Garden Planning - What Do You Want To Grow?

[Elastigirl]

1 hour ago, Taddea Zhaan said:

 

I'm thinking about getting some more sunflower seeds and starting them indoors. But you have to be carefully they don't get too big and weak stems before you put them outside. I'm not sure how well it will work. I've not had luck with sunflowers started indoors int he past. 

 

Have you tried starting flower seeds inside? 

No, I've done veggies inside but not flowers. 

[Elastigirl]

Planted tomato plants, one pepper plant, and basil today. I decided it is much more fun to plant plants rather than seeds. It seems so much more gratifying,because you look out over the bed and see all the plants instead of just dirt. I did plant some seeds too. Planted some flower seeds and some cucumber.

[Jord]

9 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

Planted tomato plants, one pepper plant, and basil today. I decided it is much more fun to plant plants rather than seeds. It seems so much more gratifying,because you look out over the bed and see all the plants instead of just dirt. I did plant some seeds too. Planted some flower seeds and some cucumber.

 

I agree! We put in peppers and tomatoes as plants. For seeds we did: beans, cucumber, zucchini, swiss chard, kholrabi, and beets. The tomatoes and peppers are still so much more satisfying to see. Out of the seeds the kholrabi and the beans are growing the fastest. Ironically the kholrabi germinated first and beans germinated last!

 

I also got a few basil plants from a co-worker and they are looking kind of sad, but have started perk up this week now that it is up over 80 degrees F. 

[captncid]

Here is the tower I made for the carrots and radishes. The white bucket in the middle is for composting.

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[Elastigirl]

57 minutes ago, captncid said:

Here is the tower I made for the carrots and radishes. The white bucket in the middle is for composting.

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So... you grow the carrots in the tower?Like just in the middle? How do you harvest them? What is the white handle thing for? How does  this compost work in the middle? See, now you started it, I have all the questions>

[Igaduma]

That would probably look great with flowers in it, or hanging plants.

[captncid]

So... you grow the carrots in the tower?Like just in the middle? How do you harvest them? What is the white handle thing for? How does  this compost work in the middle? See, now you started it, I have all the questions>[emoji4]

The carrots go in the cut sides, they essentially act like net pots. You just harvest them like normal out of the side holes. The top ring of dirt I put radishes in.

The middle white bucket is where I put any scraps. It has holes in it so the worms can go in and out. I'll do my best to get better pictures.

The white tube on the side is for water. The barrel is a wicking system to keep it all moist.

This is a video of how to build it and a decent explanation of how it works. The guy is dry, however has great ideas.

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[Milli]

Wow, that tower is a really great idea. Even if you just have an balcony you can plant many vegetables.

[SquirrelBandit]

I'm moving into a dorm in August, so not much gardening for me (sadly). But I found out there's a community garden near campus! It's full right now, but I'm on the waiting list -- if I can get a spot, I can put in fall veggies, like a ton of onions/garlic, peas, maybe some lettuce for the winter. And transplant my herbs there. I have a gorgeous big lemon verbena plant and some really nice thyme I'd like to keep, and a bunch of strawberry plants as well. 

 

Hopefully once I graduate I can settle down a bit and get a place with an actual garden space. I have so many ideas of what I'd like to do!

[Elastigirl]

26 minutes ago, SquirrelBandit said:

I'm moving into a dorm in August, so not much gardening for me (sadly). But I found out there's a community garden near campus! It's full right now, but I'm on the waiting list -- if I can get a spot, I can put in fall veggies, like a ton of onions/garlic, peas, maybe some lettuce for the winter. And transplant my herbs there. I have a gorgeous big lemon verbena plant and some really nice thyme I'd like to keep, and a bunch of strawberry plants as well. 

 

Hopefully once I graduate I can settle down a bit and get a place with an actual garden space. I have so many ideas of what I'd like to do!

I have a friend who lives in a condo , so she does the community garden. She really enjoys it. 

[RedStone]

FINALLY got the mulch down! And a decent amount of the seed started transplants survived that surprise frost, replacements are growing rapidly, as well as the outdoor seeds and garlic which I'm hoping will be harvestable mid July  New additions: eggplant, rhubarb, sugar snap peas, beets and leeks  

 

[captncid]

Finally got these in last week!!!

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[Jord]

On 5/30/2016 at 0:21 PM, SquirrelBandit said:

I'm moving into a dorm in August, so not much gardening for me (sadly). But I found out there's a community garden near campus! It's full right now, but I'm on the waiting list -- if I can get a spot, I can put in fall veggies, like a ton of onions/garlic, peas, maybe some lettuce for the winter. And transplant my herbs there. I have a gorgeous big lemon verbena plant and some really nice thyme I'd like to keep, and a bunch of strawberry plants as well. 

 

Hopefully once I graduate I can settle down a bit and get a place with an actual garden space. I have so many ideas of what I'd like to do!

 

23 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

I have a friend who lives in a condo , so she does the community garden. She really enjoys it. 

