Gardening 2020

rubysmama

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I sure wouldn’t dig them out. Let them die off, give the spot some fertilizer or bone meal and add in some new bulbs in the fall. Throw a little of the bone meal In the bottom of the hole with the new ones and you should have a great show next spring.
Part of why they don't bloom the following year, I think, is because that bed becomes an annual garden in the summer. So the tulips kinda get the "bum's rush" once I buy the annuals, and I cut their leaves down before they have time die off. :paperbag:
 

susanm9006

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Part of why they don't bloom the following year, I think, is because that bed becomes an annual garden in the summer. So the tulips kinda get the "bum's rush" once I buy the annuals, and I cut their leaves down before they have time die off. :paperbag:
Yeah, they need to die down to the ground to get the nutrients for the next year. I have always mixed mine with perennials Like Asian lillies which just grow up around them .
 

NY cat man

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Michele planted some lilies last year, but they didn't do anything, so I dug them up and relocated them, and this year they are coming up just fine. Apparently, they didn't get enough sun in their previous location.
 

catapault

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Bone meal is not a good fertilizer. It used to be made from bones with the remainder of scraps on the surface and marrow left in it. Today the bones are steam cleaned - I don't even want to think what might be done with the removed material - then ground. Bones, even ground, are a dense material. Nutrients are absorbed through very fine root hairs and it takes a long time for nutrients to leach out of bone meal.

Don't like my comment? O.K. try this one - skunks will dig, searching for bones and in the process uproot your plants.
 

NY cat man

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We haven't had that problem- at least not yet. What I did was after digging the hole, I put in a handful of bone meal and then filled the hole with water. I let the water drain down, then put in some compost before setting the plant and replacing the dirt.and watering in. We have skunks around here- I can smell them from time to time- but none of our plants have been dug up.
 

Winchester

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Well, we planted the four windowboxes on the she shed and the two windowboxes on the equipment shed yesterday.
Planted 32 pepper plants (not a big variety, usually we get Lady Bell peppers, but all we could find were Carmen and Pimento and no sweet banana peppers at all).
Planted 17 tomato plants.
Planted two hydrangea bushes at the steps to the she shed.
We still have some flowers to plant in the front flower bed.
We didn't get the squash plants yet or the strawberry plants.
The green and wax beans have poked through the soil! We've been eating asparagus from the garden!
We had cut the garden space down a couple years ago, but are thinking of increasing it again, back to truck patch size.

Around here, we let daffodils and tulips go until the next weekend following July 4th. By that time, their leaves have done all they can do to get nutrients for next year's flowers and they're dying. I cut them off at soil level.
 
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WillowMarie

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Well, we planted the four windowboxes on the she shed and the two windowboxes on the equipment shed yesterday.
Planted 32 pepper plants (not a big variety, usually we get Lady Bell peppers, but all we could find were Carmen and Pimento and no sweet banana peppers at all).
Planted 17 tomato plants.
Planted wo hydrangea bushes at the steps to the she shed.
We still have some flowers to plant in the front flower bed.
We didn't get the squash plants yet or the strawberry plants.
The green and wax beans have poked through the soil! We've been eating asparagus from the garden!
We had cut the garden space down a couple years ago, but are thinking of increasing it again, back to truck patch size.

Around here, we let daffodils and tulips go until the next weekend following July 4th. By that time, their leaves have done all they can do to get nutrients for next year's flowers and they're dying. I cut them off at soil level.

Which plants did you plant in the windowbox? Sounds like a nice variety of plants and vegetables.


Some of my seeds came the other day: tomatoes, catnip, cilantro, and asparagus. Although, guess the asparagus takes a few years to mature, so may hold off planting that since not sure where I'll end up in the next year and if I'd have a place for outside pots.

Picking up soil today and will start planting or germinating in separate containers today!
 

Winchester

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In the she shed boxes: English ivy, calibrachoa. dracena, and Persian Shield. I still need two more calibrachoa to finish them out.
In the equipment shed boxes: marigolds and petunias. Rick chose what he wanted.

Yes, asparagus takes a while. We have a small bed for ours; I think it took about two years before we actually had asparagus to eat. Now we get enough for maybe 5 meals during the season (which is plenty for now, as I won't freeze it). We always let some bolt, too, so that it can reseed.

I really wanted a couple of potato boxes, but it didn't happen. Garden isn't large enough for white and sweet potatoes, on top of everything else. No onions either.

Our garden isn't the prettiest looking, but it does grow the food.

Good luck with your plantings!
 

WillowMarie

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In the she shed boxes: English ivy, calibrachoa. dracena, and Persian Shield. I still need two more calibrachoa to finish them out.
In the equipment shed boxes: marigolds and petunias. Rick chose what he wanted.

Yes, asparagus takes a while. We have a small bed for ours; I think it took about two years before we actually had asparagus to eat. Now we get enough for maybe 5 meals during the season (which is plenty for now, as I won't freeze it). We always let some bolt, too, so that it can reseed.

I really wanted a couple of potato boxes, but it didn't happen. Garden isn't large enough for white and sweet potatoes, on top of everything else. No onions either.

