Planting Planting and Chat Thread for February 2024

packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
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Planting Calendar - Gardening by the moon

This planting calendar helps you pick the best days for gardening tasks based a 200-year-old formula. Our readers swear by it! Learn more.
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  • 1st – 3rd
    Start seedbeds. Good days for transplanting. Plant carrots, turnips, onions, beets, Irish potatoes, and other root crops in the South. Lettuce and other leafy vegetables will do well.
  • 4th – 5th
    Poor planting days. Good harvest days.
  • 6th – 7th
    Any root crops that can be planted now will do well.
  • 8th – 9th
    Barren days. Fine for clearing, plowing, fertilizing, and killing plant pests. First day is a good harvest day.
  • 10th – 11th
    Extra good for cucumbers, peas, cantaloupes, and other vine crops. Set strawberry plants. Plant peppers, sweet corn, tomatoes, and other aboveground crops in southern Florida, California, and Texas.
  • 12th – 13th
    Seeds planted now will grow poorly and yield little.
  • 14th – 15th
    Fine for planting beans, peppers, cucumbers, melons, and other aboveground crops where climate is suitable.
  • 16th – 17th
    Any seed planted now will tend to rot.
  • 18th – 20th
    Plant seedbeds and flower gardens. Fine for planting beans, tomatoes, corn, cotton, cucumbers, peppers, melons, and other aboveground crops where climate allows.
  • 21st – 25th
    Clear ground, turn sod, kill plant pests.
  • 26th – 27th
    Fine for sowing grains, hay, and forage crops. Plant flowers. Favorable days for planting root crops.
  • 28th – 29th
    Start seedbeds. Good days for transplanting. Plant carrots, turnips, onions, beets, Irish potatoes, and other root crops in the South. Lettuce and other leafy vegetables will do well.
 
RememberGoliad

RememberGoliad

Veteran Member
Got a 10' x 2' of heat mat loaded with peppers, eggplants, maters, and some other stuff (can't think offhand, only halfway into 1st cup of coffee) in the greenhouse on a bench right now. Also have radishes and lettuce just poking heads up in a 3-tier planter. Thermometer showed 29 at its lowest this morning. Don't have the heart to go out there and look. Not until it's above 32, we all KNOW I'd be out there doing 'heroic measures' if I see sad lookin' stuff and it's still <32, up to and including raking up the floor and setting it on fire! :hof:(Come to think of it, doing that just MIGHT help, in this situation! LOL)

I'm thinking things gonna be okay, only 3 degrees below freezing mark. And sitting on heat pads. Maybe not the lettuce and radish, but that was more of a 'hmm, these seeds are from 2016, let's see if they're still viable....well, I'll be danged!' situation. And, we WERE sunny with all the windows shut in it yesterday, so it probably did heat up a bit in there. We'll see shortly.

Supposed to be our last freeze of the year. Again, we shall see. LOL

Harvie, quality control supervisor:
1708264517082.png
 
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Slydersan

Veteran Member
I'm pretty sure I just got those exact heat mats from Amazon. LOL I've never used any before so this will be a learning experience. I started some cabbage and broccoli, and a few San Marzano tomatoes from seeds I had saved 2 yrs ago. We'll see how those do. I also started a bunch of little Chinese cabbages (bok choy).... but it turns out I've been doing those all wrong. I thought "oh cabbages... cool weather crops" start em early and put them in early like normal cabbages. I just read today that any temps under about 50 degrees will make them BOLT. SO THAT'S been my exact problem for the last 3 or so yrs I've tried to grow them. They start out fine, I sit them out side to harden off -still fine. Put them in the ground while it still gets cool and BAM! start the bolting almost immediately. So now I'll have about 12 plants that I'll have to nurse along until it gets warm.

