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Planting Time: Gardening

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Trying to plan for next year's garden and curious what everyone else is up to, I remember from the thread on the old board some of you had pretty epic setups.

I haven't decided what food to plant/grow yet, but I just ordered these petunias for next spring because I mean come on look at them:

petunia_headliner_night_sky_plant_1950_general.jpg
 

ThornGhost

lofi posts to relax/study to
(he/him)
Those look very nice!

I usually keep a small vegetable garden in a raised bed I built along the side of my house, though since my daughter was born, the variety of veggies grown has dwindled down to just tomatoes because they're dead simple and generally crowd pleasers. One year I ate a salad made up of only things I had grown. It was a great!

It is also great to see the kiddo be invested with growing food, though. During the warm months, she makes a big deal of picking tomatoes for her grandmother whenever she visits.
 

Pajaro Pete

(He/Himbo)
i tried unsuccessfully to grow corn this year (funny story: you know how you always see, like, scarecrows out in cornfields in tv shows and movies? turns out there's a reason for that!), so i think this year it's gonna be mostly be sticking to peppers, okra, and tomatoes.
 

Lady

something something robble
regular arugula already seemed a little warm to me <_<;;

I am bound and determined to eat my own edamame this summer... which probably needs I need to place a seed order. I'm not sure if I managed to miss getting a physical copy of baker seed's catalog, but it's dangerous...
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
regular arugula already seemed a little warm to me <_<;;

I am bound and determined to eat my own edamame this summer... which probably needs I need to place a seed order. I'm not sure if I managed to miss getting a physical copy of baker seed's catalog, but it's dangerous...
This year you had to order one, but it's freaking huge and recommended. They have some cool long-form articles in there too which I don't remember from previous years. There's one about the history of opium that's quite well done.

If you can't find a copy I wouldn't worry too much, everything is online and there's more info pictures on the website too. Sadly a decent amount of stuff is already out of stock, they said they're trying to keep up but 2020 was 2X-3X their normal sales.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
We got yacon in our produce box a couple weeks ago. I'd never heard of it but after we looked it up we decided to try it raw, it's wonderful! The flavor/texture is a combination of apple/pear/celery/watermelon but it looks like a potato before you cut/peel it.

I might be juuuuust too cold to grow it but giving it a shot.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Time for radishes! I'm seeing a lot of conflicting stuff about when to start them but the overall sentiment is definitely "radishes grow everywhere, just throw them in the ground they're easy and cheap whatever." I started some indoors although now it seems like it would have been better to just put them in the ground. Oh well, that's what I can do with the rest of the seed packet I guess.

I also started some delicata squash indoors and am a bit worried I started too early, but I barely used a third of the seed packet so not a big deal.

Other things I'm growing:
- Yacon
- Parsnip (apparently really finicky to grow? Who knew!)
- Horseradish

I have a few other seed packets for later in the season too.
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
We seem to do best with tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers so that's what we put in today, actually. Still playing with which peppers do well. This year we have green bells, purple sweet, and a new jalapeno as I think the plant we kept alive for the last two years might be giving up the ghost.

Also trying yellow squash, lemon cucumbers, sweet and purple basils.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Welp I went and made that gardening thread in the other subforum and didn't realize there was one here in Food.

Anyway, I've been growing a new pot of basil for the past month and overall it's been going much better, but a few leaves I trimmed today had some brown spots I can't identify. I don't think it's a fungus or mold, and I don't think it's root rot. Could it be burn from the grow light? The leaves themselves were really dry and brittle in the brown spots, not slimy.
9pc8etl.jpg
Should I try raising the grow light, maybe?
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I really don't know but since it's at the tips I wouldn't expect it to be related to the light. Since (I assume) the light is from above you'd expect burns there.

What I would normally do is put a couple leaves in a plastic bag and take it to a local nursery but with Covid I dunno. Try calling a local nursery, describing it and see if they have advice or soil amendments? Maybe the pH is off?
 
Might just not be getting enough water? My basil in the past has looked like that when it was getting stressed from not enough H2O. Basil needs a lot of water and gets stressed/wilts easily.
 

Lady

something something robble
Bacterial leaf spot, imo-- trim all of the affected portions off without letting them touch unaffected portions. Water only at the very base of the plant at the roots, not over the leaves, and let it get a little dry. Basil is a hot weather plant and can take a little dryness.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Pretty!

We just discovered a few of our indoor potted plants are dying from a scale infestation. 😩 My partner ordered some stuff to spray them with and we moved the badly infested ones outside to try to limit any spread meanwhile. One may be too far gone but hopefully we can salvage the rest.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Risk of frost tonight so harvested a couple things that looked the most ripe just in case. Delicata squash is supposed to be ready when 1) the skin is orange with green stripes, 2) pressing with your fingernail doesn't leave a mark 3) the vine starts to wither. I have 1 and 2 so grabbed a few of those just in case the vines are not looking as withered as I think they should. Similar story with the silver watermelon I'm trying this year, our growing season is short so I went with this tiny short season variety and it has 1) the yellow/cream bottom 2) the hollow sound but again, the vines aren't withered. The squash is supposed to sit for a couple days apparently but I hope to try the watermelon tomorrow.

