Garden thread

So who here can't wait to start seedlings? Still about a month away here in Zone 6. Peppers and eggplant usually take forever to sprout and seem the hardest to keep alive. Lost them all last year and had to buy nursery plants. I'm thinking of growing broccoli this year, but have zero experience there.
What are your 2024 garden plans?

I forgot about this until today. I only remembered because I picked up a few sprouting acorns from native oak trees while I was out on my hike and I was potting them up. I will probably try to create bonsai from them. I have never been successful doing a bonsai with a native oak. They just don't like it. Will that stop me from trying again? Apparently not. I've got several empty bonsai pots and another one that will be empty when my fears are confirmed in the spring that one of my favorites is dead. I will need to buy more bonsai soil anyway as this year I need to pull most of them out of their pots, prune their roots, and repot with fresh soil.

But what I noticed was a pot I had set out on my potting table. My poor falling-apart potting table. It was from when I cleaned up part of my garden several weeks ago. It was one of the artichokes I had left in the garden as a nectar source for pollinators and also because the flowers are beautiful. Well, the flower had gone to seed, and the seeds had started to sprout.

Anybody want some sprouted artichokes? They have mutated into a very delicious plant that survives our winters (USDA Zone 8b). They also have very mean thorns that point OUT so they will hurt you if you're not careful...

My world is covered with rime. We had an ice storm the other day. Today was sunny. I've been out walking in it every day. Today was nice because of the sun. When I got back, I walked to the back of my yard. I figured the ice is thick and solid enough - like concrete - that I won't hurt the turf by walking on it. I usually try not to walk on frozen turf - it can get damaged.

Anyway, we haven't had temperatures above freezing since Friday, and we're expecting it to get down to between 13 and 15 tonight. All of my perennials should be safe because they are coated in a layer of ice. This is one of my blueberry bushes:


Another round of freezing rain is expected tomorrow. We'll probably lose more limbs and trees. Some friends have been without electricity for about 30 hours. I think the crew was working to get it back as it grew dark. Good thing because of tonight's weather. At least they have a wood stove, but I fear for their well.

CoffeeCastle wrote: »

I love to garden! I always do really well with tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini. Tried lettuce for the first time last year and that went really well. Oh and kale! I got tons of great kale. The thing I always have trouble with are herbs. My herbs never stay nice for very long. This year I’d like to master that.

What troubles have you had, and with which herbs? They're one of the things I can manage, mostly . . . though I do stick with ones that aren't too fussy.

We have cold Winters here, so the rosemary is potted, moves in and out seasonally. I've had better luck with upright varieties vs. trailing (which seem to root-rot more easily).

The oregano, tarragon, sage, lovage, thyme, and mint are hardy here outdoors in the ground . . . the sage and oregano a little too vigorous sometimes, TBH. I have to rip out a bunch most years so they don't take over the bed. (I grow the mint in a trough and treat it badly so that it won't go wild. )

I usually grow some dill, cilantro, and basil in big pots as annuals. Sometimes I grow nasturtiums for salad, also in a pot.

This past year, I started some chives and garlic chives in planters, but they didn't germinate well, even though they did well for me at my previous place. (I should have ordered seed online from a better source, probably. I'll do so this year and try again.)

Guilty admission is that I used to grow a lot of veggies and some fruits, but have gotten lazy about that, especially since widowhood - doing everything around the house/yard sometimes gets the better of me.

wendymoreland3796 wrote: »

Do the quality of the seeds matter? Do people have recommendations on where they buy seeds?

I've had great luck with 25¢ seeds from Dollar Tree. I'm not trying to grow huge prize winning produce and things like squash and beans seem to be able to thrive no matter what. I also sometimes save seeds from grocery store produce and kitchen scraps and have had good results there. I've found growing peppers from seed - no matter the seed price - to be the most challenging.

wendymoreland3796 wrote: »

I have always started my garden from plants, but this year I want to try from seeds. Do the quality of the seeds matter? Do people have recommendations on where they buy seeds?

It depends on where you garden, but IMO some things are better from plants, others from seeds. (Whether garden centers sell them as plants is not a good guide. They sell quite a few things here as plants that grow well from seeds, and have a reputation for not liking to be transplanted.)

I tried growing tomatoes, peppers, and their kin from seeds. Here (at the time zone 5b), one has to start them indoors. I was never able to get the conditions right to produce as robust, sturdy plants as I could get from a good garden center or the farmers market. I think light was the problem. I don't have a greenhouse or even a good South window exposure, and even growing under grow lights and on heat mats didn't equal the quality of plants I could get in small pots.

