How Does Your Garden Grow?

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Several news stories and opinion pieces recently mention people are gardening more these days. Seed companies show a boost in sales. They credit the bad economy. (Here’s one such article by Peggy Noonan http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html )

If you couldn’t guess from my user name, I garden. It’s not just a trend for me, it’s a way of life. 🙂 We grow flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables in our yard. The flowers are my favorite. :flowers:

I confess I wasn’t very interested (or successful) in growing vegetables much until this year, but I’m putting forth a greater effort to grow veggies this year.

Does your family grow food in your garden? Have you gardened for a long time, or are you a newbie at it digging in the dirt? Are you thinking about starting to grow your own vegetables and fruits or expanding your established gardens?
 
I started gardening last year, and I love it.

Last year, we had a veggie garden with green beans, carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, peppers and basil. This year, we are doing all of those, plus tomatoes, peas, parsley and onions. My first year’s crop wasn’t too bad for a beginner.

I also grew tulips, morning glorys, impatiens, and zinnias. This year I’ve added an azalea bush, and I want to find some nice plants for our backyard, which is very shady.

I’m young, 25, but I come from a long line of veggie gardeners, so maybe that is where I get it from!
 
I’m a gardener too. I have always done a lot of landscape gardening and I love it!

My place is mostly shade, but I’ve learned how to grow some pretty impressive “full sun” flowers in dappled shade. Being in zone 4, I’m not as fortunate as many to have much of a veggie garden, but I do what I can.

This year I’m expanding my veggie space. Since a lot of my sun spots are taken up by my flowers, I’m using a bit of a different approach. I’m going to put herbs and such in with the flowers, and use some of my hanging pots for edibles. I am not fortunate enough to have a place to make a huge square garden on flat ground. 😉

I’ve always grown tomatoes in pots on my deck. I’ll do that again this year. I’ll stick veggies everywhere I can in between plants. The only problem I’m foreseeing is any root crops. Can’t be digging in around my perennials too much! LOL

Oh to have a plot where I could actually get full sun. 🤷

in Christ
Steph
 
Hubby and I started an organic garden this year! Right now, we have peas, beets and radishes on the way. We’ll also do peppers, pole beans, a bunch of herbs, and of course tomatoes! We don’t have a yard, but we “rent” space in his parents’ garden in exchange for some of the veggies.
 
I come from a long line of gardeners. My yard is filled with gardens, I love each and everything that grows in my yard. I also plant and take care of the gardens at our church and parish buildings.
 
I’m doing an organic veg garden this year. I’ve only done herbs and tomatoes before but this year I have more room, a nice 30x30 south facing spot. mostly my reasoning for it is that I love to cook and cook a LOT, and am always buying the same vegetable ingredients every week. I also try to get organic but it’s more $$ and not always in my budget. Also, i don’t like that organics are often shipped from China and elsewhere around the world not grown here, and the toll all that transport takes is wasteful in my opinion especially when I have the means to grow things myself. So, I ordered a whole bunch of seeds and seed potatoes and onions, and a strawberry plant. All together I’ve got

red and yukon gold potatoes
spinach
romaine lettuce
carrots
celery
yellow onions
2 kinds of garlic
shallots
tomatoes
butternut squash
small variety watermelon
cantelope
strawberries
zucchini
english cucumbers
heirloom purple bell pepper and some hot peppers
green beans
cabbage
broccoli

rigged up a rain barrel and have been composting all winter so it should be good to go:thumbsup:
 
I grow tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins and strawberries. This year, I graduated from college and got a job that allows me to afford those expensive perrenials, so I went a little crazy and planted:
fox glove
vining rose
lavender
heather
phlox
eucalyptus tree
wysteria
sweet peas
tulips
daffodils
lupine
raspberries
hollyhock
verbena
fuschias
coleus
streptocarpella
and a few others that I can’t remember the names of…:o
 
In our yard I have a flower garden that I love! We also have a large garden with my husbands family that live across the street. We grow:

potatoes
tomatoes
peppers
carrots
cabbage
lettuce
corn
watermelon
cucumbers
squash
broccoli
green beans
onions
garlic
and different herbs

I’m sure I’ve missed something, we have a lot!
 
