I figured I’d start a thread for those of us who are crazy plant people. I’ve been out in the garden a ton and it’s really starting to go crazy. Love this time of year!
@sillyheathen
Do your bananas produce fruit you can eat? Here in central AL I will get flowers and they will set small fruit, but they always freeze before they can ripen.
@sillyheathen
do they at least get to turn yellow before they freeze?
BTW like your lettuce set up. Way too late for that here. It’s so hot they just bolt.
@macromeh we used to home brew so they were very much used. The last few years, I’ve dried them and sent them to my dad in Louisiana. I got him into brewing about ten years ago. Not sure what I’m going to do with them this year. I’ll post a picture when the go to flower.
@sillyheathen I have some hops growing, but I haven’t used any of them for brewing for a while. Unfortunately, the specialty hop varieties that I favor these days are proprietary and fairly closely guarded, so the rhizomes aren’t available for DIY cultivation. Also, I find harvesting and drying the buds extremely tedious and my kids are grown and out of the house so I can’t rope them into helping like I used to.
@macromeh well I have a cabinet dehydrator so if you want any let me know. I could vacuum pack them and send them your way. I think this is Willamette. I used to have five varietals but this was the only one I was able to dig and transplant when we moved.
@macromeh and yeah I hear you. I wanted Citra terribly but it’s propriety And they’re not letting that one out. There’s a farm not far from here that grows it and they have fenced fields and security. It’s kind of crazy.
@sillyheathen Yeah, pals at my brew club joke about making a midnight commando raid on a hop farm. But the brew club hasn’t got together for 2 years now (Covid/etc.) and at the quantities that I brew on my own these days (~10-15 gal/year), buying the hops at a brew supply store isn’t a big deal.
Working 8 hours this evening (1445-2315), then 16 tomorrow (0645 to 2315). Pics will have to wait.
I can say that: {VEGGIE GARDEN} I have pulled my first tomatoes, cukes and zukes. Jalepenos and bell peppers will start getting harvested in next few days. Eggplants are setting fruit, cantaloupes and watermelon are running all over the place. Okra in starts but not in ground yet (got distracted working TOO much this week --will have over 70 hours by Sunday). Have a few artichoke plants to get in the ground as well (new attempt for me). {FRUIT ORCHARD} I have a metric shit-ton of figs this year, lots of cooking/canning pears on my oldest tree, and a bunch of ‘eating’ pears on the other 2. Also have a bunch of peaches on the 2 trees tho they will most likely be crappy since I didn’t get any dormant oil on them this spring. Apple trees are producing well, and lots of blueberries that will ripen in the next week-10 days. A few blackberries still, and the grapes are covering 50ft of my back fence. Potted lemon tree has reached capacity in the pot (kinda root bound) so didn’t fruit well this year. {Flower beds} Wife really went to town this year clearing out our plantings. Currently have blooming:
Day lillies
Gardenias
Chaste lilac
Amaryllis
Knock out roses
Marigolds
Dahlias
Gladiolas
Lantana
Witchhazel (white and pink)
Hydrangea
Canna lillies
Purple wandering jew
Ice plant
Lavender
and I’m sure several I can’t think of while I’m here in the ER.
@chienfou Where do you live? I’m just now getting tomatoes and none of the rest of my garden is no where NEAR bearing fruit…and I thought I started early.
Good job!
Central AL. Zone 8a. Took a chance and planted stuff way early this year since our winter/early spring was so mild. Glad I did! Tomato plants are about 5 ft tall, but only because I have been trimming them to keep them from going totally crazy!
@chienfou@Tadlem43
Wow good for you. We had 3 late frost in MI the one being end of April but then again I don’t put anything in the ground till may bc of that reason.
@Star2236@Tadlem43
I have a bit less than an acre (since we deeded off a house plot to my parents when they moved here so we could help them.)
Most of the gardens have been ‘works in progress’ for the past over 30 yrs since we moved in. I plant a smallish garden that usually hosts tomatoes, cukes, zukes and yellow squash (until the squash bugs find them), red/yellow/green peppers, jalapenos (to eat fresh, stuffed with smoked cream cheese, to cook with, and to make chipotles/chipotle powder at the end of the season), Japanese eggplant, cantaloupe, watermelon, and okra (again to eat fresh and to can for hors d’oeuvres later in the winter), and this year I have 3 artichoke plants I am trying for the first time. The lettuce is long gone, and the fruits are all setting well ( a couple of varieties each of pears, apples, peaches, figs, blueberries, blackberries and grapes.) I even have some olives growing for the first time on some trees I bought at Sam’s a couple of years ago. The Meyer lemon needs to be repotted (it is terribly root bound) so isn’t as loaded as usual so no lemoncello this year I guess. Oh and I have flowers/bananas on the banana plants though I have never gotten them to ripen due to the length of time it takes and the fact that the frost usually gets them in late Nov/or sometime in Dec.
