What Will Your Garden Grow?

Nomar
#1. January 18th, 2013, at 1:57 PM.

Tulips and daffodils mostly for spring time. Summer, we got dahlia (all sorts of them), baby’s breath (white), iris, lilies (about 4-5 different varieties). We also got hydrangeas, sweet william, orange prince, sunflowers (about 2-3 different varieties) and I don’t know the rest haha. All flowers, no veggies/fruits It helps to have a flower farm

thuan
#2. January 19th, 2013, at 9:59 PM.

I’m trying container gardening. Last year I grew two tomato plants, a japanese eggplant. Grew OK. This years will try a few more like Brandywine, better boys, golden cherries?, eggplants, bell peppers, arugula, salad greens…
Last year I did not have enough castings to feed the plants so I used mostly worm tea. This year with two worm inns and a VB 24, I should have enough to get 10% soil mixture and still have castings for worm tea.

Gina W.
#3. January 21st, 2013, at 9:39 AM.

Ordering More varieties of tomatoes from Bakers Creek, ordered asparagus crowns from Daisy Farms, a new full bed of goumet potatoes, can’t wait to use my growing pounds of vermicompost on everything in my expanding square foot gardens and preparing for worm bin #3. It’s all too exciting. Plus must finish my EasyVermicomposting course!

Gina W.

Dell Goodrich
#4. January 21st, 2013, at 6:22 PM.

Bentley,
What is a good mix/ recipe for vermicompost with other components (ie. vermiculite, cocoa coir, peat moss, soil-less seed starting mix) to use for seed starting? And also, in what condition should the vermicompost be? Do I need to process it or sterilize it, etc? I am in South Carolina (Zone 8) if that makes any difference.
Thanks so much for all of the wisdom you have provided in my vermicomposting endeavors! You’ve been my “worm encyclopedia” since I began my worm bins 2 years ago.
Oh and my garden typically has several varieties of tomatoes, peppers, herbs, okra, cucumbers, beans and a few flowers. Working on starting seeds for those and trying some new items in the next week or two.

Nomar
#5. January 22nd, 2013, at 3:33 PM.

Vermicompost should be *moist but not wet* and I would recommend sifting it also. There’s no need to sterilize it since the microbes in the vermicompost are supposed to fight off (out-compete) pathogens and bad microbes and whatever. Also, the microbes in the vermicompost are good ones so it would actually negatively impact the usefulness of it.

the slash (/) means “or”.

4-5 parts peat moss/ coco coir or coco peat mix
3 parts perlite/vermiculite/rice hulls
2-3 parts *vermicompost*/ mushroom compost/ compost/ or composted manure
1-2 TBSP of dolomite lime/oyster shell lime (may be able to use finely ground up eggshells as well) to every gallon.
You can also use some sort of rock dust.

( http://www.helpfulgardener.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=18691 )

If you happen to have a bag of potting soil/mix or seed starter mix on hand or just don’t want to go to the trouble of finding all the ingredients you want…
1 part vermicompost to 3 parts potting soil/mix or seed starter mix

For me I wouldn’t use peat moss, perlite or vermiculite. I would go with the other choices.

P.S. I think Bentley does have a blog post about making your own biodegradable newspaper pots. So you may want to look into that.

Dell Goodrich
#6. January 22nd, 2013, at 7:43 PM.

Nomar-
Thank you so much for your quick and thorough response! I will use your recommendations and get started this weekend!
Dell

Paul Letby
#7. February 2nd, 2013, at 4:46 PM.

I’m planning on a small aquaponics bed outside this year. I’ve been doing this indoors for 2 years now with good success growing lettuce and basil, but would like to see what I can do with the sun shining on my plants. Red worms go into the bed to help break down the fish gack. My barrel full of fish would stay in the basement so I have to figure out an acceptable pump to handle that head. I’ve also got to figure out a suitable container, preferably a second use item as funds are low and so is time to construct. I build my entire setup from wood and lined it with poly. That won’t work under UV light from the sun unless I invest in a proper pond liner. We could have a tomato growing contest.

MaryWitzl
#8. February 9th, 2013, at 6:35 AM.

Tomatoes, zucchini, herbs, and nasturtiums. There are so many more things I’d love to try, but we’ll be working all summer and unable to garden much. But we’ll be composting non-stop, as usual.

Bob Darnell
#9. February 26th, 2013, at 8:08 PM.

Expanded raspberry patch last fall. Went to the yard waste dump site to get grass and leaves to mulch around rasberries and other plants. You can get neatly package/bagged grass clippings & leaves incompostable paper bags. Planted blueberries. Getting into edible landscaping.

Oliver
#10. May 22nd, 2013, at 8:23 PM.

Tomatoes, squash, onions, peppers, and my favorite… Native plants. I’m trying to attract more butterflies this year by planting milkweeds and some native grasses, spiderwort, etc.