Gardening-flowers, food, weeds, etc.

[Rose]

We have a gardening topic in the models only section, but I thought I'd start a new one this year to see if anyone else has an interest in gardening or has some good tips/experience. Post pictures of your garden, tips on keeping plants alive, etc. :thumbleft:

I'm really good at getting a late start with my garden each year so I want to start early this year so I have plenty of time for planting/growing/blooming and don't end up jipped when the frosts start and my plants die with no blooms. This year I'm thinking of planting morning glories in the small grounded bed and petunias in my long hanging baskets since I have experience with both and have figured out how to not kill them. That still leaves me with a bunch of extra containers that need filling.

My zone is 6b according to: http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/# Suggestions for what could grow well in containers according to my zone? I'm looking to branch out and try something new this year if possible. In years past I've successfully grown blue balloon flowers (really liked these!), salvias (well, sort of successfully...), mums and curly fig.

 

[DoctorVen]

I have a green thumb, but I don't have the space in my apartment unfortunately. In the summer, I take big pots/planters and plant veggies and herbs in them and cover my balcony with as many can fit. It looks like a jungle! I get to satisfy my love for gardening AND grow tasty foodz. I'll have to find some pics later to share. At my mom's though, she has this one round garden and every year for Mother's day I buy her a different kind of lily to plant in it. It's now her lily garden and it's gorgeous.

 

[Rose]

@Ven mine is all mostly container stuff too, but our patio is just barely big enough that I have a small strip of dirt that's been built up to make the tiniest little raised bed. :lol: It's kind of pitiful but I like it.

 

[southsamurai]

honestly i used to kill everything i tried to grow other than MJ back in the day. but im just on the edge of the same zone as you and i've had incredible luck with morning glories, marigolds (my favorite flower ever) and surprisingly, crocuses. i let my dad and roomie handle the yard plants, i only do the porch containers, so i get to pick what we try and maintain them. im going to experiment this year with clematis in one of my pots and bougainvillea in another. probly going to failboat miserably and wish i had stuck to morning glories in those, but why not?
until a cat peed on the darn things i had african violets on the window sill outside that i would winter indoors. kept those going for nearly 5 years. i love cats, but wtf mr puss? wtf?
most of my other containers are small ones so i just rotate out with whatever someone in the family has seeds for, just for the pleasure of seeing something grow despite a fail rate of 50 percent with random plants.
ill check my little seed bank when i can get someone to dig in the shed for it and repost the ones that ive been able to reliably keep alive around here. im right on the edge of 6b and 7a zones.

 

[Rose]

Got my seeds ordered! This is what I ended up going with to get this year's garden started. Hopefully since I ordered them early, the weather will cooperate and I'll be able to get everything planted early so I can get some blooms going before kiddo gets here and my time ends up otherwise preoccupied. ray: :dance:

Moonflower "Night Bloomers" (Ipomoea alba)

Morning Glory "Flying Saucers Mixture" (Ipomoea tricolor)

Sage "Sapphire Blue" (Salvia farinacea)

Oh and I still have no clue what to do about the containers. Depending on how mobile I am come middle of March, I'll probably see if I can convince my mother to make a trip to Lowe's with me to scout out flowers on sale.

 

[southsamurai]

ooo containers! i've only got two store bought ones myself... the two big corner pots i use for climbing plants like my morning glories. the rest are all re-purposed or improvised. heck with a few spare pieces of wood and some nails or screws you can make a decent container of about any size. if youve got a better selection of tools you can even make them pretty. just line the sides with some form of plastic to keep it from rotting rapidly or leeching anything into the soil. i like do do the same thing on the bottom too, then drill my drainage holes. a small layer of stones or old broken terra cotta pots on the bottom helps that a lot too.

i even used an old hookah as a flower pot once. its broken now, but just sawing the top off with my dremel gave plenty of access for small plants. cool as heck to see marigolds blooming out of the top of a grateful dead bear head lol.

 

[Rose]

My pots are already to go I just need to figure what to put in them. I actually really like my container pot system because I can move them around to catch the sun and change up the way my patio looks.

