Aerogarden plus pots outside on my small balcony. It’s enough for a fig tree, some tomatoes and a few varieties of peppers (bells give me awful burps, so I’ve been playing with other varietals), and some experiments.
@Jamileigh17 thats what im doing… I have alot wild animals so they’re in fabric pots on top of the deck. Im gong to try and do peppers this summer along with green beans, not as many tomatoes, and cucumbers.
I try. I have borders with some flowers in them, trees and shrubs and a honeysuckle vine, and I try to grow tomatoes with varying degrees of success. I always feel like I’m not weeding or pruning or maintaining enough, but oh well.
@Kyeh@phendrick
About the best tomatoes I ever grew were volunteers that came up in my old chicken coop. They grew into cluster tomatoes like the ones at Costco/Sam’s (campari tomatoes).
I guess they were just highly motivated to survive!
@Kyeh I feel you. I love gardening but the last few years have been so difficult. Don’t let it get you down. Keep planting and just tell them they were bad plants if they die.
My better half (see the last poll) is the gardener. Years ago I suggested we tear out all our grass and put in veggies. We also added some fruit trees. It’s been awesome.
@andyw Same - wife is the gardener (grew up on a farm) and I provide the manual labor. Last year’s project was bird netting over the blueberry bushes (a success!). This spring’s project is a deer fence around the vegetable garden. Maybe we will even get to eat some of the harvest!
I am finding the sleep to be rather elusive tonight so I’m just going to bombard yall with photos. I am the crazy plant lady. I own it. I got it from my mom and grandfather. If I can dig in the dirt and make things grow, it’s going to happen. My mom used to carry a shovel in the back of our minivan in case she saw something on the side of the road she needed to dig up…… I used to be mortified as a teenager but I do the same thing now.
I also swore I would never have houseplants because plants belong outside……
@sillyheathen Wow, that is impressive.
those trees at the end, are they sequoias?
I’m assuming they were already there.
I had a house in Santa Cruz that had a big sequoia in the yard when I bought it almost 40 years ago. It’s bigger now, as trees do.
that house is rented out now and I haven’t been there in a while. I need to get back. managed by a friend who asked “why did you plant that big tree?” but it was already pretty big when I got there. I think it dates from early 1900s.
EDIT it might be a different kind of redwood and not technically a sequoia.
@pmarin aren’t you in Oregon too? I feel like we have either split wine or talked about splitting wine. We have a giant sequoia at the front of the house. Most of the trees are really mature firs and a few cedar.
@sillyheathen@yakkoTDI
I can understand that. We’ve been in this spot for over 35 years and it has been transformed dramatically. It started off as an acre but we portioned off about 20% of it to put Mom & Dad’s house on when they moved here almost 15 years ago. They’ve both passed now, so we’re faced with the prospect of having neighbors closer than we had initially anticipated. Busily planting a spice bush border between the two yards to ‘separate’ them as soon as possible.
@sillyheathen
What’s the 5th pic down in your back yard, it’s the purple flower? I love all the plants in your house but I’ve told you that before. What kind of fruit do you grow?
@pmarin@sillyheathen We have a sequoia in the yard. We originally bought 3 seedlings. Planted 2 of them (both of which later died), and temporarily stuck the third in an open spot at the edge of the lawn while we decided where to ultimately put it. I guess the third tree liked its location, because when I finally went to transplant it, it was already rooted so deeply that I gave up. Now it’s over 40 feet tall and the trunk is 3 feet diameter at the base. It does make a nice shady spot to sit on a hot summer day.
@Star2236 it’s a type of clematis. I think I have five or six varietals. It’s also part of my flora fauna tattoo work. The pollinators love them. If it will attract the butterflies, bees and hummingbirds…I will grow it.
@sillyheathen
Oh absolutely!
Had a bunch of spider lilies coming up in the yard, as well as daffodils that were getting too crowded and needed thinning so dug a bunch of them up and put them in gallon pots to give away. Contacted the nurses I work with and was able to re-home about 10 gallons worth.
