Green fingers?

[pensnest]

I had a couple of different topics buzzing about in my brain, but I think I will pick something with the potential to be positive and satisfying, so here goes.

Do you grow stuff?

I have a huge and rather unmanageable garden, and I don't really do much in it for a variety of reasons, chief among which is that my father in law, who lives with us, likes to grow things to eat and has command of a certain segment of the garden (the agreement we made when he moved in). I have helped him a bit with some digging, and planted some tomatoes for him recently, but mostly I keep away from the 'productive sector' of the garden. My FIL also has an inability to throw away anything that might possibly be useful, plus no aesthetic sensibilities whatsoever, so that part of the garden resembles a junkyard and fills me with soul-crushing despair, which is another reason to stay away from it.

However, I have known the pleasure of growing vegetables. In our previous house, I remember one particularly glorious year when there were courgettes both green and yellow, sweetcorn, and a couple of truly mighty pumpkins (the sole butternut squash to turn up was a tiny little thing), and tomatoes. It was so satisfying, gradually consuming the pumpkin (lots of curries!), and being able to go out into the garden, pick a courgette or two, and eat them half an hour later. And of course tomatoes fresh from the vine are amazing.

This house came with a bunch of apple trees, which are capricious and unpredictable—possibly because I don't know enough about them—but which have once or twice produced many apples. This is My Kind Of Gardening, really, as all I have to do is pick the fruit if it shows up.

Currently, I am quite pleased to have several basil plants on the windowsill, because I bought a "living herb" from the supermarket, the kind of thing that you buy to pick from, and then it dies after a month. Well, I bought it last summer and am still able to pick basil leaves! It is very pleasing, particularly since my style is to water it when I happen to remember. I have facilitated this by putting a milk bottle of water next to the basil.

I haven't done much in the way of flower-growing, but there was a packet of cerinthe seeds, a few years back, which worked wonderfully well. After a while, I potted up a few of the self-seeded plants (the stuff got everywhere, including into the house gutter) and offered them at the top of our drive for the neighbours to take. Currently, though, I have faced the various challenges of this garden and fled into indoor pursuits like knitting instead. I do have a very realistic plastic orchid!

Do you grow things? Inside or out? What's the most memorable plant/crop/season that you've had? Do you have a black thumb? What would you like to grow if you had the space/strength?

Comments

[annofowlshire]

A few years ago I had a small holding—vegetable, fruit bushes, chickens, orchard... and life happened and I ended up moving to inner London where I sulked for a while about my lack of “real” gardening space. (Technically, we have a couple of small beds but they get zero sunlight and the soil has tar contamination so I might have considered cutting flowers, but certainly not edibles.)

This year, we’d planned to move out of London to have another small holding, but then Lockdown happened. So I decided to get over myself and stop sulking and grow a balcony garden.



(Plus several other pots not in the photo.)

It doesn’t look that good now—the heat has made the lettuces bolt and wilt a bit, but a couple of tomato plants and one pepper plant have finally germinated so I’m hoping to nurture those for the next stage.

With some restrictions loosening, our house is going on the market at the end of the week so we may still move this year... but probably not before this growing season is over ^_^

[pensnest]

It must have been quite a wrench going from a smallholding to a London 'garden' with the disadvantages you describe. At least if you move you will have loads of prep time to get the garden ready to burgeon!

[therealsnape]

I have fairly black thumbs, and frankly gardening has never been my hobby. Sitting in the garden with a book, now, that's different.

I do have a good eye for colour though. I could have been an excellent gardener in the way the Dowager Countess of Grantham was: point out to the gardener which plants in which colours should go where. Fortunately, I can afford a gardening lady who does the actual planting, and while the keen gardener would probably hate it, I like the way my garden looks. When I look up from my book, I see something nice.

This year's covid crisis has made me plant, with my own fair hands (but under strict supervision of my gardening lady) a couple of dahlia bulbs. She told me to water them assiduously and water I did (and do). And today I saw a few green sprouts. This is very exiting. If they all flower, the colour combination should be lovely.

