Gardening

I have been gardening this block for 5 years, not an enormous time, but I don't use animal products to fertilise I just use compost/mulching/weed tea/and cover crops.

Everything seems fine. Yet every gardening show or whatever will be like "slather that manure and blood and bone on each year, use fish emulsion, fucking sacrifice your firstborn on that shit". Am I an idiot or do you just not need to do any of that?

edit: not looking for the peanut gallery. Interested in opinions from people who don't use animal products and what their experience has been.

Captions in the imgur post comrades

Next step I'll put them in some soil!

💚

I bought some slips in May 2023 and grew them that year. We harvested and enjoyed many of them! Some of the thinner, more annoying ones languished on a shelf. I noticed they were sprouting in the fall when I realized they were still there. I let them keep doing their thing until I had some time.

I plucked them from the potatoes and dipped them in a rooting hormone. I put them in some water and will eagerly await their rooting.

A couple days ago this was a tap root. Plants are awesome.

Some air roots forming on a tap root. This seed is about 2 days old.

I cleaned up my living room succulent shelf and took some photos along the way. I realize I am missing about half the plants in that room and haven't included anything from my office...so more posts to come.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17585279

The study, which was published in 2023, found that daily dietary fiber intake for the gardening group was 1.4 grams higher than the control group. This may not sound like a lot, but dietary fiber, found in plant foods such as legumes, fruits and vegetables, is linked, for instance, to a lower risk of cancer. And the health benefits go beyond the nourishing food that gardens provide.

Katie McGillivray, a horticultural therapist with Ottawa-based Root in Nature, confirms that these are among the benefits of the practice. “Gardening naturally encourages physical activity, from gentle movements like walking, watering and weeding, to more vigorous tasks like digging, raking or hoeing,” she says.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends a weekly goal of 150 minutes of moderate-intense activity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intense activity. Only 22.5 percent of adults, in 2022, met guidelines for both muscle-strengthening and aerobic physical activity. McGillivray and the CDC agree that chores involved with gardening burn calories and improve dexterity, muscle mass and bone density.

Is it manual fertilising? They're always covered in bees when I do. Was it the pH? The heatwave?

Were they just throwing a tantrum and wanted some attention?

Who knows, but they're popping off!

Just potting around before the next week of rain.

They're small and idk 3 weeks old, no signs of deficiency aside from blossom end rot.

Was set up with Manutec 1L Hydroponic NK Plus For Fruit And Veg. Water is about half depleted, has been hot so possibly nutrients are concentrated?

pH had risen to about 7 from 6.5. I readjusted it to about 6.5. In dirt this range would be fine for calcium transport.

Oh hydroponic wisdom people, enlighten me. Should I just remix new solution? Add a supplement? Is pH for transport different in hydro?

If you thought the title was funny you should look into a Tom Lehrer whom I am ripping off.

Got some hydro going, which is good as a bad week of depression combined with a hot sun killed my ground veggies.

This black elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) bloomed for the first time back in June, now is blooming again with a flower cluster bigger than my head lol.

Close-up of the tiny flowers:

Captions are in the imgur post!

(It's loofah's)

I don't know too much about the practicality of his approach but I'm interested in the way he made his own soil and built up the trellis. Cool idea to use them as seed starters.

I've been meaning to turn a good portion of the back yard into a garden for food and food-related plants (herbs) since I moved in..... 4 years ago.

So, really plan on doing it over the winter for next year so I can plant in the spring.

I'm mostly planning "easy" plants: Zuchinni, squashes, onions, carrots, potatoes, broccoli, peas, maybe cucumbers etc.

The question, though, is what's the best way to like, do a raised bed?

Google has helpfully offered up what looks like a non-stop barrage of AI generated nonsense, but I'm figuring some sort of cement blocks for the corners and some un-treated boring white pine (or whatever's cheapest at the local lumber yard) wood for the sides.

The questions are, I guess, is what exactly is the correct thing to buy to fill these since I'm planning on making something like 4 or 5 large raised beds and like, what extremely obvious things am I overlooking that'll result in this being less success and more of a typical my-project-failed?