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July 24, 2026, 10:22 am
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Just out in the backroom having a chew. The yard light is generally not on but a little light shines through the screen door. I noticed some motion up next to the screen door. It was an opossum sniffing around the door. I yelled scat and it took off. Maybe the opossum and the snake will have a chance meeting one of these days.
Made up that recipe using baking soda but used vegetable oil. Sprayed that on. The tomatoes and peppers knew what was happening and raised up their leaves so I could spray under them. They all gave a sigh of relief when I finished.
This container garden thing is like raising kids with all the care and attention they need.
Baking Soda/ Potassium Bicarbonate Fungus Control. Mix 4 teaspoons (about 1 rounded tablespoon) of baking soda and 1 tablespoon of horticultural oil into one gallon of water. Spray lightly on foliage of plants afflicted with black spot, powdery mildew, brown patch and other fungal diseases.
horticultural oil: What the hell is that?
There it is 
Went out and thinned the turnip patch. Came back in house and sat in back room having a chew of tobaccy and had a caterpillar crawling on my arm. Seen them before. About one half inch long, whitish in color with very small dark spots the length of it.
Guess I will need to start on bug control. Maybe this for starters. http://www.homedepot.com/p/Monterey-B-T-Bacillus-Thuringiensis-Pint-Concentrate-Outdoor-Organic-Insecticide-LG6332/206211430?&cm_mmc=Shopping|THD|B|0|B-BASE-D28O+Outdoor+Garden|&mid=pknp6xJN|dc_mtid_8903vry57826_pcrid_73254969630340_pkw__pmt__
Went out to look at the vegetables this morning to see how they were doing. One tomato had a lower leaf with brown spots on it. Nipped it off and threw it on the ground. Will need to go out and dispose of it properly.
Done some research on that dilemma. Guess I will need to start more extensive research on plant disease and what can be done about it. Did find an article about it and solutions to the problem. Will need to look further into Organocide remedies. Bookmarked a site where they have Organocide for sale. https://www.planetnatural.com/product/exel-lg-systemic-fungicide/
Going out now and finish thinning my turnip patch to about three inches apart. Thinned out some two days ago and added them to my green salad. Will not use any this time in the salad. They were o'k if you like the flavor. Used blue cheese dressing so that kicked up the flavor of the greens in the salad to a more palatable taste.
With all the problems produce growers go through to have a harvest able crop is mind boggling. I remember my father complaining about it. Then purchasers have a problem on the price they pay for food crops.
Read a couple articles today where worms in containers may not be needed and more trouble than they are worth. Soil potting mix is already porous enough to let water pass through and let in air circulation. Also the container mix may reach too high in temperature and too much water flooding through them when it rains for them to survive well.
An odd thought came to my mind. I was looking at these containers made of plastic in the garden centers which comes in different sizes. The ones I seen were all black ones. A dark color draws heat wicked bad. No wonder they dry out so fast.
Before next spring I may decide to white wash the outside of the containers to deflect sun rays when it hits the containers on hot SC days. The containers are now a reddish and gray color. I have read you can use those long stemmed thermometers they use for kitchen cooking use.
Gonna go in the yard and dig for earthworms. Try to find at least four for each container. Should reproduce with four in a box. Earthworms should aerate the potting mix real nice. Can not find worms I will go to a bait shop to get some.
Vegetables plants are still green. 
Had a decent rain last night. Potting mix is draining very nicely. It should seeing I cut enough 1/4 inch slots in the five inch wide boards I used for the bottom and sides. Want the potting mix moist, not flooded with water.
May go to Walmart at some point in time and purchase an electronic PH and water content meter which comes as one unit.
____________________
Update 3:25 PM
Tried digging for worms. Ground all rooty and hard. Guess I will fuggetabout that. Go to the bait shop.
I forgot to mention that I had two other containers that are twenty gallon plastic containers that I had filled with top soil dirt and set them on 2x4s under each container. I had squash in them also that turned into a disaster. While I was emptying them I got them empty and I picked them up to take and wash out. I picked up one of the 2x4s that were under the tub and a snake came scooting out about six inches long. It looked like a baby black racer. Scared the living hell out of me. That was Wednesday of last week.
