Morning!
I mentioned in my first post of my Journal my love for gardening and how therapeutic this is for me and I would love to share photos and the goings on in my sanctuary but I don't want it to hamper down my journal and to be fair I'd like to speak to more people who also enjoy gardening and everything that comes with it!
I hope others might like to share as well :) I look forward to posting a bit more later but I'm having trouble uploading my photo.
I'm looking forward to sharing my projects and ideas :sunny:
Hi Sunbear,
I really enjoy my garden too. I won't be posting any photos, but I can write a little about it and my harvests some time.
Hi Blueberry,
That sounds wonderful :) I'm looking forward to hearing about how others go about it and what they are nurturing :) Instead of photos I might just do sketches as I love art as well, but who knows i'll be sure to update at the weekend any way :) look forward to sharing you :)
Hi Sunbear,
I have flowers mostly and herbs, though I also have a blackcurrant bush and a redcurrant bush. My flowers are mostly ones that can look after themselves well. I only water my plants when I've newly planted them or if we're going through a really hot dry period. I particularly like native plants and flowers and more especially bee-friendly ones.
I pick lots of weeds either for their flowers or to eat them. End of April - May and on into early June is the best time for this, but it works later on in the year too. But spring is best, the weeds are most tender and full of nutrients with that burst of spring energy! I tend to eat them raw, I even go down into the garden and graze so to speak. Or I toss them in my soup, like nettles. I don't do anything like canning or making pesto, I just pick and use what I can from spring to fall.
I also go into the woods a few miles out of town and pick wild blueberries when the time is right, and some weeds which I don't have in my garden. It's a good feeling, not being dependent on money and grocery stores for every last thing, especially since I can't earn enough due to my problems with CPTSD.
Look forward to hearing about your garden exploits some time too. :)
My blackcurrants and redcurrants are ripening. Some are ready to pick and eat, and I have been doing so. Others are on the way, which is good, spreads out harvest time. There are lots of tiny strawberries, some are almost tasteless (oh, well) but the slightly bigger ones have a definite strawberry flavour to them.
There are still lots of weeds, but not necessarily the edible ones. It is harvest time for the nettles and mint but I'm sick so they'll have to wait. If they don't get harvested, they don't get harvested. That's the good thing I find about having things in the garden which grew themselves and look after themselves, I don't feel devastated if I'm physically or - more usually - emotionally so unwell I miss the harvest. I just think "oh well, next year is another year..."
There aren't many flowers atm, though the bindweed must be about to bloom and there's tons of it.
I went down into the garden again and looked a bit more closely and discovered that actually more is blooming than I'd thought. Cranesbill, evening primroses, Turkish sage, lawn daisies and white and red clover, somebody else's red roses, but there might be another bloom on my rose bush too quite soon, some pale comfrey (the bees are delighted whatever the colour), the remains of the Spanish sage, lady's mantle, purple vetch. Again somebody else's: St. John's wort
Then some splashes of red with my redcurrants and the minute strawberries scattered about.
My marguerites will be opening soon, and maybe some yarrow too.
Today I was harvesting herbs: mint, lemon balm and nettles. Now I have 3 more big bunches of herbs hanging up to dry in my apartment. I use them for tea in the winter. Or the mint and lemon balm I can also crumble over salads. In addition to the nettles strung up for drying, I collected nettle seeds separately. These can also be scattered over salads or just eaten raw in handfuls. They don't sting and theoretically they contain a lot of protein for their size.
I'm feeling good because I like fiddling around with plants, but also because I've had the energy and non-EF state available at the right time to start my harvest. I don't earn much money so I feel good when I can contribute to my upkeep through other means. Since I often get overwhelmed by life in general I don't plant a proper vegetable garden. Instead I content myself with what grows on its own and harvest if I can manage.
There is a bud on a rose bush in my bed that somebody else cut back a long time ago. Now after careful tending and adding compost every year, there is this bud now. It's red. My big rose bush seems to have stopped flowering for the year, so it seems appropriate to me that the other rose is going to start.
It would be cool if anybody else could write about what's happening in their gardens at the moment.
We tried a different method of planting this year, one raised bed of zucchini, and used a method called "Back to Eden" (there are lots of videos on YouTube about it). I'm really happy with the results, the leaves are a health, dark green and the zucchinis are huge.
