- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
December 2018 Moms
hoosiermama-2
member
How Does Your Garden Grow?
hoosiermama-2
member
Sorry for the delay in starting this! I'm totally copying a November 18 thread (should I tag the author?).
––
do you garden? do you want to start gardening but don’t know where to begin? do you have a plant fetish? well, let’s get dirty and get to know each other and what we’re doing! (like what i did there?)
indoor plants, vegetable gardens, flowers, container pots, whatever. some jumping off points:
1. What’s your skill level? How many years experience?
2. What all do you have currently planted and how are they growing so far this year?
3. Questions? Concerns? Raves?
4. Recent accomplishments?
5. What do you need to do next?
*bonus points for pictures!
––
do you garden? do you want to start gardening but don’t know where to begin? do you have a plant fetish? well, let’s get dirty and get to know each other and what we’re doing! (like what i did there?)
indoor plants, vegetable gardens, flowers, container pots, whatever. some jumping off points:
1. What’s your skill level? How many years experience?
2. What all do you have currently planted and how are they growing so far this year?
3. Questions? Concerns? Raves?
4. Recent accomplishments?
5. What do you need to do next?
*bonus points for pictures!
Re: How Does Your Garden Grow?
DS2 due 12/12/18
1. What’s your skill level? How many years experience?
I am a total novice and I have no expertise, lol. I just put some plants in pots, put them on my balcony and water them and...most of them survive.
2. What all do you have currently planted and how are they growing so far this year?
The only fruit we have right now is strawberries and we have one plant that's doing great and another that inexplicably died. We have some herbs too: mint, rosemary, basil and chives. They're all doing great except the basil, which we had to trim back a lot and give some TLC to. We also have a ton of succulents and I don't know what any of them are called and a pot of mini roses that are...surviving but not exactly thriving. Hoping they pull through!
3. Questions? Concerns? Raves?
Every potted mini rose bush I've gotten from the grocery store has died and the one I currently have isn't looking amazing - any mini rose tips?
4. Recent accomplishments?
Our 2 year old is our gardening "helper" and the tax she takes is that she picks some leaves off of our succulents to count. Well, she picked waaaaay too many off of one of my favorite succulents, so I put in on a high shelf to give it a break and it's growing back very nicely!
5. What do you need to do next?
I need to get some more potting soil and transfer a few of our succulents into bigger pots. (We already have the pots.) And one of my big to do lists is to replace the old, janky bar cart thing we have some of our plants on with something nicer and prettier. And I want to get a couple more fruit or veggie plants for the summer - any easy to grow suggestions for a balcony gardener with not much space?
strawberries
blackberries
tomatoes (3-4 kinds?)
zucchini
cucumbers
collard greens
hops
basil
mint
sage
thyme
rosemary
dill
chives
cilantro
meyer lemons (inside)
olive (tiny tree inside that hasn’t done anything yet)
flowers, etc.
im probably missing something.
my husband has really taken the lead here because he spends more daylight hours at home than I do and I’m really dramatic about the heat when pregnant. I’m excited to get my son involved in picking things this year, though.
I'm not going thru all the questions, but I guess I've got some plants (flowers, not food). I have a poinsettia that I've somehow managed to keep alive for a good 3 years now, an African violet that is thriving, a smaller African violet that I started off the other but it's still working on growing, some sunflowers I got for DS in his Easter basket that have yet to bloom (but are pretty tall!), and also strawberries from his Easter basket. The strawberry plants are tiny right now, and growing so slow!! I've only got about two good stems, DS dumped it once and DH just vacuumed it up, so I'm lucky to have what I do. I eventually want to plant some herbs inside, I'm thinking mint, basil, and lavender. I like making mixed drinks (past bartender) so those work great for drinks! Eventually we want to have a legit herb garden and maybe a couple other things, but not at this house.
DS2 due 12/12/18
1. What’s your skill level? How many years experience?
I don't know if I would say "experienced," but definitely higher-level intermediate? I have been growing and taking care of my own plants for 8 or so years, and I'm on my third year of a full in-ground garden.
I grew up in a family of avid German gardeners on my dad's side (my mom loves to garden too but it's not something that runs in her family), so I have been around it my entire life and it's in my blood. One of my most prized plants is a 3-ft Cereus cactus that came from a plant that my great-grandfather owned and has been passed down through our family even since. The main stem has long since died off, but my dad saved all of the main branches, and tends to their offshoots and distributes them if people want them.
