The air smells like spring is just around the corner! I noticed that our nurseries and HD garden centers hid the snow shovels and replaced them with seeds and seed starter stuff! Time to start the 2025 gardening thread!
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All I can say is YAAAYYYY to a new thread and gardening season “around the corner” - well a long corner but it will come!!
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Found 2 new to me varieties at the big garden center yesterday! Container veggies! Wonder if anyone here had experience with these?
I do believe I have used this brand of seeds - I actually LOVE some of the seed graphics and have framed a couple for inside my home! Renee’s Garden has beautiful packaging!
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yay!!! H just ordered some seeds so we can get our early season greens going.
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I started my hot pepper seeds 2 weeks ago, under my grow lights; and I will start my tomato seeds this coming weekend, so they will be ready to get into the ground after April 22 (our last hard frost date here in East Tennessee). Finally!
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Anyone here tried “seed snails”? I never heard of this method but it sounds interesting.
Here is the relevant part from the link:
“To create a seed snail, you’ll need a strip of flexible but sturdy plastic that’s 4 to 6 inches wide and about 30 inches long. Grivas uses polyethylene wrap, a common packing material, but use what you’ve got; burlap or weed barrier might work, or cut up a large plastic bag, such as the one your potting mix comes in. We’re all trying to cut down on single use plastics, and this is one way to put your waste to work.
Build up a ¾- to 1-inch layer of dampened potting soil on the flattened plastic strip, and press to firm the planting medium. Now carefully coil the plastic and soil like everyone’s favorite breakfast roll.
Leave a 3-inch tab of plastic at the outside end of your seed snail free of potting mix, and secure the roll with a strip of packing tape. Don’t skimp on potting mix; a thicker roll helps support seedlings for longer, keeping them in good condition until you’re ready to plant them in the garden.
To keep her seed snails upright, Grivas stands them in empty plant pots — another excellent way to reuse plastic waste. Filling the pots with a few inches of damp soil isn’t necessary but helps to maintain humidity, a crucial factor for seed sowing success.”
They look like this (screenshot of the page):
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I literally just saw this the other day! Sort of reminded me of seed tape.
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Want very smallness than 5 inches) ceramic/stone yard art- like Talavera decor. ideas?
I’ve been wanting to add a couple small raised beds to a sunny part of our pool area (this area is fenced) and anything outside of the fence will be munched by the deer and other wildlife we have. I didn’t want anything to high or visually intrusive and something that could stand our winters. I just ordered these from Costco - good deal right now, good reviews and will ship right to my door! This gives me the option of different combos - I’ll either do 3 single level or 1 single, 1 double level.
They won’t be high - that’s ok and actually I did not want standing raised beds for this particular area.
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I have something very similar in my “way back” yard. I have three. Our landscape contractor recommended making them taller so I don’t have to bend over too much tending the beds. Just spiffed two of them up yesterday. Even with them being higher, my back was still killing me when I was done.
Now fingers are crossed that the digger (opossum or raccoon?) who comes at night doesn’t uproot everything in search of grubs. I sprayed Bonide Repels-All Animal Repellent on the bed sides. One night down and no digging. I did find a lot of grubs when I was planting.
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I have a community garden raised bed and have mastered the squat or knees with a knee pad to tend to my beds. I have limited options at home that I side the fenced pool area and I just want some herbs and lower growing crops (don’t want to block any views outside our sunporch which these new ones will likely border so I’m ok with the one or two level fro now!
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Just ordered this folding bench from Amazon:
https://a.co/d/1ns7Xqx
I think that will help avoid back pain by kneeling/sitting while I’m working on the beds. My MIL had something similar.
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I recently went down a rabbit hole on the internet, and came across something called “straw bale gardening.” Evidently it involves using bound straw bales that have been conditioned – either naturally by leaving them out to decompose, or by using applied fertilizer/compost to accelerate natural decomposition – with plants put into the conditioned straw bales, which serve as an alternate to soil.
Since the weather here in East Tennessee was nice this past weekend, I felt like getting out into the garden; and, as I am always looking for ways to increase vegetable production in my garden, I went and purchased a couple of straw bales and put them into a “satellite” garden between a couple of raised bed areas:
I am going to plant some seed potatoes in the straw bales in mid-April once the bales have been appropriately conditioned; and also plant some potatoes in the raised bed at the bottom of the picture after I have top dressed it with compost, and covering it with loose straw after the chitted seed potatoes have been placed in the compost. I will see how both methods work; and if the straw bale method gives good results, then I will expand its use next year – perhaps putting some tomato plants in them, in hopes of avoiding or mitigating some of the blight that usually afflicts my tomato plants every year.
I am putting fertilizer on the bales, and watering them every day; and hopefully by the time that I am ready to put the potatoes out, the combination of accelerated and natural decomposition will make the straw bales a good planting medium.
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Let us know how it goes!
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I have something similar. I mainly use it to kneel on while planting my flowers or digging. Haven’t used it much as a bench although that can be useful. Definitely a saver for my knees!
Are there competitions for predictions for other plants to bloom?
Not sure it is useful for my plants, but is curious.
This is led by George Mason University in VA.
Here is one about the Japanese cherry blossoms
“The contestants largely agree that the cherry trees will bloom between late March and early April. (The dark blue squares denote bloom days with high probability according to the entries, while the light blue squares denote bloom days with low probability. The probability was determined by approximating the histogram of days predicted by the contestants with a normal distribution.) For comparison, our AI handler also asked ChatGPT o3-mini-high to provide a model. 
denotes the average prediction of the contestants, and 
denotes the prediction provided by ChatGPT
Overall, the contestants agree with the National Park Service prediction.
The National Park Service predicts the peak bloom of the Washington D.C. cherry trees will occur between March 28th and March 31st…”
I don’t know how potatoes would do in bales but I have had great success with tomatoes and zucchini.
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I have always had middling results in growing potatoes, even though I have tried several ways: from the traditional trenching method, to the Ruth Stout “throw 'em on the ground and cover with straw” method, to growing them in plastic tubs. Maybe there is something that I just am not getting about growing my potatoes.
At any rate, maybe this method will come through for me. I’ll find out in late summer!
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I have grown potatoes a few times in a felt bag. Important to harden the potato eyes before planting. A few inches of dirt, then potato eyes then a couple more inches soil. Once the greens start coming through, add a few more inches - and repeat!
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