re: 2024 Spring Garden Thread

I've got a beautiful white nosed fox squirrel that's been hanging around my property for the last several months. If he is wise, he will avoid my garden area. Otherwise he's going to wind up on my wall.



During squirrel season of course.

Yeah that wouldn’t be feasible. It is for me since my garden is smaller. I’d definitely have to change tactics for a larger garden.

I had plans to build a small greenhouse and just never went through with it. Maybe one day.

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It gives recommendations for Nitrogen, and says zero for phosphate and pot ash.

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They don’t test for nitrogen because it’s volatile in the soil. It’s a moving target. Your phosphorus and potassium levels are high, so just maintenance applications throughout the growing season should be fine. Looks good. Nothing to be concerned about from what I can tell.

Great, thanks. Wasn't sure if any of those could be too high.
Another week or two and we'll be transplanting everything into the beds.

There’s one positive to the rain right now. I have a project coming up that I’ll be trying to work on this weekend. I’m extending my water spigot out to the garden and setting up a smart timer to fully automate my irrigation. I’ll have to dig a 70 foot trench, so a softer ground will be welcome!

On the topic, I ordered a B-Hyve XD 4 port with the wifi hub.


The reviews are mixed but I figured I’d give it a try. Does anyone have experience with these? My concern is the Bluetooth range to the wifi hub. I plan on putting the hub in my living room window which will have a direct line of sight to the garden about 80 feet away. Orbits website says nothing of the range. The description on Home Depot’s website says it’s 150 ft. Some of my google searches say they put a new Bluetooth chip in it a few years back that’s supposed to go up to 500 feet. But a lot of reviews complain about the range and connection issues. I guess I’m gonna find out.

I like the moisture sensor idea on that one. If this B-Hyve doesn't work worth a crap I'll look into that one.

I have the 3/4 gallon EZ FLO and all you have to do is connect it in line with your water source. If you have high water pressure you'll need to add a regulator because it has a max pressure rating of 50 psi.

I was a little intimidated at first but I just took my time doing all the calculations needed and it has been working great. First thing you'll need to do is calculate your systems flow rate. I did this by counting all of the emitters and multiplying it by 0.5 (1/2 gallon per hour emitters) to get the GPH. You'll use that to determine which flow restrictor goes in the hose bib adapter. The wrong size flow restrictor will prevent the fertilizer from being injected into the system.

Next you just need to calculate how much fertilizer you will need. Most water soluble fertilizers will give you an amount per square ft on the box/bag/container. Once that is figure out you can put it in the tank and fill it with water. I pre-dissolve mine in a small bucket to make sure it is fully dissolved before pouring that into the tank.

After that you can adjust the fert rate with the dial on top of the tank. Whether you want to dump the fertilizer quickly or slowly over more waterings, up to you. I usually keep it at the highest rate and just empty the tank in one watering.

One piece of advice that has saved me a lot of headache, write everything down! Number of emitters, gph, amount of fert for whatever brand or type you are using, everything!

ETA: You can check out the instructions PDF here. They are pretty easy to follow.

isnt the 7 the last frost date? seems early. whos transplanting to the garden this weekend?

I did it 2 weeks early last year and had to cover for that last freeze we had. Dont want to need to do that again.

There’s a pretty wide flow range so you just need to get close enough. For instance the white flow restrictor is from 60 to 120 gph.