2. What all do you have currently planted and how are they growing so far this year?
*deep breath*
Inside:
We have maybe twenty strictly indoor plants but most of them aren't anything of note (philodendrons, a Norfolk Island Pine, aloe, etc.) I have four types of ferns in our bathroom - they love the filtered light from the frosted glass windows. The big cactus resides in our bedroom window, but I think I want to get it outside for the summer (I'm nervous though because it's finally growing a second section and it's fragile right now). We also have a Pilea peperomioides that was given to us as a wedding gift that I'm thrilled is thriving. It's producing tons of little babies so I have I think 6 or 7 of those in smaller pots and need to separate some more from the mother plant.
Outside:
Our front yard is basically one huge garden bed. I have a big herb garden out there, some one which is perennial and some of which I have to replant every year (lavender, thyme, oregano, sage, savory, marjoram, basil, rue, cilantro, tarragon, etc.) Up against the house I have woody perennials (flame azaleas, trumpet honeysuckle, and several rose bushes, several of which belonged to my grandmother - my dad and I saved them from certain death in her abandoned garden after she passed [I am an admitted rose novice and still trying to learn how to properly take care of them]). Filled in between we have all types of herbaceous stuff, both perennial and annuals (day lilies, blue flag iris, daffodils, tulips, grape hyacinth, crocus, purple cone flower, black eyed susan, blanketflower, coreopsis, ironweed, New-England aster, calendula, and a bunch of others)
In the back we have a sun and a shade flower bed. The shade bed is currently all ferns, but there are some blue lobelia in there that I hope come back this year, but no sign of them yet. The sun side has a bunch of different types of mint, a huge patch of Monarda, sunflowers, chamomile, calendula, and two types of milkweed that we get monarch caterpillars on every year which is really cool (to me anyway!).
All of the vegetables and big potted plants are also in the back, in either raised beds or in the ground (the potteds come inside for the winter and hang out under a grow light in the basement). We have 30-something tomato plants this year, of about 10-15 varieties. Ten-ish pepper plants, eggplant, peas, cucumber, zucchini, carrots, and turnips. In pots are a dwarf blackjack fig, a dwarf meyer lemon and dwarf key lime, two hibiscus, a bay laurel, and a confederate jasmine (those are the big ones - I also put lots of little annuals - mostly marigolds - in small pots every year).
3. Questions? Concerns? Raves?
Currently waiting for our peas to wrap it up so we can get the cucumbers into that raised bed. I'm worried we'll get to late of a start for them. Very impatient for the tomatoes to be here, but we still have another month to go until they're ready.
4. Recent accomplishments?
We finally finished cutting down a big ugly spruce tree in the front yard! It was messy and ugly and was such a huge vision-block.
5. What do you need to do next?
Now that we have the spruce tree out we have to figure out what to put in it's place. There are some strawberries there that need to be consolidated and moved to a cooler spot, but that's it. We know we want a dogwood and a lilac, but there's a lot more space to fill in between and I've been drawing a blank.
We are on our city's garden tour at the end of the month, which I'm weirdly nervous about, and I know I will be scrambling to get ready for that. I hope a lot of stuff is blooming then. I just cut out some spent annuals from the front - so I'm really praying something fills in those gaps in the next few weeks. And we still have to get rid of a bunch of the branches from the spruce tree.
I don't have any pictures at the moment but I will post some soon!
*Edited for typos, clarity.
We have a small garden. We have strawberries that aren’t awesome, but the kids have been able to gather strawberries so = success to me. We have mint that made it through our ice and cold weather outside this year. We have 2 tomato plants, 1 blueberry bush, and a Meyer lemon tree (all potted, will take the blueberry and lemon inside for the winter). This is our first year with the blueberry and lemon tree. There are blueberries on the bush and many tiny lemons. I hope they are a success. We also planted cantaloupe and watermelon - a last minute decision, so we will just have to see how that goes (those are the only plants we planted in the ground). Around the yard we have many flowers and h has planted a lot of green emeralds, thujas, and Japanese boxwoods. We also keep reseeding our yard. All of this has been fun to do with the boys.
Total newb! 1 yr.
2. What all do you have currently planted and how are they growing so far this year?
We bought our house last year with dead grass and horrible shrubs and huge cut backs for empty/dying beds. We ripped shrubs and failing stuff out, spent all year pampering the grass, reframing beds and putting down sod and seed and it looks amazing!
