So, I have a, weedy, green thumb. Milkweed, thistles, sedge, cheat grass, any weird looking plant that sprouts up in vacant lots once used by construction workers as a parking lot, dandelions, goatheads (which have the prettiest blossoms btw) all thrive under my care at my house. Most grass, doomed. Trees in my yard? That’s a death sentence unless it’s the weed like sucker elm tree from the neighbor’s dieing tree(can’t seem to get rid of that thing). Shrubberies, large or small, snacks for the Pale Horse of Death.
I have 3 small cacti. Bought them around Easter at the local grocer. Not only are they still alive, but they seem to be thriving. The smallest one has three buds on top and they are growing. YAY!
Share your Happy Tales of Gardening Greatness or Funny Fables of Foliage Folly.
I plant a field of peas every year. Purple hull peas to be exact. I like the pink eyed ones.
I have to plant at least 2 rows for the deer.
Even electric fencing doesn’t stop the wildlife all-you-can-eat buffet.
They may have a twitchy left eye while they’re eating, though.
I have extra folks in the house due to COVID.
So I made everyone help and we planted 8 rows for us and 2 for wildlife. Got my fencing up early.
Looks like I’ll be picking, blanching, and freezing all 10 rows. Minus what we eat daily. Yes daily. Can eat 'em fast enough.
The deer are not raiding the field nightly. Not sure why.
The lil’wrekker says they’re probably tired of the peas. She assures me she is, in fact, sick to death of all garden produce. Dreams of Taco Bell.
The little ingrate.
I notice she and her boyfriend are first to sit down at the dinner table.
It seems I once again miscalculated the situation.
Pea seed ain’t cheap enough to waste.
Corn is coming on like gang busters.
Tomatoes are killing me. I have preserved and canned them in several ways. Still we’re over run with them. I’ve even stopped saying “you’ll wish for one of these nice fresh, ripe tomatoes this winter”
I don’t believe it either.
And canned produce is soooo cheap. Why do I do this to myself?
In the realm of weeds, our new place seems to be a haven for toxic/poisonous species. There’s a bunch of poison hemlock growing out by the barn, and loads of pokeweed I am diligently removing from the borders.
It’s been a banner year for poison ivy at FairyChatEstates. I went thru the yard a month or so ago and sprayed all I could find. I also bought some long garden gloves so I could yank the stuff up by hand without accidentally touching it. So far, I haven’t needed the gloves, dammit!
But I’m ever vigilant. I don’t know if my granddaughter is allergic, but I don’t want to find out the hard way. Evil, nasty stuff!!
Ah yes my yard is abounding in what many suburbanites would call weedy flowers rn. There is woodland sunflower, yarrows, echinacea, black eyed Susan, thimbleweed, butterfly weed, button Bush, joe pye weed, swamp milk weed, iron weed, dogbane. Yet to bloom is a thick stand of asters and goldenrods. All this I like for Wildlife habitat.
Tried to hide but I know it’s out there and waiting for me to kill it are honeysuckle and poison ivy. The grape vines are heavy and quickly enveloping the small garage on the vacant lot next door, also have a small grove of sumac popping between here and there.
I am not a green thumb person. Every single indoor plant I have ever had, dies. Every. Single. One.
One year for our anniversary, Mr VOW went to a florist and said, “I’d like an indoor arrangement of plants for my wife. She kills plants.”
They were all dead within a year.
I have been able to kinda-sorta grow stuff outside. The plants have a better chance with the elements than with me.
I’d love to have a garden in AZ, but it is a free-range state. The only legal way to keep the cows off your property is with a minimum 3-strand barbed wire fence. That’s for the cows. The deer can jump anything under ten feet.
I refuse to talk about the rabbits. Those things are vermin in my eyes.
Even if we were to put in a moat with alligators, we spend so much time going back and forth between SCal and AZ, anything planted would die of neglect.
