Gardening Get-Together, Over A Beer, Seed Exchange?

[RobinsonGO]

Buenos Tardes a Todos,

The idea of a gardening talk/seed exchange/hydro chat had been brought up in a previous thread and wanted to bring this up again.

Ive had a backyard garden going for the past two years, some of which has been sold to the public and organic cafes in capital. Im curious if anyone who is also playing around with a rooftop garden or vegetable garden would like to meet up for a beer sometime later this week, 7:30pm and or later to chat and brainstorm. Im in the search for a number of Organic remedies to plant disease and interested in putting up a greenhouse/hoophouse for hydro or in the ground garden for this coming winter. Also just interested in your gardening ideas. If you have seeds which are difficult to find around here id be interested in a seed swap too! So, If anyone likes these thoughts and would be up for a beer and group garden talk in microcenter sometime after 7pm, let me know!

Salud

 

[Dublin2BuenosAires]

I dont have the slightest bit of experience!...but i would be glad to come along and understand what i could or could not grow on my balcony.

Will follow developments here

 

[PhilipDT]

I just want some more of those delicious orange cherry tomatoes.!

 

[RobinsonGO]

I just want some more of those delicious orange cherry tomatoes.!

I was planning on having kilos upon kilos for the summer until they got a fungus disease that is incurable organically. Sweet corn and pickles coming soon?

 

[medialuna989]

This sounds great! I´m not an experienced gardener, but have started a few veggies on the balcony. As for seeds to exchange, I can offer Thai basil, bush beans, jack-o-lantern, and Bird-eye chilis. Would be great to get hardier or cold weather veggies, I didn´t take into account the wind factor on the balcony when buying seeds.

 

[medialuna989]

Forgot to add- if people are interesting in going organic, I also have California red worms for compost bins (anyone we can provide a good home is welcome to a few). We started our bin 6 months ago and so far, so good.

 

[RobinsonGO]

Well, cool, I do have some baby cucumber seeds for sure and will have to dig through my seeds packs but i know i have other cold hardy seeds i could trade for maybe a few of those chili seeds. I would also be interested in some of those worms....I have big compost pile going already, full of worms but more wont hurt! Lets give this post a couple more days to see if we can find any other interested folks and will try to put this together for next week sometime.

salud

 

[EricLovesBA]

Spider mite question:

I have a small garden, and the tomatoes *were* doing great here, producing heavily, fragrant healthy plants growing like crazy. I am a novice gardener, and was not tending them well, as I later read I should have been pruning the bottom part and paying more attention. Long story short, spider mites got to them and went totally crazy before I even really knew what they were or what was going on. I started giving the plants a lot of attention, using a jet of water daily to clean the underside of the leaves, pruning the dead leaves, spritzing the underside of the leaves with a mixture of water, soap, and oil, but I really don't seem to be making any headway. It's kind of late in the season anyway, but the plants are all dying. There was a similar problem early in the year with a lemon tree, and I'm pretty sure that must have been spider mites too. We had to cut back most of the tree. The mites are orange colored, and leaving a fine webbing on the bottom of the leaves. There are a number of reasons I have not used pesticides - Mainly I would really like to learn more organic gardening methods, and we have rabbits loose in the yard that conceivably could get into the garden. Definitely we can't use pesticides on our lemon or orange trees because the rabbits are all day eating the fallen leaves.

I was curious if anybody else has faced spider mites here, and might now of any other local tricks to beat them? Next year I might try some things I read about - i.e., planting early blooming flowers to attract predator insects, planting garlic nearby to repel the mites. In the US you can buy various predator insects, does anybody know of a vendor here?

 

[PhilipDT]

I was planning on having kilos upon kilos for the summer until they got a fungus disease that is incurable organically. Sweet corn and pickles coming soon?

American style pickles? Send me a pm when they're ready!

 

[RobinsonGO]

To Eric,

Welcome to my world. Youre in the same boat I am. For a novice gardener you know all the basic tricks. I havent had spider mites yet, but this is a similar problem i have run into with some of my organic veggies, which were supposed to be for sale this year... I have managed organic farms across the US for years and am used to working these old time tricks plus using commercially made organic remedies to spray on the plants, WHICH I CANT FIND HERE. I have gone to the organic fair in San Isidro and talked to some of the farmers there along with visiting an organic farm out in La Plata. There are very few organic farms, but there are a few and they are not using any commercially made products, FOR THE MOST PART, the one guy in San Isidro said he MAY have access to NEEM oil, which may be what both you and I are looking for but it was a friend of a friend who knew about it and the farmer didnt have the info to pass to me, and it was expensive. This is why i would like to start a group like I have mentioned above to put a few minds together try to find something. All i can say is keep doing what youre doing and keep a daily eye on the plants. If you find anyone that does have or sell Neem Oil, PLEASE let me know, and i will do the same.

To Phil, The baby cucumbers are done, they are great for pickling! How many kilos would u like?