Gardeners of AW, unite

[Brigid Barry]

I am ridiculously excited that I have tomatoes and marigolds popping up in the greenhouse trays. No sign of the jalapeños but two of the morning glories were so ambitious that I had to take them out already.

I don't normally start flowers indoors but I want a riot of blooms this year. I miss them.

I got some yellow pear tomatoes to plant so I might do a third greenhouse tray.

 

[mrsmig]

Sold a few more plants, which brings my total sales to $345. Pretty darned happy with that. I still have some left, but I'll probably take them to the town's plant swap next Saturday, rather than deal with selling them on FB Marketplace or NextDoor, which both have their quota of crazies and scammers. Selling via the town's plant swap group was a lot less stressful.

I dug in some of my own tomato seedlings this afternoon, after pulling up the plastic in the Tomato Fortress and breaking up the soil with my garden fork. I planted my eleven Romas and a couple of the Cosmonaut Volkovs, and that was all I had the time and energy for. Too bad, since we have rain in the forecast for the next couple of days. Initially it looked like it was just going to be occasional showers, which I would have tried to garden in, but now they're talking real rain. My bum knee has been acting up for the last couple of weeks and there's a limit to how much slipping around in the mud I'm willing to do. The potted seedlings are tucked into the Fortress with the newly-planted tomatoes, and I hope they'll be okay there. If they look too drowned, I'll have to get them under the deck eaves.

I brought up the sunflower seedlings from the grow station and gave them a couple hours on the deck this afternoon, then pulled them inside onto the dining room table, where they'll hang out until the weather improves. They're the last of my indoor seedlings, so I guess I can spend some of the rainy hours tidying up the Germination Station and putting things away until time for fall planting.

 

[Unimportant]

I did some weeding this morning and cleared out the pak choi that was running to seed. Partner planted out another dozen brassicas, and I'm about to put out several dozen spring onion seedlings and then hopefully a row of radish seeds. The sun's out so it's warmer out than in, which is fairly standard at this time of year.

 

[Friendly Frog]

I've put down the wooden tiles on the balcony for summer so dad's bursting plant collection can get out of the house. Normally it's his job but he's leaving for a trip on Monday and he has the same poor time-management as me (probably heritary, sigh ) so I decided to help out on that.

But I'm not doing it purely for selfless reasons, doing this also gave me the chance to arrange my perpetual growing collection of seedlings and irisses to my liking. Dad tends to make my path out of door onto the balcony smaller than I'd like and last time he bordered it with his cacti (!) and failed to see what the problem was. Unless he moves my pots of course to fit all of his. Can't be helped but then at least I tried.

And this way I can see my iris flowers from my room. I've got two stems of bearded irisses coming and I'm so looking forward to it. Currently they're turned inward so he doesn't whack them when dragging out pots. I will be very cross if anything happens to them now. They can open any minute now. Of course there's a giant rainy week forecast so I fear they will all rain out and be gone in days but that's just my luck with irisses, I suppose.

I'm not too keen to see all these white-fly infested pots joining mine but I suppose that too can't be helped. They have been terrible to get rid off, inside the congested greenhouse and outside on the like-wise congested balcony. Waiting for the dragonflies I reckon, but they too may be delayed by all this rain we've been getting this year.

 

[mrsmig]

Sounds like you and your dad have very different gardening interests and styles. That's got to be challenging at times.

A teacher on my town's plant swap group is asking for seedling donations for a student garden. Apparently the kids tried to grow from seed and didn't have good results. I've offered them a dozen tomatoes and the remaining squash and peppers left over from my seedling sale. I have no idea what kind of care they'll get - the kids will look after the garden until the end of the school year and then families will take it over through the summer - but if the kids learn a few things along the way, it's all good. They also plan to donate the produce to a homeless shelter, although I expect some veggies might end up inside the student body. That's okay, too.

My husband, who never seems to get the concept of "too much," wants me to keep and plant ALL the tomatoes.

