Gardening

[Soccy]

Neive and I where having a discussion on the I Can thread, and I figured it was a pretty worthy topic.



So, fellow gardeners, what do you grow? Do you know any helpful tips and tricks? How well is your garden doing? Do you prefer veggie gardens or flower gardens? How long have you been gardening? How did you get into it?



So, I grow tomatoes, and have been doing so since I was little. But this yeah they aren't doing so well because of the tomato blight that is going around. :( Poor Antonio, Romano, and Sally. I still enjoy growing plants, and I have a few flowers planted around my yard that I don't really care for, but kinda count as part of my garden anyway since I planted them. I have two geraniums, and lots and lots marigolds, plus the odd tulip that shows up on it's own. I like vegie and flower gardens equally. I used to garden a lot when I was little, but I recently got back into it again. I got into it form my grandfather, who in turn got it from his grandma who lived on a farm and grew LOTS of plants.

[Leeny]

I garden. A lot. I was in the garden from 10:45 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. today.

My vegetable garden is actually on my neighbor's property. She lives five houses down from us and has a quarter of an acre garden. Of that, I get approximately 3/8. She gets 3/8 and her handyman (Chuck) gets 1/4. Picture of the garden (these were taken last spring):
http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn264/leenyatcharliebone/IMG_3942.jpg

http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn264/leenyatcharliebone/IMG_3949.jpg

http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn264/leenyatcharliebone/IMG_3950.jpg

This year, I planted:

4 cabbage plants
4 broccoli plants
2 rows of peas
4 rows of lettuce
2 rows of beans
8 rows of pumpkins
7 cucumber plants
150 onions
9 tomato plants
4 bell pepper plants
4 rows of corn

I have already harvested:
4 heads of broccoli
tons of lettuce

[nevermore]

I live in a small apartment with a patio slightly wider than my armspan. Suffice it to say, I don't have a lot of space. I also do not remotely have a green thumb. So I bought a large pot (10 gallons maybe?) and a window-box, and filled them with soil. Like a good girl, I started my sprouts indoors, and moved them out once they were stronger and healthier. I currently have:

Several varieties of lettuce
Three lavender (I really like the smell of it, I hear it repels insects, and I'd like to try making my own herbs de provence)
One thyme
One tomato

The lettuce is very good. I've grown enough to make two salads so far (yeah, not a lot, but it's still very nice to have lettuce from my own "garden" once in a while). The thyme is almost big enough for me to start using clippings in my cooking, and the lavender is taking its sweet time but is still plodding away at getting big and strong. The tomatoes currently have 10 flowers, and I'm waiting with bated breath for real, live, tomatoes to start growing. :o *squee*

[Soccy]

I garden. A lot. I was in the garden from 10:45 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. today.
:eek: I am thoroughly convinced you are a garden gnome. :p



Since my dad kinda cares about his lawn I don't have much space to plant things. I few flower beds that get increasingly over run every year, that I always tell myself I'm going to clean out next year, but never do. So I have a space by part of my sidewalk, and little bit by my house, and a pot to put some other flowers in. I had my tomatoes in a sandbox looking type thing that my Pappap built, that had a board dividing it into two triangles and one of them was filled with soil and had the tomatoes in it. I don't really have much to chose from.......

[Leeny]

My project for this September is to dig up all of my strawberry plants in the back yard and replant them in nice neat rows. Right now that corner of the garden looks terrible and there are weeds growing in between the plants that I can't reach to pull out.



I was curious, what varieties of tomatoes are you ladies growing?

[Soccy]

La Roma ("Romano"), Better Boy ("Antonio"), and Early Girl ("Sally"), I think is what they are.
Well it's something like that, I could check but I'm too lazy.:cool:

[nevermore]

The kind whose seeds were at the dollar store. :p

I'll go double-check...

Beefsteak... uh-oh... those things are going to get huge, aren't they? I hope they don't fall off and plop onto Mr. Downstairs' patio... :o

I'd love to get my hands on some heirlooms (http://wholefoodusa.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/heirloom-tomatoes.jpg)... not only are they delicious, but they're soooo pretty for dinner presentation...

[Leeny]

Not even kidding, I was just looking at heirloom seeds online. I really want to start my own heirloom seedlings indoors next year, but we really don't have a good window. :(

I'm growing:

two Supersweet 100 cherry tomatoes
one Early Girl
one Pineapple (it's an heirloom! :D)
one Oregon Spring
one Red Grape
one Stupice
one Delicious (I think that's what it's called)
and I can't remember what the last one is!


EDIT: Beefsteaks don't get that big and don't worry about them falling off, they'll stay on until you pick them! :) If you want your tomatoes to ripen quicker, leave the first ripe one on the vine. It emits a chemical that will make the other come on quicker. It's hard to sit there and leave a big juicy tomato on the vine, but it really works.

