f-ing seeds gardening rant

a reply to: KindraLabelle2

Onions will protect carrots extremely well, I've never had an issue with either when I've companion planted together... Garlic fits in well with them too, only issue there would be the onions and the dog I guess.

Shame about the seeds, might be worth contacting a reputable store wherever you live and seeing if they can stock the seeds for you. It'll cost you more but there's more of a trustable and idealistic commercial situation imho.

I'm still learning to source things better myself, we tend to get what we pay for don't we!

Potatoes. They don't need cropping all at once, take a few flowers and a couple baby potatoes and leave the rest for a few months. They'll generally look after themselves. Anyways I hope you get the seeds you want! GL your garden sounds lovely!

a reply to: RAY1990

Thanks for the advice on the carrots and the onions, I'll try that next year.
The dog can't reach the area where I grow my veggies, he'll just use it as his personal bathroom! lol

i'm going to the local gardening center next Sunday and I was going to ask them about the seeds. But I'll doubt they'll even try though, right now they can charge 6 euros for one young plant, while the seeds go for about 4 euro's for 500 seeds. There's no profit there for them

a reply to: KindraLabelle2

Must be a decent seed store in your nation? There's a few in the UK from what I gather you get a lot less seeds but bricks and mortar stores aren't scamming people, it's their profession too so they're often super helpful with sourcing the weird and wonderful if you ever get the urge.

They're usually cool with giving advice too. The onions will mask the smell of the carrots to the flies btw... Potentially you could plant a few things in that area such as lettuce, bell peppers, even strawberries.

For onion fly mint works really well, parsley can too. I need to get back into gardening... But erm I learned this stuff the hard way because I have the same self depreciating love for gardening too! It's horrid seeing it all die in the end haha.

Naw, the stems are all chewed off on the potatoes, the plants were eighteen inches high and the next day they were all about eight inches high and all leaves were gone out of the garden. I have grown potatoes for over twenty five years here, not really a lot, but enough to get about ten pounds of baby potatoes I go out and dig around this time and later and then I get about fifty pounds of potatoes at harvest. Lots of potato farmers around here, but this time of year, the potatoes suck, they are dried out and sprouted already in the bag when you buy them. Plus the price is high from the middle of july to the end of August.....so I grow potatoes for that time when the price is high and the potatoes in the stores are all old potatoes. I talked to a guy at the gas station that buys them from a farmer and they are picking new potatoes now and should have some in next week. We only have some baby reds and baby yukon golds right now on the counter.

New potatoes do not have set skins so they don't bake well in the oven and you can't store them for very long but they sure are good. I used the last of our regular potatoes in stock last saturday, made a big pot of Kala Mojakka. My daughter and her husband came over and had some and took the rest home to eat. I ate two big bowls, that is enough...I have it about once a month. We have five big thermoses for hauling soup to the kids and their families. They are the stanley thermos pots. www.amazon.com...=sr_1_19_sspa?keywords=stanley+thermos&qid=1660273907&sr=8-19-spons&psc=1

a reply to: rickymouse

That's kinda weird tbh Ricky potato leaves are poisonous even to deers, munching through that much should've hurt.

Did a quick look and Colorado beetles came up but I figured they'd affect something else too and it IS your garden, you know a lot better than me stabbing in the dark.

Baby potatoes and BBQs... Something special about eating super fresh.

Not much rain this year so I'm kinda glad I didn't bother this season, I like the minimum effort approach.

originally posted by: RAY1990
a reply to: rickymouse

That's kinda weird tbh Ricky potato leaves are poisonous even to deers, munching through that much should've hurt.

Did a quick look and Colorado beetles came up but I figured they'd affect something else too and it IS your garden, you know a lot better than me stabbing in the dark.

Baby potatoes and BBQs... Something special about eating super fresh.

Not much rain this year so I'm kinda glad I didn't bother this season, I like the minimum effort approach.