My current project has been rooting some rosemary since ours had died and we had been filching some from Mom’s next door (but now that she’s passed we’re going to sell that house). Turns out rosemary is pretty easy to root. I’ve been starting it in water, then transplanting into soil when it has a couple of roots established. I use tiny peat pots to get them established, and once the roots start poking out the bottom and sides I make a couple of slits in the pot and drop it in a new clear 4" pot with some additional fresh dirt. Once I can see roots hitting the sides of the clear containers I will move them outside and into the herb garden, or transplant them into bigger pots. I cover the plants at all stages with inverted wide mouth Mason jars to act as mini greenhouses. That’s been working very well.
Just this morning my wife asked me what I was planning to do with all of them. I told her I was going to put one in the herb garden and a couple near a gate on the fence to act as a hedge (we’ve seen this done in Europe). The rest she can give to the girls she meets with at the coffee shop on Wednesday mornings or I’ll give them to the nurses at the ER …
@Kyeh@sillyheathen
The little black disks they are sitting on are the can covers from the decaf coffee I buy at Aldi. I hate to throw things away! (I also use them as covers for the ramekins when I make flan etc.)
@chienfou@sillyheathen I love the clever re-use of things, especially plastics. It gets me in trouble though because I keep saving stuff because “it might be useful somehow …” and meanwhile I accumulate more and more clutter!
@chienfou@Kyeh same. I’m allocating some time to dedicate to the yard and the reorganizing of the pots etc. I used to get Jot deliveries, bottled espresso, but the Englishman started drinking coffee again so that got too expensive. I loved the little glass bottles so of course I have tried repurposing as much as possible. Some are for water propagation and some I use to water moss poles and plants.
If anyone needs any plants, hit me up. Indoor or out. I’ll happily send a box your way.
I/we garden. (Some prior pics in that thread because I’m too lazy/tired to search them out and re-post them)
SWMBO is the flower gardener/plantings manager. I’m the edibles guy (veggies, fruits, figs, blueberries, grapes etc.)
I’m responsible for everything having to do with my end as well as much of the ‘hard’ labor on my wife’s end --you know… weak mind/strong back and all that. To be fair, her end requires more maintenance than mine. Fruits, figs and grapes need pruning annually and routine mowing around them, veggies are grown in a garden that is mulched so requires very little weeding. On the other hand her flower/herb beds have a tendency to need weeding regularly, and since everything we plant seems to grow much larger than anticipated things have to be moved around a lot. Plus as things get bigger, shady versus sunny areas tend to shift (moving the herb garden now)… I often joke that I think we’re built on a nuclear power waste dump due to the size of some of the plants. For instance yesterday she transplanted some amaryllis bulbs that were in a spot she wasn’t happy with. The clump was too big for her to be able to wrestle out of the ground and I had to dig a hole 2 feet deep and 3 feet around before I could pry out that bunch of bulbs. When I went and picked them up some of those suckers were almost the size of footballs! I kid you not. I wish I had my phone to take some pictures of them. (I leave it in the shop on a charger broadcasting to the (meh bought) earbuds I generally wear).
Spent the last few days tilling the 500 sq ft I use for the veggie garden and setting out rings to put plants in. Over the years I’ve collected a bunch of “tidy cat” buckets from the neighbors (my cats haven’t used a litter box since I put the cat door in). I use these for catching rain off the roof edge of the shop area a few feet away and can then transport that to the vegetable garden for watering. I do this for two reasons. One, rainwater is better for the plants than city water (and free), and two, the distance to the closest spigot is probably over 60 ft and I don’t want to have to pull a hose back and forth thru the pool area. Having the garden mulched means I don’t have to water them nearly as much. As the handles on the buckets have broken from being exposed to the outside weather over the years I’ve either replaced them with rope (threaded thru a short piece of PVC pipe to make it easier to lift them), or cut them in half horizontally then cut the bottoms out of them to make two planting rings for my veggies. I put those down in the garden at my desired spacing and plant the plants inside them (one per ring). The space in between is covered with cardboard (recycle those Amazon boxes!) and leaves, grass clippings from the mower, etc. This keeps the weeding to a minimum as well as helping to give me a focused spot for watering the plants. I can just pour water into those collars as needed during the summertime. End of summer I pull the plants, pull the collars then till everything into the ground in the spring. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I’ve decided that we are past our last frost so have been planting things in the (veggie) garden. Currently have lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes (cooking and eating), yellow bell and jalapeno peppers and swiss chard in. The rest will go in over the next few weeks. Going to try to get out and mow then mulch what I’ve already planted this morning before the predicted storms come rolling in this afternoon. Not sure how that’s going to end up. Still have about half of each 6 pack of plants that I bought that I’ve repotted to slightly bigger pots and will make a a decision on planting them after the garden dries back out some, later.
