Growing Veggies inside your pool cage
tomncath
13 years ago
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loufloralcityz9
13 years agoRelated Discussions
Veggie Garden Inside?
Comments (16)I'm not sure you are looking for answers or confirmation that what you are attempting to do is great. Having been there and tried it, you are farther over your head than the last person buried in your town. Not trying to be mean or harsh, only realistic. It takes lots of practice, and a decent amount of talent and treasury, to learn either hydroponics or how to mix container soil so it doesn't compact, holds moisture yet drains, and is large enough to sustain your plants. Then there is the lighting issue. Research Daily Light Integral, PAR light, lighting spectrum to get a basic idea of what is involved. Growing inside is simply not as simple as "transplant a seedling and it will grow." Platitudes such as "Telling me I can't will only make me succeed. You're talking to person who heats her entire home on 1 tank of oil a year - because someone told me I couldn't!" may sound confident (or arrogant) but the truth is it is hard to make a silk purse from a pig's ear. Pollination is the very least of your worries. Of course, you will learn this as the months pass. But I wish you good luck on your endeavors! Mike...See MoreOrganic Raised Beds for Veggie Growing
Comments (4)Emily, you should watch Craigslist and freecycle for free materials you can use for sides. Although you can just make raised mounds without sides, that doesn't work well for me for a variety of reasons. Read on and see if they might apply to you. 1) My land is on a very slight slope, and it rains a lot sometimes, so eventually soil wants to run downhill into the neighbor's yard. The sides keep my soil here. 2) I have enthusiastic weeds such as quack grass and creeping charlie by my gardens, and the sides make it a little harder for them to get into my gardens. 3) I use all free ingredients in my lasagna raised beds, and the old produce (such as peaches, apples, limes, and other round fruit) would roll away while I am piling up the layers of stuff. The leaves would also be more prone to blow away before I get the next layer on top of them. 4) Creating tall lasagna beds is easier than double or even single digging, at least with the kind of vegetation around my house. Back to craigslist and freecycle --> Watch for people giving away boards, concrete blocks, bricks, plastic children's pools, etc. We build most of our raised beds out of old lumber. The first two were from random old lumber, one bed is actually an old waterbed frame I saw in a friend's burn pile, another is from machinery crating from another friend's place of business, another with boards my brother removed from around his former residence's play equipment. One is made of concrete bricks I got on freecycle. Then I have 3 of those flexible children's pools, I put holes around the side about an inch from the bottom for drainage. One was from freecycle, the other two I found in the trash. In summary, be creative and FIND some materials, I can assure you they are out there. U.S. citizens are the most wasteful people in the world, use that to your advantage. Then fill the beds with leaves, old produce, manure, used coffee grounds, grass clippings, whatever you can come up with, again for free. Best darn gardens in the world. Marcia...See MoreIn the winter, can veggies be grown inside under lights?
Comments (5)i am attempting peppers and tomatoes - will run MH 800 W x 2 plus HPS 600 W x 1 for a 4 x 9 foot area. I think this might be too much light, but better than too little. I have a 4 x 4 foot propagation garden with 7 x 2 shoplight T8 overdriven, total 14 lamps, 4500 lumen per square foot. This fluorescent garden could even grow short pepper plants or short totatoes....See MoreVeggie Grow List for 2010
Comments (68)Ezzirah, I don't grow raspberries because they don't like the heat here, but I would think that any high-quality potting mix would do. You want something that is light and fluffy and which drains well. Avoid the ones that are labeled as 'moisture-control' because they can hold too much moisture and kill plants. I grow blackberries which are very heat tolerant in the ground in clay soil that's been well amended with a lot of composted cow manure and they do great in that. However, if you're growing raspberries in containers, you can't use native soil because it packs down and strangles the roots. Containers need a well-drained soil-less mix. I usually mix up my own container mix from a few basic ingredients and I can 'make' it drain more quickly or more slowly depending on what I use and on which proportions I use. A soilless mix is generally composed of some combination of peat moss or compost, vermiculite or perlite or expanded shale and pine bark fines and often has other ingredients added to provide nutrition or enhanced ability to drain well. The next time you're in a store that sells bagged potting soil and garden soil, look at the bags. Usually the name-brand ones that are labeled container soil or potting soil will be a soil-less mix. The ones labeled Garden Soil or Vegetable Soil likely contain some topsoil or dirt and should be used only in raised beds or added to your native soil. The poor quality mixes often contain a lot of black clay and should be avoided at all costs. For seed-starting, it is best to use a sterile seed-starting mix which is very light and fluffy and has only tiny particles so there's no particles large enough to keep seeds from sprouting. When handling ALL potting soils or seed-starting mixes or soil-less mixes, ALWAYS wear gloves. People who handle these mixes with their bare hands can contract some very serious illnesses from them, including a fungal infection that can get into your body and become systemic and chronic. It is your garden. Plant what you want and plant as much of it as your want and just enjoy the whole process. If you burn out, that's OK, because everything you do still will be a great learning experience and will leave you better prepared for the next garden. If you have lost your marbles, you'll eventually find them again....and most likely you'll find them in the garden under a large and vigorously growing squash plant. Here's my feeling about 'planting too much' 'going overboard' and 'losing your marbles': if those three things are the worst thing you ever do, you'll likely survive and have a wonderful life. Look at the other obsessions some people have.....spending tons of money to attend athletic events or take trips to exotic locales or go on guided hunting or fishing trips or maintaining their own deer lease or bass boat....or buying a new pair of shoes every couple of weeks so you have shoes that match every outfit or whatever..... If you enjoy gardening, then throw yourself into it wholeheartedly and love every minute of it. For me (and y'all probably can tell this already), gardening is not my hobby--it is my lifestyle. It is great exercise, it beautifies your property, it gives you FRESH garden produce, fruit, herbs and cut flowers and it feeds your soul. I can't see a downside to gardening. I find that I hit the 'burn out' stage several times during the gardening year and when that happens, I force myself to 'take a day off' and not step foot in the garden for a day or two. It is surprising how quickly I miss playing in the dirt when I take that day off. Dawn...See Moreamberroses
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