The rest of our plants are up on the deck - squash, tomatoes, basil, lavender, and lots of colorful flowers.
Great thread. :) There's a bed at the side of my house which tends to get neglected but I've now de-weeded it and will be planting some Swiss rainbow chard there. I think I'm going to sow some rocket too. I've also grown Thai basil, lemon basil, red rubin basil, oregano and Russian tarragon from seed and I'm going to transplant these into long terracotta containers at the back of the house in full sun.
Quote from: Blueberry on July 09, 2017, 09:56:55 PM
Today I was harvesting herbs: mint, lemon balm and nettles. Now I have 3 more big bunches of herbs hanging up to dry in my apartment. I use them for tea in the winter. Or the mint and lemon balm I can also crumble over salads. In addition to the nettles strung up for drying, I collected nettle seeds separately. These can also be scattered over salads or just eaten raw in handfuls. They don't sting and theoretically they contain a lot of protein for their size.
What great ideas. :thumbup: I have masses of lemon balm in my garden which I went a bit wild with last year growing from seed. ;D I think I'll try drying some and using it for tea too!
:cheer: :cheer: :cheer: My Jerusalem artichokes are almost ready to bloom. There's a little yellow showing already. They didn't bloom the past two years. The roots are edible anyway. But I do like to see flowers as well.
My evening primrose is still blooming, so is the cranesbill. My big rose bush has some buds again. Somebody else's flowers are blooming away deep pinky-red and attracting lots of bees, and even a blue-bottle last time I was out there. (Didn't know flies and blue-bottles could live off flowers?!?). Again someone else's nasturtiums are still blooming. These are edible too, but not if they're someone else's ;)
I was thinking of buying some seeds of lamb's lettuce and planting them, but then all sorts of things came up and I don't seem to have the will-power to even do that. Also it probably really is too late in the season now. Now that I don't have my little furry creatures to pick weeds for any more, I'm picking less, ie. none, for myself and am less often in the garden. But I am using dried nettles in cooking. I toss them into the thick veg soup I make for myself ever so often.
This reminds me, I need to harvest the last of the fresh basil and preserve it. I was watching YouTube and one person suggested putting fresh herbs in olive oil in ice cube trays and freezing them, but I also want to try making a basil-infused butter and freezing that. Hope I have enough for both.
Since I wrote and didn't send my cathartic letter, things have really been improving again!
I did in fact sow some seeds of lamb's lettuce today. It's not too late. I'll be able to harvest in spring. I sowed some flowers too, like marigolds, more for decoration than anything else. They glow like yellowy-orange lights in the bed. They'll start blooming by summer, whereas if I sow in spring, they don't bloom till fall.
Before sowing I had to clear some parts of a bed. I also cut down most of an elder bush, because it had been cutting a lot of light from one of my windows. It'll grow again though, so that I can use the flowers again in early summer.
Yesterday I started picking weeds again to eat fresh (as opposed to dried). And today I dug up two types of weed, roots and all, to see if I can grow them over the winter in pots in my kitchen. One of them - ground elder - well, once it's in your garden, you can never get rid of it, so maybe I won't kill it off in my kitchen either ;) I don't actually have a green thumb inside my apartment at all but I'll see, maybe weeds will do better than other indoor plants. Whenever you pick a leaf from ground elder, a shoot appears somewhere else. Indestructible. I also brought in a dandelion plant. I just need to go and put them in soil now!
Today I was in the garden again, harvesting various weeds and some herbs. I also cleared a few bits of beds and have sown more lamb's lettuce and a few more marigolds. I'm really tired and feel kind of dopey, but it felt good to be doing some work in the autumn sun in the garden.
Quote from: Blueberry on September 27, 2017, 07:49:16 PM
Today I was in the garden again, harvesting various weeds and some herbs. I also cleared a few bits of beds and have sown more lamb's lettuce and a few more marigolds. I'm really tired and feel kind of dopey, but it felt good to be doing some work in the autumn sun in the garden.
^-^ Sounds lovely, Blueberry. I find it so nice to get out and soak up that sunlight every now and then.
