Hi All,

Organic bone meal (phosphorous) promotes flower,
fruit set up, and root growth.

Question: does the root part apply to the
bulb of onions?

Many thanks,
-T

T wrote:
....
> Question: does the root part apply to the
> bulb of onions?

the root system is below the bulb and the
bulb is made up of modified leaves. :) of
course it will make a difference if the soil
is deficient. onions like a pretty good
quality soil, but may do ok in poorer soils.

my worms really like any bits that come
from the garlic or onions.

i did not plant any green onion seeds
early this season to get some green onions.
oops. all the onions i have growing that i
could take and eat for green onions are too
tough and are flowering. my bulb onions
are coming along ok so far. recent rains
have really helped out all of the gardens.

songbird

On 7/3/23 16:40, songbird wrote:
>> Question: does the root part apply to the
>> bulb of onions?
> the root system is below the bulb and the
> bulb is made up of modified leaves.

Hmmm, then maybe a higher nitrogen content?

T wrote:
> On 7/3/23 16:40, songbird wrote:
>>> Question: does the root part apply to the
>>> bulb of onions?
>> the root system is below the bulb and the
>> bulb is made up of modified leaves.
>
>
> Hmmm, then maybe a higher nitrogen content?

are the plants struggling to grow? normally
i amend for the heaviest feeding plants and
then rotate plant through that same area for
another few crops before i amend it again.
using different types of crops means you can
draw from different nutrient profiles.

songbird

On 7/3/23 19:17, songbird wrote:
> T wrote:
>> On 7/3/23 16:40, songbird wrote:
>>>> Question: does the root part apply to the
>>>> bulb of onions?
>>> the root system is below the bulb and the
>>> bulb is made up of modified leaves.
>>
>>
>> Hmmm, then maybe a higher nitrogen content?
>
> are the plants struggling to grow? normally
> i amend for the heaviest feeding plants and
> then rotate plant through that same area for
> another few crops before i amend it again.
> using different types of crops means you can
> draw from different nutrient profiles.
>
>
> songbird

Nothing grows really well for me. I have
a black thumb. But last year I got tons
of peppers, goji berries, white onions tops.

This year the garlic failed (again), the
pepper seeds 100% failed, and the eggplant
seeds 100% failed.

The bilberries are finally flowering and
flowering a lot. The choke berries have
a lot of fruit on them, and it looks like
I may finally get some black berries.

T wrote:
....
> Nothing grows really well for me. I have
> a black thumb. But last year I got tons
> of peppers, goji berries, white onions tops.

do you need some midday shading?

> This year the garlic failed (again), the
> pepper seeds 100% failed, and the eggplant
> seeds 100% failed.

as far as i know both peppers and eggplant
need warmth and even moisture. eggplant can
sprout a lot faster than peppers. 70F - 90F
temperature range for sprouting. so if you
are trying to sprout them in a place that
isn't uniformly moist or warm they may not do
as well. that's about the extent of my
eggplant and pepper sprouting knowledge - i
normally get all my starts from our local
greenhouse because we do not keep it very
warm here and also we just don't have a good
spot to sprout many plants.

> The bilberries are finally flowering and
> flowering a lot. The choke berries have
> a lot of fruit on them, and it looks like
> I may finally get some black berries.

:) success! :)

around here we have some small wild
raspberries that are black that will grow
in any sandy soil barren location if given
a chance. blackberries i won't plant
because they are so hard to control and i
have enough projects already...

songbird

On 7/4/23 03:51, songbird wrote:
> T wrote:
> ...
>> Nothing grows really well for me. I have
>> a black thumb. But last year I got tons
>> of peppers, goji berries, white onions tops.
>
> do you need some midday shading?

I have no idea ...

>> This year the garlic failed (again), the
>> pepper seeds 100% failed, and the eggplant
>> seeds 100% failed.
>
> as far as i know both peppers and eggplant
> need warmth and even moisture. eggplant can
> sprout a lot faster than peppers. 70F - 90F
> temperature range for sprouting. so if you
> are trying to sprout them in a place that
> isn't uniformly moist or warm they may not do
> as well. that's about the extent of my
> eggplant and pepper sprouting knowledge - i
> normally get all my starts from our local
> greenhouse because we do not keep it very
> warm here and also we just don't have a good
> spot to sprout many plants.

