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[jay-ell]

Update: mothballs keep squirrels away. I put a few moth balls in cut-off nylon stockings, tied them shut, and placed one in each of the larger containers. I haven't seen a squirrel on the deck since. I win.

Here's a photo of my garden this morning:



If you are hard-core enough to care about the individual plants, read on. Otherwise skip to the bottom picture:

The top level has thyme in the red pot and chives and green garlic in the yellow. The three-tiered thing in the back has strawberries, but it's a poorly designed pot and the strawberries in the white urns on the floor are doing much better.

The huge-leaved things in the translucent red bin are radishes; there were carrots and scallions in there too but the radishes completely took over. I planted a late variety by mistake -- I had expected them to be done by now so I could pull them to make room for the other stuff, but they're not done yet. I also have carrots and scallions in the large yellow bin toward the back -- what the squirrels didn't get -- so that's something. In this climate, I can sow carrots all summer long and harvest just about through Thanksgiving.

The lettuce is just about done; it was really flourishing and then we had a solid week of rain, and the pansies completely took over. Next year I will get an arrangement without flowers. I also lost the parsley I had grown from seed; I don't know what happened there, but I've decided not to bother with herbs from seed since I can buy them at maturity and grow them as perennials in this climate anyway. The white three-pot unit on the bottom near the front has the dead parsley and some nice mint and basil, but I think the mint is going to require a larger pot pretty soon.

Boyface brought home the marigold and the tomato plant from a field trip to the garden center, and I repotted them in yellow and red containers because the tomato was already rootbound and the wind kept blowing them over. The blueberries in the central red pot are still green; I can hardly wait for those.

I want to add more levels to balance the , unify the look of my containers a little better, and next year I'll plant all my strawberries together in a rectangular planter instead of dividing them among all those little pots.

Also, my first strawberry has turned red!

[Nabubrush]

That's sort of an odd-looking strawberry plant, to my Alaskan eyes. Ours were always smaller with more berries.

*Did you try a wrist-rocket against the squirrels, at all?

[jay-ell]

I dunno, I'm a noob at this. The plants aren't that big, actually -- they're in miniature urns, about 6" diameter. There's nothing for scale in the picture, but AFAIK they're normal-sized plants.

Mom ordered these plants off the teevee, and they're everbearing, so you get a handful of berries at a time for several weeks instead of one big burst in June. There are two more still-green berries on the side that don't show up very well in the picture. You can see the white flower on top, and there are three more blooms at the top from which the petals have already fallen. And I have three pots like this. The one berry that's red already is a fluke -- the rest are all within a week or so of each other in terms of development. It'll be another two weeks before I have enough to call it a harvest.

Still, it's exciting. My kids were literally jumping up and down on the deck when we went out to look at the plants this morning.

[Nabubrush]

Yeah, I just mean it looked like it might be running, like Ash said.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Good stuff.  We just got done putting up the deer net, actually BEFORE the deer show up to eat all the tomato plants, so we're ahead of the curve, there.

Lettuce is going crazy, swiss chard is about ready to harvest.  The radishes were a total waste of time.  And there's actually a couple of cherry tomatoes on that plant.

[jay-ell]

The CUNT plant needs more sun, they do that when the leaves are stretching for more sun space when bundled in such as a row.

IMHO, I am not a plant doctor, YMMV.

Oh, yes. That's quite likely. Honestly, though, they are in the best spot for sun in my whole yard. I can't do any better unless I want to go outside and move them around the yard every day to get them out of the shade. Too darn many trees in this 'hood.

I am thinking next year I am going to put them in a rectangular box and hang it like a window box over the side of the deck railing. It would un-bunch the plants a bit, at least.

I'm also going to get good, honest plants from my local garden center instead of taking something my Mom ordered off TV and then decided she didn't want. I don't think these plants (from what I read) are particularly well-suited to my space.

[jay-ell]

I'm not picking on your CUNT by the way, it is growing and fruitful so it's not like you've haven't kept it happy enough.

