Pyrates and Compost

[Ransom]

As it is now harvest season, and I am buried in tomatoes and cukes, I was just curious as to who on the pub also likes to garden? What do you grow? Veggies, herbs, flowers or all three? What do you do with what you grow?

Maybe toss in some of your gardening tips, or favorite varieties of plants.

[Captain Midnight]

I am a gardener, although I consider myself an amateur. I grow cayenne pepper, yellow (crookneck) squash, okra, eggplant, and tomatoes, and gourds (which I use for craft purposes). Outside of the vegetable garden, I grow my own scuppernong and muscadine grapes, and blueberries.

[CrazyCholeBlack]

I garden here. Only a bit right now but it will grow quite literally over the next few years. Currently we have only native plants. The vegetables will be slipped in next year after the perenials have matured. There are also plenty of daylillies left over from the previous owners. My neighbors morning glories invaded our fence & have happily climbed our back porch. Next year I will intentionally plant them there, they look very nice.

[Coastie04]

I've got moss growing outside (not hard, considering I'm in SE Alaska). I can keep bamboo alive (actually, it looks like bamboo, but it's some other related plant...I only know because I'm engaged to a botanist). So, I'm sure I'll have a garden after I'm married, but what will grow? Who knows. I probably won't be able to spell or pronounce over half of whatever is in it.

Coastie

[Cap'n Pete Straw]

This thread sounds familiar....

Last year I sunk an antique ladder into my backyard, and within the rung "squares," I dug up the earth and filled them with good potting soil. Then I planted herbs within each square. Cilantro, dill, rosemary, sage... I forget what else... and tomatows. By the end of the year I had an overabundance of tomatoes, and these bushy plants had overwhelmed the herbs.

I improved the plan this year. I took a half wooden barrel, and set it to the side of the ladder-garden; I planted the tomatoes in this. Nest to that are yellow peppers, then green peppers, and virtually the same herbs as the year before. The tomatoes are only starting to come in now (I started late), but should provide a bumper crop before the first freeze. Only one measly green pepper so far. Lots and lots of herbs.

Also have some flowers around the house... mostly native prairie plants... and put in a tree this year (Norwegian Maple).

[Rogue Mermaid]

One of my favorite parts of moving out of my apartment last April and moving in with my boyfriend is that I have a yard and plenty of room to garden. I have flowers all over the place! My nicest ones are my snapdragons, and I'm starting some irises for next spring. We also did yellow tomatos, squash, jalpaneos, and mini pumpkins for Halloween.

I built a ladder out of bamboo for the pumpkins to climb and I am really happy with the results.

[jessie k.]

I'm a college student, I unfortunately don't have time for gardening, but in the yard of the farmhouse we've just moved into is a rhubarb patch. Mmm. I have a single potted plant, a bloodleaf, which I call Rusty. My mother, bless her, has a huge garden at home, so I've been raiding it all summer whenever I go home for tomatoes, corn, beans, etc. I actually miss weeding it! My 12-year-old self would never have believed I just said that.

[William Brand]

We grew peppers this year in various degrees of heat ranging from, 'whoa...' up to 'aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeiiiiieeeee!'.

[Red Bess]

This thread sounds familiar....

Yes, I recall talking about this last year, when we had just moved into our new house. This was our second summer in our house and in my inherited perennial garden. This year I was brave enough to dig up and move some stuff around so the garden is slowing becoming my own. I no longer fear the rose bushes (since they all survived the winter with no help from me, I assume they are hardy varieties) and I have grand plans for next year to expand into a veggie garden and maybe even a water garden! Right now, I have to get going on some bulb planting so I can have tulips and daffodils for next spring.

[Ransom]

My garden is pretty big 60' x 120', but it's been twelve years in the making. It used to be a low, boggy area between our driveway and the seasonal creek. Over a period of five years we added fill dirt, and all the "compost" we clean from the horse stalls over the winter. It also is fenced, so the deer can't get to the plants.

Around the inside edges are perenials, herbs, and roses. The center is divided into four sections, where I grow tomatos, peppers, squash, cukes, basil, kale, and in winter, lettuce and spinach. In one section are two grape vines and a strawberry bed.

Lots of work, but worth it when you start eating all that good stuff!

[oderlesseye]

I love to plant things and care for flowers and more recent interest in bamboo and bannana plants. I hate however to cut grass and rake the yard!. I dig on watering the green living things about me haunt.

[Hester]

I have a garden in my front yard in the city that has gotten completely out of hand. [being away at my cottage most of the summer doesn't help matters.]

The previous owners of the house planted the yard as a "shrubbery". Perhaps I should ask the Knights who say "Ni" if they want it -- 'cause I sure don't!

When we first moved in, various shrubs of contrasting colours and ascending heights were planted in diagonal lines across the front yard. [They actually hired a professional landscaper to design this. Yikes!]

First, we took out the diseased dogwoods that were planted closest to the house, allowing our contractors to excavate the foundations for some (relatively effective) waterproofing. Next, we moved the row of yew bushes to the property line to form a more practical hedge. (That was a bugger of a job, I can tell 'ya! Good thing I was a decade younger then.)

In the space freed up, I planted an herb garden, using penny-pavers to lay out a quartered circle design. Well... there's really too much shade from the spruce tree to the south, and so the herbs didn't exactly thrive. However, the wild violets in the neighbourhood happily colonized the space. I've been meaning to dig them out for ages, but they keeping getting a reprieve each spring because they look so pretty when in bloom.

Now, I still have a row of euonymus that I'd like to rip out, plus some spirea, to give room for a couple Muskoka chairs.

Anyhow, I've planted lots of lily bulbs among the remaing shrubs in the meantime, and they make a nice show of colour in July.

Cheers, Hester