Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Fruiting and flowering requires higher P and K in that ratio. 10-10-10 will work, but how green is that growth? If the plants are well established, just stick with a nutrient that is high in P and K. FYI: anything higher than a 10 is not likely derived from nature.

I went and looked at them this morning, and I've got some green strawberries on there,and some pinkish-red ones as well. I sprinkled some of the 10-10-10 on them for now just to be sure. Do you have any reccomendations for a brand I should look for or will anything basically be good. Also, thanks for the info re: above 10 not natural.

Gaia, it really depends on your gardening goals and whether you care to garden veganically or not. If you want to garden veganically, maxicrop is a good tonic, and GO brand BioThrive Grow and BioThrive Bloom are good vegan formulas. I've been buggin' PD to start carrying vegan mix and neem meal/cake but they haven't yet.

If you don't care about gardening veganically, there are a number of ferts and nutes on the market. THEN your choice is to go chemical or organic. Organic certification is a tricky thing that usually involves the company in buying the certification and has a bunch of tedious rules to adhere to in order to maintain that status. For example, FoxFarm is a good mostly organic line, but because it has non-organic ingredients-(remember, in chemistry terms organic means carbon based, so anything without carbon is non-organic), the product as a whole cannot be called organic.

I hope I didn't confuse you.

Thanks! And no, you didn't confuse me. I'm trying to do veganic as much as possible since this is my first year growing anything other than tomatoes(in pots) and bell peppers and I never seemed to have to do much with those and they grew enough for my uses.

dear jewy,
i went and bought all the stuff to make compost tea. am i good? will this be enough for the summer if i apply it every week or twice a month?
xo
kittee

Kittee,

BTW, I can't help but to crack up every time I see your avatar.

You should be good. The NPK ratio of castings is so low, that it is really difficult to burn those plants. The big thing you want to do is use all of your tea every time you make a batch. You don't want it to sit around because the anaerobic bacteria will have a dance party and stink up the place if you know what I mean. Do you grow comfrey? Comfrey is a great companion plant, can be used as an awesome poultice, hair rinse, and when chopped up, makes great green manure for plants.

Viva La Compost!

Hey Doc- it's a bug question. We have a bee problem. I can't put hummingbird feeders out because the bees swarm on them, and it gets almost scary. and then a few bees get marooned inside the house and eventually die if we can't get them out, which makes me feel bad. Do you and your garden geniuses know why the bees do this (they do it without fail, not just in certain weather or whatever, and we don't have a nearby nest that i know of. oh yes, and these are likely the africanized killer honeybees, since apparently we brazilians started all that business). Should i just ignore them? stop feeding the hummies?

yes, but i mean will it be enough???

yes, but i mean will it be enough???

Sorry for the confusion, Kittee. Am I understanding you correctly that you'll be making a batch every other week or so? If you're just using the castings for the tea, the NPK is low enough where you could feed them more often if you liked.

For your tomatoes, peppers, and flowers, you'll want to make sure that you're giving those babies P and K-(you can use a nutrient or add some phosphate to the tea batches) for increased flowers, fruits, and yields.

Torquie, gimme a minute and figure out the bee situation. I have bees hang around our feeder at home and the birds really hold their own, but I don't have the crazy Brazilian bees that y'all have down there, so I need to do some research.

(they look like honeybees to me [and we've had sweat bees, black bees and carpenter bees, these are just plain ol' honeybees] and i think unless you're up in the Yukon your bees have been brazilian killer-ified too. i just sort of threw that in for effect.)

