Now that the grass is visible again, it’s time to think about gardening. Anyone else planning yet? I’ve decided to move the lettuce into pots closer to the house, along with the herbs. Also have to try to find a new pattern for a trellis, since last year’s didn’t work as well as planned. I don’t think I’m going to add any new veggies to the plan this year, just try and get the ones we normally do to produce better. So it’s the old standbys - broccoli, lettuce, green peppers, jalapenos and chilis, tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, spaghetti squash, acorn squash, watermelon, strawberries, raspberries, and lots of herbs.
Of course, first I have to get things cleaned up. And that’s a project in and of itself…
I have three 6’ x 8’ raised beds that I plant each year. I decided to go ahead and plant this year in spite of the drought, since I think that food prices are going to be high this year because of it. I’m saving the water that comes out of the shower before the water heats up to use in the garden each day. Right now, that’s plenty to water what I have.
I just planted the tomato seedlings that I started indoors. This is my second batch in. I planted some two weeks ago, but the snails ate all of them. This time, they’re a little bigger, and I put sluggo in a circle around each one. Good so far. I have four varieties, pink honey, yellow pear, san marino, and hssiao his hung shih. The last are my favourites. They’re a small yellow tomato and are so sweet that when my friend visited with her kids last year, the daughter kept picking and eating them saying, “They’re just like candy!”
I have some snow peas growing nicely right now. They don’t mind cold weather, so they grow pretty much year round here. My potatoes in a bucket are growing like mad too. This weekend if it’s nice, I’ll plant my green beans, zucchini, carrots, radishes, lettuce and cucumber.
I’ve tried broccoli, but the plants end up just infested with these tiny white/grey winged things, and they infest everything else. I have some Thai peppers growing indoors, and my year round herbs (oregano, thyme, mint) are doing well. I’ve started some basil indoors and my shiso sprouted, but I think the snails got them all. I put sluggo in the area and hope there are still some seeds that haven’t sprouted yet.
I wish I could grow peppers like you, @MSUAlexis, but it just doesn’t get warm enough here for them.
We’ve never gardened before, but we’re going to try it this year. Got a starter set and I need to start getting seeds into that.
I’m going to build a 4x8 raised bed out back somewhere, but I’ll have to get pretty serious with deer protection (some kind of mesh over top) as we have 8-10 deer roaming around out there.
But we don’t have grass showing yet. We did last week, but this weekend’s storm undid that.
We have 4 raised beds, two 2x8 and two 4x8. And a potato tower, and some asparagus, and rhubarb. I’m supposed to build a strawberry box, and at least one more raised garden. We’re also moving them all to the other side of the yard. We grow colorful beans in the front yard garden, pretty flowers, and blue peapods. We also grow beans up the privacy fence.
My wife ordered her $100 worth of seeds a couple months ago, and my oldest step daughter is planting about half an acre this year. So those two were thick as thieves with stuff I have to do when they came in last week.
We also have an herb garden. And flowers.
I grow peppers in big pots. But the last freeze is still at least a month away. So the lemon tree is stuck inside still too. And the apple trees need feeding.
I think we long for the weather we don’t have. I would give a lot to live somewhere where it never got above 60F, even in the middle of summer.
A number of years ago, when I was still at Boeing, we had a bunch of Seattle guys relocate down to Houston after Boeing failed to capture the JSF contract. They all proceeded to fawn over the weather and talk about how incredible it was—sun, warmth, no drizzling. Even in the middle of August, when it was 105F and so humid you had to swim to your car, those guys were like “THIS IS AWESOME I WANT TO RETIRE HERE.”
I don’t understand how, since Seattle has what I’d consider almost perfect weather, but it was a change and in their minds it’s a positive one.
@Boomer and @meitemark - I am completely over warm weather. Probably forever. I hate it so much. I hate having a $400 electricity bill for months on end because it’s >100F every day. I hate not being able to sleep with a blanket for 10 months out of the year. I hate the fact that a walk to the mailbox leaves me dripping with sweat.
Since we’ve jumped the tracks… the ‘tween times like now are nice - fluctuating between 60 & 80 - but I gripe less about the extreme heat for most of the year than about the short periods of frickin’ cold. The Houston area usually stays pretty humid when it gets cold, which makes it awful. In Aliens, when Hudson says, “Yeah, but it’s a dry heat.”, I always laugh. It ain’t perfect here, but I’ll take it over the cold, dank, drizzly places. When I was in high school, I thought it would be neat to move back east and be near family in Ohio or Maryland. But now I know that I wouldn’t want to deal with all the cold. That said, I’m not a fan of the $400 electric bills, either… yeah, really not looking forward to that aspect of the coming heat.
That’s how I grow the Thai peppers. I don’t have a good place for plants indoors. I can just start about four seedlings at a time in my kitchen windowsill.
It’s been garden weather here since February!
Yep. They’re all bigger than they used to be.
