Gardening

[Dode]

The fish tank is filled with homemade compost (8"-10" deep) from hay, straw, rabbit and goat droppings. If the city would let me have rabbits in the back yard, I could continue making the compost. I'll have to get friendly with a goat owner.... Ooooh, I know where I can get lots of sheep droppings; just need to introduce myself and do some stall shoveling for her.

[Dode]

AD... yes, I'm certainly learning a new indoor skill. I'm familiar with outdoor gardening and I wanted to have a way to provide year round lettuce at an economical price. I think I won't do successive plantings. I will thin to 6 plants and will harvest the outer leaves from all plants. Since there isn't a chance of bolting from heat, I should be able to continually harvest the outer leaves. Time will tell.

I posted some pics to my GARDEN album and will be working on other albums, eventually.

[W.Lynn]

Indoors, it's harder for varmints (2 or 4 legged) to steal your veggies.

[Dode]

I added more pics to my Garden album. The Fish Tank Lettuce project is coming right along. The lettuces are 4 weeks old and leaves can be picked for sandwiches. The leaves are incredibly tender. I started some radishes, spinach and variety lettuces about 10 days ago. I'll need to bring a rack from the basement to house the newbies.

Will try to upload the pics here. The last pic shows the lettuces transplanted into the fish tank compost.

FishTankLettuce1.jpgFishTankLettuce3.jpgFishTankLettuce4.jpgFishTankLettuce8.jpgFishTankLettuce9.jpgFishTankLettuce11.jpgFishTankLettuce13.jpg

[Dode]

When the lettuces were 2 weeks old, I had to put them in peat pots, so they could be elevated closer to the lights. When they were 4 weeks, I took them out of the peat pots and put them into the compost in the fish tank.

I need to get the rack from the basement, attach lights to it and start the seedlings for the garden. This will be the first time I've started my own seedlings.

[redman2006]

We built some boxes for raised beds. The soil here is mostly rock with just enough clay to hold the rocks together.

Anyway, having these pigs for so long, I have a mound of bedding mixed with pig crap. Lots of pig crap! It is not composted yet, and from what I just read, composting may not help. I was filling the bottoms of the beds with the bedding then putting 8" of good topsoil over it. The beds are 18" deep. 4'x12'.

Well, what I just read about using pig feces as part if soil amendments made me nervous. Has anyone used it? Good or bad results? Any thoughts? Man, I hate to have to dig all this out.

Keep in mind, these pigs were mine, raised on concrete and dewormed. They were heathy in appearance from day one.


Thanks for the help.

[Dode]

REDMAN..... I found this little blurb about pig manure; Well aged animal manures are the best for all gardening tasks. If you only only have fresh manures, hot composting is definitely the answer to all these issues. However, if you hot compost any fresh animal manures to internal temperatures at or above 140 degrees F, for several days, mixed with enough high carbon materials, you can guarantee a safe, healthy, mature composted product, that has removed almost all of the potential pathogens, diseases, and weed seeds in the original animal manures.

http://faq.gardenweb.com/discussions...organic-garden

http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/composting/manures/pig-manure-compost.htm

It looks like the answer is to be sure to do 'hot composting' before using fresh manure. Since you already have the manure in the beds, I would turn the soil in the raised beds, cover with a tarp so the sun can heat it up. Turn it every week, replacing the tarp. Do that for 3 weeks and I bet the solarization will kill off the pathogens that you don't want. I've used a tarp and solarization in the past for killing off weed seeds and it is extremely effective when left on for 3-4 weeks.

[Dode]

I forgot to post my fish tank lettuce pics. Here goes. At 6.5 weeks, I harvested most of the curly leaf, as they were pressing against the lights quite a bit. I did cut one of the curly lettuces at the base to see if it would sprout at the base, making it shorter and not as close to the light. The Romaine is still growing and I will need to raise the lights in a few days. I'm thinking about putting them in separate trays so the lights can be at optimum distances for each variety. Now that Spring is here, I can plant some in the garden, but will keep the indoor lettuce going, as a source after the garden lettuce bolts from heat.

At 4 weeks



At 5 weeks



At 5 weeks



At 6 weeks

[redman2006]

How much do you get from a 10 gallon aquarium? Thus looks great for the winter and heat of the summer. A simple2x2 frame and some clear plastic keep it growing until the lows are consistently in the teens here.

[Dode]

How much do you get from a 10 gallon aquarium? Thus looks great for the winter and heat of the summer. A simple2x2 frame and some clear plastic keep it growing until the lows are consistently in the teens here.

Maybe 6 heads of curly leaf. However, you don't need an aquarium. I did it this way, because it was just sitting there unused and taking up space in the Den. Also, I have a very nosy 2 year old cat, so the aquarium keeps him from digging in the soil. However, he has tried to get on top of the lights a time or two.

What I decided to do, is to take the idea to the basement. I have some racks down there that have 4 shelves, so I can transfer the plants to dollar store dishpans and hang the lights from each shelf.... just like the $400 ones in the catalogs. I have 6 more light tubes, so that means two more shelves of plants. As long as I grow $15 dollars worth of salad makings per month, it pays for itself. Once I get it all in the basement, I can add a lot more variety to the dishpans. I would love to have radishes and bunch onions ready for the picking. As well as mesclun and other spicy lettuces.

[DMH]

Dode - You will easily recoup your 15 dollars. Good experiment!

[Dode]

I have 32 heads crammed into the 36"x12"x17" fish tank. The compost is super rich, made from goat and bunny droppings with straw from last year. Yep, need to move the indoor lettuce project to the basement, as there is a whole foot of light that isn't being utilized.

[tk]

Red I lived on a pig farm years ago. Pig manure is very strong and it can burn your plants if it starts to heat. Make sure you dilute it with enough soil to keep it from getting hot. I burnt up some plants once putting it on to heavy.
I'll tell you gardeners a trick that my late father in law taught me about growing cucumbers . I grow mine in mounds about 8 or 10 inches high. at the bottom of the mound put a pocket of good fresh almost liquid cow manure about 3 inches thick then build your mound. about mid growing season when the roots finally hit the manure the plants will green up and start producing like new again . It seems to work for all vined veggies. just give the plant a good buffer between the roots and manure to start.

[Tex]

Horse manure is pretty hot as well, but it doesn't really have as good a quality for fertilizer as some other types of manure.

Alot of people think all manure is the same, but that is not the case.

Rabbit pellets and chicken litter are both really good for a garden, but again, you have to watch it as they are both pretty hot.



Tex

[Dode]

I read that horse manure has more seeds than cow manure, due to the fact that cows digest their food twice.