[autobotscoutriella]

Despite being phenomenally bad at gardening (mint died in my garden once. MINT.), I do currently have a tiny little herb garden going in pots on my balcony! Right now I'm waiting to see how much of it will come back now that we have warm weather and decent rain; I planted all perennials last year, but a couple of them look like they may have died over the winter.(This might have something to do with the fact that my winterizing approach is "harvest whatever's left and leave them where they are, if they live they live".) The Immortal Chive Plant, which has somehow survived five years on my balcony, is doing pretty well; I also have mint, lemon balm, and thyme currently sprouting, and I'll have to get rosemary at some point if mine doesn't perk up.

If I had the space, I'd love to have a full food garden--I grew up with one, and I miss being able to go out and get strawberries or fresh peas whenever during growing season. Unfortunately, apartment balconies don't really have room for much, and my neighbors haven't gone for the "community garden" approach yet.

[pensnest]

I confess to having killed mint, also. I have no idea why or how! But currently, I have too much of the stuff, which I idiotically planted not-in-a-pot. Sigh. I shall buy more Pimms at the supermarket this week.

I have no idea how the plants in the garden are all looking so cheerful, because while sunshine is a great cheerfuliser, it has barely rained at all since March. What are the plants living on?

My own philosophy with plants is, I will plant you. You will grow, or you will not grow. Fifty-fifty chance.

[liseuse]

I killed the mint in my garden too! I'm not the only one, hurrah!

[tielan]

Herb gardens on the balcony are excellent! Can you grow the more expensive herbs in summer, like basil and coriander? (Unless you're one of the people with the soapy coriander gene.)

Mint also rarely survives in my garden. Also: strawberries. And in spite of every other gardener in Sydney, Australia being able to grow citrus like it's going out of style...my citrus trees have barely fruited.

On the other hand, I can grow stone fruit. That kind of makes up for it. :)

[shadowhive]

I’m not terribly good at growing things, even though I like plants. Mum’s better at it and so has charge of the greenhouse and growing area. We’ve got a few fruit trees (though the pear is the main one we get stuff from) and we’ve done some planting a few weeks ago so we’ll see

I did get a pumpkin seed kit today while getting some pet things. I always have bad luck growing pumpkins but I keep trying

[pensnest]

Isn't it odd how there are certain plants that just won't grow for us? Mine is sunflowers, at which I have had no success at all, ever, except one time when a gigantic bush-like edifice of them burgeoned out of nowhere. Most unexpected.

[gender_euphoric]

We have an allotment at a local community garden and in it we have built a raised bed. I wish we hadn’t made it 2 feet deep though, as it desperately needs almost a foot of new soil (32 cubic feet total), which is A LOT of compost and peat to haul up a hill. So planting has been a bit late this year.

We do have chives up, and strawberry plants almost flowering. Our asparagus patch has only produced 3 stalks so far. Last year my oregano and parsley did amazingly, my rosemary and lavender did ok, and my basil bolted fast. We also had a cucumber plant that wound around the whole bed and gave us 50ish cucumbers. Tomato plants only had a few tomatoes each. Though they were all heirlooms, which ive noticed can be fickle.

[magnetic_pole]

Bolted! I've been trying to remember what the word was for that. Thanks.

50 cucumbers sounds great! Is that typical for cucumbers? M.

[pensnest]

Wow, yes, that is a *lot* of compost. How difficult is it to grow asparagus? I was sent some as an early birthday present recently, and roasted it, and it was *so * good I want much, much more. Well, one day, when the productive section of the garden is under my control.

Heirloom tomatoes might be a bit tricky, indeed - are they worth it for the taste?

[tielan]

Hey, re the 2-feet deep bed, have you considered looking into a wicking bed?