I resisted the temptation to start warm weather stuff like peppers and tomatoes... It took a LOT of willpower. LOL

edited for minor corrections
 
RememberGoliad

RememberGoliad

Veteran Member
Went out earlier and checked. Everybody made it through the light freeze just fine. Those heat mats work! @Slydersan I started 'em out on full hot, backed off just a bit, feels ....well, comfortable (?) to the touch and not heating up so much it's drying out the dirt. Do watch stuff pretty closely until you get to know what all it's doing. But they saved my little stuff's bacon last night, I'm sure. Even the maters were too busy playing to beg the human for help LOL

Probably going to start some green beans and even some leafy greens--spinach, collards, turnips--in the ground today or tomorrow. If I lose 'em to a surprise frost, oh well. Odds are it's (32 or lower) done with until October, for this area. Bright sunshine forecast for the next few days, warm the ground up nicely during the day, even with 40's at nights,
 
RememberGoliad

RememberGoliad

Veteran Member
Different topic. Chicken poop. There are as many rules of thumb out there for when to use/not use hen doo and how long to let it mellow.

Is that a function of the concentration (as opposed to constipation, which would be hard on the chicken) of the poop? I mean, I have a couple of gator beds worth of coop cleanin's that I dumped a few weeks ago, and the birds have 'stirred'. Trying to decide if a thin layer of that down about a foot in a couple of new raised beds might be okay. It'll take roots a while to get to it, and I'm figuring a half inch or so thick layer with 8-9" of plain ol' dirt over it might not be a bad addition. The beds are about 2 ft tall, got filled last spring with cardboard and our topsoil, which is basically decomposed limestone and live oak leaves. Sand free, but also clay-free. They've settled until they're about half full now, want to bring the seed level back up to within 4-6" of the top of 'em. I know it'll settle more.

I've got a whole bunch of rabbit dung mixed with straw that needs to be spread, too, but that doesn't have nearly the 'hot' problem that chicken product has. It's going to get incorporated into the direct plant areas where the melons and peppers get put.
 
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summerthyme

Administrator
_______________
moldy said:
Pepper seedlings are NOT doing well - some mold and wilted seedlings. I started my herbs yesterday (which was a bad day to start seeds). Sigh....
Click to expand...
Try spraying them with cool,chamomile tea... it really helps with "damping off" type issues. Also, a small, low speed fan can really help when starting seeds indoors. Prevents a lot of mold issues, and also gives you plants with stronger stems.

Summerthyme
 
S

Slydersan

Veteran Member
RememberGoliad said:
Went out earlier and checked. Everybody made it through the light freeze just fine. Those heat mats work! @Slydersan I started 'em out on full hot, backed off just a bit, feels ....well, comfortable (?) to the touch and not heating up so much it's drying out the dirt. Do watch stuff pretty closely until you get to know what all it's doing. But they saved my little stuff's bacon last night, I'm sure. Even the maters were too busy playing to beg the human for help LOL
Click to expand...

Well, my seed mats are different then. I can't change the temp at all. They simply warm "10 - 20 degrees" above ambient temperature. But they must work. My bok choy seeds sprouted in 2 DAYS !! That's nuts. And those are the ones I've discovered that I started WAY to early to begin with. //sigh// Oh well. Better to have them than not have anything sprout. ((crossing fingers the broccoli and cabbage pop up soon too)
 
RememberGoliad

RememberGoliad

Veteran Member
Slydersan said:
Well, my seed mats are different then. I can't change the temp at all. They simply warm "10 - 20 degrees" above ambient temperature. But they must work. My bok choy seeds sprouted in 2 DAYS !! That's nuts. And those are the ones I've discovered that I started WAY to early to begin with. //sigh// Oh well. Better to have them than not have anything sprout. ((crossing fingers the broccoli and cabbage pop up soon too)
Click to expand...

There were two choices when I got these. This is the one I got a few weeks ago: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B092YZ55QY

I haven't turned 'em down much, so you're probably not out a whole lot without the adjustment. If the dial was numbered 1-10, I'd estimate they're turned down to about 8, so not much. I've been happy with it so far. I have two of those and two that are about 1/4 that size. All with rheostats on 'em. Worth the extra buck or two.