I didn't actually plant my ground elder on Sept. 24th, so it didn't survive needless to say. But I planted more shoots of it yesterday. Now to see if it continues to grow like the proverbial weed inside too!
I was gardening a bit today mostly planting oldish hyacinth bulbs, which may or may not come up again in spring. But at least they're no longer hanging around the basement waiting to be planted maybe, sometime. Also sowed hand-collected seeds, like pinks, cosmos and colt's foot. I never seem to have time or get round to it in spring. Some seeds germinate years later, others don't. I'll see.
It feels good anyway because I'm using up resources I have instead of stock-piling. It feels as if there are fewer jobs to do now, and more space in my apartment and/or basement for other things. Not that seeds take up much room. But somehow that's the feeling - more space. More space in my mind and soul.
Well, my ground elder is still on the go in the kitchen. Not enough for a salad or anything, but a few leaves a day. Maybe it'll grow more profusely the longer it sits there. I'll see.
I put some seeds in my really mini-greenhouse, which sits on the kitchen inside window-ledge, and they're all up and flourishing. So today I put one variety into bigger pots to grow properly. Unfortunately I didn't note which seeds I put in the green house :whistling: so it'll be interesting to see what comes up. They're herbs, that I know, but which? The other mini-greenhouse variety is still in the greenhouse - could do with a bit more time in there. Don't know what it is either :whistling:
It's time I started harvesting and using Jerusalem artichokes. The plants are completely grey. Well, we've had some night-time frosts so not surprising. Though other plants are still green.
P.S. One type of seed is chervil - that I can see now. The other might be rocket, but I still have to wait and see.
Hi Blueberry,
I made a soup once from Jerusalem Artichokes - what do you think you'll do with yours? Great that you're been planting seeds in the greenhouse etc, and it must be great to see them grow.
Hope you're ok and that the day on the farm went ok.
I might plant something - on my window sill - I often start things and then don't manage to tend them for long enough to see the resulting plant!
Hope :)
Hi Hope,
I'm not too green-thumbed indoors either! But I thought I'd try this year. Today I harvested enough ground elder to add to my bread and cheese and there are a good few shoots appearing in the soil for the next little while.
Today I just boiled up a few J. artichokes as I would potatoes. You're meant to start consuming small amounts at first so as not to wreak havoc with your digestive system. There are lots of recipes online, so maybe I will get more adventurous as time goes by.
Day on the farm was fine, thanks. I was there early today too since a client cancelled.
It snowed here today so not so much left to do this year in the outside garden. Just as well I have my window-sill garden.
Blueberry
Two of the seeds I was trying out on my window sill are hokkaido squash, really old seeds too. One of them sprouted a while ago and is now big and strong. I re-potted it today to give it more room. I'm not seriously thinking it'll even bloom, never mind produce squash but I just wanted to see if it's worth keeping the rest of those seeds to start them off inside in the spring and move them out into the garden in about May. Oh those northern climes :bigwink: Yes! It is worth it.
Chervil, ground elder and what might be rocket are all not doing too well. But that's OK. I'm glad I tried them. You'll never know till you try. I eat a few leaves of the chervil and ground elder from time to time but rocket isn't even recognisable.
Quote from: Blueberry on November 03, 2017, 04:09:05 AM
Well, my ground elder is still on the go in the kitchen. Not enough for a salad or anything, but a few leaves a day. Maybe it'll grow more profusely the longer it sits there.
One type of seed is chervil - that I can see now. The other might be rocket, but I still have to wait and see.
The ground elder is not growing any more profusely even though it's being sitting there in the kitchen for a while now. In fact, I'd say it's doing worse. Oh well, it was worth trying.
The chervil is doing even less well and the thing that might have been rocket has given up.
Out in the real garden some patches of snowdrops are up. There's lots of moss including in one of my beds. A nice little job clearing that sometime to let air back into the soil and space for something else to grow. Much better activity for my fingers than SH.
Then I noticed a few things growing where I'm wondering if that's a new interesting flower and / or edible weed or is it something I'd best dig out soon before it takes over the lawn? But I do have some time to check gardening books / Internet since the soil is undoubtedly still pretty frozen. It's just that there's no snow atm. It's only February and we could still be hit by a nice blast of Arctic air to cool everything off again. Brr.
