The Garden Thread that two people wanted

[notthatamanda]

That's so cool.

My tulips opened up yesterday. Looks like there is going to be a lot of peonies conahura, knock wood.

[Mark Gardner]

They were predicting a freeze last night, so I covered the raised bed with granite slabs. When the sun comes up, I'll check on them. The potatoes are sprouting nicely. I don't think it's too late, so perhaps this weekend I'll plant corn.

[notthatamanda]

That's a new one for me. Granite slabs? I'm sure it kept them warm but there are many far lighter options. I'm impressed.

[LilyBLily]

My tomato seedlings have reached the top of the windows inside, but there's one more night in the thirties predicted this week. I've already put together some dirt in pots and dug some holes in the garden. The beefmasters will be four feet tall by the time I take them outside.

I, too, am impressed with the granite slabs.

Edited: Took them outside anyway as the tall ones fell off the sill. I think they were trying to tell me something. 

[Maggie Ann]

While walking Mikey  I noticed a weed growing around my neighbor's mailbox. They have a border surrounding the mailbox filled with marble rocks and alamanda plants. I thought I would just pull the weed for them but when I approached it, I saw tiny green tomatoes. Then I recognized the leaves as being a tomato plant. The tomatoes are ripening but they are very, very tiny. I'm guessing it's growing there by accident.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

While walking Mikey  I noticed a weed growing around my neighbor's mailbox. They have a border surrounding the mailbox filled with marble rocks and alamanda plants. I thought I would just pull the weed for them but when I approached it, I saw tiny green tomatoes. Then I recognized the leaves as being a tomato plant. The tomatoes are ripening but they are very, very tiny. I'm guessing it's growing there by accident.

I also get tomato plants popping up all over the place - and butternut, avocado, papaya, and various other fruit and vegetables from seeds from my home-made compost heap.  . I dig in the compost and wait to see what comes up.  Depending on where the fruit and veg is growing I either leave them, move them or pull them up. Have to keep pulling up the avocado as there is no room for them in my small garden.
I love the tiny c*cktail tomatoes, but haven't had much luck with growing them. My neighbour had a mass of them growing in her garden when she was away on holiday, so I was able to have a feast as I was watering while she was away  .

[Mark Gardner]

LOL! They’re amalgam granite slabs—only 1/4” (7mm) thick.

[Vijaya]

I love the volunteers in our compost heap too, Jan.

[notthatamanda]

Huh, I live in granite country, I don't think I've ever seen a granite anything under an inch thick. Didn't even occur to me.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

I love the volunteers in our compost heap too, Jan.

 

[LilyBLily]

We have deadheaded almost 6,000 daffodils and now will move fully into the fertilization stage. I've already done some but it's a task I never manage to finish. 

Meanwhile, in an act of vigilante gardening, I dug up two wild poppies from a parking lot and took them home with me. Do I carry a trowel in my car? Yes, I do.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

We have deadheaded almost 6,000 daffodils and now will move fully into the fertilization stage. I've already done some but it's a task I never manage to finish. 

Meanwhile, in an act of vigilante gardening, I dug up two wild poppies from a parking lot and took them home with me. Do I carry a trowel in my car? Yes, I do.

 

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

I was watching a TV documentary featuring our local snake catcher (I met him when he gave a talk on chameleons). He was shown catching two black mambas that were mating in the outbuilding of a local home (some consider a black mamba the world's deadliest snake). A week ago he was pictured in the local paper holding a huge black mamba that had been caught in my suburb. He mentioned that in winter the snakes mate and he'd once caught five in a compost heap  It is coming into winter, and I'm re-considering the wisdom of having a compost heap.

On another note. I was sitting in my lounge with the door open but the burglar gate closed when the door suddenly slammed closed. A huge monkey had got through the burglar gate and jumped from the top of the door onto my bookcase. It was now trapped inside  . Monkeys can do a lot of damage in a house. They are also known to bare their teeth if threatened. I quickly opened the door and thankfully it went out. I have now put mosquito netting on the burglar gate and left enough at the bottom to reach the ground so that snakes and other critters can't find their way in (hopefully)   

[Maggie Ann]

We have deadheaded almost 6,000 daffodils and now will move fully into the fertilization stage. I've already done some but it's a task I never manage to finish. 

Meanwhile, in an act of vigilante gardening, I dug up two wild poppies from a parking lot and took them home with me. Do I carry a trowel in my car? Yes, I do.

While visiting the cemetery many years ago, my mother snipped cutting from ivy on a mausoleum. Since then, she never could grow ivy again. A cautionary tale. 

[LilyBLily]

We have deadheaded almost 6,000 daffodils and now will move fully into the fertilization stage. I've already done some but it's a task I never manage to finish. 