 

[WildFingers]

My garden is well very cold right now.

Roses, tomatoes, pansies, peony, Hydrangeas zucchini and herbs would be the usual garden fare.

 

[Rose]

The weather report says it's finally warm enough to plant my seeds! Well, I probably won't be able to myself since I can't get out of bed at the moment, but I can get them sprouting and ready for BJ to plant for me. I'm so excited! :dance:

Hopefully Monday I'll be able to start the soaking so they'll be ready to plant by Wednesday and if I'm lucky I'll get sprouts by the 25th or thereabouts. Now I just need the trees and landscaping around my apartment building to start blooming so it will feel like spring. Blue skies aren't nearly as fun without all the green things blooming.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

For people that live in apartments. This guy has a few posts on youtube where he's built vertical gardening systems. And he's done a few from totes that automatically water the plants.

http://youtu.be/ugc71yhAfV0

I can post some of his others if anyone's interested. He shows in detail how to make that system.

And then I thought I'd share this link for the gardeners out there. I live in the middle of a Mennonite area. Lot's of farmers and commercial greenhouse owners. So one of them decided to start selling the seeds and equipment. HUGE operation now. People come from 5 states away just to get their supplies. They've been doing a lot of work on the web page lately and I think it finally has everything they offer on location. One of the main things i love about this company is they tell you if the seeds are treated or untreated (genetically modified). The owner hates the genetically modified stuff. He still sells it just to offer a large selection, but he has probably the largest selection of untreated seeds you will find anywhere.

https://www.morgancountyseeds.com/store/index.php

It's funny, the physical location is on his own property on a dirt road well off the paved road way out in the middle of the farm country. He's one of the non-car driving Mennonites, still uses a horse and buggy for his own transportation. But if you talk to him they do over 5 million in sales by the end of March. :lol:

[Edit] Oh, I forgot. Under the seeds section he's also got a rather large selection of organic seeds too for anyone interested in that route. All total he's got 2550 entries under seeds alone.

 

[Rose]

If you've got the know how, patience, time and appropriate space for an indoor vertical garden, those things are awesome! If our next place has the space for it, I'd like to try my hand at one of the 'self watering' vertical gardens. :dance:

http://offbeathome.com/tag/vertical-gardens
http://offbeathome.com/2012/06/hanging-jar-garden
http://offbeathome.com/2011/03/balcony-container-gardening
http://offbeathome.com/2012/04/window-hydroponics-garden

 

[southsamurai]

i've got my fingers, toes and testicles crossed for luck! just started my indoor herbs. with any luck ill have them germinated by the end of the week! then again, knowing me ill have a pile of mouldy compost by then lol

 

[AllisonWilder]

I have nothing useful to add here (I don't have a green thumb), but I just wanted to say how amusing it is to me that a thread called 'Gardening-flowers, food, weeds, etc.' was started by someone named Rose. :lol:



Sorry, I'm really not as funny as I think I am.

 

[Rose]

I have nothing useful to add here (I don't have a green thumb), but I just wanted to say how amusing it is to me that a thread called 'Gardening-flowers, food, weeds, etc.' was started by someone named Rose. :lol:



Sorry, I'm really not as funny as I think I am.

Hey! I'd say I named myself aptly. :lol: Gardening is the only part of the 'Southern Woman' thing I've got down pat.

 

[Rose]

Since all my seeds died in the stupid snow 2 weeks ago, I "planted" some new flowers. :lol: Hopefully come the 15th or so we'll finally get some warmer weather and I can plant a new batch of seeds that won't get murdered under 3" of snow.

 

[emptiedglass]

Wanted for murder...

 

[southsamurai]

i was right. mouldy compost... 4 times now

 

[LucyLegz]

I have a little space at my apartment that my landlord lets me use for a garden.
Each year, I do at least tomatoes. Last year it was tomatoes, green peppers, and Jalapenos. (I was craving salsa lol)

This year, I want to keep it simple again with these, but one of my co-workers at the office told me about growing zucchini, but it grows like a bush.?? I love to have tons these if they really do have zucchini bush. :lol:
But she also mentioned she ordered a blueberry planter bush.. and I am totally going to get one of these too. I have a little patio area that I can probably get away with it. But... the rabbits. In my neighborhood.. UGH..

