Green fingers?
May. 26th, 2020 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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covidcoffeecornerI 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?
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?