@chienfou@Star2236 Wow… that’s awesome!
I live in Dallas, in have a raised bed, and this year planted a few brussell sprouts in another area, but pretty small.
I’ve got several types of tomatoes, some in containers, okra, Kitchen King green beans, eggplant, cukes, and had lettuce, but the rain ruined it.
I got my first eatable tomato yesterday, but have a lot on the vines (some over 10 ft tall!), some baby cukes, and a few baby beans, but nothing like what it seems you have! I’m impressed!
I did my own germination this year for the first time, and had enough to even sell some of the plants. Now, THAT’S fun!
Good luck with the garden ! Seems you got it goin’ on!!
Where in AL? I lived in Eufaula and Mobile I miss it!
@Star2236@Tadlem43 Just picked some eggplant, cukes, tomatoes and green peppers yesterday. Afraid they won’t do well if I ship them… especially since I generally use Pitney Bowes…
@chienfou thanks. My sister gave it to me. She and my dad made the frame from some boards from our family barn when she was visiting them in New Orleans. It’s really great. I need to hang it up properly.
@sillyheathen I’d love to see pics of your garden, must be beautiful!!
When I was a kid my grandmother’s neighbor had a backyard garden that was the most spectacular explosion of floral scents and color that i’ve ever seen! She had multiple levels of rows and rows of beautiful flowers! It was gorgeous!!
@CaptAmehrican
That’s really cool. The plants I bought say they take over 100 days to produce. Do you get a frost/freeze where you live or do they grow all year long?
@chienfou yes I only got 1 last year with 4 plants. 3 of those 4 made it thru the winter and are all huge and way ahead of last year. I have now already gotten 3 artichokes and there are a bunch that are growing
All my stuff is planted in pots, our soil is pretty much clay. This week I have to finish planting the rest of my stuff. I do a lot of herbs and this year I’m growing lettuce, spinach and peppers. My FIL next door grows tomatoes. I have multiple flower beds that were amended when we moved in but one of them has turned back to clay and all my plants died. I’m gonna have to add a bunch of in the next few years. We just put down mulch last year so I have to wait to the mulch dissipates. But i love my flower gardens and I’m constantly adding stuff to them. Bc of the late frost in MI this year not all my flowers are blooming yet. I only had 4 iris’ come up out of probably 40 it was really sad.
And I have been blown away by what has come up this year. I thought I’d lost tons of stuff with the ice storm. I was weeding the salad bar yesterday and found epazote growing which I was convinced had absolutely died! Granted y’all get much colder temps than we do where you are.
@Star2236 thanks. It’s a garden tower. I know some people claim to grow all sorts of stuff in it but I’ve found herbs and lettuce to have the most success for me. I usually just start one varietal each week and space them out that way. Had too many sprouts for that this time.
@Star2236@Tadlem43 But, IME, there must be a trick to propagate them from seed. I collected seeds from wild irises in the woods around my house last year and my wife (the gardener of the family) tried to start them but none of the seeds sprouted. Maybe this year I will try digging up and transplanting some bulbs, come August.
@macromeh@Star2236 I don’t know about flowers, I’ll tell you how I do my veggies, if that will help.
I take a moist (not dripping wet) paper towel and put my seeds on them, separated, roll the paper towel, put it in a plastic baggie, and put it someplace dark and kinda warm. Some people put them on top of their fridge, etc., but I just put mine in my pantry.
Check them once a day.
With some, you’ll have sprouts the next day, some it takes a week or so.
When you get sprouts, put them in peat pots with STARTER soil, NOT potting soil, or you can put them in a seed starter set. Put them under grow lights.
New plants will have 2 ‘starter leaves’. When the 3rd leaf starts to show, you can remove any cover you have over them (in a starter set), and make sure they get plenty of light and moisture until you have at least 2 more leaves.
Then you can start hardening them off and planting them.
You can sow them directly into peat pots or starter sets, but I find mine do MUCH better if I sprout them in baggies with the paper towels first.
@Star2236@Tadlem43 Yeah, my wife grows lots of flowers and veggies from seed - just no luck with the wild iris seeds. There are lots of wild irises in the nearby timberland again this year, so will give it another try. We just want to start some of them in the wooded areas adjacent to our lawn. Should be pretty low maintenance once we get them started.
