So who's into gardening/plants and stuff???

[M&M]

I am!!!! :wave:


Back in high school I used to help my mom with her garden during the summer. So I've got a green thumb!

This summer I want to grow lots of flowers!! This is our first year in this house and I want to get some hanging flower pots for the corners of the porch and then plant flowers in the empty flower bed that goes around the corner at the front of the house.

I don't know what flowers I'll do.... Any suggestions for Western North Carolina??????

[Laura]

So fun, I love gardening, but I'm more into growing my own food now, not so much into the flowers, although I really like them as well. The first year we had our house I failed at planting good beds, but I've learned a little more through experience as well as knowing what works where with what sort of light. Now I have perennials that don't need much work on the immediate borders of our house and spend most of my time in my little vegetable garden plot. We live in the city and have a very small yard, but I've actually considered turning the whole backyard into a garden and not having any lawn...

Anyway, growing your own veggies is definitely the cheapest way to get naturally grown veggies - and they taste so much better than store-bought stuff. If you have a full sun area with decent soil you can grow more than enough tomatoes for two people with a couple plants.

I got some seed catalogs in the mail the other day and I got really excited.

Okay, super random, it's just fun to talk about plants and think about spring gardening time on this foggy, cold Wisconsin winter day.

[gaby]

I love flower too, but I do not have time to take care of them, so I ususally buy plants to have them inside of the house.
but good luck with your garden, hope you can share the pictures with us of your future garden Gb

[Dorothea]

Mel, I love plants. I'm going to school for horticulture, so I guess I'd better!:p
Laura, there is nothing quite like growing your own food, is there? (I hope this year nobody steals yours!)

[Laura]

LOL - yeah.... we got a lot of steelers in my barrio.

Anyway... there is nothing like it. The best is leaving for work and grabbing a few super-ripe delicious tomatoes to eat like apples in the car. I LOVE fresh tomatoes. I eat very few in winter now, because they just don't taste good, it's not worth the money. Then I eat pounds of them in summer.

[Dorothea]

I am the same way. I think I eat tomatoes just about every day in the summer! And I made some salsa yesterday with some not so great tomatoes and it just lacked a lot of flavor. Boo to greenhouse tomatoes!

[angela256z]

I thought I would love gardening...until I planeted the Tulips they came up great....two days later all the petals feel off and just the little yellow pollen thing survived.....that was the end of my gardening fantasy.

[Dorothea]

Oh Angela, you should plant a bunch of different varieties together so that one opens as another dies. You can do that so they will last a couple weeks!

[angela256z]

Oh Angela, you should plant a bunch of different varieties together so that one opens as another dies. You can do that so they will last a couple weeks!

So that is how it is done huh? I planted them all in a row and certain colors in certain orders. It was so cute those two days. Came home and they were dead....

Maybe I will try again this spring.

[Dorothea]

Try again!:)

[Marie]

I thought I would love gardening...until I planeted the Tulips they came up great....two days later all the petals feel off and just the little yellow pollen thing survived.....that was the end of my gardening fantasy.

omg i hope that doesn't happen in the spring with mine!! Aren't they supposed to bloom longer 2 days???

I have a bunch of seeds that I need to plant too.

I want to make a veggie and herb garden but I want to fence it off so the dog can't get in there.

[aguafria]

This thread has me really excited about this spring. It's been a year since I purchased my townhome, so I'm ready to put my touch around it. I'd heard to wait a year when you purchase a home to see what type of plantings are there. Well there wasn't pretty much. I have a pretty good sized fenced backyard that could use some sprucing up. I also love trees. I have one in the front and one in the back. I'm thinking about having the one in the front trimmed or cut down. It's huge and during the entire summer my car was plastered with bird droppings. I also noticed my neighbor uses his other parking space to avoid the tree too. M&M I'd like to do hanging plants too, but I'm unsure which ones last the longest. When I can dig up this landscaping book I purchased a few years ago, I'll let you know what it says about your area.

[Laura]

Angela - tulips shouldn't die in two days though... mine last maybe three weeks, I think at least that. The soil is important. If stuff isn't growing how you want it - try getting a soil test from a garden store. It's pretty easy to amend your soil if you do a little research...

[M&M]

M&M I'd like to do hanging plants too, but I'm unsure which ones last the longest. When I can dig up this landscaping book I purchased a few years ago, I'll let you know what it says about your area.

Thank you! That would be great!!! I've thought of putting some sort of bulbs (tulips, etc) around the house. Are those good. Won't they come back every year or do you have to dig them out for winter?

I have no idea what quality of soil I have. I know it's pretty red!

[angela256z]

Angela - tulips shouldn't die in two days though... mine last maybe three weeks, I think at least that. The soil is important. If stuff isn't growing how you want it - try getting a soil test from a garden store. It's pretty easy to amend your soil if you do a little research...

Yeah we have a Tulip Festival here in Washington and I figured they lasted more than two days, but mine....well they had other plans for my sad little flower box. I think I will try again this summer. I will see about getting a soil tester.

[Laura]

Maybe the flower box was too shallow and the root hit the bottom and killed the flower? Just a thought - the bulbs can't be in the bottom of the box - they need space below to let the root go deeper...

