The Gardening 2014 Thread - I just spent 2 hours in a garden center.

AbbysMom

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Otherwise it's pots.  This gorgeous petunia has done brilliantly, flowering year round in my old strawberry pot.  They're called 'lemon slice' and they're a miniature variety.  I really recommend them.

Here is one of my petunias from this year. They are annuals around here. :nod:


 
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MoochNNoodles

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They are gorgeous Karen!!  I am going to do petunias in the new planter DH built again next year.  I love how full and lush they can look!  My problem is how the gutter that sits over them (which meets at a corner) overflows with heavy rain and that beats on them.  I've been going out and moving the planters around when it gets ready to rain.  

My canner arrived!  It came in 3 boxes.  One for each cat and a gigantic one that my kids are learning to share! 
  Oh and packing paper!  (Since the giant box was way unnecessary!)  That's a ton of fun to jump in too. 
 

mani

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That is a gorgeous hanging basket @AbbysMom   I'm going to give that a go!

OK, here you are @MoochNNoodles and @Winchester although I am profoundly embarrassed.... This was the most neglected bit of my garden which is why I chose it.
 
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MoochNNoodles

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Very nice!! Will that tree give good shade with it's bigger? I love lemon balm so I'm sure I'd love that tree!

I understand about sandy soil. Or; I'm learning! I've read lavender does well in sandy soil so I eventually want to plant some. The good thing is when torrential rains come we've not had to deal with flooding; thank the Lord!
 

mani

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Very nice!! Will that tree give good shade with it's bigger? I love lemon balm so I'm sure I'd love that tree!

I understand about sandy soil. Or; I'm learning! I've read lavender does well in sandy soil so I eventually want to plant some. The good thing is when torrential rains come we've not had to deal with flooding; thank the Lord!
  YES! Lavender! Why didn't I think of that!  Thank you..
 

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The petunias are beautiful! I think petunias are Rick's favorite flower. I love the Lemon Slice, Mani, but Karen, that pink is gorgeous, too. They are treated as annuals around here, too, as we're just a bit further south than you. Way back in my houseplant days, I did bring some petunias inside, just to see how they would do. They did fairly well for a while, but then they started getting very leggy and, even with all my pinching, I couldn't make them bushier. They did bloom in a south window, but not very well. Birds nest ferns are treated as house plants here, too, I believe. I know we have some large cinnamon ferns growing by the driveway; they get beautiful and spread like crazy; they're perennial. I gave a bunch to my sister the other year and hers grew for her, too.

Mani, I love your garden. It's so pretty. And it looks peaceful. I've not heard of lemon myrtle; that sounds interesting. I'd love the lemony scent as I love lemon anything.

We have lavender in our flowerbed out back; many years ago, one of our neighbors came over on his garden tractor and trailer with this huge plant in the trailer. It was lavender. It also grows very well in clay soil, trust me, but I don't know how it would do in shade.....ours is in full sun. It's so pretty. Mani, it would be beautiful in that corner.
 

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I'd put the lavender down that right hand side of the garden @Winchester as I agree it needs sun.. not that it gets heaps there, but it should be enough.  I have one in a pot that could do with planting out.  The left hand side is going to be the shady side, so any suggestions for there are gratefully accepted.. Something with height would be good.
 

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I don't know what all you can find in your country, Mani. 

I love coral bells. So many different flowers, so many different leaves! And hostas. Most hostas actually do better in shade than in sun (not dark shade, but dappled). How about astilbe? You can find astilbe in pinks, reds, and whites; it's really pretty and it's more for shade than full sun. Bleeding hearts. Lily-of-the-Valley.....I started out with just a few lily-of-the-valley plants several years ago and I think my patch is now a good 7-8 feet in diameter and the smell is just glorious, It gets dappled shade from an old white pine tree and a mountain ash tree that we haven't the heart to cut down.

Primroses. Violets...I know that violets love partial shade as they grow in some of the areas between our evergreen trees.

I get a magazine called Garden Gate and it's among my favorite gardening magazines. They always do a 10-best (10 best perennials, 10 best annuals for color, etc.) Will check that and see what it says. I save all the issues because I never know when they're going to come in handy.
 
