What's in your Quarentine Garden?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been seeing a lot more windowsill gardens while I’m walking the dogs and and am reading online that many folks have taken up gardening in a small or large way to help pass the time. I have a yard and love playing in it, so my garden doesn’t really count as a Quarantine Garden because its always been there. (Tomatoes and peppers are blooming, peas are starting to grab for support and we’ve been eating fresh greens for a month.)

My friend’s scallion farm does count. She is growing leeks and scallions in glasses of water on her windowsill. Another friend is growing beans with her 2 elementary children. I know someone else who has taken up container gardening on his 10X10 foot balcony.

So, what are you folks growing to help pass the time?

2

Insane? :wink:
I don’t really have any outdoor space available right now, so I’ve broken out in a severe attack of houseplants. I’m pretty much just taking random cuttings of things, planting stuff I found in the cupboard, especially sprouting spices like mustard. I was already growing a few things inside, like tomatoes and chillies, but now I’m about out of space, so I’m having to get creative.

3

I’m mostly focused on heavy landscaping in the yard, but with a mild spring, we’ve put in our tomatoes early.

4

Our herbs are rebounding on their own, and we just ordered tomato and bean starts from the local nursery. Other than that, we should be able to buy what we need for canning for the winter.

5

That is so clever! Scampers off to check the spice cabinet!

For those who are starting avocado seeds, do not put the avocados in the fridge first. That kills the seed. I once managed to get an avocado tree to grow from a California avocado once, got it to 4 feet tall and planted in soil. I left it when I moved and the new owners didn’t baby it enough :frowning:

I was just looking at my veggie garden and realized that I might have over planted. I usually depend on being able to bring all of my excess produce to work, but that might not work out like it has in years past.

6

Wheat, Barley, cucumber, cilantro. The hops and basil never sprouted.

7

We have a peach tree that’s about 4 years old. I just noticed it has actual peaches on it! I’m tempted to baby it so we can actually harvest the peaches but in reality that’s probably going to be too much trouble. I’m just amazed it has fruit on it. It always blooms way early and most of the blooms get frost burned.

8

We have several planters and my estranged spouse was out there doing spreading our homemade compost and planting some stuff. Green onions, widely used in Chinese cooking, is by far our most successful crop and grows year round.

My hops (Northern Brewer, East Seattle Goldings and Tettnanger) are ready to cut loose, so tomorrow will string up the hop twine and let them start going up the trellises. I bought pretty big established cuttings from some lady on Craigs List and this will be year 4. These are almost too well established and I need to cut them back to the core root balls.

And I have backyard chickens. Not only do we get fresh eggs, but they eat the spent grain from my homebrewing, turn that into really good fertilizer that goes to the planters and the hops. So, that’s part of my mini ecosystem. I’ll know that covid situation is bad if my hens get stolen…

9

About a acre of purplehull peas. Several acres of hay. That’s Mr.Wrekkers garden.

My kitchen garden has onions, greens, cabbages, corn, beans, tomatoes, squash, cukes and melons.

I know I overplanted. But I have a few virus refugees here for the duration. And everyone is gardening or else. :slight_smile:

10

Bees. I’m growing bees. Not literally with hives and whatnot, but I’ve planted what claims to be a particularly irresistible blend of wildflowers on an otherwise unusable hillside in my back yard, so the neighborhood pollinators can have a buffet.

11

Behold gotpasswords’ buffet,
A perfect Apis parfait.
The word on the wing
Is “bring your own sting,”
And a bottle of nice Beaujolais.

12

My garden is no different this year than any other. I will have ripe Cherokee Purple tomatoes in about a week, and some of my bell peppers should be ready about then too.

My Cajun Belle (between a jalapeno and a poblano for heat) and a small hot yellow pepper whose name I don’t recall held up well over winter so I trimmed(ok, hacked the hell out of) them in February and they have been producing continuously since about April 2019.

13

That’s very interesting, and I’d never thought of trying to plant them. Man, I’ve got a buttload of spice seeds, since I do Indian cooking: fennel, fennugreek, cardamom, sesame, poppy, mustard, coriander, allspice, and others I’m sure I’m forgetting. Gonna have to give them a try, although I’m sure something like cardamom is going to have a tough time of it here in zone 8.5.

