re: 2022 Spring Garden Thread

Looks like I may be good. This is the lime tree. Should I trim the dead stuff off or let it shed the leaves and see what happens?

I’ll be stepping up my first 1000 of a combination of eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes next week.

My biggest second planting of 1700 or so is up and looking good.

Finished my final 1200 starts last Friday.

Tomato varieties:
Cherokee purple
Brandy wine
Better boy
Celebrity
Goliath
Bush champion
San Mariano
Sun gold
Natures bites

Eggplant:
Epic
Millionaire
Black beauty

Peppers:
Aristotle
King Arthur
Islander
California wonder
Cayenne
Mucho nacho
Sweet banana
Poblano

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brad's atomic grape

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I have 3 of those growing now. 100% germination. I'd give it a go again with a different pack of seeds.

I also planted 3 Alice's Dream. No idea how they will do but they look neat.

I effed up storing my Carmen seeds so I went 0/6 this year. Hopefully I can find plants or something similar in March.

Quick question: My seedlings are about 2-3 weeks old. Some have required potting up but not all. What do you use as a go by for adding a little bit of water soluble fertilizer? Or is that not required until you transplant?

my seedlings are stuck the last week or so. they sprouted but arent putting on anything beyond the first pair of leaves. I think I might have drown the roots. I went ahead and moved them out of the seed starters and into pots. Will they bounce back or should i start over?

Wondering if there's a efficient way to turn compost with a single bin. I have a 3x3 foot bin I have filled with compost that I started in the spring. When it was only about half full, it wasn't awful to turn. I'd do it several times a week and got that really hot compost that breaks down quickly.

Now that it's full, I have two issues. And both really relate back to only having the single bin. I'd eventually love to add two more, but don't have the space in the current set up. The first issue is that turning basically requires two movements of the whole pile. Shovel it out, then shovel it back in. Second issue is that It's located in the corner of the yard where we have mostly pine needle coverage, so when I shovel it out, fresh new pine needle "pollute" the compost and they already take a bit longer to break down. When I add another bin, I can shovel straight from one to the other which turns it and keeps it out of all the pine needles.

Is there any good way to keep the pile freshly oxygenated and moist without going through that whole process? I find myself doing it less and less when it's a pain. I turned it two days ago and about half the pile is beautiful compost and the other half is showing the affects of my laziness

Do you have a wheelbarrow? Could just shovel it all in there then dump it back in.

I just finished building my first bins this weekend. 2 bins made from old landscape timbers I previously used as edging for my garden and scrap 2x4 and fence pickets left over from rebuilding my fence last year.

I probably should have gone 3 bins instead of 2 but I didn't have enough pickets and didn't feel like spending any money.

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some aeration type systems, special tools, or tricks of the trade

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Really I think a good pitchfork is what you need, some people use those manual twisting compost aerators but I don't have any experience with them.

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Self Sufficient Me

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That dude is goofy as shite

I love the videos though.