How's your Garden ?

[Lin19687]

Mostly mint but at least something is growing. Been more like Seattle then New England this Spring.

 

[Marilyn Norgart]

I cant have a garden but have two planters on legs that are 2'x4'--everything that is going in them are sitting in pots on the patio--hopefully can get them in next week

 

[atiz]

The good: all the strawberry plants are blooming! And all the other plants are growing.
The bad: Everything is just wet here and has been for weeks. Haven't mowed the grass for more than a week (it was raining literally every day). Weed is also growing.

 

[kasilofchrisn]

Still to cold to plant!
Rhubarb is doing nicely though.
Putting in a new Rhubarb garden this year and the starts (started from seed in January)are mostly looking good.
Adding a new veggie garden with low tunnels.
The old veggie garden will be planted as normal.
All the starts are doing pretty well inside the house under grow lights.

 

[Marilyn Norgart]

Still to cold to plant!
Rhubarb is doing nicely though.
Putting in a new Rhubarb garden this year and the starts (started from seed in January)are mostly looking good.
Adding a new veggie garden with low tunnels.
The old veggie garden will be planted as normal.
All the starts are doing pretty well inside the house under grow lights.

I love that you are using tunnels--that should extend your grow season!!!! happy planting

 

[kasilofchrisn]

I love that you are using tunnels--that should extend your grow season!!!! happy planting

Thanks!
Yeah I'm hoping the tunnels will help with growing winter squash and a few other things that don't normally grow well here in Alaska.
I bought a jig online that's going to allow me to bend EMT conduit into my tunnels so hopefully they last for many years.
Found a corn variety (Yukon Chief) that was develop here just for AK that I'm going to try this year. It's a dwarf corn with smaller ears but only takes 55 days.
My zucchini and broccoli did great last year and I'm hoping for similar results this year and possibly even better results under the tunnels.
My new rhubarb garden should have roughly 63 plants in it of 7 different varieties of rhubarb.
My original goal was 100 lb of rhubarb a year but too many of my seeds germinated successfully and I just decided to heck with it and decided to plant a lot of them.
They say rhubarb is notoriously hard to grow from seed but I didn't seem to have a problem with it.
On top of adding two new gardens and my existing garden I'm also rooting out some rose bushes from cuttings.
My Sitka rose bush was taking over my sidewalk on the one side but I had some bare spots in the middle.
So I took some of the prunings from the sidewalk side and my rooting powder and planted 10 of them. Hopefully they will take.
That should leave me a few extras to gift or sell.

 

[Lin19687]

@kasilofchrisn Which flavors of Rhubarb do you like better? I love it and am hoping to have a big group once I buy a house.
Don't you have to wait till the 2nd year of growing till you can eat it or something like that ?

 

[kasilofchrisn]

@kasilofchrisn Which flavors of Rhubarb do you like better? I love it and am hoping to have a big group once I buy a house.
Don't you have to wait till the 2nd year of growing till you can eat it or something like that ?

I couldn't really say as I've mostly eaten unknown varieties.
Selecting different cultivars was part of the fun of the new rhubarb garden.
Some are known to be sweeter and others I'm growing because of high yield rates.
Starting from a root crown you can harvest some the year after planting and on year two harvest fully.
From seed you should wait until year two to start harvesting. At least that's what my research showed iirc.
I grew from seed primarily because I couldn't find root crowns in different varieties.
Many greenhouses in my area didn't know what kind of rhubarb they were selling.
I selected some varieties (sweeter)for wine making and others for butters and fruit leather etc.

 

[jcandleattic]

My garden is full of weeds, so no way am I posting pics. with it still snowing out (hopefully friday was the last of it) I haven't felt like getting out there. Maybe next weekend.

 

[Lin19687]

Thanks @kasilofchrisn

@jcandleattic I think Mint is considered a weed but it is nice that SOMETHING is working in this dumb rental.
I am hoping to take Everything that grows in my garden when I move. I don't even know what 1/2 of it is but looks like my Echinacea is not coming back this year

 

[Ladka]

My garden is wet, not nicely wet but soaking wet.
And my seedlings in pots badly miss more sunshine.

