Welcome to City Steading Plant Life, a gardening RU-vid Channel. I am your Hostess, Derica, and with the help of my co-host Brian, we will share with you our experiences with hydroponics, Food Forest Gardening, Raised Garden Beds, and Container Gardening. Our backyard gardens are in zone 10a, but we strive to share information that can be implemented across the globe! Whether your interests are Edibles, Natives, Tropicals and more, Plant Life has something to offer! No green thumb required. Thank you for watching and feel free to ask questions in the comment section of our videos. I will do my best to respond to you personally!
Mustard greens seem to really enjoy my environment. The combination of compost enriched soil, an automatic irrigation drip system and plenty of airflow seems to do the trick.
I'm eating a delicious pomo, buttery soft seeds, sweet and exquisite tasting. Spitting the seeds into a cup and hope to start germinate these in a couple days. Thanks for the warning about mold!
A much easier and faster method with a higher success rate is putting cuttings some 2 inches deep in water. Add a couple of drops of hydrogene peroxide to keep bacteria at bay, and optionally add a homeopathic dosis of fertilizer. No need to put a plastic bag, neither any kind of rooting hormone. Keep cuttings warm and in partial shade. Change water as soon as it starts to look somewhat cloudy (every 2 to 3 days). Most hybrids will start to form roots after some 14 days. The more difficult to root hybrids may need some 3 to 4 weeks. Once roots are about 2 to 3 inches long, they can be potted up in regular soil. In easier to root hybrids the success rate is close to or equal to 100%. And even difficult to root hybrids (especially very fancy ones with broken colors) will have success, which else would always fail if put directly in soil.
Love your channels, sadly I don’t give this as much attention as the brews but I did have a question about drying hibiscus to make tea. I have a huge midnight marvel hardy hibiscus and was curious if you can harvest this to make tea and if you have or could make a video to help me figure out harvesting?
I’m wanting to grow Bok Choi sprouts. (Soak, rinse, drain in a mason jar.) Guessing a few weeks. Not many seeds in a single packet for testing, but before I try or purchase a few ounces, do you have experience with which variety might be most successful? Thanks!
@@PlantLifeYT Ok thank you. Still a good vid on mustard tho. This year was my first attempt a growing mustard. I was wondering how to harvest seeds. now I know. Thanks.
Question: can I grow this in a pot with no holes, but with rocks as a draining system on the bottom? And I live in San Diego right now is September, how long can I grow a brand new cutting outside till it gets to cold? What is their temperature range, and favorite temperatures?
You should be able to grow hibiscus with a rock drainage system as long as you water properly and have the right sized pot. There are so many different varieties of hibiscus that it is difficult to answer the temperature range correctly. Tropical hibiscus prefer temperatures over 50F and thrive in zones 10-12. Hardy hibiscus grow in zones 4-9 and can tolerate cooler temperatures. Often they will grow back after dying off in the winter. Hibiscus syriacus (rose of Sharon) is the hardiest of all and can survive temperatures as low as -10F. Hibiscus can also be stressed by temperatures over 90F and may show yellow leaves. I hope this helps!
Hey there. In the southern hemisphere at 6000ft we have a 15-20°C daily temperature variation between sunrise and early afternoon during winter. So it seems bolting is unavoidable. In summer, the daily temp variation is seldom over 10°C, so do you think it might be possible to grow them in summer without them bolting?
I use sun shade cloth on my beds here in the SF East Bay Area when ever the temps are over 90 F. It has saved my plants. I also give extra water in the early AM at those temps. I fertilize every 2 weeks and I have had great harvests in spite of the heat. I still get blossom drop if the temps go over 100 F but the plants bounce right back as temps go down.
decades ago a freinds father built a shade house, he used a very porous shade cloth that was pure white, it took the sting out of our brutal aussie sun yet was "extremely" bright inside owing to the shade cloth being white, and the veggies grew like mad. i garden after dinner, its cool and the sun is down, i wear one of those headlights which has a red light , no insects fly to the light, im sure yellow would work too , insect repellant lights are yellow and they work well
Beauty Berry leaves are a natural mosquito repellent! The Seminole Indians them crushed them and rubbed the oils on every exposed skin surface. And it actually Works! With these caveats. 1. It doesn't last long. You have to keep rubbing them on. 2. I found it difficult to extract the oils to make a spray. Lots of recipes on the web. 3. They have tiny hairs that might irritate the skin. Anyway, I'm propagating multiple bushes along the pathway of my small homestead.
