What Are Your Garden Tricks?

[Goat Herder]

I always grow every year Tomatoes and exotic extremely Hot Peppers. These are my Scooby Snacks. This Year I have some Black Prince tomatoes. ''Experimental'' looking forward to how they come out. black prince tomato - Google Search tomatoes are doing great already been snacking on them. The peppers will be up in 30 more days.


My pepper plant some of them got Aphids and Spider Mites. One of my tricks is a bottle of Mad Dogs Revenge. This stuff is a chili extract. Needless to say it is very hot! Google

I take about a table spoon of this stuff to a hand held squirt bottle full of water. ''WARNING'' Not for a asthma sufferer or the faint of heart. This stuff I found acts like a systemic on my chili plants. There will not be any more insects showing up again on them at all!

I keep some of my pepper plants around a couple of years through the use of a green house . My record for a chiltepin - Google Search was a 11 year old plant. I found one good dose of my M.D.R. works up two years for me for the most part. Usually about one year.

I grow some of the hottest peppers in the world and they are my Scooby Snacks! I grow Tabasco, Bhut jolokia , and Caribbean Red Habanero all these chili peppers are the best of the best to me.

tabasco pepper pictures - Google Search

Bhut jolokia pepper - Google Search

caribbean red habanero - Google Search

Any how my Mad Dogs Revenge spray bottle who diddy works really well for staying away from pesticides. I really like the results. I have the kind of tolerance for hot peppers it is still pretty brutal tho. This spray bottle set to mist the under sides of the leaves can leave a guy with a walking pneumonia feeling for a hour. Note this could easily be just doing one plant.

I did 15 plants in pots in 20 minutes time. My chest is all cleared out like I ran a mile lol. Parts of my face are tingly from the spray time for a shower! Its almost like I had accidentally maced my self but not really. I have a trick when to breath and where to breath. I spray the plants and know what direction the breeze is going then run the other direction and repeat. Its a done deal tho I will have nice text book healthy pepper plants this year.

 

[Goat Herder]

It says here: Mad Dog's Revenge Habanero and Chile Extract (2 FL.OZ. / 59 ml): It takes over 12 pounds of smokin' hot peppers to make 1 bottle of Mad Dog's Revenge Habanero & Chile Extract. Great Flavor and unbelievable heat. 1,000,000 scoville units certified. The new King of Extracts. Ingredients: Chile Extract, Habanero Chile Extract, and Soybean Oil.

Pretty good stuff!Mad Dog Revenge Habanero and Chile Extract: Amazon.com: Grocery & Gourmet Food

 

[Goat Herder]

 

[killercanuck]

beautiful garden! Guano, for sure. or some Dutch Nutrients, eh?

 

[Goat Herder]

Manure tea from an old RV pump vy garden hose. Sometimes made 40 gallons at a time often from rain water. I was pretty committed in those 3 years. Rabbit, Cow, chicken With some combos of other fertilizer like Fish emulsion, and Superthrive. I even mixed Brown Sugar and ''Coca Cola Classic has instant Phosphates'' into this wicked tea concoction.

 

[Goat Herder]

Did some Foliage feeding too. Note ''not from the R.V. pump/hose'' lol.

 

[Ernst]

Ha!

A Garden Thread.

Nice looking yard. I am jealous of the lay out and space but not the snow.

Healthy plants are the best defence against pests.

My Tricks are basically relative to organic soil since that is where the roots are.

I am an experienced organic gardener.
I make my own instant (manure) Tea. It's a powder that we add to water and feed with.

I have worked on the soil aspect with recycling by re-composting it with new materials like a mix of materials such as bone meal and green manures for example.

I have Tomatoes this time around.

 

[Venice Motor Bikes]

I don't know if this is a trick or not?, but I've always been told let the plants starve for water as long as possible & then water 'em... this makes 'em tough & thrive!

 

[Mike B]

I used to do that stuff. Tomatoes, bell peppers, string beans, radishes, leaf lettuce.

That was when I was younger.

Now I ride the MB to the farmers market.

