The SDMB 2013 Gardening Thread (Yes, Very Early This Year)

Cafe Society
1

Here we are again. Why am I starting this thread in February? Because this weekend I found myself actually thinking/planning/shopping for this year’s garden. I figure I can’t be the only one. So, while feeding the compost pile with kitchen scraps yesterday I thought what the heck, start it early.

So… last summer my wheelbarrow went missing. Since I got it for free it was no big loss, and honestly, it was rusting out really bad and missing a handle. I suspect one of the local scrappers took it down to the recyclers. I was quite annoyed - that scrap metal money should have been MINE!!! - but what can you do? The replacement is a “garden cart” I picked up from Aldi for some ridiculously low price. It’s heavy duty plastic, meaning it’s much lighter, it’s more maneuverable, and I can easily get it through my front door so I can store it inside if I want to.

My digging shovel is bent (I bent it on the prairie sod out back while expanding the garden a row last year) and my hoe is busted. I figure $20-30 to replace those, both of which were hand-me-down’s and ancient so no big loss there, either. I saved the metal bits - this time the scrap is mine!

I spent about that much on trellises last year, and they seem to be surviving the winter so that turned out to be a good investment. Basic wooden things, but I gave them some extra support when I installed them and they made harvesting the climbing things easier. They form a sort of back wall to my garden, which seems to have cut down on the number of times the drunk guy in back of us plowed through the vegetables while going to and from the bar.

The two compost heaps are still composting.

I picked up some 4 inch coir starter pots for the the heirloom peppers. I am going to start them inside and wanted a good sized pot so if outside planting is delayed a week or two they still have room to grow.

I did not manage to accumulate mulch last year. >sigh< But the growing season was so crappy even the weeds didn’t do well so I don’t think cleaning them out in the spring will be too bad. I am wondering how to get more mulch as I will not be doing lawn mowing/landscaping services this summer. Hmmmm… how to get cheap mulch…

Planned seeds this year are:

Beans: green, purple, yellow, wax
Onions: white, yellow, red
Bok choi
Chard
Spinach
Kohlrabi
Carrots
Lettuce mix
Radishes
Beets
Turnips
Brussels sprouts
Cucumbers
Acorn squash
Curly parsley
Dill
Indian corn
Popcorn
Sunflowers
Beaver dam pepper (this year’s new vegetable, and a rare heirloom)

I am also considering leeks, as I’ve started using them as well. Might also pick up a couple jalapeno plants, too - my conure looooooooves jalapenos.

I am considering extending the main garden yet another row. I am no longer planting along the property line fence as the current bar owner has done jack for it since it fell over. Also, his solution to “mowing the grass” is “nuke the place with roundup”. Fortunately, the guy he uses has decent aim, but there’s still some bleed over along the fence which does my vegetables no good whatsoever.

I am tempted to try mushrooms as well. Never tried growing mushrooms before. Anyone grow mushrooms here? Any advice for a beginner?

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I am debating whether to start seeds or not. Probably not. I’ve started seeds every year since we got the house 5 years ago and every year out of the dozens I start only a very few are viable by planting time. I know my major problem is lighting. I’ve tried to rectify this but I still get leggy, floopy seedlings. The seedlings I buy on Mother’s Day are much healthier and I suffer no frustrations.

The hurricane took my compost bin. I had one of those plastic snap together things. After Sandy we checked our house. A few roof shingles gone. The siding that kind of frames the roof was in our neighbor’s yard and are compost bin was. . . gone. Just gone. I hope it didn’t kill anybody.

I’m thinking of starting another columbine. I loved ole Columbie. I grew him from seed. He just didn’t grow back one year. I’m thinking of starting another and planting him by the stairs.

I’m staying very simple this year. 2 or 3 Anchos, a sweet pepper and some habanero type very hot pepper. And two types of tomatoes. A plum type for cooking and a beefsteak type for slicing.

In the smaller bed, I dunno. I so want to grow Brussels sprouts. But they need to go in the back of the bed so that they don’t throw shade on whatever else is in the bed. However, the back of the bed is being taken up by garlic right now and will be until early to mid summer. The front half of the bed is free for maybe some radishes or carrots. I think I’ll try carrots since I’ve never grown them before.
The lettuce and kale and cabbage will go in after the carrots and/or radishes. Like in very late summer. They have a tendency to bolt on me if I try to plant them any earlier.
I have no idea what kind of flowers I’m growing in my pots. I always do marigolds in the front border. The bed with the Endless Summer hydrangeas, purple and white irises and yellow Asiatic lilies usually gets creeping petunias to try to out grow the weeds. I have a large problem with weed suppression. No amount of landscaping material or mulch will hold it back.