@mbersiam are you using newer growth or hardier cuttings? I’ve had success with newer growth by cutting leaves off and letting them sit a day or to callous. You don’t want blossoms or many leaves. That all needs to be cut off bar two or three leaves. I apply root tone to the nodes and put it in loose damp potting soil to encourage root growth. It’s not always successful but I did manage to get three peacock lilac cuttings that way last year.
@Lynnerizer
That is an awesome dahlia that looks like a giant firework. Has a soft yellow center with light orange tinged outer petals. Pics to post in a bit…
@tinamarie1974 the first one is Sisyrinchium or blue eyed grass which is in the iris family. The second one is love in a mist and it volunteers all over my garden.
@sillyheathen thank you! So a little research tells me love is an annual, but also mentioned it is self seeding…so does it come back every year from the seeds?
@tinamarie1974 yep. In fact, it took over part of the bed that I call the salad bar which goes around our pool. It looks so similar to carrot seedlings that I mistook it as such. So now I’m having to pull a bunch of it out. If you want seeds, I’m happy to mail you some. I have a plethora.
@Kyeh it really is. I love our place. We still have a ton of work to do since the ice storm but we’re getting there. My mom calls it out secret garden.
@sillyheathen So probably better you’re where you are, huh. I’ll put up a photo I took from my roof several years ago, where the clouds look exactly like snowy foothills - only I took it in July where the was no snow anywhere nearby.
Okay for my next super annoying trick, I will post the fruits of my garden. I’ll wait a few days before I post the veggie garden. It’s going crazy right now and growing at a rate that has been mind boggling. I’m not complaining mind you because there’s nothing I enjoy more than making amazing meals from my garden. Anyway here’s to the fruits of my labor!
@tinamarie1974 I’m currently working on finishing a coop. We have some dark and light brahma chicks coming in August. They will live in the back and their run will be bisected in the back corner in part of the “orchard”. Then we’re laying down ground cloth and putting med gravel/river rock all around the fire pit and reinforcing some of the walk ways. I still have a ton to weed and prune. It’s kind of overwhelming at times.
@tinamarie1974 I try to use as much as I possibly can. My grandparents had a 100 acre farm between New Orleans and Baton Rouge when I was a kid. They raised angus, flowers and veggies. It’s kind of in my genes.
@Kyeh Buddha’s hand or Buddha’s fingers. It’s my all time favorite citrus and the Englishman got me a tree for my 40th! The third photo are beauty berries. I make tea with them and insect repellent from the leaves.
@sillyheathen Cool, thanks. I’ve seen the beauty berry before but never knew what it was. The Bhudda’s Hand has such a dark fruit - will it lighten up as it grows?
@sillyheathen Thanks! I’ve seen the full-grown fruit a few times, but I didn’t know if there was a dark variety too. And I certainly didn’t know you could grow citrus in Oregon!
@Kyeh@sillyheathen I took a hike on the 3-mile loop on adjacent timberland this morning. I’ve posted some pictures from our “garden annex”. No digging, weeding, pruning, watering or fertilizing needed!
I was walking along and noticed a sweet, herbal smell. Looked around and, yep, the Wormwood is up (Absinthe, anyone?).
The wild foxgloves, lupines and daisies are blooming. Sadly, the wild irises are mostly done.
@macromeh@sillyheathen I have a friend who made his own absinthe for quite a few years!
I love foxgloves - I had some beautiful ones in the sunny front yard where I used to live, but here where my front yard is shady they’re not happy. I’ll have to try again in the back sometime.
The old yard was funny - I got intense sun for a short time each day, and some delphiniums I had grew about 6’ high!
@Kyeh@sillyheathen When I first came across the Wormwood a couple of years ago, its interesting fragrance made me think “Maybe this would make a nice herbal tea”. I mean, on a warm summer day, a patch of it perfumes the whole area. Then I identified it and researched a bit online. Um, neurotoxins? Not my cup of tea, thanks.
@chienfou LOVE LOVE LOVE! This is so great. I’m jealous that you can see your fish. My pond is currently self sustaining. It’s an amazing little eco system but because of that there’s quite a bit of duck weed. The fish eat it so I just leave it because right now it’s one less thing I have to deal with.
@sillyheathen
Thanks. The pond is actually a lot of fun. The goldfish were the $.25 kind from Walmart the we bought about 4 years ago. They have gotten big (some of the originals are 4-5 inches long), and bred out to have different multi-colored off-spring!