tundramom said:
This year I’m expanding my veggie space. Since a lot of my sun spots are taken up by my flowers, I’m using a bit of a different approach. I’m going to put herbs and such in with the flowers, and use some of my hanging pots for edibles. I am not fortunate enough to have a place to make a huge square garden on flat ground. 😉

I’ve always grown tomatoes in pots on my deck. I’ll do that again this year. I’ll stick veggies everywhere I can in between plants. The only problem I’m foreseeing is any root crops. Can’t be digging in around my perennials too much! LOL

Oh to have a plot where I could actually get full sun. 🤷

in Christ
Steph
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With all that shade, you must live with mature trees. There’s a way to get more sun, but you probably wouldn’t like it…:christmastree1: Sounds lke you found a better alternative by working with what you’ve got. 👍 I like flowers combined with herbs, and several vegetables are attractive enough to mix in with landscape.

On the root crops, I’ve read of people growing potatoes in bags and barrels, (even trash cans). I’m trying potatoes for the first time this year and considered getting this http://www.gardeners.com/Potato-Bin/VegetablePlanters_Cat,36-629,default,cp.html#MyReviewHeader , but decided to plant them in the ground instead.
 
MissMichal said:
Hubby and I started an organic garden this year! Right now, we have peas, beets and radishes on the way. We’ll also do peppers, pole beans, a bunch of herbs, and of course tomatoes! We don’t have a yard, but we “rent” space in his parents’ garden in exchange for some of the veggies.
Click to expand...
What a great idea to trade space for veggies at your in-laws!
 
What I found in my garden last Thursday when I went to weed my flowers for the 1st time this year. 😃
 
shannyk said:
I’m doing an organic veg garden this year. I’ve only done herbs and tomatoes before but this year I have more room, a nice 30x30 south facing spot. mostly my reasoning for it is that I love to cook and cook a LOT, and am always buying the same vegetable ingredients every week.I also try to get organic but it’s more $$ and not always in my budget. …
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I love cooking too. Sounds like you’re putting in a huge veggie garden. Mine’s not quite that big. If this vegetable garden saves me a few trips to the grocery store it will pay for itself just by keeping me out of the store and away from some of the “splurge” items that somehow always end up in my grocery cart.
shannyk said:
…rigged up a rain barrel and have been composting all winter so it should be good to go:thumbsup:
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Compost, the black gold of the garden. I compost too, but just cold composting. I don’t have enough ready for this year’s big veggie garden expansion, so I bought some. Seems a bit crazy to pay money for someone else’s well-rotted trash, but I do it anyway.:whacky: I saw some composters in a gardening catalog and was shocked :eek: at the price, which made me feel better about paying for compost.
 
Ross09 said:
I grow tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins and strawberries. This year, I graduated from college and got a job that allows me to afford those expensive perrenials, so I went a little crazy and planted:…
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Perenial flowers–now I have much more experience with those than vegetables. If you don’t mind unsolicited advice, I suggest, (as I learned the hard way), mark the spot where you planted. As they die down in winter, some still looks dead in spring if they pop up at later times than others. I’ve double planted over perenials and accidently dug some up because I saw an empty spot in the garden and tried to add in a plant where one already lived. I eventually learned which of my plants came up later and stopped doing that.
 
Its a bunny, I am sorry someone thought it was a dead chicken :rotfl: :rotfl:.

There were 5 I found them with the leaf blower! :o poor little bunnies but they lived! 👍 and momma bunny has moved them :bounce:
 
catholic79 said:
Its a bunny, I am sorry someone thought it was a dead chicken :rotfl: :rotfl:.

There were 5 I found them with the leaf blower! :o poor little bunnies but they lived! 👍 and momma bunny has moved them :bounce:
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Sorry:o It looked liked there were feathers there too. I couldn’t tell what it was…:o:D
 
happymommy said:
Sorry:o It looked liked there were feathers there too. I couldn’t tell what it was…:o:D
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There were feathers I have no idea why, 🤷 momma bunny must have found them and used them, but I promise no posts of pics of dead chickens 😃
 
catholic79 said:
There were feathers I have no idea why, 🤷 momma bunny must have found them and used them, but I promise no posts of pics of dead chickens 😃
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Okay good, no dead chickens!! People think enough weird things about us crazy Catholics, we don’t need to help them out!!

Okay, now back to everyones gardens!! My tulips are coming up and they look so pretty!! I love this time of year when all of the bulbs begin to bloom!!
 
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