Gardeners of AW, unite

[Teinz]

Originally Posted by Fenika

Wow, that looks amazing. I'm jealous of your grapes but know next to nothing about them. The gardens alive site I posted above will have some good info.

Thanks Fenika!

[blacbird]

Finally got all my veg garden in (where I live, getting things in by the first of June is pretty good). And I have a vegetable recommendation:

Asparagus peas.

I've grown these in the past, and they are thoroughly delightful, though they are low, spreading plants that take up some room. But you can grow them in pots. They produce these small winged pea pods, which you eat whole, best picked at an inch or slightly more long. Great in cooking or salads.

I hadn't been able to find seeds locally for the past three or four years, so was delighted to abscond with some when they first appeared at my favorite garden store. They didn't last long there, so other people know about them as well. They are also decorative, with blood-red flowers, and some people grow them for the flowers alone.

Note that these are not the same as asparagus beans, a completely different legume. But if you live in a warm climate, they do quite well there, too. I grew them years ago when I lived in the Dallas, Texas area.

And I've never seen them in a grocery store, even highly specialized Asian stores which seem to stock everydamvegetableknowntohumankind.

caw

[aliwood]

The weather was good enough to get out and do some weeding in the back garden this morning. I can see my rhubarb now and my efforts were appreciate by the local birds who started pecking away at the greenfly on my roses before I had even finished. It was so nice I took the writing pad out there and ended up doing my own version of w1s1 - that's weed one, scribble one (paragraph), worked quite well too.

[eablevins]

I planted impatiens in a window box!

Their flowers fell off.

That might have been the hail storm, but it's more likely that they took one look at my weed-filled garden and decided to commit flower suicide.

Anyway, I'm going to get my husband to drill holes for better drainage, stick miracle gro in my watering can, and, uh, pray.

[aliwood]

I was inspired enough to go and take some pictures for you all. Now let's see if I can actually do this. *Racks memory*

DCP_3615 by alisgardenpics, on Flickr

Huzzah, it works, hold on there's more coming. This could be long.


DCP_3616 by alisgardenpics, on Flickr


DCP_3617 by alisgardenpics, on Flickr


DCP_3618 by alisgardenpics, on Flickr


DCP_3619 by alisgardenpics, on Flickr


DCP_3620 by alisgardenpics, on Flickr


DCP_3621 by alisgardenpics, on Flickr


DCP_3622 by alisgardenpics, on Flickr

[shakeysix]

i took some pix but i can't figure how to insert them. when it asks for the url of the picture i don't know what they are talking about. my photos are in my documents.--s6

[aliwood]

Well, as you might tell from my post s6, I uploaded to a Fiickr account first. I know a lot of folk here use photobucket to store their pics, and then the photo site will give you a url to link to.

Does that help?

[HistorySleuth]

When my recycle bin garden looks more lively I'll post some pics. Poor little plants. It's been raining and chilly for 2 days nonstop. Luckily they drain out the bottom. Finally some sun today so I'm hoping they will shoot right up.

[Fenika]

Omg, yesterday I got home from work and the peas had fallen over and when I proped them up there were peas! So many peas! They went straight from the plant to my mouth. I stopped counting after seven.

Originally Posted by eablevins

I planted impatiens in a window box!

Their flowers fell off.

That might have been the hail storm, but it's more likely that they took one look at my weed-filled garden and decided to commit flower suicide.

Anyway, I'm going to get my husband to drill holes for better drainage, stick miracle gro in my watering can, and, uh, pray.

Check what type of fertilizer impatients like. Some flowers wont bloom with high nitrogen and such.


Ali- that garden looks wonderful. I look forward to seeing how it transforms through the summer!

[Alessandra Kelley]

Originally Posted by shakeysix

GRAPES! i have grapes! i only put in the vines a year ago. they grow on an arbor that covers a bench in my sitting garden. i expected shade from the vines but no grapes because the soil is heavy and last summer was so hot, windy and dry, but the vines have lots of bunches of grapes. they are thompson seedless green grapes. they are about the size of dimes. i have no idea how to tell when they are ripe. better look it up.
my apricot tree is covered with apricots but it always bears well. my peach tree is so heavily loaded that the little old man next door had to help me brace it. we had to do it in spanglish. he is my neighbor's father who is now retired. he had a huerta in mexico--that is an orchard. my spanish is pretty classroom oriented but i do understand him and he does eventually understand me. he grew lemons and avocados and duraznos--peaches. he does think i spend (gastar) too much space and water on flowers. funny--just like my grandpa would say--s6

Holy smokes. Where do you live? Our grapes are only just blooming.

We have some grapevines on our back deck, Himrod seedless. They're good. You can tell they're ripe when you pop one into your mouth and it's sweet.

Unfortunately we have to net the things because otherwise our thieving little squirrels eat them all before they're even ripe. Which means a sort of improvised and annoying net cage over our back porch and we have to watch out for birds getting trapped inside. We got a little downey woodpecker on our porch under the net two years ago and I had to diplomatically help it out.

Our sweet cherry in the shaded back yard is kind of unhappy this year, with almost no fruit, but the sour pie cherry in the full-sun front yard is going gangbusters. I used to net it, but discovered a couple of years ago that the squirrels and birds around here won't eat sour pie cherries. It's just a dwarf tree, but it looks like quarts and quarts of fruit which should be picked some time in the next week.

