Gardening 2012

I'm about to pull up my bolted winter crops and start some seedling pots for spring/summer. now, how do I prep/treat the strip of soil meantime to kill the damn weeds?its like the whole soil patch is full of weedseed. sick of pulling em up!!!

Hand weed and heavily mulch is what I do. There are chemical options, but they only kill exiting weeds and won't prevent new ones from springing up. If you mulch heavily enough, any weeds that make it through will be easy to pull out. Some people do the black plastic, heat-the-hell-out-the-soil method, but I think that is too disruptive to a good soil ecosystem.

USS Shitpile* has been christened and launched...I think the main learning curve is keeping the moisture levels right -- not too soupy, not too dry. It looked right this morning, but I noticed there hasn't been any "worm tea" runoff in the lower bin, so got my hands into the pile up to my forearms and realized there were pockets of dry grass clippings, so I've added water and tried to mix it all up better. The worms seem happy and active enough.

*No actual manure, I just liked the name.

I use a short pitchforky thing to stir mine up, no way do I stick my arms in there! If mine gets too wet, all the worms decide to leave en-mass. Which was freaky when we had the bin inside the apartment! I mix in some aspen shavings every so often in addition to newspaper (as little color ink as possible, no shiny coated magazines). Egg shells are also U&K to keep things from getting too acid.

What's worth putting in a garden/raised beds at the moment? (UK)

Cabbages and their cousins? I wonder if it would be possible to get mustard, collard and turnip green seeds over there. Mustard greens are the best and would surprise the hell out of any UK palate.

Yeah, now is a great time to sow lots of winter salads like rocket, red mustard, mizuna and other oriental greens, kale, winter spinach, swiss chard. I always do this under a net to keep the frost and the pigeons off. Might be slow in getting going and when the weather cools right off, but they'll all grow like crazy when spring comes round.

Also you can start sowing broad beans in a couple of months.

Looks like I added a little too much water to the worm bin -- some of them, not all of them, are climbing the sides of the bin. Jaq, should I add some dry stuff, or just leave them alone and let the bin dry out on its own?

They like a damp sponge level of wet - you might toss some grass clippings or shredded paper in there to soak up some of the extra. I just shred paper in a layer on top - a couple of inches deep - then lay a full sheet of newsprint over that before I put the lid on.

These little dudes are loving their new home. The ones I bought must have been weanlings, because they've gotten a lot bigger in the last eight days. By next spring, I'm going to have buckets full of castings and such for the raised beds.

Gutted about this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/allotment/2012/oct/05/allotments-gardens
"After five years, Allan Jenkins and Howard Sooley bring the Observer Organic Allotment Blog to a gentle close ..." My main source of gardening information.

Worm bin is smelling a bit fecal, and it's still too wet, but there are a lot of healthy active wigglers in there. When I mix the pile, I usually find them paired off, giving each other special adult hugs.

http://higgledygarden.com/products-page/seeds/a-higgledy-garden-collection-of-flower-seeds-number-1/

v

http://www.sarahraven.com/shop/sarah-s-cutting-patch-collection.html

?

I'd go for the second one because sweet peas and iceland poppies. Don't know if those are worth the extra price though!

Does anyone want to get any seeds from Tomatofest? I want to get some Boxcar Willie seeds, but that's only $3 and they have a $15 minimum order. I can place the order and send the seeds along, you can Paypal me your part of the cost.

Thought about starting a 2013 thread the other day, but I didn't have any updates other than "my worms are happy."

PS, Tomatofest has extended their annual seed sale until the 21st.

I'd probably be interested

I'm super bummed that I will not have a real gardening season this year due to decamping to the Mexican desert--I won't even have time to get a crop of greens or peas or radishes to harvest before leaving :(

I have no idea what, if any, garden setup I'll have south of the border, but I figure at the very least I can try my hand with container-grown stuff. And hey, cactus.

Bump for tomato seeds -- anyone else want to go in on an order?

(multiple x-post)

No, Jaq, I don't really think I can bring myself to spend that much ... Usually just grow veg but the garden could do with a bit of a lift.