View Full Version : Current Garden Happenings
I'm in a transition period in the garden, still harvesting kale, lettuces and spinach and ready to add my tomato transplants and start seeds directly. If I planned ahead better it would be all thought out but I know I'll just get out there and decide in the moment where I'll put everything (I guess that's my informal method of rotation).
Strawberries are all in bloom. My little pomegranate tree made it through the winter and has leafed out and I saw little blossoms yesterday morning. My grapefruit, which had a mysterious de-leafing problem in the fall has come back in full leaf.....sometimes you just have to let things be and they will figure it out for themselves (hmmm, a good lesson in life).
I decided to expand my lavender in another part of the back yard so we'll see how that goes. For anyone interested in lavender I found the website for "Lavender at Stonegate Farm" to be very useful, especially their videos on correct pruning.
What's going on in everyone's garden right now?
We're having some freakishly warm weather here in New England. I have things flowering now that don't usually show off til the end of April, like forsythia. Peonies have popped their little heads up. And there's supposed to be a heavy frost on Monday, I hope everything will be ok.
I've had my spring crops in the ground (onions, lettuces, other greens) for about a month now. I started them under low tunnels, but the tunnels have been off this week. My snap peas are just starting to poke up along with radishes. No signs of the carrots yet. My overwintered lettuce is now a nice size, and has been harvested once already.
What zone are you in jania?
Having a pomegranate tree sounds wonderful - have you had any fruit on it yet or is it something you've planted in the last couple of years?
I'm zone 6b and had last years fall lettuce up until January.
Currently I've got lettuce, onion, peas, carrots, beets, beans, radish, and a few other things (I've got another thread going about garden journals and how I always forget to map out what is planted where). Everything is coming up and doing well, we just had some big rains. I'll probably have lettuce/spinach ready to eat in less than 2 weeks.
My strawberry patch was killed off by chickens. My berry row (black, rasp, blue) was killed off by last years heat. I've very sad about that and can't afford to replace it yet. Our grapes did better and I noticed yesterday it had leaf buds.
I have one tiny patch of lavender. I should probably move it so it doesn't risk 'death by chicken'.
I'm in zone 5 and even though weather was in the 80's for a week and everything is blooming, I'm putting off the garden until probably mid May (except for the snow peas/collards/kale). We really wanted to weed the garden area this weekend, since the weeds are already about a foot high, but it rained a ton yesterday. I always regret working in the garden when the soil is wet, since it turns into cement.
Also, we need a new fence around the garden. So much to do, so little energy!!
So nothing to report from this neck of the woods.
P.S. I have been working on my water gardens though........put the hardy water lilies and water irises in the water and cleaned the pumps.
Everything blooming. Pears, plums, apples. I planted zinnia seeds although I think I will wait a few more weeks to put tomatoes out. I just know if I put some out it will snow, sleet, freeze, toads, first born son, etc... Need to plant two little trees but it needs to stop raining!
(OP) I'd rake up and burn any grapefruit leaves on the ground just to be safe.
I'm in zone 5 and even though weather was in the 80's for a week and everything is blooming, I'm putting off the garden until probably mid May (except for the snow peas/collards/kale). We really wanted to weed the garden area this weekend, since the weeds are already about a foot high, but it rained a ton yesterday. I always regret working in the garden when the soil is wet, since it turns into cement.
Also, we need a new fence around the garden. So much to do, so little energy!!
So nothing to report from this neck of the woods.
P.S. I have been working on my water gardens though........put the hardy water lilies and water irises in the water and cleaned the pumps.
CAthy, you don't leave your water lilies in during the winter? the hardy ones I mean?
iris lily
3-24-12, 10:00pm
Lots of daffodils in bloom here. I found that my wonder new plant marking system failed during the winter. ack. I wouldn't be able to enter these daffodils in the show because they are not named. The small standard dwarf iris are just starting to bloom, about 3 week early.
Forsythia in bloom in MN. Fruit trees and others are about to leaf out - amazingly early. My peas and leafy greens have germinated.
Peggy........I have an inground stocktank pond with a hardy lily that I can leave in over winter (with a deicer turned on most of the time). But my above-ground stocktanks can freeze solid in a bad winter, so I take out the hardy lilies and marginals and actually bury them in the ground, next to the house. I'd love to have a big enough inground pond that I could leave everything in over winter, but since I don't, I have to bury them.
But its been such a mild winter this year, I probably could have left them in the above-ground ponds. In fact, I thinned one of them in the Fall and just left the extra laying on the ground........but it was such a mild winter, that one is starting to grow too!
I'm in Phoenix. I'm amazed at the blooming you all are seeing in what I usually consider the colder regions of the US, it has been warmer winter.
Float On, I just planted the pomegranate in the fall and it's a very little tree right now. I am excited about the flowering that is coming and will be interested to see if any fruit takes. I tend to plant my things when they are still quite young which I feel gives them a time to get use to the harsher conditions of the desert (pH 8+, clay soil and hot temperatures yet still having to withstand the occasional deep freeze), then if they live I know they will live a long time.
