Gardening

Nebb

Do you garden?

What do you prefer to plant (vegetables, perennials, etc)?

Thoughts on gardening?

allisong23

FI and I just throw a bunch of perennials in pots and let them fight it out. It's like survival of the fittest in our planters.

Anysunrise

Not actively right now, but I'm looking to start one when I move back in with FI. Had a couple when I was younger.

Vegetables. We've had a couple vegetable gardens, there is nothing I love more than walking through the garden and grabbing some fresh cucumbers and green beans. I also like having an herb garden: makes everything tasty.

I really enjoy it. I like nuturing the plants and watching them grow. Kind of a pain when it comes to weeding and whatnot, but worth it imo.

maratea

H is the gardener, but I do love my flowers. He grows peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, corn. We'd have more, but we're limited living in the city and all.

I love perennials because they are easy to take care of. Also I love mandevillas, freesia, fucshia and hydrangeas. H got me a huge, lovely hydrangea bush for my birthday. It's wonderful!

ETA: I think gardening is awesome. More people should do it. I'm a firm believer in self-sustaining and self-reliability. Victory gardens, wee!

katiewhompus

I do!

This year was my first attempt at veggie gardening and it was a complete bust. Out of all the seeds I planted I ended up with 1 radish and 1 carrot. The weather did not cooperate at all this year though, so I'm going back to the drawing board and seeing what changes I can make for next year.

I do pretty well with flowers, but there are some that I just cannot grow to save my life. My favorites are a blackberry lilly which actually came from George Washington's formal flower garden. I worked there for 6 month and was allowed to pull seeds from plants and these guys don't die for anything. I've already gotten over 100 seeds for next years planting so they will be everywhere!




I love it. It makes me feel very connected to the earth and satisfies my want for nurtering. I also think flowers make the world a better place and love walking outside and smelling them.

dmiller9274

We do, veggies and flowers.  There's something satisfying about making/cooking things that you've grown in your own garden. Also, I think any house looks better with nice landscaping.  It's an expensive and time consuming hobby, but well worth it IMO.

AllAboutTheBenjamin

Growing up on the farm we always had a ridiculous garden.

We grew potatoes, carrots, beets, onions, tomatoes, green beans, peas, swiss chard, rhubarb, strawberries, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins, watermelon, one time we did eggplant, some years we did corn. 

There is NOTHING better than garden fresh produce.  I love it.

I live in an apartment now and theoretically if I wanted to, I could have a garden.  There are plots you can rent and tend to yourself - but they're out of town a ways.  I know that unless it's in my backyard, I won't be going out there every day to water and weed and tend to the damn thing.

But I can't wait to do it someday.

Fresh tomatoes are the BEST.

Nebb

Im more of a veggie garden person myself. I grew cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and beans this year, as well as thyme, dill, chives and oregano. I suck at dill because its the 2nd year in  a row ive killed it, all my other herbs are doing well except for my dill. I personally think veggies are a breeze to grow - Im a lazy gardener so I plant, water occasionally, maybe fiddle here and there with suckers or winding branches or staking, but thats about all I do until its time to pick stuff.

I think gardening is relaxing, just getting down and dirty with nature and creating something. Bugs freak me out yet somehow when im in my garden, they dont bother me at all. I just think its calming, and theres always a pay off (in your stomach or atleast visually).

Note: I started using this black sheeting in my garden this year, to prevent weeds. I have done very minimal weeding this year, and it has been wonderful!

stephl3055

Do you garden?  I don't grow vegetables or anything, but we have lots of flowers/bushes in the front yard.  But don't get me started on our jungle of a backyard.  I am going to do a lot of landscaping once it cools off outside.  We will be ripping out a bunch of bushes in the front landscaping and putting in smaller, more manageable annuals that have a little bit of color.

We will also be putting in a little walkway area in our backyard, so we will be pulling some landscaping out there as well. 

What do you prefer to plant (vegetables, perennials, etc)?  We can't really plant any vegetables because of the rabbits.  I guess I could do container gardening, and maybe just put a net around the pot.  Hmm, I'll have to consider that for next year...

Thoughts on gardening?  It's something I'm slowly learning.  My mom bought me a gardening book for Christmas last year.  It wasn't really something I wanted, but something that I did need.  She's a garden/flower person and really gets into it, and well, I always kind of thought it was silly unti we got our house.  Now it's something I need to learn. 

katiewhompus

Oh, and I loved moving into my house during the spring because I saw what we had inherited in the yard. I had a full border of purple Irises, a flowering apple tree, and a Japanese Maple Tree.

In the fall I'm going to be planting daffodils, tulips, and some crocus.

dmiller9274

Nebb, We put Weed-X in all of our beds this year too.  It has made a world of difference with the weeds.

