Do you like to garden ?

[Schwallenstutter]

Unfortunately no, just never got into it.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

I ordered some rhubarb seeds on eBay, and they arrived today ! It is about to rain, so I went outside and cleaned up two of my planter pots from last year and planted some rhubarb seeds in both of them.
Once they come up, i will have to thin them out, but I am hoping to have at least a little bit of rhubarb before it gets too hot for them to grow or maybe , I can find a place where they can survive with a good enough mixture of sun and shade.

What i had read before , is that some people grow it as an annual plant here in the south, knowing it will die in the summer heat, but planting enough to harvest a spring crop. They would -have to buy new seeds each year, because the rhubarb plant will probably die before it goes to seed. My red raspberries are out near the fig tree, and that produces good shade in the summer, and if the rhubarb is near there, maybe the raspberries and fig tree can keep it from getting too much heat.

 

[Smithy]

I am in the middle of a wildlife pond I am hoping to finish today.

 

[Don Alaska]

We have a garage full of plants at the moment. The greenhouses are probably safe to put some of the plants into without heat, I am still laid up with this strange pain that has moved from my left foot and is now in my neck, making it very difficult to work with plants. Thankfully, my wife is doing much of the work I usually do.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

We have a garage full of plants at the moment. The greenhouses are probably safe to put some of the plants into without heat, I am still laid up with this strange pain that has moved from my left foot and is now in my neck, making it very difficult to work with plants. Thankfully, my wife is doing much of the work I usually do.

That is lasting a long time, @Don Alaska ! Hoping that it stops moving around soon and you start feeling better again.

 

[Schwallenstutter]

I am in the middle of a wildlife pond I am hoping to finish today.

Very cool!

 

[Don Alaska]

That is lasting a long time, @Don Alaska ! Hoping that it stops moving around soon and you start feeling better again.

Thanks, @Yvonne Smith. I figured the joint pain would end on Easter, but then it switched to neck pain that is as debilitating in some ways. Riding in a car can be very painful as it causes my head to move, and I am uncomfortable driving my truck now as I cannot turn my head well to look for traffic at intersections...much less work in the garden. I did get the snowblower off the tracotr finally, and put a blade on. I am worried I will have to put the tiller on before my neck pain stops..

 

[Yvonne Smith]

The blueberry plants are loaded with green berries this year ! It looks like we will be having berries from not only the raspberries and blackberries, but also lots of blueberries.
It is time to get the netting over the top of the Bettie’s to keep the birds and squirrels from munching them all up before we get any of them, so I just ordered another roll of the netting that we used last year and it will be here in a few days.
We have rain in the forecast for the next week, so unless we have non-rainy days, I will not be putting up the netting until we are done with the rain.

I ordered some rose food, and plan on putting some around the roses tonight before we start having rain tomorrow.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Last year, I grew some shiso perilla when the seeds came along with an aerogarden seed order. It is in the mint family, but also has a bit of basil and a hint of liquorice in the flavor. I didn’t use it much last year, but it can be used in stir fries and also as a wrap once the leaves are large enough for that.
I left some to go to seeds last fall and now I have a nice bunch of it coming up out in the little garden area.
I will probably thin it out and move some it to other places around the yard so that it can grow better. It looks similar to mint, but the ones I have are green on top and dark purple underneath the leaf.

 

[Don Alaska]

Finished tilling the second garden yesterday afternoon. It is raining now, so it was completed just in time. Potatoes are planted and we will move some stuff into holding in the little greenhouse today if it stops raining long enough. This is the earliest i have ever been able to till the garden, so maybe it means we will have a longer summer this year. Who knows?

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Gurneys has roses (and lots of other plants and seeds) on clearance, so I ordered a few roses. Even at half price, roses are expensive !
I ordered a packet of Savanna spinach mustard seeds to try. They are supposed to be a hardier green, and not as strong as mustard, but more flavor than plain spinach.

My grafting tape arrived, so this morning I cut a start of a dark red rose and tried grafting it onto a branch of the wild rose bush. I am pretty clumsy at doing this, but I am going to keep learning and trying until I get the hang of doing it properly. I feel like I need more hands and fingers, trying to hold it all together and get the tape wrapped around it at the same time !

Last year, I bought a peony start at Lowe’s, and ended up leaving it in a planter pot all winter and i thought it had died, but this morning it, I noticed a shoot about 5 inches tall, so I took it out of the pot and planted it in one of the little front gardens by the bird bath. If the birds are there a lot, it should get fertilizer.

 

[Don Alaska]

Gurneys has roses (and lots of other plants and seeds) on clearance, so I ordered a few roses. Even at half price, roses are expensive !
I ordered a packet of Savanna spinach mustard seeds to try. They are supposed to be a hardier green, and not as strong as mustard, but more flavor than plain spinach.

My grafting tape arrived, so this morning I cut a start of a dark red rose and tried grafting it onto a branch of the wild rose bush. I am pretty clumsy at doing this, but I am going to keep learning and trying until I get the hang of doing it properly. I feel like I need more hands and fingers, trying to hold it all together and get the tape wrapped around it at the same time !

Last year, I bought a people start at Lowe’s, and ended up leaving it in a planter pot all winter and i thought it had died, but this morning it, I noticed a shoot about 5 inches tall, so I took it out of the pot and planted it in one of the little front gardens by the bird bath. If the birds are there a lot, it should get fertilizer.

People start? Is that a typo or do such things exist? Gurney's doesn't ship to Alaska, so, while I used to buy a lot from them, I no longer can do so. I don't understand not shipping seeds but I can understand not shipping plants here. I do some grafting, but only apple trees. I tried tomatoes once, which is supposed to be easy, but I was unsuccessful and I have not tried it again. I have never attempted grafting roses, but I suspect it would be similar to tree grafting.