 

[mccardey]

I've put down the wooden tiles on the balcony for summer so dad's bursting plant collection can get out of the house. Normally it's his job but he's leaving for a trip on Monday and he has the same poor time-management as me (probably heritary, sigh ) so I decided to help out on that.

But I'm not doing it purely for selfless reasons, doing this also gave me the chance to arrange my perpetual growing collection of seedlings and irisses to my liking. Dad tends to make my path out of door onto the balcony smaller than I'd like and last time he bordered it with his cacti (!) and failed to see what the problem was. Unless he moves my pots of course to fit all of his. Can't be helped but then at least I tried.

And this way I can see my iris flowers from my room. I've got two stems of bearded irisses coming and I'm so looking forward to it. Currently they're turned inward so he doesn't whack them when dragging out pots. I will be very cross if anything happens to them now. They can open any minute now. Of course there's a giant rainy week forecast so I fear they will all rain out and be gone in days but that's just my luck with irisses, I suppose.

I'm not too keen to see all these white-fly infested pots joining mine but I suppose that too can't be helped. They have been terrible to get rid off, inside the congested greenhouse and outside on the like-wise congested balcony. Waiting for the dragonflies I reckon, but they too may be delayed by all this rain we've been getting this year.

Oh god I'd love to read a book about you and Dad and gardening. It could be so delicious

 

[Friendly Frog]

Heh, we actually agree about a lot! We like a lot of the same plants and all.

We mostly disagree on pruning and unfortunately that is a big part of gardening. (For instance, he unironically calls Monty Don, the presenter of the BBC's Gardners' World gardening programme 'the maniac with the hacksaw', which probably is a good indication of his stance on pruning. My stance on pruning occasionally goes the other side: ) And then there's his tendency of not being able to say goodbye to plants.... (It's gone, Homer, piggy ain't coming back.)

But who knows, he likely has the same gripes about me. He often call me Snip Snip Daughter because I sometimes make scissor movements with my fingers to annoy him when we're discussing plants and I suggest pruning. (I almost always suggest pruning.)

 

[mccardey]

Heh, we actually agree about a lot! We like a lot of the same plants and all.

We mostly disagree on pruning and unfortunately that is a big part of gardening. (For instance, he unironically calls Monty Don, the presenter of the BBC's Gardners' World gardening programme 'the maniac with the hacksaw', which probably is a good indication of his stance on pruning. My stance on pruning occasionally goes the other side: ) And then there's his tendency of not being able to say goodbye to plants.... (It's gone, Homer, piggy ain't coming back.)

But who knows, he likely has the same gripes about me. He often call me Snip Snip Daughter because I sometimes make scissor movements with my fingers to annoy him when we're discussing plants and I suggest pruning. (I almost always suggest pruning.)

See I expect little differences and niggles and the underhand moving of pots around - but the lovely thing is the shared interest across generations. That must be gorgeous - at least from the outside it is. Oh, do write it!*


*You don't have to write it. But if you do, make sure you tell me and I'll pre-order. Twice.

 

[Woollybear]

I'm not too keen to see all these white-fly infested pots joining mine but I suppose that too can't be helped. They have been terrible to get rid off, inside the congested greenhouse and outside on the like-wise congested balcony. Waiting for the dragonflies I reckon, but they too may be delayed by all this rain we've been getting this year.

I haven't followed the saga so forgive me if it's been said--have you tried the daily vacuuming trick? It knocks them back, anyway.

I'm still depressed about the lack of a kale crop, and who ever thought that would happen? I want kale. No idea why. But I decided to put the potting soil from the garage into a medium size pot (12 inches or so) and try that way. Maybe I can get a pot-ful of kale. If i do it will at least tell me the garden soil is the culprit for all the failed plantings.

Otherwise, things are coming along. The rhubarb is big enough to make pie. I staked the blackberry bush up and it looks nice. We pulled most of the spinach yesterday and made a nice salad out of it, and that must be very healthy.

