So we received our seeds today for this year’s garden. Finally! This year we will be growing quite a bit more than last seasons garden, and we are using all heirloom variety plants.
Ah, you mean the Royal burgundy beans. Nope, I’m afraid not. They are available at any home depot display though. We are trying a new variety this year.
Scarlet runner beans, which are attractive to hummingbirds and honeybees, and have seed pods that can reach over a foot in length!
I love me some scarlet runner beans! We planted some in the garden this summer, and they obligingly produced a rather sizeable load of pods. The flowers have a nice fresh bean-y flavour, too, though I had to stop myself from eating them because each flower I’d eat would mean one less bean for me.
To be honest, we didn’t do anything special with our scarlet runners… we planted them in a relatively sunny spot next to the fence and gave them a some strings to wind around, but other than that, we pretty much ignored them until harvest time rolled around. Gotta love those low-maintenance veggies!
Awwwwh, man, y’all are making me pine for the Old Country. I love caring for plants and nothing is better than fresh veggies from a garden, but now, concrete surrounds me. I have adopted a few Camellia japonica shrubs, but it’s just not the same.
I was looking at seeds online on Sunday and straightening out my left over and collected seeds. I started typing the list. I don’t know what I can grow this year as the garden is a wreak from this year. The only things that grew were Kentucky Wonder beans, and basil. Everything else didn’t grow or didn’t produce female blossoms. I had some squash plants that grew 12 inches during the whole summer. The peas were almost growing good.
I’m going to plant a number of beans and basil for sure. I hope the peas will grow good in the spring. I will certainly plant Balcony Hybrid tomatoes. I had two plants in the only spot that didn’t flood and the plants were super healthy with great fruit. I like to plant Scarlet runner beans, because the bright red flowers are gorgeous. Scarlet Runner beans take little care other than staking. I’ll be doing a lot of fence plantings, so I can concentrate on repairing the soil in small bands. You might look at getting a legume inoculate so they can draw more nitrogen without you fertilizing.
Well I’ve already made the tomato cages, and have enough wire to cage/ trellis up some beans. So we are good on that front, I don’t mind fertilizing, and we have a bug powered compost system ready and munching kitchen scraps as I type this. We even have a worm farm! Apparently, my shopping list includes pine needles for tomato compost and nothing else. I’m SO stoked.
Here’s my list of seeds:
Tomatillo
Lemon Grass
Tomato, 4 varieties
Salvia, Silver White
Spinach
Eggplant, Lavender Touch Hybrid
Corn
Sunflower, 2 varieties
Carrot
Pepper
Cucumber, Pearl Hybrid
Arugula
Basil
Bird of Paradise (apparently these take forever to grow from seed)
I’d really like to try some yardlong beans but I haven’t found any seeds for them yet.
When I’m able, I’m definitely going to try my hand at bell peppers, particularly the chocolate, yellow and white variety. I just wish I could do it this upcoming year, but it looks like it won’t be a fait accompli until the following one.
Oh well, good luck to everyone else. Just know that this pepperless girl down in Tejas is jealous.
How are you people planting stuff already? It’s technically still Fall. I am still eating stuff out of my garden here in northern Ohio. I just pulled up a bucket full of parsnips and carrots last night. I am having them for dinner tonight.
Well, I haven’t planted yet and Acid Lamp said he’s going to start his indoors but we both live in Florida and we don’t really have a lot of winter here so we don’t have to worry about waiting until the last freezes in March or April to plant. We’ll probably get a couple more single night freezes up in the Central Florida area but they usually don’t last beyond January.
I’ll be picking up seeds starting in January and starting some at the end of February. Most won’t get started until the end of March or later. Gardeners that wait for seed, find it sold out. Buying early you get the varieties you want, not what you have to settle for.
In orlando, we only get a few actual freeze nights a year. Rarely does the cold weather persist long enough to chill the ground, so all you have to deal with is cool weather in the 50’s-60’s occasionally. My garden has full southern exposure without any trees or house shadows also, so for everything but the most tropical and tender of plants you can pretty much grow year round. What you have to look out for here is the HEAT. When it comes back around, you’d better have decently sized and strong plants with an established root system or they will dry out and die in a heartbeat.:smack:
I have adopted a few Camellia japonica shrubs, but it’s just not the same.