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The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby DiGoRyKiRkE » May 24, 2016 5:32 pm

Almost all of my sod has been removed in my garden.

Today I visited my local garden centre, and made the following purchases:
-Lemon Verbena
-Catnip
-English Lavender
-Brandywine Tomato Plant
-Roma Tomato Plant
-3 Green Pepper Plants
-3 Italian Roasting Peppers

I honestly have no idea what to do with the verbena and lavender, but they smelled amazing. The catnip was basically an impulse ;)). But those three things actually went into the ground tonight.

I need to buy some onion-sets tomorrow, and I'll get those in the ground tomorrow afternoon. The goal for tomorrow is also to get the rest of the sod up, and potentially get the seeds in the ground for the carrots, sprouts and spinach.

I also need to get the flowerbeds taken care of. If I can get the weeding done this week, that'd be awesome. . . that'll leave next week for planting.

Ugh, it's hard when it's just me.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby fantasia » May 25, 2016 5:39 am

Gardening is hard work, but it sounds like yours is shaping up nicely DiGs! :D

We have had SO MUCH RAIN!!!! I haven't been able to do much gardening at all. We shouldn't have any more rain today, but after 2.5" of rain overnight last night i don't think I'll be able to get out there today. Just too mucky.

Other than that, my garden looks great. Up to this point i've managed to keep the weeds in check this year, though that will turn around rapidly if I can't get out there (we're expecting rain all week, today being the exception). Oh, and a rabbit ate one of my peppers. X( It's still alive, but set way back.

I need to get out and take some pictures while it looks nice.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby DiGoRyKiRkE » May 25, 2016 11:50 am

I've got all of my things in the ground! I'll post some pictures on facebook tonight, but as almost everything is buried underground, it's kind of pointless for everything except for seeing the layout.

I ended up with the following:
Lemon Verbena
English Lavender
Catnip
Three rows (four feet) of green onions
Four rows (four feet) of carrots
Two rows (four feet) of sprouts
Four rows (four feet) of spinach
One roma tomato
One Brandywine tomato
Three Green Bell Peppers
Three Italian Roaster Peppers

That leaves me with approximately 8' x 4' for some pole beans for Mom.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby johobbit » May 28, 2016 4:29 am

DiGs wrote:Almost all of my sod has been removed in my garden.

That is hard work! But somehow satisfying too, as one works in the garden to prepare it. :)

fantasia wrote:Gardening is hard work, but it sounds like yours is shaping up nicely DiGs! :D

Indeed! :D No doubt you will enjoy a bountiful harvest, DiGs, yum-plus!

Eager to see some pics from you both when you can. But !!!, fantasia, for all your rain!

We will definitely not get a veggie garden in this year, but are hoping to dig it up this autumn in anticipation of planting next spring. :D But, as usual, I 'had' to have tomato plants, so have planted 2 Brandywines and 4 Cherry tomatoes. Plus some parsley.

Other than that, I have put in a bunch of annuals (geraniums, begonias, dusty miller, fuschia, coleus) and also planted more perennials (lupine, hosta, lily-of-the-valley, and dianthus—which, apparently, can be a perennial too). It obviously takes a while to establish a perennial garden, so ours looks very young still, but that's okay ... they're started! :D And we didn't lose a single perennial that we planted last year, so yay! Each plant is flourishing, 'though small-ish yet. Beautiful!

We have not had rain since well over a week ago (the poor farmers, who just planted a few weeks back), so everything is exceedingly dry. I get out there and water often twice a day (early morning and evening) in this hot and humid weather, but I love doing that. It gives me a concentrated chance to see how each individual plant is faring.

Looks like we'll be having corn growing behind us this year. The past couple of years have been soy, which surprised everyone last year when corn didn't go in (assuming the common alternating method).
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby DiGoRyKiRkE » May 28, 2016 2:03 pm

Dianthus is definitely a perennial here in Ohio, Jo. It's one of Mom's favourites (but I'm not a huge fan)

I walked out to my garden today, just to make sure that there weren't a TON of cicadas in there, and to my shock and awe, the sprouts are up! I thought they were weeds at first, but then I thought "Hmm. . . . these weeds are growing a bit too regularly in a straight line." So excited that they're growing so quickly as I have a ton of seeds (70 grams total ;)) )
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby johobbit » May 28, 2016 2:13 pm

Interesting about dianthus. I guess different varieties fall into either the perennial or annual category. I've just been learning about them in the past year or so, and really like them.

