garden garden garden

[Marie]

tell me about your garden.  is this slow spring TOTALLY fucking you?  are you growing something new and amazing and awesome this summer?  DO TELL!!!

so, over the winter months i came across this document published by my local cooperative extension detailing what parts of which months you should plant what vegetables.  this was very exciting for me because i've only gardened in my region one previous season and what i learned about gardening as a child growing up has proved unhelpful in this area, two zones warmer than my hometown.

but this stupid late spring has fucked me.  i put my peas in mid march, spinach late march, lettuce mid april, etc.  it's all just kind of straggling along.  i'm worried that my night shades i started indoors back in february are going to get too big and spindly and become a pain in the ass before it is warm enough to transplant them outside.

i'm doing shallots and garlic for the first time.  i put my garlic in a little late, i think it was the first week of december.  that was still a good 4 weeks before the ground froze, but the tops are already starting to yellow around the edges and droop.  could that be a watering issue or are they just finishing up?  do i have too much nitrogen in my soil? (for my birthday i asked my boyfriend to give me a comprehensive soil pH and nutrients test kit and a bra and he said no to both.  what a dick.)  i put the shallots in in spring, and they're doing fine, but i think i could have spaced them waaaaaay closer together.  i gave 'em 5" on each side in a square plot.  that's only 9 plants in a 2.5^2 plot.  could i have put them in closer?

and let's talk herbs!!!!  i've got a couple perrenials mixed in with the grass and clover growing along the fence.  i forgot about them by the end of last summer and they seem to be coming back happy and thriving.  a lot of the annuals i had in the vegetable bed are popping up as volunteers.  anything that is said to tollerate transplanting, i am, but i still have a couple herbs i've been trying to start from seed indoors.  is there some fucking secret to this?  i started the end of feb. and my tomatoes, peppers, cukes, even my basil are all like "whoa" and i need to transplant them to something bigger.  my thyme, parsely, oregano?  those weiners are all still 2" tall with white stems the thickness of three hairs and they are all leaning over under the grow lamp, unhappily laying on the peat pellet.  what am i doing wrong?  what do seedling herbs want?  or are they just frustratingly slow to maturity?

talk!  garden talk!  here!

[dieblucasdie]

Dude those spinach and peas will go fucking crazy once mid-June hits; you'll have more than you know what to do with, don't worry

The neighbor I share gardening duties with just had a baby, so we've been lazy this year, only just started a few sunflowers, tomatoes, and peppers. 

[Marie]

ah, see, dieb, you're still in chicago, right?  i think chicago is probably something near what my childhood hardiness zone was, 5.  i'm currently residing in zone 7, and by mid june (if temperatures are consistent with the historical average) my poor little spinach will be wanting to bolt, and those peas, i don't know what peas want to do because i've never grown them, but i don't think they'll be happy.

i am thinking gardening in my zone got royally screwed because it looks like we are having a cold as shit spring, and then boom, summer.  we get a short spring and then an immediately hot and scorching summer, so it looks like my cold weather spring crops are gonna poop their pants.  BOOOOOOOOOO.

[dieblucasdie]

Ah, so you're not in Philly anymore?  I don't know, I've found that it's easy to grow way later in the season than you should be able to in any zone if you're willing to just water the shit out of it, at least with things like peas and spinach that are basically impossible to over-water.  Plus, spinach comes up fast; as long as you harvest it right away it should grow. 

[milesofsparks]

the boyfriend has a garden, which is filling me with joy, as I have only a flowerbox.  his garden has raspberries and grapes that are well established, and one patch of formerly shady ground (a big tree went down in a storm last year).  I'm thinking peas growing up the fence and containers of strawberries in front.  it's not solid sun, but it gets I'd say a few hours a day.  is it too late to start peas?  any other suggestions?  will tomatoes be sad in partial sun?

there are also some nice herbs and a lot of flowers (roses, irises, etc.)  I can't wait for summer.  I am going to spend every weekend sitting out there.  and now that I helped him hook up wifi, I can catch up on LPTJ while I watch the garden grow.