 

I did a community garden plot twice when I lived in an apartment. Other than having to travel to the garden it was better than having my own garden at home! Full sun wonderfullness and you get the joy of being a part of a gardening community.  

[Jord]

20 hours ago, ~RedStone~ said:

FINALLY got the mulch down! And a decent amount of the seed started transplants survived that surprise frost, replacements are growing rapidly, as well as the outdoor seeds and garlic which I'm hoping will be harvestable mid July  New additions: eggplant, rhubarb, sugar snap peas, beets and leeks  

 

Is it the peas you are growing up the string trellis? Have you had good luck with string trellis in the past? 

 

I still need to figure out and put in (within the next week!) something for my beans and my cucumbers to grow up and I am trying to figure out what is the cheapest/easiest option because my garden budget is pretty much shot and the beans are ready to start growing on a trellis any minute now. 

 

It looks so lovely!

 

Also, I tried to remove the images to make my reply smaller and it just kept deleting the whole quote! Sometimes the forums can be annoying. 

[Elastigirl]

Had the first raspberries of the season from our garden this evening. Nom!

[Jord]

10 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

Had the first raspberries of the season from our garden this evening. Nom!

Awesome! There is a plant in my yard I thought might be raspberry. It was flowering last week, I should go check if I have raspberries when I get home!

[captncid]

Hi all!

Just wanted to do an update on the greenhouse. It's going a little crazy...

Shot from the entrance:

Zucchini and Sugar Snap Peas:

A couple tomato plants:

A tomato plant and a pepper plant:

A pepper plant, a tomatillo plant, and a nasturtium:

A poblano and a yellow pear tomato:

A yellow bell pepper and some transplanted jalapeños:

The Spinach I started in the bed from seed:

Cucumbers, watermelon, and more nasturtiums:

A couple pictures of the barrel, the top plants are radishes, carrots in the front, and 3 broccoli plants in the bottom row:

I took out the towers because of water flow issues and replaced it with this, it has some strawberries, basil, lemon balm, and I'm experimenting with regrowing lettuce after I have harvested it:

Of course, gotta show the fish:

Here is some lettuce we just harvested:

Happy gardening everyone!!

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[captncid]

Just for comparison, here is the same grow bed three weeks apart.

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[Jord]

That's awesome! I think my peppers would definitely prefer to be in a greenhouse. It has taken forever to get up to temperatures that they like. Next year I'm not even going to plant them until the beginning of June. 

 

What's the plan for when the watermelon and cukes start to grow all over the place? 

[Jord]

On 6/19/2016 at 4:23 AM, captncid said:

Just for comparison, here is the same grow bed three weeks apart.

 

 

Quoting you so you get a notification. This thread didn't show up in my "content" because I hadn't checked it for a while, so you may not see my reply otherwise.  

[captncid]

That's awesome! I think my peppers would definitely prefer to be in a greenhouse. It has taken forever to get up to temperatures that they like. Next year I'm not even going to plant them until the beginning of June. 

 

What's the plan for when the watermelon and cukes start to grow all over the place? 

I hung a trellis in the back for the cukes to grow up, it goes to the top of the greenhouse. As for the watermelons, I was just going to let them grow over the edge. If they end up in the ground, it's all good. [emoji6]

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[captncid]

Can anyone help me identify this plant? It sprouted in my dirt garden as a volunteer...

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[Jord]

1 hour ago, captncid said:

Can anyone help me identify this plant? It sprouted in my dirt garden as a volunteer...

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It looks like a sunflower or a sunchoke (the latter also being known as jerusalem artichoke). 

A sunflower might appear if a bird was eating seeds from a bird feeder (in your yard or a neighbors) and then dropped some in your garden while flying around. A sunchoke is a tuber type of plant that is a perennial and will come back every year, that will only appear if it was once growing in your yard and went dormant and then came back this year. 

 

http://edibleplantproject.org/sunchoke/ 

[captncid]

 

It looks like a sunflower or a sunchoke (the latter also being known as jerusalem artichoke). 

A sunflower might appear if a bird was eating seeds from a bird feeder (in your yard or a neighbors) and then dropped some in your garden while flying around. A sunchoke is a tuber type of plant that is a perennial and will come back every year, that will only appear if it was once growing in your yard and went dormant and then came back this year. 

 

http://edibleplantproject.org/sunchoke/ 

You are indeed correct, it was a sunflower!

I guess I'll put more effort into the dirt garden next year or just build another greenhouse.....

Here is the first of many cucumbers to come out of the greenhouse!!

It is about 18" long!

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[Jord]

11 hours ago, captncid said:

You are indeed correct, it was a sunflower!

I guess I'll put more effort into the dirt garden next year or just build another greenhouse.....

Here is the first of many cucumbers to come out of the greenhouse!!

 

It is about 18" long!

 

 

That is a mighty fine cucumber! Are you going to make pickles? 

 

I am close to having tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini within the next 2 weeks. Probably also the beets. So far we have only had peas and greens.