You build it so it has a water reservoir down the bottom, and wicking action (facilitated by the design) draws the water up from the base and into the soil, keeping the roots of the plants sufficiently watered so you don't have to fill it with so much soil. (And you don't have to water it so much. Which in my part of the world is a definite bonus!)

[aome]

I plant a veggie garden every year. The problem is, I start off very enthusiastic, but then by late summer I start forgetting to go out and water or trim back overenthusiastic plants or pick another nine billion tomatoes and then the whole thing kind of goes to hell. :-P. I wish there was a way to convince the garden not to dump EVERYTHING of a particular variety on me at once. I don't need fifty thousand cherry tomatoes today. Or twelve ears of corn. Or whatever. In the past I've tried to stagger plantings by a few weeks, but that never seems to help enough.

The other major part of our garden are the ~60 rosebushes, split so that ~39 are in front and the rest in back, surrounding the house. My BIL/SIL love the roses, so that's technically their domain, but since I'm the one with the most time (my BIL/SIL being workaholics, plus my BIL has health issues and my SIL is overly detail-focused) I'm the one who deadheads the roses each week and helps feed them most weekends.

I wish I could plant Lily of the Valley, which are sentimentally significant to me. Alas, they require shade, and the only shady parts of our yard are a) in the backyard, but they're poisonous so I don't want to put them where the dog might get them or b) on the side of the house where no one ever goes and thus would never been seen or enjoyed.

We cannot keep houseplants of any kind, alas. No matter where we put them, on any shelf, surface, room or even by hanging them - the cats get them. They're spectacularly talented at it.

[light_of_summer]

Might lilies of the valley be worth visiting the side of the house for, occasionally?

I have never grown them, and may not ever even have seen them in real life, but I know there are othet plants that I go out of my way to visit, either to see or to smell them.

[pensnest]

You sound rather like me! I am full of enthusiasm at the beginning, but after a while I'm bored with watering the blighters or whatever else needs doing, and it all goes rather to pot.

My father in law cannot control his planting habit. He will plant ALL THE THINGS, especially ALL THE TOMATOES. And then ALL THE TOMATOES are ripe and he has to pick them all and then he eats ALL THE TOMATOES in a gigantic bowl of tomato salad every day and is taken by surprise when he has, how shall I put this, an upset tummy every day of tomato season.

My garden is mostly shaded, sadly, from the incredibly dense, dark shade right under the giant beech tree, to the scant parts against the northern fence which escape its shade for part of the day in the summer.

[dine]

hmm, I did not know that lily of the valley prefers shade - growing up, my grandmother had an extensive bed (not really tended, just left to grow) and it wasn't shaded at all, full sun most of the time. of course, Oregon's weather tends toward the wet/cooler, without extensively high summer temps (until global warming kicked in)

I remember the leaves were always green and lush, and the flowers perfumed the air as you walked by to the front door.

[ninetydegrees]

I've grown thyme, chives, rosemary and bay laurel on my balcony. We have a community herb garden in my building now so I no longer need to fail at growing herbs and can focus on failing at growing flowers (yes I have a black thumb :). If I had space, energy and a greener thumb I'd like to grow cherry tomatoes, raspberries and lime.

[magnetic_pole]

now so I no longer need to fail at growing herbs and can focus on failing at growing flowers

:)

I love the idea of a community herb garden in/near your building! Are folks generally interested--is it crowded or in demand? M.

[pensnest]

I suppose gardening is rather like cooking, in that some people seem to have an instinct for it, and stuff just works for them. A community herb garden sounds like a lovely idea. Does it contain unusual ones as well as the regulars?

[light_of_summer]

Where I live now, my only technically available gardening space is a small patio area that gets very little sun. (I'm tempted to do a little clandestine flower seed sowing in the common areas between the development's condo buildings, but I have restrained myself, so far.)

I currently have an abutilon in a pot, on the patio, which is looking good despite some aphids. It has apricot-colored flowers and light green foliage similar to this one, though mine is a younger and less bushy specimen.

