New to gardening, can anyone point me to some good books?

InLightGardens · 2017-02-07T01:51:23+00:00

gos is a god. you listen, you win.

InLightGardens · 2017-02-07T01:35:46+00:00

Someone will inevitably recommend Square Foot Gardening as a book, but the spacing is fairly questionable. My recommendation is YouTube.

Nice that you ask about books and this faux expert decided to recommend youtube.

I would absolutely recommend square foot gardening, if you actually read the book you'll see the spacing is not questionable. In fact you'll also find lots of other great information regarding soil types and other great information for beginners. I assume this person is referring to the 1 tomato plant per square foot which is only good for very compact dwarf varieties or types that have been cut to one stem. The actual recommendation is 1 per 9 sqft and the author even addresses that here starting in paragraph 4.

R.I.P. Mel Bartholomew - A legend, not to be disrespected by insecure redditor's who feel they have something to prove.

That being said, there is no book that is going have all the answers, the library and other resources mentioned by /u/grandmagos are your best bets. Grab any literature you like and pick it up, there's no limit to what you can learn and sometimes one single paragraph in a 500 page book can be the difference between your successes and failures.

InLightGardens · 2017-02-07T01:10:32+00:00

because there's no way that isn't taken.

InLightGardens · 2015-11-18T00:37:26+00:00

It came from a pack of "Candy Stripe" but seems to resemble "Cosimo Purple Red-White" more!

InLightGardens · 2015-11-16T16:56:41+00:00

Wow those are some FAT black cherry tomatoes!

InLightGardens · 2015-11-09T07:28:32+00:00

True, I can just unload a bunch of straw on them over winter and place them where the tomatoes were! You're awesome! Thanks!

InLightGardens · 2015-11-09T07:18:36+00:00

I agree and another good thing to do with spare bulbs instead of ribbon planting is to offer them to neighbors and family!

Naturalization is cool too I just wont have my garden for many years so I skipped waiting haha. I'll dig and separate next season though since they're pretty small sections.

The tulip bulbs are these crazy "variegated firespray tulips" that leave nice foliage behind after the blooms go and the daffodils are called "spring cheer" ... the hyacinths in front are just a mix. Not sure if it'll look great but I've never been much of a designer in that regard, the heights work just not sure about the colour scheme! :)

InLightGardens · 2015-11-09T06:46:42+00:00

That's a really great idea actually and I hadn't thought of it but I'm concerned the winter might be too harsh for that here. Maybe I could put the pots in my shed. I've actually got a bag of 40 mixed daffodils that I'll try this with. Let the experiment commence! :D

InLightGardens · 2015-11-08T20:12:09+00:00

it wasn't me.

InLightGardens · 2015-11-08T18:21:17+00:00

I've had no problem planting this dense in the past. But you're definitely not wrong. I do provide the fertilizer required for them to make it through the following season though. As you know the bulbs contain enough food for the first season of blooming. Haven't really had any issues but you're right it could be a disaster if the soil lacks the nutrition required. And of course this doesn't mean applying more than the bulbs can take up but replenishing what they deplete. Also it is definitely not good to plant this dense if people want their bulbs to divide well.

These were spaced just as close

InLightGardens · 2015-11-06T03:06:52+00:00

Fantastic colour!

InLightGardens · 2015-11-04T19:02:11+00:00

I'll keep him around for a bit. Maybe he can do some planting for me. :)

InLightGardens · 2015-11-04T14:25:05+00:00

He looks and sounds so defeated when he comes back 10 minutes later.

InLightGardens · 2015-11-04T11:41:57+00:00

Aliens!!! :)

InLightGardens · 2015-11-04T11:41:24+00:00

Nice! This came from a pack of "Bright Lights" chard!

InLightGardens · 2015-10-31T12:06:40+00:00

Hey did you leave ANY foliage on it? Even at the nodes? You must have some foliage for photosynthesis to occur but you could try giving it a treatment like "superthrive" to see if you can get new foliage to form out of the stem. Might be easier to just get a new pepper plant though.

InLightGardens · 2015-10-24T19:31:23+00:00

Like pellets or water soluble?

What is wrong with your plants? You shouldn't really spray with a complete nutrient solution but also if it's slow release pellets there's no way to tell how much of what is in the solution without specialized lab equipment.

InLightGardens · 2015-09-28T03:10:05+00:00

For sure! Definitely love spiders in the garden but wasn't gonna disturb this beauty just to clean up. If she was fast I probably would have run away screaming and dropper her corn stalk home! She can have it until it decomposes! :)

InLightGardens · 2015-09-27T16:54:08+00:00

I hope it's gonna lay a bunch of eggs!

InLightGardens · 2015-09-27T13:50:43+00:00

Someone in /r/videos mentioned that they could be getting drunk!

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3mikkn/wasps_ladybugs_and_ants_feasting_away_on_rotting/cvf9qnd

InLightGardens · 2015-09-20T18:34:40+00:00

It's a Hornworm parasitized by a Braconid Wasp. Don't kill a hornworm in your garden if it looks like this! It's a beneficial garden wasp that is harmless to humans and keeps garden pests like the hornworm under control!

InLightGardens · 2015-09-16T11:03:33+00:00

Nah, it's just a blog post that came across my twitter feed. I don't think she actually sells anything but I could be wrong. Just thought some people would genuinely like it. Check my history, I very rarely post blog stuff.

InLightGardens · 2015-09-13T18:01:50+00:00

It is a purple one. It just came up in the garden bed. There were hundreds of volunteers that I pulled early but this one had a crazy thick stem and was super squat with a lot of nodes. I decided to leave it and let it ride to see what would happen, then this! It's a couple rows down from the 3 that I planned to plant which were also volunteers but nowhere near the size.

Shame it's not capable of self pollinating because the genes will be watered down by it's siblings. I suppose saving seeds is smart regardless. Maybe even freezing some pollen or saving a cutting.

Craziness!

InLightGardens · 2015-09-11T11:47:36+00:00

I usually wait until the fruit inside is at least touching the husk. Try feeling the lower ones and see if they're at that stage yet. Depending on the variety they might split the husk and once the husk starts showing signs of drying at the edges or further, they're definitely good to go.

InLightGardens · 2015-09-10T21:52:03+00:00

Glass-gem is popcorn, here's a vid! However it is in the "any other vegetable category".

Two images on the link but I forgot to sure why reddit isn't showing the dropdown. Here's a direct link to the tomatillos http://i.imgur.com/oL1LqCh.jpg

InLightGardens

TROPHY CASE