The Unc-tanical Gardens

[hippie_lettuce]

Cool succulents and cacti! There is sandy soil here too and it is hard to get it the way we would like. Any horse farms near you? Or maybe someone who has rabbits or birds?

 

[unclefishstick]

yeah,as i mentioned before there dairy farms to the south of here but they dont deliver,i have no need for a dumptruck load of manure and even getting a truckload means i have to take up 4-5 hours of someone elses day...besides,at this point i have no intention of planting the whole yard so theres no real need...im finding just taking all the rootballs from the mj garden and getting that into the ground really helps the desert type plants out quite a bit...im pretty much done with planting in the yard for the year,going to be too hot soon for plants to root in enough to survive the summer so aside from a couple of pampas grass and a blue juniper im all set on the landscaping for now...time to focus on the rock work...

 

[unclefishstick]

things are moving along in the veggie garden,went ahead and rolled the dice and put plants in ground a week ago even though easter is the traditional last frost date,it was also a really mild winter this year.

these are all the bonnie starts i got at walmart,i just went ahead and removed the peat pots they were in and had transplanted them all to larger containers until i had a chance to harden them off,at any rate,they took off as soon as i planted them in the garden bed,been hitting the bed with compost tea once a week to wake it up so to speak,i had put a deep layer of mulch on top in late winter when i assembled the beds and filled them with all that compost and rootballs and manure and ewc and kelp meal and alfalfa meal and...you know,the usual suspects...so its had 2 months or so to do its bio sexy thing,been keeping it watered and it has remained nice and moist...
and i just sowed a row of carrots and a row of beets


broccoli and red cabbage,a raspberry cane on the right and a red bell pepper,i hope to squeeze a trio of cucumbers to train up the back trellis...

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new mexico green chili "big jim"

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sprouts,sunflowers,nasturtiums,cantaloupe,and a new mexico red chili,3 kinds of tomatoes (marino,roma,and another italian sauce tomato i cant remember...) 4 kinds of basil,thyme,broccoli,chives,green onions,red scallions...

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[unclefishstick]

the herb boxes,once again the bonnie starts from walmart,these are just in happy frog potting soil,also being hit with compost tea and being fed with the general organics line of veganic nutes whenever theres extra from the houseplants....not to blow the veganics horn but i use them on everything in the house from the plant kingdom.so not only are they keeping the mj garden bumping along with little or no fuss,but they are also keeping over 120 different plant species thriving and healthy,considering all the stuff outside in the yard and garden im probably well over 150 different plant species and probably 300 or more separate plants....

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[unclefishstick]

on to the greenhouse...
well,its been a learning experience for sure about sun tolerance,even cactus need to be gradually exposed....

so i have definitely sunburned the shit out a few cactus and succulents,to the point where i will be trashing a few and trying again,these were mostly "starter plants",all cheap consumer stuff you can get at lowes,home depot or most walmarts,for 4 bux if i kill a dozen its no biggie,they compost too...

so perhaps not too strangely the species doing the best are the ones from climate conditions most similar to whats going on here,indeed it turned out i had many species that would survive in ground here so many are in the cactus garden..


some new ones,a rispalis and a euphorbia

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close up of the euphorbia

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opuntia macrodasys monstrose "angel wing" those little clusters on top will become new pads

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opuntia macrodasys monstrose "funny bunny"

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a haworthia looking like an alien...

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[captain planet]

Wow Unc, your really goin for it! I really like the looks of the veggie boxes, and I think that's gonna be a great learning exp. I ( my OCD) likes to see those nice rows and see the whole complimentary setup! Did u plant the beets everyother with the radishes to help break the soil for eachother?

 

[unclefishstick]

soil is still pretty sandy and i dont really like radishes much...

 

[captain planet]

Oops I meant the carrots.. last year *was our first doing carrots and we planted in the same box with rads, and spinach .... I believe beets and carrots are complimentary ........ I can eat a radish in a salad ever now and again, but I really gotta force beets down like medicine

 

[unclefishstick]

the season is so long here,i can always try again if the first round doesnt do it,i dont think we even get our first hard freeze until thanksgiving,and a 6 dollar roll of plastic would likely allow me almost year round cropping in the main bed...

