2018 Mid Atlantic Lawn/Garden/Pool Thread

[nw baltimore wx]

45 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Deer leveled my tomatoes last night.  Mature plants eaten half the way down. Unreal.

Dude, that sucks. I have always thought that deer didn't like tomato plants.

Hopefully there's still time for them to recover.

[Eskimo Joe]

10 hours ago, nw baltimore wx said:

Dude, that sucks. I have always thought that deer didn't like tomato plants.

Hopefully there's still time for them to recover.

I'm going to hit them with some liquid fertilizer and guard with some fencing and coyote urea.  That'll hopefully do the trick.  It's still June so we should be good.

[WxUSAF]

12 hours ago, nw baltimore wx said:

Dude, that sucks. I have always thought that deer didn't like tomato plants.

Hopefully there's still time for them to recover.

Deer eat our tomato plants all the time. Along with everything else.

[nw baltimore wx]

9 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

Deer eat our tomato plants all the time. Along with everything else.

An advantage, and maybe the only advantage, to living in a more urban area, is less critters for my garden. I used to have one of the garden plots along Oakland Mills Rd when I had a condo in Columbia 25 years ago, and one summer there was some critter that would take one bite out of everything and then leave it there. I never saw him by day, but I swore I'd get him. One night after getting off of work late at the O's game, I went over to water (you had to use buckets from the spigot on site), and as I approached my plot, I could see a groundhog munching away. I picked up my shovel, and for whatever reason he didn't move and I had a clear shot of him.

I learned that night that other than being a big-ass pansy, that for the remainder of that summer, I was working for a semi-blind groundhog that was going to be well fed.

[mappy]

Pool needs too much work

zucchini and squash have blossom rot

rest are doing great tho

[ThePhotoGuy]

Garden's doing good! Starting to think about fall plantings? What does everyone plant in the fall/winter? First time doing fall plantings. 

[Eskimo Joe]

20 hours ago, mappy said:

Pool needs too much work

zucchini and squash have blossom rot

rest are doing great tho

Were you able to get it fixed/filled?

[mappy]

6 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

Were you able to get it fixed/filled?

managed to get two quotes... earliest they can come out is August. gonna cost us a pretty penny. so no pool for us this summer. 

[32º]

On 6/28/2018 at 12:51 PM, ThePhotoGuy said:

Garden's doing good! Starting to think about fall plantings? What does everyone plant in the fall/winter? First time doing fall plantings. 

I planted a 20x30 patch of spinach that wound up being too late for a fall harvest but somehow survived through the frost and snow for a tremendous harvest early this spring. Seeds are cheap. Your picture looks great.

[ThePhotoGuy]

On 6/30/2018 at 1:41 AM, Frosty Frank said:

I planted a 20x30 patch of spinach that wound up being too late for a fall harvest but somehow survived through the frost and snow for a tremendous harvest early this spring. Seeds are cheap. Your picture looks great.

Thanks! I grew some spinach and kale this past spring. I am going to do more again. 

 

[Eskimo Joe]

Beets and radish are good fall crops.  Collard greens are good too.

[frd]

Do any lawn experts recommend a practice I read about a few days ago that during a three week period of little rain you should still water you lawn while it is dormant just enough so the the plant below , maybe called the crown, not sure , is able to bounce back when it does rain ?

What they are saying is even though cool season grasses can survive  a two to three period of little to no rain , that if it goes beyond that you may face a lawn that is dead.

They stated watering  1/2 inche every two weeks . They recommend not to water too much to cause the grass to exit dormancy because that causes stress on the grass and it uses up its fuel / energy stores  

 

   

[csnavywx]

On 6/26/2018 at 9:58 PM, WxUSAF said:

Deer eat our tomato plants all the time. Along with everything else.

On 6/26/2018 at 7:29 PM, Eskimo Joe said:

I'm going to hit them with some liquid fertilizer and guard with some fencing and coyote urea.  That'll hopefully do the trick.  It's still June so we should be good.

After extensive issues with deer and my gardens and fields over the years (including bramble-berries like raspberries and blackberries), I have some strong advice for you:

Do two fences, spaced 3' apart and make the inner one taller -- say 6 or 7 ft. If you want, string some hot wire in there to make it even more effective. I had 5 strands of electric fence (3 inner and 2 outer) and that finally stopped ALL deer activity inside my plot. They'll jump the first one but the limited space and being surrounded by barriers spooks them and they never make or even take the second jump. It worked wonders for me. It's a lot of extra up-front effort, but it'll put a dead stop to that nonsense.

[psuhoffman]

On 7/11/2018 at 11:27 AM, frd said:

Do any lawn experts recommend a practice I read about a few days ago that during a three week period of little rain you should still water you lawn while it is dormant just enough so the the plant below , maybe called the crown, not sure , is able to bounce back when it does rain ?

What they are saying is even though cool season grasses can survive  a two to three period of little to no rain , that if it goes beyond that you may face a lawn that is dead.

They stated watering  1/2 inche every two weeks . They recommend not to water too much to cause the grass to exit dormancy because that causes stress on the grass and it uses up its fuel / energy stores  

 

   

So there is no exact answer because the type of soil, temperature, sun angle and strength and grass type impacts this. But MOST of the time a lawn can go almost a month without water. But it can range from 3-5 weeks.  My lawn is showing signs of trouble in spots but I have almost 3 acres and I just can't do anything about it. I'll overseed or reseed in the fall or spring if necessary.  I might try to water this week if no rain comes right around my porch and pool in the typically used areas but the rest is on its own. If you have a more manageable sized lawn I would recommend giving it a deep water or two so it survives if we don't get rain soon. 