 

[Friendly Frog]

See I expect little differences and niggles and the underhand moving of pots around - but the lovely thing is the shared interest across generations. That must be gorgeous - at least from the outside it is. Oh, do write it!*


*You don't have to write it. But if you do, make sure you tell me and I'll pre-order. Twice.

Aw, you're too kind. I fear it'd be rather dull, mostly, but all the juicy highlights and intrigue -if there is any to be found- will undoubtedly make it to this thread, so watch this space.

For instance, if the weather is clement enough these next three weeks, expect tales of illicit pruning while my dad is out of the country...

 

[Friendly Frog]

I haven't followed the saga so forgive me if it's been said--have you tried the daily vacuuming trick? It knocks them back, anyway.

I haven't tried that one no, didn't know that was actually a trick. I may give it a try when the weather improves.

 

[Woollybear]

I think we put a dustbuster to that task the several years we were infested. Then our weather changed again and they went away on their own, which was nice.

Here's an Australian talking about it--don't know about Belgium, but I imagine it works there too, close enough species I presume.

Your irises sound beautiful! Enjoy.

 

[mrsmig]

We got another half inch of rain overnight. I'm glad because we needed it (it's been a very dry spring up to now), but I'd really like to get the rest of my seedlings into the ground. Forecast is for the rain to let up after noon, and the husband is at loose ends and has offered to help, so maybe we can get all the container plants shifted out of the Tomato Castle, pull up the plastic and get the bed prepped, at least. Tomorrow morning should be overcast and warmer - perfect planting weather.

Meanwhile, the bush beans have popped and the potato greens are starting to break the surface as well. Go, garden, go!

 

[Maryn]

Black thumb who's been reading along...

Let's talk weeds! We bought this nice house with woods in the back yard creating the illusion of privacy from our neighbors. Much of it is invasive buckthorn, quite thriving, which we are very slowly removing, little plants first, and ash trees, dying or dead due to emerald ash borers. So the woods don't look so hot, with lots of leaning and downed trees.

(Free firewood for life!)

Because there are now bare areas receiving some sun, we're getting ridiculously robust stands of weeds. I spent a few hours yesterday pulling garlic mustard, which I've only tentatively identified this morning, and throwing it on the compost pile--only to learn today it cannot be safely composted because the seeds survive in your nice compost. Damn it!

Apparently you have to either bury it three feet deep or burn it while it's green. Do we have a burn area? Of course not. Could we make one? Sure. Where? On the other side of the little stream there's a good-sized open area. How are we going to cross it? Uh...

Maryn, trying real hard to levitate

 

[mrsmig]

I spent the afternoon in the Tomato Castle, digging in my big indeterminate tomatoes: two each of Bread & Salt, Thorburn's Terra Cotta and Cherokee Carbon, three Cosmonaut Volkov, and one each of Arkansas Traveler, Granny Cantrell's German Red/Pink, and Mortgage Lifter VFN. I still have three more, which will have to go into my main garden bed, and I'm going to pick through what's left of my "for sale" seedlings and see if I want to plant any of those.

I'm absolutely beat. My husband helped, but it was still a lot of work, and just muddy and humid enough to make it kind of miserable. I got my first mosquito bite of the season - I'd sprayed myself with repellant, but the little bastard found a spot I'd missed, on my forehead right below my hat.

I still have to pull the plastic off the main bed and fork up the soil before I can plant any more. On the upside, the main bed is much more spacious and easier to work in than the Castle and the Fortress. On the downside, my neighbor is replacing her fence between our properties on Tuesday, which means I have to be really mindful not to plant anything too close to the property line, at least until the fence is in place.

 

[mrsmig]

The neighbor's new fence is in, and I'm glad I held off on prepping the bed/planting, because the workmen had to come onto my property to do some of the installation. Now that everything's in place, it looks like I gained an inch or so of ground, which means I have more of that invasive iris to clean out. I dug out some once the chain link was down and before the picket fence went up, but there are clumps here and there on my side that weren't there before. Time to sharpen up my spade, I guess.