Meanwhile, in an act of vigilante gardening, I dug up two wild poppies from a parking lot and took them home with me. Do I carry a trowel in my car? Yes, I do.

While visiting the cemetery many years ago, my mother snipped cutting from ivy on a mausoleum. Since then, she never could grow ivy again. A cautionary tale. 

Ivy is invasive and non-native, so that's fine.

The parking lot had a weedy and wild space between it and someone else's mowed land. Eventually someone will come along and destroy all the native plants and make it grass or pave it. The parking lot is where the hospital helicopter lands and those always end up needing more space. The parking lots, that is, not the helicopters. 

I already have bluebells, May apples, and a kind of low wild phlox purloined from along a nearby country road. There's a native columbine I want to grab, too, but I need to find the right spot in my garden for it first. I've left the wild day lilies because they're invasive, too, and I have plenty cultivated versions. Deer eat them all.

Arum lily taken from a public park turns out to be non-native and dangerously invasive despite struggling to grow in my garden; I actually bought my first arum lilies, an expensive bulb and most years they do nothing. It's supposed to have a stalk with orange-red berries after a big white bloom that looks like a wet sail. The bloom is not attractive but the stalk is. Arum likes wet places and my only such on the property is the drain field (otherwise known as the septic field). Maybe the lily is waiting to do a big takeover maneuver. I've read online about someone whose entire yard was infested with them and he could not kill them. Scary, but our dirt is so bad here I have no such fears. We even have a stand of bamboo we planted that is barely getting any bigger after more than a decade.   

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Arum lily taken from a public park turns out to be non-native and dangerously invasive despite struggling to grow in my garden; I actually bought my first arum lilies, an expensive bulb and most years they do nothing. It's supposed to have a stalk with orange-red berries after a big white bloom that looks like a wet sail. The bloom is not attractive but the stalk is. Arum likes wet places and my only such on the property is the drain field (otherwise known as the septic field). Maybe the lily is waiting to do a big takeover maneuver. I've read online about someone whose entire yard was infested with them and he could not kill them. Scary, but our dirt is so bad here I have no such fears. We even have a stand of bamboo we planted that is barely getting any bigger after more than a decade.   
[/quote]

Arum lilies are native to southern Africa. 

[LilyBLily]

Apparently there are many version of arum lilies. Mine are around 5-8 inches high, with a bloom stalk maybe nearing a foot. Not a tall plant. I've seen exactly the same lily in a hedgerow by a public path in the UK. It has the moisture and maybe the drainage needed. All I've got is bad dirt, rocks, and more bad dirt, with occasional gullywashers.

Interestingly, what Google images is showing are what we call calla lilies.

The image below has gone a bit wide for no reason I know, but these are my arums.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

This is the arum lily that I know.
The Zantedeschia aethiopica is probably best known as the common arum lily. Zantedeschia is from the Araceae family and is a popular member of South African gardens, rewarding for its beautiful 'flowers' and easy growth. ... In the centre is a large yellow or pink floral spike, which hosts the tiny flowers of this plant.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

This unusual colour hibiscus is growing in our common garden. The colour is unfortunately not showing up too well in the pic. It's a pale grey colour with a touch of light mauve. I wonder if anyone else has seen this colour as I have never previously seen it.

[LilyBLily]

I've never grown hibiscus. Rose of Sharon is very similar but the blooms are smaller. Anywhere dirt is actually fertile, one has to mow around Rose of Sharon because its seeds produce endless new plants. (They're very easy to pull up if the ground is moist.) Living here, I have never had a single seedling.

This part of West Virginia certainly looks as lush as other parts of the extended Washington, DC area, but we seem to have super dry conditions under the green of the tall oaks, so that limits what plants will grow naturally. We have a native rose, a tender light pink color, and the invasive floribunda rose, which is white. We have multiple versions of purple violets. There are other wild flowers, mostly yellows. None of the triliums, lady's slippers, jack-in-the-pulpits, and other native plants of my youth in Maryland, alas. Lady's slippers are extremely rare these days everywhere.   

[notthatamanda]

I got a New England hardy hibiscus and it's coming back this year too. Ours is bright pink. Haven't ever seen a gray one like Jan's but I'm going to be keeping an eye out for them now.

[LilyBLily]

I saw a lovely apricot-colored hibiscus at a plant nursery but it was not winter hardy. I don't have a solarium in this house--the one in the old house was only three-season, too--so there's no way I can keep such a plant. It's too big for a windowsill; I don't want all the light blocked even if I can get the pot to fit. 

Hmm. Maybe not meant for a windowsill?

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

My double yellow hibiscus is again in bloom. It's outside my bedroom window.  I cut it right back to ground level as it had some sort of fungus/black spot and I wondered if it would recover, but thankfully it is now nearly reaching the roof. A neighbour gave me some of his home-made bug spray and that seems to have kept the bugs at bay. 