Nebb

Ooooh oh and I tried planting an heirloom tomatoe variety this year, just for S&G and it is doing wonderfully. I was always told that you didnt get a high yeild of tomatoes from it but right now I have 10 growing (and I might cut anything else off so thats all I get), which seems good to me! Its sort of exciting to grow something strange and different.

ohwhynot

We didn't this year, but I've put in tomatoes and peppers.  We also have raspberry bushes.  Nothing is better than picking something from your garden and preparing it for dinner. 

One of our friends owns a landscaping business and her wedding gift to us is to help us landscape our small & ugly front yard - I can't wait to start on that project. 

MarriedInAFever

When we first got our house, I was quoting John Locke and talking about how I wanted to cultivate our land and blahity blah. But I can't grow anything. I have a dead fern hanging on our porch right now.

kpwedkk

We've got some veggies in a plot - 3 kinds of tomatoes, 2 eggplant varieties, okra, squash, green bell pepper, and some peas growning on a vine.  We have a lot of fruit trees in the back yard too, the lemon (which is a year round bloomer) has been established probably for the last ten to fifteen years. 

The rest of the plants like us, have been around for about a year (since we bought the home) and are:  jujube (Chinese dates), fig (mission, so the exterior is black/brown), strawberry guava which is yielding a few fruits right now (yum), a regular guava tree (interior is creamish, with lots of seeds), a small pomegranate bush, which has about 20 fruits on it right now , and an orange tree.

The front yard consists mostly of gardenias, rose bushes, hibiscus, and lantana.  the two major trees we have there are a crepe myrtle with light pink flowers, and a everblooming pear blossom tree.  It gives the white flowers, but no fruit. 

Along the walkway to the front door, we have two bougainvillea (thornless variety), lantanas, and a row of perennials flowers, and right by the door we have 3 varieties of jasmine, in full bloom, with camelia flowers, and we stuck a plumeria (think of Hawaiian leis/garlands, this is where the flower comes from) not too far from the lantanas...

The summer heat has been brutal though, getting up to between 110°F and 117°F every day (except for the two weekends of 70°F and rainy weather), and 3 roses died (of 20), and 2 hibiscus died (of 15) so those are going back for replacements, since it's been less than a year since we planted those :O

EDIT: I'll have to find some pictures to post --I know I have them somewhere!

Nebb

Man I wish I had the ability to grow fruit trees like that kp

vegasgroom

A friend got FI one of those aero garden's recently, if you're not familiar with them, they have a website, but basically it's a table-based garden with some holes in the top, a water reservoir and a bright fluorescent light canopy and they sell little drop in modules you stick in the holes to grow whatever you want.  Obviously nothing crazy like tomatoes, etc. but you can grow most spices/herbs right in your kitchen.  Mint, cilantro and basil grow crazy fast so you'll be cutting them down all the time.  I figure it costs about $10/month to have it due to electricity and plant food but I can make mojitos any time I want by just cutting mint off the garden and one bag of fresh mint from the store is at least $5 or $6 and only stays good in the fridge for a few days so I figure as long as I have a few mojitos per month we're coming out ahead LOL.  She cooks with most of the other stuff that's growing on it, I just go after the mint.

katiewhompus

I've been looking at those aero gardens Vegas. I would love having some fresh herbs indoors and use mint frequently.

I would also love having a fig tree. My favorite part of working at Mount Vernon was going down to the veggie garden on my lunch break and picking all the figs. The gardener's used to send me home with a lot of zucchini, squash and tomatoes too.

I Want Cake

FI and I bought a house about a year ago, and we've mostly been doing perennials (tulips/lillies/succulents).  I do have a couple large pots of annuals, though, but I can't say I actively maintain them.  I'd like to grow a bunch of herbs in a planter, and dozens upon dozens of white tulips for our wedding next spring.  Veggies I'm not so sure about.  FI doesn't eat them, and it seems a waste to grow them for just me.

Nebb

I buy all of my plants, except for beans, from plants. I dont really DO much to them either, except for water. They are in almost full sun all day long though, ive read that herbs like a lot of sun and dryer soil.

kpwedkk

Like Nebb, I hear that the herbs don't like soggy soil, so that might help, cut down on the watering, unless there's a serious visual indication, where the leaves droop down.

All these plants are hard to grow without withering up in the Arizona Sun, but I'm out there watering these babies down with water

staceytaylor0704

I want a garden, but I live in an apartment. Plus, I seem to be really good at killing plants.

snoangel79

Perennials some annuals to fill. It's fun and relaxing, except that time my old car smelled like manure because a bag of it leaked in my trunk! hahaha Also weeding is exercise! Seriously you do a ton of squats and can really feel your legs screaming at you the next day!