones I showed above and they are crowded and not pruned well. I need to make sure they are being watered from the bottom and not splashing the soil. ***  I'm not sure what the issue is here. The tomatoes are falling off before ripe, but the stem is yellowing. It is starting at the fruit, versus at other parts of the plants like a disease might. If you have any thoughts, please do share! ***   I think this is blossom drop, which the ontario site says is due to stress. In addition to weather stress, nutrition deficiencies and disease/pests, the plant might be carrying too much fruit already. ***  These leaves are just slightly yellowish and slightly curled. It looks like it could be a nutrient deficiency, or the early stages of a disease. I should probably test the soil. ***    These leaves are a little further along in being hecked up. I am going to guess these are either Verticillium wilt or Bacterial spot, but I am leaning towards the wilt. I will need to investigate varieties that are resistant, as crop rotation is somewhat challenging for us.
I started typing this all out in a post I am writing about tomato problems, but I thought I would make a separate post to share some observations about my local weather for the past 4 years. I'm sharing this as an exercise in looking at weather data, not really as a diagnostic or making conclusions based on it. The 2024 growing season isn't complete and chose to not look at max temp which is another important indicator, because I am too sleepy and lazy. I got my data from [government of canada weather stations](https://climate.weather.gc.ca/historical_data/search_historic_data_e.html). I live not to far from one. Your government might publish such data, or you could try sites like Weather Underground which collects data from personal weather stations. I downloaded CSV files and used conditional formatting and pivot tables to get the data I wanted. *** 2021 - Last frost: May 1st - Last day with a low of 5 degrees: May 31 - First frost: October 22 - Growing days (between 5C and first frost): 144 2022 - Last frost: April 30 - Last day with a low of 5 degrees: May 25 - First frost: October 2 - Growing days (between 5C and first frost): 130 2023 - Last frost: May 18 - Last day with a low of 5 degrees: May 26 - First frost: October 23 - Growing days (between 5C and first frost): 150 2024 - Last frost: April 26 - Last day with a low of 5 degrees: May 11 - First frost: N/A - Growing days (between 5C and first frost): N/A Some charts:    If I am going to draw one conclusion, it's that I feel justified in waiting until June 1 to transplant sensitive plants (tomatoes and peppers) but need to be on the ball to direct sow cold weather crops by mid April (peas, leafy greens, beets, radishes). 2024 might have been an outlier in terms of how soon the season started, and I don't want to risk the sensitive plants because they take so much work starting indoors. It's hard to come back if they fail to thrive.
This is one of my favorite plants in the garden and is such a miracle to me. I told FrostyTrichs that I didn't think it was native, but I was wrong! I'm kind of glad, we really do try to buy native perennials (or at least cultivars of plants that are native in the area-ish), but sometimes get swayed by profound beauties Obviously, the photo above is a cultivar and not a true native but the the Rose Mallow is native in my province: [https://www.ontario.ca/page/swamp-rose-mallow](https://www.ontario.ca/page/swamp-rose-mallow) PDF alert - [https://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/virtual_sara/files/plans/mp_swamp_rose-mallow_e_final.pdf](https://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/virtual_sara/files/plans/mp_swamp_rose-mallow_e_final.pdf) I should note that we are outside if it's native range and 1-2 hardiness zones colder... I can't believe this tropical looking beauty survives our harsh winters. This is what it looks like in April: ) It springs back to life well after everything else has, and all hope is lost. We noticed the first growth at the very end of May:  The first blooms were noticed yesterday, at the very end of August. They are in the back corner of our yard, about 150 ft from the house, but the beautiful colour stands out from the green. This plant is a very good reminder of how useful garden logs can be. We were ready to give up on her, but looked back at least year's photos and remembered that she likes to sleep in.
Okay, so I had a pile of potatoes on my shelf in the living room, as one does, and got super lazy about them so they stayed there all winter and sprouted. Instead of just hucking them in the compost, I decided to plant them. #### May 11, 2024 Here are the potatoes I gathered from the shelf:  And here they are that same day, planted. I did not plant all of the potatoes that were in the bowl.  It looks like maybe three purple and nine yellow? Here they are all ready for a nice nap:  Over time I hilled the plants with straw. *** #### August 24, 2024 This is the bed as of yesterday:  I started by moving the straw gently, and feeling around for potato plant stalks, like this one:  As I dug deeper, I found groups of them:  You can see how thick the straw layer was in the photo above. When I planted them, I did not place them very deep into the ground. I like to harvest potatoes with my hands and not tools, to minimize the harm I might do to insects. This photo shows the hay all cleared away from these plants. You start to see the potatoes creeping out of the soil. Potatoes grow upwards along the stalk as the stalk growns. That's why they are hilled with either dirt or straw.  This photo shows it a bit better, you can see the potatoes growing in both the soil and the straw layers.  The yellow potatoes grew bigger than the purple ones, and I got a pretty big yellow one:  I threw them in a bowl and sprayed them directly with the hose. I probably shouldn't have done that because I damaged the skin of a few of them, meaning they may not cure very well. The soil is so sticky, and I got lazy. Here is my harvest:  I ended up with more than I planted for sure, and maybe more than I started with. I think I can say I at least renewed the potatoes, lol. A few of them have insect damage. *** As you can see, my soil is awful. It's really heavy clay and lacks organics. This is one reason for all the wood chips. I decided to plant the potatoes in the ground to help break up the soil a bit (someone told me they do that?) and also because I had nothing to lose. I did observe evidence of a mycorrhizal network in parts of the soil, which is lovely and showing me that there is hope. I ended up burying the straw in the bed, covering it with soil, and covering the soil with a plastic tarp I had. Mmmmm, microplastics! I hope to keep the soil free of weeds so it's easier to deal with in the spring or later in the fall. I'm not sure if I will grow potatoes in here again (in the spring) or I'll try garlic in this bed (in October).