I have a small spring-blooming California Native called Mist Maiden, too, also in a pot. It is currently going to seed, preparatory to dying back completely until next spring.

At my previous dwelling, I had a modest raised bed and a couple of scraps of non-raised bed that got a good half-day of fiercely direct sunlight. There, I was able to grow California poppies (see icon), Joyce Terry bearded irises (among other varieties),
freesias, Harlequin flowers, tulips, and pineapple sage. I sometimes put in a six-pack or two of nursery annuals: white or purple petunias, pansies or violas, lobelia...it varied.

Some years, I had a couple of food plants in pots: sweet or cinnamon basil, arugula, green beans, and summer squash. (I was not swamped with a massive squash harvest because I strictly confined the plant to a window-box-sized container. This resulted in a manageable number of small squashes.)

I also had multiple colors of nasturtiums, and a lot of orange-flowering African Corn Flag (shown here with a yellow-rumped warbler), and a very-pale-pink-flowering plum tree outside my bedroom window (shown here with a house finch nibbling blossoms). All of those (except some shade-tolerant apricot-colored naturtiums) were planted by previous renters or owners, along with a less exciting honeysuckle vine, a fuchsia, and some grape hyacinths.

I am on the waiting list to rent a plot in a community garden that is a few minutes' drive away from my current dwelling, but I have no idea what my chances are of actually getting one in a year where that works for me.

Most of the things I grew at my last place, I'd like to grow again. I haven't made big plans, beyond that—it feels better to wait and see what's realistic, if and when, rather than set myself up for disappointments that might be big ones. Sigh.

I will say, for my current place, that it is lushly planted with trees, and has excellent proximity to a creek trail that makes for pleasant bird-watching. And I don't have to fear that a landlord or lawn-care guy will massacre my plants, which could not be said of the last place. Phew!

[pensnest]

You sound like a person who Knows About Gardening. Thank you for the links - that Mist Maiden particularly takes my fancy, and I love the iris, too. Apricot nasturtiums sound rather lovely—I enjoy the vibrant red and yellow ones, but I have a rather vague dream of planting my garden with softer colours. As there is a giant beech tree overshadowing most of it, most of the time, a shade-tolerant type would be good.

[dine]

growing up, dad took care of a large grassy yard and plenty of floral plantings and edibles - we had green figs, raspberries, and grapes, along with Sweet William, several large peony bushes, hydrangeas and rhododendrons, and huge holly bushes that provided lots of cuttings for Xmas decorating. my sister inherited his green thumb, and interest in growing things.

I ... did not. I've somehow managed to keep a few plants at work for almost 20 years, but that's basically a miracle, because while they apparently get decent light and I water them once a week, I do nothing else for them. I've thought about trying stuff at home, but many of my apartments haven't really had decent space - currently I have a tiny patio which is shaded almost all the time, getting sun only in the lat after for a few hours. and I'd likely kill plants anyway, so I've not experimented

[pensnest]

I sometimes suspect that Leaving Them Alone is the right thing to do for plants - my tender ministrations don't work any better than my benign neglect in terms of getting plants to survive. Watering once a week seems reasonable.

[tielan]

I grow a great many things in my suburban garden: about fifteen fruit trees, annual vegies in nine garden beds, a couple of perennial/herb beds, and four chickens who help me fertilise and till the ground.

It's not as productive as I'd like, but it's a system and I'm still learning the process, as well as the ups and downs of food growing.

I've grown quite a few pumpkins this summer, picked three so far and eaten two, and there's still a half-dozen out in the garden, quietly curing. They are indeed excellent in curry, so I'm going to make a lot more of those this winter!



That's last midwinter - around the 4th July. This is this winter:



Oh, and the pumpkins and the last of a half-dozen persimmons from a tree my mother gave me. There are a couple of oranges bagged down low, but I have to work out when to pick those.