[nevermore]

That's good to know! I'm really looking forward to real tomatoes. Both of my grandpas are AMAZING gardeners. My grandpa on my dad's side grows the biggest roses, hydrangeas, and gardenias I've ever seen (and the smell! Oh my GOODNESS!) Along with tomatoes and oranges (ah california :o), and my grandpa on my mom's side likes to grow things you can eat--he has a fig tree with figs the size of baseballs (no joke. I look at figs in the grocery store and laugh), two lemon trees, a lime, and over the years has had apricots, peaches, and one giant plum tree in the middle of the backyard which grew plums that tasted sweeter than candy. It got infected by some beetle when I was about 12 and had to get cut down though. :( But in addition to all that fruit, he also grows cucumbers (and makes pickles!), zucchini, tomatoes, and a wide assortment of herbs. Let's just say they only buy produce from the grocery store when they feel like it. :D

Suffice it to say, once I moved to the desert (my grandpas both lived by the beach) and had to start eating grocery store tomatoes *glare* I decided I hated tomatoes. Then my grandpa on my dad's side moved to the desert too and kept growing his tomatoes, and the day I had a tomato fresh off his vine I was like "oh that's the problem. I don't hate tomatoes, just the crap from the grocery store!" So now that I've got my own place, I'm growing my own stuff in an effort to re-create that perfect produce I grew up with.

I dream of owning a big house with a big backyard where I'll grow EVERYTHING. I figure I'll practice now, because if I can develop enough of a green thumb to farm on a big-city apartment balcony, I can grow anything anywhere! Yay!

[Leeny]

Oh most definitely. It's a lot harder to over-water if you've got the plants in the ground rather than in a pot. So if you can master the right amount of water in a pot, growing in the ground will be a piece of cake. :)

[Soccy]

I don't like any tomatoes, even the home grown ones. I just grow tomatoes because I like to grow them (and I kinda like the was their leaves smell *blush*). Other people always eat the tomatoes, usually my sister. But sometimes my gramps cooks with 'em.

Beefsteak... uh-oh... those things are going to get huge, aren't they? I hope they don't fall off and plop onto Mr. Downstairs' patio... :o
that. made. me. laugh. so. hard.

[Leeny]

Their leaves do smell amazing. I sit and smell mine sometimes when I'm bored. The same with onions. Onion leaves smell amazing.

[Soccy]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes that scent! It's very..... comforting.
Can't say I've smelt onions leaves though.

[nevermore]

I sniffed my tomato leaves just the other day! :eek:

They didn't smell like anything though... maybe because I'm just a teensy bit sniffly from allergies?

[Soccy]

Probably, but you should try smelling it when your clear. It's a really hard scent to try to explain. Like fresh air mixed with a deep forest or something.

[nevermore]

They do smell nice! :eek:

Like... sweet... clean... niceness! I was looking for aphids (I'll have to spray the plant again but there's only a couple after my aphid-massacre the other day. *evil-lol*) and then I looked around to make sure no one was around who'd think I was crazy, stuck my nose in, and took a deep breath. You guys aren't crazy at all! It's a very lovely scent that's nothing at all like a tomato smells, but still very, very nice. :o

[Espionage]

For apartment dwellers, google Window Gardens. They look super cool, and I have 7 columns in each of my windows! They work really well for growing vegetables as well.

[nevermore]

I bought some chrysanthemums today (whoa. I spelled chrysanthemum on my first try! :eek: ) They were only $2 for a pot of them, and I was wanting some flowers for my balcony, and it says on the little tag that they need full sun, but for $2, we'll see what happens. Oh, not $2, as a matter of fact. Because in the change dispenser in the self-checkout lane, I found $5! I got paid to go buy chrysanthemums! Thank you good karma! :D

[Soccy]

IT WAS DESTINY! :D You were meant to have those chrysanthemums!!!

I wouldn't be surprised if they grew really well too!


On a side note: They really are prettiful flowers. One of my favorites, though I can't spell them at all. I feel like they need a nick name or something.....

[nevermore]

we'll call them "mummy dearest." :D

Bugs don't like chrysanthemums, do they? I wonder if scattering some petals around the soil in Tomato's pot will keep aphids away? :confused:

Either way, I bought bananas yesterday, and once they're done being neon green, I'll eat one and bury some peel bits.

[Leeny]

I don't know about mums keeping aphids away, but I found tons of ladybugs on the dill that is growing in the garden yesterday. You might consider planting some to attract the lady bugs.

[ZigZag]

My mom and I have an herb garden. It's difficult because my yard is really shady but I got a good patch that's mostly sunny. For those who love to cook there is absolutely no comparison between fresh and dried herbs.