TL:DR: YES
Mrs. H. really gets after it year after year…Our home is completely surrounded by different flowers & plants from around the world. Could definitely say the apple didn’t fall far from the tree as her dad is a master level gardener & people drive hundreds of miles to see his home gardens each year as well as an arboretum park that he maintains adjacent to his home.
@chienfou No, not really that either. I just accept that I’m not in her or her father’s realm. Grunt labor is my specialty! Digging new holes, cultivating, roto-tilling. I take care of the lawn too…that’s like the picture frame to her masterpieces. It also needs to be maintained at a high level in order to not stick out.
@earlyre You must have not watered the aloe vera for several years, then. I had a bunch of offshoots that got hidden behind something on a table and not watered for over a year - and they survived!
@earlyre
Kudos on your accomplishment! It’s WAY easier to kill by over watering it. @kyeh yeah, mine sits in an unheated garage for 4 months or so over the winter without water.
@earlyre Mine are indoors. And as @chienfou said, it’s usually overwatering that kills them. My houseplants are all pretty able to survive being dry, even a couple of ferns that aren’t supposed to! I have a ficus tree that I got my first year in college - it’s kind of scrawny, but it’s lived and survived several moves.
@chienfou Aww, thanks but it’s more like green pinky - I don’t have nearly as green a thumb as you, or @sillyheathen!
I’ve found the plants that can tolerate my habits, is more like it. Sansevieria, spider plants, philodendron and pothos do fine here. Also I was surprised to find that African violets are super easy! I have a nice Norfolk Pine, a happy peace lily, and some ferns that have been with me for years. I’m struggling with some calatheas though, which is sad because they’re so beautiful. Aloe and jade plants do okay. I’m trying to be a better plant mom; my own mom and my sister are better, though.
I usually grow a small vegetable garden. The Guinea pigs and the dog like cherry tomatoes.
Last year was my first year, it was tomatoes. Beefsteak and grape tomatoes oh and cucumbers.
I plant things in the ground and then forget about them.
I have an aerogarden and mostly just use it for basil.
@LaserEyes
I’ve always wanted an aerogarden, I’ve always wanted meh to send me one.
@LaserEyes @Star2236 I’ve managed to kill herbs in my aero (from woot)
Well, maybe not “kill”, but white dusty mold (it hasn’t gotten furry, but they looked like cobwebs) started to grow on the upper layer.
Aerogarden plus pots outside on my small balcony. It’s enough for a fig tree, some tomatoes and a few varieties of peppers (bells give me awful burps, so I’ve been playing with other varietals), and some experiments.
@Jamileigh17 thats what im doing… I have alot wild animals so they’re in fabric pots on top of the deck. Im gong to try and do peppers this summer along with green beans, not as many tomatoes, and cucumbers.
I try. I have borders with some flowers in them, trees and shrubs and a honeysuckle vine, and I try to grow tomatoes with varying degrees of success. I always feel like I’m not weeding or pruning or maintaining enough, but oh well.
@Kyeh luv the pic!
@Kyeh @phendrick
About the best tomatoes I ever grew were volunteers that came up in my old chicken coop. They grew into cluster tomatoes like the ones at Costco/Sam’s (campari tomatoes).
I guess they were just highly motivated to survive!
@chienfou @Kyeh “motivated to survive”
Bet they didn’t survive your kitchen!
But maybe they knew that was their purpose in life, to be of healthful service to others.