This spring we added two columnar apple trees and a tri-cherry tree, a Japanese pine, a red oak, hollies, lilacs, dahlias and two garden beds with herbs and safe vegetables for my Squish, as well as blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry bushes (2x each). I may kill it all, but it looks amazing right now and I’m really proud of what I’ve been learning and our swequity. I can’t wait to see it fill in!!
3. Questions? Concerns? Raves?
Our apples have cedar-apple rust!! I don’t know if they had it before we got them or after planning, but I’m worried the treatment is too late in the season. Will still try.
4. Recent accomplishments?
See above!
5. What do you need to do next?
Decide whether to mulch the garden beds (still on the fence about this, any tips/advice?) and treat the apples. Water water water the grass and try not to be sad that we might sell the house before I see the hollies and lilacs get big.
BeforevAfter:
1. What’s your skill level? How many years experience?
LOL I'm making it up as I go. I built a couple of raised beds over the last couple of years for the veggies and herbs, and last year I ripped out all the perennials (or tried to) that the last homeowners had put into a side garden in the backyard, so that I could redo it with this idea of "edible landscaping".
2. What all do you have currently planted and how are they growing so far this year?
When I redid the backyard garden, I planted lavender, poppies, apple trees, chives, garlic chives, onions (green and red), anise, russian sage, blueberries and a crap ton of marigolds (judge me if you must, but they remind me of my grandmother and I lurve these ugly-ass flowers).
I'm in a zone 5, though, and the lavender didn't make it (I was so hopeful and it did say zone 4 even
As far as the veggies, my heirloom tomato isn't looking great. The roma tomato seems like it's doing fine, but I trimmed the blossoms on there just yesterday because I want it more established before it starts trying to make fruit. My pepper plants look abyssmal, and it makes me sad. My lettuce is all growing like crazy, though. My herbs are so-so. They need a little time to establish. It's mostly a pizza garden since we make so much homemade pizza, so it's got a lot of basil, flat leaf parsley, and some hot-and-spicy oregano.
3. Questions? Concerns? Raves?
Blah. I can't keep lavender alive, even potted. Also, the poppies I started from seed are taking FOREVER, so I gave up and ordered more started plants to replace the ones that didn't overwinter.
4. Recent accomplishments?
Honestly, there aren't that many weeds in the flower garden, and considering how I feel lately, that's a win. My 3 year old is actually really good at telling the plants apart, and helps me weed. Except while he does it he says, "See you later, weeds! Come back soon!" and I'm like, "nah, dude! Tell them to find a new home!!"
5. What do you need to do next?
Need to plant some more poppies, and clear out some more of the weeds to make sure the volunteer marigolds have enough room. Also need to get some more garlic chives in the ground, and I'd love to buy some more thyme because it's so pretty, but it didn't overwinter so IDK that I want to put a lot of time into that.
Also, I LOVE marigolds! I actually think they're quite pretty and I'm obsessed with the way they smell.
Did you get flowers on your chives the first year? I started some from seed this year and they grew, but are kind of just hanging out around 4-5 inches tall and aren't really doing anything.
@CecilB93 Do you at least have room to put a lemon outside for the summer? Mine don't do well strictly indoors. They need A TON of light and well-circulated air and they need to be warm. I found that indoor temperatures just don't really cut it for mine. Mine barely hang on under the grow light for the winter, but then thrive when I put them outside for the summer. My trees are only about 4 years old, and this past winter is the first time I've gotten good fruit off them. Not a ton, but enough to make a key lime pie and a few lemon cakes. FYI the fruit take F O R E V E R to ripen once they set (like, at least 6 months).
Sidenote - my sister eats the blossoms, and yuuuuuuuuck, but okay whatever. I'll take a picture of them this evening so you can see - the number of flowers we have on these things is insane.
ETA never mind I’m constantly taking pictures and this should get the point across - this is only a portion of them, but you get the idea.
DS2 due 12/12/18
I’ll come back later and read through everything more & post about my garden. Just wanted to say the chive thing real quick!
1. What’s your skill level? How many years experience? SuperN00b. A few months with my square foot garden. Not counting my childhood being forced to weed and pick berries in my dad's garden
2. What all do you have currently planted and how are they growing so far this year? Oh, I planted a bunch of stuff in my box for spring and then ignored it. I'd say 50% of it came up? I have peppermint that's floundering, oregano that is totally consuming its square, a tomato plant that randomly appeared (I didn't plant it and now I need to stake it or something), some carrots that I didn't thin until Sunday and I hope continue growing, scallions, onions that I doubt will grow...oh, and some salsify. Oh! And the romaine I planted grew like mad but I didn't get it in time, wah. Same with the cilantro.
