Gardening Section for OB?

[Invicta]

5 hours ago, Orval said:

 

I would love to have a gardening section.  Last year was my first year doing straw bale gardening.  So we experimented and loved the experience. 

 

 

I read about growing tomatoes in straw bales years ago.  It was said that the straw could not have been treated with weedkillers or it would kill the tomatoes.

[...]

When I was a kid, my neighbor, Dr. Kenneth Jones, grew potatoes in straw bales, but he couldn't separate the potatoes from the straw.  He said the only way to do it efficiently was to blow the straw away from the potatoes with car exhaust.  Here's some footage of me right before I started helping him:

 

[heartstrings]

I didn't know you were Asian. What I want to see is the AFTER footage. :)

[...]

4 minutes ago, heartstrings said:

I didn't know you were Asian. What I want to see is the AFTER footage. :)

[Orval]

3 hours ago, Invicta said:

I read about growing tomatoes in straw bales years ago.  It was said that the straw could not have been treated with weedkillers or it would kill the tomatoes.

I don't use pesticides except for my squash our area for some reason breads the bugs that can eat them to the root in a couple of days till they are a couple of months old. and I catch as many lady bugs as possible and put them on my garden. 

 

[Ukulelemike]

I will throw in some gardening stuff.

We live in the northern California desert; very cold in winter, hot and dry in the summer, short growing season. Soil is all sand except the clay in the lake area. So we build boxes, about 2'x8', 2' high, and fill them with compost from the goats, rabbits and chickens. No soil otherwise. The rabbit poop is about ready to plant in right from the rabbit pen, though we let it it compost down.

Now, an important thing is to ensure your soil has all the necessary nutrients. We have done various things, but found some of the best are limestone dust, because it has all the minerals necessary in it.. We would use kelp meal but it has too much salt. Most soil is very nutrient hungry because many minerals were lost at the flood of Noah and washed into the ocean. Another benefit of having all the soil nutrients is that it causes the plants to actually repel pests-last couple years we haven't seen a single tomato hornworm on tomatoes or potatoes, whereas before that we would almost lose everything to them.

  Last couple years we have been inundated with preying mantises-hundreds, maybe thousands of them, all through the garden area: huge green, tiny sage ones, red ones, brown ones, tan ones-I never knew there were so many variations! They do great with the pests and are very inquisitive, climbing over everyone and everything, even a baby goat we brought into the garden one day. We also have had a lot of huge striped yellow and green garden spiders-not as much fun, but great with the bugs!

[...]

7 minutes ago, Ukulelemike said:

Last couple years we have been inundated with preying mantises-hundreds, maybe thousands of them, all through the garden area: huge green, tiny sage ones, red ones, brown ones, tan ones-I never knew there were so many variations! They do great with the pests and are very inquisitive, climbing over everyone and everything, even a baby goat we brought into the garden one day.

Cool!  I'd love to see that!

[HappyChristian]

Suggestion has been made to the Admins, @Brother Stafford.

[Ukulelemike]

12 hours ago, Brother Stafford said:

Cool!  I'd love to see that!

Here is one, a reddish-brown one, hanging out upside-down on a cabbage leaf.

[Jim_Alaska]

That is interesting Bro. Mike. I didn't even know that they were resident in desert locations. I have seen them in tropical and semi-tropical locations. Over here on the western side of the state I have never seen one.

[Ukulelemike]

7 hours ago, Jim_Alaska said:

That is interesting Bro. Mike. I didn't even know that they were resident in desert locations. I have seen them in tropical and semi-tropical locations. Over here on the western side of the state I have never seen one.

They are all over the place here! All sizes and colors. None of those fancy-schmancy ones like are found in the rainforest, but still many varieties. Every year we find bunches of egg cases for them and we care for them so we get more.

[...]

23 hours ago, Ukulelemike said:

Every year we find bunches of egg cases for them and we care for them so we get more.

No mantis caviar?

[Ukulelemike]

3 minutes ago, Brother Stafford said:

No mantis caviar?

Too much work

[Jim_Alaska]

OK, Bro. Matt has tentatively given his blessing to a garden forum. I am going to go ahead and put one up, but need some input from members. I need a general name for the forum that will indicate a general idea of what the forum is about. I can do this two ways. I can create a general forum with sub-forums under it, which takes up board space and some sub-forums may not get much use.

Or I can create a general forum with a descriptive name and let the threads within that forum define the subjects, something like The Lounge is set up now.

I have church this morning and want to start work on the new forum this evening. But I want to ask those that are interested in this new forum to help with a descriptive name for the forum that will show on the main board page. In this respect, what would members think of the name "Homesteading?" Or "Self Sufficiency?" I suggest this because if you do a search online for a definition of those names, you will see that they encompass just about everything that could be discussed. Because of the topics a forum like this would generate, it might be better to just name the forum and let the subjects define themselves instead of having sub-forums.

Suggestions?  

Edited March 12, 2017 by Jim_Alaska
addition

[Rebecca]

I like the "Homesteading" suggestion, or maybe "Farm and Garden", in case someone wants  suggestions on raising farm animals (would that have to be a separate section?).