LOL

[jay-ell]

Oh, yes. That's quite likely. Honestly, though, they are in the best spot for sun in my whole yard. I can't do any better unless I want to go outside and move them around the yard every day to get them out of the shade. Too darn many trees in this 'hood.

I am thinking next year I am going to put them in a rectangular box and hang it like a window box over the side of the deck railing. It would un-bunch the plants a bit, at least.

I'm also going to get good, honest plants from my local garden center instead of taking something my Mom ordered off TV and then decided she didn't want. I don't think these plants (from what I read) are particularly well-suited to my space.

Hey, that's a good idea, I should do that.

So, I'm gearing up for the gardening season already. The luxuries of living in zone 7B. Some of my herbs died off over the winter because I was lazy about bringing them inside on cold nights and they got frosted. The mint and chives are going to be fine, but I lost the basil, the cilantro, and possibly the parsley (does parsley have a dormant phase?). So I bought a tabletop kit that includes parsley, oregano, chives, basil, and cilantro along with seed starting medium and a little stand that will actually work well as a dining room centerpiece until it gets warm enough to take outside. My dining table gets fairly good sun for an indoor location so I think they'll do alright, and I can transplant them to bigger pots if needed and re-use the tabletop stand next year.

The kids helped me sow the seeds this afternoon and I made a chart so that we can track how many days it takes for the different types of herbs to sprout and how fast they grow once they've appeared. Because what we need more of is Science.

I also sowed some lettuce seeds for an indoor start -- I'll move them outside in about three weeks after they've sprouted. The last two years I've bought pre-sprouted lettuce but it's like $12-$15 for a decent-sized bowl, so I thought I'd try growing it from seed this year. I'm re-using the bowl I bought lettuce in last year, with new potting medium of course. It seemed to have just the right amount of drainage and produced a good crop in a compact space.

It might be too early for lettuce but I figure if it dies I've got enough seeds to start a second crop while it's still cool. I loved having fresh salads all the time last spring, but it's too hot for lettuce in June, July and August around here. I bought my sugar snap pea seeds, too, but those will have to wait 'til early March because the container I use is too big to move indoors, especially with the trellis.

Oh, and I ordered another mushroom log to keep under my sink; I thought it maybe wasn't worth the $35 I spent last year but then I realized that I've bought mushrooms at $3 for 8 ounces four times in the last two weeks and had to throw away three of the packages because they went bad before I could use them. So $5/lb for the convenience, freshness and lack of waste is probably worth it.

[wombat]

Just interviewed a guy for an article on how climate change will affect gardening, and he says that we already ought to be getting off our asses and planting stuff like lettuce as early as possible, because the summer heat that kills off cool season crops is arriving earlier. And like you say, the worst thing that happens if you lose it to a frost is you plant it again. Seeds are cheap.

Also you know that if there is a late frost you don't have to move the container indoors - you can just cover the plants with a sheet or something. As long as it's not a hard freeze, that's good enough.

Parsley will survive the winter but it's a biennial - it goes to seed early in the second year so you can use it in the spring but then you'll have to plant more.

[jay-ell]

Yeah, I know you can just cover the plants (and I have done so with my larger containers) but this lettuce bowl and my herbs are so small that it's honestly easier just to move them.

My parsley was bought as a mature plant, so I'm betting it's not going to do much this year. Especially with the way the squirrels were digging at it all winter.

[Carlos del Vaca]

I've started gardening planning as well, though I feel less enthusiastic about it than in years past. Who knows, maybe it's just the winter blahs that I tend to get in spades. Hopefully once the weather warms up and I till the garden, I'll get fired up again.

I do a four-stage crop rotation, and this year the biggest plot is devoted to root vegetables. So there will be ample green onions, chives, carrots, parsnips, and radishes. Last year was my best year ever for carrots and parsnips, so I hope to keep up that momentum; they should actually be planted the end of this month. I planted a number of those in toilet paper tubes buried in the ground, which gave them dedicated space. My usual problem is that I plant too many seeds and then don't thin them properly.

