***What's growing? The official garden thread***

Who Princess

Leezestarr313 wrote:

However, I took pics of some cool stuff during the last couple of days:
This is a radish, super delish and so pretty!

It's been a long time since I grew radishes but I remember that the taste was so sharp! Absolutely nothing like the ones you buy at the grocery store.

Leezestarr313 wrote:

And this is something that I only knew from the zoo so far :shock: A little scary, but so elegant and beautiful! A praying mantis. We found another one with a really big lower belly. She must be preggers. She looks like an alien, this one here is nothing It was freaky when she turned her head to look at us...

If you find a praying mantis in your garden, that's a good sign! It means pesticides haven't been used in your yard, or at least not for a long time. Praying mantises are good to have around. They eat lots of harmful insects.

Leezestarr313

AELARA wrote:

Butterfly in my garden

Pretty! Looks big too!

WhoPrincess - yep, we haven't used any harsh stuff in our garden, we wanted an organic garden Some of the corn got corn smut and we had some powdery mildew on the yellow squash and zucchini plants, but I was able to cure it with a mix of water and baking soda... Our garden is a little eden for all kinds of animals and plants

I love radishes, one of my childhood memories is eating buttered bread with radish slices (with a pinch of salt) in the garden of my grandma. Soo good! I loved these because they looked so cool. We had some regular ones too. I will never buy the ones from the supermarket again. That's like a waste of money...

morello

^^^ Wow everyone. What gorgeous pictures.

The weather's warmed up here now. I'll be doing my spring/summer seeds very soon & getting my garden going!! Let's get this year's garden started!!

Leezestarr313

morello wrote:

^^^ Wow everyone. What gorgeous pictures.

The weather's warmed up here now. I'll be doing my spring/summer seeds very soon & getting my garden going!! Let's get this year's garden started!!

:thumbup: Pretty cool that now that our season has ended, you can keep this thread alive Happy gardening!

morello

Leezestarr313 wrote:

morello wrote:

^^^ Wow everyone. What gorgeous pictures.

The weather's warmed up here now. I'll be doing my spring/summer seeds very soon & getting my garden going!! Let's get this year's garden started!!

:thumbup: Pretty cool that now that our season has ended, you can keep this thread alive Happy gardening!

My community garden is getting cranking now too. I haven't been along much recently as people have been meeting on a Friday afternoon when I'm at work. I'll post some pics from there sometime soon.

Leezestarr313

Cool :thumbup:

shortstack

can anyone recommend a good organic/heirloom seed supplier?

shortstack

just spent about two hours looking through and adding seeds to my cart only to find after the window closed down due to an "error" that the cart will not save unless you click a save button that is not explained until you lose everything in your cart. boo. thanks baker creek. =D>

SPEEDY MCCREADY

Well after sitting out all winter I was thrilled to see the lawn mower start with only one pull of the cord. That was a bonus!
We planted some tomatoes, a few varieties of peppers, beans, lettuce, and zucchini.

I played in the dirt, on and off, for 6 hours yesterday.

OMGkatwoman

shortstack said:

can anyone recommend a good organic/heirloom seed supplier?

I was going to say gurney's but, didn't see any there, burpee organic seeds are available at just about any garden center and saw johnnyseeds.com on the internet. I got some nice heirloom tomato plants already started last year at a local farm/feed store at their garden center so maybe check out some place like that if you have one near you.

Leezestarr313

We fenced in the garden patch over at our new house today and planted some flower seeds and veggie seeds. On Tuesday, I go to a garden center with my MIL, we will be looking for a magnolia tree and some bell pepper plants and tomatoes. This is about the only gardening that will happen this year, the inside of the house is more important But it made me so happy digging in the ground again!

Cliffy6745

Got my herbs and peppers going on my deck yesterday. Pretty pumped. Did okay last year, but hoping for a better outcome than last year.

shortstack

Leezestarr313 said:

We fenced in the garden patch over at our new house today and planted some flower seeds and veggie seeds. On Tuesday, I go to a garden center with my MIL, we will be looking for a magnolia tree and some bell pepper plants and tomatoes. This is about the only gardening that will happen this year, the inside of the house is more important But it made me so happy digging in the ground again!

congrats on the new house!

Leezestarr313

Thanks, shortstack! I got some pretty cool plants on tuesday. Lots of funky looking tomatoes, like this one, a Black Krim:

Then I got some bell peppers, bush cucumber, a lovage (a herb that I love, just the smell makes me drool and think of a hearty potato soup), a lemon mint, and an elderberry plant. Elderberries are a common sight in Germany. When i was a kid, we would venture out and collect either the blooms (they are an awesome dessert dipped in beer dough and deep fried) or the berries. My mom made elderberry soup (fantastic with sweet semolina dumplings), juice, wine and jelly. The blooms can also be made into a syrup. I'm very excited about this Didn't find a magnolia though, but this can wait.

SPEEDY MCCREADY

60 days until I plant.
60 short days.
I have to do it different this year. Peat Moss and manure, plus fertilizer. The 1st 3 summers here, my tomatoes and everything else kicked ass! Last year not so much. Guess I need to turn over the dirt and get some nutrients back in the soil.

60 more days.

Who Princess

shortstack said:

can anyone recommend a good organic/heirloom seed supplier?

I know this is an old post but I get catalogs from 2 suppliers of heirloom seeds: Seeds of Change and Select Seeds. Seeds of Change is mostly vegetables and Select Seeds is mostly flowers but they both have a good selection. I've bought seeds from both places. I mostly grow flowers and Select Seeds is just about my fave.

QuarterToTen

SPEEDY MCCREADY said:

60 days until I plant.
60 short days.
I have to do it different this year. Peat Moss and manure, plus fertilizer. The 1st 3 summers here, my tomatoes and everything else kicked ass! Last year not so much. Guess I need to turn over the dirt and get some nutrients back in the soil.

60 more days.

I'm thinking of putting in some cold weather crops, broccoli, cabbage, beets in the next few weeks.

I simply can't wait to get my hands back into the dirt.

Leezestarr313

I cannot wait either! I ordered a nice bunch of seeds from highmowingseeds.com, some fingerling seed potatoes and seed garlic from another website and my grandparents sent me a bunch of flower seeds, herb seeds and simple veggie seeds from Germany too. We covered the garden with old leaves before the snow came, so hopefully this will get the soil going. We are planning a lot this year, now that we have moved in it's gonna be awesome to go out and dig in the dirt whenever we want to. I got two "greenhouse" shelf units that I will set up in our sunniest room in a couple of weeks to get the baby plants going. We still have snow on the ground, so I guess I have to be patient...
I am most excited about the Belgian endives/ chicory. I hope it works out just as easy as it sounds.
Here's my seeds

RKCNDY

I'm building my planter box rack, should be done tonight. Will grow organic herbs in there. Then this weekend, will build the larger planter box for the larger veggies.
Everything is already blooming (the tulips are 2 weeks early), so I'm not sure if I want to get seeds for starts, or buy them at the farmers market-the starts there are all organic/heirloom.

Leezestarr313

We had great experiences with the starters last year, we might stock up a bit if the seeds don't behave as they should