That explains a lot of things. When I planted
my pepper seeds and my eggplant seeds, the
nights were down to 35-45F and the days
were 50-70F. I am wondering if they will
come up in August or if they just rotted
sitting there getting watered every day.

I could plant later, but the growing season is
too short, so I am stuck with the greenhouse.
And I can't grow indoors due to my wife mold
allergy.

I was trying to do as much a I could from seeds
as the recession and market changes have impacted
my income greatly. It was worth a try. At
least I finally got onion and tomatillo seeds
to come up!

>
>> The bilberries are finally flowering and
>> flowering a lot. The choke berries have
>> a lot of fruit on them, and it looks like
>> I may finally get some black berries.
>
> :) success! :)
>
> around here we have some small wild
> raspberries that are black that will grow
> in any sandy soil barren location if given
> a chance.

You got my full attention. Wild means
they have not been hybridized for unnatural
levels of carbohydrates.

I need a botanical name so I can chase
them down at one of the wild plant web sites.

> blackberries i won't plant
> because they are so hard to control and i
> have enough projects already...

No problem for me. I can see for you
because you have a green thumb and
know what you are doing. Me, on the
other hand with my black thumb, can
kill anything edible I want just by looking
sideways at it. Unfortunately, it does not
work on weeds, who just laugh at me.

Thank you!
-T

>
> songbird

T wrote:
> songbird wrote:

....mentioned wild small black raspberries...

> You got my full attention. Wild means
> they have not been hybridized for unnatural
> levels of carbohydrates.
>
> I need a botanical name so I can chase
> them down at one of the wild plant web sites.

here's a useful link which saves me some
typing. :)

https://www.healthygreensavvy.com/wild-black-raspberries-blackcap-berries/

any time you can grow from seeds that
is certainly usually cheaper than trying to
find and buy starts. i wish i could do more
of it here, but there's just not very much
decent space at all for that. it's a small
house and there's no basement with easy
access, the light is poor for growing things
too. i keep only a few houseplants - as a
kid i used to have shelves and shelves of
them along with other plants scattered
around the house (a different house that was
much larger).

>> blackberries i won't plant
>> because they are so hard to control and i
>> have enough projects already...
>
> No problem for me. I can see for you
> because you have a green thumb and
> know what you are doing.

i don't plant them as they would be just
another thing coming up in places i don't
want them. i don't have any time to forage
them either which we used to do when we were
kids (and i didn't have all these gardens to
keep after :) ).

> Me, on the
> other hand with my black thumb, can
> kill anything edible I want just by looking
> sideways at it. Unfortunately, it does not
> work on weeds, who just laugh at me.

the problem you have is pretty difficult
location/climate/soils and with that probably
some very intense sunlight when it also gets
to be hot outside. you also may not be on a
very good water supply in terms of water
quality (i'm guessing based upon your general
location in the dessert SW).

it's hard to do things with hardpan alkaline
soils in an arid climate. you pretty much need
to pull out all the tricks for soil building at
the same time dealing with arid conditions and
if you try to do raised beds the heat and drying
winds make that even tougher. pretty much what
you need is a way to bust trenches down deep
enough to hold any organic matter you can
manage to grow and scrounge up along with some
wind breaks to help hold moisture but then if
your trenches don't drain well enough you can
also get too wet when it does finally rain so
you need a way to soak in the extra moisture
somehow too. not an easy situation. it can
be done, it takes time though.

as time goes along you can learn and adapt
some things and get better. just use your
brain and apply the scientific method as much
as you can, observe what happens, try new
things, etc.

every season you should try to bust those
ground pots up a bit bigger if you can and
scrounge whatever organic materials you can
find to decompose over the winter months when
there is more moisture. the acids from the
decomposing materials will also help bust up
that hard ground (and the roots from any
plants will also help with that). if you can
do a trial sometime of sprinkling the empty
pots with winter wheat or winter rye (the
grain not the grass) and then turning that
over in the early spring it may also help.
i would love to do it here in rotation but
Mom does not like how the chipmunks will
take the seeds and move them around. she's
really picky about how things look and
considers mulches of dead plants to look
too untidy - which is pretty sad to me
because they really help break up the heavy
clay we have - i'd be years further ahead
in soil conditioning here if i could have
grown these in rotation with my other
plantings through the winter, also they
look a lot nicer than bare dirt to me.
such is the breaks. we do what we can and
keep on going. :)

songbird

On 7/5/23 04:40, songbird wrote:
> T wrote:
>> songbird wrote:
>
>
> ...mentioned wild small black raspberries...
>
>> You got my full attention. Wild means
>> they have not been hybridized for unnatural
>> levels of carbohydrates.
>>
>> I need a botanical name so I can chase
>> them down at one of the wild plant web sites.
>
> here's a useful link which saves me some
> typing. :)
>
> https://www.healthygreensavvy.com/wild-black-raspberries-blackcap-berries/

