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Anyone into gardening here?
- Thread starter shanekingsley
- Start date
For raised beds look at the brackets you can get from Lee Valley. Zinc coated heavy duty things that you attach to lumber to make stacking levels more or less any size you like limited by bought lumber length. I built some 8ft x 4ft long ones (actually from 12ft lumber) about 3ft high and put in some crossbraces halfway along to stop the sides from bulging. Lined the beds with weed cover material in a large roll you can get from Costco and then ordered a delivery of decent soil mix to fill them. I have two and will build a third in a few weeks. I put some fish blood and bone mix on at the start of the season and dig it in along with some compost. The beds drain really well and one has an established herb garden in. They are easy to clear of weeds and are a decent height so you don't have to bend over a lot. Easy to grow deep rooted veggies too. Highly recommend a raised bed like this if you can swing it.
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I'm definitely going to try some compost tea this year. I will be using my comfrey leaves plus a few other things and hopefully I'll get some good results.
I'll try my best to add calcium. I'll try to ol' eggshell route. I'm told powdered milk is a cheap way to add some calcium to soil.
https://www.amazon.ca/Liquid-Gold-Logic-Using-Plants/dp/0966678311
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Riceburner
Well-known member
Great...let us know when they are mature and the address.....
Think someone stole my AC cover recently.
The right time to start fixing the soil and seeding is when the outside air temperatures get to around 15 degrees during the day. By that time, soil temperatures will have warmed up to around 5degrees or more. Usually this means around late April to early May, but obviously varies from year to year. I like the following picture to show that by the middle of the summer, when that heat wave hits, your grass that has grown from seed should be properly established to withstand that stress. Seeds take anywhere from 3-21 days to germinate depending on the grass species. After germinating it will take about 6 weeks to get reasonably established. So based on the graphic below, you can see that you should be seeding by mid-May at the latest. You could always seed in late April and then a month later sprinkle down a little more seed in the bare sections that may not have germinated.
Do you know what kind of seed/soil you are going to put down? Were the rodents going after grubs last year or something?
Matthew this website has some basic info on compost tea if you have never seen it before: http://www.compostjunkie.com/making-compost-tea.html.
This website has some more scientific information if you are interested: http://www.microbeorganics.com/#What_is_Compost_Tea
It would be very easy to set up your own brewer from parts found at home depot and throw in some some quality ingredients from a reliable recipe.
Thanks Shanekingsley, I guess the skunks were after grubs, we have had issues with grubs in the past. Not sure what to treat with either. For seed and soil mix I also have no idea, I like a nice lawn and garden, but I'm pretty clueless about this stuff. Lawn is sun/shade mix area and I'm pretty lazy about a watering schedule.
Grubs are the immature stages of different beetles. Many control grubs with the use of beneficial nematodes, which burrow into the grubs and essentially eat their way out. You can buy them at any garden centre and just follow the instructions on the package. Neem oil diluted and sprayed into the lawn may also work, because neem essentially disrupts the life cycles of many insects - but this may affect good and bag bugs. Grubs are usually feeding in either the spring or late summer to early fall - all depending on the grub type. If you don't know what kind of grubs you have, then do an earlier nematode application in the spring and then another one in the mid-late summer.
If you are lazy about watering, and you have a sun/shade mix, then look for grass seeds that have a combination of the following types:
Creeping Red Fescue - very drought/shade tolerant - does ok in full sun - a good low maintenance grass
Chewings Fescue - same as above bu doesn't spread as well. Mix the two together in shady areas
Tall Fescue - good for sun, and drought and heat. does ok in shade but not deep shade
Perennial Ryegrass - good for sun or shade, like a bit of moisture though
If you could find a bag of grass seed with a combination of at least 3/4 listed above it would be good. Then each type will grow where it is happy and it will also bring some versatility into your lawn. You will need to water lightly and frequently during seed germination and then once they get taller you can reduce irrigation. Water lawn if possible before 10am about once a week @ 1" water/week - use a tuna can to measure water amount.
For soil, you can use a medium quality topsoil. Essentially you will get a well draining soil that has some amount of nutrients in it - just make sure it comes from a good supplier, so it is weed free. If you are in Milton, I like Petrie's (http://www.petrie.ca/) - they have very nice soils there. All the grass types I mentioned do well in fairly lower quality soils, so don't waste your money getting something super high in nutrients that would be better suited to flower or veggie gardens.