I'm getting excited for spring! Have plans to do echevaria, amaranth, nasturtiums, pumpkin, hellebore... can't wait to get started! 🌻🌺🌼
Sounds great, 3Roses! We had a hard frost last night so there won't be anything going on soon round here.
i've never realized this was here before, but so glad i found it. i love gardening, have had one everywhere i've been if it's at all possible. one of my best results was in mexico with an orange tree. the biggest, sweetest oranges i've ever had anywhere, including from calif. orchards.
i'm hoping someday to live in a place where i can have a garden again. that would be the best.
i have to admit that most of what i've read on here i'm not familiar with - jerusalem artichokes, chervil, ground elder. don't have any experience with them, wouldn't know what to do with them. i've pretty much stuck to the basics - tomatoes, peppers, corn. those have been my most positive results.
i always like experimenting, especially with heirloom seeds, but haven't had much luck. i'll keep giving it a shot if i get the chance, tho. in the meantime, i'll come here and read about what's going on with you other gardeners.
Welcome to the Potting Shed, san!
Chervil is a herb which looks a bit like parsley but has a tangier taste. Ground elder, also called bishop's weed, is a prolific weed in Western Europe. Idk if it grows anywhere else. If you don't have it in your garden, don't plant it. You will never get rid of it. But if you have it, one way to keep it in check is to eat it. In comparison to many wild herbs (aka weeds), it has a fairly mild flavour, not so bitter.
Jerusalem artichockes - the plant is related to sunflowers, but with a smaller, less showy flower. It's the root you eat. They look a bit like small potatoes and maybe they taste like artichokes? I think they are also called sunchokes, come to think of it.
Basics depend on where you live! Our growing season isn't long enough for tomatoes without a greenhouse, lots of care, and fertiliser/compost. Same with peppers. Corn?? Not even sure that any of the farmers round here plant it.
My basics are things that grow more or less on their own and are uninteresting to slugs ;)
thanks for the info, blueberry.
i do like herbs and other greens, use them regularly in my food, but have never really grown them. the places i've been, i haven't really had access to edible weeds very much, except dandelions.
where i am now, bramble berries run rife. they're all over the place. last summer, i'd walk to a park at the end of my street and pick containers of them (black raspberries, in this instance) to eat with my yogurt. blueberries and blackberries grow like weeds here, too. people here consider them to be weeds. i consider them to be treasures!
oh yes, blackberries and blueberries are treasures - so full of vitamins. Blueberries are also pretty expensive here, so I like to pick my own in the countryside. This past year there were none. A late frost wiped them all out.
Our garden is covered in snow again, so not much going on there in the next little while.
Snow's all gone again. I did a little garden clear up today (well, um, yesterday actually ;) ). It's time I put some more seeds in my mini-greenhouse on my kitchen window ledge so that I can put the plants out in about May when the hard frosts are all over. Some seeds could go directly into the garden and be covered too though.
Wild garlic harvest should be coming up too. I don't have it in my garden actually, but a friend does and she doesn't like it, so I'm welcome to go and pick. I could make pesto with it. Another friend did that last year and gave me a little jar of it. It's a good way of preserving since there's tons of wild garlic all at once which you can only harvest before it flowers.
Just thinking about my garden makes me feel energised and kind of peaceful too.
He he, garden's covered in a blanket of snow. ;)
Hubby surprised me by buying a ton of seeds for different types of blue flowers. I'm going to try to focus on mainly blues this season - delphinium, forget me nots, lithodora and blue salvia.
Sweet peas have germinated, but my basil still fails to appear. It will be time for tomatoes soon.
Wow! Your local climate is a bit ahead of mine. Our snowdrops are still blooming, though dandelions are up (the leaves) and ground elder too. I eat both of those so I notice.
These are just seeds planted indoors, I know the tomato seeds should be started soon. Nothing goes out until May.
Outside there is some blossom coming, I have seen a magnolia up the road. I think there may be pollen from some things in the air, I have been sneezing.
Yesterday it was unseasonally warm here. I did quite a few jobs in the garden including planting my squash plant that I grew from a seed in November. It's probably not going to produce any squash, but then I thought it wouldn't survive the winter indoors or produce flowers, but it did both, so who knows.