@Kyeh @phendrick
But yet, they made seeds… so the cycle continued
@Kyeh I feel you. I love gardening but the last few years have been so difficult. Don’t let it get you down. Keep planting and just tell them they were bad plants if they die.
My better half (see the last poll) is the gardener. Years ago I suggested we tear out all our grass and put in veggies. We also added some fruit trees. It’s been awesome.
HIKING! VIKINGS! STRIKE KING [BRAND FISHING LURES]! AWESOME!
@mediocrebot
And I’m sure you’re eating better for it.
My wife has two small gardens and completes with the deer and groundhogs for the vegetables. She usually wins.
@andyw Same - wife is the gardener (grew up on a farm) and I provide the manual labor. Last year’s project was bird netting over the blueberry bushes (a success!). This spring’s project is a deer fence around the vegetable garden. Maybe we will even get to eat some of the harvest!
I have a herd of cacti.
Do various things growing in my sink, my refrigerator, and under my bed count as gardening?
@phendrick If you find joy in growing it, then yes!
@bee1doll @phendrick a cultured individual
@pakopako @phendrick I do enjoy a good Kimchi
I am finding the sleep to be rather elusive tonight so I’m just going to bombard yall with photos. I am the crazy plant lady. I own it. I got it from my mom and grandfather. If I can dig in the dirt and make things grow, it’s going to happen. My mom used to carry a shovel in the back of our minivan in case she saw something on the side of the road she needed to dig up…… I used to be mortified as a teenager but I do the same thing now.
I also swore I would never have houseplants because plants belong outside……
Then there’s our back yard
And some crazy misplaced Cajun
Fruit trees; too many probably……
And settle in hammock town
@sillyheathen Wow, that is impressive.
those trees at the end, are they sequoias?
I’m assuming they were already there.
I had a house in Santa Cruz that had a big sequoia in the yard when I bought it almost 40 years ago. It’s bigger now, as trees do.
that house is rented out now and I haven’t been there in a while. I need to get back. managed by a friend who asked “why did you plant that big tree?” but it was already pretty big when I got there. I think it dates from early 1900s.
EDIT it might be a different kind of redwood and not technically a sequoia.
@pmarin aren’t you in Oregon too? I feel like we have either split wine or talked about splitting wine.
We have a giant sequoia at the front of the house. Most of the trees are really mature firs and a few cedar.
I’ll see if I can find a photo of the sequoia.
@pmarin The best photo I can find at the moment is when we evacuated a few years ago with the wildfires.
@sillyheathen Only crazy things I see is not enough cats. I am jealous of the amount of space you have for plants.
@sillyheathen @yakkoTDI
Yeah… How big IS your space?
@chienfou @yakkoTDI it’s just over an acre I think. There’s a bit more yard and a horseshoe driveway in front. It’s a space that I really love.
@sillyheathen @yakkoTDI
I can understand that. We’ve been in this spot for over 35 years and it has been transformed dramatically. It started off as an acre but we portioned off about 20% of it to put Mom & Dad’s house on when they moved here almost 15 years ago. They’ve both passed now, so we’re faced with the prospect of having neighbors closer than we had initially anticipated. Busily planting a spice bush border between the two yards to ‘separate’ them as soon as possible.
@sillyheathen Fantastic pics & thanks for sharing!!
@sillyheathen
What’s the 5th pic down in your back yard, it’s the purple flower? I love all the plants in your house but I’ve told you that before. What kind of fruit do you grow?
@pmarin @sillyheathen We have a sequoia in the yard. We originally bought 3 seedlings. Planted 2 of them (both of which later died), and temporarily stuck the third in an open spot at the edge of the lawn while we decided where to ultimately put it. I guess the third tree liked its location, because when I finally went to transplant it, it was already rooted so deeply that I gave up. Now it’s over 40 feet tall and the trunk is 3 feet diameter at the base. It does make a nice shady spot to sit on a hot summer day.
@Star2236 it’s a type of clematis. I think I have five or six varietals. It’s also part of my flora fauna tattoo work.
