Lalambchop1 said:

I'm having trouble with fungus in my wintersown pots. These have only rec'd rainfall since they were put out. Both of these pics were shot through the hole in the jug. In some jugs with tiny seeds I used white sand to help distribute them. On the whole those have worse fungus than the ones without.

@Lalambchop1, are you sure that's fungus? I'm by far no expert, but it looks like green stuff on the surface and not white. Isn't fungus usually white? Could the green possibly be something else that's healthier?

At any rate, I had a bad, bad fungus problem in one of my indoor planters. I had bought some organic, non-sterilized potting soil and didn't notice that it was totally contaminated with fungus gnats. I planted everything indoors and watched as the gnats thrived (UGH! ), some of my tiny plants died, and the top of the soil turned white. I purchased some nematodes and also used a turkey baster to distribute cinnamon over the surface of the soil and after a bit, the gnats and the white disappeared. The whole thing seems to be quite healthy now.

Maybe the more experienced gardeners can tell us whether cinnamon would harm winter seedlings? If not, I highly recommend the turkey-baster method. I got my baster for $1 at the dollar-tree store! But first, please check to be sure that's what you have. I think that if it's green, it might be something else. I wanted to Google it but couldn't think of anything but "green stuff in my garden." Needless to say, that turned up quite a bit . Oh, wait, could it be moss?

@joannakat
Maybe it's some kind of algae. I've had it before when I did seeds indoors and it's not healthy. I'll research the cinnamon. Thanks.

Lalambchop1 said:@joannakat
Maybe it's some kind of algae. I've had it before when I did seeds indoors and it's not healthy. I'll research the cinnamon. Thanks.

Just Googled "uses for cinnamon in the garden" and got lots of hits, including as a fungicide. Algae, hmmm, I guess places that deal with water gardens would know about that. But I'm just guessing. I'm sure there are people here who are much more knowledgable than I.

It is green, right?

I'm certainly not very knowledgeable when it comes to soil problems but i have had some of that fungas show up in a few of the pots I started inside. It was white by the way. I did some research on how to treat it. I needed something within my budget too by the way. I found an easy way to treat the white fungus by just usung a capful of hydrogen peroxide in a pint sized spray bottle with water. Just sprayed the affected pots a couple times a week till it went away. Wish all things were so easy to fix

@Agoo, what grade HP did you use?

3% was what was recommended

Hearing about some of the seeds some of you ws got me all excited as am trying ws for the first time myself this year. I just went out and took a peek inside some of my jugs. I spotted some rose campion, sweet william, dianthas and a couple more I can't rember . I left them alone as instructed. This is all so exciting. Am also trying to plan out some new flower beds, trying to decide what I want to plant where. Does anyone happen to know of an app that might help me. With that?

Boy! If you can find such an app I surely would like to know about it.

Lalambchop1 said:Boy! If you can find such an app I surely would like to know about it.

I don't have an app, but I paste pictures into a word document and then move them around to get an idea of what they look like in different positions and combinations. You can use text boxes to position them like your garden setup, pasting each picture into a text box. HTH.

Sounds like someone should create an app! @dave?

Great idea. I need a pictorial view as well as an overhead. I've done those in excel.

@Lalambchop1!!!

Lalambchop1 said:Great idea. I need a pictorial view as well as an overhead. I've done those in excel.

Excel? Wow, I can't even imagine how you would do that! But I guess PowerPoint would work really well for that too! What the pictorial view gives are (is?) the shape and color combinations. As long as the pictures you use are true to the varieties you end up planting, you can get a pretty good idea of what you'll end up with and how they compliment each other. What it's hard to get is the comparison of flower sizes between plants.

If my old computer hadn't died in Dec. I'd figure out how to show you my "pic" with excel. I like it because I can put a list of what plants I have with their stats in a column on the right and build the bed on the left of the page. If the plant is 36" wide I make a 3x3 square and can move it around as I'm deciding what to put where. I can also color the square with the color of the bloom or to mark it's season.

There is an app online that I tried last year that might help you out. I'm pretty sure it was the one at smartgardener.com. (For a visual: http://www.smartgardener.com/g... ) Ultimately, I wanted something that allowed for more aesthetic design in my garden, but the app will give you a very practical and useful layout if your chief concern is production and simplicity.


Another idea, along the lines of what you mentioned with Excel, is to create your own. Last year I used OpenOffice Draw (Open Office is like Microsoft Office, but open source/free) to create my own garden map that looked like this:




Here is a close-up:





This is the final copy of what I planted (far too late, if you notice the dates) last year. My previous plans had a lot of hand-written notes and adjustments to the layout. I did my other raised garden beds in a similar fashion, but they are on a different page.

Edited to add: to create my garden bed layout, I also used the information on companion planting at Wikipedia, as well as 1-2 other companion planting websites. That Wikipedia companion planting guide is SO handy, though!

@DogsNDaylilies WOW!

Is that a good wow or a bad wow?

Beets ,,

A larger photo ,beets




labeled as Pom Pom Poppy one of several sprouted

Jim, do you ever have issues with the pop bottles blowing away? (Are you in a high wind area?) We get some crazy winds here and I'm wondering if the pop bottles would stay put or not if I were to try that method. I don't want my neighbors getting frustrated with pop bottles ending up in their yard, though.

Libby ,, I get that more with Milk cartons than bottles ,
You might try a couple for practice , , place them in the ground until their solid ,
I cut 2 liters in half at the second ring at the bottom of the label ,

I am not much at giving advice or instructions , so I am back to saying , try a few , If you set them half inch to an inch , into the ground they should stay in place ,,

Only time I have trouble with them and wind is using them for a pot with a cover , the tops even when tight get caught by the wind frequently ,

Good to know. I keep talking about winter sowing and I *will* do it one of these days. Just because I haven't taken the plunge yet doesn't mean it won't happen. Mentally, I just have to get myself past the uncertainty of whether or not we're moving this year, next year, or the year after that. If I 'waste' my time with a garden I don't get to see the fruits of, then c'est la vie--gift to the next owner! The bottle jugs might be a little harder to entice potential owners with, though.