I just started my very first garden recently (bought my home in August), and today when I was doing the watering I noticed that there were actual seedlings! Coming right up in my garden! They were only about 1/4 of an inch high, and of course they were the marigolds rather than any of the vegetables I planted, but nonetheless I felt a sense of accomplishment that was entirely disproportionate to the actual achievement, and I felt that it must be shared immediately. You are all the beneficiaries of this sense of accomplishment; feel free to bask in the reflected glow.
You’re finding out what a high that can be.
In my doctor’s office, there’s a poster listing 100 bits of advice to live to age 100-- having a garden is way at the top.
Live long and prosper!
When I was a child, I learned that I could let the marigold blooms die off and dry. Then I snipped them off, and collected the seeds inside, and planted them next year. I do love marigolds, they seem to be very cheerful flowers.
Yay! I’m glad for you and your sproutlings! It’s going to be fun to watch them grow, even though you don’t get to eat them. Well, you could but if they taste like they smell, I wouldn’t recommend it. Congratulations on being a new home owner. My sister bought her first one last July.
I actually bought plants this year (rather than look at a lot of bare dirt once again) and spent time getting most of them in the ground today. But I’m most happy with the two ferns that planted themselves three summers ago. This seems to be the year they’ve reached full maturity. The one that managed not to plant itself right next to the fence is looking especially fine. All full and frilly and purty. I’d like to move the fence one but I understand that some ferns don’t take kindly to being dug up, so I guess I’ll have to leave it there with its leaves growing straight up against the wood and looking like half a fern until I can figure out what to do with it. (I’m picturing taking the fence down but the landlady probably wouldn’t be too happy about that.)
I’m also excited that my hosta is looking so good. Its leaves are just starting to unfurl and I can’t wait to see how nice it will look when they’re done. Yesterday, I bought another one at Costco. Actually there are about nine of them in the pot. Most are variegated but some are solid green. They will be getting more sun than their more established brethren but I think they will do OK there.
Anyway, it was nice to be working out there in just a T-shirt and light pants. The weather is finally warming up! Yay!
I believe it! I know several gardeners who have made it into their eighties and ninties and they seem healthier than their peers who don’t garden to boot!
Watching a seedling sprout up from the bare ground and knowing that you planted it there is a great feeling, no doubt. Congrats and here’s hoping for the same luck with your veggies!
I wouldn’t say that I have a green thumb per se, but I have had the unusual company of “the plant that wouldn’t die” for the past five years, a Chinese evergreen. I got it as a birthday gift, which made me obsessively care for it from the outset, and was devastated when I exposed it to ~25° F temps for a few minutes, causing most of the leaves to die off (I was carrying it home from a plant sitter who had been watering it for about a month while I was gone). I somberly clipped off all of the leaves, and took a cane cutting which I transplanted in another pot so that I could at least grow something in memoriam. Wonderfully, not only did the cutting sprout and prosper into a new plant, but the original plant grew back all of its foliage and has required two re-pottings since then.
Two things my plant taught me: 1) cane species are way harder to kill than I thought (although the tenacity of bamboo had led me to suspect as much before); and 2) live plants make such better gifts than cut flowers. No matter how much you want them to live, the flowers never last that long. With proper care, a live plant can last many years.
The thread title immediately made me envision someone giving birth to a Cabbage Patch Kid. 
It is very satisfying to have green things grow under one’s care. I miss my herb garden back home.
I’m starting a garden this season as well, something small, just for fun, carrots, peas, beets, soybeans, cucumbers, whatever catches my attention, I’d like to plant some corn, but I’m not sure if there’d be enough space
As far as terrestrial houseplants go, I tend to have a brown thumb, basically because I keep forgetting to water them, that’s why I love my heavily planted 20 long aquarium, the aquatic plants in there are thriving, in fact, I have to trim them back on a weekly basis, and I’m running out of spare tanks to put the clippings in, the nice thing about planted aquaria is that I don’t have to worry about forgetting to water the plants…
the 20L has two light strips on it, a 65 watt Power Compact flourescent striplight, and a 20 watt conventional flourescent strip, 85 watts of light into 20 gallons, and CO2 injected directly into the canister filter, 12 hours of light (the lights are on a timer)
the best part of the 20 is that I basically ignore it, it gets a weekly trim, and that’s about it
Lets hope the mini-garden is also low maintenance
Aahh the thrill of working with nature to improve the environment. I’ve always said it takes three years for a garden to settle in and start looking good. Now, with the advent of my 4th year at the new house, things are finally becoming astounding without all the constant work.
AS a wee lad in Ontario I recall the smell of marigods in the summer time and the bright orange glow. They have always been amongst my favorite annuals. The proletarian utility and hardiness are superb. You should try that 'African" varieties. Three foot marigolds are a blast.
It’s a total thrill, isn’t it?
We’re just about to hit our one-year anniversary in the new house, and it’s really exciting to see things I planted myself poking their heads up out of the ground. The stuff that was already there has already proven that it thrives under neglect and still comes back year after year, but I get a warm fuzzy feeling from seeing blooms come out of the bulbs I planted last fall and the first little shoots from the hostas that I oh-so-carefully picked out at a late summer sale. I’m already plotting a trip to the garden centre in a week or two, too. This gardening stuff is addictive! 
Suddenly, my mother’s habit of puttering in the garden every weekend from May to October makes sense. (I always get a weird WTF moment when I realise that I’m doing stuff that my mother always did… especially when it’s the stuff that I found utterly boring as a child)
Last year I had some containers with tomatoes, peppers and herbs on my patio. I just bought a house, but the closing won’t be for another month, and it’ll be another few weeks before I actually move in. So right now I’m faced with the dilemma of whether I want to start another container garden, knowing that I’m going to have to move everything within two months.
I’d vote on starting another container garden. I wouldnt’ know what else to do with my time, quite frankly. Puttering about the garden on the weekends is also what my parents did. I’m so proud when they ask to come over and wander about my property.
My biggest worry is always water. I water every day, but I’m not sure how much water the plants need, and more than that I really can’t figure out how to tell whether the soil is wet enough. Until the marigolds came up, I really wasn’t sure whether anything was going to grow at all.
Once the seedlings have gotten a bit larger it would be wise to taper off the frequency of watering. Occsaional deep soakings are more beneficial than constant shallow watering for the promotion of healthy plants with large root systems. YOu were born with ten excellent moisture probes. Stick a finger into the soil, or a garden trowel, to see how deep the water goes after irrigation or rain. There is little need to apply more water when the soil is already damp.
Yup, the feeling of things you planted actually growing is a marvelous one. Just about every day I’m out wandering around my yard, checking on what’s poking its little green head out today. My purple Kesselringii dogwood hasn’t started budding its leaves yet - I’m a little concerned about it, but just about everything else is starting to grow (except my beautiful new asiatic lily that blooms white and turns pink as the blooms age).
You’ve got the bug now, baby! It starts with marigolds, and before you know it you’ll be planning a perennial garden with walkways and a pergola. 
I love having green sprouty-things in my garden–the effort pays off! Except the grass and weeds. They come with no effort. :rolleyes: I have a huge bunch of pots on my picnic table with various green things sprouting in them. One container of gladiolus, one of spiraxis/brudiae/something else I always forget, one of anemone (which was planted recently and hasn’t sprouted yet), one of elephant ear, one of hollyhocks, two of foxglove, two of four-o’clocks (also not sprouted yet), and some wildflowers (bluebonnets, and a mix). And I have my perennial garden, too. (No, I’m not growing cats in the garden. 
) Feel free to click around that album for more flower pictures.