Can't Grow Anything, Either!

[digitS']

I have been thinking about OG's thread on hen & chickens and how Lesa has problems with squirrels eating the plants . . . pardon me while I smile into my napkin .

No, there probably isn't a single anything that is completely free from danger in one garden or another! Face it! Stand up and face it! Life is tough. Gardening is all about life and I recently tried to make the point that plants are a good indication of climate because they have a limited range of adaptability. We notice that and yet we try to aaalllll have roses in our yards, lettuce in our gardens, roots in our cellars . . . .

Well, that's our hope -- that we actually get some beauty from our landscaping and food out of our vegetable gardens. I am about ready to give up on peaches again. Or, better put, peaches are about ready to give up on me. What a commitment!! I've had peach trees on 3 different occasions. I could say "eras." Plant one and a decade later, it dies :/!

Here is an idea for the vegetable garden. Grow a lot of variety. I mean, I am thinking of expanding the soybean selection this year. Looking at what is being offered by some seed companies that I've never dealt with. 15 seeds . . . I'm not kidding - some of them are selling packets of 15 seeds! Now, don't pretend to be surprised! You know full well that half the packets on those wonderfully attractive racks at the garden center - have only 15 seeds in them, no matter what we are talking about! Hey, you can probably do some gardening with 15 tomato seeds or 15 zucchini seeds. But, 15 soybean seeds or lettuce seeds or snapdragon seeds . . . !?

When I decided to try soybeans for the first time, and I do NOT live anywhere near where soybeans are grown commercially, I had about 10 packets . . . Yeah, they each had about 15 seeds . The next year, I think I had 3. Then, there were 2.

Finally, I had this wonderfully productive row of soybeans from 1 variety! Now, I will see about trying another.

Did you know that the word "oojiboo" actually has some kind of real meaning? Yeah, according to some online dictionaries! It is something that you'd prefer not to mention because it might jinx things for you. Yeah, scary! Okay, let's not talk about "oojiboo" but how about some ideas to help beginning gardeners? And, we are all beginning gardeners in some corner of our gardens, aren't we? After all the many seasons out there, 5 years ago, I'd never planted a soybean.

Steve

 

[digitS']

Okay, now that I got all that seriousness outta the way:

oojiboo!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJny78bpsgo[/youtube]

Steve

 

[Carol Dee]

oojiboo ... never heard of that. Kinda like it. Loved the Mary Tyler Moore clip. A good laugh to start the day. TFS,

 

[digitS']

Here is another idea for growing success: choose crops that are only in the ground for a short time.

A lot can go wrong with a 90 day tomato variety. Being a successful tomato gardener may be as easy as growing a 56 day variety, instead .

Steve

who will edit the MTM youtube off as soon as Lesa yells at me .

 

[lesa]

I am not going to yell at you, Steve! If my gardening woes provide a chuckle- I am happy for it! I was secretly happy to find the squirrels eating my hens and chicks. I didn't want to think my thumb wasn't green enough to grow them!

 

[897tgigvib]

That's one of the charms of gardening. No two gardens have the precise same purposes, practical matters, results, or varieties.

Varieties. The very taxonomic name matches with what gardens have and are.

Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, Subspecies, Variety.

Whether we are experimenting with a lot of varieties of one species,
or are experimenting with an entirely new Class such as a Fern, or even something non vascular such as a true Moss,
we are gardening.

Always looking for something new to us, even if it is really old or something that will become old in the future.

Amazing I think!

 

[digitS']

I am not going to yell at you, Steve! If my gardening woes provide a chuckle- I am happy for it! I was secretly happy to find the squirrels eating my hens and chicks. I didn't want to think my thumb wasn't green enough to grow them!

Thanks, Lesa! I'm in kind of a strange mood lately. Health & family, most everyone probably experiences problems with both. But anyway, I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks when I watched that clip from the old MTM show.

I think I've said it before: whenever I see a list of plants that grow easily, all mine are on it . Anything that takes real skill - well, that's beyond me.

Even at that, I usually have to find a variety that does well here. Not somewhere a thousand miles away but in these growing conditions and, wow, do growing conditions change from one mile to the next. This may be part of what Marshall calls the charming nature of gardens.

Smiles mentioned on another thread that leafy greens are about the easiest things to grow. How true! But, it does take timing and not just "a short time in the garden" kind of timing. When the spring clouds and rain finally blow away in July and we go into what might be 3 months of near zero rain, not too many spinach plants will survive for long.

Of course, if I was growing those plants for flowers and seed . . . then I could claim success with my late summer spinach harvest .

Steve

 

[baymule]

At least you get spinach to grow. That's another one of those crops that hates me. Oh wait, It's not me after all..........it hates my CLIMATE!!!! It won't grow worth a durn here. And most of you grow crops in your garden (after all the feet-deep snows melt) that I have to grow in the winter. In the middle of summer, many of you are getting your first tomatoes and my vines are fried to a crisp.

 

[digitS']

Some folks, even with sub-zero winters, plant spinach seed during the last few weeks of the growing season. The tiny plants winter-over and provide very early spring greens.

I don't do that. What takes the place of that very early spinach in my garden is orache. It might work for you there, Bay'. Orache is a spinach "cousin" and something that volunteers in my garden. It isn't really invasive since it is an annual so the little seedlings are easy to pull, if they aren't where you want them. They transplant easily, too.

I allow a couple of "mother plants" to re-seed the orache crop every September.

Here is what I find along the edge of the veggie garden in the spring:

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

Here is an idea for the vegetable garden. Grow a lot of variety. I mean, I am thinking of expanding the soybean selection this year. )

Great idea! I'm planting more varieties too....of potatoes. Eight varieties this year, instead of my standard three. I figure I need to expand
my selections to discover which ones I prefer as far as production , taste and storage.
That orache looks like something I should plant, easy to grow and keeps coming back. And I didn't know that about spinach, definitely going to give that a try too!