 

[rustycase]

Really bombed out on the garden this year... I'm really bummed.
Downright strange WX, and I was also not up to snuff when I should have been tending my germinating seeds better.
Over months I lost over 600 baccy sprouts, then maters, peppers, and a buncha other stuff.
Last year I did better, but not as well as I had hoped with the peppers.
This year... well it was horrible!
About all I got doing well is squash, cantaloupe, and watermelon. and it's all late... Had some large pink German tomatoes doing real well that the fellow who gave me the seed thought very highly of... the marauding deer got em.

I spend at least an hour each morning, and the same each evening tending the plot. usually squish abt 50 beetles each morning while I drink my coffee and water, a few less in the evening if I've got time. Got beer cans on trip wires strung through the garden now. We'll hear the cans rattling across the yard anytime after midnight... I ain't stayin up just to chase deer!
I have put a radio out there now, so they can listen to some punked out hip hop music for their dining pleasure. It worked last night... I'll see how long it lasts until they get used to that.

We got Squash bugs, cucumber beetles, mexican bean beetles, and the hoppers, which are not so bad this year... and the deer. The deer go for the maters first, then the sunflowers, and now my chick peas, since I've wired what is left of the maters.
I heard tobacco tea works to keep some bugs off the plants, and got a lot of stems I've saved to make some, just haven't got a round tuit...

I've got 4 bottles of various hot sauce settin in a small bucket of water right now that the GF decided to excess... I'll shake em out maybe tomorrow and spray it on some things the beetles are eating.
Darn beetles got my tromboncini squash right as they came up out of the ground! Really ticked me off. NEXT year I will have some sort of greenhouse built for germinating, and I am going to buy a short roll of Agribon AG-15 cloth to cover the transplants so they at least have a fighting chance.
The green shade cloth from the hardware store has worked well to keep bugs off the plants I've tried it on, but it's expensive. Agribon is cheep!

...Is that revenge hot sauce really hotter than the bhut jolokia???

Oh, we get TONS of flea beetles when the baccy blooms, but I've nipped all the buds this year. Got tons of seed left over from last year!

Best
rc

 

[Goat Herder]

Wow I live in the desert and in the city. I have it easy. That is quiet a story brodder! This year here every thing is in 30 gallon thrash cans it takes very little water and the trash can for a pot seams to hold perfect humidity.

With this I don't get weeds to pull very many bugs. Here in the desert just not really a prob. The flies are ridiculous this year. That is where the tomato horn worms come from.

That hot sauce I got is ridiculous hot. It has worked on plant lice lice here too. I clean my peppers up with them. Come about the right time of year I will finally use 7 dust on my tomatoes.

I was going to say that using tobacco tea might not be good around night shade family type plants? I think rose bushes are night shade. I know that peppers and tomatoes are. What you got to watch for is tobacco is a famous carrier of a strain of Mosaic. They have commercially farmed those tobacco plants for years to try to get a resistant strain for a crop.

They almost lost the Tabascos from it and my book say it came from an infected crop of tobacco in Louisiana. They cross breed them to Habaneros to get a resistant strain of Tabascos. I got a small library of books on peppers and their culture around the world.

That Mosaic virus gets into the soil it takes years to go away. I heard stories here that if you smoke you'l never get a job in a commercial tomatoes green house farm!

Then as a small child I remember my Grandpa's cigarette butts by the Garden used to make Grandma mad as heck too. They always had awesome tomatoes and peppers! Did not ever hurt anything. Go figure lol.

There has been cigarettes around my tomatoes and my peppers. One winter I gave my peppers that I brought in the house tons of loud rock music. I had just put in a surround system that year. They put out peppers until darn near December.

 

[Goat Herder]

I don't know if this is a trick or not?, but I've always been told let the plants starve for water as long as possible & then water 'em... this makes 'em tough & thrive!

This was one of my Grandmother's favorite tricks she used to tell me. It works!

Also if ya want hotter chili peppers right before you pick them stress the plant with a lack of water then water them right. All in the right timing then pick the peppers they will be about three times hotter!

 

[Goat Herder]

Rustycase what kind of electrical fence were you using for the Deer? Kind of a funny story about the Deer was laughing to my self.

I had some Fido brand dog kinds that were very weak and even just plain quit working. When my dogs were pups I had one rouge dog that for ten years just seamed to get into everything and tear it up. I still loved the darn dog but it could get me mad. It did not approve of my gardening at first lol.

