Gardener's Group discussion
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by
Lula
(new)
Apr 12, 2013 07:13PM
Greetings from zone 2 in Colorado. I have been veggie gardening for a few years and also have a perennial bed and plant annuals in the summer. I teach during the year, but the gardening obsession starts up each spring.
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I live in a rainforest. I don't garden much, I do try but mostly it's impossible because the bush just takes over. But I have gardened and I will garden again and meanwhile I seek out the company of gardeners.
Thanks for the welcomes! As you know I'm here because I have the same obsession as all of you - gardening. Yes, I' ll admit it. I've been know to wake up at 5:30 am, shower, have my coffee and be in the garden while most others are still sleeping and work in the yard till late in the day. It's rather good to see that there are so many other that share my passion for gardening. I'm hoping to share information and learn a lot from you all.
Hello to all the other OG's! I'm an OG from the Midwest US. I've lived in 8 different states so I've seen what it's like to grow things in many different climates. I'm hoping to become a Master gardener in the spring. Currently I have 6 large Hybrid Tea Roses, 2 Floribundas and many other perennials. I'm obsessed with Hostas, Coleus and Caladium but don't have enough shade! I have 3 garden beds that are currently growing heirloom veggies of many sorts as well as muskmelon and watermelon. Here's hoping for a good harvest!
Can't wait dig into this group! :)
Hi! Nice to see another midwesterner. Come to my yard, nothing but shade in large areas :)Welcome.
Hi to Gabi, formally; today, I got the "new message" from when you joined icon. I'm glad you found your way here via me and my beautiful Piete!
Welcome to all of our newbies! Make yourselves at home in the threads :-)
Hi, I'm Sandy. I live in Oregon in the United States. I only just now thought of looking for a gardening group. I grew up on a berry farm and now live in the city and garden around the edge of my lawn. I guess I'm addicted to growing my own food!http://authorssmith.com
Hello Sandy! This is a pleasant group and it's nice to see a new face. Welcome.
S. wrote: "Hi, I'm Sandy. I live in Oregon in the United States. I only just now thought of looking for a gardening group. I grew up on a berry farm and now live in the city and garden around the edge of my l..."Welcome to our group. The more the merrier!!
Welcome, Sandy. I look forward to "chatting" with you. It's great to hear from someone in the Pacific northwest!
Welcome to all of our newbies!!! Make yourselves at home in the threads :-)
Hi! I'm Anastasia. I love roses, herbs, anything fragrant, anything that blooms or produces something edible -- in short, gardening! I also enjoy gardening books and blogs. Do we have gardening bloggers among us? I'm one (of course), but who else?
Hi Anastasia , My name is Viki and I live in Central Illinois ( zone 5) and I share your passion for herbs, roses, and all plants that are fragrant . I do most of my gardening in containers now due to being badly injured in a car accident two years ago but I also have a older established garden that I have planted throughout the last fifteen years . I grow a multitude of shrub, climbing, Floribundas, and Grandiflora roses ( any that I can find that thrive on neglect :-) because I do not fertilize or prune unless I am forced to. Despite my negligence this has been a wonderful year so far for roses. Right now my lilies are going great guns too and I discovered the Easter Lily I threw in one of my raised beds has bloomed and is gorgeous. I will be sure to replant any I purchase at Easter from now on ! I also grow many herbs and some vegetables . I am passionate about house plants / tropicals and have a large collection that I vacation outside in the summer and put in a glassed in porch , I call my sunroom , in the Winter. I dread the long gray Illinois Winters so I have a garden inside during those months.
I am new to this group as well and not quite sure how it goes so I hope I am posting in the right place and correctly. Happy Gardening. I look forward to many lively discussions on our plantings ! I am not a garden blogger but I am very interested in it . I would love it if you could tell me more about it and what is involved to do it . Time to head outside !
Hi Everybody , I did not get to do much gardening today because it rained every few minutes all day .. So annoying. I ended up just potting up some alternathea commonly called , " Joseph's Coat" , that was not doing well and taking cuttings from several shrubs in my yard to start for my cousin, Linda, who is as garden obsessed as I am. All the rain is making my plants look great but its also stimulating a huge crop of weeds to invade my garden. I cringe at the thought .Some of the worst invaders I am constantly fighting I invited into my garden when I was inexperienced and ill informed: Autumn Blooming Clematis,Trumpet Vine, and Golden Rod. Tansy used to be a problem as well but I finally have seemed to have eradicated that. I fear the others will be here the duration of my gardening life :-( I do not like to use any sort of chemicals in my garden so I am limited to trying to pull them up or if too persistent, I try to cut them out with my cutters. I have even considered one of those blow torches but nixed that thinking i might set the place on fire in my enthusiasm :-) I have a feeling there is going to be a whole lot of frantic weeding for me our next nice day. Does anyone here propagate their plants ? I have had good success with hydrangeas, viburnums, elderberry, roses, gooseberries, Rose of Sharon, Caryopteris, butterfly bushes, and many houseplants- particularly Hibiscus and Jasmines.