They are supposed to be poisonous to deer, but we have been feeding potatoes to the deer at our house for like ten years, we cut them and throw them out when the deer come to the back patio door. It is about five generations now that have been eating potatoes and I guess they must have adapted to be able to eat the plants now too. Most of the deer came back every year after the deep snow left, they would leave in late december to late January and return with a baby bump every year. They never used to eat the potato plants and there is plenty of other food growing everywhere for them to eat, why they went after our potatoes I don't know. I never ever used to have to fence in the potato plants or the tomato plants. They would nibble a bit but never wipe out all the plants like this year. The three does with their fawns are still out in the back yard and driveway, but this year we have not had them come in to beg at the back door which is unusual since they have been doing that for over twenty years here.

Maybe someone has been scaring them, maybe someone new here has been shooting them with a bow or gun and utilizing bait piles. But we feed them all year long except when they go to herd up for the winter about two miles away. When the snow gets about two feet deep, they are gone while they still can go. They are our friends and neighbors. The new neighbor does have two new dogs, maybe they got them spooked.

You cannot feed deer much bread, learned that from watching what happens years ago, they get really big bellies and too heavy and are not healthy, so we changed to carrots and potatoes and some homemade organic bread to feed them and they do not get that big stomach area and are lots healthier. They also like corn on the cob and of course freshly made cinnamon rolls and blueberry or raspberry pie. They will eat cooked meat and pasties but that makes them tear up the garbage bags around here and they will eat rotted food. The little fawns love fruit loops, shaking the box makes them come in full tilt when they know what they are. They can hear that shaking box for a long way.

The deer bed down close to the patio door usually. The doe used to leave the fawn right next to the garden too, which I caused it to panic one day and run off. Maybe the doe is still mad at me for scaring the little fawn and is eating the plants because of that.

a reply to: rickymouse

Thanks for that post!

Fascinating how they've adapted, you've got nightshade (tomatoes) in the garden and if they've never went for those I'd reason it isn't a confusion element. Potato plants do good for water but I vaguely remember a river or stream a few miles away you mentioned in a post many moons ago. Again stabbing in the dark but deer can be fickle creatures... Maybe they've lost some territory but the reasoning might not be all that bad? Idk.

I genuinely enjoy your stories you share with us mate, little bits of bliss and life that should have anyone positively envious! This one was lovely

originally posted by: RAY1990
a reply to: rickymouse

Thanks for that post!

Fascinating how they've adapted, you've got nightshade (tomatoes) in the garden and if they've never went for those I'd reason it isn't a confusion element. Potato plants do good for water but I vaguely remember a river or stream a few miles away you mentioned in a post many moons ago. Again stabbing in the dark but deer can be fickle creatures... Maybe they've lost some territory but the reasoning might not be all that bad? Idk.

I genuinely enjoy your stories you share with us mate, little bits of bliss and life that should have anyone positively envious! This one was lovely

Tomatoes have tomatine in them, a different plant defense chemistry than in the potato which is Solanine. I can eat potatoes all right but not tomatoes very often... The deer wouldn't have gained the ability to detox tomatine over generations from eating potatoes. I have no proof of this but it does sound like a logical hypothesis.

How many potatoes did I feed the deer a day? it started out at around two and the last two or three years they have been eating about six potatoes a day and have seemed healthy and always came back the next year with their little deer that seem like sugared up kids. The does will not let their young eat our food we throw them for the first summer, they seem to want them to learn to eat natural things at first, then when they munch on all the twigs and grasses for six months they start letting them eat what we throw out when they are there. I suppose they do not want them dependent on humans to survive because people are not that dependable and some bait deer for hunting season...I have never baited deer when I hunted, I think that is cheating. I also have not shot a small deer or one with less than four points....passed up a lot of deermeat, but it is a lot of work to process a deer, and it is not worth taking a small one. My biggest deer weighed about two hundred thirty pounds dressed out, and I got about a hundred thirty five pounds of almost boneless meat from it. I did keep the big T bone and porterhouse steaks with the bone in them though.

Shot about five deer in my life, and had a hunting license almost every year till 2002 when I got my epilepsy and figured hunting was not that safe for me to do anymore. Don't want to have a seizure from getting my heart pounding when I see a deer in the sights of the rifle. So I figured I would repay my debt and feed the deer.