MagiStream

Because of where I live...I have an indoor "garden" since I love having flowers around...one of the bedrooms in my apartment has been turned into, essentially, a huge grow box.

I have flowers in there, lavender, peonies, baby roses, violets...
different herbs, such as : sage, chammomile, thyme, dragon's blood, sweet grass...
and a few others I can't think of at the moment

The hardest part comes from making sure the lights are all set up for the different plants at different stages... the peonies grow very high while dragons blood stays pretty short...
id actually say that those dang peonies give me the most hassle...but those huge blossoms are a great reward
I've been giving some thought into adding two closed off sections for cacti and carnivorous plants

my garden is, in basic terms, a medium rectangle of grass, with a border of random plants around the fence, one old playhouse terned computer storage aria, and 2 arias of patio.

we live on a clay bed so only plants that are used to the soil grow, and i can tell you that they have servived the larst two winters real well despite the sub zero spells and all the snow. i also have tomarto, lemon barm, parsly, mint and chives growing (the only thing that are mine ) in pots around the place and as of next year the some what deralict plot along side my house is going to be terned into a veggie garden, thanks to me and mom.(once agane in pots. big pots)

non plant wise we have bird feeders, and dragon/gargole oniments about the place, a washing line, garden shed, a BBQ (dads baby) and a classy round glass and metal table.
thats my garden and i love it lots!!
(ps. only try do dig hard clay with a small tractor. a spade WILL NOT help at all. trust me, i tried .)

skittlette wrote:Because of where I live...I have an indoor "garden" since I love having flowers around...one of the bedrooms in my apartment has been turned into, essentially, a huge grow box.

I have flowers in there, lavender, peonies, baby roses, violets...
different herbs, such as : sage, chammomile, thyme, dragon's blood, sweet grass...
and a few others I can't think of at the moment

The hardest part comes from making sure the lights are all set up for the different plants at different stages... the peonies grow very high while dragons blood stays pretty short...
id actually say that those dang peonies give me the most hassle...but those huge blossoms are a great reward
I've been giving some thought into adding two closed off sections for cacti and carnivorous plants

That sounds SO COOL! I'd better never go to your house, everything would suddenly wilt.

dizzydino wrote: (ps. only try do dig hard clay with a small tractor. a spade WILL NOT help at all. trust me, i tried .)

My family broke the blade of a rototiller on hard packed clay once. I know exactly what you mean! We had to water it for three days, then let it dry for one before trying again, and even then, it was hard. It didn't help that the ground was full of old river rock too. Once it was tilled, we seeded it. The grass tried to grow and then all died. >< We ended up laying paver bricks over it.

The lettuces and some of the winter herbs are up! We planted them on peat pellets first and started them indoors while it was still hot. I have Romaine, Spicy Mesclun, two kinds of heirloom spinach, fennel, and some other greens. If the weather remains fair, we'll plow the garden under this weekend or next and put in the peas.

Dee plans on raising some tomatoes in a planter in the house so that we can have them for the winter. Now that he better understands how the planting seasons work in this zone, he says he can make the garden produce better. We shall see.

I love gardening! I've never actually had my own garden,our backyard is too shady to get much more than grass to gross, but I've helped my aunt with hers several times. I love working with plants, its so peaceful! The only thing I don't like are the bugs

Homegrown tomatoes are the BEST thing in the world.

My brother has a variety of succulents and cacti at my dad's house in small pots on the windowsill, and I've done some experimenting with a jade plant my mom had (growing from cuttings, growing in a vase of water with no soil [verrrrryyy cool by the way]) and I love botany.

When I get my own place, I will definitely have a vegetable garden-- and I will grow carrots and tomatoes and zucchini and peppers!

My garden has sort of gradually expanded over the years. My house sits on about 1/6 of an acre total-and when I bought it the front yard was grass. Over the years I've eliminated that (water issues out here-so a full lawn is a no go). I put in several different types of drought tolerant plants (quite fone of Euonymous-I have several varieties) as well as various succulents, a dwarf yucca some (tightly controlled) lamb's ear (damn those can be invasive) snd some low pollen hybrid juniper-as well as all sorts of things in pots (Dwarf alberta pines, a butterfly bush, some Sedums-yes, I used GIANT pots for all this- ).

Over the last few years I moved on into vegetables and flowers. The east side of my yard next to the driveway is mostly clay-unlike most of the rest of my yard-and I never could get ANYTHING to grow in there (even most weeds avoided it). I started out just pot gardening over there-cherry tomatoes and a few bell peppers mostly-both did reasonably well in five gallon buckets oddly enough. But last year I finally decided to surrender to the inevitable and add three raised garden beds over there since the light is so good (hours and hours of sunlight on that side). The switch was amazing. I used a mix of an organic soil (Black Gold I think was the name) along with some peat moss and compost in the beds-and then added a pair of whisey barrel planters between the beds which I filled with the leftover soil mix.

I managed to get a bumper crop of pretty much everything. i am STILL picking sweet cherry tomatoes, jalapeno peppers celebrity tomatoes (my first foray into full size tomatoes), green bell peppers, and some sort of hybrid (first time with these) called a mexibell pepper-which sort of resembles a large cherry pepper crossed with a green bell pepper-but is spicier than bell peppers. I also added in some hardy carrots (whatever they are the seed packet SAID they would grow in the heat-and boy have they) and grew a lemon cucumber along the fence to the back yard (experience has taught me-NO ONE needs more than ONE lemon cucumber plant-darn thing just keeps on producing all summer long). I have truly loved this. I haven't bought much produce since everything started ripening up-in roughly July. So other than fresh garlic and some lettuce I've pretty much had everything I needed for salads, fresh pico de gallo, salsa, and tons of opportunity to make lovely shish-ka-bobs, or just bake up a piece of chicken with some veggies or do a stir fry. Quite lovely. I'm going to be rather sad once the first frost hits-which should be anytime during the next two weeks. Sigh....what WILL I do with all these green tomatoes....

