any gardeners?

“




:D”

“Yum!

We're expecting 1-3 inches of FREAKING SNOW tonight and tomorrow. My forsithia is blooming, my columbine is up. I'm irritated.”

“We had four inches of new snow two weeks ago, I planted lettuce last weekend and today I'm prepping an area so I can plant peas next weekend. I transplanted over a dozen volunteer Norway Maples last weekend to spots here and there around my property. My hops have shoots a few inches high now too.”

“expecting snow here too, I've got peas and radishes up.”

“I hate slugs and snails. I can't find Sluggo locally. :(

Everything else in the garden is doing smashingly. I have bluebirds and mocking birds in the back yard rounding up the bazillions of caterpillars that blew into the yard, plus many swarming ants and termites. Coolness.”

“Someone at church today told me that it snows 3x after the forsythia blooms every year. Her Grandma told her so as a child and she's made it her mission to prove Gramma wrong since then. She said she's ever been wrong. I'm going to start paying attention now.”

“One snow last night, more expected today. =(”

“That rule doesn't apply here, Sass. Change "snow" to "freeze" or "frost" and it might. We're expecting a freeze or frost here tomorrow night, depending on which weather team you pay attention to. One group says it will be 31, the another group says 26, etc., etc... I go with the 26 crowd, since my yard seems to be the area's cold spot.

HPM got a bunch of the verticals in place for the pergola that will cover the koi pond filtration. It will also give me a whole bunch of places to hang "topsy turvy" grow bags. :)”

“I feel like such a gardening novice....

I'm OK to plant lettuce and peas, right? Anything else I can plant now? Remember, I'm halfway up the lower penninsula of MI. They're predicting snow flakes for Tuesday (but I don't think it'll happen).”

“smileym yes, plant peas. Spinach too my peas (zone 5) are 2 inches hight now. Also plant potatoes and onions.
Today I planted about 50 broccoli and cabbage plants.”

“Radishes too!”

“Finally got our front yard seeded and planted a gorgeous river birch and pansys. It was so goood to get all dirty outside today!”

“I hear ya sass. I got good and dirty this morning before work. I'm so thrilled---my apricot trees are blooming!!! I just hope tomorrow's crappy weather doesn't ruin any potential fruit set.”

“i can't wait for paychecks. i hope we can spend a litttle money to garden. even if it's only a little.”

“all you frigging dirt lovers will LOVE this....


I am now working at my bosses house. His grandfather lives with them all and LOEVS to play in the garden.
well guess who is in charge of this project...ME

landscaper is coming to till the area I roped off :)

then i will get some good compost and mix it in. then off to buy seeds and all that is needed. man i love spending other peoples money. but for a good thing... teehee.


I have to continue to help him all season and get paid to do it.

*sigh* life is good again...glad the winter in over :)”

“What a sweet deal! Hopefully he's a nice person to be around.”

“the grandfather is sooooo sweet. I adore the family I work for. boss is a little nutty but all is well at the end :)”

“Never, ever let a puppy who loves to eat veggies out unattended in the veggie garden LOL”

“yeah, dog sh.t ain't any good for the garden either. :D
last edited: 5/12/09 12:16:24 PM”

“I just took a few photos of the garden. I pulled up some turnips for dinner tonight, one of which is already bigger than a softball. Not bad for 7 weeks from planting the seed.

It took what felt like a small eternity to weed the bed where the onions, peppers and tomatoes are. It's mostly grass and catnip that I had to pull up. I have catnip coming up all over the dang place now. No wonder I keep seeing cats out there.”

“really? I tried planting cat nip. they ate the plants down in one day so I caged them. The cats though figured how to stick paws through the wire and get teh plants......I have no more cat nip :(”

“I caught my first gopher last Sunday, reset the trap, so I'll see if I have another Friday. Spuds are in, planted some more Rose Finn Apple fingerlings, carrots, maters got transplanted the weekend before. Corn and beans go in, in a couple weeks according to the almanac. Gotta buy one of those contraptions that makes mountain lion hisses to see if it scares off deer like they say they are guaranteed to do.”

“SC, plant it from seed, not a live plant. For some reason this works. I guess it's that when you put in a plant it gets roughed up a bit and releases its scent, but not as seeds.”

“Who knew that turnips taste better as a raw veggie than cooked? Laurel loves them raw and sliced up thin like potato chips. Cooked, she won't touch 'em. The good thing is they'll go well with the overabundance of lettuces I suddenly have. Now if only the tomatoes and cucumbers would come in.”

“Any idea why my butterfly weed wouldn't come up? It was beautiful last year - and I haven't seen any sign of it yet this year. I'm so bummed!

Just came home with 12 bags of mulch, a Jacob's ladder, columbine, and plenty of annuals for the pots and back yard. LOVE IT!”

“Which kinds of butterfly weeds? There's a bunch of different plants called that. Some are perennial, some are annual.

My garden is growing explosively this year. I already ran out of room, so I'm trying a different growing technique, that crams different kinds of plants closer together. So far, so good.

I left a couple of radishes in, to go to seed. Those things get 3 feet tall! The butterflies love them, too.”

“It was a purchase at the farmer's market, I'm not sure what kind it was. Apparently it was an annual, though. I guess I'll go buy a perennial.