3. Questions? Concerns? Raves? I'm a terrible gardener. But at the same time, I want to make another box dedicated to herbs. And I need to figure out what to plant next.
4. Recent accomplishments? Getting my butt out to the box and actually taking care of it.
5. What do you need to do next? Figure out my summer crops, maybe build another box.
We also have a bunch of succulents inside, but they aren't doing as well in AL as they were in Vegas. Because of our continually-moving status I can't really have any cool permanent indoor or outdoor plants, but there will come a day, I hope, when I can have a real garden.
TTC #1 January 2016
BFP April 18 2016 | EDD December 29, 2016
Welcome baby A! January 9, 2017
TTC#2 March 2018
BFP March 30, 2018 | EDD December 12, 2018
@hbmama21 Your "after" pics look amazing compared to the before! Nice job! IMO, I would go with mulching the flower gardens. It really does help keep weeds down and keep moisture in so you shouldn't have to water as much.
1. What’s your skill level? How many years experience?
Beginner, definitely! I have maybe 3 years of experience (that's how long we've lived in our house), but I haven't done too much yet. My MIL and neighbor are huge gardeners! They put me to shame!
2. What all do you have currently planted and how are they growing so far this year?
Veggies - this is the 2nd year we're growing veggies. We have a few boxes in the yard that we built for growing them. Right now, one of the boxes is just tomatoes, and those are doing awesome! Then we've got cucumbers, spaghetti squash, and green beans in another box. We're trying pumpkins again (they didn't really work last year b/c we started them too late). So far they've sprouted, but not much growth happening yet. Our last box has some herbs in it. We're doing parsley, oregano, thyme, and rosemary.
Flowers/Plants - We've got a bunch of hostas, which are super easy to grow! Yey! We inherited some of them on the property, and planted a few others ourselves. We also inherited a bunch of lilies. We had to transplant most of them b/c they were in awkward places. They are going great and just starting to flower!
Last Oct I transplanted some peonies from my mom's (which she had transplanted from her mom's, so that's neat), but they haven't really taken yet. They are so puny, which makes me sad! My mom's are already in full bloom and look beautiful! FX they continue to grow and maybe look better next year? We've also got a blueberry bush, a rhododendron, and some ivy in our garden beds. Everything else are annuals in our pots/planter boxes. This year we did spikes, petunias, and bacopa. Those seem to be going strong!
3. Questions? Concerns? Raves?
4. Recent accomplishments?
Getting the mulch down (finally) in the front and side gardens!
5. What do you need to do next?
Weed, weed, weed! I really haven't done much of it yes this spring, and things are starting to get out of control. I would also like to buy a clematis to plant and some perennials for our back garden, like black-eyed susans and/or shasta daisies to start filling that in.
Started IF Feb. 2014
PCOS & MFI (low sperm count and motility)
3 Femara cycles w/natural intercourse over summer 2014, BFN
1 Clomid cycle w/natural intercourse Nov. 2014, BFN
IUI March 2015, BFN
IUI June 2015, BFN
IUI Oct. 2015, BFN
IVF Oct. 2016, fresh transfer, 2 day-3 embryos, BFN; nothing to freeze
IVF Nov. 2017, fresh transfer, 2 day-5 blasts, BFP; ectopic; 1 blast frozen
FET March 2018, 1 day-5 blast, BFP!
2. What all do you have currently planted and how are they growing so far this year? I think we're way behind: I started a bunch of different veggies from seed indoors a couple months ago and they're mostly doing fine (squished; they've overgrown their pods and a fair number of them have withered away accordingly), but they probably should be outside by now, yeah? Tomatoes, peppers, a bunch of different squashes, watermelon, pumpkins, all kinds of herbs, kale, cabbage... we'll be overloaded if anything actually grows outdoors.
3. Questions? Concerns? Raves? Biggest concern is that we're biting off more than we can chew (especially in light of the fact that I'll be pregnant this summer), and that we're starting too late to really get anything. Oh well. It's a learning process, and we've got a 30 year mortgage so plenty of time to figure things out. Also a little concerned because the 2 year old has been SUCH an excellent and enthusiastic helper when it comes to pulling things out and digging in the dirt. I'm hoping we can tame those impulses just a hair once the things that are in the ground are things we want there.
4. Recent accomplishments? Husband just finished framing out the beds so we should be planting this weekend! And we're almost through the enormous burn piles that we accumulated, which is very exciting.
