Today marks the beginning of the second full week of Spring in the northern hemisphere, even if some of us are stuck in second winter. Share your garden goals, projects, challenges, and successes for this growing season; share your tips, tricks, and garden hacks, or anything else you’d like. Let’s all help each other grow something beautiful together!
If folks are into it, I’d like to make this a weekly thread for everyone to share updates and assistance as the year progresses. Please let me know if that’s something you’d all like.
I’m getting ready to head over to my local library to help out with their new gardener workshop this morning. After that it’s a quick meeting with the library’s program coordinator and their Master Gardener Volunteer to work on plans for updating their garden layout for this year - they were accepted into a monarch conservation program recently and received funds to expand their sensory garden as well as their vegetable garden for the local food bank.
After that it’s back home to process all the willow cuttings waiting for me. I helped an older neighbor trim their willow wall yesterday and they let me take all that material for our nursery. Hopefully I can rope one of my plant nerd friends into helping me out, because there’s so much to get through.
I’m not a person with a green-thumb by any means, but I made a planter of fresh catnip for my feline furball, and it’s absolutely going wild. Just a little plant thing I’m proud of that no one else cares about. ;)
Catnip is great for humans as well. Its has a minty flavor and has mild relaxing and pain relief elements. Its even safe for children, pregnant women and can pass through to breastmilk to calm fussy children. Its a very useful and safe plant
I did not know that, but I definitely admit that I’ve been tempted to eat it because of its nice smell. For once my intrusive thoughts were right!
As a general rule if it smells minty it’s pretty good to eat in small quantities. Teas are the preferred medium
I love it, I should do that!
The cat’s probably ungrateful but I think that’s wonderful
I dont have much space or a hose hookup, but I want to try kratky outdoors with some Thai chillis and poblanos. I recently started the plants, and I plan to go to a garden center for starters if they fail. I’m excited!
Kratky is a hydroponic method where you stick plant roots in a mix of water and nutrients, and the plant grows as is! I’ve only done it indoors, so an outdoor grow will a new challenge but a fun one.
This sounds awesome! Hydroponics is daunting to me, so I’m always impressed by folks who’ve got a handle on it and challenge themselves
I really encourage it when space is an issue. I have a basil plant that’s been going for about a year, I’ve changed the water twice and that’s it! I reuse peanut butter containers and use cotton balls for a growing medium. Kratky is really easy! I can’t even keep basil in a pot alive, but this guy is great.
I’m going to have to try this, because I absolutely cannot get basil to grow in a pot and it’s one of our bunny’s favorite foods.
I like this guy’s explanation of how to do it! Happy to provide info as well.
Digging up the entire back yard to try to remove all the Ailanthus roots that have been murdering just about everything I try to grow. Wish me luck!
Also a bunch of seeds I was stratifying in jars all winter have now sprouted. Pearly everlasting, Prairie smoke, Northern sea oats, Leadplant… yay!
I love prairie smoke, they end up looking like tiny truffula trees (from The Lorax).
That’s awesome, great job! Wishing you the best success dealing with the Ailanthus
Just planted some tomatoes in the back yard. It’s shady back there but I’m still hoping. The neighbors removed a maple tree over the winter which I’m hoping might allow somewhat more sun in. We’ll see if it’s enough. If they don’t make fruit I will still enjoy their rambling growth and leaves.
I also planted two oaks in my local park last weekend. Unfortunately, one was already vandalized but the other is doing OK. I didn’t water it right away and by the time I did it was looking quite wilted, but has made a full recovery after some irrigation.
Plan to plant some more oaks in the park this coming weekend. Still scoping out where I can get some free mulch and stakes.
They’ll also still be a solid way to support hummingbird sphinx moths and parasitoid wasps if they don’t fruit, but I’m still hoping you get some food out of it.
I bought a little olive tree to put on my balcony. I nearly bought it during winter but I convinced myself to wait for it to get a little warmer. Just have to get some potting soil and a larger pot and it should hopefully do well? I saw my downstairs neighbours have one that’s thriving so the climate should be ok :)
I guess I have a question: do plants really need different soil types? The little card that came with the tree says it requires special Mediterranean soil, but that sounds kinda fake to me tbh.
I am not an authority, but @Track_Shovel might have some advice for you about what kind of substrate/soil would work well for you.
Thanks for starting this trend! I hope we can keep it up. It’s fun getting to know our garden community here better 😸
I’m trying my best to make my gardens explode with color and opportunities for local bugs and whatnot to enjoy. I’m also giving a go at planting large batches of companion and complimentary plants to keep the baddies at bay and promote best outcomes. First time planting nasturtiums in the mix and I’m very into how gigantic they’ve become!
My other big project is placing various plants along one fence line to create a living fence that should block the view into the backyard and provide a bit of a sound barrier. After visiting the International Flower and Garden festival at EPCOT recently, I fell in love with their use of Heuchera ‘Southern Comfort’ and I can’t wait to add some to my design.
I planted some spring bulbs last autumn, but it looks like I didn’t plant them deep enough as a lot seem to have fallen over. Others.are fine though, so will see what survives.
I’m building a new garden for the house I moved into last fall!
Hoping to get some raised beds built later this week using some wood from a deck that I’m tearing down (tested the wood, it’s free of arsenic!). Onion seedlings seem to be doing well, they’ll go in as soon as the bed is ready and I’ll be starting a bunch of other seeds indoors this weekend. Next step is to find a local source of bulk compost and topsoil to fill the beds.