I got the cattle grade one from a Town and Country feed store. That thing I got a hold of it a couple of times my self. It has ''way'' more current to it. I think it might help! The dog I had that got into everything was very smart. He could smell the current and would leave things alone.

Only way I could maintain anything and not break its spirit a far better thing than folks who beet there dogs or tie them all day into a corner. There is just no excuse at all for that. The little guy was my responsibility. I was raised around livestock. It could easily clear a 6 foot fence! I got to go to the dog pound and get it out of jail more than once.

That guy ''always'' knew when I had turned it off too. It knew when I was snoring hard enough that thing would get all the way up on the kitchen counters. ''Would not'' get into something with ya looking and always smart enough to know when you were not. Its the white one in the corner of the pict lol.



The other dogs were always perfect angels. That darn white dog pulled one of my two year old peach trees from the ground by the roots one day no kidding! There is a slough of stories with that one. Some folks would have took it to the pound but not me.

The part I really loved to watch about that dog was I had an old established apple tree when I first moved in. That guy would climb all the way into the tree pretty high and get a apple. Was really cool to watch.


I got a really neat Indian trick for the grass hoppers works good too. We had some bad locust years hear when I was a kid . I saw an old lady she was the only one with a garden '' in the valley'' she gathered up grass hoppers until she was dizzied lol.


Put them in the blender made a puree sprayed their remains on her plants and the locust passed her garden by that year. She was the only one with nice produce.

 

[rustycase]

LOL

Sounds like you had lots of fun w dogs!
We got a kelpie now and he's an awful good dog... almost a year old and pretty smart... not a biter or fighter, but he defends his fence line...

Me n' him were in the garden passing through the side yard and a young buck stood up, maybe 25ft away and looked at us... I looked down at my dog and he was trying to figger out what the deer was!
...and at night he'd sleep through a rock concert...

Oh well...

Nah, no electric fence here. Got some old fishin line that has set in the sun and got brittle... can't fish with it. I string it all over the place at a level the dog will pass under, but hoping deer won't. Two or 3 beer cans pulled across the ground makes an awful racket! So far it hasn't really scared the deer off, but I'm hoping they go somewhere quieter... lol

I turned on a rock station for em this evening...
See? That's how it is here in Kalifornia... we give our deer radios for their dining pleasure!

Ground up hoppers might be a good idea, but they are too fast for the likes of me! That old woman musta been quick! lol
It might give me another heart attack chasing hoppers!

We only got a 1 holer, and when it was occupado I'd step into the garage and use a empty coffee can... get close to full I'd take it out and sling the contents over the maters. Didn't work, and I got too much flack over it...
Deer got nearly all the maters last year and half the peppers.

...I did try soapy water on the flea beetles. That helped a bit. But there were gazillions of em... some of my baccy looked like it had taken both barrels of birdshot.

Best
rc

 

[Goat Herder]

LOL

Sounds like you had lots of fun w dogs!
We got a kelpie now and he's an awful good dog... almost a year old and pretty smart... not a biter or fighter, but he defends his fence line...

Me n' him were in the garden passing through the side yard and a young buck stood up, maybe 25ft away and looked at us... I looked down at my dog and he was trying to figger out what the deer was!
...and at night he'd sleep through a rock concert...

Oh well...

Nah, no electric fence here. Got some old fishin line that has set in the sun and got brittle... can't fish with it. I string it all over the place at a level the dog will pass under, but hoping deer won't. Two or 3 beer cans pulled across the ground makes an awful racket! So far it hasn't really scared the deer off, but I'm hoping they go somewhere quieter... lol

I turned on a rock station for em this evening...
See? That's how it is here in Kalifornia... we give our deer radios for their dining pleasure!

My white dog would'a chased the Deer and got lost in the woods might not ever find its way back lol. The flopped eared female would'a ran the opposite direction and hid. My loyal favorite looks a lot like ''Old Yeller'' Would'a chased after but if I wanted him to, he'll actually liston and mind me if I called out to him..

Ground up hoppers might be a good idea, but they are too fast for the likes of me! That old woman musta been quick! lol
It might give me another heart attack chasing hoppers!

