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[jay-ell]

I mean, I know what to do with oregano, I just don't use it often enough to justify growing it myself, I don't think.

Basil, parsley, and chives? Absolutely.

Oregano and rosemary, while awesome, do not feature heavily in my regular rotation of meals.

And I know I will get reamed for saying this, but raw tomatoes gross me out, I will buy mine processed and canned, thanks. Yes, I am a little autistic, get over it.

[lprkn]

And I know I will get reamed for saying this, but raw tomatoes gross me out

[wombat]

I like raw tomatoes and I like tomatoes cooked all day. What I HATE is tomatoes that are just slightly cooked. Like sauteed lightly and tossed with pasta or in a stir fry. Yuck.

[jay-ell]

Do people put tomatoes in stir fry? That's horrifying.

Yes, of all the ways tomatoes can exist, "stewed" is among the worst.

[AugustWest]

Oregano and rosemary, while awesome, do not feature heavily in my regular rotation of meals.

Rosemary is a really nice plant, though.  It has a nice form and it smells good if you brush up against it.

And I know I will get reamed for saying this, but raw tomatoes gross me out, I will buy mine processed and canned, thanks. Yes, I am a little autistic, get over it.

Not by me.  I hate raw tomatoes.

[wombat]

Rosemary is a great plant, which is why I keep planting more even though it keeps dying, sigh. It's not as bad as the lavender, at least. I guess I just don't live in a Mediterranean climate.

I never used to cook with it before I grew it but now I do occasionally - it's much better fresh.

[littlefallsmets]

Raw tomatoes in small chunks are fine but... whole slices of the stuff, ick.

All that gooey seedy crap in the middle all at once, you know, not little bits of it attached to each cube, it is a total texture thing.

[Choop]

ONE tomato, raw

ONE shaker of salt

SEVERAL glomps of raw salted tomato

ONE giant smile on my face

[pmcd9]

There is no wrong way to eat a tomato.  Raw, grilled, stewed, sauced, on a sandwich, in a salad, as a part of thousands of other recipes.  It's really the most perfect food on God's green earth.

But right about now when the home grown tomatoes start to roll in.  All I need is a tomato and maybe a little salt.  I'll eat a whole bag of 'em if I don't watch out. 

So good.

[jay-ell]

Looks like this whole herb garden thing might really be happening. There is a burst pipe in my yard that we believe to be under one of the existing flowerbeds (though that particular bed is empty except for a few half-dead, foot-high, oddly spaced baby shrubs) and we're going to have to dig it up anyway.

Fortuitous timing of an extremely unfortunate event. But at least once we get it fixed the $130/month water bills should come to an end.

[wombat]

Well that's an excellent opportunity to do things the right way. Let me know how that goes for you, I don't think I have ever tried it.

[jay-ell]

So, I guess it goes without saying that this didn't happen. The burst pipe was not where we thought it was, so I was not able to get someone else to dig up that part of the yard for me.

I am ignoring everything everyone said on Page 1 of this thread and growing a container garden. I've been doing a lot of reading on gardening and I have come to three conclusions:

1) 75% of my yard is unusable for gardening because of too much shade, and another 20% is unusable because my kids play in it. My yard only has about four square feet of usable land in a place that gets enough sun, and I would have to spend one weekend clearing out the overgrowth, another weekend building raised beds, and a third weekend prepping the dirt and actually planting anything. Even if I had three weekends in a row to spare -- which I don't -- I wouldn't be able to get anything in the ground in time for the start of the growing season for most of the things I'd want to grow this spring. And, that's a lot of work and expense up front for a hobby I'm not certain I'm going to stick with.

2) The best sun in my whole yard is right between the swing set and the trampoline, which is a no-go. But the second best sun is up on my deck, and I have a corner that would be lovely for a triangular arrangement of pots and planters in different heights.

