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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 QueenSusanJ316 » May 06, 2010 4:55 pm

I was just curious what everyone's favorite plants. Mine are bleeding hearts, the Latin name escapes me. I am back to working at the greenhouse. I love it!!!!
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby wolfloversk » May 06, 2010 5:25 pm

Mine's the Venus flytrap, I had one once, but it died :(( :(( :(( (Bug infestation, Revenge of the Insects... dum dum dum dum!!!)
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby stargazer » May 06, 2010 5:44 pm

Nice pics, fantasia. I'm still amazed you're getting produce already (radishes). It's supposed to snow here tomorrow night, so the gardens are bit behind yours. ;))

Favorite plant? I don't know, there are so many choices. Garden-wise probably tomatoes. I like irises and lilacs for flowering plants. I also enjoy looking at all the wildflowers we have around here, that don't grow in gardens.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby johobbit » May 07, 2010 10:52 am

Man, I am so itching to move to the country so we can have a nice, biiiig garden again. But that might not be for another decade or so. *sniffs*

Lovely photos, fk! Like stargazer, though, I still am amazed you're getting produce already ... when it's heading down near freezing tonight here, with a chance of frost! :P

My little Brandywine tomato seeds are all planted, so hopefully we'll be seeing those tiny shoots in the next week or so. :D

I think I've posted some of my favourite plants here before, but ...
~hyacinth
~amaryllis
~wild flowers of any type
~hibiscus
~lilac
~snapdragons
~peony (I have a story about this one, below) :P

As for veggies, I especially love the scent of tomato leaves/plants. The taste too! ♥ And raw beans and peas straight from the garden are some of the best! As is much of the harvest. Mmmm ...

I bought a few clematis plants last year—very small. This spring I thought one wasn't going to make it, but sure enough, it has some fresh growth and the other two have numerous buds on them. They're so pretty in bloom. Example 1; Example 2. (These are not mine, but I'm surely hoping mine will look similar as they mature.) :)

Okay, now my sad peony story. One of my very good friends, Sandy, knew I had been wanting a peony bush for ages, and presented one to me on my birthday a few years ago. It was really prolific and seemed to almost double its growth annually. It was (note the past tense :() so beautiful. Last fall I let the leaves die, and boy, they look so forlorn and icky once they're frozen and brown. Anyway, I had forgotten to cut them down, and they looked like just a bunch of junk sitting there. Well, our son was outside tidying up the fall mess, when, without my knowing, my hubby asked him to get rid of that bunch of stuff in the corner (my peony!!! 'though he didn't realize it!). Well, sadly he complied, and even had to take a spade to it to dig it up: both of them could not figure out what would have taken root like that. They even broke a spade doing it! Don't you think they would have clued in? :-o :)) Anyway, it is kind of a sad story, but we bought another one this spring and will be planting it soon. *sigh* (I still haven't told Sandy. :p) And that's my very sad peony story. ;))
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby starkat » May 11, 2010 9:30 am

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

Postby Pattertwigs Pal » May 11, 2010 5:36 pm

johobbit wrote:Last fall I let the leaves die, and boy, they look so forlorn and icky once they're frozen and brown. Anyway, I had forgotten to cut them down, and they looked like just a bunch of junk sitting there. Well, our son was outside tidying up the fall mess, when, without my knowing, my hubby asked him to get rid of that bunch of stuff in the corner (my peony!!! 'though he didn't realize it!). Well, sadly he complied, and even had to take a spade to it to dig it up: both of them could not figure out what would have taken root like that. They even broke a spade doing it! Don't you think they would have clued in? :-o :)) Anyway, it is kind of a sad story, but we bought another one this spring and will be planting it soon. *sigh* (I still haven't told Sandy. :p) And that's my very sad peony story. ;))
That sounds like stuff that happens at our house. ;)) My dad's method of getting rid of weeds is to spray them. Unfortunately, he doesn't know the difference between a weed and a planet. He killed some of my mom's flowers, my pumpkin plant, and either he or the animals got to my strawberry plant. I don't have the best luck with my garden. I like to grow vegetables - cucumbers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and peppers. A lot of time I plant them in containers. The tomatoes never grow as big as the write ups describe. Last year my pepper planets grew very well but they put most of their energy into getting bigger and I got very few peppers. I had to pick them early because of the weather. (Stupid short growing season). My "cherry" tomatoes plant grew grape tomatoes. 8-| One year we kept finding a pepper plant pulled up and dragged a little ways. We kept replanting it but it didn't produce any peppers. My cucumbers don't grow very big either and are usually a little bitter. :p I suppose part of the problem could be that I only watered them about once a week. :ymblushing: I would forget about it until 11 or 12 and then it was too hot to water them. I also heard it isn't good to water them at night so then I would be out of luck until the next day.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby fantasia » May 11, 2010 7:49 pm

Pattertwigs Pal wrote:I would forget about it until 11 or 12 and then it was too hot to water them.
I'm convinced this is a myth as I have always watered my garden in the evening and have had great luck. ;)) (I'm sure I'd have better luck in the morning, but I never get up that early. ;) )

The last of my indoor plantlings destined to be planted outdoors started coming up today. Okra! (I actually really hate okra, but everybody else loves it soooo *shrug*)
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby johobbit » May 12, 2010 7:43 am

So, your dad has the same problem, eh, Pattertwigs Pal? ;))

I always water our gardens in the evenings (or mornings before the bright light hits them), avoiding, of course, the mid-day sun. I like the evenings, especially, as the cooler night air holds the moisture in the ground to throughout the next day.