The pollinators love them. If it will attract the butterflies, bees and hummingbirds…I will grow it. 
@chienfou @yakkoTDI I love the pictures of your garden. Methinks we’d be sharing lots of plants if we were in close proximity.
@sillyheathen
Oh absolutely!
Had a bunch of spider lilies coming up in the yard, as well as daffodils that were getting too crowded and needed thinning so dug a bunch of them up and put them in gallon pots to give away. Contacted the nurses I work with and was able to re-home about 10 gallons worth.
My current project has been rooting some rosemary since ours had died and we had been filching some from Mom’s next door (but now that she’s passed we’re going to sell that house). Turns out rosemary is pretty easy to root. I’ve been starting it in water, then transplanting into soil when it has a couple of roots established. I use tiny peat pots to get them established, and once the roots start poking out the bottom and sides I make a couple of slits in the pot and drop it in a new clear 4" pot with some additional fresh dirt. Once I can see roots hitting the sides of the clear containers I will move them outside and into the herb garden, or transplant them into bigger pots. I cover the plants at all stages with inverted wide mouth Mason jars to act as mini greenhouses. That’s been working very well.
Just this morning my wife asked me what I was planning to do with all of them. I told her I was going to put one in the herb garden and a couple near a gate on the fence to act as a hedge (we’ve seen this done in Europe). The rest she can give to the girls she meets with at the coffee shop on Wednesday mornings or I’ll give them to the nurses at the ER …
@chienfou @sillyheathen I love the Mason jar mini greenhouses - what a clever idea!
@Kyeh @sillyheathen
The little black disks they are sitting on are the can covers from the decaf coffee I buy at Aldi. I hate to throw things away! (I also use them as covers for the ramekins when I make flan etc.)
@chienfou @sillyheathen I love the clever re-use of things, especially plastics. It gets me in trouble though because I keep saving stuff because “it might be useful somehow …” and meanwhile I accumulate more and more clutter!
@chienfou @Kyeh same. I’m allocating some time to dedicate to the yard and the reorganizing of the pots etc. I used to get Jot deliveries, bottled espresso, but the Englishman started drinking coffee again so that got too expensive. I loved the little glass bottles so of course I have tried repurposing as much as possible. Some are for water propagation and some I use to water moss poles and plants.
If anyone needs any plants, hit me up. Indoor or out. I’ll happily send a box your way.
I/we garden. (Some prior pics in that thread because I’m too lazy/tired to search them out and re-post them)
SWMBO is the flower gardener/plantings manager. I’m the edibles guy (veggies, fruits, figs, blueberries, grapes etc.)
I’m responsible for everything having to do with my end as well as much of the ‘hard’ labor on my wife’s end --you know… weak mind/strong back and all that. To be fair, her end requires more maintenance than mine. Fruits, figs and grapes need pruning annually and routine mowing around them, veggies are grown in a garden that is mulched so requires very little weeding. On the other hand her flower/herb beds have a tendency to need weeding regularly, and since everything we plant seems to grow much larger than anticipated things have to be moved around a lot. Plus as things get bigger, shady versus sunny areas tend to shift (moving the herb garden now)… I often joke that I think we’re built on a nuclear power waste dump due to the size of some of the plants. For instance yesterday she transplanted some amaryllis bulbs that were in a spot she wasn’t happy with. The clump was too big for her to be able to wrestle out of the ground and I had to dig a hole 2 feet deep and 3 feet around before I could pry out that bunch of bulbs. When I went and picked them up some of those suckers were almost the size of footballs! I kid you not. I wish I had my phone to take some pictures of them. (I leave it in the shop on a charger broadcasting to the (meh bought) earbuds I generally wear).