I use a UV-C chamber that the water pumps thru which has done wonders for the clarity of the water. It’s on a timer for about 8 hours a day and keeps up fine. (the timer is ‘hidden’ inside the lighthouse in the pics below)
@chienfou
Sorry for the repeats on the cannas and gladiolas. I had the pics all picked and uploaded and my computer had a mental breakdown and lost all of them. Then when I went to re-post them I hit the “say it” button instead of the “post a pic” button so had to scramble to make the edit time window. (Though now that I think about it, I could have just deleted the partial post and started over… Guess I just got in a bit of a panic…)
@Kyeh
Oh, and the rain lilies (aka fairy lilies) popped up with the recent rains. They lie in wait for a series of rainy days then leap up to show off for a few days, then disappear again!
@Kyeh@tinamarie1974
Yeah, they are sort of like spider lilies in that you don’t see them for a while, then they magically pop up after a few days of rain.
@Kyeh I deal mostly with rabbits and moles. The birds are definitely in the garden but thankfully don’t really do damage. Because of the location of my berries, they typically don’t mess with them because people are constantly around. Thankfully no dear and I think the dogs keep trash pandas at bay.
@Felton10 that’s what the fence is for. I trellis anything I can. My cherry and slicing tomatoes are in the wall bed by the pool so if the kids get hungry, they can graze. If all goes well, we will be swimming in cucumbers. Though the Englishman detests those. His favorite shirt says pickles are cucumbers soaked in evil.
Remember the gargantuan rhubarb plant I posted a while back? Here’s a couple of stalks I picked today. I like the stripes on the lower one, from where other stalks overlapped it and blocked the sun. The longer one is 30"!
@sillyheathen
Do your bananas produce fruit you can eat? Here in central AL I will get flowers and they will set small fruit, but they always freeze before they can ripen.
@chienfou they’re always really small. I keep hoping I’ll get usable fruit but I doubt it.
@sillyheathen
do they at least get to turn yellow before they freeze?
BTW like your lettuce set up. Way too late for that here. It’s so hot they just bolt.
@chienfou we got a spike the other day that made all my bloody raab bolt. I’ve been plucking flower heads.
@sillyheathen around here if it starts to bolt it also gets tough and bitter.
@sillyheathen Nice - do you use the hops or are they just ornamental? (Homebrewer here
)
@macromeh we used to home brew so they were very much used. The last few years, I’ve dried them and sent them to my dad in Louisiana. I got him into brewing about ten years ago. Not sure what I’m going to do with them this year. I’ll post a picture when the go to flower.
@sillyheathen I have some hops growing, but I haven’t used any of them for brewing for a while. Unfortunately, the specialty hop varieties that I favor these days are proprietary and fairly closely guarded, so the rhizomes aren’t available for DIY cultivation. Also, I find harvesting and drying the buds extremely tedious and my kids are grown and out of the house so I can’t rope them into helping like I used to.
@macromeh well I have a cabinet dehydrator so if you want any let me know.
I could vacuum pack them and send them your way. I think this is Willamette. I used to have five varietals but this was the only one I was able to dig and transplant when we moved.
@macromeh and yeah I hear you. I wanted Citra terribly but it’s propriety And they’re not letting that one out. There’s a farm not far from here that grows it and they have fenced fields and security. It’s kind of crazy.
@sillyheathen Yeah, pals at my brew club joke about making a midnight commando raid on a hop farm.
But the brew club hasn’t got together for 2 years now (Covid/etc.) and at the quantities that I brew on my own these days (~10-15 gal/year), buying the hops at a brew supply store isn’t a big deal.
I will post more later today but I gotta get out and get dirty for a while!
Working 8 hours this evening (1445-2315), then 16 tomorrow (0645 to 2315). Pics will have to wait.
I can say that:
{VEGGIE GARDEN} I have pulled my first tomatoes, cukes and zukes. Jalepenos and bell peppers will start getting harvested in next few days. Eggplants are setting fruit, cantaloupes and watermelon are running all over the place. Okra in starts but not in ground yet (got distracted working TOO much this week --will have over 70 hours by Sunday). Have a few artichoke plants to get in the ground as well (new attempt for me).
{FRUIT ORCHARD} I have a metric shit-ton of figs this year, lots of cooking/canning pears on my oldest tree, and a bunch of ‘eating’ pears on the other 2. Also have a bunch of peaches on the 2 trees tho they will most likely be crappy since I didn’t get any dormant oil on them this spring. Apple trees are producing well, and lots of blueberries that will ripen in the next week-10 days. A few blackberries still, and the grapes are covering 50ft of my back fence. Potted lemon tree has reached capacity in the pot (kinda root bound) so didn’t fruit well this year.