I did see last year a neat idea somewhere about an herbal garden just put in a hanging shoe rack and hung up outside with the plants inside the shoe hole thingys. It doesn't take up room at all and if the sun is right it should grow well I think.. I don't remember where I saw it. But I might give that a try too.

Also I am hoping I can start early this year too.. if it ever stays warm here..

 

[Rose]

i was right. mouldy compost... 4 times now

Yea I had a nice layer of icky gunk on top of my raised bed from the snow and dead leaves. :? The smell was......well I think either Sadie or one of the neighbor dogs was also peeing on it, so the smell was really bad. I'm trying to think of an earth friendly way to dissipate the smell it's so noxious.....

 

[JerryBoBerry]

I have a little space at my apartment that my landlord lets me use for a garden.
Each year, I do at least tomatoes. Last year it was tomatoes, green peppers, and Jalapenos. (I was craving salsa lol)

This year, I want to keep it simple again with these, but one of my co-workers at the office told me about growing zucchini, but it grows like a bush.?? I love to have tons these if they really do have zucchini bush. :lol:
But she also mentioned she ordered a blueberry planter bush.. and I am totally going to get one of these too. I have a little patio area that I can probably get away with it. But... the rabbits. In my neighborhood.. UGH..

I did see last year a neat idea somewhere about an herbal garden just put in a hanging shoe rack and hung up outside with the plants inside the shoe hole thingys. It doesn't take up room at all and if the sun is right it should grow well I think.. I don't remember where I saw it. But I might give that a try too.

Also I am hoping I can start early this year too.. if it ever stays warm here..

Have you ever looked into Square Foot Gardening? It would be PERFECT for your situation. Basically all you do is mark out a 4'X4' area and then subdivide that into smaller squares as needed. So you could have up to 16 different one foot squares inside that or 8 one foot squares and two 4 foot squares. Lot's of variations.

Then in each little area you plant a different crop. The beauty of this is instead of planting veggies in a row and then having all that walk space in between rows wasted you cram them down into one small area that wastes no space.
Take carrots for example. recommended to plant a carrot 3 inches apart. Say you plant 16 carrots in the traditional row (just example) then you move over a couple feet for a new row. Those carrots are now taking up 12 square feet of your garden. With this technique you can get that same amount in 1 square foot.

Then if you want more 4'X4' big squares you plan those one foot away from each other to leave room for a walk path in between so you can get to all sides of your big square. I'll post pics after this (tons of em) that will clear it all up.

The advantage to this is you can get, on average, around ten to twelve times more produce in the same space. You use less water since you're not just watering dirt paths. Less fertilizer. Less weeding since the plants themselves crowd out the weeds, and you line your walk paths with newspaper so nothing can grow there. A great system all around.

And for added space savings plan vertically wherever you can. Beans and peas for example. Buy those both in the pole varieties instead of bush. Then plant those on the North side of the northern most square (so it doesn't block light for other plants) and build a super simple trellis system. That can be done simply by pounding in two stakes and tying netting to them for the plants to grow up.

I started doing that in my garden years ago, mostly because I'm lazy and didn't like weeding. But you would really benefit from it having a small space like you mentioned. Even if you don't plant more variety you could still get more produce of what you do plant.

Here's a ton of pics that give you ideas and spacings. And there's a lot more on the net and books too. Oh, and it doesn't have to be raised garden like a lot of these pictures. It's just mostly what I could find pics off google images.

 

[Brad]

Love growing stuff. We have a dozen or so rose bushes, 3 lilacs, a cup plant, and a bunch of Lillis and hollyhocks, plus we usually grow a few different veggies. We live in a cold climate so we always start any new plants indoors first. In fact it is time for us to do that now. You can buy the easy to use mini greenhouse kits at the box stores and they work well for us. Then you don't have to worry about a fluke frost or cold snap.