Otherwise, moss-clearing, weeding (most of which was also harvesting since I eat the edible varieties). I also sowed some wildflower seeds and alyssum seeds. Harvested some more Jerusalem artichokes (and ate one today with lunch), emptied my kitchen window ledge container of ground elder since there is quite enough of that weed in the garden again, ready to plant some more seeds in there. I also put various seeds in my super-mini-greenhouse on the window ledge, including 3 more squash seeds.
The snowdrops are over, but there are other flowers blooming now e.g. daffodils and various blues and purples.
Two of the mini-greenhouse squash seeds are up and now flourishing in a normal pot on window ledge. Have some other stuff in mini-greenhouse, including a nasturtium seed to see if the packet is still going to produce anything since beyond best-before-by date.
Done a lot of harvesting and eating of weeds in garden, as well as more moss-clearing, and some dandelion and daisy-clearing to make up for my neighbour intending to plant more because they're so healthy :stars: It's true they are healthy but i can't see the garden needs more of them. We ahve enough to feed several families but I'm the only one who seems to eat them, even said neighbour never seems to get round to it.
The tulips are blooming, also lung-wort and yellow primroses both of which attract the bees no end. I hung a little insect hotel up in my garden a couple of weeks ago and yesterday I saw a wasp going in a hole, inspecting, came out again though. But then I saw 4-5 holes plugged with pale pink something or other which means there's somebody in them :cheer:
My little lilac bush has buds and the cherry tree is covered in white blooms. Unfortunately the cherries are only stones covered in skin but the insects and birds love the tree.
A few weeks on and the garden looks much different. It's flourishing! Just as well I eat those weeds, helps to keep them back a bit. The squash plant I had over the winter in my kitchen was devoured (by slugs?) quite soon after I planted it. Oh well. Today I planted 5 new squash plants I've been growing in the kitchen for a few weeks now.
I also started making some natural liquid nitrogen fertiliser. Last time I tried that a number of years ago, it sat in the bucket for weeks and fermented. Now this year I really think I'll manage to make it and then distribute it in a useful form.
Last week I made herb butter aka 'weed and wild-flower butter'. It tastes good! Maybe I'll make some more tomorrow before certain flowers are over for this year.
:cheer: :cheer: :cheer: It's finally raining. Of course sun and warmth are brilliant. But the ground, the soil really desperately needs moisture. I know people whose rain barrels are completely empty. Apparently we need 3 days and nights of gentle, steady rain to really soak down into the soil to reach the deepest roots and not run off. That's not forecast, but the plants will still be refreshed, and the seeds I sowed and plants I moved from the kitchen to the garden yesterday will be helped along.
Also it will be easier to weed after this. I would like to clear some beds of that pestilential bishop's weed / ground elder. I do eat it, but there's only so much a single person can eat. I don't buy lettuce or even any veg at the moment, I just pick and eat what I find in the garden. Usually while I'm down there. Graze as I go, like a goat or a cow.
The rain will be washing all the yellow pollen off all the plants too, like the nettles, some of which I'm going to pick later to put in my soup. Now I won't have to wash them so carefully. (Just love doing long-drawn out work with the stinging nettle. Not.)
There's lots of blue atm. Forget-me-not all over the place, and then what seems to be called 'mountain bluet' or 'mountain cornflower' in English. It attracts lots of bees and I'm all for encouraging bees. :)
There's also a mass of yellow, japonica I believe. It's very pretty against the white wall with lots of greenery surrounding. Unfortunately it's not attractive to bees due to its cultivated properties. A shame for the bees.
It's so nice to write about plants and my garden and colourful flowers after doing a severe TW post. Gets my mind on other things, stopped the slightly physical freezing reactions I was having.
I did make some more 'weed and wild-flower butter' and I gave some little tiny packets of it away too, which was generally well-received.
I also started using my natural nitrogen fertiliser today. Yesterday I cooked up a natural anti-aphid spray and was using it today on my blackcurrant bush. I've read about these types of things before but never had the emotional stamina to go through with them. Making things which involve several steps and waiting time (most of these have to steep for 24 hours or more) are often difficult for me. But it is getting easier and that's a sign of overall emotional growth and healing for me. :)
Both my currant bushes (red and black) are covered in berries.
