New member

Hi all, I'm new to Dave's Garden. I have used this site for about six months and decided to sign up as a member. A little information: I am a novice to gardening, which I have been dabbling in for about 10 years. My location is southwestern NH. I finally finished inclosing and getting some heat into a little attached greenhouse that I have been building for the last several years. I have started three kinds of tomatoes, bell peppers, Swiss chard, and newzealand spinach, which were started about mid March. Also started some beets around the end of March, which I transplanted to a 5-gal pail so I can bring in on a cold night. It is a lot of fun to experiment to see what ideas work and which ones are duds. I also started some different kinds of lettuce, some are doing great and others are just barely holding on. On warm days I move the plants outside under a couple of hardwood trees for some sun and fresh air. This year I made all my little pots using one of those newspaper pot makers. Most all the plants seem to do good only I have to be careful not to over water them. The last several evenings after work I have been transplanting the tomatoes to coffee cans in a compost mix I make using some rotted leaves, peat moss, and composted manure from a nearby farm. Thanks for listening to me babble.

Welcome Bensen! The more the merrier! Lucky you to have a greenhouse. I make do with grow lites in the house and wintersowing. I think you will be very happy here on our forum as well as DG!

Hello Benson and welcome! It took me a while but eventually I found more and more ways to enjoy DG.
Dave
PS You sound like a pretty advanced novice!

Hello and Welcome to DG Bensen!! Sounds like you've been prettty busy! It's interesting to see what's tested and tried and what works and what don't, Babble on...It's always nice to learn from each other!

Hello from an expatriate NEer...if you are a novice, I'm in BIG trouble :) ...the folks here have been wonderfully supportive to a real newbie with a brown thumb!

pam

Another welcome to you, Bensen. I'm a new member of the group here, too. I like the idea of making starter pots from newspapers. When I run out of the pots I bought at a Tag Sale for pratically nothing - I may try that out.

Welcome, Benson. I'm originally from Manchester, NH.
I've read a few of your posts, it'll be nice to see more.
Andy P

Thanks for the welcome; I don't know if I'm replying to this thread correctly or not. If I'm not someone please let me know.
Anitabryk2: I too started with grow lights in a south-facing window. Then built a box using four old windows with a plywood bottom. I screwed some eye screws into this box at the top (one at each side). These would hook into hooks that I had screwed into the window casing on my house window. After this box was installed I removed the lower window from my house and started most of my plants there. When done I simply lifted this box off screws, reinstalled the house window and stored the box until next year.
Dave47: I still consider myself a novice as I am always learning and still make dumb mistakes. Gardening keeps me sane.
IRIS: Thanks for the welcome. Yes have been busy but as I transplant my seedlings to larger containers they don't need the constant care which gives me a little extra time.
phuggins: Thanks for the welcome. Believe me I also had a brown thumb when I first started.
AYankeeCat: Also thanks for the welcome. If you are thinking of making the newspaper pots look for the "Pot Maker" it is made of wood and has a round upper part that the strip of newspaper is wrapped around. Then the newspaper is folded under this same upper part and you press into another lower part that forms the bottom. Here are a few tips I have found. 1) I turned down the outside of the upper piece about an eight of an inch. 2) I set up a board with two measurement lines on it so I can just lay the edge of newspaper against one line then lay a straightedge on second set of lines and make a line with a pencil. 3) I cut along this line until an inch from the end then turn scissors to a 45 degree angle and make final snip. (This leaves a little flag at the end) 4) I flip the remaining newspaper over and make the next cut same way (with little flag at end) I usually cut two sheets of newspaper which will make 12 pots. 5) I dip the newspaper strip into a coffee can of water for a few seconds then wrap around the upper part, fold over the bottom and squeeze into bottom section. When pulled off fold the little flag over toward the inside of the pot and set aside to dry. Soaking with water will let the pots hold their shape and the folded over tab will keep the newspaper from unraveling. One other little trick I use is when wrapping the newspaper around upper part I stick a Popsicle stick between newspaper and upper wooden part. Once paper is wrapped around but before folding over and pressing bottom pull Popsicle stick out. (The reason for the Popsicle stick is to allow for a little room between the wet newspaper and the pot maker, as the wet paper tends to stick a little. It may sound like a big deal to make these but I like to recycle and usually have spare time in the middle of winter.
Sarahskeeper: Also thanks for the welcome. This is the first year I am keeping a journal as I usually just wrote things down on a piece of paper and put them where I new I could find them. Yes you guessed right. I could never find them again.

