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Post by daylilydude on Jun 23, 2018 4:58:12 GMT -5
Have you ever done anything in your garden that was a BIG mistake and you wish that you had not done?
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Post by ahntjudy on Jun 23, 2018 7:16:27 GMT -5
I don't know that this qualifies as a big mistake....however... I normally plant a swiss chard bed in a bunch of short easily reachable rows...beets too...
This year, besides the swiss chard, I also planted romaine and black seeded simpson...starting out in neat rows... But as they needed thinning and transplanting, I greatly expanded the 'greens beds' and got the idea to interplant the swiss chard transplants amongst the lettuce transplants figuring that the swiss chard would fill up the spaces after the lettuces were done...
From a growing standpoint right now, everything is growing well...That's not the problem...
What I did not think of was the leaf miner that gets to the swiss chard every year...I routinely check the undersides of all the leaves to destroy the leaf miner eggs... Having the swiss chard planted willy nilly is highly inefficient for that practice...
Won't be doing that again...
~~~
On another note about those leaf miner eggs...Since I have the greens beds tented with floating row covers, the incidence of leaf miner damage and eggs is minimal compared to previous years... Perhaps 'out of sight, out of mind' for the majority of the leaf miner flies...
Not only is it seemingly keeping the majority of the flies from the chard, it is also keeping the greens beds nicely shaded and the greens have remained perky even through the high heat we have had...
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Post by paulf on Jun 23, 2018 8:05:51 GMT -5
Last year and the year before I was enamored with melons. Ten or twelve varieties of watermelon and as many muskmelon (what many would call cantaloupe). Needing a larger area than my garden is, my brother-in-law has a huge garden space about a mile out of town and he said I could use however much I wanted. The area had been plowed and disked and all was well...for a while.
The melons all came up and began to spread, but so did weeds. The weeds are native and soon outdid the melons. It got to be too much to handle with a hoe. I took my tiller out and tilled every day until I could not find the vines, only the weeds. I gave up and let it all go. Then it came time to harvest the melons
I could have been in the melon business. Twenty or so ripe ones every day. Most were pretty darned good, but how many free melons can one small village eat. Even the U-Pick sign did not help. So the fruits of the vine began to rot.
How to you spell OVER-EXTENSION. Never again! Way too much work, way too little reward. Way too many weeds, way, way too many melons, way too little planning.
This year my granddaughter helped me plant one hill of watermelons in the regular garden and if we get one good one it will be a success.
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Post by spike on Jun 23, 2018 8:21:07 GMT -5
One year I got the bright idea that I wanted pumpkins, melons and cucumbers. GOOD LORD AND BUTTER the vines . . . THE VINES!!! I expected to see a movie pop up on SyFy or find the vines having coffee at our table when we got up >,< Lord honey it was out of control. Never again gosh!
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Post by meandtk on Jun 23, 2018 8:24:08 GMT -5
Yes, indeed! How can I ever forget the pestiferous Sunchokes?
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Post by octave1 on Jun 23, 2018 8:40:45 GMT -5
I planted a Norway maple not knowing that: 1. It is an invasive species in my area; 2. the roots are massive, spread wide, and are almost impossible to remove. The tree had to be taken down.
Another time I sowed Winter oats in a bare area thinking that, once mowed regularly, it would be just as good a lawn as one grown from grass seeds. It is not.
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Post by september on Jun 23, 2018 9:41:14 GMT -5
Not a huge mistake, but one year I dug in some animal feed alfalfa pellets in a bed for tomatoes. I didn't notice that the pellets also contained some whole oats bound in. After I planted the tomatoes and watered a few times, I had oats sprouting all over my tomato bed!
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Posts: 0
Joined: January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2018 13:13:32 GMT -5
Too many mistakes over the years, LOL, for me. And often from a "bright" idea that I think will save time or work that back fires and makes me think "why? why did I DO that?" and just me to blame, too! Over planting a new variety of squash to me, found out I didn't like the taste at all, and was literally sneaking up on pick up trucks to leave them for others to eat. There were so many dang squash, and so itchy to get in that patch, which over grew almost everything else... And tall plants, honey, those were every bit of 3 and a half feet tall or better at the main bush, and I kept thinking "don't stop in here, it'll eat you up!", sort of a gardener's version of Stephen King thing. And the squash just kept making more and more and more.... Took a serious frost, a good hard one to kill those dang plants, they were like the johnson weed squash!!!
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Post by brownrexx on Jun 23, 2018 16:30:13 GMT -5
I have two in-ground gardens and my compost pile sits at the corner of the smaller garden. Lots of volunteer squash always come up in the compost pile and I pull them out and compost them but a couple of years ago hubby asked me to let them grow because he thought they would be pretty.