CAthy...thanks. I was thinking of getting some hardy waterlilies to naturalize in the big fen out back. Not really interested in mucking around out there in the fall to pull up anything!
Here is my garden chore list:
1. finish out tomatoes -- we've had several more transition from green to red, and once the two plants in the yard are finished, we'll pull them out and compost them.
2. then i'll do a quick soil remediation with a combination of the soil that's there, some left over potting soil and some compost from a friend;
3. then we'll be planting bulbs and more lavender to fill in any gaps. i'm going to prune the lavender that I have currently to prevent it from getting "woody." I might have effectively wood-i-fied one already (I didn't know the age of it, probably should have pruned it last year when I moved it). Even so, there's that.
4. I'm considering a creeping thyme as a ground-cover -- good for cooking as well as for ground cover.
5. going through and re-doing the pots (pulling out tomato plants when they are finished, getting them into the green house and planting them out with herbs.
I was going to clean more leaves out of my little pond but I noticed its full of frog eggs. I guess I'll wait.
fidgiegirl
3-31-12, 1:08pm
A task that's been nagging at me are all the little saplings around our yard. I want to get them gone before they do some real damage. Did read on Yahoo! Answers that you can put salt on the fresh cut to prevent these guys from coming back. Let's hope that works.
We also have a shrub that is out of control. In fact, some of the branches look like trees! Not sure how to control this or if it's best just to take it out. It is growing in the shade of a pine.
The Knock Out rose I planted 2 years ago because they grow like weeds--grew like a weed! So I had to spend an hour today trimming it down. I am not a fan of roses, and now that witches' broom has invaded Knock Out roses, it's only a matter of time before this one goes.
The Knock Out rose I planted 2 years ago because they grow like weeds--grew like a weed! So I had to spend an hour today trimming it down. I am not a fan of roses, and now that witches' broom has invaded Knock Out roses, it's only a matter of time before this one goes.
Iris, Knock Outs are to roses what Stargazers are to lilies. I will try to get some good rose porn pictures for you. I think you need to come to the thorny side. ;)
Everything is blooming. Roses, irises are just beginning, salvia, Mexican plum trees are a mass of white flowers. The wildflowers are splendid this year and much appreciated after last year's drought. Even my acacia is golden--Never seen it like this!
iris lily
3-31-12, 10:26pm
Iris, Knock Outs are to roses what Stargazers are to lilies. I will try to get some good rose porn pictures for you. I think you need to come to the thorny side. ;)
ha ha, nope. It will not happen. I've been gardening for 30 years and have not been seduced by roses. I hate being pricked, so much so that I just shivered here thinking about it.
But thanks for the thought! DH does have 2 or 3 roses that he tends in our yard so there are a few around here.
I'm going to stick to the usual "last frost date" for my area and not be seduced into planting early by the unusual warmth here. But I will probably plant snow peas soon.
And I bought some mustard greens and collard plants for a container, since they are cold weather plants.
Last year I had to get rid of truckloads of iris for various reasons. In one jettisoning effort, I dug non-blooming plants and set them in my alley with a note to my neighborhood email group: come and get them.
I noticed that my neighbor 3 doors down took some iris for his tiny front planting, it's only 3' x 3". I thought to myself: I wish he would have told me that he wanted some and I'd have picked out some very special cultivars for him, especially since I've got to look at the things.
Well, in the irony of life, wouldn't you know: His iris are in bloom and he randomly picked (sheer luck since none of the plants he picked were in bloom!) a flattie, a stripey, a picotee, my favorite gold edged iris, and one that is so cool that someone stole plants of it from another iris site I've got.
I love the irony of this, me thinking I had to pick his stuff, but his random choices were better than what I would have picked.
That's neat Iris. Love that you share even the special ones. I've got to do some serious moving of maybe 200 iris that are in too much shade. I'll probably move some of them to church. Nothing special about most of them just ones that were moved from old farms.
I had to water my veggie garden on Sunday. So hard to believe how warm it has been. Hoping for a little rain today but it doesn't look like it will reach here. Everything is up and growing. I can start picking green/red onions and lettuce anytime now. Grass needs a 2nd mowing.
I swore I wouldn't do any annuals but I bought some for church and ended up with a few things for the pots on my porch steps. Alex announced that this year he is "into ground covers this year" so he planted several ground covers in the porch rail boxes that we can transpant in the fall. Picked up a few big ferns to hang in baskets across the porch as well.
Iris lily, I love that you left your plants out for people to pick over, and what a nice (ironic yes) surprise that your neighbor did so well, glad you will be able to enjoy them from afar.
I dug up some century plant "pups" the other morning and potted them up. Once I see if they are still alive and growing I'll put them out from with a free sign. It's fun sharing.
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