I have never had good luck with full-size onions, either from seed or from onion sets. Maybe I'll try that again this year, as I'll have ample room for them.

Elsewhere: tomatoes, of course, hot peppers, lettuce, arugula, swiss chard, zukes, cukes, and okra. I grew okra for the first time last year and was very pleased with the results. The wife and kids don't really like it, so ten or so plants gave me just enough for me to use it occasionally. And the herbs in pots: basil, thyme, rosemary, sage, and mint.

[theinevitable]

We might be having a garden this year. My more veggie-eating roommates maintained the previous tenant's garden over last summer/fall and ate lots of yummy stuff from out there. But this year we'd have to do all the planting and everything. I am skeptical, but they claim it's gonna happen.

Every time I see this topic I imagine JL having a little setup in her basement with big lamps and some fun herbs. Relaxing hobby.

[AugustWest]

We might be having a garden this year. My more veggie-eating roommates maintained the previous tenant's garden over last summer/fall and ate lots of yummy stuff from out there. But this year we'd have to do all the planting and everything. I am skeptical, but they claim it's gonna happen.

Every time I see this topic I imagine JL having a little setup in her basement with big lamps and some fun herbs. Relaxing hobby.

Planting is the easy/fun part of gardening.  Weeding in July is the arduous, hard to stick with part.

[jay-ell]

Actually, I decided waaaay back that the investment of getting enough grow lights and dedicated indoor space was too much, and now I start my seeds indoors but move them to the back deck as soon as it's warm enough. Paul saw my garden when he was here -- and tasted the results. 

You can grow most vegetables in containers, which eliminates the need for weeding. But if you've already got a dedicated plot, it makes more sense to use that. Planting is easy, like AW said, though -- get a good book on the topic from the library and make sure to pick varieties that are labeled "easy to grow" and are well-suited to your zone. If you go to Burpee.com and put in your zip code, then choose a vegetable, scroll down to where you see some tabs, click "growing info" and it will tell you exactly when to plant, when to expect harvest, and how to sow and grow that plant. It's really useful in the planning stages.

There are apps that help you plan your garden -- Gardening Toolkit is my favorite -- but a notebook and a pencil can't be beat.

If seeds scare you, you can always get seedlings and transplant them. It's a little more expensive but in my experience it's easier to get good yields from a plant that's been pampered by a nursery. You can also go to a locally-owned nursery and tell someone there, "Hey, I'm new to gardening but I really want to grow some veggies, what's easy to grow around here, and how do I care for it?" Gardeners are thrilled to share their craft with newbies. Just don't go on a Saturday or Sunday if you have a lot of questions -- stop by during the week when business is slow. Thank them by buying a few potted herbs or some supplies -- local nurseries lose a lot of business to big-box home improvement stores this time of year.

I'd recommend planting things you like and want to eat, but if you're salad people I'd recommend a looseleaf lettuce over a head-type lettuce. You can snip off exactly what you need as you need it and it will grow back, instead of harvesting the whole head at a time. Lettuce is super easy to grow but it has shallow roots so you have to grow it from seed, and it's a cool-weather crop so you'll have to have it in the ground before the last frost for the best yield.

Other stuff that's easy: Carrots, tomatoes, green onions, radishes, peppers. Some people say beans and peas are easy but I have had a hard time with them. (I think I planted too early in the fall & the heat stifled them.) Most herbs are easy too, but I'd seriously recommend containers for those, even if you have the ground space -- many of them tend to creep & will take over. Any kind of greens are low-maintenance, including spinach & kale, provided you plant them in the fall or early spring when it's not too hot. And most of these things (other than the greens) freeze well for use all winter long.

In related news, I started my mushroom spawn yesterday. So excited!

[pmcd9]

I can attest to the tastiness of your garden.