Nice about the okra, fantasia! :) Mainly because I do like okra :p ... preferably fried.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby Pattertwigs Pal » May 31, 2010 2:26 pm

My mom and I got and planted a red pepper plant, a green pepper plant, a cucumber plant, and a Better Girl (I think that was the name :-\ ) tomato plant.
fantasia_kitty wrote:
Pattertwigs Pal wrote:I would forget about it until 11 or 12 and then it was too hot to water them.
I'm convinced this is a myth as I have always watered my garden in the evening and have had great luck. ;)) (I'm sure I'd have better luck in the morning, but I never get up that early. ;) )
johobbit wrote:I always water our gardens in the evenings (or mornings before the bright light hits them), avoiding, of course, the mid-day sun. I like the evenings, especially, as the cooler night air holds the moisture in the ground to throughout the next day.
Well, in that case I'll try watering them in the evening. I wasn't getting up earlier enough either, F_K. ;))
johobbit wrote:So, your dad has the same problem, eh, Pattertwigs Pal? ;))
Yep. He once announced to a group of people that he couldn't tell the difference between a flower and weed. Then, people kept stopping by when the saw my mom outside to show her the weeds. It drove her nuts. She can tell the difference.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby johobbit » May 31, 2010 5:31 pm

Ah, Pattertwigs Pal. Pity about your dad's flower versus weed issues. ;))

I had the most profitable day today planting flowers, some perennials, as well as annuals. Not being a warm weather person, something that helps me endure it is getting out in the gardens and planting, weeding, fertilizing, watering ... mmm, love it! :) Once I start planting, though, beware! I get on a roll and can be out there for hours until it's done. :p
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby wolfloversk » May 31, 2010 6:44 pm

We've started planting our gardens this weekend!

We've got tomatoes, green peppers, multiple kinds of pumpkin and squash, sunflowers, corn, watermelon, and herbs.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby QueenSusanJ316 » Jun 02, 2010 5:41 am

We have too Wolfloversk. We are planting tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, and yellow squash! :)
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby fantasia » Jun 15, 2010 12:20 pm

Every time I keep thinking that I'm done planting, people keep giving me stuff. :)) But the latest plants I've gotten I'm really excited about. :D My husband works with a guy from Vietnam and he gave my hubby some Korean Melons (I don't think that's the technical name for them, just what he calls them) and he likens them to a cantaloupe except they're about the size of my husband's closed fist.

He also gave us some hot pepper plants. Got those planted too so I'm very excited about them. Now I don't know how many of you have ever eaten at real Oriental restaurants before, but there's American hot and then there's rest of the world hot. So I'm expecting these to be near dynamite. Gonna have to find some recipes to use them in though.

In other news, we got our first zucchinis out of the garden this past weekend. They were quite tasty (for zucchinis ;)) ). This next weekend, I will probably be pulling some of the lettuce as it's huge now and replanting that. I'll also probably be replanting some radishes and they're mature and ready to be picked and eaten if that hasn't happened already. The tomatoes are looking unbelievably good and the Bush Early Girl will probably have tomatoes ready for picking/eating in a week or two.
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby Pattertwigs Pal » Jun 15, 2010 12:44 pm

My mom bought and planted a cherry tomato plant a little over a week ago, so our veggie garden is all planted. We don't have anything ready to be eaten yet but the plants are growing nicely and the two pepper plants each have a flower on them. It has been raining regularly since we planted so I haven't had to worry about watering. :D I helped my mom do a little weeding on Saturday. We had to remove some trees from our flower boxes. ;))
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby stargazer » Jun 15, 2010 8:25 pm

Zucchinis already? Wow. :)

This month has been extremely wet and generally cool - great for crops like lettuce and peas that bake once it gets too hot - but not so good for things like tomatoes (this year we're trying a couple of those 'topsy turvy' upside-down tomatoes. So far so good, given the cool conditions).

But everything - flowers, grass, weeds -are growing unbelievably fast right now, and it's green outside everywhere you look. But sooner or later summer will come. ;))
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Re: The thread for people who have Green Thumbs (Gardening)

Postby fantasia » Jun 16, 2010 7:21 am

stargazer wrote:this year we're trying a couple of those 'topsy turvy' upside-down tomatoes. So far so good, given the cool conditions

You must let me know how this works out! I've been very interested in them the past few years, but everyone I know that's tried them loses the tomato. And yet not only is the product still on the shelves it seems to be increasing in popularity. Which makes me think that the people I know that killed their tomato didn't know what they were doing. ;))

My husband thinks that the inherent problem with Topsy Turvy tomatoes is that the roots are more exposed to the heat of the sun if you don't hang it somewhere shady and keep it well watered.
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