About once a year it would be great if you could add some topdressing of medium quality topsoil to level the lawn and add some nutrition. Leave your clippings on the lawn when you mow (returns nitrogen to the lawn) and cut the grass slightly taller at around 4" to help conserve water, produce more drought tolerant plants with deeper roots and shade the soil to reduce weed seed germination.
If you are lazy about watering, and you have a sun/shade mix, then look for grass seeds that have a combination of the following types:
Creeping Red Fescue - very drought/shade tolerant - does ok in full sun - a good low maintenance grass
Chewings Fescue - same as above bu doesn't spread as well. Mix the two together in shady areas
Tall Fescue - good for sun, and drought and heat. does ok in shade but not deep shade
Perennial Ryegrass - good for sun or shade, like a bit of moisture though
If you could find a bag of grass seed with a combination of at least 3/4 listed above it would be good. Then each type will grow where it is happy and it will also bring some versatility into your lawn. You will need to water lightly and frequently during seed germination and then once they get taller you can reduce irrigation. Water lawn if possible before 10am about once a week @ 1" water/week - use a tuna can to measure water amount.
For soil, you can use a medium quality topsoil. Essentially you will get a well draining soil that has some amount of nutrients in it - just make sure it comes from a good supplier, so it is weed free. If you are in Milton, I like Petrie's (http://www.petrie.ca/) - they have very nice soils there. All the grass types I mentioned do well in fairly lower quality soils, so don't waste your money getting something super high in nutrients that would be better suited to flower or veggie gardens.
About once a year it would be great if you could add some topdressing of medium quality topsoil to level the lawn and add some nutrition. Leave your clippings on the lawn when you mow (returns nitrogen to the lawn) and cut the grass slightly taller at around 4" to help conserve water, produce more drought tolerant plants with deeper roots and shade the soil to reduce weed seed germination.
bury a radio in the garden and play any CBC station....it will **** right off
This link is one of the definitive resources on dealing with rodents like moles and groundhogs. Good Luck!
http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_640x430/public/untitled-5_0.png
http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_640x430/public/untitled-5_0.png
boyoboy
Well-known member
grow a small veg garden. tomatoes, radish, carrots, onions, hot peppers, sweet peppers, cukes, beans, lettuce. all from seed.
Seeds came from the cottage gardener: they are all organic (certified), open field pollinated (non hybrid/non gmo). Great place, many heirloom, rare, and even endangered species. Small family operation outside the gta.
I saved some local black walnut (yummy fruit), that I am going to try and start this year, along with some chestnuts too.
Tried planting some directly in the ground last year, but the dang squirels dug em all up.
http://cottagegardener.com/
Seeds came from the cottage gardener: they are all organic (certified), open field pollinated (non hybrid/non gmo). Great place, many heirloom, rare, and even endangered species. Small family operation outside the gta.
I saved some local black walnut (yummy fruit), that I am going to try and start this year, along with some chestnuts too.
Tried planting some directly in the ground last year, but the dang squirels dug em all up.
http://cottagegardener.com/
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boyoboy
Well-known member
why not leave em? its only a lawn. share, they were here long b4 us.
This is usually caused by over watering, watering too frequently, poorly drained soils, or humidity levels too high? Do you have your seedlings under domes? Did you use soil to start them in or something else? If so, what?
As a general guideline, no need to apply anything, but it's more about what to remove. The best way to get rid of the mold is to reduce watering or moisture content, because we tend to over water even when we think we are not watering enough. Seedlings are usually pretty resilient. Once your plants have rooted, you could also water from the bottom up, so you avoid any unnecessary leaf wetness or soil surface moisture. You could also take a fan and have the fan blowing (from a distance) on the plants to help keep the air moving around the plants while making sure the the plants themselves are not getting pushed around. If the temperatures are at or above normal room temps after the plants have shown their first set of true leaves, it would help to lower the temps in that area to around 15-18degrees, because the higher temps coupled with humidity or excessive soil moisture will enable mold growth.
boyoboy
Well-known member
air movement is important (fan indirectly) will help to prevent
you can spray with a mixture of milk and water, but..
it is still early season , you might want to simply start over
and as mentioned earlier, do not over water
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