14

I live in Tucson and it’s already summer here (upper 90s today, expected over 100 tomorrow). It’s very hard to get anything to grow here, I’ve had dozens of failed gardens. But this year I figure I have more time to care for the plants than usual. I planted tomatoes in early March and they are going gangbusters! I put them in pots so I can move them so they don’t get as much sun. Other places you are trying to give them as much sun as possible, but here the sun is brutal and will kill them quick. They are little green balls now, but I hope in a few weeks I will have home-grown tomatoes to eat!

15

I’m planting a flat of strawberries. Yay!:slight_smile:

16

Fenugreek, coriander (better for baby leaves than sprouts in my opinion) and mustard all work well, fennel should do OK too, but I’ve not tried it. I don’t plant them (except the coriander), I just sprout them in a jar or something, rinsing with fresh water once or twice a day. I don’t have the space to grow them on properly, but sprouts are nice in salads.

Allspice is picked and dried unripe, so that’s very unlikely to work. I’ve heard cardamom won’t germinate from dried seeds, but I’ve not actually tried it. Maybe I should…

17

Been gardening every year for a long time, but gave it up this year. Lost all interest, honestly.

18

I have both cardamom seeds and three different types of cardamom pods (white, green, black).

19

I’ve been gardening more and more seriously every year for the past few years. Right now we have 8 raised beds in the backyard, plus two more long, skinny ones along the garage walls that we built out of the recycled bricks from the chimney that we had knocked down when we bought the house. One of the brick beds fell apart over the winter (we had built it in a kind of half-assed way with construction adhesive). I am mostly done rebuilding it, but the weather has been crappy - cold and rainy - so I haven’t finished yet. I’m going to plant greens there - kale, chard, bok choy, etc.

In the other beds, so far, I’ve planted:

3 kinds of lettuce
3 kinds of radishes
3 kinds of peas
Turnips
3 kinds of beets
4 kinds of carrots
Kohlrabi
Bunching onions
Purple Sicilian cauliflower
Broccoli rabe
And there is one entire bed each of strawberries and garlic.

Inside, on the enclosed back porch on a covered greenhouse shelf where it’s protected from our marauding kitties, I have seedlings of ground cherries and several different kids of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. I should finish repotting many of the peppers and eggplants, which are getting too big for the flats that they are in.

In mid-May, after last frost, I plan to direct-seed outside:

Several different kinds of cucumbers and melons - I added a giant trellis outside along the ugly chain-link fence, and have the materials in the house to add a second one
Purple beans
Several different squashes - both hard-shelled and summer squashes (which will also be trellised so they don’t take over the whole yard)
Herbs: cilantro, dill, basil, parsley, and a couple of other things that I’m forgetting right now

We also have a hedge of raspberries which are very prolific, and a couple of blueberries that needs some love. And a hedge of mint in the back yard, and one in the front yard.

There are a couple of spots in back where I had zinnias last year - one edge of the sidewalk to the garage, and the edges of the patio. The zinnias went kind of insane last year, so this year I am planning to do nasturtiums and marigolds, which are a more manageable size.

I am also in the process of scheduling a delivery of bulk soil and compost for the side yard. We have an extra-wide lot, but the soil is crappy dense clay with weeds. Last fall we lasagna composted the side yard, but it hasn’t broken down yet. I was planning to plant a giant bag of zinnias there until I can fill it in with perennials over time, but am seriously thinking of adding some edibles there - more herbs, chard, etc. and make them look ornamental. Still thinking about the best way to do that, design-wise. There are already some perennial flowers and native plants in the front - dahlias, tulips, ferns, columbine, hyacinths, etc. And some lavender and creeping thyme and wild geraniums and other random things.

It’s not the most tailored garden, but that’s fine with me! Over time we would be glad to get rid of all the grass and replace it with other things.

20

Mint-family herbs and baby onions at the moment. An avocado may sprout in the kitchen window soon. Then there are the pear and fig trees but deer grab the low-hanging goodies. We have no gardening wonderland here and we don’t need to feed the wildlife.