Rubus occidentalis Awesome!!! (I had looked up
the wrong ones.)

>
> any time you can grow from seeds that
> is certainly usually cheaper than trying to
> find and buy starts. i wish i could do more
> of it here, but there's just not very much
> decent space at all for that. it's a small
> house and there's no basement with easy
> access, the light is poor for growing things
> too. i keep only a few houseplants - as a
> kid i used to have shelves and shelves of
> them along with other plants scattered
> around the house (a different house that was
> much larger).
>
>
>>> blackberries i won't plant
>>> because they are so hard to control and i
>>> have enough projects already...
>>
>> No problem for me. I can see for you
>> because you have a green thumb and
>> know what you are doing.
>
> i don't plant them as they would be just
> another thing coming up in places i don't
> want them. i don't have any time to forage
> them either which we used to do when we were
> kids (and i didn't have all these gardens to
> keep after :) ).
>
>
>> Me, on the
>> other hand with my black thumb, can
>> kill anything edible I want just by looking
>> sideways at it. Unfortunately, it does not
>> work on weeds, who just laugh at me.
>
> the problem you have is pretty difficult
> location/climate/soils and with that probably
> some very intense sunlight when it also gets
> to be hot outside. you also may not be on a
> very good water supply in terms of water
> quality (i'm guessing based upon your general
> location in the dessert SW).

My neighbors do much better than me, so a lot
of it is me. But the all have fancy raised
beds, etc..

>
> it's hard to do things with hardpan alkaline
> soils in an arid climate. you pretty much need
> to pull out all the tricks for soil building at
> the same time dealing with arid conditions and
> if you try to do raised beds the heat and drying
> winds make that even tougher. pretty much what
> you need is a way to bust trenches down deep
> enough to hold any organic matter you can
> manage to grow and scrounge up along with some
> wind breaks to help hold moisture but then if
> your trenches don't drain well enough you can
> also get too wet when it does finally rain so
> you need a way to soak in the extra moisture
> somehow too. not an easy situation. it can
> be done, it takes time though.
>
> as time goes along you can learn and adapt
> some things and get better. just use your
> brain and apply the scientific method as much
> as you can, observe what happens, try new
> things, etc.
>
> every season you should try to bust those
> ground pots up a bit bigger if you can and
> scrounge whatever organic materials you can
> find to decompose over the winter months when
> there is more moisture. the acids from the
> decomposing materials will also help bust up
> that hard ground (and the roots from any
> plants will also help with that). if you can
> do a trial sometime of sprinkling the empty
> pots with winter wheat or winter rye (the
> grain not the grass) and then turning that
> over in the early spring it may also help.
> i would love to do it here in rotation but
> Mom does not like how the chipmunks will
> take the seeds and move them around. she's
> really picky about how things look and
> considers mulches of dead plants to look
> too untidy - which is pretty sad to me
> because they really help break up the heavy
> clay we have - i'd be years further ahead
> in soil conditioning here if i could have
> grown these in rotation with my other
> plantings through the winter, also they
> look a lot nicer than bare dirt to me.
> such is the breaks. we do what we can and
> keep on going. :)
>
>
> songbird

I am amazed how much nice the soil in my pots
gets every year. Really feels nice on my
hands. I use to think farmers were a bit
nuts when I would see them pick up some dirt
and get excited. Now I understand.

I learn something new every year. Most of
my learning comes from you.

Oh, found my first squash bug yesterday.
He got a dish soap bath.

And since my ground pots are about 2"
below the surface so that water won't
run all over the place, any squash bugs
hiding down by the roots got a good
soapy bath too.

He was a big one too. And since the plant
wa not too big, it was easy to check all
the leaves for eggs. None were found.