[angela256z]

I followed the direction on the packet and it said something like 2 inches down and the box is about 5 inches. I don't know...I am just not a green thumb

[Dorothea]

They'll only flower for a couple days if a frost hits them, or like Laura said, not room for roots (your 5" flower box is plenty of room since you planted them in spring. When you set bulbs in spring they grow very few roots before they flower. ). They'd do better in the ground too, but if you live in an apartment that's tough...
If you put soil from a bag into the boxes that wouldn't be a problem either... bagged soil is ready, doesn't need to be tested.
I hope this spring you have better results!

[arcoiris]

I love to garden! I'm so glad we have this thread! Regarding bulbs, I have all of mine planted in a bed under a Japanese Magnolia. I have varigated and regular English Ivy growing over the top and when the bulbs come up, they push through the ivy. I have all kinds of bulbs out there so I have something coming up almost all growing season.

[inlimbo]

ooh, I'm jealous of everyone with gardening space! I can't wait till the day when we live someplace where we can have our own garden! I'm a big fan of growing food too - it's much, much better than buying produce at the store. When I was little my parents were really into gardening -- but they went really overboard and it was like we had our own mini-farm/canning/freezing factory!

If you don't know much about gardening, I would recommend a trip to the library to find books about what to grow where you live. What grows well varies so much depending on climate, soil, etc.

Good luck to everyone with the vegetable and flower gardening this year! :thumbup:

[Daniel Green]

I own several thousand to several million (don’t quite know how much, but they’ve been multiplying in my bins for 2.5 years) red worms that eat my family's garbage. I'm at a bit of a quandary as to do with the worm poop, (which looks like black earth and smells sweet like any good soil does), since recently I learned that earthworms are not native to the N.E. U.S. and they actually degrade forest environments over all areas that were covered by glaciers in the last ice age. So I'm weighing various strategies- letting them freeze outside, putting them in freezer (wife won't like that very much.), checking to see if my particular worm species are harmful to the woods (night crawlers are, but they don’t live in worm bins.)

Then if it's cold enough just letting them go into the dirt won't do much harm if the freeze in the woil.

Last year I planted a butterfly garden that was a complete failure. This year I'm going to start up a nursery and get those butterfly garden plants growing by April. I've convinced my wife to let me move ahead on a plan of building it onto our deck, so we can see the butterflies up close.

[inlimbo]

Ahhh....worms. I had a worm bin too until a really tragic event in which all of them died. :cry: I've heard this about the red worms also. It might be a little labor intensive but perhaps you could pick the worms out? I will talk to my sister about this and get her opinion. She is a worm bin freak. It's a shame to get rid of them, because like you said, you have some really great compost.

[Emily]

I followed the direction on the packet and it said something like 2 inches down and the box is about 5 inches. I don't know...I am just not a green thumb

Tulips like sand mixed in with the soil. If your soil is too acidy then they will die faster. You have to have the perfect Ph balance. Next time you plant them mix some sand, peat moss, potting soil, and a bit of flower fertilizer together before planting them in the box.

I love gardening to. My house has a decent plot for a garden each year, and so I plant tomatoes of course. In another plot I do herbs such as chives, sage (we use alot of sage so I dedicate half a plot for this), pinneapple sage, rosemary, thyme, and onions.


I just bought a huge bucket of wildflower seeds to plant in the empty patch in front of our mail boxes. Trick for these is to cover them with peat moss, and soil so the birds can't find the seed, lol...

[Emily]

I own several thousand to several million (don’t quite know how much, but they’ve been multiplying in my bins for 2.5 years) red worms that eat my family's garbage. I'm at a bit of a quandary as to do with the worm poop, (which looks like black earth and smells sweet like any good soil does), since recently I learned that earthworms are not native to the N.E. U.S. and they actually degrade forest environments over all areas that were covered by glaciers in the last ice age. So I'm weighing various strategies- letting them freeze outside, putting them in freezer (wife won't like that very much.), checking to see if my particular worm species are harmful to the woods (night crawlers are, but they don’t live in worm bins.)

Then if it's cold enough just letting them go into the dirt won't do much harm if the freeze in the woil.

Last year I planted a butterfly garden that was a complete failure. This year I'm going to start up a nursery and get those butterfly garden plants growing by April. I've convinced my wife to let me move ahead on a plan of building it onto our deck, so we can see the butterflies up close.

The worm poop makes excellent fertilizer!

Red worms arn't bad for the environment I don't think but it's been a while since I graduated from the horticulture program. I can check my old soil books if you like. I know alot of gardeners here in Washington use worms to turn their old food, and leaves into compost-I think they use redworms but I am unsure.

[Lidia]

I love flowers to,I live in South Carolina and i have try tulips to,the ones that thas come back every year are the daffadil,. you planted ones and they will come back every year,put a little be of fertilizer and they will multiply,I got this wonderful pepermint lilys from my vecino y love then every time they bloom.you may see the picture in my avatar.

[arcoiris]

I love those peppermint lillies! I have a bed of them under my kitchen window.

[tropical88]

I live in an apt in NJ so we dont have anywhere to plant. I planted a few tomato plants from those toy pots they sell in grocery stores, turns out they grew!, so I put them in 5 gallon buckets on my fire escape, now they are turning yellow - I think its not enough dir for them to grow - and now the fire marshall asked us to move them inside :-(

I have tons of green tomatoes on them, but they're not ripening probably not enough nutrients left in the soil. I feel so bad for them. Anyone have ideas? Will they grow inside if I put them by the window?