 

[Marie Mallory]

We have a garage full of plants at the moment. The greenhouses are probably safe to put some of the plants into without heat, I am still laid up with this strange pain that has moved from my left foot and is now in my neck, making it very difficult to work with plants. Thankfully, my wife is doing much of the work I usually do.

Hope whatever is going on with your foot heals. We haven't gardened since the hurricane, too much clean up from Helene going on.
Hope to get back to the garden this Fall.

 

[Marie Mallory]

The blueberry plants are loaded with green berries this year ! It looks like we will be having berries from not only the raspberries and blackberries, but also lots of blueberries.
It is time to get the netting over the top of the Bettie’s to keep the birds and squirrels from munching them all up before we get any of them, so I just ordered another roll of the netting that we used last year and it will be here in a few days.
We have rain in the forecast for the next week, so unless we have non-rainy days, I will not be putting up the netting until we are done with the rain.

I ordered some rose food, and plan on putting some around the roses tonight before we start having rain tomorrow.

Our blueberries have produced twice, we just fenced them off from the dogs, blackberries are really full, hope they mature soon.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

All of the new Gurney roses are showing tiny green leaves now, so it looks like they will be growing, and hopefully having some blooms before too long. The blueberry and black raspberry are almost done with making berries, but the blackberries should be getting ripe soon.
I have more blueberries that are later fruiting, and they are just starting to turn color from green to a pale pink blush on the berries, so another week or so before those will be ready to nibble on.
I have them all covered with netting to keep the birds and squirrels out of the berries.

Bobby said he saw tiny figs on the fig tree out back, too. No way to protect that from the squirrels unless Bobby sets up the sprayer that is motion-sensitive. That works great to scare any critters out of the fig tree ! Plus, it gives the fig tree a splash of water every time it turns on, so it is good all the way around.

My Shiso plants are growing really well, and that is even in the shade.

 

[Marie Mallory]

No planting here till Fall. We are getting the soil ready now though.
We do try to keep the lemon, pear and fig trees going, all are fruiting now.
Should be harvesting from them in next several weeks or so.
A couple years ago hubby put the composter between the lemon and fig tree. It has fed them both. I'll use the compost this Fall.

 

[Marie Mallory]

Our blueberries have produced twice, we just fenced them off from the dogs, blackberries are really full, hope they mature soon.

I think the blackberrys died of thirst. Blueberry's doing ok, not great but ok.
No rain here to speak of in a couple years, even the hurricane was mostly dry here.
We still use last year's lemons; we froze about 100 of them. They didn't mature and full of seeds but we still use them.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

I'm on a tiny lot, maybe 1/5th of an acre if I'm generous, and surrounded by very tall trees. When I moved in there was a decent little patch to putter in, but long ago stuff grew up on the neighbor's side of the fence and year by year the overhang stole most of the sunlight from that as well.

From looking down on Google, you'd barely know there was a house here. So gardening is very constrained, TV reception is barely possible aside from one fairly close transmission site, and playing around with portable "camping" solar panels means shuffling them around all day to catch some rays and by 5 PM it is pretty much over here.

All that considered, I also fight a constant battle with wild violet, ground ivy (Creeping Charlie) and dandelions invading from all around me. Add the sunlight woes, and having any kind of lawn means herbicides and fertilizers. We aren't permitted to let things "go natural" here, so pretty much everyone applies chemicals every other year or 1 out of 3. With more regular sunlight probably none of us would need that.

I have one apple tree but I don't spray for the "worms." Between that and the lawn chemicals... even in a good apple year I don't try to consume more than half a dozen apples from it in a season.

Enough whining. My situation just isn't conducive. At best I might raise some cherry 'maters in patio pots using potting soil but even those would only have good light maybe half the day.

 

[Don Alaska]

I'm on a tiny lot, maybe 1/5th of an acre if I'm generous, and surrounded by very tall trees. When I moved in there was a decent little patch to putter in, but long ago stuff grew up on the neighbor's side of the fence and year by year the overhang stole most of the sunlight from that as well.

From looking down on Google, you'd barely know there was a house here. So gardening is very constrained, TV reception is barely possible aside from one fairly close transmission site, and playing around with portable "camping" solar panels means shuffling them around all day to catch some rays and by 5 PM it is pretty much over here.

All that considered, I also fight a constant battle with wild violet, ground ivy (Creeping Charlie) and dandelions invading from all around me. Add the sunlight woes, and having any kind of lawn means herbicides and fertilizers. We aren't permitted to let things "go natural" here, so pretty much everyone applies chemicals every other year or 1 out of 3. With more regular sunlight probably none of us would need that.

I have one apple tree but I don't spray for the "worms." Between that and the lawn chemicals... even in a good apple year I don't try to consume more than half a dozen apples from it in a season.

Enough whining. My situation just isn't conducive. At best I might raise some cherry 'maters in patio pots using potting soil but even those would only have good light maybe half the day.

Sorry about your situation @Jacob Petersheim. I had and still have troubles with shade as we are in the forest. I always hated to cut down live trees, but fortunately we had goats that would kill the trees for me, after which I didn't feel so bad about cutting them down and using them for firewood.

You could develop an indoor garden with artificial lighting. It would enable you to grow herbs, lettuce, and many other things on a small scale that would bring freshness into your diet.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

You could develop an indoor garden with artificial lighting. It would enable you to grow herbs, lettuce, and many other things on a small scale that would bring freshness into your diet.

That's an idea.

I already spout seeds indoors. No light required except to green some of them up to finish.

There are probably things in the onion/garlic family that don't require full growth (to get large bulbs) as well.