[nevermore]

For sure! I meant to plant basil this season but never got around to it... same goes for dill, actually. Maybe I'll go buy a few plants the next time I see some on sale. I love fresh basil straight off the plant (I just munch the leaves) and fresh dill in tuna salad can't be beat.

Oh, I want a rosemary bush, too. I adore rosemary. :o

Tomato's not doing too well. The aphids really took over, so I buried some diced up banana peel, and that helped a little, but not enough, so last weekend I got serious, went to Home Depot, and bought a bottle of insecticidal soap (organic, I believe) which seems to have finally done the trick. Unfortunately, all the branches got infected and fell off, so poor Tomato currently looks like a forked stick with some flowers and budding leaves sticking off the sides. :( I've told him he's not allowed to die until he produces at least one Tomato. He's trying. Poor dear. Stupid aphids. :mad:

[Leeny]

How's Tomato doing Nev?

I've already had four delicious tomatoes off of my Oregon Spring plant. I've also have a ton of Supersweet 100's. The cucumbers and beans are coming out of my ears right about now. I don't know what to do with them all!

[nevermore]

*wails*

He's trying! He's really trying! It totally looks like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree (http://micahmcmillan.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/charlie-brown-tree.jpeg) right now, with one lone tomato hanging on the end of a branch, which has been growing and green for like, two weeks now, and is sloooooowly getting bigger, but is still nowhere near ripe. It's also got a brown divot in the side, like you see when you pick a tomato off the vine, except it's still attached to the vine, so I'm not sure if the brown spot is because of the aphid-fungus that attacked 75% of Tomato, or if it's some weird tomatoie thing that I've just never seen because I've never grown my own tomatoes. Any advice on that one? :confused:

I pulled up all of my lettuce because it was getting scruffy and wasn't looking very edible anymore, and planted a big basil plant that I bought on sale yesterday. I've also transplanted my "world's slowest Lavender" plants (they've been growing for like, two months now and still look like young sprouts), and my thyme plant (faring somewhat better because it's thyme and that's just what thyme does). The box where I grew my lettuce seems like it gets more sun than the base of the tomato planter does (Tomato's a light-hog), so I'm hoping the thyme and lavender will perk up now that they're not fighting for sunlight. I hope so, because I really want to be able to bake lavender cookies and make my own herbs de provence! :o

[Leeny]

Is the brown spot on Tomato on the bottom of the fruit? If so, it could be blossom end rot (http://www.gardeners.com/Blossom-End-Rot/5354,default,pg.html). There are products on the market that will prevent it, but I just put some powdered milk in the soil when I plant them. The tomato will still be edible, just cut the end off before you eat it.


What do you mean about the lettuce being "scruffy"? Lettuce leaves get very big (some of mine get bigger than my face) and, contrary to popular belief, will not form a head like cabbage does, but instead just keep growing more leaves. It remains edible until it gets hot outside (one amazing heat-tolerant variety is prizehead, I'm still picking it even though the other lettuce went bitter weeks ago.) or when it starts to go to seed. When it's starting to form blossoms, the lettuce will start to look cone-shaped, like this (http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1014/929775067_8a481644f3.jpg?v=0).

Lavender will take forever to grow. We planted a small plant three years ago, and it's only grown about an inch taller.

[nevermore]

Well, the lettuce I grew was beautiful and leafy and grew like a weed for the first two months, then as the summer got hotter it started to taper off and produce smaller and smaller leaves (following the interwebz's advice, rather than cutting the whole head like they do at the grocery store, I just trimmed the big, ripe leaves off the stem and into a bowl and called it salad). So as it got hotter, and the sun beat down longer, the leaves got smaller, they were starting to turn brown and flimsy along the edges long before they got to the big leafy beautiful stage (some of them were starting to flower, too, which made them bitter), while some of the other lettuce plants I grew never really got big and huge and never tasted very good anyway (too thick and bitter), so I just scrapped them all in order to focus on my herb garden, which I'd like to see better established anyway.

Oh, and Tomato's spot is actually up closer to the top, like it had two stems at one point. Very odd. I'll go take a picture of it later today if my description's not ringing any bells.

[Leeny]

I would bet you five bucks this is what it is. (http://www.gardeners.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Gardeners-Site/default/Page-Show?cid=5367&utm_term=PDD) It says it causes the tomato leaves to fall off, which usually doesn't happen when aphids are eating them. I really love gardeners.com (http://www.gardeners.com) when there's a veggie problem.

Yeah, okay, I get what you mean about the lettuce. If you decide to try it again next year, plant it early (I planted mine this year on the 24th of April) because as soon as it starts getting hot, the plants will start to get bitter. Different lettuce does taste different but the stuff in the stores has been picked for so long that it doesn't have much taste left at all. If you decide to try lettuce again next year, I would try prizehead, salad bowl, and some type of a butterhead (I planted buttercrunch this year, and it wasn't my favorite butterhead I've had).