{Flower beds} Wife really went to town this year clearing out our plantings. Currently have blooming:
Day lillies
Gardenias
Chaste lilac
Amaryllis
Knock out roses
Marigolds
Dahlias
Gladiolas
Lantana
Witchhazel (white and pink)
Hydrangea
Canna lillies
Purple wandering jew
Ice plant
Lavender
and I’m sure several I can’t think of while I’m here in the ER.
TL:DR *We
likeLOVE plants…@chienfou Where do you live? I’m just now getting tomatoes and none of the rest of my garden is no where NEAR bearing fruit…and I thought I started early.
Good job!
@chienfou
Yeah where do you live, I wanna come visit your farm. Sounds awesome. I wish I had the property for nice garden.
DIPLOMAT! RAT-A-TAT! FAT CAT! AWESOME!
@Star2236 @Tadlem43
Central AL. Zone 8a. Took a chance and planted stuff way early this year since our winter/early spring was so mild. Glad I did! Tomato plants are about 5 ft tall, but only because I have been trimming them to keep them from going totally crazy!
@chienfou @Tadlem43
Wow good for you. We had 3 late frost in MI the one being end of April but then again I don’t put anything in the ground till may bc of that reason.
@Star2236 @Tadlem43
I have a bit less than an acre (since we deeded off a house plot to my parents when they moved here so we could help them.)
Most of the gardens have been ‘works in progress’ for the past over 30 yrs since we moved in. I plant a smallish garden that usually hosts tomatoes, cukes, zukes and yellow squash (until the squash bugs find them), red/yellow/green peppers, jalapenos (to eat fresh, stuffed with smoked cream cheese, to cook with, and to make chipotles/chipotle powder at the end of the season), Japanese eggplant, cantaloupe, watermelon, and okra (again to eat fresh and to can for hors d’oeuvres later in the winter), and this year I have 3 artichoke plants I am trying for the first time. The lettuce is long gone, and the fruits are all setting well ( a couple of varieties each of pears, apples, peaches, figs, blueberries, blackberries and grapes.) I even have some olives growing for the first time on some trees I bought at Sam’s a couple of years ago. The Meyer lemon needs to be repotted (it is terribly root bound) so isn’t as loaded as usual so no lemoncello this year I guess. Oh and I have flowers/bananas on the banana plants though I have never gotten them to ripen due to the length of time it takes and the fact that the frost usually gets them in late Nov/or sometime in Dec.
@chienfou @Star2236 Wow… that’s awesome!
I live in Dallas, in have a raised bed, and this year planted a few brussell sprouts in another area, but pretty small.
I’ve got several types of tomatoes, some in containers, okra, Kitchen King green beans, eggplant, cukes, and had lettuce, but the rain ruined it.
I got my first eatable tomato yesterday, but have a lot on the vines (some over 10 ft tall!), some baby cukes, and a few baby beans, but nothing like what it seems you have! I’m impressed!
I did my own germination this year for the first time, and had enough to even sell some of the plants. Now, THAT’S fun!
Good luck with the garden ! Seems you got it goin’ on!!
Where in AL? I lived in Eufaula and Mobile I miss it!
LEGOS! EGGOS! STRATEGO! AWESOME!
@Tadlem43
not far from Montgomery
@chienfou Ah… my old stomping ground. We used to go there to party! lol
@chienfou @Tadlem43
Very cool, send me fruit.
@Star2236 @Tadlem43
Just picked some eggplant, cukes, tomatoes and green peppers yesterday. Afraid they won’t do well if I ship them… especially since I generally use Pitney Bowes…
@chienfou @Tadlem43
All sounds very yummy! It’s crazy bc we won’t see any of that at farmers markets for at least a month.
Cut some flowers from the garden.
@sillyheathen
… I can seeeee youuu!
no buds on my peonies yet… but my Japanese
irises are long gone
@chienfou haha you could if that was me. My friend took the picture.
@sillyheathen
oh, and nice Fleur-de-lis…
@chienfou thanks. My sister gave it to me. She and my dad made the frame from some boards from our family barn when she was visiting them in New Orleans. It’s really great. I need to hang it up properly.
@sillyheathen Wow, so lush! My peonies are j-u-u-u-st about to bloom, any day now.
@sillyheathen I’d love to see pics of your garden, must be beautiful!!
When I was a kid my grandmother’s neighbor had a backyard garden that was the most spectacular explosion of floral scents and color that i’ve ever seen! She had multiple levels of rows and rows of beautiful flowers! It was gorgeous!!
Here’s a water lily from a week ago. Still at work but this was on my phone
@chienfou That looks like a Japanese painting!
@chienfou it’s gorgeous!