Spent the last few days tilling the 500 sq ft I use for the veggie garden and setting out rings to put plants in. Over the years I’ve collected a bunch of “tidy cat” buckets from the neighbors (my cats haven’t used a litter box since I put the cat door in). I use these for catching rain off the roof edge of the shop area a few feet away and can then transport that to the vegetable garden for watering. I do this for two reasons. One, rainwater is better for the plants than city water (and free), and two, the distance to the closest spigot is probably over 60 ft and I don’t want to have to pull a hose back and forth thru the pool area. Having the garden mulched means I don’t have to water them nearly as much. As the handles on the buckets have broken from being exposed to the outside weather over the years I’ve either replaced them with rope (threaded thru a short piece of PVC pipe to make it easier to lift them), or cut them in half horizontally then cut the bottoms out of them to make two planting rings for my veggies. I put those down in the garden at my desired spacing and plant the plants inside them (one per ring). The space in between is covered with cardboard (recycle those Amazon boxes!) and leaves, grass clippings from the mower, etc. This keeps the weeding to a minimum as well as helping to give me a focused spot for watering the plants. I can just pour water into those collars as needed during the summertime. End of summer I pull the plants, pull the collars then till everything into the ground in the spring. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I’ve decided that we are past our last frost so have been planting things in the (veggie) garden. Currently have lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes (cooking and eating), yellow bell and jalapeno peppers and swiss chard in. The rest will go in over the next few weeks. Going to try to get out and mow then mulch what I’ve already planted this morning before the predicted storms come rolling in this afternoon. Not sure how that’s going to end up. Still have about half of each 6 pack of plants that I bought that I’ve repotted to slightly bigger pots and will make a a decision on planting them after the garden dries back out some, later.
TL:DR: YES
@chienfou
oh… and when growing season is over it’s time to:
@chienfou
Just as I suspected…
@llangley
Not THOSE edibles…
… At least not in this state.
Mrs. H. really gets after it year after year…Our home is completely surrounded by different flowers & plants from around the world. Could definitely say the apple didn’t fall far from the tree as her dad is a master level gardener & people drive hundreds of miles to see his home gardens each year as well as an arboretum park that he maintains adjacent to his home.
@tohar1
That’s great. Are you the “muscle” behind her plan(t)s?
@chienfou
As much as I can assist. Usually, it’s “Do this! No, not like that! Fine! I’ll just do it myself…”
@tohar1
Well played! I suppose this allows you to appear helpful without actually doing anything!!
@chienfou No, not really that either. I just accept that I’m not in her or her father’s realm. Grunt labor is my specialty! Digging new holes, cultivating, roto-tilling. I take care of the lawn too…that’s like the picture frame to her masterpieces. It also needs to be maintained at a high level in order to not stick out.
@tohar1
I’m sure your efforts in these matters are appreciated
Garden season doesn’t start for a few more months here even though it fells like it today.
@Star2236
I remember those days from when we lived in INT’L FALLS, MN.
Now, living in central AL, it’s much more practical.
unlike the rest of my family, I have a Black Thumb.
I’ve killed Aloe Vera, because I didn’t water it enough.
so, if you have plants you’d like to kill, send 'em my way
@earlyre You must have not watered the aloe vera for several years, then. I had a bunch of offshoots that got hidden behind something on a table and not watered for over a year - and they survived!
@Kyeh were yours inside, or out?
mine were inside, In what became My bedroom after my big brother moved out.
@earlyre
Kudos on your accomplishment! It’s WAY easier to kill by over watering it.
@kyeh yeah, mine sits in an unheated garage for 4 months or so over the winter without water.
@earlyre Mine are indoors. And as @chienfou said, it’s usually overwatering that kills them. My houseplants are all pretty able to survive being dry, even a couple of ferns that aren’t supposed to! I have a ficus tree that I got my first year in college - it’s kind of scrawny, but it’s lived and survived several moves.
@Kyeh
(Green)
@chienfou Aww, thanks but it’s more like green pinky - I don’t have nearly as green a thumb as you, or @sillyheathen!
Sansevieria, spider plants, philodendron and pothos do fine here. Also I was surprised to find that African violets are super easy! I have a nice Norfolk Pine, a happy peace lily, and some ferns that have been with me for years. I’m struggling with some calatheas though, which is sad because they’re so beautiful. Aloe and jade plants do okay. I’m trying to be a better plant mom; my own mom and my sister are better, though.
I’ve found the plants that can tolerate my habits, is more like it.