Yay for the sprouts that are up! :D Weeds in a straight line ... lol!

I forgot to mention above that I planted a lot of zinnia seeds—some 6" and some 30 - 36". Too bad they won't be fully grown for the Moot; they're going to be so pretty and colourful. And I just noticed today that the first teensie hint of green has risen above the soil for both rows of zinnias, so yay!
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby DiGoRyKiRkE » Jun 01, 2016 3:20 pm

Let us pause for a moment of silence. . . . .

We are here to note the passing of the following:
-My roma tomato plant
-A large branch of the brandywine tomato plant
-Most of one of my Italian roasters

The culprit has yet to be identified, but the characteristic "crunch" patterns, and hoof-prints in the dirt seem to indicate a particularly criminal cervid.

X(
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby fantasia » Jun 01, 2016 3:50 pm

There's a decent possibility that those tomatoes will actually come back and still produce this season if left alone. Tomatoes are super tough plants. I remember once time I accidentally broke one off at the ground, and not only did the rooted part come back, sticking the top part made it re-root so I got two tomato plants for the price of one. :))

That's really annoying though. i had a rabbit almost complete eat my green bell pepper this spring. It's coming back, but I don't know if it'll recover enough to put on any peppers.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby wolfloversk » Jul 05, 2016 10:04 am

The deer have completely demolished my garden. :P

They uprooted and ate all my brandywine and beefsteak tomatoes, my spinach (fortunately I think most of this will grow back if given the chance), my lettuce (one's coming back), my cosmos, and one pepper plant. Something's also been nibbling my beans, radish, dill, and parsley.

My pumpkins and my cucumber don't seem to be doing well... they're leaves keep turning brown :(

At least my red pride tomatoes are still alive (they're still in pots and I bring them in the house at night) I have three tomatoes growing on them. I also have 3 strawberries growing on my potted quinault, and a few tiny little ones on my wild strawberry plants. Last week Walmart finally had more strawberry plants and I had no money to invest in any XD My luck. Oh well, as I told Astro, I have the rest of my life to work on my strawberry plant collection. For right now, I'm just focusing on saving what I can from the deer.

I will never listen to Dad and put plants in the ground before it's fenced again. "They won't eat them til they're bigger!" he said. :P Yeah... I should have known better, but everything was out growing the pots... he still hasn't fenced it XD

I bought some Lilies of the Valley, Day lillies, and Irises last month. Unfortunately, I'm thinking I'll have to wait til next year until they flower. I also planted some sweet annie from a friend. I love the look and smell of the stuff XD
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby johobbit » Jul 05, 2016 10:24 am

*pauses for a few moments of silence for the plants that have been consumed by critters* :P Really sorry to hear that. :( But I'm kinda chuckling, too, at your dad's confident line, wolfy. Ah well, live and learn. :P :ymhug:

I have never planted lilies and want to start! They're so beautiful.

Our tomato plants won't be producing for awhile yet. In the meantime, we're enjoying local produce from our town market, which comes directly from the many farmers in the area. Delicious!

Our area badly needs rain—we haven't had a good downpour for over a month now. That good rainfall that was forecast towards the end of June sadly never came.

Have I mentioned we're going to dig up the space for our veggie garden, hopefully this autumn, in prep for next spring? Excited!
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby fantasia » Sep 06, 2016 6:27 am

I've barely posted in here this year sadly. But I do have a bumper crop of tasty tomatoes. I did make a very interesting discovery this year though. Due to starting my tomato plants so late, I bought two Juliet tomato plants, and then had two of my own from seed that I started. The ones from seed taste so much better than the ones I bought as plants. VERY interesting... so in the future I will be sure to start my plants from seed all the time.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby fantasia » Jan 30, 2017 4:20 pm

*pulls weeds and removes leaves from thread*

I must fully confess to being overzealous in starting pepper seeds, which I have already done this year. I started several of them last week with the help of my kiddos, which really was the reason why I have so many. :)) I haven't done tomatoes yet, I'll do those towards the end of February.

I don't even remember what all I started aside from my current favorite Big Bertha (a long green pepper that tastes like a green bell pepper, but actually produces peppers for me unlike the popular California Wonder). I think some Flavorburst, some Yummy Orange peppers (seriously, that's the name), some kind of freebie yellow pepper, Banana peppers for my m-i-l, and..... something else, but I don't know what.