I just planted 4 tomato plants and beans tonight. I don't have room for anything else. I have no idea how I crammed so many other things in there last year. The peas are looking good, but the lettuce is going slowly. My spinach is almost non-existant.”

“I have to eat a lot of lettuce before it finishes bolting. Some of them have gotten kind of tall, but that actually made harvesting easier. I lop it off at the base, and strip the leaves off the stalk directly into a bowl to clean them. I have to be careful with the buttercrunch in particular because it's so easily damaged.”

“I planted corn and beans today. The moon wasn't right last weekend to plant above ground crops. It's been a long time since I planted corn this late, usually I can get it in a week or two sooner. Too many things going on this year. My peas are up to the first string, time to add another. Potatoes are partly up, looking good. Lettuce needs to get bigger to harvest any.”

“Crud, I forgot to plant my soybeans! Guess I'd better interplant a little more out there.”

“Well Duane, I planted my above ground crops last weekend and they've all popped this weekend.
I have to rig some supports for the sugar peas and pole beans. Have always done bush beans before; thought I'd try something different this year.”

“Sass, I like to plant Dutch white half runners beans when I can find them, the hummingbirds love hanging out on the poles and get territorial. I plant something different once in awhile, neat to do. Tobacco blooms are pretty also.”

“my peas are waist high now. The first and second crops of spinach have been harvested as well as the first planting of radishes. garlic is looking great this year, so are the coles, as always. the white potatoes have been hilled. Time to pull some green onions.”

“I use my couple onion plants as bait for gophers. When I set a trap, I rub it down a little with a bit of onion, then leave that piece behind the trap to lure them in.

My peas are about 4"-8" high, unless the deer work them over like the raspberry plants.”

“anybody ever try this method for tomatoes?...I planted four plants this weekend in four 5 gallon buckets. I cut a 2" hole in the bottom of the buckets and planted the maters upside down. I think I've got maybe $15 in the whole thing. I might just be my imagination but I believe the plants have doubled in size over the past 3 days...love them maters!”

“Good idea Hodeman, instead of paying a bunch of money for those bags. I was thinking of making my own hanging tomato bags from some landscaping fabric I have lying around.

Damn mocking birds have eaten all of my cherries and honeyberries. I'll need to cover up all of my blueberries soon, I'm sure.”

“I went to the local homestore giant that rhymes with canards and paid $2.78 for each bucket. Another hardstore giant was selling mater plants for less than $2.00 each...added a 50# bag of planting soil and I was set. Never thought about the landscaping fabric route.
I've got a Robin hanging around the area that's got me concerned. They have picked the blooms right off of my plants in the past. I've been thinking about purchasing a plastic owl to set up near my hanging buckets.”

“I've considered plastic owls and snakes for the garden too. My problem would be 1) my daughter would love to play with them and they'd end up somewhere they didn't belong. 2) The real things would get territorial and do something stupid. The mocking birds aren't intimidated by the yard cats either, even though they periodically piff a bird and get feathers all over the yard and pond.

You should see the size of the snake I finally got out of my compost bin. She was about 6 feet long. She didn't like it when I added a bunch of crushed eggshells to the compost mix.”

“not a big fan of the slitherin' kind...although all of nature has its place I guess...its all about habitat when it comes to bumpin' into critters...least that's my take on it.”

“Yeah, I normally love snakes but when you pop the lid on the compost bin and a big snake head pops up it's a little startling.

I did something right with growing yellow granex (Vidalia type) onions this year. Dunno what, but it worked. They got nice, big and tasty already.”

“...now your makin' me hungry. Have you ever grilled onions, pineapple, and kielbasa sausage together in a shishkabob fashion? Those three items grilled together is just about the best eatin' you will find and it goes together really quick...cooks done in 30 minutes or less.”

“My parents used to do kebabs like that. I don't even own a real set of kebab skewers, other than bamboo ones.

Tonight is chili with some stuff from the garden, tomorrow is Cuban style marinated, grilled chicken with more stuff from the garden.”

“Treebait, if you do buy an owl, look for one whose head turns in the wind. The birds don't fear the stationary type.”

“we're getting ready to build a pergola over our patio and i want to get a vine or two growing over it...i want something with big leaves to help with shade and something that flowers and/or has fruit...should be easy to take care of too, i'm pretty good at killing things...any suggestions?”

“Grow a hops vine. They grow really fast, are pretty pest free, and you can reap the benefits of living in a hops shortage era by selling the fruits. On the flipside you cut down all the dead stuff in the fall, when it dies back to the ground.”

“hmmm, that would give me a reason to finally use that brew kit that's just gathering dust in the garage”

“On the flipside you cut down all the dead stuff in the fall, when it dies back to the ground.

that part might not actually be bad...it'd give us shade in the summer but allow the sun in during the winter...i might give that a shot...if it doesn't work out i could always replace it...plus I have a fence...if it doesn't work out on the pergola I could move it there”

“It can get 20 feet tall.”

“Link to photo of hops growing on a pergola
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/FcrvmSi9xcXQLnQliMX2NQ”

“I planted some hops a couple years ago, they are doing great. As a grown kid now, I like seeing something that grows so fast. I started with three rhizomes and pulled off a few runners this Spring and spread them out. They look like they are making it. The dried flower sure is bitter, like a kid, I just have ta stick it in my mouth. Bought them from some company in OR that has a wide variety, I got the most bitter, from the description, seemed like they would do good.”