Gardening time!

I'm in zone 8, so admittedly I'm probably warmer now than a lot of states will be in march/april, but is anybody else planning / starting your gardens yet?
I bought some lumber to make crazy pyramid-esque planters, have some onions and radishes started and carrot and pea seeds waiting to go. I also bought a $25 membership to the seed exchange bit of seedsavers.org which is a-freaking-mazing btw

I really want to hear what you alls are doing though. Also, I always have like 4x the seeds I need from a packet since I start all mine indoors, so anybody that wants a pinch or two of something, hit me up.

 

Ooof. I got some good digging and weeding done today, and planted out my radish and onion seedlings.

I was just about to order a packet of dyer's woad when I looked it up. Turns out it's considered a noxious weed, grows everywhere in our area, and I think it might the waist-high yellow flowers that cover the roadsides in summer! I'm really scared to plant it now gonna have to hike out along the highway a bit and see if I can score some leaves :D

 

Well just so long as it isn't ragwort, which is what I think of when I hear 'waist-high yellow flowers'. xP

 

@TwoBrokenMirrors Oh, hey, I think we have some of that too. It's much shorter around here, and mostly grows a foot or two high on banks and back yards. Doesn't smell great, but I've definitely used it in wildflower bouquets :p
I drive by horse and cattle farms in basically every direction though, I hope they're not getting into it =/

 

I'd be a bit careful, because everything I have ever seen about ragwort says USE GLOVES WHEN HANDLING because the toxins will seep through your skin and fuck up your liver
Ragwort is naaaaasty. And if there are horse and cattle fields then the owners should be getting rid of it in them with great prejudice.

 

I am an obsessive gardener myself, although here in the UK we've got at least another month before starting seedlings on my windowsill will be anything more than a waste of time due to light and temperature levels.

I'm buying some more bulk compost this week to revive my veggie patch a little - I'm gonna have to do some repairs on the edging as well, since the past winter's particular wetness seems to have seeped into the posts which have rotted in places. I usually grow zucchinis, runner beans, dwarf beans and peas - we really love legumes in our family - and I'm thinking of trying a mini butternut squash cultivar I found, as well as sugarsnap peas and baby turnips.

Also I am going to be getting patio fruit trees for my birthday in april, which I am excite for :D

 

I grow herbs every year - basil, rosemary, chives, thyme, sage, mint, and parsley. This year I finally have a decent yard and want to try some vegetables. I picked up a bunch of seed packets and am thinking of trying carrots, tomatoes, broccoli, and lettuce. We'll see how it goes.

 

@Shade are you in the US? I just turned my arms into noodles and used up 9 planters on my radishes, carrots, beets & spinach, and I still have half packages left of those + a few other things. I am quite sure I won't be planting any more of any of them, if you'd like me to send them to you to try out.

 

i have a small packet of seeds and nothing good to plant them in but i am having Thoughts of planting just a few seeds in a small disposable cup and transplanting it once i get a better planter...

i've been having green growing things wants lately

hoping for a small planter of flowers and maybe some herbs like parsley or cilantro

 

@LilacMercenary I appreciate the offer but my dedicated plot will be full and I'll still have leftover seeds. Thanks though!

 

Gardening *u*

I'm not much of a gardener but I'm starting up with my dad's blessing (and ocasionally reluctant guidance) and mom's approval (she's got a black thumb, sometime after they got married dad stopped having plants because they died if he asked her to help him).

I live in an apartment in Lima, Peru, whose climate is weird and thus confuses me. I'm currently trying to grow some herbs! Since it's an apartment but we have a neat little balcony, I've placed the long rectangular lots there I hopes of it being enough light in Lima's strange gloom. Granted it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, so I will probably have to change their positions when the eternal mist-cloud comes back to strangle this city.

The quirquiña (A Bolivian herb) we got from the embassy garden is doing super well even though the soil in its pot is covered in a weird yellow-white coat I think is some type of fungus it caught from an old pot we have, so I basically only have to give it water and it does fine. Apparently it does so well that Peruvians consider it a weed and have never used it as a herb.

My other herbs are better known: cilantro, parsley, chives, thyme, and basil. The basil is doing super well now (the first I transplanted didn't do so well because uh, apparently it was not good to put the basil with the cilantro) and the chives struggled at first and were wilting before I figured out that they dry out faster than the other herbs. Now they're doing much better and the leaves/stalks are nearly straight up again.

Sadly my first thyme died soon after I found it with white fuzzy spots on its leaves, and the second one seems to be going the same way despite completely new potting mix and no white fuzzies to be found. If it really dies this second time I'll have to change it up a lot, try a different pot, a different position, etc.

My parsley and cilantro both died fast, but I thought it was because they'd caught the fungus via being nearby an infected pot since it developed that strange almost crust of yellow white. However this second set I got are hanging on a bit longer but still not doing well, and this time there is no sign of the off colour earth.

Using gardening advice from other countries is hard since winter here is more of a bit colder a lot less sun and a lot of humidity but no rainfall, and the summer is strong sun heat and humidity and yet still not clear sunlight their the city atmosphere. It's not even primarily smog or air pollution, the haze is just a natural result of the cold sea current coming from the south, something about air displacement from the coastal desert to the mountains, and intense humidity year round. It's basically me going "ok this says sunny plant but it's doing ok in the slight shade, and I don't know what to do for the others).