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MoochNNoodles

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Well here they are; my first 6 jars of pickled banana peppers! It went well. Im sure it took longer than it could have. Next time i will deffinitly use the dushwasher to heat & steralize! I had to do them in 2 batches because i could only boil 3 jars in my regular large pot. It also took longer to get the big pot boiling than i expected. Also the house smells strongly of vinegar. Lol


Next i do want to try pickles. I just need a recipe.
 
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Well here they are; my first 6 jars of pickled banana peppers! It went well. Im sure it took longer than it could have. Next time i will deffinitly use the dushwasher to heat & steralize! I had to do them in 2 batches because i could only boil 3 jars in my regular large pot. It also took longer to get the big pot boiling than i expected. Also the house smells strongly of vinegar. Lol


Next i do want to try pickles. I just need a recipe.
:clap: Well done. They look lovely.
 

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Great job, Mooch! They look wonderful! (I'll take a jar!) Where'd you get the recipe for pickled banana peppers? I'm interested (for next year; we didn't plant any banana peppers this year. I like to slice them thinly, freeze them and then use them on pizza and in fajitas, hot sausage sandwiches and such. I just did a bunch of green peppers that way last night, almost in a julienne slice).

Yeah, use your dishwasher to sterilize your jars; it's so much easier. Do NOT sterilize your lids in the dishwasher though; the heat gets too high and could hinder the sealing process; if you heard pinging from your pickles, though, you're good. I usually boil my water in a 10-cup Pyrex glass measuring pitcher, then throw my lids in the water after I take the container out of the microwave and the water has boiled. Then I just keep the lids in the water until I'm ready to use them.

It takes a long time to get that big canner of water to the boiling point....much longer than I ever thought.

What kind of pickles are you interested in making? I might be able to help you with a pickle recipe.

(I just love to hear the ping! of sealing jars)
 
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MoochNNoodles

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I'm interested in bread and butter pickles (I have to slice them; I didn't grow any to "canning" size.) but I'd like to try something else too.  Any kind I guess.  We all love pickles here!

My jars look good.  I haven't unscrewed the ring to check; but none of the lids flex when you push on them.  

I'd trade peppers for pickles!  I'm still getting loads off my plants so I may make more.  I found a simple recipe on a blog (http://canninggranny.blogspot.com/2011/12/pickled-banana-peppers.html).  I watched some videos on youtube as well.  One lady there put a clove of garlic in each jar and used pickling spices.  The blog I used just boiled garlic in the vinegar, water, salt, sugar brine.  I may try it with spices next time because the peppers i used are sweet.  My 4 year old has asked every day if she can try them yet. 
 

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When are butternut squash ready to be picked? My squash are losing their green stripes and starting to turn white. I think that's normal. The flower ends aren't dry yet. I think they have to completely lose their green stripes and be a bit on the pale orange/tan side. I was able to get a fingernail into the skin and I think that means they're not ready to be picked.

Anybody know anything about butternuts? This is the first year we've tried to grow them and I don't want to pick them too early or too late.

On another note, we are finally ordering our composter tonight!
 I'm excited! We're getting a Mantis, as we've checked around and one of those seems to be our best bet. Our soil is very clayey(?) and it gets so hard when we've not had any rain. We're hoping that, by adding compost to the garden as we go, that it will help our soil and enable us to grow potatoes, sweet potatoes, red beets, and other root vegetables.

And by adding things to the composter that would normally go into the trash, we're hoping to reduce our garbage amount, too. Ideally, we'd like to get the trash down to just used cat litter (with some meat bones/fat, etc, which can't be composted), but I don't know we can go that far. And, you know, if somebody could come up with something to re-use used cat litter, that person would become rich! 
 
 
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MoochNNoodles

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I think winter squashes and melons should ripen on the vine?  I like looking on the Old Farmer's Almanac website for advice.  I found this there (http://www.almanac.com/plant/squash-zucchini): 
 In general, harvest winter squash when the rinds are tough enough to resist being punctured with a fingernail. Be patient and don't harvest too early or it won't keep in storage as well.
 When ripe, the rind of butternut squash will change color from light beige to deep tan or what some people call a deep flesh color. Then the skin will be hardened. Be sure to harvest before frost. When you harvest, use pruning shears and cut 1/2 inch above the fruit. Do not break off the stem. Happy harvest!
These were in the comments section; replies to questions people had posted there.  

I want to get a composter for the yard.  Our soil is SUPER sandy; but our veggies are in the raised beds or pots so that helps.  Still!  I was chatting with my Dad about wanting one last night and he says they are simple enough to build; but I like the idea of one I can rotate easily.  

