Back When I Was a Noob Gardener

Bob Bauer

January 17, 2017 (Last Updated: March 06, 2023) | Reading Time: 1 minutes

January 17, 2017

Back when I was a noob gardener I read that rabbit manure was an excellent soil amendment because it didn't need composting to be applied and wouldn't burn the plants. Off to the local rabbit rancher I went. Lo and behold under each rabbit cage was a big black pile of sticky muck. Apparently rabbit ranchers don't rake the pellets out to dry in the sun like all the ones I had ever seen in my life. Needless to say I left empty-handed..

I went out in the woods and raked leaves instead. Something I could get my hands into. Back then mulch and fertilizer were interchangeable concepts. Decaying mulch under decaying mulch under decaying mulch is trickle down fertilizer..

January 18, 2017

It's incredibly easy to start cuttings from your, or your neighbors plantings, by using rooting hormone. It's got magical properties that enable roots to grow out of the stems of plants. This is a good time of year to propagate because it's the dormant time of year. One rainy day in January I started about 20 juniper bushes by cutting the 6" tips off the branches, nipping off the side branches on the lower 3", dipping the whole 3"bottom into the rooting powder and planting them 3" into sand..

I used a pencil to poke the holes so the compound wouldn't get scraped off, watered them thoroughly and put them in the garden out of direct sunlight. Most of them took so the hardest part was finding 20 one gallon size pots to transplant them into..

January 19, 2017

It looks like there won't be any more freezing nights for awhile so I could go ahead and put my tray of starts in the greenhouse, but I don't want to. I like carrying them in and out because I get to watch them grow day by day. I wonder at why the broccoli and cauliflower are so sturdy !Ike trees but the lettuce wobbles when I walk. I have a whole spring garden in my hands and I think they like the warmth of the house at night..

Some habits form quickly, like my not putting lettuce on my sandwiches anymore. It's now a side dish like chips even though we have to buy it now. I've grown accustomed to it's cold, sweet crunch, and enjoy it as an entre..

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