[Marie]

naw, bro.  i'm still in philly.  we're zone 7a down here.  it's a whole different world.  i'd love to water the crap out of my veggie garden but 1. i don't want to encourage that old morning glory what is my sworn mortal foe, and 2. i really don't think it would do too much for things likely to bolt.  sure, the carrots and scallions are happy into june if i water deeply often, but there is nothing to save the greens (and actually many herbs, too) from bolting when we get into the thick of that sweaty hot summer philly is known for.

milesofsparks, that's so rad your beau has raspberries and grapes already established!!  i have blueberry and grapes fantasies but my yard is about the size of a postage stamp so that just won't work.  i also don't want to leave this rental property in three or four years (i can't live here forever) and have to leave some lovely plant babies behind on the property to whatever jerks are moving in.

it might not be too late for peas depending on what zone you're in.  consult http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html if you are in north america and report back to us.  if you are not in north america i have absolutely no advice for you but would love to hear about planting in your area.  it's getting late for peas no matter where, but they are resilient.  if you have a good two months ahead of you without any scorching sun they should do ok.

tomatoes will do okay in partial sun.  tomatoes will do okay in just about any situation you can dream up. there's a reason your neighbors are always trying to pass them off to you.  so yeah..  tomatoes love full sun and that is where they really glow, but you'll be ok in partial.  you'll just get less fruit and maybe more pest problems.  chin up, let's make some salsa.

[C of heartbreak]

It started to get consistently warm around here and we just planted basil, parsley, cilantro, tomatoes, and peppers. I'm not much of a gardener so the gf is mainly handling them. She's grown herbs before and tomatoes seem pretty straightforward, but anyone have hints about growing jalapeno peppers?

[Doctor Bob]

Private garden:

Paul and Miriam reading on Saturday afternoon (my shirts on the line).

Public garden:

College Park, Trinity College, yesterday afternoon.

[alex]

Man, now I want a garden, too. We just have this tiny plastered patio which serves as a parking lot for bicycles.

[clare]

Well, we just got our first frosts of the season. I've failed to get any winter vegies in, and the drought (and water restrictions) has meant that the raspberries didn't this year, though when they do, they'll so the spring and autumn thing. I have two pumpkins that grew themselves - they're a Jap (green and orange strripe) Butternut cross, but they're tiny, due to lack of water. I have herbs in pots that will self-seed all over the place (parsley and rocket) or that are perennial (rosemary, oregano, sage, thyme). The bloody possums keep eating the rocket though.

Dr Bob, I have garden envy. Probably jsut water envy really...

[FreddyKnuckles]

We've got a flower box.  Planted some kind of flower seeds in it, and my mom was like "there's no way in hell  that those things are gonna grow", but we've already got like 6 little nubs just a few days after planting!

[jess]

Yay gardens! I have a balcony with my current apartment, so this weekend I'm planning to buy some plants for it. (I'm actually doing it with my mom, sort of a Mother's Day activity, since she's missed gardening since she moved into the city too, and she has no balcony.) I'm thinking tomatoes and some herbs, but I'm trying to figure out which herbs to select. I had a garden when I was growing up, but it had a ton of light, so I'm used to working with that. Any suggestions for herbs that do well in medium exposure spots? I'd love to do basil, but as I recall, that likes it sunny.

[dieblucasdie]

I've done OK with basil in medium exposure spots.  It'll do better in full sun, but it can be done.  I've had good luck with rosemary, too.  If you like herbal tea, chamomile and lemonbalm do well too.

[dumbfish]

but anyone have hints about growing jalapeno peppers?

None needed. They've always borne freakishly large quantities of peppers under my strict regime of benign neglect.

[Anne the Man]

Me stepmother has a grand garden. We have silverbeet, lettuce, herbs, a grape vine, an apple tree and as I only just discovered, a feijoa tree! I'm thinking about gardening myself a lot more now with these thar goddamn high food prices. And making bread all the time, and my own pasta and tortillas and so on. To the recipe thread perchance?