With this COVID crap, who knows when we’ll get back to AZ…
Sadly, I don’t have any outdoor space to grow things (I’ve sneaked a couple of pots out the front, but it’s just a tiny patch of shared gravel), so everything’s inside. My houseplant collection started off pretty modest at the beginning of the year. It’s… gone a bit silly now.
I discovered a few sites where I could swap cuttings of the plants I had for plants I didn’t have. Everyone I’ve swapped with has been really generous, so say I’ve agreed to swap two plants for two plants, and when the box arrives there’s often bits of five or so different plants in there… And, of course, I have to propagate things to swap, which I’m getting better at.
I’m running out of flat surfaces on which to put pots, and I’m probably going to need a machete to get out soon.
My thumbs are green, so I’ve got flowers and veg galore, but currently I’m riding a wave of cucumbers. I’ve got seven (SEVEN!) in the fridge, and another three that are almost ready to pick. Time to make a vat of tzatziki, I guess!
Drive on down here @DorkVader I got all the produce you could ever want.
I made homemade catsup the last two days. I must be insane it’s crazy hard to make. If it sticks on the bottom one time it’s ruined. And Heinz is so cheap. I’m a glutton for punishment.
I’ll be pickling this week. Cukes, peppers, and maybe okra.
Yep. It should’ve been a double boiler. I used a heavy enamel-ware pan. Stirred and stirred and stirred. mid-Daughter and me handed off all day. Stirred through a brown-out. Stirred through 2 meals. Stirred through kids and pet crap.
It was a ridiculous thing to do.
Then we got into an argument as to weather it needed Cajun type spices.
I had to pull rank. I do NOT need Cajun catsup.
All that work for a few pints of catsup.
I do not even really like catsup.
In fact I kinda hate it.
It ate up about a bushel of over-ripe tomatos though.
The next bushel will feed the hogs.
I used to grow lots of summer veg in a pair of raised beds, but tree roots invaded the beds and they were no longer usable. They’re gone now. I haven’t raised much of anything for a few years except maybe a rosemary in a pot for culinary purposes.
But this year I’m trying some . . . special vegetables in whiskey barrels. I have three plants in three barrels, and so far they’re doing well. Two days ago we found that a neighbor’s cat had shat copiously in one of the barrels and almost damaged the young seedling while digging. I ordered some spiky cat repellant mats, cut them to fit and placed them on top of the soil, and will keep watch to see if they work.
Congrats on the cactus, they can be hard even if you live where they thrive. My friend has tried to start a cactus garden several times, using only native plants, but hasn’t had much luck.
One year, I was visiting in-laws in West Virginia and admired a lovely, lush succulent in many of their yards. In-laws insisted that I take cuttings, and while I had my doubts, I gave it a try. After babying the heck out of them for almost a year, I managed to have living plants in the garden. Instead of the wide, thick, glossy leaves, my plants had sad, skinny little twigs. The big, bright red flowers I had admired were little balls with spikes of red. BUT, they were alive.
Until the evening the gate got left open and the javalina destroyed every plant in those beds.
A word of warning, teelabrown…to me, and many others catnip in full bloom smells just like the vegetable you are growing (if you are doing it right). You might want to do more than just protect the soil from the cats.
People have different aptitudes, is all it means. I can follow a recipe, but I’m not a good cook, and never will be, no matter how many cooking shows I watch. I love to teach people about gardening and plants, but some people are going to be better at it than others. It’s okay.
Btw, I have always enjoyed your gardening related username.
I would wish for less zucchini in the COVID Victory Garden, but it’s true that my ideal amount of zucchini is none. We had an early warm spell that let us get some seeds and starts out early and covered, so there’s quite an abundance of squash and kale. The tomatoes are disappointing thus far. I’m about to plant a shaded, soppy area with peppermint*; if it spreads, it will have to duke it out with our inherited bamboo.
*Also, corkscrew rush; also, this winter, red-twig dogwood.
I’ll take your zucchini, Susan, and your squash too if you like. You keep the kale. Hey, mint sounds like a good idea. I could plant some around the yard. My childhood experience with mint is that even though it is a desired plant, it’s tough and weed like in how it grows and spreads