@chienfou
Fishies too! So pretty!!
I harvested my first artichoke which I am super proud of. I have been getting lots of peas and greens . Just starting to get tomatoes.
@CaptAmehrican
That’s really cool. The plants I bought say they take over 100 days to produce. Do you get a frost/freeze where you live or do they grow all year long?
@chienfou yes I only got 1 last year with 4 plants. 3 of those 4 made it thru the winter and are all huge and way ahead of last year. I have now already gotten 3 artichokes and there are a bunch that are growing
@CaptAmehrican
That’s cool. What planting zone are you located in?
All my stuff is planted in pots, our soil is pretty much clay. This week I have to finish planting the rest of my stuff. I do a lot of herbs and this year I’m growing lettuce, spinach and peppers. My FIL next door grows tomatoes. I have multiple flower beds that were amended when we moved in but one of them has turned back to clay and all my plants died. I’m gonna have to add a bunch of in the next few years. We just put down mulch last year so I have to wait to the mulch dissipates. But i love my flower gardens and I’m constantly adding stuff to them. Bc of the late frost in MI this year not all my flowers are blooming yet. I only had 4 iris’ come up out of probably 40 it was really sad.
@Star2236 it’s okay. It’s my fault that happened.
And I have been blown away by what has come up this year. I thought I’d lost tons of stuff with the ice storm. I was weeding the salad bar yesterday and found epazote growing which I was convinced had absolutely died! Granted y’all get much colder temps than we do where you are.
@sillyheathen
At least I know who to blame lol I love your lettuce containers.
@Star2236 thanks. It’s a garden tower. I know some people claim to grow all sorts of stuff in it but I’ve found herbs and lettuce to have the most success for me. I usually just start one varietal each week and space them out that way. Had too many sprouts for that this time.
@sillyheathen
Did you make it or buy it?
@Star2236 I bought it years ago on Kickstarter.
@Star2236 They may be back next year or the next. it’s REALLY hard to kill Iris’s.
@Star2236 @Tadlem43 But, IME, there must be a trick to propagate them from seed. I collected seeds from wild irises in the woods around my house last year and my wife (the gardener of the family) tried to start them but none of the seeds sprouted. Maybe this year I will try digging up and transplanting some bulbs, come August.
@macromeh @Star2236 @Tadlem43
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/bulbs/iris/harvesting-seeds-from-iris.htm
@macromeh @sillyheathen @Star2236 Oh, wow. That’s cool! Thanks!
@macromeh @Star2236 I don’t know about flowers, I’ll tell you how I do my veggies, if that will help.
I take a moist (not dripping wet) paper towel and put my seeds on them, separated, roll the paper towel, put it in a plastic baggie, and put it someplace dark and kinda warm. Some people put them on top of their fridge, etc., but I just put mine in my pantry.
Check them once a day.
With some, you’ll have sprouts the next day, some it takes a week or so.
When you get sprouts, put them in peat pots with STARTER soil, NOT potting soil, or you can put them in a seed starter set. Put them under grow lights.
New plants will have 2 ‘starter leaves’. When the 3rd leaf starts to show, you can remove any cover you have over them (in a starter set), and make sure they get plenty of light and moisture until you have at least 2 more leaves.
Then you can start hardening them off and planting them.
You can sow them directly into peat pots or starter sets, but I find mine do MUCH better if I sprout them in baggies with the paper towels first.
@Star2236 @Tadlem43 Yeah, my wife grows lots of flowers and veggies from seed - just no luck with the wild iris seeds. There are lots of wild irises in the nearby timberland again this year, so will give it another try. We just want to start some of them in the wooded areas adjacent to our lawn. Should be pretty low maintenance once we get them started.
I have tried propagating lilac bushes for the move and they’re not going so well
@mbersiam are you using newer growth or hardier cuttings? I’ve had success with newer growth by cutting leaves off and letting them sit a day or to callous. You don’t want blossoms or many leaves. That all needs to be cut off bar two or three leaves. I apply root tone to the nodes and put it in loose damp potting soil to encourage root growth. It’s not always successful but I did manage to get three peacock lilac cuttings that way last year.
Raining today… Finally. Pics still coming.
Here’s an arrangement i set out for my wife while she was gone Saturday.
The books are for an ACT prep class she is teaching this week
@chienfou LOVE it! Is that a hosta on the side?
@chienfou
Love that! The soft yellow center is my fav!
@Lynnerizer
That is an awesome dahlia that looks like a giant firework. Has a soft yellow center with light orange tinged outer petals. Pics to post in a bit…
POPSOCKETS! SPA KITS! POLLY POCKETS! AWESOME!