[milesofsparks]

thanks for the advice, Marie.  I'm in Brooklyn, btw.  this weekend we're going to do a little gardening, I think.  I'll let you know how it goes.

also, for those looking to plant herbs, I'd recommend mint.  it's like a weed--you practically can't kill it (I have a flower box in the back full of mint I haven't watered or anything in years, it just keeps coming back).  same goes for chives.  but mostly I think it's best to think about what you'd actually use and just plant that--most herbs are pretty hardy, in my experience.  except basil--I've never been able to grow basil well.

[jess]

Thanks for the advice--I think I'll just buy what looks tasty and hope it lives. My family friend who is quite adept with plants advised to get a couple of large planters, the larger the better re: not having them dry out too fast, and to plant tomatoes in the center and do the herbs around them, which sounds like good advice to me.

And yes, mint is crazy like that, though I learned to be careful in that regard if you plant it in a normal plot/yard, since it will spread and take over everywhere. I have had good luck with chives and oregano before, and dill (which conveniently re-seeded itself) and thyme, when I was a teenager, and I did ok with basil, but I seemed to have a plot where lots of things (herbs, tomatoes and strawberries mostly) flourished, despite it being a small layer of dirt on top of some pretty impressive rock. Oh, and the catnip grew beautifully, but after our cats started spending all of their time hanging out under the huge plant, gnawing on it and getting stoned off their asses, we ripped it out, since we were skeptical that being high all day long was good for them. It was pretty amusing to watch though.

[Ignatius]

A friend of mine mentioned this thing where you mound some dirt and plant corn.  And later beans.  Because they will crawl up the cornstalk.  And there was a third plant, which you wanted because it had big leaves near the ground and that would keep something bad from happening.  Has anyone heard of this?  Or tried it?  I want to convince my dad to do it.

[Greg Nog]

I was just reading about that in "America's Founding Food," about the culinary adventures of the European colonists in early New England.  If memory serves correctly, the third item in the triumvirate was pumpkins?

[Ignatius]

I was just reading about that in "America's Founding Food," about the culinary adventures of the European colonists in early New England.  If memory serves correctly, the third item in the triumvirate was pumpkins?

Oh! That would make sense.  It's like turning Thanksgiving from a gluttonous regret into a productive, seasons-long adventure.  Thanks!

[milesofsparks]

I think squash, not necessarily pumpkins.  but the thing is, corn is a pain in the ass.  unless you have enough space to plant a lot of it, you have to pollinate it by hand.  but one of my neighbors does it in his miniscule Brooklyn front yard, so it is possible.

[Greg Nog]

I think squash, not necessarily pumpkins.  but the thing is, corn is a pain in the ass.

My dad is like the greatest gardner I've ever met, and I know after one or two seasons, he pretty much gave up on corn.  I'm psyched about the upcoming tomato season, though! 

[Andrew_TSKS]

i'm thinking the mixture of corn and beans has something to do with beans being a legume that therefore adds nitrogen to the soil, while corn sucks nitrogen out of the soil. i feel like i learned about that in biology class. but i mean, that was a long time ago and i haven't studied vegetation AT ALL since, so i could have this totally wrong by now.

[apsis]

So for some reason when I saw the title of the thread I thought it was going to involve garden path sentences.  Real gardens awesome too though.

[C of heartbreak]

i'm thinking the mixture of corn and beans has something to do with beans being a legume that therefore adds nitrogen to the soil, while corn sucks nitrogen out of the soil. i feel like i learned about that in biology class. but i mean, that was a long time ago and i haven't studied vegetation AT ALL since, so i could have this totally wrong by now.

Actually Andrew, you're right! I think it's the bacterial symbiotes that grow around the legumes with produce nitrogen.
(as an aside, as for corn sucking nitrogen, this is the reason why ethanol is even more wasteful than most right-headed people think, because the majority of nitrogen used in farming comes from processes which burn petroleum, and unfortunately not from legumes)