I'd suggest if you're warm where your plants are, unplug the mats, but remember to plug 'em back in at night if it's cool. We're supposed to be up around 80 today so will probably unplug mine....but will plug 'em back in tonight (low 40's).
 
W

Wildwood

Veteran Member
moldy said:
We use the fan - these have gotten too leggy to do so. Transplanted a bunch today, so that should help. Thank you for the hint of chamomile tea - hadn't heard of that one.
Click to expand...
My tomatoes and peppers got leggy last year and I fought it all summer and the peppers made a bumper crop. The tomatoes recovered but then I put shade cloth on them...you live and learn. The problem was not the shade cloth but how we used it. We ended up with aphids and wilt and not enough tomatoes to do anything but eat fresh. Of course the things I did in the following paragraphs probably contributed as much or more than the shade cloth.

I'm bad about trying new things and I was greatly inspired by the mini green house affect people were getting using the long but short totes with the clear lids for their starts. I put all my starts in those and at first, it was wonderful. I have to take mine in every night after I've had them out all day. I could just put the top on and stack them in the corner instead of spread out all over the dining room and living room floor and those totes held the perfect amount of cups...it seemed. I could get way more starts than my usual trays held. Then it rained and was cold and cloudy one day and I just left them stacked with lids on...bad, bad decision. I got a little mold on a few of the plants but that cleared up, seemingly and I learned not to do that again.

Then the plants started growing and doing really well. I like to get some size on mine before I plant them. I did not notice how leggy all the center plants were getting...remember these totes held way more so lots more center plants. By this time everything was way too tall to put the lids on so that wan't the issue. To make matters worse, something came up and I was about two weeks late getting them planted. I tried to mitigate the problem by planting my tomatoes even deeper than I usually do...that was my third or maybe fourth or fifth mistake lol. From now on, I will try only one new thing a year and only on a few of my starts. This year, I'm doing what I know works and may be brave enough to try something new in the future.
 
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RememberGoliad

RememberGoliad

Veteran Member
pauldingbabe said:
Pretty kitty!

Looks like he likes the job.

:D
Click to expand...

Harvie came to us courtesy of the hurricane of that name. When we went out Saturday morning the 26th, wind still blowing 70+ mph, DW heard a faint meowing from a blown-down tree. I walked over and out climbed a itty bitty kitten who was MAYBE a month old. "Checked its feet" by turning it over and studying the pads (as daughter #2 used to think we were doing when sexing a pup or kit) and seeing what we saw, named the kitten Harvey. Month or so later, took Harvey to the vet for a newb check, and to schedule a neutering down the road. Vet said, well, we can't neuter this one but we can spay it :rofl: So, when I went by the desk to pay, I asked for the card back and changed the spelling to Harvie. She's now almost 7 and the BEST doggie I've ever had! Comes when called, fetches, follows me everywhere, but sleeps snuggled up to Mama. Go figure.
 
AlaskaSue

AlaskaSue

North to the Future
I’m not sure I can start seeds indoors too early, ha! Trying a few new things and getting seeds on dirt indoors this week. They won’t ship asparagus crowns up here and no one local has them. So I’ll try seeds, knowing it’ll be at least a few years to harvest. But I have a good spot picked out….trying a new variety of okra (I know, I know. Okra in Alaska is ridiculous, but I gotta try again). More artichokes and maybe a melon this year. All the rest are scheduled and it’s a lot. I’m building a new raised bed and have many containers around the property. I love the entire process and can’t wait to feel soil in my hands. However I need many many many feet of snow to melt before the soil can warm, lol! But we do have lovely long summer days. I just hope this year I can be here for it!
 
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philkar

Veteran Member
AlaskaSue I am with you all the way about getting my hands in the dirt! Greenhouse is loaded and I planted carrots today in a raised bed. Tried to talk hubs into planting sweet corn but got a hard NO. He thinks I am nuts but it was in the 70's today! So I moved some outdoor plants and pilfered an old homesite of it's bulbs! My experiment this year is growing sesame seeds.
 
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