5. What do you need to do next? Transfer everything that's inside to outside, I think.
@agk2015 That sounds like us, lol. +1 on delayed planting and an enthusiastic toddler. He loves to “water” our plants to death. I don’t think the thyme is gonna make it. Hope it’s great weather for planting this weekend! Share some pics!
Started IF Feb. 2014
PCOS & MFI (low sperm count and motility)
3 Femara cycles w/natural intercourse over summer 2014, BFN
1 Clomid cycle w/natural intercourse Nov. 2014, BFN
IUI March 2015, BFN
IUI June 2015, BFN
IUI Oct. 2015, BFN
IVF Oct. 2016, fresh transfer, 2 day-3 embryos, BFN; nothing to freeze
IVF Nov. 2017, fresh transfer, 2 day-5 blasts, BFP; ectopic; 1 blast frozen
FET March 2018, 1 day-5 blast, BFP!
My sunflowers are finally blooming!
We've gotten zero monarchs on our milkweed this year, which is a huge bummer. I've seen exactly two adults fluttering briefly around the yard, but no eggs/caterpillars.
Currently trying to decide what vegetables I was to put in the raised beds for the fall. Our turnips we're so good this spring I might just do a ton of those and maybe some more carrots.
@maureenmce I don't think it's too late if you get one that's already decent size! I would go for cherry tomatoes or something else small that will set fruit and ripen quicker.
@hkom I sowed some zinnia seeds for the first time ever this year. I don't remember how long they're supposed to take to bloom, but it felt like for-freaking-everrrr. Anyway, once they did - the monarchs have been all over them!
...or maybe it's been the same couple coming back.
I planted two sunburst (sun drop?) tomato plants and DD is ob-sessed with them. She will eat them right off the vine. I'm glad because I don't particularly like tomatoes but I love watching them grow. It's always been tough for DH to keep up with them.
*Rainbow 8/2015*
*Expected Rainbows 12/2018*
*Loss of Twin 5/2018*
I only let DH treat our yard (we're on a little less than an acre) once a year and with fairly mild stuff. I'm so paranoid about chasing the bees and butterflies away! Our neighbors probably hate our yard - everyone else treats and groom their lawns like crazy.
We have what we call a 'nature patch' out front, which is just wildflowers. Usually we have tons of bees and butterflies, but haven't seen as many this year
@hoosiermama-2 I cannot stand perfectly manicured lawns and garden beds! I don't want an out-of-control weed patch, but I like for things to be tastefully messy
Just make sure if you are buying fairly mature tomato plants from a store that they don't look sickly. I like to buy mine early before the store gets a chance to neglect them (I am sure nurseries take better care, but you just never know).
Two common issues:
Other than that, I am excited that I finally have some baby cucumbers, a few baby tomatoes, and my super chilli peppers are finally turning colors! It's been a bit of a late growing season here, so I am contemplating bringing a few plants inside in September, but I will have to pick carefully because DH doesn't seem to be that excited about that idea
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/world/europe/uk-big-butterfly-count.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Not sure whether I can do some later-in-the-season veggies or whether that deadline has passed, but I definitely wouldn't mind getting some broccoli and kale and carrots and cabbage and yeah we may be going overboard over here. My husband has already suggested that we should put in another 8 foot bed, which seems bold considering that we still haven't actually harvested anything, but going overboard is kind of our thing so... okay.
Definitely a beginner! I've got 5 plants that I have managed to keep alive. One of them, an anthurium, has managed to stay alive for 4 years and I've re-potted it once. It looooves sunlight but we used to live in a townhouse and it didn't get enough light. I thought it'd die that first year and a half there, but it somehow didn't. When we moved, it suddenly started thriving in our new kitchen window!
2. What all do you have currently planted and how are they growing so far this year?
Besides the anthurium, I have a cactus, two flower pots on the porch, and a terrarium in a fish bowl that I put together 1.5 years ago. That fish bowl used to have the plants all within it and now it's spilling over like crazy.
3. Questions? Concerns? Raves?
My goal is to start an outdoor food garden next year, if I'm at home with the baby (which has a high likelihood right now). My mom gardens a ton, so she'll have tons of ideas, and we can definitely clear out some of the plants that we don't pay attention to in our little yard to make room for tomatoes or zucchini or something. Lol. We'll have to do some work on the soil and growing area before planting for sure.
4. Recent accomplishments?
Not killing my plants?
5. What do you need to do next?
Get to next year, research, set up the garden area, and plant some yummies!