And finally, my herb pots. I have 5 year old thyme and oregano plants that refuse to die. They come back year after year. I need to plant rosemary. Will probably grow sage. Pineapple sage if I can find it. I have had absolutely no luck growing cilantro. It bolts the second it comes out the ground and then dies.
Well, that’s enough rambling for now. I tend to do that when talking about my garden.

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I’m not a big one for starting seeds indoors myself. However, I only have FIVE of the beaver dam pepper seeds (yes, really!) That doesn’t leave much margin for error. I’m hoping that by using 4 inch pots and limiting the number to 5 pots (which would leave #6 as a leftover, but what can you do when you only have five seeds?) I’ll have better luck than using teeny little pots. These are the sort where you just plant the entire pot into the ground, which is the sort I have the best success with. This will allow me to plant already started things, which I hope will eliminate the accidental “oops - that wasn’t a weed I just pulled up!” incidents I sometimes have with seedlings. Yes, the lighting and legginess can be a problem.

I suppose if I get even just one plant that puts out two peppers it will still represent a net gain (whereupon I give some seeds back to my supplier and keep the rest for myself if it seems a good idea) but it would be nice to have at least three with a few peppers each.

4

The baby trees in my backyard all grew up and now shade my garden area too much. Last year nothing grew at all, so I converted my garden to a sitting area complete with patio blocks, cedar chips and a birdbath and chairs. I liked my trees too much to cut them down - they’re good privacy at the back of the yard. Now I’m stuck with no garden and have been trying to decide if I want to plow up a new plot of land off to the side of the yard where it’s mostly sunny, or if I want to try container gardening this year and have rows of pots along my sunny patio. I’m leaning towards the container gardening, just for something different. If it doesn’t work out then I dig up a new garden plot. Or I might do both, since I’m not sure how well some things will grow in pots - carrots or potatoes for instance. So maybe both. I’m ready for spring :slight_smile:

5

I missed my usual Valentine’s Day lettuce seed scattering, so maybe this weekend–IF I get the beds cleaned up enough. I didn’t do a good job getting the garden to bed last fall, and I have got to get out there and clean house.
I’ll have to construct no-cat cages this year. Someone (I don’t think it’s my cats, actually–they’re usually inside) have been using my garden as litter boxes. So there will be some cleaning up and covering with chicken wire to be done as well.
Planning for this year: lettuce (why do I plant it? I don’t usually use it!), carrots, broccoli, sugar snaps, green beans, various herbs, strawberries, collards, and crazy amounts of tomatoes. Maybe some peppers–I always try, with little success. Brussels sprouts later in the season.
I’m really excited–I’m leaving the full-time job and will actually have time to enjoy my garden this year!

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The thing about carrots is that you need to really do a good job of cultivating and loosening the soil down past where the carrots are expect to grow - that could be up to two feet down! So, to start, I recommend those midget varieties that don’t grow much longer than about six inches, so you only have to go down about a foot.

A trick someone put me wise to a couple of years ago is to alternate carrot and radish seeds. This does two things: first, the radishes quickly sprout and mark the rows, which is helpful since carrots have a relatively long germination time and it’s easy to forget exactly where you put them. Also, when you harvest the radishes pulling them out leaves a hollow space in the soil, which helps keep it loose and give the soil the growing carrots push aside somewhere to go. Since I’ve been doing this I’ve had much better results with carrots.

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I was in fact thinking of getting the middling sized carrots as I have a raised bed, the soil of which is nice and loose. It’s also pretty nice-- the soil, that is. This year it isn’t getting it’s layer of compost, though. Unless I buy some, which I probably won’t. Damn you, Sandy!

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I did carrots last year in my raised beds. Only a few survived (rains, drought, cats, etc) but it was fun to harvest them in January!
I want to put in leeks too, if I can get sets before they sell out this year.

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What variety?

I’m starting a Chiltern Seed variety called “Montgomery” (“Churchill” did just fine last year as did the plants of Jade Cross II that I found in six-paks, but I have this need for constant variety).

The brussels sprouts get started around Mar. 1 and the remainder of the seed-started vegetables later in the month (a couple of new tomato varieties from this hybridizer, maybe a sweet pepper or two) along with Caryopteris “Blue Myth” (crepe myrtle seedlings are already up and growing under lights). Most of the ornamentals don’t get seeded until late March or April.

And for the first time this year, I’m taking a crack at potatoes.