Viki wrote: "Hi Anastasia , My name is Viki and I live in Central Illinois ( zone 5) and I share your passion for herbs, roses, and all plants that are fragrant . I do most of my gardening in containers now due..."Hi, Viki! Welcome! This is a really fun group! You sound like a sincerely obsessed and amazing gardener!
Garden blogging is fun and you write so well. You should give it a try! You would need to choose a blogging platform -- Wordpress and Google are both really good and easy to use. I also recommend checking out Blooming Blogs, which is a wonderful place to read awesome gardening blogs written by gardeners from all over the world.
Gardening blogs come in all shapes and sizes. Some are written to instruct, some as a journal, others as a record of sorts. The best thing is that other gardeners are interested! Nothing is so pleasant as a chat about our gardens!
Viki wrote: "Hi Everybody , I did not get to do much gardening today because it rained every few minutes all day .. So annoying. I ended up just potting up some alternathea commonly called , " Joseph's Coat"..."Viki, wow! The recipients of your plant gifts are so lucky. I have mild success with propagation. I can always use more plants! How do you propagate jasmine and hibiscus? You really should blog. Propagation alone is blog-worthy!
Anastasia wrote: "Hi! I'm Anastasia. I love roses, herbs, anything fragrant, anything that blooms or produces something edible -- in short, gardening! I also enjoy gardening books and blogs. Do we have gardening..."Hi Anastasia,
My daughter's name is Anastasia, Anastasia Rose :). I blog, but not just about gardens (although that is one of my themes), and not often enough. I am writing a series of middle grade "gardening fiction" novels, so that takes up most of my time. We are in the middle of a heatwave right now, so I'm trying to get out to the garden early to water. Berries are melting, lettuce and cilantro are bolting, but it will be a good year for cucumbers!
Welcome to the group! I only joined a short while ago myself, but it seems like a fun group.
Hi everyone! Yesterday was not a great gardening day for me . While out puttering around my feet betrayed me on our river rock path and I fell. Falling with my spine damage is a big " no- no" and I was stuck on the ground until my youngest son came looking for me . He pretty much picked me up and helped me walk with baby steps back inside, having back spasms all the way. My neighbors probably thought I was getting beaten since I was moaning and groaning all the way :-( So my gardening was cut short and I spent the rest of the day stuck in my chair . To occupy the time I re- read , Tovah Martin's, " The Unexpected Houseplant". I love Tova Martin books. I blame her for sparking my extreme plant addiction when years ago she wrote copy for my much loved Logees Nursery catalogs. Her words convinced me I could garden year round and not be limited to the flowers and veggies I put out every Spring. I have been acquiring exotics ever since and they get me through the bleak Winters we have here. I also compiled a " Dream Plant List " composed of wonderful names like : Golden Hops, Silver Dollar Eucalyptus, Kew Red Lavender
, Holy Basil, Attar of Roses Scented Geranium, a Caper Bush, and Variegated Mexican Oregano:-) I will keep this list going..
Today I am feeling more chipper. Back spasms are gone ( saying a prayer) and I am heading out to my garden and pots. Happy Gardening , Friends ! Bye for now .
New here at late and yet not too late. Yes I am canning lots of tomatoes today and the comming weeks. After putting up the summer bounty, I shall turn to the compost piles... Literally.The winter snowy months for me is for reading, dreaming and planning for what I want to plant next sping. Well, reading Science Fiction, physics and cooking books along with the gardening book in my retirement years.
Welcome, Mickey. I'm buried in tomatoes, too. Besides diced tomatoes, I'm canning salsa and catsup. Are you doing anything creative with your tomato canning this year?
Kimberly wrote: "Welcome, Mickey. I'm buried in tomatoes, too. Besides diced tomatoes, I'm canning salsa and catsup. Are you doing anything creative with your tomato canning this year?"I am into small batch canning, since it is only me, myself and I. So everything is in 16oz or 8oz jars. I hope to have about, 14 pints of crushed tomatoes, 21 pints of tomato juice, 24 half pints of salsa. 14 pints of basic sauce, 14 pints of pasta sauce. That should do it for one year. All tomato products will canned with my tiny 4 quart, 7 pint, All-American pressure canner. Salsa will be Water Bath. All from the Ball Home preserving book.