[nevermore]

lol
I planted "salad greens" from the dollar store. :D



Shoot. I don't want blight! Blight sounds medieval! :(

*glances up at Tomato, who's leafy at the top and bare as bones at the bottom*





:(

Should I maybe just give him up for dead and try something less disease susceptible? I don't know how I can possibly give it sun yet keep the leaves dry living in such a rainy environment. :\

I like to grow things I can eat though... I just need something hardy and foolproof, because right now I'm still in the "fool" stage of gardening. :p And also, summer is nearly over here which means we're going to turn back into rainyville for the next ten months... wonder what I can grow during that time... Shoot shoot double shoot. I was even considering growing potatoes next, but not if they're blight susceptible, too. CURSE YOOOOU BLIIIIIIGHT!

What grows in the winter? Carrots? Turnips? Namely, what grows in the winter from a large pot? :p

[Leeny]

In the winter in a not-as-cold climate, you can do cold crops.

Cabbage, kale, broccoli, peas, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard will grow. You can try carrots, however, they will take a long time to grow in the cold.


EDIT: You can grow squash too, but you will need to plant it now, in order for it to winter.

[nevermore]

KALE! I love kale! That's my favorite vegetable! And chard, too! And come to think of it, a restaurant we ate at for my birthday (early march, so still on the tail end of winter) served kale and chard grown on site. I praised their greens so highly that the maitre d' genuinely tried to convince the chef to go get a cutting for me to take home and grow (and to his devastation found out that I had literally just eaten the last of that season's greens. lol)

Squash could also be very pretty because it goes all vine-like, right? I bet I could train it along the railing on my balcony... oh same for peas... *glee* this is just opening up a whole new realm of possibilities for me... I think I'll definitely try kale though, because I've heard that it's one of the hardiest plants out there...

Excellent! I'll be off to Home Depot this weekend to grab some kale, chard, and maybe even some kind of squash seeds... oh wait, now that I'm looking, it sounds like if I attempt to grow squash on a patio it'll completely cover all of my patio... drowning in squash doesn't sound too amusing... :\ Maybe I'll just stick with the kale then. :D

[Leeny]

Yeah, squash will trail and it can get out of hand, but you can just simply cut it down to size. I'm going to have to do that with mine because it's taking over the walkway.

[nevermore]

I'd LOVE to grow some kind of berry. Some of the neighbors in my area have what *appear* to be blackberry bushes that have taken over half the sidewalk, and I desperately want to eat them, but I'm not positive that they're blackberries and I really don't want to take that risk. Nor do I want to knock on a stranger's door and say "hi are those berries edible and if so can I have some?" because that seems on par with taking candy from strangers... :\

I saw blueberry plants in Costco about a year and a half ago, but I was nowhere near home while I was in that particular Costco, so I couldn't be buying blueberries and maintaining them while on my road trip. :( Now I am saddened. *sob*

But yes, I like to grow things I can eat. It seems much more gratifying than flowers (which I adore, so that's really quite a strange quirk of mine). Maybe I can grow violets and candy them...

[Qwill]

Neive and I where having a discussion on the I Can thread, and I figured it was a pretty worthy topic.



So, fellow gardeners, what do you grow? Do you know any helpful tips and tricks? How well is your garden doing? Do you prefer veggie gardens or flower gardens? How long have you been gardening? How did you get into it?



So, I grow tomatoes, and have been doing so since I was little. But this yeah they aren't doing so well because of the tomato blight that is going around. :( Poor Antonio, Romano, and Sally. I still enjoy growing plants, and I have a few flowers planted around my yard that I don't really care for, but kinda count as part of my garden anyway since I planted them. I have two geraniums, and lots and lots marigolds, plus the odd tulip that shows up on it's own. I like vegie and flower gardens equally. I used to garden a lot when I was little, but I recently got back into it again. I got into it form my grandfather, who in turn got it from his grandma who lived on a farm and grew LOTS of plants.

I used to grow some daisies, but, then we moved.
But I got some pumpkin seeds and I think I might grow them when the right season comes.

[nevermore]

NOM. I love pumpkin. I make some AMAZING pumpkin soup come wintertime. Actually, I and my mighty immersion blender means no squash is safe, so once autumn rolls around, pumpkin soup, acorn squash soup, butternut soup, etc etc etc are all very common things on my dinner table. Really, you'd be hard pressed to find something more delicious than pumpkin soup and bread fresh from the oven on a cold, rainy day. :o

[ZigZag]

Yum, pumpkin. Just the other night I made these incredible Pumpkin-Brown Butter muffins that are so good. They straddle the line between muffins and cupcakes but I call them muffins so I can trick myself into thinking that they are good for me.

[nevermore]

RECIPE!

*eager, hopeful stare*