I also added one raised bed right along the other side of the driveway where the soil is sort of regular soil mixed with some clay and turned it into a small flower garden. I planted some silver dollar plants which have lovely pink blooms (technically a perennial-but sold as an annual here because their cold tolerance isn't high enough to survive the winter) along with some wildflowers, some dwarf sunflowers and some lavender (which much to my surprise not only lasted out the summer but bloomed again in the fall). It made quite a lovely display the past few months.

Once we get the first full freeze, I'll take out the dead stuff, turn everything over and amend the soil if it needs it-and I think I may take a shot at planting some garlic for next spring. My business partner has some extra (she apparently ordered WAY too much) so I can even get it for free.

ETA January 11, 2012: We're GMO free this year. I ordered all of my seeds from a place which specializes only in heirloom varieties for the South. They're guaranteed to grow if given proper care and conditions. We're putting in the root and green crops now, as it's too cold for much else. Here's what we ordered:

- beets
- carrots
- arugula
- baby bok choy
- chinese cabbage
- onions (Creole)
- stirfry mix

I had some other seeds already so we're planting:

- lettuce
- microgreen mix
- basil
- oak leaf lettuce
- romaine

We're using a square foot intensive method to get the most out of the garden space we have and minimize the care needed. All of these fill (and only partially) one 4x8 bed! We've also seeded the peppers, tomatoes, and a few other vegetables which will need to go out when it gets warmer. I have a growing light over them so that they'll get what they need and come in strong.

I think it's going to be a good growing season. We may even end up self sufficient this year!


Well, with the new year just started we're already planning for the garden.

Florida is a bit different; our months when things won't grow are in the middle of summer ---June, July, August --- instead of during the winter. The winter is actually a productive season for us; it's when you start your summer vegetables, put fruit grafts and nut trees in the ground, and when you direct sow your winter root crops.

This year, all of our seeds are heirloom seeds (no hybrids) from Baker Creek. I like them because they don't carry any GMO altered seeds and because it's possible to pick older, hardier vegetables and fruits which will taste better and produce better because they were specifically designed for our climate. As soon as payday comes, we're ordering the radishes, parsnip, lettuces, other greens, and some herbs.

We are also planning a table garden: a pot of loose leaf lettuce greens and herbs which will grow in the kitchen right there on the counter and can be picked as needed for cooking. The idea is to put new seeds down every seven days so that we always have greens coming up.

I need to dig some new beds too; the 8x12 sections we put in aren't large enough and I need to figure out where I want my corn and where we'll want the orchard.

I've not left out the ornamentals and medicinals either. One entire bed will be devoted to the medicinals and we'll put the ornamentals where they'll do the most good. Some of the plants I want have sacred uses in my religion; I am particularly looking forward to growing Angel's Trumpet and sacred datura as well as several varieties of nicotiana.

I spent 3 hours working on my little flower garden today!

Amazingly 3 of my annuals survived the winter! My Dianthus is doing amazing. The snap dragons seem to be making a come back. The pink things... I can't tell if they're surviving or not. And I think I had a couple of bachelor buttons come up last fall and they survived the winter. Yay for super mild winter, eh?

Last fall I bought some bulbs, but I didn't have enough dirt in my bed (and it's on a concrete pad) to plant them. I was able to pick up some really cheap bags of composted steer manure, and dug out the surviving plants, and plowed up all the compacted clay in the bed, then mixed the manure into it and spread it around- filling the bed. I also laid down some big black garbage bags to help hold the water in the bed instead of letting it run out. Unfortunately, for some reason when i started planting, the wall fell down! I got it set back up again, and the owners are going to get some cement and fix it properly eventually.

So, those bulbs that I couldn't plant last fall? I stuck them in the veggie drawer of the fridge! I figured, since I couldn't get them into the ground, they should at least feel like it's winter. I think they had a better winter than they would have in the ground! When I opened the packages, many of them had started sprouting! So they're all in the ground now. I hope they do ok!

We had a freeze but miraculously lost none of the patio plants (we covered the garden). Radishes are starting to bulb out. I hope that means the turnips and parsnips aren't far behind! The arabian jasmine lost all its leaves but the vine is still alive and it's putting out new ones. The jessamine and the crown of thorns are all thriving.

The salad greens went nuts; we have loose leaf lettuce for dinner table fixings and the Chinese stir fry mix we planted is now starting to differentiate its leaves and go from sprouts to plants.

All of our seeds were heirloom and GMO free this year. It paid off. EVERYTHING sprouted and grew. I have tomatoes, cucumbers, and herbs which are now ready to go outside as soon as it's warm enough.

And... of course yesterday it snowed. Silly Idaho weather. So far, those annuals are still ok, and the bulbs are snug in the ground.

We didn't get enough snow to do more than moisten the top inch of dirt, so I need to be able to figure out how to water the garden with out a hose and with out just dumping a bucket of water in there. I don't own a watering can and I haven't seen them for sale yet- too early in the season.