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If you had a lid for the can and a little more gutter spout I would say run the spout through the lid.
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Toss a few feeder goldfish in the can to eat the mosquito larvae. Or try to find some mosquito fish. Check your ailing strawberries to make sure you didn't plant them too deep. Strawberries are susceptible to crown rot if planted too deep. Also, plant that fruit tree you are thinking about now. It will need at least a year to establish, and depending on what kind of tree you choose, it may take several years to bear fruit so best to get it started as soon as possible. One last point, what side of the bed is the corn planted on? You want to make sure it doesn't shade everything else out once it gets taller.
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Very cool OP. I started my first suburban garden in FL last fall. It was pretty good but I learned a whole lot of little things. I'm still far far from an expert. My spring garden this year is going like gang-busters. I have roughly about twice the garden area you have but still would consider it a very small garden.
First thing I found was that crops that come in all at once, really aren't that good for small gardens like ours. They spend most of the growing season producing nothing, then boom, you have more than you care to eat when they come in, but not enough to go to the trouble of breaking out the canner for. Things that I got the most usage out of where greens (spinach, leaf lettuce, arugula), pole beans, cucumbers and tomatoes. All those either produce over an extended time or you can pick from them continuously. If you pick as you go, you can plant those greens pretty densly to make maximum use of your space. Pole beans grow vertically, so you can setup a trellis and they take up very little ground space. Just make sure to position it so it shades the rest of the garden as little as possible. Also, consider doing some spices. Most are hardy and can be picked from continuously, and can save you a lot of money over buying nasty dried spices. |
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Looks good OP. here is a great site to tell you what's going on with your strawberries. Here
Also, with that few specimens of corn you will need to cross pollinate yourselves. So I would read up and watch a YouTube video on how to do that. |
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I dont know if it's the same in FL, but your local(ish) water reclamation plant might have surplus rain barrel for sale.
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Thanks for the tips everyone. I'll look into getting a few goldfish for the rain barrel; it seems like a better alternative to adding chemicals. How do goldfish fare with temperature swings? The barrel is in direct sun for about 6 hours per day.
Livfreely, thanks for that link. It looks like the strawberries may be nitrogen or phosphorus deficient. I'll be off to Home Depot to learn about fertilizers. I have read that the corn will need nitrogen as well as soon as the silks start to show. I had been thinking about doing the hand pollination with the corn when it comes time. I planted them in the best location so as they would not shade the other plants. If we decide to build another bed for next season, this will become the "corn" bed, as it is in the best spot for the sun and to not shade anything else. I'm still on the fence with the fruit tree. We think we might go with a peach tree, but we don't want to invest too heavily yet if it turns out we aren't any good at this! |
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Go for the peach. Get a Florida Prince. It is a low chill hour, somewhat semi dwarfish variety and is self fertile. You should be able to pick up a bare root tree at Costco or one of the big box home improvement stores this time of year for $10-$20. I have one that was planted two years ago and is now loaded with fruit. Hopefully it will take them to maturity.
As to the goldfish, I have 11-12 feeder goldfisih and a couple koi in a black 100 gallon stock tank. It gets full sun from about 9 AM until 6 PM or so and they are fine. Note that I am in southern Arizona, so it gets plenty hot. I bought the goldfish for $0.13 each at Petsmart or Petco a couple years ago. I think the Koi were $6 each. |
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Looks great OP. Plant EVERYTHING you can think of just for shits and giggles. What works well in your neighbor's garden might not work well in yours. Experiment - you will figure it out. If you stick with it this will be you favorite hobby and in your case - Florida - you can plant something year round. Compost is a good idea. Gold fish in the rain barrel is a friggin OUTSTANDING idea. If you have to treat for bugs on your veggies try Sevin dust. I try to stay away from the insecticides with the picture of a skull and crossbones. Sevin will not harm your pets and it is great for getting rid of fleas.
Keep the pics coming OP. |
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Great start!
My two cents..... Skip the corn next time. It's more trouble than it's worth to grow a a half dozen corn plants. Continue with them this year for sure. Make a dedicated bed at some point for the strawberries. That'll make tending them (and the rest of your garden) much easier in the coming years. Good luck!
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Quoted:
Great start! My two cents..... Skip the corn next time. It's more trouble than it's worth to grow a a half dozen corn plants. Continue with them this year for sure. Make a dedicated bed at some point for the strawberries. That'll make tending them (and the rest of your garden) much easier in the coming years. Good luck! View Quote Well, IMHO, ditch the corn altogether. They have roots that run something in the range of 12 feet deep. That bed is not going to have enough nutrients for them. I suspect the soil under that yard is probably pretty poor and construction fill. If you do keep the corn, pull up the beans and replant them next to the corn so it can climb. Add in a few yellow, green, or butternut squash in that same area (base of corn). This will allow you to take advatnage of the corn for climibing and reduce the waste of square footage. Carrots... they grow best in beds. And they do fine if you pack them in. Thin often and they will do fine. You need to set up a 2'x2' area that you can plant in a mat of greens. Thin them and re-use them all summer. You can triple that output if you try. You are too conservative on your planting in some areas (beans) and too liberal in others (corn). I would recommend a book "The Joy of Gardening" by Dick Raymond. Google it. Lots of helpful things there for a small garden plot like yours. Don't be afraid of density and use the crowding of some plants to help others. TRG |
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Regarding your compost pile; I believe they should be in direct contact with the earth, that set up appears to be on a cement pad. The worms will have a bit of trouble getting to your material.
Rob |
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Good start.
Just for grins get a couple of five gallon buckets and plant some tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes are like crack and should do excellent. |
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Looking really good OP. I look forward to seeing how it goes.