 

[bigscoot]

killer n here unk

 

[unclefishstick]

i kinda have a whole bunch of plants to care for everyday now....the mj garden is one of the easiest to care for actually...

 

[unclefishstick]

opuntia cylindrica "christmas tree"

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echeveria

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echeveria (both hybrids)

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tiger jaws

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another opuntia species opuntia something monstrose variagata....it goes on like that for a bit....

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[unclefishstick]

one of the many aloe hybrids,i think this is a "park avenue"

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ferrocactus latispina just got today...

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i cant remember what kinda cactus also new

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rispalis

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just potted these in today,an aeonium,a new type of jade plant called "ruffles" and the pale green one i have no idea....i hate plants without tags,figuring out what they are can be a real pita even with the internet..

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[unclefishstick]

another one of my unidentified plants,pretty sure its a graptopetalatum of some sort...this thing was a total trainwreck about 9 months ago,only one rosette at the end of a bare stalk,in none too good a shape,i had about given up on it and had shoved it out on the porch,basically right into full sunlight....live or die i told it...i was pretty sure i had killed it...then it started popping new rosettes,i repotted it and left it outside and it has turned into a really nice plant...

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a kalanchoe and some sedums

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ice plant

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one of the local cactus,possibly a chocolate spine prickly pear,most likely an engelmans prickly pear..

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[captain planet]

Pretty amazing stuff Unc, how on earth are you keeping track of all the species/names? I can barely keep track of my veggies, ....and then *the herbs , and really there's not a ton. Getting in to cacti and flowering stuff, and what?... Over 200 diff species. I don't know how man

 

[unclefishstick]

well clearly i cant remember all their names,at least not the full scientific names...what happened was the toen i live in never had a hydro store,indeed i think theres still less than 10 in the entire state...the store also sold houseplants,theres normally not much to do customer wise in a small hydro store and there was a used bookshop on the way to the burrito place where i got lunch...so basically i got paid to sit around and read about plants while taking care of 2-300 houseplants...sooner or later they just started coming home with me...next thing i knew i had a collection going...the bulk of those cactus came from walmart or home despot or lowes and cost less than 5 dollars,im only now starting to look for larger specimens and rarer plants...

its all part of a larger plan....for one thing,all the garden space and the landscaping and a greenhouse full of plants make the other less savory to the neighbors part of the garden disappear....not to mention no more tossing rootballs,it can all go into the gardens now,and it manages to fill up a lot of time that i might otherwise waste in front of a tv,which i dont own,or something else equally lazy....i was getting paid to sit around all day,no reason for me to do that at home for free....

 

[captain planet]

Yeah thank god, jah, blah, whatever for good landscaping and outdoor gardening for toning down the suspicious looks for bringing home bales of soil, or not needing to drive spent soil places. lol

 

[unclefishstick]

this place has so little organic matter in the "soil" that anything helps to break it up,all the plants im using in the landscaping a xeriscaping plants so i will only need to water on very rare occasions once it gets established,and im not going to try and finish it all in one year or season,gets too pricey buying plants....even with all the cactus i hijacked from the lot behind me...i mean rescued from the encroaching bulldozers,its still adding up...i have a nice start anyway,lots of creeping ground cover stuff like sedums and sempervivum and all the cactus should survive the winter just fine here...it looks way better though....and it will encourage me to get some rain gutters up to collect rain water,as little as we get,and in the long run it will take away a lot of my garbage stream,get me better about getting all the recyclable stuff sorted.... lol...cause then i can really tell the prius crowd to suck my smug!

 

[s13sr20det]

love those flapjacks kalanchoe

 

[unclefishstick]

i think by the time i have to drag it inside for the winter its going to get pretty big...i really need to spray it down with some neem oil and clean it up,theres so much calcium in the water its making it look dull,but lots of fresh new growth...