Anyone else like to garden around here? It's just starting to defrost where I live, so I'm getting antsy. And my poor windowsill succulents are getting stressed and turning red, and I'm not sure if it's light stress or water stress. Argh.
I have been itching to get into the dirt since January. The weather is making me nervous though; we've been running 50-60f for the last month and a half when we should still be getting occasional snow, and now I don't know if I should risk some early plants or play it safe!
i don't have the chance to garden (and i think i may have the familial black thumb) but i find plants fascinating biologically. because they make their own food oh my god, and photosynthesis is the most complex thing ever.
I got the itch to try container gardening here at absolutely the wrong time last year (about the time everything started freezing over), and I really want our weather to balance out so I can get something started. I want to try potatoes, since we're at the top of a hill & get nice full sun most of the day. (Boyfriend is talking about window boxes with bee-friendly plants, too.)
i can't garden for shit, but plants make me so happy! i particularly love succulents and anything evergreen. they give off a smell i can only call 'fresh' :D. plants are so nice. and so are the neat bug friends that come along for the ride sometimes, hehe.
Black thumbs aren't as bad as you think! Gardening, like everything else, is a learned skill, and boy is there a lot to learn. Believe me, the path to my current gardening success is paved in many not so green plants, lol.
duuude check out these sites and articles i just found 1. carnivorous plants 2.succulents 3.DINO PLANTS 4.cool plant defense tactics 5.what the hell is a berry, anyways? 6.underwater plants this is a good thread.
i'd like to grow some vegetables but my family's back yard is too shady. we do grow some herbs like cilantro and dill and basil, though.
the leafy green stuffs (e.g. lettuce, romaine, arugula) does pretty well in shade. you won't get as much though, and if you live somewhere that's moderate to highly polluted, they grow to taste kinda gross >_>. my mom did beets and peppers too. the peppers were sooo tiny, though. edit: also WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T GROW ROSEMARY UNLESS IT'S VERY FAR FROM EVERYTHING ELSE. IT WILL CONSUME YOUR GARDEN. i stg rosemary is the devil but it smells delicious.
Depending on how much shade, there are still a few plants you could try. If it's ALWAYS in shade then you're pretty much sunk, but if you get 3-5 hours, you have some options. Mostly cool hardy leafy greens and root vegetables; plants that produce fruits usually use a lot more energy to do that, and so need more sun.
my neighbours used to be pretty hardcore farmers - they had everything from tomatos and peppers and beans to a fig tree that they carefully buried every winter, so i assume we're not in such a polluted area that it would taste gross. perhaps i'll attempt some spinach this year. fortunately we already grow our herbs in pots because of the neighbourhood bunnies. they're a little too fond of parsley and not very good at sharing.
I'm jealous; our temperatures have been all over the place, but mostly unseasonably cold. It's making it rather hard to go outside and do anything, so I'm stir-crazy as much as anything. If you want to try plants, you might try a low-maintenance houseplant; there are some that are cheap, pretty, and easy to find. Mother-in-law's-tongue is the quintessential 'will live through anything', I think... Funny story, Mom got confused about the directions when I was a kid, and planted the pot. We now have waist-high mint all over the yard.
My dad's a professional horticulturalist. He was the head gardener at several different large stately homes in England and Scotland, but back problems caused him to switch into teaching it. He just retired as head of department for horticulture and landscaping at an agriculture college near Oxford. So I know a fair amount of stuff but I truly suck at remembering to water anything :(
Oh, wow. That sounds fascinating. And yeah, I keep killing everything that's not drought-tolerant. Poor plant babies. :(
Just put down some beet seeds in the greenhouse. It's nice to have a warm place to get an early start on the garden. Also where the cats can't poop where you're working. My cat did accompany me to the garden shed though, she was very curious about the dirt tablets that you soak in water that grow into little dirt pots. Gonna put lavender in those when they're ready.
Oh, jealous. I don't have a greenhouse, but I have some tomatoes and peppers that I need to start in the windowsill...
Yeah, my da likes to Build Things, so he built the greenhouse this fall/winter when he got restless. We used to have one with a little heater for in the winter before we put in the addition to the house, but it mostly stored potted plants...
