Planting The December 2022 Planting and Chat Thread

[packyderms_wife]

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.

www.farmersalmanac.com

• 1st – 3rd
  A barren period.
• 4th – 5th
  Fine for planting beans, peppers, cucumbers, melons, and other aboveground crops where climate is suitable.
• 6th – 8th
  Seeds planted now tend to rot in ground.
• 9th – 10th
  Start seedbeds and flower gardens. Good days for transplanting. Most favorable days for planting beets, onions, turnips, and other root crops where climate allows.
• 11th – 15th
  A barren period. Favorable for killing plant pests, cultivating, or taking a short vacation.
• 16th – 17th
  Plant flowers. Fine for sowing hay, fodder crops, and grains. Favorable days for planting root crops.
• 18th – 20th
  Start seedbeds. Good days for transplanting. Plant carrots, beets, onions, turnips, Irish potatoes, and other root crops in the South.
• 21st – 22nd
  Do no planting. Good harvest days.
• 23rd – 24th
  Plant sweet corn, beans, peppers, and other aboveground crops where climate is suitable.
• 25th – 26th
  Barren days. Fine for clearing, plowing, fertilizing, and killing plant pests.
• 27th – 28th
  Extra good for cucumbers, peas, cantaloupes, and other vine crops. Plant peppers, sweet corn, tomatoes, and other aboveground crops in southern Florida, California, and Texas.
• 29th – 30th
  A barren period.
• 31st – 31st
  Fine for planting beans, peppers, cucumbers, melons, and other aboveground crops where climate is suitable

 

[packyderms_wife]

How is it even December already? Guess it's time to go through the seed boxes and see what needs to be reordered for this coming garden season, and to rethink our raised beds because the past three years have been a bust for us.

I should also think about starting some sprouts and micro greens for salads, etc.

 

[ioujc]

In view of all the things happening in the world right now.....I asked my LORD to be able to have at least one more FANTASTIC garden!!

I haven't gotten ANY seed catalogs yet!! Aren't they usually out by now???

 

[packyderms_wife]

In view of all the things happening in the world right now.....I asked my LORD to be able to have at least one more FANTASTIC garden!!

I haven't gotten ANY seed catalogs yet!! Aren't they usually out by now???

I don't think we've gotten any seed catalogs yet as well.

 

[dioptase]

I bought seeds during the fall sales, so I'm good to go for next year (presuming I can manage to garden at all, with knee replacement surgery on the menu). I probably won't start any seeds until early February.

Packy, what's the problem with your raised beds? All of my kitchen garden is in raised beds (maybe 2.5 ft high), and my only issues are critters, too much shade, and invasive redwood tree roots that we constantly have to dig out. We irrigate 2x/week with small riser spray heads on automatic irrigation.

Maybe your climate is such that you need to irrigate more often? We are a "Mediterranean" climate here, so while we do get some days in the 90s, there aren't a lot of them. If it were a hotter climate, we'd irrigate more often. Raised beds do drain. Maybe you need to incorporate more organic material, and or mulch heavily?

 

[packyderms_wife]

I bought seeds during the fall sales, so I'm good to go for next year (presuming I can manage to garden at all, with knee replacement surgery on the menu). I probably won't start any seeds until early February.

Packy, what's the problem with your raised beds? All of my kitchen garden is in raised beds (maybe 2.5 ft high), and my only issues are critters, too much shade, and invasive redwood tree roots that we constantly have to dig out. We irrigate 2x/week with small riser spray heads on automatic irrigation.

Maybe your climate is such that you need to irrigate more often? We are a "Mediterranean" climate here, so while we do get some days in the 90s, there aren't a lot of them. If it were a hotter climate, we'd irrigate more often. Raised beds do drain. Maybe you need to incorporate more organic material, and or mulch heavily?

Extreme drought conditions and erratic temperatures.

 

[Wildwood]

In view of all the things happening in the world right now.....I asked my LORD to be able to have at least one more FANTASTIC garden!!

I haven't gotten ANY seed catalogs yet!! Aren't they usually out by now???

I think I'll ask the same.

 

[Wildwood]

I need to inventory my seeds but I think I'm pretty good. I save a lot of my own but I'm not sure about tomatoes. I know I had several left from my 2021 garden but I may be low on a couple varieties.

I do want to get more bell pepper seeds. I may trash most of mine because someone sent me banana pepper seeds in place of bell peppers and I think I know who but won't name names because I'm not positive. I was beyond disappointed to say the least when the few peppers that made it after everything that happened were not bells.

