<p>Call me lazy but the other gardening thread was too long to be readable (LOL), so here’s a new one.</p>
<p>After two years of generally poor results (except for green peas) and insisting that my container gardening days were over, I reversed course and planted green pea and lima seeds last week. I also sucumbed to the sale prices for parsely, sweet basil and greek oregano plants, and promptly set them up in larger containers at home. And I gave tomato seeds ‘the old college try’ one more [and final] time. Probably setting myself up for failure with Yellow Jubilee tomato seeds, which I understand are notoriously hard to cultivate.</p>
<p>After one week the peas have sprouted and the transplants appear to be faring well. Wish me luck.</p>
<p>My tomato plants are enjoying the controlled environment of our master bath. H calls me an optimist, since I also started cukes and eggplant. I keep telling him that we can grow them in the greenhouse if the weather pattern continues. :)</p>
<p>I have seven tomato plants growing in a raised bed in SE PA – zone 6. I have never tried to plant tomatoes from seeds – am lazy and also prefer to have a variety of plants, one of each type, so I buy starter plants from nurseries. Several already are flowering and one even has some green tomatoes!</p>
<p>I did plant three types of peas from seed but they only came up sporadically. (I was lazy and cheap and used last year’s seeds – lesson learned, I guess).</p>
<p>Our rhubarb, as always, is doing great. IMO it is the easiest and most reliable plant I have.</p>
<p>We have to fence in our vegetable/herb garden because of deer who think this is *their *property. :(</p>
<p>LW, no. It is on the second story of the house, and we also have a greenhouse, but the plants are still too young to be transferred there, because the greenhouse is not heated.</p>
<p>JEM, several years ago I bought packets of different tomato seeds, and I planted a few seeds of each variety. I keep planting the ones that produced well, the seeds are several years old now, but they still germinate OK (I put several seeds into each container and keep the strongest seedling when they show up).</p>
<p>We have a somewhat tame neighbourhood rabbit who makes the rounds amongst our yards looking for what’s up. He hung around our bird feeder all winter, enjoying something or other flung off by ungrateful birds and I’ve spotted him again hanging around but not actually devouring our seedlings. We like the more robust greens, so have planted a lot of arugula, which we are hoping our friend won’t care much for as it is quite peppery. Any hints or advice on rabbits?</p>
<p>Best of luck on all horticultural endeavors!</p>
<p>canamdance–I have had good luck with sprinkling dried blood, not directly on greens that you would eat, but around the plants. Unfortunately it has to be reapplied after a rain. But…I find these critters to be creatures of habit, so if you can discourage them from the get-go it is a lot easier than trying to deter them after they have dined. Good luck.<br>
My latest nemesis is an adolescent ground hog. He hasn’t found my choice plants yet, but I’ve got to get out there with the dried blood.</p>
<p>We have so many bunnies in our neck of the woods, and dried bodily fluids of their natural predators would do zip to deter the voracious pests. The only thing that really worked is a physical barrier - we got rolls of forest-green colored wire netting and metal posts at Lowe’s and built a fence around our veggie garden areas. Contrary to popular myths, bunnies do not hop over 2 feet of netting to get to the carrots and peas.</p>
<p>I greatly admire all of you. I have never grown vegetables as my skills even with flowers are greatly lacking. Last year I planted sunflower seeds and watched with excitement as they sprouted. About two weeks later and a foot of growth and they ended up “decapitated” by someone or something. So sad.</p>
<p>I do okay with perennials as they are less needy than annuals. They tend to forgive my neglect. A friend of mine who is a wonderful gardener told me she is going to get me a garden plaque with my gardening philosophy on it “F__k You if Can’t Take a Joke”.</p>
<p>Someone told me years ago that placing human hair in gopher holes will scare the critters away. Maybe it will work for wild rabbits too. Aren’t they all rodents?</p>
<p>I have given up on my garden boxes. Even with wired bottoms the gophers still seem to win. Add in summer gloom and it is not a pretty picture. This year I am trying to grow tomatoes in containers on my pool deck. So far it looks good. I recently started some cilantro but it seems to be going to seed already.</p>
<p>Still haven’t had a chance to get to the garden store for dried blood. The adolescent ground hog grows fatter by the day. In the morning before work, I have taken to dashing out flapping my arms and making loud mouth noises at him. He does his roly-poly run away into the woods. I keep losing him…</p>
<p>I feel like I am one of the few people who think woodchucks are kind of cute. They remind me of big guinea pigs. Yes, I know they eat my plants but oh, well.</p>
<p>I planted two large pots of flowers and put them up on other flower pots to keep the rabbits out of them- unfortunately I didn’t notice how close an unplanted pot was to the planted pot and when I went out to water today a rabbbit had eaten the flowers down to nubs by hopping up onto the unplanted pot. ARGHH!!! The only thing the rabbits won’t eat is vincas-pretty but kind of boring.</p>
<p>Onward–You are more forgiving than I. Although,they do look cute when they do their roly-poly run.
nocashfored–that was a good idea for foiling the rabbits. Who would have thought a rabbit would be that enterprising?</p>
<p>I’m just about finished putting everything in. We’ve had so much rain here in the northeast that it has been difficult to find enough reasonably clear days to plant. I made a nice little grotto out of a far corner of my garden - a very high stone on one side, stone steps going up to another part of the yard. Large pine trees make it a very shady area - there is already oak leaf hydrangea, lilies of the valley and English ivy - all rather overgrown. I cut back the cotoneaster, pulled out miles of ivy and planted several shade loving plants including coleus, hosta, astilbe, and lirope. An old garden nymph statue was covered in ivy, so I placed her in a more prominent position looking over the steps. It’s a very charming spot now and it will be fun to watch everything grow into place.</p>
<p>The only thing I’m harvesting are herbs - barely enough to season anything, really, but I’m happy to go outside and cut anything.</p>
It is on the second story of the house, and we also have a greenhouse, but the plants are still too young to be transferred there, because the greenhouse is not heated.</p>