 

[IrishLass]

Some of my Tower Garden plants are still hanging in there- tomatoes, kale, collard greens, basil, mint, culantro, peppers and celery, but it's getting to be that time of year where it's just too crazy hot to keep it up and running. I'll be dismantling it here in a couple of weeks time as is my habit to do come late May/early June. It'll stay moth-balled for the duration of the hottest summer months, and then I'll set it back up with new plants at the end of August/beginning of September.

My crazy idea to plant 6 tomato plants in it really paid off in terms of harvesting a boatload of tomatoes, even though it took a fair bit of constant pruning to keep them from growing into a wild jungle and taking the whole thing over. I can't complain too much because we've been enjoying a continuous supply of delicious tomatoes for the past 6 months straight, and I also have a freezer full of plum tomatoes for making sauce. Of the 6 tomato plants, three are still hanging in there and producing, and I'm still picking tomatoes off them as they ripen.


IrishLass

 

[kaysejean]

I've just gotten most everything planted, except the onions, which I forgot. So those will go in this afternoon.
I'm trying something new this year and planted some hybrid sweet corn. Because I only planted a little, I'll get to try my hand at hand pollinating this year, so thatll be interesting.
Has anyone done that before?
It's so interesting to hear what different stages people are at due to location I assume.

 

[Susie]

I am harvesting herbs and radishes so far, but I have small green tomatoes on all plants. 3 of my "cucumber" plants turned out to be squash of some sort. That would be good, except that I do NOT like squash! Green beans are blooming up a storm. I am probably going to start some bunching onions for later, and succession planting radishes. Garlic is doing well, eggplants are growing like weeds. All told, it is doing quite well.

 

[Misschief]

We don't do a full on garden anymore but we do like to plant a few things in pots. This weekend will be our chance to get to the nursery to pick up a couple of grape tomatoes and some flowers. I do have luffa seeds germinating (4 of 6 sprouted) and I'll have to find a place to put them in a few weeks. I'll also have to make sure the upstairs neighbour knows what they are and not to pull them out when she's weeding (like she did last year).

My little herb garden is doing well; I have lemon balm, thyme, oregano, and tarragon outside my back door and sage and thyme in a planter. I'm not too sure about the sage; I may have to pull it out and plant a new one. My 7 year old rosemary didn't survive this winter, unfortunately.

 

[Lin19687]

My rosemary and Lavender in the pots didn't make it either.

But the (i think) Garlic I planted from a grocery store clove sprouted. I almost pulled it.

Now I have to figure out when I can harvest it the earliest

 

[Obsidian]

I don't have room for a garden but I do have a little plot for tomatoes. I extended it this year so now its about 6 x 12.
I got the tomatoes planted today. We have so many rocks that I can barely get the cages in the ground.
I really need to get a screen to shake the soil but it will have to wait until next year.
I really should have started work on it sooner so I had time to better pick the rocks.

Strawberries I grow in tires, they are growing and blooming well. Blueberries aren't going to produce this year so I cut them way back. I just can't seem to figure out how to prune them to produce every year.

Not sure how the fruit trees are going to do. There just isn't that many bees anymore. My mom got a hive last week and I'm close enough I finally see them trickling in. Guess I need to start encouraging wild bees to nest close by.

 

[amd]

We just planted some caladium (? eh, shade greenery) bulbs in the new tree ring landscaping last night. Hopefully they come up. The daffodils finally opened last week, and tulips are just starting to pop up, should be opening up the end of the week. We've been cold, rainy, with only sporadic nice days here, so everything is late this year. We did some potted tomatoes last year, but they were horrible tasting so we decided not to do anything this year. I had tried garlic last year but the dang squirrel dug them all up, so there went that. I guess I'll stick to just weeding the flowers that I have and call it good. We have a huge raspberry patch, and we did plant two blueberry bushes last year. We had berries last year, so hopefully this year will be able to have a good little crop. Two bushes aren't much but it's just hubby and I who eat them, so we went with less is more. We have room to add more bushes if we decide to expand later.

 

[Marilyn Norgart]

got most of my stuff planted--still have a couple pots. and then I need to build a bigger wooden planter for a tomato plant and an eggplant. drove by a couple greenhouses today and fought (and won) the urge to stop in. my big planters were beautiful last year--the handyman said the owner loved them and I actually caught the owner stopped looking at them . I am trying not to over fill them this year though. just trying to let the plants fill in and not be so over crowded so early in the year

 

[Ladka]

My strawberries are also blooming but I do not have great hopes for the fruits: last year birds ate most of them.