[WxUSAF]

I’ve been watering and the typical spots in my lawn are still crispy. Some new grass that came in well in April and may is dust.

[showmethesnow]

4 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

I’ve been watering and the typical spots in my lawn are still crispy. Some new grass that came in well in April and may is dust.

Found that the best time to try for me to plant new seed is later in the summer, past peak heat. Gives the new grass time to establish a decent and deeper root system through the fall and the following spring before it has to withstand the hot dry spells through mid summer. Though you may have to initially water it everyday you can phase that back as the heat and the direct sun decrease. Planting during the late fall or early spring almost always was a losing proposition with me. Though it would look great in the spring it quickly died off heading into summer even with daily watering as the root system just was not up to the task. About the only way I could sustain it was with watering twice a day and who really has time for that.

[frd]

On 7/13/2018 at 10:11 PM, psuhoffman said:

So there is no exact answer because the type of soil, temperature, sun angle and strength and grass type impacts this. But MOST of the time a lawn can go almost a month without water. But it can range from 3-5 weeks.  My lawn is showing signs of trouble in spots but I have almost 3 acres and I just can't do anything about it. I'll overseed or reseed in the fall or spring if necessary.  I might try to water this week if no rain comes right around my porch and pool in the typically used areas but the rest is on its own. If you have a more manageable sized lawn I would recommend giving it a deep water or two so it survives if we don't get rain soon. 

Thanks !

Today at least there was some rain and maybe that will be enough to help the lawn through the dormant cycle. But ,not sure it got down deep enough, luckily more rain Tuesday and it might be enough to do the trick .  Plus after this Tuesday excessive heat looks to be gone for a while.  maybe this week is the turn of events to wetter and more towards more normal temps  

[mattie g]

Wife ripped out four azalea bushes this weekend. I watched from the comfort of my air conditioned home.

[MN Transplant]

14 hours ago, mattie g said:

Wife ripped out four azalea bushes this weekend. I watched from the comfort of my air conditioned home.

That is nasty work.  I remember going after our holly bushes the year after we moved in.  When we had the rest of them removed 7 years later it was by a crew with a front end loader.  That was more efficient.

[mattie g]

9 hours ago, MN Transplant said:

That is nasty work.  I remember going after our holly bushes the year after we moved in.  When we had the rest of them removed 7 years later it was by a crew with a front end loader.  That was more efficient.

She’s a beast when she puts her mind to it. She started off trimming them, then as she stared to see how they were obviously dying, she decided to lip them off pretty far down...then the shovel came out. Two days later...plenty of room in front of our bay window!

[Eskimo Joe]

We are overloaded with cucumbers and shortly will be with tomatoes.  Our garlic was phenomenal once again with over a 95% success rate and 78 heads of garlic harvested.  We are going to dry the garlic and will have a fresh stock for the winter.  Our Long Island Cheese pumpkins are also doing well.

[psuhoffman]

Zucchini, snap peas, and raspberries are doing well this year 

 

[nw baltimore wx]

7 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said:

We are overloaded with cucumbers and shortly will be with tomatoes.  Our garlic was phenomenal once again with over a 95% success rate and 78 heads of garlic harvested.  We are going to dry the garlic and will have a fresh stock for the winter.  Our Long Island Cheese pumpkins are also doing well.

I’ve had good success with garlic too, but how do you store it?

[Eskimo Joe]

9 minutes ago, nw baltimore wx said:

I’ve had good success with garlic too, but how do you store it?

Everything you need to know a bout garlic:  

 

[nw baltimore wx]

I'll be shocked if my tomato plants survive this. There is 3" of standing water in my garden now and my Cocorahs rain gauge is 60% full. I'll wait until morning to wade out there to get a measure.

[ThePhotoGuy]

Rain/wind did damage to my gardens. Multiple sunflowers were completely uprooted. Multiple corn plants were laying halfway over. I tried to stake them up so hopefully they can survive. Two pepper plants were laying over so I did more staking them up so I think they might be okay. One of the tomato plants was slightly broken off. 

[nw baltimore wx]

One of my tomato plants is toast. It's funny how too much water makes the tomato plant look exactly like one that hasn't received enough water. Hopefully it's only the one that dies this week, especially because the others are loaded with green fruit.

[Eskimo Joe]

Transplanted about a dozen Hosta plants and fertilized the pumpkins yesterday.  Really could use some rain in Reisterstown to soak everything in.  Eastern Baltimore has gotten more than the I-795 corridor since Saturday.

[Eskimo Joe]

Woke up this morning to a doe wrecking my neighbor's peach tree. Our garden was wrapped with netting to stop their attacks and so far it's working.  We've put down some Espoma Vegetable & Tomato Tone™ (https://www.amazon.com/Tomato-tone-Organic-Fertilizer-YOUR-TOMATOES/dp/B0011UEKKE).  It's really helped replenish the soil over the past couple of years since the previous homeowner was not too keen on working the garden properly.

[nw baltimore wx]

An advantage to all this rain is that it will make the biweekly chore of weeding super easy. I'm also looking forward to going out in the garden and picking my blimp size squash.