Garden Chat

Oh gotcha. We have a dehydrator, but I don’t have the energy for that right now. I am 100% peg board and shelf styling.

At least in my experience it’s much more likely rabbits. I almost never see squirrels eating foliage. They’d be much more likely to kill seedings by digging them up looking for stuff under the ground.

If you have freezer space, tomatoes freeze really well for turning into sauce later. But giving away produce is great too :slight_smile: I’ve had a free veggie table out on the corner the last couple months and gotten thanks and compliments from a lot of neighbors.

Love the free produce tables! Lots of our neighbors will put out bags of garden bounty. Usually zucchini. :joy:

I appreciate the sentiment yall, but I don’t need advice on preserving food. The freezer is tiny, canning is too involved, and dehydrating will happen at some point when I’m less busy.

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I was supposed to plant seeds this week. Apparently I’ve been beaten to it - I’ve got a mystery vine and a mystery tomato that self-seeded, and there’s several plants of each!

Last year I planted watermelon, rockmelon, cucumber and loofah. I have no idea what tomato varieties those might turn out to be. I must’ve reused potting mix containing unsprouted seeds, because there’s no compost in these pots AND none of my plants last year got so far as a sad small fruit let alone going to seed!

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I’m grateful that I planted my bell pepper seedlings in the atrium, because they are absolutely going to town now. I’ve got several good sized ones and probably 50 blooms. Without covering, in that south facing atrium on our south slope, I think I can expect them to flourish until at least late December. If husband gets the roof done, then I can overwinter them As long as I hand pollinate. We’ve not yet figured out exactly how we’re going to ventilate in the summer, though, so the roof may or may not happen this year. Ventilation and probably a fan system are going to be absolutely necessary if we don’t want to roast in the summer.

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Ooh fingers crossed for your peppers!

We had hail today! No frost all year and then right after several weeks of warmer weather, hail! I expect everything to survive but gosh some of will be chilled.

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I thought I needed a pick mattock to break up the soil but it turned out it was more compacted than I thought and I didn’t have a pick mattock…ended up watching the Garden Ninja on YouTube and it looked like I just needed a gardening fork, which I already had. Am gonna try putting grass cuttings and leaves to add more plant matter to the clay like soil…hope it works! Gonna do it later because I am kinda beat from breaking up the soil and the sun is out now. :grinning:

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A garden fork was the tool I never knew I needed until I inherited one and then it was like WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE???

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A broadfork is useful too. I find garden forks can struggle with clay soils, I end up bending the tines.

I finally got nasturtiums to grow without being decimated by possums and then I read this:

I like Jerry and he lives in the same city so is geographically relevant. Sometimes I don’t agree with him but concede that he is far better educated and experienced than I, is he right about nasturtiums?

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I’m biased because I love nasturtiums. But don’t most gardeners deliberately plant them BECAUSE they attract pests? They’re a decoy plant.

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I have 2/3 of those without nasturtiums… Shrug it wouldn’t put me off growing them. Currently I don’t only because they grow so prolifically.

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Jerry Buzkill Colby-Williams

I also like him but he gardens in a very specific way. Big on sweet potato.

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Grow what makes you happy. He’d probably take issue with all the cottage flowers I love to grow. Or my year round commitment to cherry tomatoes.

Speaking of which:

They really mess with Toddler PDM’s “ripe” algorithm. Red = ripe. Eat red things.
Works for the other cherry tomatoes, the strawberries. Does not work for mulberry.

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Ah, see that’s a real plus for me!

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Ahh well I like them for sentimental reasons and because I find them pretty, and so far they don’t seem to be ruining things. The salvias I planted attracted aphids in abundance but now they are home to a bunch of ladybugs, so that seems to have worked out well for us.

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They are very pretty and make me think of fairy gardens. I will probably end up with them within another year. The variety of colours available now is stunning!

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I’ve never successfully grown a nasturtium, and it’s not for lack of trying.

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I’m a fan of them as decoy plants.

The native bee in the red flower ^ looks cool.

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