My sister has a plot in a community garden this year as she and her husband are living in an apartment currently, so she'll take one or two peppers off of my hands, but I will have to find a lot of homes for the rest (unless I kill them all again :P ) or ship them up to my in-law's farm for them to deal with. :)) I will only keep one or two peppers here because that's all I will use.

But the big project this year that I'm not really looking forward to is restarting the herb garden. :( It's become too infested with bermuda grass which is killing everything and it's in the roots of my herbs. So I am going to dig what I can, and restart the rest in a potted herb garden.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby fantasia » Mar 01, 2017 4:01 pm

fantasia_kitty wrote:I must fully confess to being overzealous in starting pepper seeds, which I have already done this year. I started several of them last week with the help of my kiddos, which really was the reason why I have so many. :))

You know what? Planting that many paid off as the majority were old seeds and I had 9 plants come up. ;) And then my son noticed me weeding the other day and walked over and pulled all of my peppers. :)) Luckily I found them immediately, stuck them back into the soil, and all survived... sort of. There are a couple little peppers that seem to be struggling, but I only need one to survive. :P

Today, I started a lot of tomatoes. Same story as the peppers, but these seeds are a lot more recent, and as I always have better luck with those sprouting, I hope to have good success with those germinating and growing. :)

Anyone else gardening this year? (Yeah, yeah, it's March 1st and still winter in the northern hemisphere :P )
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby coracle » Mar 02, 2017 12:32 am

I have managed to plant a few edibles, but quite late, in the summer we have just about finished (in southern hemisphere). The cottage garden was put in early in 2015, and when I am not too lazy to tend it, is a delight to look at from the living rooms of the house.

Some short tomato plants are slowly producing fruit smaller than golf balls, the one bean plant that survived is now producing small numbers of edible beans, and the green vegetables are slow - one short row of broccoli and one of silver beet (NZ green that grows clumps of dark bubbly leaves up to 18 inches tall on thick white stalks), plus another two small rows of half-grown salad greens (mesclun etc) and a row of radishes that are nearly ready. There is also a short row of potato plants that grew where I grew some last summer - which may possibly produce useful potatoes.

Today I picked my 9 remaining pears - they are still hard but have some colour so I guessed they might be ready. Anyway, they can be cooked. Lots of smaller ones were picked off the ground as windfalls. The tree is only in its second summer, so I don't expect it to do much.
And the peach tree, also in its second summer, is down to only 2 peaches! I look forward to its being big and strong, and giving me 50 like the one I had at my old house.
I need to pick the small crop of cranberries, but I don't actually know what to do with them - can anyone give me advice (can I make a sauce?)
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby fantasia » Mar 04, 2017 12:25 pm

coracle wrote:The cottage garden was put in early in 2015, and when I am not too lazy to tend it, is a delight to look at from the living rooms of the house.
It is hard to get out there when it's incredibly hot. I usually do well in the spring, but once the summer hits, I'm done. :P :ymblushing:

:D for your fruit! I've never grown cranberries before, only seen the bogs in the Ocean Spray commercials (a juice drink here made from cranberries).
My mom has a good cranberry sauce recipe, and way deep in my mind it's really only boiled cranberries and sugar. There might be more to it than that. If you want, I can ask her about it. :)

I had to laugh because this week I had two more peppers randomly spring up. I only planted them a month ago. :P :)) They're supposed to be little munchie orange peppers. I know I've planted them before, but have no memory on how well they did.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby fantasia » Apr 01, 2017 7:26 pm

Last weekend, my family and I were outside getting ready to plant our potatoes and onions when it started raining...and then hailing...and at that point we called it quits and went inside without planting a thing. :P
The problem is that it's been sopping wet all week with a day or two break from the rain, but not enough to dry out our muddy mucky mess in the backyard.
This afternoon, bless his heart, my husband went out and planted the potatoes in the rain. :)) So those are in and started! Yay! ;))
I still need to get the onions in at some point, but I don't think those are quite as critical. ;))

I had to restart some of my tomatoes. I made the mistake of putting them out on a day when there was too much wind and it killed over half of them. The nice thing is that tomatoes grow quickly so there's still time to get those going before I actually put them in the garden. :)
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