Bensen, Isn't gardening amazing that way? I've learned so much over the past 8 years and I still feel like a novice. What amazes me is the level of expertise in the forums on DG.

Dave47, yes I agree. What a wealth of information here. Every time I login I find something new.

I do a lot of joking and sharing in this forum. I love it for feeling at home. And there are some great gardeners here. But I am amazed by the knowledge of chemistry, botany , soil and specific plants (eg roses) I find in many forums.
Anyway, glad you're here!
Dave

Dave47, Just planted 5 rugose roses 2 days ago that I ordered from the State. They were part of a winter survival package for animals and birds. I guess they are kind of a wild rose but should fit in here as I live out of town and we always have wildlife in the back yard, deer, fox, turkeys, squirrels and birds. Two years ago we had a raccoon in the house. It knew its way around as it was coming in to eat the cat food. (We thought one of the cats was ripping a hole in the screen on the door) Herd a noise out in the laundry room one night and went to investigate and it just walked right past me and out the hole in the screen door.

I love rugosa roses. Very low maintenance plus now they have very interesting cultivars. I'm starting to plant more shrub roses and older roses that are also low maintenance.
Good luck.

Thanks, I planted them at the edge of my lawn, which has a southern exposure, and slopes down where the lawn ends but is fairly open. Off to the east are six spruce trees that I planted years ago about 15 feet apart in a little grouping. A few years ago I trimmed the entire lower branches up to 10 feet and we now have tons of birds that make their nests there. We call it the bird hotel. Figured the birds would enjoy these roses.

Dear Bensen,
Welcome! We make newspaper pots for ourselves and several children's gardening activities both with my Junior Horticulture kids at the Flower show in boston and with my garden club. For a mold we use a small tomato paste can {you can use a soup can if you need a bigger pot} and take a strip of newspaper from one fold section, that's one 4 page section and cut a strip about 2" longer than the can. When the kids do the cutting, we get different widths for certain. Then you fold the top edge over and roll the paper around the can. this makes about 6 layers of paper. We secure it with masking tape on the side. then, with the top, folded side down on the table, the kids will "smush" the end in and secure it with an X of tape. They pop the can out and you have a great pot. We have had 4-5 year olds able to handle this process and a 6 year old helping other kids to do it. For our purposes, we recommend that the planted up pot with the seed go into something like a yogurt container when it is placed on the windowsill at home. We do our activity in early March at the flower show and you can't always plant out a seedling that early here. So it can live in it's recycled paper and plastic pot combo until it can go outside. the kids have a blast and they can get their hands dirty. I could do over 400 or more pots with just the sunday Boston Globe and probably not use it all. Good to have you on board,
Martha

welcome Bensen, I am new here also. This seems like a very friendly and courteous
site. Have a good time here.

Thanks for the welcome guys, I used to use tape on my newspaper pots then discovered that if I dipped the paper in water first I didn't need anything else. I have some pots that have been in the greenhouse for three months and still going strong. Some of the ones where the seed didn't start I emptied out and re used. Wetting the newspaper makes it bond to itself, seems to work good for me. Oh, after I make them I set them aside to dry overnight and you wouldn't believe how strong they are.

I used that method, minus the tape, with some late spring sowed seeds outside [late wintersowing]. Worked well and I planted the whole thing. Works just as well as jiffy pots!

I started some radish seeds early in some and set them out in the flower bed in front of the greenhouse. They grew great.