And the chooks (chickens) are in the icon!

[pensnest]

That looks like an organised and productive garden! You have managed to pack quite a lot in, but it looks a lot more workable than my FIL's, which is a lot less tidy. Fabulous!

[liseuse]

I have a back yard (in the UK sense) which has one long bed in it that my stepfather planted some things in. I don't know what any of the things are. One of them was mint, but I killed that one year which I am oddly proud of. Mostly I chuck some water at it all every now and then and it seems to survive.

I am currently growing some things in pots and they will need to be planted out at some point but I haven't got round to that yet. One of the things is definitely Chantenay carrots and I hold no belief whatsoever that they will survive once planted out, but never mind. The others are ... a mystery and, unfortunately, a mystery of my own making. I, you see, bought a kit for growing 'funky veg' which claimed it would contain five seed packets and five seedling pots. It contained four packets and four seedling pots. I planted the seeds and watered and did everything you should do except one key thing. I did not, dear reader, label the pots or keep the packets. I have no idea which four of the five options I am growing and they all have somewhat different care instructions post-planting out. I *think* one of them is Swiss Chard but who knows about the rest?!

The one set of plants I have had success with is the succulents in the bathroom. They are doing amazingly well! The aloe plant is looking a bit sorry for itself but that's because it's outgrown the pot and I haven't bought it a new one yet.

[pensnest]

Mystery food! A bit like opening cans without labels, but it takes a lot longer. Still, you'll probably find out what they are...

Succulents in the bathroom sounds like a good plan, presumably you can neglect them and they will still acquire what they need from the atmosphere.

[artsyhonker]

I grow a lot of things! Mostly edible ones. I'm less fond of ornamentals, and know much less about them; when I do grow things that are conventionally decorative, I try to make sure they are edible too, like nasturtiums, or growing poppy varieties that have edible seeds.

Currently in the back garden I have strawberries, a dwarf mulberry, blackberries, black raspberries, Japanese wineberry, blueberries, hazel (too young to make nuts yet), a damson tree, a pear tree that doesn't do very well (it's only partly self-fertile, it needs a buddy really), four types of peas, two types of broad beans, two types of French beans (with a third type just sown), nasturtiums (including some that, amazingly, survived the winter), blackcurrants, gooseberries, a sunflower, asparagus, and spring onions. And various plants in pots waiting to be planted out at the allotment.

The allotment is where the potatoes are, and where the tomatoes, peppers and possibly aubergines will eventually be. There's a cold frame there which I'm going to attempt to grow melons in -- this might not work but it's worth a try. There's a well-established grape vine, and some soft fruit. I've planted out some of the squashes and tomatoes, onions, leeks, garlic, beans, and there's some more asparagus there. I've sown carrots which are coming along nicely. I've lost fourteen sunflowers to slugs, and I'm not sure quite what to do: the safer type of pellet doesn't work well enough and I don't want to put copper collars around them. I could let them get bigger before planting them out, but they're already difficult to transport by bicycle at the size I've been doing.

I don't really have much of a green thumb, I'd say my ability to keep plants alive is slightly below average. But I'm persistent, and I grow small amounts of a large variety of different species instead of large amounts of a small number of species. This means that there's a good chance that *something* will work. If the French beans don't work, probably the broad beans or the runners will. Melons are touch-and-go in my region, but I have three different varieties to plant out into the cold frame, so if even one of those can make it, I'll get to eat melons I grew myself.

[pensnest]

I can actually feel my mouth watering at the list of fabulous berries there! And the damson and pear trees. We have a damson somewhere but I don't know that it is productive. My FIL planted five trees when he moved in, but I'm not at all sure they are doing very well.

Otherwise, what a fantastic haul you will have! I think maybe persistence is the greatest of all virtues for a gardener. I lack it, hence my philosophy of "it'll grow or it won't". But I like the idea of growing a lot of different things in the hope that something will work out. Makes sense!