What's In Your Garden?

[Arete]

I'm mostly a container gardener due to space limitations. Because of our brutal winter and late spring, I'm not growing veggies this year. I have been promised surplus rights in my sister's and my aunt's gardens for summer veggies.

 

What is growing in my containers this year is: Genovese basil, Greek basil, Thai Holy basil, spearmint, dill, parsley, marigolds, and a couple of sunflowers. I may add some more annuals, and the prickly pear cactus survived the winter outside in a container, so that will round things out.

 

What are you guys growing?

[Bethella]

I have 8 homemade "Earthboxes" which contain: green onions, yellow onions, green beans, snow peas, tomatoes, butternut squash, straight-neck squash, zucchini, cucumber, cauliflower and broccoli. So far our summer has been quite cool so I'll have to see how things turn out.

[cindyluvs24]

Our garden wasn't used for the last 3 years so i'm still in the process of clearing it out, but I have my plants started in pots. hopefully I'll get some vegs. I planted corn, a pumpkin, green and yellow squash, red and green peppers, eggplant, lavender, dill and sunflowers. There is some mint leftover from hearts ago. It kept growing amidst the weeds. I smell minty fresh hacking away at the overgrowth.

[keen23]

We are just doing herb boxes this year. Unfortunately, in an attempt to not kill all the things, we put the boxes on our drip irrigation system, and they're probably getting too much water. Our basil box has gone yellow, and I don't imagine that that's a good thing. The oregano box is looking good. The sage is dead. The mint is growing like crazy (but then again, mint ALWAYS grows like crazy).

[RachelB]

We have only one container, growing in the sunniest part of the living / dining room, and it has lemon verbena in it. I have rid the plant of the spider mites it came with but am in ongoing turf wars with white flies.

Because we have roof access, we had a big container of strawberries out soaking up sun for a couple of months. Once I polished off the critters that were eating the leaves, the berries decided they wanted more land. The landlord balked, "unless [we] want to plant them next to the building," where they would get no light ever. We gave the pot of strawberries to a friend with a small farm, and they are apparently happily spreading out.

[nokidsmom]

We have a plot in our local community garden as we live in a townhome and our "backyard" is a wooden deck over the garage. This year we are growing tomatoes, peppers (sweet and hot), lettuce, cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini, swiss chard, and various herbs. Things have gotten off to a slow start due to the coolish weather in May but now things seem to be kicking in with the combination of rain and (finally!) hot weather.

[Savoring Samsara]

I do container gardening on our deck because our soil is crappy, our front yard is a patchwork of buried cables we can't till up, and our backyard is very shady. Right now we are enjoying mass quantities of lettuce, and will hopefully have summer squash, zucchini, and sugar snap peas (if they survived a recent windstorm) later this summer. This is only my second year gardening and last year was a total bust. I hope to continue to expand my gardening year by year as I learn more about doing it.

[Geechee Girl]

I'm a container garden newbie. Lately, I've been fighting white flies, aphids, and spider mites in my herbs with neem oil. For years I thought I had suicidal basil. Now I know better. How do y'all green thumbs battle pestilence?

[greycat]

About three years ago we planted a blackberry bush. Every year it grows a couple berries then dies. :( Its very sad. This year I think the non stop rain is what killed it. I'm probably just going to dig it up this fall.

[catlady]

I always do at least 20 tomato plants (I make a lot of spag sauce, salsa, and ketchup). I also have a cluster of garlic, oregano, and the ubiquitous mint, along with pickling cucumbers and various peppers.

Here's a tip: if you plant horseradish, put it in its own area away from everything else. It spreads like mint, and the leaves are big enough to form a hedge.

About 6 years ago, my sister gave me 3 raspberry plants from her garden; two died the next year, and the third one struggled until 2013, when it produced about 2 quarts. This year, we got nearly four.

My front yard garden is new this year. We got rid of about 90% of the front lawn, expanded the perennial flowers, and with the grape vines, added chives, chamomile, and basil. I'm planning to expand the herbs next year. We don't get many grapes because the birds eat them before they're ripe.

We went big with the gardens (about half the back yard is given over to flower garden, veg garden, and chicken coop; the rest of the grass is for the dog), because we're just not lawn people.

[catlady]

About three years ago we planted a blackberry bush. Every year it grows a couple berries then dies. :( Its very sad. This year I think the non stop rain is what killed it. I'm probably just going to dig it up this fall.

Hi Greycat! Does it get sun all day? My raspberries did poorly when they were in the shade about half of the day. After I moved the surviving plant to a spot with all-day sun, it began to do better. I'm guessing a blackberry might be similar?

[greycat]

Hi Greycat! Does it get sun all day? My raspberries did poorly when they were in the shade about half of the day. After I moved the surviving plant to a spot with all-day sun, it began to do better. I'm guessing a blackberry might be similar?

Oh no I think you're right. We planted on the side of our house so I'm sure it only gets sun half the day. I hope we can transfer it. Thinking about it we had a ton of blackberry bushes growing up in the middle of our pasture fields where there was no shade all sun. It looks pretty dead, but we kill it every year and it comes back so maybe it will transfer okay. Thanks!

