Gardening Thread 2012

What are you green thumbers up too? Post some pics or tell us what your plans are.

We have some peppers and tomatoes growing inside already. I was thinking I was going to get started outside soon but then it has been snowing again the last 2 days.

I have a few flats of seedlings started ranging from italian onions and tomatoes to zuchini and cucumbers. I also have a cold frame outside with some garlic getting started and spring greens.

I need to get my butt in gear and build our raised beds though, we've been averaging 50 degrees for 2 weeks now...

We've had our outside garden going for almost a month now.

I've already got producing tomatoes, several pepper types, egg plant, broccoli and brussel sprouts. The deer like the brussel sprout leaves but not the sprouts themselves.

I've also got a lot of different herbs. The spring and winter rains make this look like a good year.

Still got room for more.

I want to move out of our rental condo, so no garden this year.

Plus the stupid HOA busybodies were concerned this last year that I was using an existing flower bed for a garden. Now I don't have to be hassled.

I have to put up the fencing and get started. It's apparently time to start lettuce and some of the cooler weather spring plants, because the red leaf lettuce I had in last year came back by itself and there's already enough for a salad out there

Tearing out spotty yellow grass to put in river rock. That's my sort of gardening project!

We had such a mild winter that our box of spinach, chard, parsley and other leafies is still going. I found a head of lettuce that went rogue in the lawn, and a new crop of wild green onions in the yard that I'm going to try to cultivate. Seedlings are well on their way inside, and will probably go in the ground next week.

We put in a fourth bed last year, and we're adding space for a sizable trellis for beans and peas this year. Aside from some edible ornamentation and smaller individual planters for herbs, that will just about max out our space for beds/boxes without doing major work like removing trees.

Here's hoping this season improves on last year, which was horrid. It was WET for several weeks, then immediately HOT for the duration of the summer. Just a junk harvest over all around here.

We've got some tomatoes started inside and 2 of the 3 raised beds are stripped, tilled, and composted. Gotta rip the fruitless strawberry plants out of bed #3 and get it ready on Saturday. I think we'll plant on Saturday, too.

I think we're doing 3-4 types of peppers, cucumbers, some lettuces, a lot of spices, carrots, and snap peas. Gotta check the seed box for what SWMBO bought.

this seems to be the best place for this question ( other than starting a new thread)

what can I plant ( flowering bush type ) that will flourish under some black walnut trees ? .... either it's their shade that causes the problems or their "acid" or whatever that tries to kill everything that's anywhere near them

Wait until you see pics......

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: I want to move out of our rental condo, so no garden this year. Plus the stupid HOA busybodies were concerned this last year that I was using an existing flower bed for a garden. Now I don't have to be hassled.

Whoa..they don't mind the little flowery things, but if you grow food in the same space they get snippy?

We have tomatoes, and recently we ate a grapefruit from our own tree. Soon we'll have figs, too, but those usually get eaten by the squirrels and our dogs.

Here's a few plants that are tolerant of the toxicity of the black walnut. Good luck though, I have not had success getting anything to grow near mine. I would have it removed but it's not in the budget right now.

I have not done anything new in the garden this year, but we have hostas beginning to sprout up everywhere and the dogwoods and azaleas are in bloom in the area. So pretty.

Im still trying to keep my last two peach trees alive. Four or five years ago I planted 7 seeds and only 3 grew.

South Florida, eating fresh chilled Papaya from the yard as I type this. Cashews are flowering now, Mangos are already formed, Yuca, Plantain, and Bananas are year round. I need to plant some sugar cane soon.

Tomato's are in, double dug all the rest of the beds.

Pomegranate tree is going nuts this year. My heirloom artichokes died a terrible death by slugs. The hybrids are going strong.

No tobacco this year much to my disappointment.

My red plum is starting to come back from the dead, and we lost two big branches on the tangerine last week during the storms and 30+ winds.

My chard/kale/collards are looking nice and I have been cutting them back to for eating the last months or so. The cauliflower was good eating as well.

We had a warm week and all my dafodils came up and bloomed, and my tulips , irises and hyacynths started to grow. now we've had frost every night for two weeks and everything looks kinda dead. The veggie seeds are started a little harbor freight greenhouse shelf set and seem to e going along well.

Uhhh...yeah...the garden. Guess we gotta get started on that, huh? Need to pull off what's left of the plastic we laid down last year to stop the weeds. Then till and plant. Last year, we grew: two kids of lettuce, strawberries, blueberries, two kinds of tomato, green pepper, cucumber, squash, green bean, canteloupe, watermelon, broccoli. Probably a similar mix this year.

The wife and I bought some land recently...its gonna be a few years before we can afford to build. We planted some very small shrubs there though - the one gallon plants were less than $10 a piece, so we bought a bunch of full sun tolerant shrubs, about 30 or so, and plan to let em grow in relative peace on the property (I will stop by every day or 2 for the first year to water and make sure theyre doing ok). Hopefully, when the house is finished in about 3 or 4 years, those plants will be full size, I can transplant them to their final locations in the landscape, and we will have saved a few duckets on landscaping.

I am doing some slash and burn farming this summer. I have cleared brush near my cabin and burned it. I am planting radishes. onions and lettuce this weekend on the plot.

4cylndrfury wrote: The wife and I bought some land recently...its gonna be a few years before we can afford to build. We planted some very small shrubs there though - the one gallon plants were less than $10 a piece, so we bought a bunch of full sun tolerant shrubs, about 30 or so, and plan to let em grow in relative peace on the property (I will stop by every day or 2 for the first year to water and make sure theyre doing ok). Hopefully, when the house is finished in about 3 or 4 years, those plants will be full size, I can transplant them to their final locations in the landscape, and we will have saved a few duckets on landscaping.

We went with a lot of bulbs like tulips and dafodils. We got dead plants cheap/free from supermarkets and Home Depot. Cut off the dead plant, plant the bulb and voy-la new plants next spring.

I'm probably just trying to keep the garden as is - last year we grew a lot of tomatoes and herbs (well, and cucumbers but the bunnies got to those), but we're hoping to go house shopping this year and might move in the middle of gardening season.

Depending on where we end up I'm hoping to get a small greenhouse and start the planting season a little earlier.

My wife has a small garden, I don't mess with her garden. I stay out of it because I don't agree with her maintenance procedures. She's Korean and won't waste anything. Won't thin out rows when they get to thick, a waste in her mind. But it keeps her occupied and she's happy so I leave it alone. She has peppers, sesame, lettuce and usually one or two zucchini and cucumber plant. There a couple more things in her garden that I don't know what they are and she doesn't know the English name for them. Did you know if you left lettuce alone it will turn into a stalk? My wife picks leafs that are big enough to eat off the plant and leaves the plant, last all season that way but grows to a 3 ft stalk in the process.

Wally wrote: We went with a lot of bulbs like tulips and dafodils. We got dead plants cheap/free from supermarkets and Home Depot. Cut off the dead plant, plant the bulb and voy-la new plants next spring.

now that's grassroots!