Oh, we also have an old pine tree that was dying very very slowly from mixes of over to under watering, but when I declared myself in charge of the plants, pruned away the older branches, and started being the only one watering at sane and regular intervals, it's been sprouting much healthier super green branches.

It's pot is also the source of the "possibly fungus?", since in the years we've had it, it got some weird... Gross orange-yellow crust that grew up the sides of the pot, and gained patches of soil in the yellow-white mentioned before. After a lot of scrapping (and mild bleach washing of the pot's sides to get rid of the horrible and stupidly hard and tough crust), the pot doesn't seem to be doing too badly. I actually sprinkled some really dilute bleach on the top soil in the hopes of killing the fungus and yet it not being enough to harm the pine and other soil microflora, and it seems to have cleared up a bit. I still try to keep it away from my herbs, though.

Also I have three small pots of succulents on my windowsills! The one that was near my dad lost one despite my efforts so I moved the pot to a different area on the theory that it needed more sun, and the remaining plants are doing ok. There is more but I am sleepy so whoops. Night!

 

Do three pots on my kitchen windowsill count? (Monk's cress, basil, and parsley. When I remember to, also empty tuna cans for growing watercress. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but the chives always stay extremely thin. And then they die .._..)

I'm... not good with plants. I'm trying. But they just die. Even the friendship tree I had when I was a kid.
(I need to pick up another pot of lavender and this time not put it on the windowsill, but somewhere where it won't get burned by the sun)

Oh! Speaking of gardens -- My parent's backyard gets about fuckall of sunshine and is currently mostly overgrown with weeds (also there's two birch trees, some kind of strange, small pine, ferns, pansies, heather, and a pretty flowering tree whichs name i forgot), and i wanted to ask if anyone has suggestions for what to plant? it needs to be hella low-effort, though. (my parents were thinking bamboo, especially since several trees were cut down in the neighbouring yards, and now water seeps into the basement)

 

When my thyme got fungus, I just baked in the sun for a few days without watering it. The plant dried up a lot but the fungus died before it did and I was able to water it back to life. I know you said you have weird weather but if you have a way of dry heating the plants indoors, that might help.

Also: buy a new pot, wash all the old soil off the roots, prune any infected leaves, and transplant it with new store-bought soil. That'll give it a fresh start.

Bamboo is really great and pretty but some species grow incredibly fast and are hard to get rid of. They can quickly take over a whole yard. They don't take a lot of day-to-day maintenance, just be prepared to do a yearly chopping.

 

To add something to this thread that isn't random warnings about random plants... I am moving to my own flat in mid-March, and plan to try making a plant or two happen, despite the fact that I've only had one plant before and it was some kind of yellow-flowering dealie that seemed quite happy to sit on my windowsill and constantly flower despite getting no care beyond an occasional watering (and then I went away for six months and nobody watered it at all and it died and I have NEVER FORGIVEN MY FAMILY FOR THAT).
I have purchased a kit thing where you can apparently grow orange sweet peppers in the provided metal bucket, and also picked up a thing where you can apparently grow alpine strawberries in a lil bag. What I really want to know is: is it okay to start them up in March, because I can't really do anything with them until then, and do you think they'll be okay just on a windowsill? My flat doesn't have a garden or anything.
I'm also going to be taking one of my mother's bajillion aloe vera plants but aloe vera is basically impossible to kill so i'm not at all concerned about that one.

 

gardening!!! im a low effort sort of gardener, if i can plant it and mostly ignore it thats the plant for me
costco is doing a succulents deal, so i bought three yesterday and theyre so cute!!!

 

Oh jeez, do NOT let them plant bamboo. It's pretty, yeah, but also hella invasive with a root system that cannot be contained and is known to punch through asphalt and concrete alike. Depending on the type of shade you get, heucheras, hostas*, ferns, aquilegia... plenty of bulb-flowers like snowdrops, crocuses, and narcissi/daffodils thrive in shade - I don't know where you live, but I would always recommend asking around and seeing what grows naturally in woodland/scrub/bush type areas near you. Native or similar plants ALWAYS need less care than those in a place they're not designed for, and you get bonus points for helping the wildlife that depend on them :)

And don't knock all the weeds - if some of them have pretty flowers or look cool, then keep them. There are much worse things than a self-seeded native that likes what you've done with the place :)

*Hostas are kind of borderline when it comes to low-maintinence - they don't need any special treatment so long as they're in moderately damp shade, but slugs and snails ADORE them, which is why copper rings around them can be necessary depending on your population.

 

@lilacsofthedead thank you for the reply -- i'm pretty sure there's some kind of bamboo that doesn't sprawl like whoa.
the problem with at least part of the stuff you named is -- they're poisonous, and my parents have two dogs. so, yeah ::/
and by weeds, i mean little green sprouts that don't even flower. like, hooray, there's a green carpet that just about kills everything else.

 

I got a couple of half pint peas into pots today, and now I'm just hoping the seeds are still good. They're old, and I didn't get a chance to save new ones last year because we were moving and I couldn't plant anything until July >.<

I also want to plant some more basil, Thai hot peppers, and see if I managed to save the seeds from my tiny tim tomatoes successfully.