Why not start this thread off early. Its the first day of the New Year and time for me to order seeds for this years garden. I have added the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper to my growing list this year and was wondering if anyone has a link to the average size of this plant? Anyone else growing anything out of the norm?
I always try to grow things that are out of the ordinary. I love growing those 12’ tall sunflowers, strange colored tomatoes, Chinese long beans, etc.
I page through heirloom seed company catalogs and buy based on pictures. There is nothing like showing someone around your garden and them asking “what the H is that?!” 8)
[quote=“shizzy”]I always try to grow things that are out of the ordinary. I love growing those 12’ tall sunflowers, strange colored tomatoes, Chinese long beans, etc.
I page through heirloom seed company catalogs and buy based on pictures. There is nothing like showing someone around your garden and them asking “what the H is that?!” 8) [/quote]
I love growing lemon cucumbers, a round burpless heiloom variety. At first glance they don’t think It’s a cucumber. When they bite into it they expect a lemon flavor, uh nope. Just a huge cucumber taste thats easy on digestion. It’s always been a big hit in summer salads.
I can’t wait for spring…
Yeah, I try to grow a few oddities every year as well. For some reason Chinese Okra always seems to make its way into my garden.
I am getting pumped for gardening season this year. We are going to expand and plant some fruit trees this year. I will be building a better trellis system for my hops this spring as well.
Just ate the last of the jalapenos!
Just found these in the back room. 2011 potatoes in a box from last winter and still viable.
New things to try? I might save them for spring and give them a go? 2 year old spuds. Potatoes are a wonder!
Cheers.
Thanks for getting this thread rolling! I’m itching to get started again this year too. Right now I’m motivated to get my worm composter rolling at full steam, to crank out some black gold. That stuff is amazing. I want to split the colony in two, and build up from there.
Last year, pinnah name-dropped Eliot Coleman, which got me started on reading his books. I just bought two of them- Four Season Harvest and The Winter Harvest Handbook. I read both of them last winter, along with a memoir written by his daughter, which was really interesting. Kind of a cool look into what it was like to grow up in the “back to the land” movement of the 1970s. I learned a ton from his books, and would recommend them to anybody, especially those living in northern latitudes.
I reworked the garden last year and modeled it on Coleman’s raised bed system, and tried a couple other things he suggested, like horizontal trellising of peppers, using 6" grid nylon tomato netting. It worked out really well!
We’re still in limbo here after selling our house and moving. As we plan to build a new house, I fully intend to incorporate an attached hoop house for a true four-season harvest. I really think this would work, even in Minnesota. Our recent “winters” have been a joke, anyway.
Here’s hoping for another early spring! We’re renting a house in the country, and I’m going to put in a garden here. I can’t wait to till up the soil, because I’ve found several really nice agates laying out on the ground where the garden plot will be. So I’ll be putting in a garden and turning up some nice gemstones at the same time. Sweet!
[quote] Our recent “winters” have been a joke, anyway.
Here’s hoping for another early spring! We’re renting a house in the country, and I’m going to put in a garden here. [/quote]
Just kidding
I wish I had the space to do a big garden but will probably only do peppers (both bell and hot) and radishes this year. Maybe some green beans if i get lucky, only have a 8x8 patch of land to work with.
Cheers and open to ideas from all for other things to plant. :cheers:
think vertically. Pole beans, peas, melons, anything that grows with a vine can be grown up. I usually plant 5-7 kinds of beans all along my fences.
You would be amazed at the level of production that you can achieve in a small 8x8 area as long as your soil is conditioned and you plan wisely. Vertically grow vines are a great space saver and try to stay away from plants that are low producers for the amount of space that they take up.
[quote=“unknowledged brewer”]only have a 8x8 patch of land to work with.
Cheers and open to ideas from all for other things to plant. :cheers: [/quote]
Look into the ideas behind square foot gardening. You can get a lot of production out of a small area, but you have to prepare the ground first. Things to think about are putting plants that you harvest early in the same space with plants that you harvest later. I plant lettuce and spinach in the area that a tomato/pepper/squash plant will grow into. By the time those plants have grown into that space, I’ve already harvested the greens.
With high quality soil can put a lot of pea or bean plants into a single square foot. If I were you, I’d split the 8X8 space into 2 3X8 spaces and pack them full. I plant 2 4X10 garden areas and put in tomatoes, snap peas, green beans, zucchini, squash, lettuce, spinach, carrots, broccoli, and potatoes. I haven’t had a lot of luck with pepper plants so I’ve moved away from them until I figure out what I’ve been doing wrong.
Ok thanks for the help. I will have to sit down and look at what I can get in to the space. I know I want hot peppers as I have been growing them in window boxes for some years at my apartment for years. This year I am renting a house in the city so I have a little space outside to work with but it will be a bummer when I move back to an apartment in a couple of years. Cheers
I noticed you mentioned radishes. Keep in mind those things are ready to harvest in as little as 25 days. they can be planted next to a longer growing plant and be out of there before they get in the way. I use radishes as a filler. anywhere I have an empty spot I drop some seeds in there.
I grow most of my greens and herbs in pots.
I planted a 3x8 square foot garden for my mom last year, and it was really amazing how much produce she got out of that plot! We did cukes and peas on a trellis, carrots, lettuce mix, kale, tomatoes, peppers, and bush beans.
I planted a second 3x8 box with strawberry plants. We didn’t let them fruit the first year, so they put out a ton of runners and really filled in the box. So she should get a nice berry crop this year too.
My mom has arthritis, but the SFG soil mix is so beautiful and light, that she had no trouble with the tiny bit of weeding. Everything comes right out when you pull it.
The previous year, I had stacked the two SFG boxes, so it was a deep bed. I planted carrots in there, and they did phenomenally well in that loose soil. It’s perfect for growing root crops, and would probably work pretty well for storing root crops in the ground for winter harvesting, if you put straw bales around the box for insulation and then mulched the top.
C’mon, spring!!
Has anybody here planted amaranth? It is a beautiful plant and kind of interests me, but I can’t seem to find anybody that has actually planted it.
I have never grown it. It takes quite a bit of space and is mainly grown as a grain crop.
The “plainsman” variety is the most commonly planted variety in my area.
I got all giddy yesterday
sitting in front of the fire, morning coffee,
looking through the edible landscape section of the Raintree nursery catalog.
sigh
Have any favorite seed or plant catalogs?
Cheers to dreaming about spring!
Park Seed is my primary seed source. I pick up my red plastic mulch for my tomatoes and organic gardening products from Gardens Alive.
I like Stokes, Johnny seeds and Park seeds but my favorite has to be Seed Saver, they have hard to find old heirlooms.
i am a fan of seed savers, but am more into southern exposure seed exchange, they seem to me to be a little cheaper and have a wider variety, but honestly the two dont really over lap much on varieties, i find myself ordering way to much from both companies for my tiny garden
