Tomatoes in most grocery stores are horrible. Go to a farmer's market or grow your own, no matter where you live.
I have a tip. Make your own seed tapes or mats. With carrot seed I use a paper towel and white school glue. I take a dinner plate and spread the seeds out on it. Then I drop a pile of glue on the plate( not on the seeds). Then I dip a toothpick in the white, washable, non toxic, dries clear, white glue. With a little glue on the tip of the toothpick, I pick up a seed and roll it off on the paper towel. This sticks the seed to the towel. Then I space them about the width of a carrot top apart. When it dries I have a seed mat with the seeds spaced far enough apart that I don't have to thin in the garden. I also put a raddish seed every now and then just for fun. With green beans or peas I run a strip of glue along a strip of newspaper and place the seeds on top of the glue and let dry. I then make my trench and place the strip in the trench and cover with soil. Then I don't have to bend over to place every seed. And the spacing is correct every time.
I have been planting my flower beds. I have hardy hibiscus, wild phlox, bee balm, zinnia, and sunflowers. I am going to start back in the vegetable garden later today. I am planting carrots, bell peppers, tomatoes, and getting my beds ready for okra, Lima beans, and pole beans. I am also going to try to get the rest of my potatoes planted. Busy busy busy....
It wont stop raining here so Ive been helping my mom with a window garden...she doesn't have much space since she downsized. Im still planning my small pond and did some digging/ basic yard clean up. Your place must be beautiful Politicalcenter. I love sunflowers.
Sounds like busy work! I just take a pinch of carrot seed, hold my hand about 2.5 feet above my raised bed (make sure it's deep enough for carrots) and sprinkle the seed around, trying for about 2 inches between them. They fall at irregular distances of course, but after they've sprouted it's easy to thin them in a raised bed while sitting on the edge of the bed.
I live in the Pacific NW. We can get snow here and did this past winter, but the year before we got none. Plant kale on July 1 for the winter. Kale tastes bitter in warm weather, but a touch of frost makes it SWEET! With 15 plants we have all the kale we want all winter. They are turning to seed right about now and the first bud clusters are great! Pick them for a nice veggie treat. If the weather forecast predicts freezing down to 25º F or so, they can withstand the cold IF you drape a thin clear plastic painter's drop "cloth" over the row ($3.50 or so). Get the thinest you can and anchor it with stones or something. Anybody grow green beans?
I buy kale like crazy for juices and salads,,,if I have till July I'm going to plant some. Glad you posted this. My ex was the gardener, I'm a novice. Kale and a pond. Buying organic is getting pricey.
A great choice. Where are you? Blue lake is good for growing in my area too (Portland, Oregon). Pole beans are best. When they developed the bush variety to allow for mechanical harvesting, they sacrificed flavor. You can't beat pole beans. I dug post holes and concreted in steel 2 1/4 inch posts 10-12 feet apart and fitter with a cap to receive the top rail for chain link fencing. Then I drilled holes about 4 inches up from ground level and installed eye bolts. Then I ran heavy steel wire between the poles from eye to eye bolt, giving me a bottom runner and a top pipe around which to run twine for the beans to climb. I have 40 feet of rows now and all I have to do each year is to run the twine and plant the sprouted beans. And I let one plant go to seed each year as needed to provide myself with reliable seed for the next year. This setup provides us with enough green beans (frozen) to last the year.
