[FONT=Verdana,Arial]I've been trying to do heirloom plants in my garden this year, raising them from seeds. I've got a dynamite germination rate....almost 100%, but after a few days, the plants start looking tall and spindly and generally don't do very good. I did some research and figured out I have 2 problems. First, I'm overwartering. Very common problem. Second, the plantlets aren't getting the right amount or kind of light. I've got them in a west facing window, so they get sun from about noon until 7:30 PM, but they grow slowly and spindly and I've got to rotate the planters 180 degrees every day. My herbs, especially, are doing poorly. I practiced my Google-fu and learned quite a bit about grow-lamps and lighting and such. Tons of different lights, fixtures, etc, from really cheap to uber expensive LED stuff. Soooooo, I figured "I'm a bright guy, I outta be able to build a nice grow light system." I went out today looking for components to build me a nice grow-light system. I hit 4 places, and the best I could come up with was what would be a cheap, crappy, cheap-looking system that would run me about $75-$90. No, I don't have any fluorescent light fixtures extra hanging around the house. Sooooooooooo, I went over to da Amazon place and found exactly what I was looking for at an extremely reasonable price. Light, fixture and adjustable stand, all for under $60. It should be here Tuesday afternoon and should be set up by Tuesday night. Wish me luck! Kajun [/FONT]
I've got 6 different tomato kinds, eggplant, hot wax peppers, cayenne peppers, dill, oregano, parsley, tobacco, thyme, rosemary and I've got some ghost pepper plants from last year (that never grew well enough to produce) that I managed to save over the winter. Outdoors, I've got carrots, green onions, cabbage, mustard and different kinds of lettuce. The lettuce and carrots are doing fine, the mustard and cabbage a little slow, but the onions put up tiny shoots that are trying to wither on me. Watering a little every day seems to help. I still have another 6 blackberry canes, bush green beans and 2 kinds of cucumbers to plant...this weekend prolly. From a couple of years ago, I've got 4 fig trees, a plum tree, a pear tree, a peach tree, an apricot tree, quite a few blackberry canes and a couple of grape vines. My 2 blueberry plants are barely hanging on.....need to put them into a bunch of spangam (sp) moss. Kajun
Blueberries like acidic soil. I've always used pine needles for mulch around them and had good results. Sphagnum peat moss will help, too. Given your location, the water-holding properties of the sphagnum may be better
be carefull of the tobacco around the tomato plants. if they are too close together the tomatoes wont produce fruits....