A couple days after that I was sitting in the back room with a rear door overlooking the back yard having a chew of tobacco. I looked out and I seen a slender shadow moving about ten feet from the door. Opened the door and a snake about three or four feet long stopped and looked up at me. I moved outside the door and advanced toward the snake and it took off to the edge of the yard and disappeared. Looked like a black racer. Seen that snake quite awhile ago in the yard and looked up snakes in SC to identify it as a black racer as it travels likety split fast. Never seen a snake travel that fast before.
Must be the snake has made itself a home in the back yard under the deck or under the AC unit.
May reuse those containers as they are a nice size. Will save me the trouble of building two boxes. May use one for the parsnips filling it up with potting mix using the same procedure I used to to refill the wooden boxes. The other container I was thinking of using as a mulch bin. May decide to get one of those small bales of wheat straw at the garden center. Bust open the bale and shake some of it out on the ground and then take my mulcher mower and shred it up into tinier pieces. Put that in the plastic container as a starter for the compost added as time goes along. The container has a nice cover which I will drill holes in about one inch in diameter to let rain in.
I do not want to use grass clippings or leaves from the yard in the mulch bin as the yard has had nasty chemicals added over the years for bug control. The grass and leaves could take in this nasty crap which would contaminate the containers if I added it as compost to the containers.
I remember a long time ago that I had some yellow tomatoes. They are about the size of a baseball and were very tasty.
Been looking around different seed houses online on where I can purchase seeds not normally carried at the garden centers. There are very tasty vegetables available not normally carried at the food markets. So will grow my own.
Have the yellow tomato seeds on my list and also this one that I find very interesting as a compliment to cooking different things [lemon grass]
All About Lemongrass
https://www.thespruce.com/all-about-lemongrass-2216499
Update 11:54
Another thing I would like to grow is parsnips. I can get parsnips at the market but they are not as tasty as I remember them when I was a kid back on the farm. What we did back then was got them up to mature size just before fall time in NY. We left them in the ground and covered them with leaves to prevent the ground from freezing. It got cold enough under the leaves to turn the ground cold. Left them like that for a few weeks before the snows started. I was told when I was younger the cold reacted to the parsnips to make them sweeter and tastier. Delicious tasting that way.
May take one of the containers and grow some parsnips to full size before cold weather comes here in SC in January and February. The cold weather during those months should season the parsnips. Does not get cold enough here to freeze the ground during those two months. Occasionally sometimes below 32 degrees.
It was the 24X ascending order front pair this time. Repeat of the same number when placed ascending order.
09/12 M 942 __24X__--+
10/05 M 492 __24X__2X9
From the original post I made on Sept 17th I built a container 2 feet x 3 feet x 10 inches deep cutting in
enough slots for drainage and air flow. Lined the bottom and sides with burlap, Filled the first five inches with potting mix and the required amount of water storing crystals using formula per 5 gallons. Then I laid down a layer of untreated charcoal that were smashed down to about the size of a quarter or less. I would say about two quarts spread evenly across the mix. Then I finished of the balance of the container with the potting mix containing the amount of ironite needed and a few handful's of black cow blending all this together. Planted a one foot x two foot section with radishes. The radishes are up about two inches now doing well. Then another one foot section with bunching onion transplants I started from seed. The onions are touch and go on those. Onions are finicky little rascals on what they require. Do not know if they are worth the trouble when I can get bunching onions at the store for my salad for like $1.00 a bundle.
http://www.faa.gov.nl.ca/agrifoods/plants/pdf/onions.pdf.
The last one foot section some purple top turnips to see what they will do. planted them pretty thick as I only broadcast sown the seeds. Turnips are up about 1.5 inches and will thin them shortly. Will take the turnip thinnings and use them in a bowl of green salad. Should be nice and tender at that size.
Next I dumped the four 16 x 16 x 12" deep containers of garden dirt and washed them out. Took them to the garage and rebuilt them to 16 inches deep and cutting in drainage and air flow slots. I was doing some research on vegetable root system sizes and found that quite interesting on root sizes for different plants. Containers still may be a little small but that is the biggest I will go. [root systems: http://soilandhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/01aglibrary/010137veg.roots/010137toc.html Then I Lined the boxes with burlap, done ten inches of potting mix with water storing crystals, put a layer of charcoal, filled the last five inches with potting mix, ironite and black cow all blended together. Have two boxes with Rutgers tomatoes and two boxes of bell pepper in them already. Around the outside edge of each box I planted seeds of turnips, carrots, bunching onions and spinach to see how that pans out.