It was a very good year for my tomatoes in Michigan. Lots of rain in may, rain every so often though June and July and a dry spell durring August for ripening. The tomatoes are extra sweet this year.
The only vegetable started from seeds are tomatoes,under grow lights and heat pads, about 120 tomato plants from 4 varieties. All other vegetables are seed directly planted into the ground. Another 120 annuals started from seeds indoors for around the house flower beds.
I have given up on peppers :(
Hello Mickey. I've never had home-made canned tomatoes. I bet they taste amazing.
That's a lot of tomato plants! Do you sell the excess produce? All of your tomato products sound wonderful. I've got the Ball Home Preserving Book, too. I love that it's got drying and freezing directions as well as canning recipes.
Kimberly wrote: "That's a lot of tomato plants! Do you sell the excess produce? All of your tomato products sound wonderful. I've got the Ball Home Preservingb Book, too. I love that it's got drying and freezing..."Lots of plants? Depends. I own a small home on twenty acres in the country. I moved fifteen years ago from the city a few years before retirement.
Let's see, four 72 x 1 inch cell trays will fit on four shelves placed in front of one south side widow. Two trays for tomatoes and two trays for flowers. More math, so that leaves 144 tomato seedlings and 144 flowers, some do not make it. A month later I transplant them into 3" pots and put them on the covered front porch where they do well in the shade. On the few frost days I will put the trays in the bed of my pickup truck in garage out of the cold weather. Then around memorial day, warm enough that they go into the ground.
Total cost for seeds and soil for about $50 and better looking and healthier than most nurseries. About 2/3 of the tomatoes make it to the kitchen. Bugs, quality and so on goes to the compost pile. I sell nothing, I give away nothing, anything left which, is usually not much, goes into the compost piles.
It takes a lot of tomatoes to make a sweet sauce. An 8 quart stock pot with tomato juice boiled down by half, just to make 4 quarts or 8 pints of sauce.
Seeds directly into ground green beans, lettuces, beets, corn, carrots, pickling cucumbers, peas.
Flowers: marigolds, wave petunias, petunias, impatiens and coleus in other two trays.
S. wrote: "Anastasia wrote: "Hi! I'm Anastasia. I love roses, herbs, anything fragrant, anything that blooms or produces something edible -- in short, gardening! I also enjoy gardening books and blogs. Do..."Hi, S! Thank you for your welcome! Your daughter's name is so pretty; I love roses! I checked out your blog. It's great and your Seed Savers series for middle graders looks fantastic! What a brilliant way to encourage our youth to care about the future of sustainable gardening and where their food comes from.
Welcome Mickey! And to anyone else I've missed. Make yourself at home in the threads :-)
I'm also knee deep in tomatoes, Mickey. This year, after many years of canning tomatoes, I finally got smart and canned tomato soup. I can't believe I never thought of it over all these years. So far I've canned 15 pints and 12 quarts of soup. Goodbye Campbells!
Gloria wrote: "So far I've canned 15 pints and 12 quarts of soup. Goodbye Campbells!"I said Goodbye about five years ago. I make tomato soup from basic Crushed tomatoes or tomato juice. I had to go the homemade route because many processed foods in the last few years causes skin rashes. My own home canned food does not cause rashes. Manufactured bread causes rashes to me, my own baked bread made with organic wheat does not. I suspect gmo wheat as the cause and campbells use wheat as a thickener. So organic for me.
I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but even when there aren't any new messages this thread shows up when I hit the 'unread' option. Even now when I am actually on it. It also shows as 478 messages when there are actually 484.
Gloria wrote: "I'm also knee deep in tomatoes, Mickey. This year, after many years of canning tomatoes, I finally got smart and canned tomato soup. I can't believe I never thought of it over all these years. So f..."After reading the canning choices here, I made tomato soup for the first time this year and am blown away by the consistency and flavor! I shared a partial quart of soup with my mother and, upon request, passed along the recipe. I'm hoping to collect enough tomatoes to make a second batch. What wonderful winter eating ahead. Thanks for the idea, everyone.
Kimberly wrote: "Gloria wrote: "I'm also knee deep in tomatoes, Mickey. This year, after many years of canning tomatoes, I finally got smart and canned tomato soup. I can't believe I never thought of it over all th..."What recipe did you use?