The peony is blooming deep pinky-red. The garden does look better where I mowed lawn next to certain beds, but otoh where I haven't mowed there's lots of long luscious grass to pick for the Little Furries I'm looking after. :)
Now the garden looks better where I've mowed most of it and not just next to certain beds. :) I mow just a few times a year, natural gardens and all that, good for the insects. Yesterday the Little Furries went back to their owners so I don't need to pick grass and other goodies for them.
The elder-flowers are blooming and that's a nice scent. I put the flower heads upside down in water to which they impart a bit of flavour. Makes tap water a bit more interesting at this time of year. I also sometimes add a leaf or two of mint.
The orange hawkbit has just started blooming, apparently you can eat it. Well, supposedly, but it's got hairy stems and in my garden it is always covered in aphids so I'll pass. I did rub the aphids off a few stems and put these in a vase in my apartment. On Saturday I sowed most of my remaining wild flower seeds that I'd had from various places, I'll see if they actually produce anything this year, by about September. Sometimes they don't germinate the first year strangely enough.
My rose is about to bloom. Its buds were covered in aphids too, I rub them off and squash them. Though there are plants were I leave the aphids in peace. My red and blackcurrants are still doing fine, not ripe of course or even turning colour but lots of fair-size berries. My raspberry blooms are beginning to turn into berries. It's nice that I have a berry harvest every year even if salady type things or veg don't work out much.
I wandered into the garden a couple of times today, smelled my roses, now blooming, and did a little weeding here and there. Found and ate 2 ripe strawberries too. The strawb plants run pretty wild so small berries, not very sweet. Enjoyed the warm sun on me. STill eating bishop's weed etc while weeding and so not buying salad or veg atm.
Found and ate lots of garden strawberries today. Good harvest this year, by my garden's standards. The blackcurrants are turning colour and some ready to pick soon. The redcurrants are just beginning to turn.
My 2 roses are blooming, one flower on one and 2 flowers on the other. Nice scent though. A honey bee landed on my white washing, obviously hoping it was a flower. Then I noticed a rather dearth of flowers atm in garden. All those flower seeds I put in?? It looks as if a few nasturtiums are on the way, though it's too early for these little plants to flower, but nothing else seems to have come. Despite being watered etc. Once things have taken hold I mostly don't water.
Today I had some homemade garden pesto on my bread. Bit heavy on the olive oil and salt, but it was my first try. I had intended to make more and there are some garden herbs and wild herbs that could both do with being picked and made into something, but I feel too lethargic. I'm accepting that because so far this year i've done more with preserving garden produce than ever before. There are plenty more weeks to the summer for preserving.
I picked a bunch of redcurrants today, though I've left a few on the bush that maybe need a day or two more, same with the blackcurrants. This is the biggest harvest I've ever had. Shame I now have to move my bushes to somewhere else in the garden. Not just a shame, but rather a lot of work for me too, considering how much of the earth is very hard-packed and full of stones, old bricks, old roof tiles and tree roots criss-crossing all over the place. And then my exhaustion on top of it all.
I actually came onto my computer to check how I can best preserve certain leaves before I remove the plants altogether from my bed. Some of the raspberries haven't produced fruit at all. I'll see what i can do with the leaves other than dry for herb tea, pick them and then dig up the plants. Some smaller stuff like seedlings of common yarrow that haven't really 'taken' yet, so aren't very big, I'll be able to move pretty much right away.
Most of the raspberries are still green as green but I had 3 red ones and they were huge. Also no worms. Last year they were full of worms.
This evening I dug up the yarrow and moved it, after clearing this and that from a different bed. Apart from picking red and blackcurrants and eating some strawbs off the plant, I still haven't done any harvesting and preserving. Maybe tomorrow.
I have various on my inside window ledge. I planted seeds and seedlings about 6 weeks ago maybe, thinking it was probably too late, but it wasn't. I'm now harvesting leaves of yarrow and coriander for my cheese sandwiches. There is mint too which I can eat as is or have as tea. It's not much, but I like to see them growing. The fact that they are makes me feel some success as well. A little project I started which worked out and came to fruition. Trying to focus on my progress rn.