@sillyheathen
no, that’s a leaf from the canna lily…
Okay large post. This is what I wanted to post when I created this but life.
First lets show some flowers…
That’s probably more than enough for now. I’ll post some of the veggies and edible things later!
@sillyheathen
Sure is a secret gargen. Nice little potting shed too! What is that pink and yellow pastel flower that reminds me of cotton candy?
@Lynnerizer
that’s the murder shed. It’s the studio where I design and make the things. The cotton candy flower in question is one of my peonies.
@Lynnerizer
My greenhouse is the potting shed which you can see in the background.
@sillyheathen really quite pretty! What are the purple flowers?
@tinamarie1974 the first one is Sisyrinchium or blue eyed grass which is in the iris family. The second one is love in a mist and it volunteers all over my garden.
@sillyheathen thank you! So a little research tells me love is an annual, but also mentioned it is self seeding…so does it come back every year from the seeds?
@tinamarie1974 yep. In fact, it took over part of the bed that I call the salad bar which goes around our pool. It looks so similar to carrot seedlings that I mistook it as such. So now I’m having to pull a bunch of it out. If you want seeds, I’m happy to mail you some. I have a plethora.
@sillyheathen oh that would be lovely. I have a few spots that would be fantabulious for more purple flowers. Thanks, danke, gracias
Wow, what a little paradise!
!
SO beautiful
@Kyeh it really is. I love our place. We still have a ton of work to do since the ice storm but we’re getting there. My mom calls it out secret garden.
@sillyheathen It does look lovely and secluded - I love the huge trees. Are there mountains in the distance there, or are those just clouds?
@Kyeh mount hood is in the distance but you can’t see it well from our house. If you could, the property would probably easily be worth double.
@sillyheathen So probably better you’re where you are, huh. I’ll put up a photo I took from my roof several years ago, where the clouds look exactly like snowy foothills - only I took it in July where the was no snow anywhere nearby.
@sillyheathen
@Kyeh @sillyheathen Yep, the Mt. Hood view was a major selling point when we bought our property. 23 years later and I still enjoy the view.
@Kyeh @sillyheathen
@macromeh @sillyheathen Gorgeous!
@Kyeh @macromeh I love that mountain so much!
@Kyeh @sillyheathen The mountain speaks highly of you, too!
Okay for my next super annoying trick, I will post the fruits of my garden. I’ll wait a few days before I post the veggie garden. It’s going crazy right now and growing at a rate that has been mind boggling. I’m not complaining mind you because there’s nothing I enjoy more than making amazing meals from my garden. Anyway here’s to the fruits of my labor!
@sillyheathen my gosh, how much land do you have?
@tinamarie1974 just over an acre.
@tinamarie1974 I’m currently working on finishing a coop. We have some dark and light brahma chicks coming in August. They will live in the back and their run will be bisected in the back corner in part of the “orchard”. Then we’re laying down ground cloth and putting med gravel/river rock all around the fire pit and reinforcing some of the walk ways. I still have a ton to weed and prune. It’s kind of overwhelming at times.
@sillyheathen but you are making use of all of it. Impressive.
@tinamarie1974 I try to use as much as I possibly can. My grandparents had a 100 acre farm between New Orleans and Baton Rouge when I was a kid. They raised angus, flowers and veggies. It’s kind of in my genes.
@sillyheathen Incredible!!! What are in the second and third photos?
@Kyeh Buddha’s hand or Buddha’s fingers. It’s my all time favorite citrus and the Englishman got me a tree for my 40th! The third photo are beauty berries. I make tea with them and insect repellent from the leaves.
@sillyheathen Cool, thanks. I’ve seen the beauty berry before but never knew what it was. The Bhudda’s Hand has such a dark fruit - will it lighten up as it grows?
@Kyeh
Yep this is what they will look like.
@sillyheathen Thanks! I’ve seen the full-grown fruit a few times, but I didn’t know if there was a dark variety too. And I certainly didn’t know you could grow citrus in Oregon!
@Kyeh they will be yellow when they ripen. And it is definitely tricky. Buddha will live in the shed or the house in the winter.
@sillyheathen @tinamarie1974
So true here in the PNW - sometimes it’s a struggle just to keep up. Actually making improvements is a major accomplishment - well done!
@Kyeh @sillyheathen I took a hike on the 3-mile loop on adjacent timberland this morning. I’ve posted some pictures from our “garden annex”. No digging, weeding, pruning, watering or fertilizing needed!
I was walking along and noticed a sweet, herbal smell. Looked around and, yep, the Wormwood is up (Absinthe, anyone?).
