Gardening 2018

I've compiled a seed list and started planting seeds (Broad Beans, Cardoons, a Gooseberry) on windowsills. If I'm honest, I'm not sure this is totally based on any idea that things will grow (though I hope they do) but more to do with pottering and organising. It gives me an excuse to buy seeds/plants I "need", too.

I could probably do with getting all the seeds planted (or shared) as some are more than a year old.

After a few years off, I'm ready to have a summer full of fresh tomatoes again. I've got 9 seed pots started with Boxcar Willie and 6 with Amish Paste, and seeds left over if anything bad happens to those.

Big news: I have bought some potatoes ("Kestrel") for growing in bags.

I use growbags for potatoes and find potato-growing particularly satisfying. Also hard to fuck up.

Second year starting seeds, going better than last year but ask me again in like four weeks.

The seedlings I started from seed didn't do well at all, but I found a nearby nursery that had Boxcar Willie seedlings. I have 2 BWs in the ground and 2 in containers, one Mortgage Lifter* in the ground and one in a container, and one Roma in the ground. I have another Roma seedling but not sure if/where I'll plant it.

*supposedly makes 1.5- to 2-lb. fruit

My seed starting went much better this year than last; I’m hardening off this week and will plant out this week. Chickens are on weeding/tilling duty in the veggie bed.

I have to confess to being a bit *gutted* when I sat down, bottle of red and cheese-based snacks at the ready, to watch Gardeners World on Friday - it was off-air in place of snooker.

The raised beds are looking quite good from over wintered (mostly) leaves ... which I need to harvest before the cabbage whites appear. A few things have bolted, though.

I've been growing seeds on a particularly bright office window and have been amazed how far ahead the seedlings are compared to my darker home window sill. A colleague asked me if the plants were for planting out or if it was some kind of social experiment.

Got a few things growing in the garage - it has a big window but is still probably a bit dark: peas (look a bit sad), sunflowers, artichokes, purslane, French beans, beetroot (in those hydratable compost discs), runner beans, rocket and some flowers. Have had quite a few "non starters" from seed that has been left too long. Had planned to use absolutely every packet of seeds that isn't from this year even if this was growing to excess (and giving away) or lobbing in random bits of land.

My tomatoes thrived so well in pots while I waited for the last cold weather to pass that they all have blooms now, one week after planting.

I thought I'd been really grown up with the raised beds and left plenty of space between plants but it is looking over full.

Need to have some cabbage-based meals.

A few of the things (broccoli, land cress) have bolted and it feels strangely brutal to be pulling them out to make way for other plants.

Planted some Sempervivum in a concrete tray (to be "on trend", obviously).

My bf has a big veg garden in his back yard now! It's been a delight to direct sow with carrot, edamame, radishes, bok choy, and to plant starts of leeks, eggplant, herbs, and more. I hope the deer don't eat them all first.

The prior owner was an avid gardener so there's peonies, bleeding hearts, shasta daisies, wisteria, Russian sage, hydrangeas, grape hyacinths, double daffodils, a rose of sharon, and two flowering trees in his yard, AND I just sowed seeds a couple of weeks ago for poppies, echinacea, and sweet alyssum on the steep slope at the front of the house. It makes no sense to have grass planted on a slope so steep you can't walk on it. My goal is to rototill the entire front and replace with a slope perennial garden tbh.

Pls google “no till gardening “ first! The current state of gardening is anti-till anti-double digging, thank god

Esp on a slope, I would not till that soil! Mucho erosion potential!

It's the beginning of fall where I am. In summary, my gardening for this year was a complete bust. All my vegetable plants never made it past the seedling phase, my roses got invaded by aphids, and now the last of my basil and sage just got invaded by aphids.

Hi! The hill is currently covered in several decades' worth of grass with matted roots, so sowing seeds in it is not going to work! Hence my desire to roto. But maybe I can just dig up in patches as I drop in mature plants? Como esto:
http://sjusenate.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/steep-slope-garden-stunning-landscape-ideas-for-a-slope-of-garden-steep-slope-landscaping-ideas-pictures.jpg

Have hit that point where the raised beds are full of (fairly successful) over-wintered greens and have run out of space for all the other veg that has been growing on windowsills and needs to go out.

Have been palming plants off on neighbours.

Have been growing stuff on a great windowsill at work and have been struck by how much difference light makes (the plants at work have been soaring ahead of the things I have on my darker home windowsills).

I had a couple tomato volunteers in my compost pile, so I moved them to the usual tomato bed. They seem to be doing OK, no fruit yet but a flower or two. Funny thing is I don't remember putting any tomato debris in the compost since last year's crop, and can't believe the seeds have sat there this long before sprouting.

Last year I bought some oddball types and none of them produced well, so I may still get a reliable producer or two for the rest of the bed.

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/35921666_10157447234743709_7439149369766445056_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=dd54efe7f5c95bda671dfd7281433b5a&oe=5BAFF810

I grew a tomato with buttocks and had to give it a thong for support.

I put in 12 tomato plants last weekend and I hope they still have time to grow.

Garden has hit *that point*: the greens have become a caterpillar farm, a few things have withered in the heat and lots of things are scrappy and have gone to seed.

What's worth putting in? (UK)

I'm an asshole and didn't get my tomato cage extensions up before the plants overgrew the five foot cages; I now have a big tomato vine mess on my hands. At least they have set fruit! And my hot peppers and cukes are producing nicely despite similar levels of neglect.

I've got three tomato plants growing on the sunny windowsill at work, two growing in my garden and one on a home windowsill. `I have a crop of six tomatoes.

That point of panic where its almost too late to plant anything.

i eradicated all the shitty plants in my little planting box except the rosemary, bought a bag of compost and some fall-plantable vegetable seeds. but today it's raining all day. i also have 2 big pots i can put lettuce in. wish me luck.

I'll go back outside for Gardening 2018 once the fucking mosquitoes have died back.