Gardening

Having never owned a house or really had a yard of my own, I got pretty excited and decided to do some ad-hoc landscaping. Built some raised beds for vegetables, and just laying in some organic shaped in-ground beds for low water decorative plants. Gonna fill the rest in with gravel. Any pointers?

Do to a busy life (both good and bad stuff) I had a bit of a late start planting and sowing seeds indoors.

But today cut the grass (which was knee high 😅) and planted a courget plant. Some weeding in the beds (I did it weekly luckily) and looks much nicer.

Tomorrow or Monday the tomatoes and cucumbers will be planted. After that most seeds I have can be direct sow from now on.

Daikon goes boom. Pak choi is on the way up with it. Gotta solve my soil issues before I put these down. Speaking of soil issues, I probably gotta start over on my squash bed. Nothing looks too happy in there and instead of watching it die a slow death, I'm just gonna direct sow everything after I get some amendments in with it.

In the mean time, I'm just watching these guys revive some hope for a summer harvest

Both pots were started at the same time from the same batch of strawberry starts. They should have the same soil box. Both grew vigorously last spring/summer and got visited by deer in the fall. Both bounced back pretty well before winter set in. The left pot is very happy, the right... Not so much. I do recall the big pot having quite a bit of wilted leaf cover all winter, but don't think that was the case for the pot on the right. Maybe I didn't notice a late in the season deer visit that set the small pot back? Maybe the smaller pot got just enough colder than the big pot to kill some roots? Any other theories?

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I got sick a week and a half ago, so things got a little messy. We're back on schedule, tho. Kale has been the hero this season. Couple broccoli doing what I ask. Slugs got all my first round peppers, so on my back foot there.

Herbs need to be moved out into the sun and a new round of starts there. Tomatoes in the ground, started a bunch of tubers (daikon, french breakfast radish, and beets). All of my pak choi is ded, which makes me worry for the ten million carrots I have coming up. Started like, 30 pak choi to make up for it (get em young, cut em in half and roast em with salt and pepper, finish with Lao Gan Ma. One of my favorite veggies).

Garlic and onions coming along, taters growing, put down some corn and spinach yesterday. Been having hard luck with the spinach. Had an unidentified rodent living in that bed picking off my seedlings as they sprouted. Took the cover off and let the ferals deal with it, so here we are again on a fourth round of direct sow and I STILL AIN'T GOT NO SPINACH.

Oh, I put some watermelon down, too. Makes an awesome cover along my walkway and the ferals love to hide in it. Also, watermelons, I guess.

Squash arch is archin, but I worry about my soil out there. Same mix I used for the hugel and the new beds and I'm having problems. Shouldn't have rushed to get them done, but hey, that's my problem now.

Bleeding hearts, Solomon's seal, and lilacs

Additional info in comments.

Thanks for the advice, everyone! My legacy blueberry plant is going strong, and my sunshine one isn’t far behind! I can’t wait to pick them, how will I know when they’re ready? I imagine they’ll need to darken in color a little bit and shed the little brown flower petal bits, right?

Me I just got done mine, snow and rain made it a little too wet to do fully, but I dealt with it.

Once the snow is melted (I get a few chances during the winter at least) I’ll clean up all the land mines from the dog, I’ll then give it a light rake to clean up the leaves and some of the dead grass.

Once I’ve done a light rake I’ll run the lawn mower over it at the highest setting, then the lowest setting. I grab a leaf rake and give it a good rake, I used to power rake, looking at getting a detatcher machine/rake next year. I aerated with a manual tool last year so skipped this year.

Once it’s gotten a good deep rake I will then give it a blow with the leaf blower before mowing at the lowest setting to clean it all up. After that I overseed with some white clover (only started last year) and regular grass seed. Then give a her a soak, in three weeks I’ll follow up with a fertilizer.

Previous post for the reminder

And no still not planting outside for 2 more weeks likely. Look at those night time lows.

Grown from seed, 20 litre paint bucket for scale.

I had a customer come into my garden center today and ask for "those mini sweet peppers. you know, the ones grocery stores sell". I have no idea what those peppers are. I suggested a sweet pimento, but they wanted the grocery store was selling.

I linked to what I think the person was talking about.

1.3 yards to fill the entire 3’x40’ flower bed. Cedar mulch.