The wild foxgloves, lupines and daisies are blooming. Sadly, the wild irises are mostly done.
@Kyeh @sillyheathen Here’s an earlier photo of the some of the wild irises at their peak.
I also occasionally come across some interesting fauna on my hikes. Here is a strange dragon-like creature I saw lurking in the woods.
@macromeh @sillyheathen I have a friend who made his own absinthe for quite a few years!
I love foxgloves - I had some beautiful ones in the sunny front yard where I used to live, but here where my front yard is shady they’re not happy. I’ll have to try again in the back sometime.
The old yard was funny - I got intense sun for a short time each day, and some delphiniums I had grew about 6’ high!
@macromeh @sillyheathen
Wow, cool dragon!
@Kyeh @sillyheathen When I first came across the Wormwood a couple of years ago, its interesting fragrance made me think “Maybe this would make a nice herbal tea”. I mean, on a warm summer day, a patch of it perfumes the whole area. Then I identified it and researched a bit online. Um, neurotoxins? Not my cup of tea, thanks.
OK, As I promised. Here are some pics of the yard/flowers.
@chienfou LOVE LOVE LOVE! This is so great. I’m jealous that you can see your fish. My pond is currently self sustaining. It’s an amazing little eco system but because of that there’s quite a bit of duck weed. The fish eat it so I just leave it because right now it’s one less thing I have to deal with.
Your garden is fantastic!
@sillyheathen
Thanks. The pond is actually a lot of fun. The goldfish were the $.25 kind from Walmart the we bought about 4 years ago. They have gotten big (some of the originals are 4-5 inches long), and bred out to have different multi-colored off-spring!
I use a UV-C chamber that the water pumps thru which has done wonders for the clarity of the water. It’s on a timer for about 8 hours a day and keeps up fine. (the timer is ‘hidden’ inside the lighthouse in the pics below)
@sillyheathen
here’s a pic of the assorted progeny. You can see on of the ‘parents’ and a completely white one and one with orange and white spots.
And here are some individual flowers.
…and a few more
@chienfou
Sorry for the repeats on the cannas and gladiolas. I had the pics all picked and uploaded and my computer had a mental breakdown and lost all of them. Then when I went to re-post them I hit the “say it” button instead of the “post a pic” button so had to scramble to make the edit time window. (Though now that I think about it, I could have just deleted the partial post and started over… Guess I just got in a bit of a panic…)
@chienfou SPECTACULAR!!!
@Kyeh
Oh, and the rain lilies (aka fairy lilies) popped up with the recent rains. They lie in wait for a series of rainy days then leap up to show off for a few days, then disappear again!
@chienfou @Kyeh those are super cute
@chienfou @tinamarie1974 Oh, I love those.
They look a bit like my tulips that bloomed in May: https://meh.com/forum/topics/totes-may-goats-may-2021-scapegoat-blame-thread#608eeeecb18ba7001186d7ec
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974
Yeah, they are sort of like spider lilies in that you don’t see them for a while, then they magically pop up after a few days of rain.
@chienfou @tinamarie1974
And like mushrooms - but so much prettier!
How does my garden grow?
With old bones and old glass
‘cause my efforts’ half-assed
And poison ivy thro and thro.
Vegetables
This one’s for you @felton10
@sillyheathen Nice! Do you have any problems with critters? Here we have to fend off rabbits, raccoons, deer, squirrels and birds.
@sillyheathen But that is only one. I more than one-many in fact thanks to KHJ.
@Kyeh I deal mostly with rabbits and moles. The birds are definitely in the garden but thankfully don’t really do damage. Because of the location of my berries, they typically don’t mess with them because people are constantly around. Thankfully no dear and I think the dogs keep trash pandas at bay.
@Felton10 Oh there will be many more!
@sillyheathen Hope not-only so much room for balls.
@Felton10 that’s what the fence is for.
I trellis anything I can. My cherry and slicing tomatoes are in the wall bed by the pool so if the kids get hungry, they can graze. If all goes well, we will be swimming in cucumbers. Though the Englishman detests those. His favorite shirt says pickles are cucumbers soaked in evil. 
Remember the gargantuan rhubarb plant I posted a while back? Here’s a couple of stalks I picked today. I like the stripes on the lower one, from where other stalks overlapped it and blocked the sun. The longer one is 30"!
@Kyeh that’s fantastic! I love rhubarb so much. It’s really underrated. I pickle it and is it in savory dishes too.
This isn’t from my garden but I wanted to share. I brought my mom to a dahlia farm nearby the other day. So many flowers!!!
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