Don't forget pollinators such as butterflies, hummingbirds, bees and other birds and insects can do a lot of good for your vegetables. There is over 20,000 species of bee in North America if I remember right and they are great pollinators. Some of the more common types are Mason Bees, Blue Orchard Bees, Squash Bees (they only use the flowers from squash), Honey Bees and Bumble Bees. Honey bees have 20,000 bees to some colonies but clean off 90% of the pollen after visiting a flower. Bumble Bees may only have 200 bees to a colony but do not clean off the pollen so they just as good of pollinators. Be sure to have flowers to support pollinators. For Hummingbirds try Clematis vines (they can live 50 years), Rose of Sharon Bushes, Butterfly Bushes, Bee Balm (Monarda) and Trumpet Vines. For Butterflies try the Butterfly Bush, Blazing star (Liatris), Bee Balm, Aster, Scabiosa, Yarrow and Hollyhocks. Remember butterflies need host plants for their larvae and these include Joe Pye Weed (beautiful flower), Milkweed, Butterfly Weed (asclepias) and Hollyhocks. For the endangered Karner Butterfly they rely almost exclusively on the flowering plant Lupine. Butterflies also need water and sand to land on for the water. Butterflies can't swim so having something like sand for them to sit on while they drink is good. For Bees try Allium flower bulbs or Crocus Bulbs and Azalea Bushes (Rhodanthemum) for spring and early Summer. For Summer try Agastache, Butterfly Bush, Rose of Sharon, Lavender, Aster or Joe Pye Weed. For fall try Sedums, Aster or Clematis "Sweet Autumn Fire". I lover flowers and my favorites would be as follows: 1. Clematis Vines. 2. Butterfly Bushes. 3. Rose of Sharon's. 4. Sedums. 5. Asiatic Lilies. 6. Coreopsis. 7. Allium. 8. Hosta's. 9. Primrose. (oenothera) 10. Blazing Star. 11. Joe Pye Weed. 12. Hollyhocks 13. Columbines. 14. Pulmonaria. (Lungwort) 15.Tulips. Clematis can live up to 50 years and have huge flowers on their vines. Sweet Autumn Fire is my favorite for the fall and the bees love the flowers. Thousands of single white flowers were on my vine the first year I planted it and it dropped so many seeds I have new sprouts coming up everywhere. Butterfly Bushes are super plants because all of the main pollinators love these flowers. I have seen Hummingbirds fighting butterflies over these bushes. Rose of Sharon's have beautiful flowers that bees love and they have a high germination rate with seeds so you will have lot's of new sprouts to use. Sedums flower in the fall when most flowering plants are done and the bees love the flowers. A real bee magnet. Asiatic Lilies, Alliums and Tulips all grow from bulbs and have amazingly beautiful flowers. Hollyhocks grow the first year,flower the second year and then drops lot's of seeds for new plants. They usually live only 2 years. Tall plants with many flowers. Primrose can hang over the sides of rocks and are a ground cover with lot's of flowers. Hosta's love shade and bumblebees love their flowers. These plants have nice green foliage so they can make a shady area look real nice. Coreopsis has many flowers and spreads with new roots from the same plant so it's like a colony of flowers growing to cover an entire area. Columbines and Pulmonaria bloom in early to middle spring with beautiful flowers. Joe Pye Weed flowers from Summer into the Fall and butterflies love the flowers. Blazing Star is a super flowering plant when attracting butterflies. Some varieties get very tall. They usually have purple flowers and the ones at the local flower garden are always covered with Monarch Butterflies. Native to North America. Flowers in Summer. For Trees I like the Staghorn Sumac. It's a beautiful native Tree and it produces new trees through shoots from the ground so I have an endless supply of nice small sized trees.
I still need to plant....I'm in the mountains...Lots of tall trees and we actually had snow last week. I do have an indoor grow with herbs that is doing quite well though. Thinking of adding tomatoes so at least I can get a head start. I'm kinda a newbie but have learned that I can grow veggies year round but, space is limited. I think I can grow indoors and transfer when the weather gets better. During the winter I can still have fresh tomatoes.
I am in Alabama. I use T posts . i drive a fence post into the ground and run a string from post to post. Or I plant them along my garden fence. I move them every year so I do it differently every year. I usually rotate them with another vine like cucumber. My vines usually overgrow my trellis so my system is not ideal.
I have all kinds of flowers but I am learning to hate hollyhocks. Mine have this yellow rust and look terrible. I dont really want to take the time to try to cure or treat them so they will have to go. Lupine and columbine are not suited to my climate but coreopsis, hydrangea, and many others are. My neighbor calls me a hippy because I plant flowers in my vegetable garden. But I have several flower beds here and there and I grow a lot of butterfly weed for monarch butterflies and a lot of wildflowers. Tulips have to be dug up and cold treated to get blooms after the first year. We are semi tropical. But we grow some great hibiscus and azalea.
There is some Tulip varieties that are said to be perennial. I think Brent and Becky's Bulbs has some for sale. There is more then 50 popular varieties of tulips. It is easy for some flowers to get diseases. I am no expert so I don't know why your Hollyhocks look like that. I like them because the bees like them. Hydrangea's are cool but I have yet to see any pollinator like it's flowers so I try to stay away from it. I have read in gardening books it's good to plant flowers with vegetables because the bee's etc will also pollinate the vegetables and produce you bigger yields with some varieties. A great website for everyone is Daves Garden. The biggest online forum for plants and they even have a list of more then 5,000 online mail order sites with the Dave's Garden top 30 and the reviews are amazing. You can find the perfect nursery for any type of plant or tree that you want.