My school donation of tomato, pepper and squash seedlings got picked up yesterday, and the teacher sent me a message thanking me for the info sheet I included (I thought the students might enjoy knowing the varieties, their growing habits and what kind of fruit they could expect). I hope everything grows well for them. That leaves me with eight tomatoes, six peppers and four squash to plant in my own garden, and about eleven tomato plants to take to the town plant swap on Saturday.

 

[Unimportant]

We had a hard frost overnight. It's 8 am and exactly zero degrees here (32F), so I'm delaying going out to feed the cattle and check on the garden because brrrrrrr!

 

[mrsmig]

Just spotted the first scape on my garlic. Hooray!

 

[Brigid Barry]

Assembled my little greenhouse today. I was pleasantly surprised at how sturdy the frame is. I don't know how long the cover will last in the sun but overall I'm happy with it. It's even been a little windy today and it didn't go sailing.

 

[Unimportant]

Aaaaand...I braved the frost. Tomatoes all dead. Capsicum/bell pepper -- 14 plants -- all dead. Huge wall of choko vines half dead. I'll salvage what I can, shrug, and admire my chinese cabbage, which are looking quite handsome.

 

[mrsmig]

about the summer crops, for the cabbage.

 

[Woollybear]

Strawberry rhubarb pie with homegrown rhubarb, in the oven.

Unimportant, I think you were the one who mentioned how to divide the rhubarb. Your instructions made me brave last october and I divided it and now I have two beautiful plants. Both gave me two stalks for the pie.

A sixth packet of kale is officially planted, in a pot in potting soil and we will see if this works. Some of the seeds also went into the garden as a negative control.

 

[Woollybear]

Oh, also, I've been mulching. the city has free mulch and I used to bring ten - fifteen garbage bags worth home at a time, but we traded the larger car in for a smaller one and now I can bring 2 - 3 bags worth which is ok because I'm also older than I once was. So, the mulching will be an ongoing project. I've transported about 9 bags over the past week or so.

 

[mrsmig]

Ugh. I had a good look at the main vegetable garden just now, and realized I have to deal with a lot more of my neighbor's invasive iris than I thought.

Some years back, when the iris encroachment first started being an issue*, I got a length of rigid plastic barrier - the kind that you hammer into the ground to block invasive growth - and installed that right at the fence line. The top edge of that barrier is now about 3-4 inches inside the fence on my side. It appears the fence installers gifted me with some of my neighbor's land, along with the iris.

Now I have to do one of two things: a) pull up the barrier, get in there with a spade, dig up all that iris and reinstall the barrier, or b) chop back the iris leaves, put a couple layers of cardboard over it, mulch over that, and let things lay until next year, in hopes that the iris will get choked out. The lazy person in me wants to do b), but I know I probably need to do a). It makes me want to shriek, since I'm already several days behind getting the main garden planted, due to weather and the fence installation.

::shrieks, but quietly::



*along with the thistle that absolutely infests her yard in the summertime - thanks, I think, to the mulch her landscaping service uses.

 

[Unimportant]

Two more frosts, and oh, lordie, the poor chokos! On the bad side, they're 75% munted. On the good side, the wilted darkened sagging curled up leaves mean I can actually see the choko fruits hidden behind. Gosh, there's a lot more than I realised! I don't know how many have/will be frost damaged and how many little ones will continue to grow, since they really really didn't like the frosts and we're due another week of frosty nights, but anything's better than nothing. Worst case scenario is that they'll just plain have to go onto the list of stuff we can't grow here.

I picked about a dozen fist-plus-sized fruits today, plus another dozen various small to tiny ones whose vines got accidentally torn off when we were removing some stuff from the deck to dispose of in the skip bin (aka dumpster) that we luckily-coincidentally-sort-of-illegally have access to for a few weeks.

So it's choko recipe-hunting time!