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2019 Gardening Thread
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Replies to: 2019 Gardening Thread
Would brush killer work? Pruning and stump killer? I tried using Roundup on the shoots last year with zero effect.
Still picking radishes which should have been an April/May thing. Starting to see some growth in other plants like tomatoes - they look healthy but just starting to even flower. Planted some additional stuff last week because why not?
Nearby orchard farm reports very slow start and says their strawberry season will probably be late this year. If it stays too damp after the plants fruit, the mold will make some inroads.
My pepper plants didn’t fare well. I started those later this year so they were younger when they went in the ground. The slugs enjoyed them. I think two of my jalapeños survived but I lost all my Fresno and fireball varieties. I had to go on a pepper plant buying spree to replace everything. I may have bought like 5 extra plants 😂😂😂
My squash plants survived their transplanting (started from seeds) but some of the cukes and beans got eaten or uprooted (I have deep sunken hugelkultur beds and the moles love the habitat.) I’ve reseeded those and slightly staggered plantings aren’t a bad thing.
We’ve been eating arugula by the handful everyday. I seriously cannot keep up.
I stole the first raspberry off my back patch last night. It wasn’t quite as ripe as it should’ve been but I couldn’t resist the red berry.
I’m harvesting and drying some leaves off my culinary bay this weekend- very first harvest. I’ve had it for about 5 years and there were some winters where I’ve had to wrap it for a few days but it’s ready to get clipped a bit. That’s the hard thing about long term perennials- it’ll be years before some of them produce.
Aside from the culinary bay (which is a type of laurel), I dry leaves from my tea plants (they’re a type of camellia) and then just standard stuff like sage, thyme, oregano and rosemary. I planted an herb garden when I moved in here 16 years ago so my herb plants are kinda huge.
The bay is in a large concrete planter and stands about four feet above the top of the planter. You use new growth (so not old leaves). It’s just like the bay leaves you’d buy in the grocery store in the spice aisle. I go through quite a few, using them in soups or when cooking dry beans in my instant pot, so it made sense to me to buy a plant.
I only have 3 tea plants and the oldest one is about 3’ high and the other two are only 2’ high. I don’t harvest more than once a year from those but eventually I’ll have some big tea hedges supplying me with more than enough green, black or oolong tea.
None of those herbs really die back here as we typically don’t get lots of below zero days. They just get bigger each year 😂😂😂 - too big!
My stuff is doing well. I added more compost to last year's soil remains. I tend to buy an extra bag or two at season's end, let it sit offsides, so I'm assured this year's is definitely aged. 8-Ball zucchini, tomatoes, an eggplant. All starting to flower (which seems early, so we'll see.)
Most of them are either 3’ wide by 10 or 12’ long and dug down 3’. I’m unlikely to dig them out. The moles bump new plants now and then but in general once things are established they don’t cause any issues other than a few holes here and there.
It’d be a huge effort to dig each bed out and line it with hardware cloth. I’m not as young as I used to be... so I just pile on more stuff each fall and fill in spots as needed.
My cats enjoy the moles. 😬
Who was the now gone poster who argued things like farmed shrimp? He/she was an interesting gardner.
This is generally a "happy place" thread. Not all plantings do well, but most gardeners know that is part of the science and process!