Also more shishito peppers because that plant has been going insane. I have probably gotten 100 peppers over the course of the summer. Fantastic side dish for summer too, just toss in some oil and salt, grill on each side for a few minutes, shove in your face.

OCf8cVe.jpg
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
- Parsnip (apparently really finicky to grow? Who knew!)
Definitely had inconsistent growth of plants that were only inches apart for no obvious reason, but still got a lot of them. I learned that they have to go through at least one frost to start tasting better, which is interesting.

Roasted some with a version of chimichurri where we used arugula instead of parsley because we have too much freaking arugula. Very good, making a second batch to have with dinner tonight. I'll grow them again this year for sure.

Other than the horseradish which will be harvested in spring that's everything I planted last year. Very pleased and now starting to think about what to do for this year.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Other than the horseradish which will be harvested in spring that's everything I planted last year. Very pleased and now starting to think about what to do for this year.

The horseradish is still going nuts with greens which have been an awesome addition to soups and such so might keep it going until the fall and harvest then. A couple parsnip seeds that didn't sprout last year popped up too which is fun.

Just as of this week we're not going below freezing at night most days so got stuff in the ground this weekend. Since I'll likely have surgery and not be of much use this year I did a smaller garden with stuff that doesn't need as much attention. Let's see:

Seeds:
Radish - both wasabi radish and regular red, just been throwing a bunch out there every couple weeks for succession planting. A couple of the red ones seem close to being ready.
Mizuna greens and bok choy- long shot since our nights get pretty cold
Various varieties of carrots- Still trying to figure out what kinds grow best here
Celtuce- Tried this as a fall crop last year and didn't work, I've since learned fall crops aren't really a thing here due to our short growing season. Giving it another shot as a spring planting.
Pink celery- A goofy purchase but why not give it a try since it claims to be easy to grow
celery-chinese-pink-lah-img_9980_1.gif


Starts:
Delicata squash - I think we got thirty squash from the plants last year so absolutely doing it again.
Shishito peppers- Also went nuts last year. The horrific heat last summer was good for these but I'd rather have fewer peppers and not the heat, thanks
Dill- We like it and it seems easy to grow so trying it out
Mint- still need to plant this but my body got too achy/tired to finish up
Yacon- tried this last year but planted way too early because I didn't know how freaking frost sensitive they were.

Still to buy:
Sage- our old plant didn't make it through last years' heat so need to pick up a new one
 
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Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
You probably already know, but watch out for mint trying to take over the entire area where it’s planted. I have some lemon balm, a close relative, that does the same thing.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
You probably already know, but watch out for mint trying to take over the entire area where it’s planted. I have some lemon balm, a close relative, that does the same thing.
Oh yeah, very aware, I had it in my yard growing up and we had it in a section of our yard previously, but a good heads up! The new spot is enclosed by a fence and some artificial turf and I'm honestly hoping it takes it over that area.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Been a very unusually cool and wet summer so far here, which has been interesting and I'm seeing things grow in different timescales than usual.

Radishes just grow like weeds, we can't harvest them fast enough so a few have been very woody or hollow. But they attract pests that would bother the other crops so still happy with them.

I had a few shoots of the same plant cropping up in my garden, but it clearly wasn't anything I planted this year. It was in rows and didn't seem to be a weed but I just couldn't identify it. Finally figured it out, it's the Chinese Kale I planted last year! Dunno what happened but seems to be doing well this year so that's nice. Some of my confusion came from the fact that the seed company called it Chinese Broccoli, that made me think the plant would look very different than it did.

We ate all the Mizuna in May or June and it was awesome, definitely doing that again. For dinner today we thinned the Celtuce plants. None of the ones I planted last year grew so I did more seeds this year and now have a few too many, oops. Also could be the same case as the kale where ones I planted last year liked this year's conditions better and grew. Anyway we ate the leaves in a salad with arugula, very tasty. Next time (as we still have more to thin) I'm going to try making this dressing.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Definitely had inconsistent growth of plants that were only inches apart for no obvious reason, but still got a lot of them. I learned that they have to go through at least one frost to start tasting better, which is interesting.
I decided to let the parsnips go a little longer this year as I read a few things recommending waiting not just for one frost but all the way until spring.

In previous years I got tiny parsnips that were only good for a couple bites each.

Here's the first one I pulled up this year:

2Kwm89M.jpg


So uh, yeah, waiting for spring from now on.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Shameless cross-promotion time for folks who don't look at the contest subforum, I'm gonna run Top 50 Plants. This is gonna include all plants, including plants you eat and plants you grow, as well as fictional plants. If you've got some favorite plants, toss 'em my way!
 
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