One I found on the internet, which had been handed down through family members. I modified the recipe for safe canning (the original called for the addition of butter and flour, which I omitted). I figured that I could add those ingredients when I opened the jars for use, but the soup turned out so thick that it didn't need a thickener, and the flavor certainly isn't lacking! So I'm happy as punch with the end result.
I also used a recipe I found on the Internet. This is the url: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ty...It uses roasted tomatoes and this adds great flavor to the soup. If having the skins in the soup bothers you, remove them when you take the tomatoes out of the oven. However, I have an immersion blender and this makes making this soup so easy. The skins just get blended right in and no one seems to notice they are there.
This soup can be canned or frozen. Just don't add the cream or butter until you are ready to eat it.
Petra X wrote: "I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but even when there aren't any new messages this thread shows up when I hit the 'unread' option. Even now when I am actually on it. It also shows..."It is now showing 483, but not the red indicator that says how many new messages and I cannot go to the last message, only the oldest, original message in the thread. This is only happening on this thread, not on any others in any group.
Petra X wrote: "Petra X wrote: "I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but even when there aren't any new messages this thread shows up when I hit the 'unread' option. Even now when I am actually on i..."At the very top of the discussions their are two small tags with arrows, "Date" and "Newest", this will provide four different combinations of how the discussions are presented. I am a top down reader and usually select the response box at the bottom of the last page.
As for the number of new messages displayed that seems to be up to the server speed. Sometimes I will just tap the "Reload" button on my browser. Or leave the page and come back and the messages will updated.
I have the Goodreads app on my iPad and iPhone. They are good for notifications and updates and easier setups for adding and removing book titles. For updates to discussions the web site through a browser has much much more functionality than the apps. Though the apps is how learned about GoodReads.com
Garden Club was kind of funny last night. It was to be a plant exchange and a few people did bring plants. However, no one really wanted them as its so dry right now and such a chore to keep everything watered. I managed to come home with nothing which suited me just fine. Next month we are hoping to have a speaker from the county extension service do a presentation on straw bale gardening. There is a lot of interest in this within the club so we're hoping it works out.
Mickey wrote: "At the very top of the discussions their are two small tags with arrows, "Date" and "Newest", this will provide four different combinations of how the discussions are presented. I am a top down reader and usually select the response box at the bottom of the last page...."Thank you. It is a small thing but driving me nuts. It is on the Home page, where new posts are indicated in red. I don't have for this thread only any red posts, even when there should be, the other threads are fine.
Gloria wrote: "I also used a recipe I found on the Internet. This is the url: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ty...It uses roasted tomatoes and this adds great f..."
That recipe sounds good,Gloria. I'm going to try it. Thanks.
Gloria wrote: "I also used a recipe I found on the Internet. This is the url: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ty...It uses roasted tomatoes and this adds great f..."
The roasted tomatoes do sound good. I saw that recipe while I was searching the Web. Unfortunately, I now can't locate the recipe I used in order to share it. (I hand copied the recipe to include my changes, so I don't have a hard copy that includes the url.) :-(
Sounds like goodreads is being quirky again!
Hi, I garden in central North Carolina and have a particular weakness for spring ephemerals. Since it's that time of year when I don't want to be outside (well, relatively speaking), I thought I'd join up and meet some likeminded gardening obsessives. Glad y'all are out there!
Welcome! Make yourself at home in the threads :)
Just found this group--I am a professional horticulturist going on 34 years, and have been gardening compulsively, constantly and happily for over half a century (no, I am not the youngest person in this group). I have a half acre garden at home with some woods, borders, too many containers, veggies and lots of wildflowers. It's been a rough winter here so far (Colorado) so I check the computer more often. Come spring you may not hear too much from me for six months!
Welcome! Please make yourself at home in the threads, glad you've joined us!
Hi Jeanette from Michigan here. Haven't had much time to garden last few years but planning to get back to work come spring. Veggies and native flowers are my great obsessions. Glad to meet everyone!
Jeanette wrote: "Hi Jeanette from Michigan here. Haven't had much time to garden last few years but planning to get back to work come spring. Veggies and native flowers are my great obsessions. Glad to meet ever..."Hi Jeanette from Michigan :)
I can also use the "From Michigan" because I am from Michigan also.
Port Huron is probably the closest city to me. Glad to meet you :)
My foot of snow is melting fast almost gone, will probably be compleatly gone by morning :(
Thanks Mickey I'm just west of Detroit, watching our half foot of snow melt away. Misty moisty day...
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