Hey Torquie:

Here's a website with buckets of info. It's a little low-tech and hard on the eyes, but has some good information:
http://www.rubythroat.org/FeedersBeesAndAnts.html

thanks doc, i will check it out.

cool beans. this is what i need to know. what's vegan i should get? i know nothing.
xo
kittee

Kittee, here are the product suggestions:

Grow: General Organics BioThrive Grow
http://www.wormsway.com/detail.aspx?t=prod&sku=GBTG405

Bloom: General Organics BioThrive Bloom
http://www.wormsway.com/detail.aspx?t=prod&sku=GBTB405

With tomatoes, you want to make sure you're giving them enough Ca and Mg, so you don't get blossom end rot. That's that lovely black rotty burn you might see on the bottom of tomatoes--caused by the Ca and Mg deficiency and from inconsistent watering. We have CalMag Plus with Iron which is totally chemical, but animal byproduct free--it's up to you if you want to go that route or you can do the job by adding epsom salts or molasses to luke warm water when you make your tea.

http://www.wormsway.com/detail.aspx?t=prod&sku=CMP405

FYI: I'm out of town this weekend. I won't be able to answer any questions until Monday.

Viva la Garden!

thanks! i just picked these up and will look into epsom salt and molasses.

here's a question for when you get back!! (i asked Dr Google but all the responses were for growing pot....)
i just bought a patchouli plant (Yeeha!) and after repotting it, the leaves are all curling (curling "downward"). i've watered it reasonably, and even misted it since i read that it would like that. what does downward curling mean? that it hates living with me?? ;-)

Hey Torquie,

I've never grown patchouli before, but I know they can be pretty persnickety. Here's a link about care for the plant including what it takes to get it to flower. I know it likes humidity and wet soil-never dry. Many plants go through transplant shock, so I would suggest an inoculant to help the roots absorb water and nutrients more efficiently.

Plant success is the best and cheapest product on the market to do this. I do not know if it is available in Brazil, but you could check gardening stores for that. The key component is mycorrhizae, a beneficial bacteria that clings to the root hairs and allows for better absorption of water and nutes. Think of it as extension cords for root systems.
http://www.gardenguides.com/78936-care- ... plant.html

thanks bubbeleh. it's already in the pot, i hate to take it out and shock it again to inoculate it (also not sure where the heck to even look for that stuff here, but one thing at a time). kid had a nosebleed the other day and the bloody rinse water from her towel went into the plant, it usually makes my other plants happy, so i figured it can't hurt. the plant's still alive, though it doesn't look thrilled. it might have gotten frost nipped, i've been watching the temps now since i repotted it.

Dr. Jewy!

Every year since I moved into my house I have noticed a returning plant despite my refusal to water it. It seems to be a potato plant. I have seen little potatoes when I dug too close to it the leaves and flowers look like a potato plant. How do I know if it's okay to eat?

Signed: Mashed Potato Addict

Show us some pics and lettuce see what it is! Without even seeing it, I'm gonna wager that it is a sunchoke, but I could be wrong. It is way too early to harvest either a potato or a sunchoke.

Ask and ye shall receive:

The foliage definitely seems to resemble the potato plants my dad has.





It makes these taters, although usually a bit bigger.





I do know there were hippie kids living here before me, and my only concern is that they may have planted a potato they bought at the grocery store, which I have heard you shouldn't do. If that's the case, should I not eat these?

I am 99% sure that is a potato. I only say 99% because I'd hate for you to eat it and die. It really, really, really looks like a potato.

There isn't any harm in eating a potato that has been propagated from a store bought potato. The only problem with using a store bought potato-(or any veg/fruit for that matter) is that they are susceptible to disease because they have been bred for hydroponic production, grown in a particular climate, or genetically modified to make them resistant to certain pests and diseases. In the case of most commercially produced potatoes, most are hybrids, which confuses me because if a seed potato has been made to be disease resistant, and a conventional potato has been made this way as well, why would it matter? For some people it just does, I know I'm a little skittish about frankenfood. I'm using seed potatoes this year, but bought my sunchoke from the grocery store. My sunchoke plants are HUGE, but I don't know how good the yield will be.

The thing you want to watch for is consuming a green potato.
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/about_green_potatoes/

Whoa, I've never seen anything about the green potato danger before....! Pretty sure I've had some with green on them from the grocery store and I'm preeeeetty sure I cut off the green??? Yikes.

I will wait until it makes more potatoes so I can thoroughly check them out....but just so you know my vegan ghost *will* haunt you if I die from eating it. ;)

Thanks jewy!