 

[Rose]

Started a new batch of morning glory seeds germinating last night since my sapphire sage salvias have been sprouting despite the crazy weather and me mostly ignoring them. I've decided to leave the morning glory seeds in the water to soak for a tad bit longer to see if that gives them better chances this time around. They all had the beginnings of shoots last time before I planted them so I know they're not duds, it's just the crazy weather.

Here's hoping they work this time and I get beautiful, different colors of morning glories by the end of the season. :dance:

 

[SoTxBob]

Been planted a lil over a month now... still left is the big raised bed which I will leave and not plant for another few weeks to have some later crop. got plenty of wildflower seeds and bluebonnets that are also scattered within the beds for a little extra bee buddy attraction.
Lets see, so far in the beds;

tomatoes
strawberries
red potatoes
Sweet potatoes
horseradish
onions
cucumbers
corn
black eyed peas
green beans
yellow squash

the leafy bed...
several types of lettuce
spinach
jalapenos
serranos
bell peppers

In the herb bed.....
dill
chives
cilantro
basil
lavender
oregano
rosemary

I'm also thinking about throwing some melon seeds out by the compost pile.
They seem to volunteer over there anyway.

My only PITA with gardening are the dogs. I had to post each corner and use roll fence around each bed to keep the dogs from digging holes and using them for sleeping.
:-D

 

[Rose]

Counted 10 BIG morning glory sprouts this morning. :dance: Woo!

Yesterday the dogs and I 'planted' some wire baskets (the kind you would normally use for a hanging basket but they look like cool cages upside down on the ground and are awesome at keeping Sammy from trying to dig or Sadie from peeing in the dirt) in the bed so that as the morning glories start getting bigger they have something to vine around and hang onto. It looks really neat and I can't wait until they start getting big enough for me to get some decent pictures.

The salvia sprouts are still hanging in there despite the birds trying to eat them and pull out the mesh stuff from inside the baskets. Surprisingly they're getting pretty big and there's huge clusters of them in each of the hanging baskets.

None of the evening blooming morning glories survived sadly and it doesn't look like any of the wild flowers did either, but both the regular blue and the pinwheel morning glories are going strong. :dance: Here's hoping we have a couple more rainy days and no more cold ones so they have better odds.

I'm tempted to add some humming bird feeders and a couple of wind chimes this year, but I haven't had an opportunity to get to the store. As for the rest of my empty container pots, I've finally decided to go with (for sure) petunias in the new blue and pink short ports, (most likely) mums in the two beige pots and (most likely) gerbera daisies in the new blue and pink tall pots.

 

[Rose]

This year's garden. I can now say it is complete. :dance:

Well, I may see if I can add some tomatoes to the tomato planters and a pot of lavender for my table to the left, but that won't be until sometime near the end of May. For now everything is good to go.

In the hanging baskets: salvia sprouts.
In the raised-ish bed on the ground: pinwheel morning glories, blue morning glories and *possibly* wildflowers (they may just be weeds, I haven't verified yet.)
In the pots on the ground from left to right: gerbera daisies, white and multi colored petunias, african daisies (I think, I forgot what the card said and my brain is fuzzy from a nap right now), more white and multi colored petunias, more gerbera daisies and *possibly* blue balloon flower sprouts (I'm still trying to verify that these are sprouts from last year's plant.)

 

[Rose]

Things are coming along nicely this year. I have several tomatoes that are fruiting and all of my flowers are doing well.

 

[Anonymous]

My first cactus sprout happened! It's echinocereus but I don't remember which species.

I'M EXCIIIIITE

 

[Rose]

My first cactus sprout happened! It's echinocereus but I don't remember which species.

I'M EXCIIIIITE

Picture?

 

[Anonymous]

My first cactus sprout happened! It's echinocereus but I don't remember which species.

I'M EXCIIIIITE

Picture?

Sorry, totally didn't see this until now!
Meet my cactus named "God I hope it lives"

 

[Rose]

My first cactus sprout happened! It's echinocereus but I don't remember which species.

I'M EXCIIIIITE

Picture?

Sorry, totally didn't see this until now!
Meet my cactus named "God I hope it lives"

Lol! That's what I've named several of my plants.