OTOH, even the long-ish season vine-y things (Winter squash, for example) did fine from seed, though I hilled them and used Hotkaps or similar to get a small jump start. The brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts) have been variable for me. Some of the smaller leafy things in that genus did fine from seed (mustard greens, bok choy, etc.). Some of the heading types (cabbage, broccoli) did better from purchased plants. YMMV for sure.

There are some herbs I wouldn't grow from seed. Oregano has a reputation for not coming true from seed in flavor, even seed from good plants. I prefer to buy a plant so I can at least smell it. Mints are also unpredictable from seed, IME.

For sure, I'd grow annual herbs from seed. I especially see people buying basil plants and wonder why: They don't take long to mature from seed, and I want more than a couple of dinky plants. I liked to plant my tomatoes (caged) in 3-foot square spaces, right in the middle. Then I would plant basil in a band all around the edge. By the time the tomatoes started wanting all their space in mid-summer, the basil was ready to go. I'd cut most of it (other than a bit planted on its own at intervals for later use) and make vast amounts of pesto or even just olive oil/basil paste to freeze in jam-sized canning jars. (Frozen pesto is a nice Christmas present for foodie friends.)

The quality of the seeds isn't a big deal in terms of germination, usually, unless they've been handled badly (stored in a hot location, for example). I think that was the issue with the chives and garlic chives I mentioned.

That said, I do prefer to order seeds from a home garden specialist retailer online. Admittedly, they're more expensive, but OK with me given the amount of effort and money I'll invest overall. For some reason, many of the seed varieties in garden centers are varieties that would be commercially grown. Often, their breeding is optimized for appearance and shipping qualities, maybe simultaneous ripening, other things commercial growers prize.

There are specialty seed sources that focus more on home or farmers garden type varieties. They're more likely to be bred for flavor, disease resistance, possibly for particular regions, and that sort of thing.

For me, gardening in Michigan, Johnny's Selected Seeds in Albion, Maine was my main go-to, because they specialize in Northern gardens. They also have the most informative descriptions I've ever seen. Many vendors will be all glow-y prose about how wonderful every variety they sell is. That's dumb. Johnny's will be very explicit about tradeoffs (this bean is earliest, that most prolific, another more disease resistant, etc.). They also provide more detailed culture information than others on their web site. Love them.

There are others that have that kind of home grower specialization, too. It's been too long since I've veggie gardened much, so I don't have many specifics. I think Renee's Garden is one that's still in business. I'm sure there are others. Some of the biggies (Burpee, Ferry Morse, etc.) sell online, but mostly sell the same varieties you can get in packets at a decent garden center. Some good garden centers these days will carry a seed line that's more home garden oriented, though.

I got my other two fig trees pruned up today. Pulling on the saw, it was very obvious to me I was at the gym yesterday. Not painful, just could tell that I'd been using those muscles. It's some of my weaker muscles, so I'll be happy if I increase their strength. I filled the Green Waste Cart. It gets emptied tomorrow, so I can move on to whatever is next. Now all I have left is two pear trees (Bartlett and Chojuro), a cherry tree (plus a flowering cherry if I decide it needs some work), a plum tree, the grapes, the raspberries, the blueberries, and I guess the red currant and gooseberry if I decide to do them. There's some other things too, but that's all the fruit. I don't mind pruning some of the other things any time of the year unless it affects the flowering. I did a walk around, and I don't think there's a whole lot that needs much work. There's some shrubs I may get to in spring after they flower.

And I also noticed that I no longer have to worry about those sprouted acorns I was going to plant. I checked to see if they survived all the ice. I can't say whether they did. None of them had grown upwards yet - just roots. Well, I checked on them again today. They have "flown away." Either a scrub jay or a squirrel I presume. I bet it was a scrub jay. Grrrr. If I go back out to that trail, maybe I'll bring a plastic bag and small trowel and see about collecting some more. I think it must be a mast year.

I need to get out to one of the independent garden centers north of town that has a bonsai section. I need a big bag of potting mix; I think I need to repot all of the surviving bonsai this year. I won't need any for those oak trees... But I do have some other trees that are ready for bonsai pots. Two incense-cedars and two Port Orford-cedars.

The bad news is that I live in US Zone 6b and it will be 2-3 months before I can even think of moving them outside.

Even here in Michigan, we're seeing some of the Spring bulbs and early-flowering plants start earlier than average.

I had my first snowdrops (Galanthus sp.) in early January. Then, it was just one clump behind the garage that's always earlier than the others, but now many are starting to pop out, too. The earlier Hellebores (usually the ones with some H. niger in their lineage) are in full bud, and even some of the H. orientalis hybrids are showing a tiny bit of bud color. It'll be a while, though. (Shown: The early Galanthus clump on January 2, and H. niger on December 30 (buds are plumper now, and yes, they're semi-evergreen all Winter here).)