Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Alfalfa pellets works wonders!!!, 1 by JLD_II

JLD_II wrote:
art n garden and all. If you have a good source for oxygenating you AP mix, it shouldn't ever get stagnant IMO. I haven't used this method on AP but its all the same principle. You can also add more molassis if you let it stew with a big airstone bubbling. That will increase the beneficial bacteria by the millions. "Paul the Garden Guy" had a lady on his show using a 55 gal. barrel and compost/cow manuer instead of AP. She had this neat aeration "gizmo" that hung on the side of the barrel. I wished I could find 1.
Thanks for the compliments on Grimaldi, it now has atleast 6-8 buds with their curly tips dangling and waiting for just 1 sunny day to explode. I know it will happen Saturday when I'm on the road along with so many Passiflora's, Dat'setc....the list is too long and painful to go into.

I automated all my flower beds with those mini sprinkler and drip systems I run on timers. I started doing this around 4-5 years ago. I was laid up from surgery and my wife was bored with the garden for a few days. Well if you skip 1/2 of a day watering here...lets just say itsa horrid site and should be punishable by law!!!LOL That little 2-3 day laziness cost me a few hundred $'s in plants and just ruined the looks of everything!!!I still get a little angry talking about that 1, she had a few dumb little hanging baskets dye and turned on the rest of the garden. GRRRRR! So now I have buried 1/2inch black poly tubing through every garden and where ever along that line you just poke a hole and stick in a dripper or sprinkler. They have so many different models out now its unreal. I even have 1 on the deck for vacations. Lowe's, home Depot and similar places carry them and I just can't say enough good stuff about them. If you have as many beds full of plants as we do, you'll need better timers that can turn on twice daily for whatever duration you choose and that keeps up with the different sprinkler/mister and drippers installed. In August, I would have to hand water twice daily and each time takes over 2.5 hours not to mention the 100+ F temps out. I LOVE THEM and now the wife knows she can't live without them either. My patio kit simply screws on to a hose end and I run 1/4inch lines to each pot with misters that are adjustable from 0 to 10 gallons per hour. Its the best thing since sliced bread IMO as long as you take the time to make sure nobody is getting to much or too little water. I didn't have time to dial it in before our last trip and ended up leaching all the nutrients out of many nice patio plants(Charles Grimaldi included! He's much more pale green right now than usual but rebounding nicely.) by over watering so much. I was shocked since I took all the saucer's from underneath all the pots and wa only running the water for 5 minutes per day!!! It must have rained MUCH MORE than my nieghbor told us(she was responsible for turning off all the water when it rained). I'll be installing rain sensor's to automate that as soon as I get home. The only downside is my water spigots on the side of the house look similar to an octopus!LOL. Try to picture 5 different hoses and 3 timer's to 1 spigot!LOL Just making that look decent took a year. My buddy just gave me a 6 station timer for a regular undergruound system so I can remove the other timers and install small selenoids underground that will turn each section of the system on and off whenever I wish. I can't wait to program just 1 timer rather than trying to hang and configure what I have now.
I use a combination of atleast 4-5 different companies parts for the sprinklers and misters. And i never follow their directions for hooking it all up except for the measurements of gallons per hour and what spray patterns I want. FINALLY! I just found X10 home automation products(while I was looking for links to post here on systems I use) that will allow me to program ALL my different areas from my desktop where I now have to use individual timers and deal with minor drips and space problems.WOOHOOO! I LOVE X10 products.
http://www.misterlandscaper.com/ I've been using a lot of this companies products since Accu-drip went out if business.
"Toro Blue stripe" is a take off of theirlarge sized underground systems, look under "Toro", Home Depot carries them and Lowe's carries the Mister Landscaper brand that I preffer. They have MUCH cheaper prices on the 1/2 poly pipe alone(by atleast 1/2), I haven't taken the time to compare prices with Toro products as they don't make hardly a fraction of the parts Mister does. It's going to seem exspensive at first BIGTIME when you begin making your system. I was lucky enough to find an entire display of accu-drip products(they had the best variety of parts bar none) as they were clearing it all from their stores. I saved a few hundred ther easily. But if you pay attn. to the water savings( since you only water exactly what you want to water with the precise amount of water needed) and then try to put a price on your time spent hand watering daily(which used to be a blast until our gardens spread to all 4 corner's of a 3/4 acre yard.). Now I just get a cup of java and walk around WATCHING the beds being watered as I get a good look at all our plant's condition etc.. Not to mention dragging around 2 sections of hose at 200 ft. per hose atleast. Man 200+ feet of hose full of water being dragged around makes me believe that the wieght of water per gallon has gotten much heavier IMO or the gravitational pull on a garden hose when full has been altered. I think that ever since we had the planet Venus align with the sun and earth, it has effected the wieght of water, fertilizer and all other gardening stuff to increase in it"s density or something since it's now much heavier than before! LMBO Anyone have the info to back up my theory? I know it's out there somewhere and surely at the age of 35....I'm just entirely too cool and fit for anything this small to have any effect on me!LMBO As I peel back my shirt to show the giant "S" on my superhero disguise...Too bad the S isn't for superman, I'll have to settle for "Super Gimp" or the like.

I was going to post another brug or Dat but they need a little more time to bulk up. LOLOLL Well I'm obviously delirious so I gotta go before I get myself in trouble. Goodnight all.
JD
Below is another link for sprinkler systems and 1 of my Passiflora's(P. Caerulea) that is looking good considering our gloomy weather

http://www.wgldesigns.com/rain8.html?site=rain8sprinkler_sit...