Oh and thanks again for the recipes!  I can't wait to try!!
 

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You're welcome, Mooch! I hope you have fun with them! I think you're right about the squash....I'm just paranoid that they're going to end up not good because I let them go too long. But everything is nice and green so far (the plants, I mean) so they're OK for now. I want to make some kind of "sling" for the squash, so they're not lying on the ground, but not sure how to do it yet. It would have to be really sturdy; squash can get heavy! (I guess that's what goggling is for)

We ordered our composter last night....I am so excited! I've been really reading up on composting, what we need (brown stuff versus green stuff; too much green makes green slime!), temperatures, all that good stuff. We're planning on starting a bin and then while that's composting, starting another pile in our wooden bin up at the garden. That way, we'll always have something working. I guess if we're going to garden, we might as well be doing something to help the soil as we go. It will be interesting to see what all we can do. Not sure when it will get here.  The new composter is a tumbler-type, so it shouldn't be too bad. But I have a feeling that I'll be the one in "big charge" of the composter. 

You can easily build a composter, like your dad said. But if you want something you can tumble yourself (like me....there's no way I can pitch-fork a huge batch of "stuff", so I wanted to go with something a little easier on my back). We tried composting a long, long time ago, but Rick didn't want to deal with turning it all over all the time. He built a wooden bin; we added "stuff" and that's pretty much as far as it went. Our trees at the back end of the property started growing around the bin. Well, we finally took the bin apart and pulled it out and he wants to put it back together now to use as our secondary pile while the first one does its stuff.

Before we ordered it last night, we sat down and discussed if we really wanted to keep gardening (although compost is good for flower beds, too). And we do. I enjoy working in the garden and I enjoy bringing fresh produce into the house for dinner. You can't get much fresher than going up to the garden for squash and eating it about an hour later! So we're going to keep it up and will add different things as we go. It's not a perfect garden, but it gets the job done. And once we retire and can spend more time outside during the summer, it will be better.

Does anybody have rain barrels? We have two large barrels that we have at the end of the house, so that the rain comes from the spouting directly into the barrels. They have faucets at the bottom so that we can either attach a garden hose to them or put the water into containers and take up to the garden in the wheelbarrow. So far this year, we've been lucky that we've been getting enough rain, although last week was tricky. We were going to water on Sunday night and then the rain finally came in and everything got a good drink. And now our weather has cooled off a bit (mid-70s or so), so the ground won't be so dry (of course, the cooler weather will slow down the corn). And it filled the barrels up again, too. 
 Our barrels were given to us; an older lady in my walking neighborhood in town had them and she didn't want them anymore, so she offered them to me. I used to stop at her house to play with Molly, her dog. And we used to talk about gardening and flowers. They're nice barrels.

Plus our Soil Conservation Dept does educational things on building your own rain barrels. They actually made quite a few of them last year and then offered them for sale. They were snapped up just "like that". Gone in no time. 
 
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MoochNNoodles

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I think the tumbler style sounds much nicer to work with!  I injured my back in college and I have to take lots of stretch breaks when I work in the garden.  Just straighten up for a minute and then go back to what I was doing.  It's part of the reason I like using the raised beds so much.  

I've heard of putting melons (like cantaloupes) up on coffee cans or just the lids of the cans to keep them off the ground.  When I tried growing those the vines tried to climb the trellises for the cukes and the melons were getting too heavy for it.  Unfortunately both years the vines died before I got to pick and eat anything; similar to what is killing my cukes now. 
  I saw a farm truck going down the road with 2 large things over full with cantaloupes.  I almost drooled.  I just need to get used to visiting farm stands for these things.  I have a feeling I know where that truck was headed too!  


I think I saw some things on our local news about discount rain barrels being offered by the county or maybe the state this past spring.  I've never had one; but it's something to think about.  We had one at our family camp to use for flushing the toilet and things.  Our landlord had one when my Mom and I lived in an attic apartment when I was 8 or so.  He had a big garden!
 

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We've got a lot of blueberries ripening right now. I have more string beans than I can possibly eat. I planted too many. :nod: I've gotten a few tomatoes, a few eggplant, a few zucchini and some peppers. The cucumbers and zucchini aren't doing all that well though. If the squirrels dont' get to them, we are going to have a bumper crop of pears. :nod:
 
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