The snow has all disappeared in the garden and the snowdrops are up!
There are some other green shoots up, maybe crocus? I'll see when they bloom.
Small buds on one rose and on the blackcurrant which I had to move in the summer.
Spring is in the air! 💕🌷🦋
I've seen crocuses in my garden :cheer:
Does March come in like a lion and go out like a lamb? Or is that April? I can't remember. Anyway there's been an awful lot of 'lion' here the past few days. But now it's all :sunny: though with a cold wind. Both the rain of the past few days and :sunny: are good for the garden :)
:cheer: Dandelions and ground elder are up in the garden and I've just picked some! First harvest of the year :cheer: All of a sudden I'm feeling there's a reason to get out of bed.
My backyard is in chaos this summer because of a just-completed garage remodel, but I did manage to get some veggies planted in the spring. I've been overwhelmed by various other things going on in my life for the past several weeks, during which time we've had a lot of rain alternating with a lot of heat and sun, so weeds, bolting radishes, and millions of volunteer tomatoes are overtaking the beets, carrots and greens I've planted. That situation is only going to get worse because my partner and I are leaving for a 5-day cruise on Saturday. But meanwhile, the raspberries and blueberries are starting to fatten and ripen, I picked the first container-grown jalapeno yesterday, the broccoli is holding its own against the purslane, and the bee- and butterfly-friendly flowers all around the house and in the minimeadow up on the hill are bursting into glorious bloom. Even on my most down day, going outside to say Hi to all my plant buddies and pollinator guests is good for a moment of joy and a sense of wonder.
Bach, your garden sounds wonderful. Have fun on your cruise.
Sounds nice have a safe trip!
Your garden sounds lovely! I like to go out into our garden too and see what's growing and who's all flying around pollinating. :)
It snowed today and it's still lying white in the garden with bits of green sticking through. I wasn't prepared for it, but most of my plants are winter-hardy.
Tomorrow I'll be carting a bunch of branches away to the municipal garden refuse place before it closes for the winter. Then maybe I'll have time and/or energy to move piles of leaves around my roses and currant bushes to warm their bases a little for the winter.
Last weekend I collected a bit of harvest from somebody else's garden and finally cooked some of it up tonight: Jerusalem artichockes, aka sunchokes. I also planted a few in my garden in the hope that they will grow again. Each stem bears one flower, which looks like a sunflower but smaller and less resplendent. Still not a bad thing to have blooming in the garden. Will see next year whether it works.
Snow! Happy memories ;D
I just discovered some bulbs I planted are popping... I forgot I planted them
#love nature and flowers
The snowdrop shoots are poking up through the soil. I suppose they'll flower soon.
A huge old tree came down in the storm last week and its neighbour looks none too steady. So it's likely to be axed too. That will make a huge difference to the garden, not necessarily positive at all. There will be far fewer birds and bees. And we already have lost quite a lot of screen/visual protection from other people looking into the garden. The trees gave us some privacy. Oh well, storms are storms and I knew those trees would have to come down sometime.
yay for spring, new life, and new beginnings! :cheer:
i've seen crocus, daffodils, and camellias blooming in the past couple weeks. plus a gorgeous flowering plum tree. it really is refreshing and uplifting!
Wow, san, what lovely flowers! They're probably over though now.
It's too early for any of that here. After the storms there was snow, which has only just melted, revealing the snowdrops again. I saw a little lawn daisy too.
The 'neighbour' tree I mentioned in the post above was felled a few days ago, along with some others for 'good' measure. I was sad for the bird and insect life. But today I saw a robin redbreast flitting around the garden and I have never seen one of those before here! One of the blue tits was back too, rummaging around in a pile of branches which are waiting to be removed.
Aww, I love robins and blue tits, I think they might be my favourite little birds. Robins because they're cheeky and have so much character and blue tits because they're just so beautiful. One of my favourite memories in the garden is when I was digging and a little robin kept coming along and sitting on the fork handle, singing and keeping an eye out for worms. So sweet. ;D
I love this time of year, I think the anticipation of spring and the tiny little signs that start appearing is just as good as when it all arrives.