Hi thank you for your awesome sharing. Is there anything I can use / drip to replace the green bottle (“Fast Roots”) ? And following your method, do you meant we only check back the plants after 2 months to see if the roots are growing? Why do you prefer first planting in the soil vs the use of water? Thank Ü very much! 😊
The tips I’ve shared in the video such as adding root hormone and cutting at the leaf node area aid with fast roots. You can prep the cutting as I showed and place in a glass of water to observe root growth if you prefer. If you don’t have a spray bottle for watering, you can use any gentle watering method you like. The wait was to give the cutting plenty of time to develop roots. I hope I answered your questions. If you have more, I will try my best to help! Thank you for watching! 🤓
For inside plant care/planting, my ‘must have’ list of utensils includes chopsticks, a selection of paint brushes (the soft ones are also useful for pollination), scissors (big and tiny ones), an old fork, a squirt bottle, and a plastic tablecloth. If a planter doesn’t have holes, I’ll generally poke some in myself. Resin and plastic planters are temperature sensitive: they can melt. That means an old knitting needle or a metal bbq skewer that’s heated in a flame (careful, use gloves!) works really well to pole a few drainage holes through the bottom of a container.
I’m curious why you say this? Do you hate cilantro? Do you hate coriander (that is what the seeds are referred to here in the states). Or perhaps you have difficulty sprouting cilantro from seed? 🧐
great information. I live across Tampa Bay from you. Am thinking this Fall we will try two small raised garden beds for kale, zucchini and sweet potatoes in our front yard. Any ideas what can be grown in a side yard under two pine trees? There is some direct and filtered sun there.
Most of your leafy greens can do ok in partial shade as well as some root veg like carrots and beets. Many herbs should do alright there as well and may help keep pests away.
In SoCal, it's too hot for my tomatoes right now. :-( The Romas are all but dead, and the Sun Golds are barely producing. The only one that really seems to like the heat is the Lychee Tomato that I planted last year, and it's huge! I'm going to have to do some work on the garden boxes to be able to rig up sun screens that look decent (the boxes are in our front yard). I do have a crop of Nasturtiums that I planted 4 years ago, next to the garden boxes, and they come back all by themselves every Spring. This year, they were so prolific that they covered the garden boxes and grew through the neighbor's hedge!
I see a lot of posts saying I can remove the leaves and flowers from the cutting when potting, but I would like to do what is best for its growth. Is it best to remove them? And why?
@@PlantLifeYT thank you! I have now removed all the leaves including the baby leaves. I hope it wasn’t too late as I had already potted the sticks after they calloused over.
In your video you mention the milky white sap is how you know it’s ready to pot. They immediately release sap when you make your cutting so what indicates it’s ready? Do you mean when you no longer see sap? Or do you mean wait to remove the leaves and see if it releases sap? No sap=ready? Or sap=ready?
Actually, neither. Aged compost would be the best thing to add to dense soil for planting potatoes. It will not only enhance the soil’s texture but also enrich it. Make sure to mix it well as you want to avoid clumps of unmixed compost to come into direct contact with your seed potatoes.
@@PlantLifeYT My soil is rich enough and then some. I have no problems getting the potatoes to grow, it's reproducing other potatoes that's the problem. I live in arizona and I've been feeding my backyard tablescraps, dogpoop, and chicken poop for decades. Everyone I've talked to about the problem (including people at the gardening store) say that since nutrients, sun, and water are not the problem, it's the soil density (soil hardness), and I need something that puffs up like sponge.
The problem you are trying to address is the density of your soil. You want it to be more loamy. Perlite helps with drainage, so it will be helpful with moving moisture and nutrients through the soil if it is retaining too much water. Vermiculite aids in water retention so it will help it your soil drains too quickly. Compost, mulch, and leaf debris can help change the texture of your soil which sounds like what you are looking for as the material has larger pieces with a spongy texture that will reduce compaction of the soil. If you don’t have access to those things then perlite should be ok.
Perfect video for my problem. I just pulled up tomatoes with huge knots. I want to prep my soil for my fall garden and want to plant lettuce. I will be solarizing! Ty!!
A little voice inside my head was saying "ouch, ouch, ouch" while you were tapping the soil down on the veiled lady planter....lol. Great video D, always great info and the added bonus of the spooky pots which is always a plus.
That is an excellent question! I grow mine outdoors, so I have no personal experience. Researching the topic shows that most varieties (except yellow) self pollinate by a simple breeze or through various pollinators. I would imagine you could experiment with tapping the stem such as a method used with tomatoes or use a cotton swab to collect pollen and then apply it to the stigma. These are all guesses however.