Our garden isn't the prettiest looking, but it does grow the food.

Good luck with your plantings!

What a nice variety in the boxes!

Thanks for sharing your experience with the asparagus. How big of a garden is needed for potatoes?

I'm always about function over fashion, and a vegetable garden is made to grow veggies and not to make a pretty landscape. Bet it is much prettier than a manicured lawn though! ;) I'm a huge fan of plants in yards, especially natives, and less space for manicured grass lawns which don't really offer much ecological benefits.

Thank you!
 

MoochNNoodles

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Ive done potatoes in a 4x4 raised garden. They weren’t my favorite to harvest. I was disappointed with bug damage. But they were fun to grow. Same with carrots. I might try bucket/box growing them someday. I’ve even heard of using barrels. My aunt even tried in a cheap plastic container and she had probably 12-18 in there! She’s single so she doesn’t need too much.

My tomatoes are putting on some height! I am still waiting for DH to finish working around the foundation so they aren’t attached to the fence yet.
576C5363-6530-4EE9-B05B-FB6770DA8F48.jpeg


You can see how sandy our soil is in the background there. I need to tend those irises too. The blooms are getting heavy on them. 💜
 

NY cat man

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Because of the weather, I haven't been able to plant my tomatoes yet. More of our flowers are blooming, however. The latest is Michele's 'Beth Evans' spring larkspur.
IMG_1268.JPG
 

lizzie

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In the she shed boxes: English ivy, calibrachoa. dracena, and Persian Shield. I still need two more calibrachoa to finish them out.
In the equipment shed boxes: marigolds and petunias. Rick chose what he wanted.

Yes, asparagus takes a while. We have a small bed for ours; I think it took about two years before we actually had asparagus to eat. Now we get enough for maybe 5 meals during the season (which is plenty for now, as I won't freeze it). We always let some bolt, too, so that it can reseed.

I really wanted a couple of potato boxes, but it didn't happen. Garden isn't large enough for white and sweet potatoes, on top of everything else. No onions either.

Our garden isn't the prettiest looking, but it does grow the food.

Good luck with your plantings!
Hubby has the garden laid out the way he prefers...me...I don't care.He's got raised beds that are 4 ft. wide and 50 ft. long,and he rotates what gets planted and where every year.He plants a whole row of Yukon gold potatoes,he has tomatoes (I think we have romas and one other variety)in one along with green beans and the herbs.Cucumbers in one with beets,eggplant and zucchini.I think he as the end of a row planted with butternut squash and the rest of the rows are the raspberries,and he also has a row of thornless blackberries.Oh...and there's also 3 elderberry "trees" out there too.The rows are wide enough to mow in between and he mulches like mad.
 

susanm9006

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That sounds like an awesome garden, lizzie lizzie ! I had some sprouting potatoes so I stuck them in the ground just to see what will happen.

I got up early this morning to pick up manure and fertilizer at Menards that I needed to plant my peonies. Then I spent maybe an hour and a days worth of energy digging out the remaining diseased boxwood. There were about ten years old and extremely solidly rooted. I ended up having to lay, scoop out the dirt around the roots with my hands and then stick loping shears into the hole to clip each root. Anyway, boxwoods out, peonies planted and a few Asian lilies moved.
 

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catapault

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Bulbs need their leaves to make food that is stored in the bulb for the following season's flowering. Think about this. Daffodils, tulips, etc begin their growth early in the season while soil is still cool. They rely on stored food reserved to do this. Nutrients in soil are not as available when soil is cool as when it warms up. The early spring bulbs have about a 3 1/2 month growth period before going dormant just when days are longer, sunnier, warmer.

So you fold / braid / spindle - basically mutilate the bulb foliage, reducing its ability to to make food. It's an aesthetic thing that is of no benefit to the bulbs. it is harmful.
 

AbbysMom

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So you fold / braid / spindle - basically mutilate the bulb foliage, reducing its ability to to make food. It's an aesthetic thing that is of no benefit to the bulbs. it is harmful.
They have done quite well for the fifteen years I’ve been doing this, so I’m not overly concerned. The previous owners of the house (Botany professors) did it as well, so it’s been going on to these same bulbs much longer.
 

WillowMarie

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Here's my gardening so far. I did plant some containers with vegetable seeds yesterday that will be kept outside, but since no growth, etc., not included. Everything shown here is growing inside.

Succulents cuttings that arrived today, with some awesome colors on them:
20200520_183820.jpg


A lithop, or as I call them, little butts. Bought seeds and also came with a plant with roots:
20200520_144118.jpg


Mushrooms. They look so weird so far... all those little white/gray bumps are growth...? Supposed to be at least another week before ready to harvest. We'll see how they progress:
20200520_144151.jpg


Sprouts/microgreens are supposed to be ready to eat Friday and the few days after that. It has been cloudy the last few days, and wondering if the growth slowed because of that. We'll see!
20200520_144203.jpg


And lastly, a tomato seed that is starting to sprout. There should be a few seeds, but that is the only visible on so far, which is the fuzzy white thing closer to the top.
20200520_144228.jpg
 
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