Ha Ha thats funny. There was plenty of them around at the time. I remember seeing her use a net. Just think Grandma on an Elixir from, the Beverly Hill Billies.

I can see it now why are you putting that on the Maters?

 

[rustycase]

Oh gosh, Goat Herder... it's in all the organic type grow your own food publications... mark your territory and they'll stay out...
Or you can BUY coyote urine... AND mountain lion urine, which I hear is even more expensive!!!
So far it hasn't worked and I ain't gonna shell out the bucks for the wild critter stuff!

I'm gonna try the old hot sauce bottles tomorrow if I get enough time in my sked between the doctors and re-jetting my ht.

Man! I got HUGE zuccini squash poppin up on a bunch of the plants! Fatter around than last year! last yr some were 6" dia and 24+ " long. We even BBQ'd em.

Heck! I don't know nuthin... might be spaghetti squash! lol but sure look like zukes.

Best
rc

 

[harry76]

I do all the organic stuff: wormfarm, compost etc. I even kept chickens (rescued ex-battery hens) until about a month ago when 1 or maybe 2 little dogs dug their way under my front fence and killed all 9 of our chickens (was not impressed).

The chickens were great as pets, and really good when you are ready to start a new crop and need a plot weeded. Let the chickens in and they do all the work..... we will build a more secure coop and get some more ex battery hens.

I do alright with our garden, we grow lettuce, herbs, eggplant, tomatoes, chillies, spinach, strawberries, mulberries, blueberries, broccoli, corn, mandarines, zuchini, cucmber, watermelon, passionfruit, rasberries, pumpkin, potatoes, squash, beetroot, spring onions, cauliflower etc.

Ive had some success and failures with all these, and only been doing it for a few years so im still learning, but my only advice is maybe a way of keeping the missus happy with a vegie garden while building a bike track LOL. I disguised my mountain bike "pump track" as a garden path.....

 

[rustycase]

That's a nice little backyard garden, Harry.

Chickens are great !
...but the coons cleaned us out a couple years ago... lost 13 hens and a rooster over a three week period. Shot two coons in the middle of the night by flashlight, but others still got the last of 'em. disappointment.

...what season is it for you in Oz ? hard for me to grasp the concept of 'down under'! We are still having a cool summer here.

Great berms along the garden path! ...Do you have any rc cars?
Haven't yet run my last remaining car... it will be way fast. too fast!
Best
rc

 

[harry76]

Coons???? Do you mean raccoons? Do raccoons kill chickens??????

We are in winter here, but our winter is 15 degrees celcius. So still not too bad. Definitely no snow or anything...

I have a petrol R/C but its not working, but yeah the pumptrack would be perfect for em. But i just ride my hardtail mtb around it.... much like this ‪The Brickyard‬‏ - YouTube ..... but works just as well as a garden path for the wheelbarrow to get through

 

[Goat Herder]

Nice little track. Bummer about the chickens. Got a buddy in the valley here with a pretty good fence line he spent a small fortune trenching cement and wire mix under into his chain link fence line.

So long story short he has hens running around the yard for the last 4 years. He decided to get a couple of roosters a year or so ago 0 boy! He has to separate them. There is one rooster when its loose in the yard who needs a guard dog.

That darn thing even continues to attack its owner. I nick named it the Cujo Chicken. That dude is severely disgruntled. It came after me me once took me by surprise put holes in my legs. The second time I sent it off with my foot twice. Its a smart little guy to seams to make a game of it.

Its like lets let so and so have his fill of the beers and let him wander out into the yard to find Cujo

Watching those hens go after a bug is comical too. A bug could go into a can but it cant hide. There will be one eyeball on it all day lol.


I cheated a little on the worm castings I used this stuff with protein crumblies too. http://www.highcountrygardens.com/catalog/product/99491/ To help let the soil naturally unlock it self I refrained from chlorinated water as well. I would let my water stand for a day prier to using it hence forth the R.V. pump and the tea concoctions.

I read that the natural bacteria in the soil that helps unlock it is hindered by Chlorinated water.

http://www.highcountrygardens.com/catalog/product/H0005/

Protein Crumblies were worms and their castings with fish encrustations.