We had a couple of really warm sunny days (15°C) last week but it's back down to 5° if you're lucky, even minus at night and we had snow overnight a day or two ago. Most of the snow is gone now though. The buds are still on the trees and bushes (not frozen). I'm out picking ground elder every day now for my salad. Soon I can start on stinging nettles, though not for salad ;)
There are more flowers blooming - little tiny wild violets and primroses, even a few daffodils. Especially in times such as these, I'm really really glad to have easy access to a garden.
I'm waiting for friends to bring me earth for seedlings so I can get some plants going in the kitchen. It's still too early to put any plants in the garden. It can be warm here in spring but then suddenly the temperature drops again.
I've seen the robin again, just from my window. Not when I'm actually down in the garden.
I'm now harvesting dandelions for my salad too. Today I collected some raspberry plants and a bramble from a friend who had removed a few in her garden. Mine don't seem to have survived being moved last fall, when I had to give up one bed in the garden. It was lovely and sunny and warm today, but tomorrow it's going to get cold again and snow.
I have a bird feeder that attaches to my window. I haven't used it for a few years but it would be good to mount it again to help the birds. This afternoon both a coal tit and a blue tit were sitting on some branches very close to the window, so I'm sure they'd come and feed. It was nice seeing them so close. :)
Nice to hear you blueberry
Nature is so beautiful and I'm so thankful what is happening now is spring and not winter...
Here in the UK we have had lovely sunshine this week....
I've been sitting in my shed having my lunch and feeling the warmth..
Looking at the daisies, spring flowers and the odd seagull..
Ive planted my gardeners delight Tom seeds and they are propagating on the window sill...
Sounds lovely Boatssetsail! How are the seeds doing now? Flourishing I hope!
Today I discovered a pink bloom on a scrawny gone-wild rose I've been trying to bring along for a couple of years now :)
I made some green fertiliser a couple of weeks ago by putting nettles in a bucket of water and leaving it to stand. Today I started using it, massively diluted. I'm very happy about this because the first time I did this, I left it standing far too long because cptsd got in the way as it does sometimes, making next to everything impossible. It felt like that today too, but then I got a spark of energy from somewhere, enough to start doling out fertiliser on areas of my garden with very poor soil and where I've removed moss etc so I can put some grass seeds in.
This year I finally got round to sowing more grass seed in a shady spot that often turns very mossy. I've been intending to sow grass there for a couple of years or so. Now I have :cheer: And tiny thin little blades of grass are already poking out of the soil.
A few perennials are about to bloom, my purple rose mallows are blooming. They're new this year, from a mixed flower seed packet sowed last year. My raspberry canes are new, again, because of me having to change beds again. The canes look quite thin and scrawny but there are still quite a number of berries. My red and black currants are beginning to turn colour. It's pretty hot and sunny atm so things are taking off in the garden.
I just found this thread, and I'm so excited. I also love gardening. How truly lovely it feels when you see your little fruit babies growing.
I had a permaculture food forest in Germany, but recently moved to an urban area in Sweden where I have only my houseplants to nurture.
Berry season is such a lovely time, and not *only* because it coincides with pie season.
Oh I'm so happy to find this thread!! I too love gardening, though I am MUCH downsized from my 150'X150' veggie/herb garden I had at one time. Now I have a tiny little garden with some basic veggies I can freeze or can (what I don't graze my way through!! :bigwink:). And flowers I tried planting some very old seeds to use up and not surprisingly few germinated but we will see what I can do with those.
Blueberry so love your 'weeds' that you eat!! My grandmother used to say that a weed was only a plant growing where you didn't want it to grow so I don't think of a lot as weeds and so happy to find someone else that grows and eats non-traditional plants :)
Hope you're still on here Blueberry and that your 'weeds' are growing well this year!
Haha and I am glad you found it! I've been trying to work up the motivation to plant seeds since um February and missed my planting window for a bunch. Maybe this will get me out there this weekend. It's good for us, isn't it?
HI Gardeners one and all :heythere: ICYDK, most threads are locked when they get to Page 5 so it doesn't get too long to load/read and another thread Part x is started. I forgot to lock this one and started a Part 2 already :doh:
Sorry Phoenix and Armadillo! You can copy and paste your posts in Part 2 if you wouldn't mind.