Now I have one seedling of the Siberian tomato up about one and a half inch, one zucchini and one yellow squash they are up about one inch. Will need to build a container for each one of those. See how they survive this time around.
Should have some radishes to harvest shortly if they do well. Must be about 50 or so plants in that one foot section.
It is progressing along. Transplanted some tomato and peppers in containers which I redone. At least they have not turned yellow or orange yet. Peppers are up about 4 or 5 inches and tomatoes up about 6 or 7 inches, at least they are still green . Better than my squash in the old container setup which turned to sh!t after reaching a height of about 5 inches.
Will do a full rundown tomorrow.
It is more of a hobby and challenge at this point.
OHHH, purchased five flower plants already started and put them in 10 inch 10 quart hanging containers for instant gratification. 
Hung them up about five feet above the deck. Got flowers on them too.
According to my tracking records ascending order the last time 09/17 when 0x6 hit ascending it hit as the 026 tracking ascending order.
The 0x6 tracking ascending order hit again tonight it hit as the 026 tracking ascending order again.
I have noticed this with some other numbers that have hit recently. Could be the front pair ascending, back pair ascending or in tonight's case the split pair ascending.
Maybe when I pick one of my ascending pairs ascending I should include the number that last hit with it.
09/17 E 620 0*6______
10/04 M 206 0*6______
Made some containers, purchased cheap soil at supply store along with black cow, lime and fertilizer pellets. mixed that together and put in my containers and put my plants in the containers.
I figured dirt is dirt as long as it had the correct nutrients in it. Not so with container gardening. Need to use potting soil. It is a special mix of this and that with fertilizer already in it for container growing.
Will be throwing away about 15 cubic feet of dirt. along with black cow mix and fertilizer.
You would think I would know better growing up on a vegetable farm. Guess I was not interested in it at the time. Plus I would be thinking of gardening at ground level. Stick the seed or plants in the ground and watch them grow.
Been doing a lot of research on container growing the last 7 weeks. Container sizes (Had those correct anyhow) Soil needed, watering, fertilizer, PH factor for each type of vegetable,
This past week I dumped the dirt I had in the cuke container 16x16x12 inches and lined the side and bottom with burlap then filled the container with potting mix with fertilizer to about 4 to 6 inches from the top and added a layer of small pieces of charcoal. I purchased natural charcoal and busted it up into small pieces. Then I finished filling container with potting soil. I watered that down good for the first soaking. In the mean time I screened some potting soil through a plastic container with 1/4 in holes drilled to use for seed starter mix. Seeds seem to have a difficult time pushing out of the ground with those little chunky nuggets they put in the potting mix. You can buy seed starter mix but I did not. Dug down about 1/1/2 inch and replanted my cuke seeds in the starter mix. I planted Bush Crop Cukes.
They claim burlap around and at bottom will prevent the plant from getting root bound.
Why charcoal? I was reading and watching you tube about bio-char. My theory is the layer of charcoal 4 to 6 inches down will absorb a lot of water before it leeches out of the container. Now my other thought is using containers require watering often which leeches out the fertilizer in the container. Charcoal is a filter that captures a lot of junk that passes through it. The fertilizer that leeches down from above the charcoal will be captured and stored in the charcoal. So when the plant roots get down to that lever the will enter the honeycomb crevices in the charcoal and have adequate water and fertilizer to draw from stored in the charcoal. Will see if that theory works out.
I have some tomatoes and regular bell pepper plants that I will be building containers for and putting in my burlap, potting mix and charcoal about 6 inches down.
The tomatoes go by the name of Siberian Tomatoes. need to plant those seeds yet. The Siberians are suppose to be cold weather hardy. Thought they would go good for the fall season which does not really get that cold until January of February. I also have some Rutgers about 3 inches tall ready to be set when the containers are done.
I had four boxes made, 2 for zucchini and 2 for yellow squash. They turned into a disaster with just dirt mix. They will be getting dumped and refilled with what I mentioned. Seed started 1 each of the squash. Will use the other two for tomatoes.
I have some leeks started also. Will need to build a box for those and fill it with the goodies.
Learn as I go, dump the failures and try again.