When we buy a house one day we want a big garden, but cant really do much on our rental property.

edited to say you're not your

[doggie]

most of the soil in our place that gets sun is not good enough for veggies and it is right on the street and the back has too much shade. so most things are in pots and I don't see veggies worth the effort. in the ground we have two kiwi berry plants and two grape vines. in pots we have this cool raspberry called raspberry shortcake it is designed for pots only gets 3' long and no thorns. two pots of apples that the trees grow straight up 8' a cool pink lemonade blueberry plant and strawberry in the ground.

[greycat]

most of the soil in our place that gets sun is not good enough for veggies and it is right on the street and the back has too much shade. so most things are in pots and I don't see veggies worth the effort. in the ground we have two kiwi berry plants and two grape vines. in pots we have this cool raspberry called raspberry shortcake it is designed for pots only gets 3' long and no thorns. two pots of apples that the trees grow straight up 8' a cool pink lemonade blueberry plant and strawberry in the ground.

Oh my gosh, I want this! I've never heard of it so I had to google what it was but how cool! :dance:

[RosyDaisy]

Lots of cantaloupes and watermelons, green/red/yellow bell peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

[ofDany]

We have our first garden this year - two tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, eggplant, mint, basil, oregano, Thai basil, pumpkin, 2 Swiss chard, lettuce, yellow beans, green beans and parsnips. Plus we started a patch with 4 rhubarb (too small to pick from this year though) It's such a tiny spot that I think it looks bigger written down, but my son finally likes tomatoes since having them fresh from our own garden, so we'll probably expand next year.

[catlady]

most of the soil in our place that gets sun is not good enough for veggies and it is right on the street and the back has too much shade. so most things are in pots and I don't see veggies worth the effort. in the ground we have two kiwi berry plants and two grape vines. in pots we have this cool raspberry called raspberry shortcake it is designed for pots only gets 3' long and no thorns. two pots of apples that the trees grow straight up 8' a cool pink lemonade blueberry plant and strawberry in the ground.

Your apple trees sound interesting. I don't have a good place to put one in the ground, but in a pot, I could move it around once in a while. I might look into that; thanks for the idea!

[doggie]

They are cool as good nursery should have a good variety I have seen them with multiple apple types. You do needed to got too that bloom at the same tune so they'll are polinated right. We just got them this year but then see doings well in the extreme heat in front of our house day before it's peaked at 118

[doggie]

here are a few pics. the apple trees and there is this cool dwarf grape vine almost full size. the two clusters of grapes looked so big on it. it needed transplanting as it was trying out too fast so had some dieback. a missal with sedum growing in it these are fun and easy to do. best to do it in the spring so they get established before summer. the raspberry shortcake this guy we have only had a year and it is pretty root bound, it does to like the super what we have on the porch it has gotten unto 118 and often 105.

[Geechee Girl]

most of the soil in our place that gets sun is not good enough for veggies and it is right on the street and the back has too much shade. so most things are in pots and I don't see veggies worth the effort. in the ground we have two kiwi berry plants and two grape vines. in pots we have this cool raspberry called raspberry shortcake it is designed for pots only gets 3' long and no thorns. two pots of apples that the trees grow straight up 8' a cool pink lemonade blueberry plant and strawberry in the ground.

I rescued a strawberry shortcake raspberry bush from a clearance shelf last week. How long before they produce fruit? I'm attempting to container garden this year. Squash & zucchini are not taking, I'm about ready to give up on them. My beans, eggplant, and tomatoes are thriving. The okra has stalled, but I'm holding out hope they'll make it. I have a dwarf Meyer lemon, and a dwarf mandarin. My lime kicked the bucket. I think I was a little overzealous in pruning him. My neighbor gifted me some cutting from his citrus trees which I hope to root following a few methods from youtube.

[doggie]

Ours produced the first year I think it produced most of the summer if I remember this year it is getting baked and is root bound any needs watered every other day. Do I think every year it may need divided up to keep it under control

[Geechee Girl]

Is there such a thing as a grasshopper repellent for organic gardening?

[FreeJesusFromFundies]

Our garden did really good with everything except peppers this year. Tomatoes, rhubarb, and strawberries were especially plentiful.

[47of74]

Our garden did really good with everything except peppers this year. Tomatoes, rhubarb, and strawberries were especially plentiful.

Ours did well this year too. Plenty of potatoes, lettuce, radishes, and tomatoes this year. Our sweet corn patch did pretty good this year too. We went to Wally world for our seeds last year and the crop wasn't as good. This year we bought the seeds from a local company and planted the seeds in a different place and the crop turned out better this time.

[Arete]

GG, your rescue vine is most likely not going to begin giving you fruit till May 2016 the earliest. If you transplanted and care for it right now it should start getting its strength back. Just water and whatever food you feed the rest of the garden.

Sigh, my great aunt will tell you organic gardening is like guerrilla warfare. Your enemies are always changing their strategies. Are the hoppers eating new growth?