I ordered a couple of apple trees, Honey Crisp and Baldwin varieties, which will arrive in late April or May - later than I’d like but better late this year than waiting for next year!
New gardens, upcycling, local sourcing… I love everything about this! We’re in an area where we don’t get things we’ve ordered until around then too, and it’s always frustrating because I dislike waiting to plant things
We planted a lot of native seeds last fall in the small section between our fence and the ally. I am really hoping the Bush’s Poppy Mallow, partridge pea, and pussytoes come up. I have a lot more but those are my top three. I am also hoping the violets we planted are coming up. It looked like they were coming in before the early spring snow hit. I ordered some Ramps from prairie moon that I am waiting to arrive. Hopefully the grow in our new shade garden where we planted a variety of shade plants
I’m finding shade really challenging for native plants.
Things that are supposed to work, like Canada anemone and wild ginger are surviving but not thriving, and my Ostrich ferns have been anemic at best.
I threw in some Zig zag goldenrod, beard tongue, and obedient plant seeds last fall though, so we’ll see what happens this year.
I think most natives need shade under trees so they get seasonal sun in the spring. Also I think leaf litter is important. But I’m not sure since they are still in seed
The seeds may take more than 1 winter to germinate, even coming from prairie moon (love them!), just FYI. Our first fall in our house I seeded an area with some native flowers. It took 2 springs before some of them came up and others didn’t show until the 3rd spring.
I am trying to temper my expectations because I know it might take a while. I’m just so excited. We’re pulling up some garden barrier this spring and going to be putting down wild ginger. I want to put down tons of types to see what comes up. I know there are tons of beautiful ones that take multiple years to germinate.
I’m with you - I have a few perennials we’re attempting to grow from seed that need cold/warm/cold stratification to germinate and it’s hard not to be excited for when they finally start popping
Its nice to have something that takes a few years to finish and becoming fully beautiful but its hard to wait. Its been a long winter
I love meeting other people who are growing natives! Our first summer the neighbors offered to help us reseed our grass because of our bare patches that hadn’t germinated. They thought our grass had just died. Now they come and collect some of our seeds for their own flower beds!
Our columbine has really struggled which I still can’t figure out because it grows so well naturally in our wood edge along the road. The big-leaved aster and birds-foot violets do well though, as well as some typically more prairie species. And the ostrich ferns only like the south exposure side of our porch, but they’ve taken hold well there. I should consider ginger, I always find some along one of our favorite hiking trails nearby.
Calendula, bachelor’s buttons, and strawflower are all sprouted and looking healthy! For food plants, I’ve only started greens so far (collard and tatsoi). Soon it’ll be time to plant peas outside though and I’m stoked! Also got some potatoes chitting on the windowsill to plant in buckets. Those did really well last year.
Also we have one super collard who overwintered from last year and I’m excited to see what it does.
I’m apprehensive about the bunnies this year but more prepared to do battle. Last year they mowed most of my new plants down to the ground until I put little fences up. This year I’m gonna start with the fences from the get-go and see if I can get more plants past the tender chompable stage and into maturity. The only problem is I tried winter sowing a bunch of natives this year so I’ll need to notice when and where they come up and get defenses around them.
Apprehensions aside, though, I’m glad it’s spring! Bring on the gardening fun.
I’m worried about bunnies this year as well - how tall were the fences you put in?
Just a foot and a half high, but they were individual for each plant so each fence circle was like 1 foot diameter maximum. I think if you had a bigger fenced area you’d need higher fences.
I made them out of hardware cloth and took them in over the winter and they’ve held up really well, so at least I don’t have to make new ones!
I moved to a new house last year. (Belgium, doesn’t follow the weather of the zoning system well) We are in the process of stripping it down to the bones, just got a new roof, have to dig out the floor down 35 cm to pour a cement slab, etc…
Suffice to say I don’t have the time for a garden this year even though we have a lovely 1500m^2 plot with around 60 trees that haven’t been upkept for years.
I would love to know some super easy low upkeep plants to help the soil in our future garden bed areas (one used to be a big compose pile, so the soil there seems pretty good already).
I was thinking some potatoes in the method of loosening the soil, throwing a ton of seed potatoes and maybe onions over it, and covering it with a bunch of dead grass cuttings that we have.
Then maybe some bush beans too. If it is a wet year like the winter it has been, they should grow very well.
Hey congratulations! And yeah, USDA zones and similar categorization schemes are just part of the picture and deal more with overwinter lows and plant hardiness than anything else - you may find that one of the Köppen systems helps you to better envision your climate particulars.
Potatoes and onions are pretty easy in my experience, having done what your plan is. I’ve also found radishes and beets to be fairly low maintenance as well as being useful for breaking up compacted soils (and tasty to boot).
Still have at least a month before I’ll be doing any outside gardening. I’m testing some old seeds to see if they’ll still sprout so I know which seeds I need to order for our vegetable garden (and hopefully prevent myself from ordering way too many seeds because there are so many cool varieties).
What is everyone’s favorite seed company? I usually go with Seed Savers, but I recently found Baker Seeds so I’m thinking of ordering from them this time.
prevent myself from ordering way too many seeds
Sorry, not sorry:
Last year’s collard greens survived the winter and have continued thriving, so getting to start the season with a harvest is nice. Other than that, carrot seedlings are getting started, two grape saplings are rooting nicely, though they won’t likely bloom for a few years, and some herbs are beginning in the seeding stage for now.