[Teinz]

That's a beautiful garden Aliwood!

@Shakeysix. Try tinypic. Upload, copy-paste the imagelink for forums and your golden.

[Shadowflame]

I'll have to take photos of mine this weekend. Tomato plants are almost ready for steaking!

Fertilized the ground around everything last week and low and behold it rained for 2 days. (Nice rain too) so everything got watered down well. Oh and if your tomoatoes look lackluster I suggest epson salt! makes the plants go ZOOM!

[sunandshadow]

The grapes I have (concord seeded) are at the stage now where they are slightly bigger than a pea. That's in zone 6 PA. I've been considering ripping mine out though, because grape moths are such a big problem in this area. If I don't spray some pretty nasty chemicals at least four times a year, which I don't want to do, at least half the grapes will be ruined.

[Fenika]

Is there a space issue such that you want something else there? What about disease/pest resistant grapes? Are there natural controls that are fairly good and then you can just see how the harvest goes?

[zanzjan]

My grapes have taken over my entire back deck and keep trying to strangle my lilac, but they make huge quantities of grapes for me. Unfortunately, I'm about to have the deck worked on, and the grapes have to go.

If anyone is near western Massachusetts and wants to come take a pair of aggressively fecund and possibly homicidal concord grape plants, ping me tonight and I'll try to dig them out whole. Otherwise, I think they've reached their end.

[Fenika]

Craigslist those grapes.

[sunandshadow]

Originally Posted by Fenika

Is there a space issue such that you want something else there? What about disease/pest resistant grapes? Are there natural controls that are fairly good and then you can just see how the harvest goes?

It's not a space issue. The grapes produced by the 2 vines are almost too acidic to eat, so I'm not that fond of them anyway. There are neither moth-resistant grapes nor a good natural remedy, as far as I am aware.

[Fenika]

Hmm. I dont know grapes, like I said, but unsweet fruit is often a daylight issue. If not that- bad soil???

[Fenika]

I have zucchini blooms! And looks like one wee fruit forming. Bring on summer!

[Teinz]

Originally Posted by sunandshadow

The grapes I have (concord seeded) are at the stage now where they are slightly bigger than a pea.

Jeez, my grape still needs to bloom.

[Fenika]

Picture time! First, here's my post from 5/16 for comparison:

Originally Posted by Fenika

The 10x4 bed. Strawberries at the foot. Lots of celeriac. Snap peas at the end. Behind it is bed 2, a 4x4 with the same celeriac and single row of snap pea arrangement. Both have high water needs.

Downhill is another 4x4 bed, and barely visible is the newest 10x5 bed.




The 10x5 with zuccs, two tomatoes, one lone brocolli in the south corner, some carrots and bush beans starting to sprout...



Downhill of the stairstep 4x4s. Cosmos for polinators and color are in that tan pot. In bed 3 I have brocolli, lettuce, and spinach.




Flower already little peas!!! You can also see one of the bigger celeriac. They grow slowwww. I also have lots of empty spots, but my mom brought me back seeds from Czech. I think they are the Prague variety and I hope they dont mind a slightly late start.

[Fenika]

The 4x10:



The 4x5 with zuc, peppers, a brocolli, carrots hidden under bush beans, and some sprouting basil but they are getting covered by the sprawling zucchini:



The 4x4 pair:



The lettuce has been mostly harvested and some is nicely shaded by the brocolli. I've planted pepper seeds indoors to succeed the brocolli. The celeriac in the back groweth slowly.


Tomorrow's dinner appetizer:



Celeriac bulb:



Soon I'll have to start trimming the stems to get healthier bulbs. They taste similar to regular celery but sharper flavored. I'll dry some for winter stews.

[Fenika]

*deep breath* But wait, there's moar!

The container garden, with a little of everything. I mercilessly murdered roses to free up space:



Blackberry!



Downhill; two scallopini squash (keep like winter squash, woot!):



From the driveway, with sunflowers in the foreground:



Across the driveway and down a 'secret' path: 3 heritage red raspberries (spring and fall production) and 1 black raspberry (larger and early spring bearer):



The bucket on its side is filled with water for toads and such. I have yogurt containers on their sides with water in the main garden.

Black raspberries!



(they were nom)

Heh.

Fin.

[amergina]

Fen made me post these...

They are craptastic cell phone pictures. One of these days, I'll charge the battery on my real camera.

First up is part of the front bed I worked on today. I weeded and put in edging. I also got about 1/4 of the bed mulched. Here we have gladioli, a clematis, irises and some kind of berry bush that decided to grow there. No thorns. It's blooming for the first time this year, so I guess I'll find out what it is... more glads, and a planter with red bergamot. Behind it, you can see the messy messy garden by the driveway. The really tall plant is meadow rue.

Across the street is a parklet.



Next we have the part of the bed that I didn't mulch. You can see the edging I put in. Daylilies, roses, and irises, and some other stuff at the end.



And here's the end, blazing star, pinks I finally planted, and a mini azalea in a planter, which I also finally got around to planting.




Doesn't look like a lot, but the whole bed was pretty darn weedy and I had to tear up some of the lawn to put in the edging. I ended up with a full lawn bag at the end of the day.

[Fenika]

It looks super, Gina I like how your clematis is set up.