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Gordon's Garden Guard will help with that bug damage. You can also apply a liquid Sevin.
Anything that eats a leaf will be killed by either product. From the pics, look at the blades on your corn. They are rolling up in the heat. This is not good. The rolling blade means you need to get them deeper and more consistent watering. Corn roots can go 12 feet deep. You don't have the bottom of that bed sealed or blocked, do you? TRG |
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Quoted:
Thanks for the tips. I'll look for the Sevin dust/liquid. TRG, I do have a layer of landscape fabric beneath, so I guess the corn is only getting about a foot or so to grow root structure. I will adjust this for the next time we plant it. On the bright side, the green beans will be ready this week, and we picked our very first strawberries tonight! <a href="http://s98.photobucket.com/user/Sunkistbass/media/photo11_zpsc0e4f9f0.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l269/Sunkistbass/photo11_zpsc0e4f9f0.jpg</a> View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Thanks for the tips. I'll look for the Sevin dust/liquid. Quoted:
From the pics, look at the blades on your corn. They are rolling up in the heat. This is not good. The rolling blade means you need to get them deeper and more consistent watering. Corn roots can go 12 feet deep. You don't have the bottom of that bed sealed or blocked, do you? TRG, I do have a layer of landscape fabric beneath, so I guess the corn is only getting about a foot or so to grow root structure. I will adjust this for the next time we plant it. On the bright side, the green beans will be ready this week, and we picked our very first strawberries tonight! <a href="http://s98.photobucket.com/user/Sunkistbass/media/photo11_zpsc0e4f9f0.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l269/Sunkistbass/photo11_zpsc0e4f9f0.jpg</a> That landscape fabric is going to cause your corn to not develop properly. I would probably recommend that you remove the corn and find something else with a shallower roots system to plant them instead. TRG |
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At a minimum you will need to remove the underlayer of landscape fabric. Corn has very deep roots. It is also a heavy feeder.
Depending upon where your housing edition is located, you may not be in the proper soil needed to allow corn to grow deeply enough to produce the ears you desire. TRG |
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Thanks TRG, I'll remove the fabric at the end of the season and try again with the corn.
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Garden looks nice! You might want to try a different variety of strawberries that ripen all at once, like a June bearing plant as opposed to an ever bearing. You probably will not get fruit all season but would get a lot at one time which is convenient if you plan on canning or freezing a sizable quantity.
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Look in to Bacillus Thurgensis to kill those worms.
It was recommended to me by others in this forum as a way to control all caterpillars, including corn worms. TRG |
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Nice, thanks TRG! Is it something that you apply preemptively or after you notice damage?
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Some friends of ours have started raising rabbits for meat. Today I stopped by and traded some frozen corn for their rabbit poop. I think they may have gotten the better end of the deal
We now have a whole bunch of rabbit cocoa puffs for the compost. I'm going to let it age for a bit before adding it to a new bed that will be going in soon. |
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Quoted: Some friends of ours have started raising rabbits for meat. Today I stopped by and traded some frozen corn for their rabbit poop. I think they may have gotten the better end of the deal We now have a whole bunch of rabbit cocoa puffs for the compost. I'm going to let it age for a bit before adding it to a new bed that will be going in soon. View Quote |
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Give the peppers a little more time. My jalapenos and bell peppers didn't do anything except drop leaves and look pathetic for the first several months. Recently they have really started producing lots of peppers.
Grove |
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What's wrong with your pepper plants? Are they being crowded or don't have enough sun? Rooting can be an issue with them if they are overwatered. If they look good but not blossoming, you can always work in some phosphorus product for blossoms.
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I guess I didn't anticipate how large tomato plants get. So.... they are overgrown. I'll have to build some sort of larger structure to contain the plants next time we grow them. However, the first tomatoes are starting to ripen, so we should be picking some off the vine soon. View Quote Tomatoes come in 2 types, determinate and indeterminate. Indeterminate will keep growing as long as the weather permits. Determinate will usually stop growing once the first flowers come in. Read here for full info. I would go with a determinate variety if space is at a premium or increase spacing/have fewer plants. Those may be determinate ones anyway as they can get pretty big (4 feet according to the above article). Do you know the variety and if it's determinate or not? |
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Quoted:
Tomatoes come in 2 types, determinate and indeterminate. Indeterminate will keep growing as long as the weather permits. Determinate will usually stop growing once the first flowers come in. Read here for full info. I would go with a determinate variety if space is at a premium or increase spacing/have fewer plants. Those may be determinate ones anyway as they can get pretty big (4 feet according to the above article). Do you know the variety and if it's determinate or not? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted:
I guess I didn't anticipate how large tomato plants get. So.... they are overgrown. I'll have to build some sort of larger structure to contain the plants next time we grow them. However, the first tomatoes are starting to ripen, so we should be picking some off the vine soon. Tomatoes come in 2 types, determinate and indeterminate. Indeterminate will keep growing as long as the weather permits. Determinate will usually stop growing once the first flowers come in. Read here for full info. I would go with a determinate variety if space is at a premium or increase spacing/have fewer plants. Those may be determinate ones anyway as they can get pretty big (4 feet according to the above article). Do you know the variety and if it's determinate or not? Interesting. I learned something today. Thanks C-4! The tomatoes are Beefsteak/Ponderosa Red, and they are indeterminate. I think I'll try some determinate ones next time (or maybe build a tomato tree like in my Disney thread). |
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Lettuce and carrots look like they are coming in great. I am getting lumber tomorrow to build my first raised bed. Looking forward to learning and growing some things in the back yard. I think it will be a fun process. Enjoyed scrolling through your thread and pics. Looks like you have got the hang of it. Nice work!
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