They actually were pretty and covered the compost pile and the nearby area like a jungle of squash plants but what I didn't expect was that squash bugs got going under the big leaves and I didn't see them until a monstrous horde of squash bugs came out and devoured all of my my butternut squash. There was no stopping them. There were thousands and thousands of squash bugs. There was nothing I could do so I just let frost kill them and never let volunteer squash grow again. I kept that garden squash free since that time in case there were lots of eggs in the ground.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Jun 23, 2018 17:07:25 GMT -5
I've made a lot of mistakes over the years, but planting mint in the in-ground vegetable garden I used to have - and then letting the mint flower and set seed - is definitely on the "Oh, why did I do that???" list.
At least my hands smelled nice during the two years of diligently hand-pulling thousands of mint seedlings from the garden and the surrounding yard. My mint will forever be in pots and have any blooms promptly removed!
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Post by guruofgardens on Jun 23, 2018 17:32:16 GMT -5
I thought planting potatoes in a wooden box made from 2v4's made in squares would be simple. Just plant the potatoes on the ground, add dirt, leaves and compost. Repeat potatoes, etc. 3x and then water and wait for them to grow. What a waste of time and lumber as I only got a couple lbs. of potatoes.
I tried sweet potatoes with LOTS of vines. Time to harvest and out of 25 started plants, I got 3 very large sweet potatoes. Period.
Neighbor next door is trying to be a gardener/farmer (in her words) but she doesn't always listen to me. This year's debacles are her tomatoes. I gave her 15+ heirloom seedlings, broccoli, cucumber seeds. Hubby wanted to make sure the bed was mulched and watered - TOO well. We got rain for a week and he still watered. The tomato leaves are tightly curled and look like skeletons. Hopefully the plants will be OK, as only the regular leaf plants seem to be affected.
Neighbor on the other side of the vegetable fence planted mint in her 6"x5' edge of the fence. Guess who has mint throughout her irises and other perennials? I can't seem to get rid of it all.
Friend in the community garden bought compost to add - twice - and now there's so many weeds he can't keep up with them. He tilled the first round of weeds into the soil, but went on a week's vacation and the weeds are back in full force. We talked about mulching before he left but he just had better things to do! Maybe next year he'll listen to me.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Jun 23, 2018 18:37:35 GMT -5
I had to think long and hard about a "mistake", other than growing too much of things. But the mention of mint being invasive (fortunately, I planted mine in a bed, surrounded by concrete), reminded me of something that I planted as a "cover crop", which became a weed: BUCKWHEAT! You're supposed to dig it in before it flowers, which I did, but it was left in the ground, and I did that, but there was some that came up later, and it shows up every year, even when I do my best to pull it before it flowers, or WW the tops off, before the flowers form. Good thing is that the stuff composts well, and quickly, so when I pull it, w/o flowers, that's what I do with it.
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Post by pondgardener on Jun 23, 2018 21:10:50 GMT -5
My biggest regret in gardening was planting a few Grandpa Ott morning glory seeds along a chainlink fence. I was waiting for another permanent vine to get established. The flowers were beautiful that year and the frost killed the vine in the fall and I cleaned up the dead vines. Unfortunately, the next year, hundreds started to come up in the grass, garden beds, compost pile, cracks in the concrete...anywhere they could sprout. Birds coming to the pond for water must have ate some of the seeds and scattered them throughout the yard, anywhere they had perched. Years later, I am still pulling out morning glory plants.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Jun 24, 2018 13:23:40 GMT -5
I must be the only person in the world who can kill Grandpa Ott morning glories without even trying.
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Post by pondgardener on Jun 24, 2018 17:49:07 GMT -5
Well they sure do well here in semi-arid southern Colorado. And I have to admit I am growing some "Heavenly Blue" morning glories on the opposite side of the house, away from the garden/pond area. I have read some information that they may not tolerate cold winter climates and not reseed. But I will find out next year. I have also read that if they do reseed that they do not come back true to type and I have a similar problem.
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Post by september on Jun 24, 2018 20:39:14 GMT -5
I grow Heavenly Blue most years, but always have to buy new seeds. Never has reseeded here for me. I grew the pink fluffy "Split second" variety from Park for two years and it reseeded like crazy! I wish the blossoms were bigger on that one.
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Post by pondgardener on Jun 24, 2018 21:29:39 GMT -5
Thanks for the response. I hope I have the same result and not have any unwelcome reseeding.
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