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What variety of brussels sprouts? Darn if I remember - last year was the first year I tried them and they grew well, it’s just that something ate them before I got around to harvesting them. Hope to actually get something to eat this year.

Oh, and potatoes - it’s important to cover the ground around the plants. I usually use straw or grass clippings, but others use newspapers or paper bags or about a zillion other things. You need to keep the light off the potatoes or they’ll get green, and green potato isn’t a good thing and you don’t want to eat them (you can trim the green spots/areas off, but it’s a pain in the butt). When it comes harvest time use a potato rake or even your hands if the ground is soft (wear gloves). If you use a metal shovel or rake you’ll be cutting potatoes or puncturing them.

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Papergirl, my mom swore by the lettuce being sown on Valentine’s Day, too. I was a little late this year (just got it sown yesterday). And one lovely perk of having goats is the poopy hay I rake out of the shed and layer over my containers.
I plan to start heirloom tomatoes in a little bit, but I start them in toilet paper rolls, so you can plant the whole thing. And a freebie!

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My garden, if you can even call it that, is more boring than yours.

I planted two little north star cherry trees on my curb last year. I’ll get to see them boom for the first time! Other than that, I plant a pot of chocolate mint.

I tore out some old, overgrown fire bushes last year. I want to replace them with a blue crop and a blue ray blueberry bushes, but I’m having trouble finding a place to get some that at least look bush-like. I want them to be at least a few feet tall.

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I have a serious seed addiction, so I have a silly number of things to grow this year. I have an allotment, so it doesn’t have to look nice. I’ve already started off leeks, because the first tiny specks of green of the year always make me happy.

I’m also planning to start some tomatoes off in the next week or so- I don’t hold out much hope for them though; the past three years I’ve had blight before I had a single ripe fruit.I have the seeds though, so I might as well try.

I’ve already got some broad beans, shallots, garlic and onions autumn planted out, I’m halfway through setting out my blueberry/cranberry bed, and I’m planting two more varieties of raspberries to join the existing two.

I’m also planning to grow: parsnips, purple carrots, kale, sprouting broccolli, spinach, brussels sprouts, something called a tree cabbage, turnips, more broad beans, french beans, runner beans, peas of at least three kinds, cucumber, potato (I think I’m up to 5 kinds bought already), more salady leaves than I care to mention, sweetcorn, courgettes (zuchinni), summer squash and about 8 kinds of winter squash/pumpkin…

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I’m waiting forBlack Princess to begin growing. One bloom the first year.

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My existing garden has the same problem as Fluffy Picklesniffer garden has, too much shade. But, we had to cut down our big maple tree (it was dying) so now I have a great, sunny spot for both vegetables & flowers. I just need the time to make it happen. I have to do box gardens because of all the fill in the yard, so new boxes need to be made. I also want to put garden cloth in between the boxes and cover it with mulch - mowing the grass between the boxes in the old garden was a PIA.
If I do get all that done, the usual will be planted - tomatoes, cukes, green beans, beets, squash. Now that there will be lots of sun, I’ll try leeks again.

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Just a note - maybe we should include something about where we are located. From context, I think we already have people from the southern US to the UK in this thread but I can’t be sure.

I’m in Northwest Indiana, just south of Lake Michigan. The mention of sowing by Valentine’s Day and March 1 sort of raised my eyebrows as we still have plenty of snow and cold to go. I don’t normally plant anything before the end of March, and we’re not truly frost-free until May around here (it used to be May 31, but now it’s May 15 or maybe even May 1 now - that’s climate change at work I think). It’s also why I usually either try to start peppers indoors or buy them already started as we don’t really have a reliably long stretch of heat for them to mature before fall and winter come around again.

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NE Ohio. My newest rosebushes won’t even bedelivered until the middle of April.

Not edible, but I love my roses:

Graham Thomas trained as a climber (the tag that said it would grow to 3 ft was slightly wrong)
Chrysler Imperial (very tall, but I’m not sure it qualifies as a climber) - she has the best scent
Lady Emma Hamilton - also a nice scent
Enchanted Evening
And soon: 2 Dublin Bays to be climbers

Plus whatever I can’t help but buy this spring.

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Zone 7. Long Island, NY. About a half a mile from the Queens boarder.

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Central Illinois. Family from southern Illinois. We always sow lettuce in the cold, even on top of the snow. When it warms up, the seeds are there ready to get started.

20

South of England.
The weather here is incredibly unpredictable, last winter we didn’t get any frost until january, then had a cold snap in february, march was positively hot, then there was a random frost in mid may… It makes planting times pretty well guesswork for anything remotely tender.