Gardening

[doczinn]

I recently moved to a new place, which includes a dirt plot about 3'x12'. There was already a well-established (I had to prune it ruthlessly) tomato plant. I've since planted a few other thing, and I'm looking for advice.

Here's a dandelion:



It started growing a flower, but I don't want everything covered in dandelions so I cut the flower off. It's growing OK, I guess, but it's not salad-sized yet.

These next two are budding cilantro plants; the seeds must have washed off the big one and they sprouted like mad. Considering that the one big plant produces more cilantro than my wife and I eat, I'm gonna be giving cilantro plants to all the neighbors.




This is a basil plant sprouted from a seed.



And here's its big brother, bought at the 99 Cents Only (now 99.99 cents) store.



Which brings me to my first question: What the hell is eating my basil? There are a lot of crickets, but I don't know if they're the culprits. I see a lot of them on the tomato plant (little tiny baby ones) and absolutely no damage.

Here's mint for mojitos and tabouleh:



It's doing fine, but I was led to believe it would be hard to keep trimmed. That hasn't been the case.

And the aforementioned cilantro plant:



Here's the main tomato plant, with a lot of branches (It'd grown out of control for months and I wanted to leave as much production capacity as possible.) and a good number of still-green tomatoes. Next question: How do I ensure the tomatoes mature, rather than stay green? My pruning philosophy so far has been to prune the smallest shoots, since they're using the most resources to grow and providing the least benefit to the plant through absorption of CO2. Is this about right? That branch leading out to the right, btw, is a longer shoot that will trail along the top of a fence.



Some of the tomatoes:



And a new plant from a cutting:



I've taken cuttings 7 times, and this, the third, is the only one that took hold. You can see two of the failures on the left. What makes the difference?

Here are some green onions, with the stumps of two others over to the left.



And can anyone tell me what this is going to be?



I also have some Thai chilies sprouting from seed.

In some parts of the country, trying to start a garden in September and October would be futile, but this is SoCal, and one of the few benefits is that this is working fine.

I want to maximize the space here, and there's a lot of free space still. Any further ideas? I never had a garden before, so ANY advice is welcome.

[Harold Tuttle]

slugs eat basil

mine is going dormant/dead

jack frosty was out the other night

[doczinn]

Well, I haven't seen any slugs - and the top leaves are eaten more.

[lupinus]

doc-

For slugs examine your plants in the early morning hours.  If there is a trail of slimy stuff...or of course, you know, slugs or snails themselves, theres your problem.  Plate filled with beer equals no more slugs.

Also examine the plants for wee lil aphids.  Easy fix?  Get some lady bugs from the gardening store and toss them in your garden.  I believe they will eat other very small critters as well IIRC, but I haven't had a garden in awhile.

[LadySmith]

Oh, I am so jealous! Nothing grows for me. 
Except marijuana...but that was an accident!

[MicroBalrog]

Oh, I am so jealous! Nothing grows for me. 
Except marijuana...but that was an accident!

I sense it's story time.

[LadySmith]

Some time ago, a buddy and I were walking down a sidewalk.
I noticed a bunch of little uprooted sprouts strewn everywhere.
I picked one up, took it home and planted it in the backyard.
Whenever I remembered it was back there, I’d dump stuff on it such as leftover cereal milk, flat sodas, stale beer, animals would urinate on it, etc. Otherwise I ignored it.
One day I went to check on it. It had grown to about 4’ tall and had little white flowers all over it.
Finally, I’d found a plant that would grow for me! 
I was so excited and happy that I called my friend over to look at it.
He did.
He studied it for quite a while.
He asked me if I knew what kind of plant it was.
I told him I didn’t, but I’d finally found one that would grow for me! Yay!
He told me it was weed.
Bummer!!! 
Turns out someone had raided somebody’s else’s backyard pot farm and that’s how the sprouts wound up all over the sidewalk.
My friend asked me what I was going to do with it.
I told him I didn’t know. I just knew that it was illegal.
So he stole it. 

[Tuco]

The damage to that basil plant sure does look like slug damage.

Put a saucer of beer out - slugs like beer - and they stay there until they die.  Empty often.

If it is slugs (as evidenced by their drunken little corpses) surround their target plant with diatomaceous earth.  It tears up the bottoms of their soft little slug bodies as they ooze along the ground to and from your basil plant.  They die a slow, agonizing death and become fertilizer.

[fspitzdorf]

I too garden I guess... just on a much larger scale in order to put some extra dough in the cookie jar...

[doczinn]

I don't see slime, either. Could slugs eat from the end of a leaf like that? I'll out out some beer and see what happens.

And ladybugs. Guess I'll get some of them when I get some earthworms.

My ideal garden size, aside from fruit trees, would be 30'x40' or so - enough for all the veggies we eat and some to give away.