3) While it seems like container gardens are a lot more work, it seems that (based on my reading) in-the-ground gardens are a bigger up-front investment of time -- preparing the soil, planting, hoeing, weeding, etc. -- while container gardens take more day-to-day maintenance -- more frequent watering and pruning. I don't have three weekends to kill preparing my yard, but I do have half an hour three or four times a week to take care of some plants on my deck.

So for me, I think containers are the way to go.  Here are some pictures of my yard so you can see for yourselves. It's cloudy today, so you can't really get a sense of how shady things are back there, but take my word for it -- most of the yard is shaded for the majority of the day. (My front yard is even worse -- I have solar-powered lights around my front walk, and they are supposed to run for 8 hours on 2 hours of charging -- during the winter they run for maybe 30 minutes after dusk; in summertime, about 2 hours.)

So I am looking into vegetables (which are much more interesting to me than flowers) and tying to figure out what I could plant that will withstand our hot summers and isn't already past planting season. (Cool-weather plants, like lettuce, have to be started indoors around the beginning of February here because our spring is so short.)

Anyway, this is my latest obsession, so I thought I would resurrect this thread so that those of you who couldn't care less can ignore it.

Edit: Forgot to add photo link: http://s1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc497/jldunston/

[Nabubrush]

The fenced-in portion of my yard (link in other thread) is where our garden is. It's probably 12' x 20' or so. We've got most everything started and they're sprouting well. I'm not sure when they go in the ground ('m not the professional here). When I get home I'll put in my little update - it'll be fun!

[wombat]

Whoa, that is seriously not a yard for vegetable gardening.

Looking at what you have there, I would say that if you are looking for a gardening hobby, you need to get interested in ferns, hostas, woodland wildflowers, and early spring bulbs.  If you are really only interested in vegetables, unfortunately I don't have any idea what would work in containers in your climate, but I wonder if maybe you could increase your effective space by using trellises and growing beans and stuff that grow on vines.

[jay-ell]

Whoa, that is seriously not a yard for vegetable gardening.

Looking at what you have there, I would say that if you are looking for a gardening hobby, you need to get interested in ferns, hostas, woodland wildflowers, and early spring bulbs.  If you are really only interested in vegetables, unfortunately I don't have any idea what would work in containers in your climate, but I wonder if maybe you could increase your effective space by using trellises and growing beans and stuff that grow on vines.

I have been piecing this together from various sources, but it looks like I can grow (among other things) blueberries and lettuce in early spring through about June; strawberries through much of the summer if I keep the pots small enough to move from full-sun to part-sun during the hottest months; sugar snap peas are about due to go in the ground (I may have missed the window on seeding them already, but may be able to get seedlings) and green beans can go in a few weeks later; sweet potatoes, carrots, and  a few other root vegetables grow almost year-round. All these things love containers, too. The only thing I would really want to grow that don't do so well in containers are watermelons, which are probably a little ambitious for me at this point anyway.

The green beans and snap peas are good candidates for trellises; the snap peas are usually grown in shrubs but if you provide them with a trellis they will climb. And we eat the dickens out of both those things, so that's a huge plus -- a major impetus for doing this is showing my kids that food does not "come from" the grocery store. (Did I say that already somewhere else?)

I don't expect to never have to buy a vegetable from the grocery store again, but I want to be able to take the kids outside, pick some snap peas, wash them off, and have a snack. My daughter is already fascinated with the idea of eating lettuce that comes from just outside our back door -- I have never seen a three-year-old beg for more salad before.

On the original topic of this thread, I do also have some parsley and basil growing on that window ledge we talked about before -- just seedlings so far, but I think  I've got it figured out now. (I got pots with proper drainage this time, and I'm watering them much, much less. I drowned the last batch -- big time.) I discovered that the fluorescent light bulb that hangs just above them and never, ever gets turned off (it's our "security" light that keeps us from stubbing our toes during late-night trips to the kitchen) will actually function as a grow light, but without the danger of scorching that comes with heat lamps. So between the natural light through the window and the 24/7 fluorescent glow they're getting, those herbs should do fairly well as indoor plants in that location. Probably not as well as they'd do outside, but well enough to use in spaghetti sauce when I need to.