One thing I plan to do very early this year is start my sweet potato vines. Beyond that, I just need to get through Christmas before I drag it all out because it tends to take over lol.

 

[dioptase]

I'm sorry that you didn't get the bell peppers that you wanted, Wildwood. I can imagine how frustrating and annoying that must have been.

That said, in my jaundiced opinion, getting seeds from anywhere other than trusted seed companies (or fellow gardeners who you personally KNOW are particular and diligent about maintaining strains) can be iffy. I've seen seeds for sale on Amazon (and elsewhere) purporting to be from a) peppermint (peppermint must be propagated from cuttings), b) a particular cultivar of Shasta Daisy (no, that plant was a hybrid and those seeds won't be coming true; you'll get a Shasta Daisy (most likely) but who knows what plant habits it will have).

I saved some seeds from a particular tomato this year, because we liked it and I can't find a commercial source, but we did not use any of the standard seed-saving techniques involved for maintaining the purity of the strain. I'm fine with planting it for us, but I would hesitate to give it to anyone else, on the off chance that it might have crossed with one of the 5 other tomato cultivars we grew this past season. (Next season, if it does look true, I'm going to put mesh baggies around some of the flowers in an attempt to exclude pollinators, at least. I'm also going to try to keep a greater distance between that tomato and others that I will be growing.)

 

[Wildwood]

I'm sorry that you didn't get the bell peppers that you wanted, Wildwood. I can imagine how frustrating and annoying that must have been.

That said, in my jaundiced opinion, getting seeds from anywhere other than trusted seed companies (or fellow gardeners who you personally KNOW are particular and diligent about maintaining strains) can be iffy. I've seen seeds for sale on Amazon (and elsewhere) purporting to be from a) peppermint (peppermint must be propagated from cuttings), b) a particular cultivar of Shasta Daisy (no, that plant was a hybrid and those seeds won't be coming true; you'll get a Shasta Daisy (most likely) but who knows what plant habits it will have).

I saved some seeds from a particular tomato this year, because we liked it and I can't find a commercial source, but we did not use any of the standard seed-saving techniques involved for maintaining the purity of the strain. I'm fine with planting it for us, but I would hesitate to give it to anyone else, on the off chance that it might have crossed with one of the 5 other tomato cultivars we grew this past season. (Next season, if it does look true, I'm going to put mesh baggies around some of the flowers in an attempt to exclude pollinators, at least. I'm also going to try to keep a greater distance between that tomato and others that I will be growing.)

Mine came from a very prominent seed company. I was watching a YT video from one of the garden channels I like and they gave a tour of their garden. They also had a ton of banana peppers where bell peppers should have been and they couldn't figure out what happened. Their seeds came from the same place.

This particular company buys seeds back from their customers. Another YT channel mentioned that they sold tomato seeds to them. Their most prominent tomato was a hybrid growing right there in the garden with heirloom seed crops. Notice I said crops with an s.

I also save tomato seeds that might be cross pollinated but so far everything has been fine. I only give plants to folks that don't care and don't seed save. On the other hand, I won't take started plants from any individual and put them in my main garden. I'll take seeds but I understand it's a risk they won't be true. I'm almost positive my nematodes came from an older man who sells starts locally every year. The last time I bought from him, he'd mixed up all the tomato plants so that nothing was what it was suppose to be and it was the worst year I'd ever had for tomatoes. They all ended up with nematodes to varying degrees and I've been fighting them ever since..

 

[Wildwood]

I got my Baker Creek catalog today but I haven't had a chance to even look. It doesn't seem quite as thick as usual but it's not the big one. I usually get one of those every three years or so.

 

[packyderms_wife]

Got two seed catalogs yesterday, seems a bit later than normal.

 

[EMICT]

I took a sledge hammer and a piece of rebar, and after several strikes with ambient temperature at -7, I was able to make a hole in the ground about an inch deep. Threw a seed in the hole and slammed the sledge hammer on the hole to close it up. I’ll let you all know in a couple of weeks if it sprouts.

That’s my December planting endeavor.

 

[packyderms_wife]

I took a sledge hammer and a piece of rebar, and after several strikes with ambient temperature at -7, I was able to make a hole in the ground about an inch deep. Threw a seed in the hole and slammed the sledge hammer on the hole to close it up. I’ll let you all know in a couple of weeks if it sprouts.

That’s my December planting endeavor.

I myself am going with sprouts in a pint jar on the shelf in my kitchen, seems like less work.

 

[dioptase]

Looking over iris seeds that I harvested last summer; plan to start a few. Considering starting some lettuce seeds too.