Saw a bunch of these crop up in our front yard and they look so delicate! I guess they came with the house and I hadn't noticed them before.

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Still needs a top up of compost/loam and mulch, but happy with the amount accomplished.

Started the peppers in March and tomatoes in April. They were getting too big for my grow light so I evicted them outside. Plenty warm in the cold frame in Massachusetts. !

Size of each bed is 4’x12’. All that’s missing is the 50/50 loam compost mix for the one. Other needs a tilling and the extension as well.

What’s your guys thoughts on a cold frame? I think it could be worth the investment, just for hardening off, but can they take some snow weight?

I’m going to move it lower to the ground in an effort to attract house finches. Otherwise the sparrows will take it and they are invasive.

I got a bunch of seeds from it. DM me your address and I’ll mail you a few for free. I’m happy to share

I’m wanting to make a new lid for next time using smaller net pots. These larger ones have been punching through the lid during growth.

I think I dropped seeds here many months ago.

Not the first time I see something growing that I don't recognise. I guess we have to settle for what the plants want instead of what I'd like to grow.

It seems the compost I used was more lively than anticipated. There's an earthworm crawling around in there. It's a decent 12 inch pot, but it's still effectively a limited environment. So I'm not sure if I should leave him in or take him out.

UPDATE: alright. I'll keep him in, cross my fingers, and hope I've pulled in enough of an ecosystem to both sustain him for his expected lifespan, and safely handle the subsequent death and decomposition.

It's going to be a while, but I have high hopes for this one. I transplanted it a few days ago into some augmented Mel's mix soil, and just kept it moist before bringing it in.

Looks like the compost had a few hitchhikers in it too. I'm tempted to leave them in for some extra green, depending on what they look like later.

Doing a crop walk for one of my clients this morning. Air was real still, goats were only a little bit desperate for grain. Good start to the day

2-4 centimeters my ass….

I didn’t take a before picture, just an in progress, but I took out the 4 year old mulch, never turned it before. So I ripped it all out, stripped out abount 3 inches of soil and put it in the garden bed. I then put 3 inches of a 50/50 loam compost blend and topped with 3 inches of cedar mulch.

\#Garten #gardening @gardening @garden

3. Urlaubsstation: Hobbykwekerij Lokhorst in Gieten

\- Leider keine Fotos -

Das ist ein Geheimtipp für alle Fuchsienfreunde. Es gibt dort weit mehr als 100 Fuchsienarten zu sehen. Im Sommer, wenn sie blühen, kann man sie sich ansehen und Stecklinge bestellen. Die dann auf Bestellung gezogenen Pflanzen kann man dann im folgenden März abholen (oder lässt sie sich zuschicken).

Eine kleine Hängefuchsie ist natürlich bei mir hängengeblieben. . . .

\#Garten #gardening @gardening @garden

2. Urlaubsstation: Keukenhof. War seit Jahren mein Wunsch, jetzt endlich. Neben den klassischen Tulpenbeeten, die man von jeder Reklame kennt, haben mir am besten die bunten Beete gemischter Zwiebelpflanzen gefallen.

\#Garten #gardening @gardening @garden

So - unser "Tulpenurlaub" ist vorbei, wir sind mit unserem 26PS E-Auto gut überall hin und wieder nach Hause gekommen.

Unsere 1. Station war der "Hortus Bulborum", Anlage einer gemeinnützigen Organisation, die sich der Erhaltung historischer Tulpenzwiebeln widmet. Um sie zu erhalten, müssen die Zwiebeln natürlich jedes Jahr wachsen und blühen . . .

Does anybody know if I can get the Timperley Early variety of rhubarb in the United States? I love rhubarb, and this variety seems to be one of the earliest growing. The problem is that I've only seen it for sale in the UK.

Me, I love my Lillie’s, especially these dark purple ones.

Unfortunately, it is user error. My watering timer got switched to day mode instead of 24 hours. So it would only work when it had the light to operate, so it always worked when I was in the room…

I started noticing small white flecks on my blackberry vines. Is this something to worry about? Mildew?

I have hard water, but doubt it’s mineral deposits.

The Spring colors in my bonsai garden are stunning. Come check out the Lemmy bonsai community for more content.