[LilyBLily]

That's really pretty. Color me envious.

I have to spray the Rose of Sharon against the deer, and regardless of the deer, there simply isn't enough water here to allow the otherwise extremely fecund Rose of Sharon to thrive, let alone propagate.

Today my mower was sending up vast quantities of dust. So was my neighbor's. Then I found a piece of roof tile (soft shingle) that had been tossed out and buried by debris of some kind when this house was built, twenty seven years ago. No wonder that spot never grew any grass.

[Vijaya]

Lovely pictures! It's very fragrant in SC right now with the jasmine in bloom.

[idontknowyet]

I dug up my first potato plant of the season. This particular plant died two weeks early so i only got 3 potatoes the right size all the rest were chicklets. Oh well it's something. The first bed gets dug up next week.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Lovely pictures! It's very fragrant in SC right now with the jasmine in bloom.

Jasmine is my favourite. Just a tiny sprig can perfume the whole room. I have it growing along both fences in my garden. I have also recently planted star jasmine. 

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

This is part of the garden outside my kitchen. The hedgehog is guarding the sewer manhole (easy to move it should there be a need  ).

We have been having plumbing leaks in our main water pipes in the complex for a number of years and we are finally having a whole new plumbing system installed. But it has meant trenches have been dug throughout and unfortunately some of the common gardens that the residents have spent many years working on have sadly been ruined. But most people have been philosophical and accepted that it's the price we have to pay. They haven't marked out our area yet, so we are anxiously awaiting the dreaded red line denoting where the trenches will be dug. 

[Maggie Ann]

This is part of the garden outside my kitchen. The hedgehog is guarding the sewer manhole (easy to move it should there be a need  ).

We have been having plumbing leaks in our main water pipes in the complex for a number of years and we are finally having a whole new plumbing system installed. But it has meant trenches have been dug throughout and unfortunately some of the common gardens that the residents have spent many years working on have sadly been ruined. But most people have been philosophical and accepted that it's the price we have to pay. They haven't marked out our area yet, so we are anxiously awaiting the dreaded red line denoting where the trenches will be dug. 

Once they mark the trenches, maybe you can rescue the plants or some of them before they start digging.

[idontknowyet]

My potatoes have decided to get a second wind. The bed that was dying out and i planned to dig out sometime next week has new growth on all the stems. What's with that?

My cherry tomatoes have gone crazy. We have so many we're either going to have to eat them 3x a week or start giving them away. We're regularly taking a small basket full of squash out every day. The peppers are starting to produce cant wait until the go crazy. I wanna try making cowboy candy.

[notthatamanda]

I hope you can save your plant, Jan. Good luck.

Veggie garden is planted, mostly. After tending the tomatoes carefully for months I broke a lot of stalks transplanting them. Bought another 6 pack of sweet 100 cherry tomatoes. Broke a lot of stalks on the ginger too. D'oh!

Flowers - tulips are done. Two irises opened today, yellow and white. I have tons, I mean probably 2 hundred peony buds. One peony cluster is 5 feet tall. Roses all have buds, princess margareta and sweet hermoine are close to opening. Boomerang lilacs in full bloom.

It sprinkled a little today. No more rain expected for a week. Looking like another tough year, water wise. Oh and I managed to slice my underground hose in the veggie garden in half so I have to lay another one tomorrow. Luckily I bought 2 cause I was too lazy to measure how much I needed in the fall.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

This is part of the garden outside my kitchen. The hedgehog is guarding the sewer manhole (easy to move it should there be a need  ).

We have been having plumbing leaks in our main water pipes in the complex for a number of years and we are finally having a whole new plumbing system installed. But it has meant trenches have been dug throughout and unfortunately some of the common gardens that the residents have spent many years working on have sadly been ruined. But most people have been philosophical and accepted that it's the price we have to pay. They haven't marked out our area yet, so we are anxiously awaiting the dreaded red line denoting where the trenches will be dug. 

Once they mark the trenches, maybe you can rescue the plants or some of them before they start digging.

Yes, this is what we are planning to do. But you can't do much about the bigger bushes.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

My potatoes have decided to get a second wind. The bed that was dying out and i planned to dig out sometime next week has new growth on all the stems. What's with that?

My cherry tomatoes have gone crazy. We have so many we're either going to have to eat them 3x a week or start giving them away. We're regularly taking a small basket full of squash out every day. The peppers are starting to produce cant wait until the go crazy. I wanna try making cowboy candy.

Do you know you can freeze tomatoes?  The bigger ones you slice and freeze in a layer and once frozen you can pack in a plastic bag. Not sure how you would freeze the cherry tomatoes.

[notthatamanda]

Two years ago I thought I wasn't growing any cherry tomatoes and I threw a fit saying I wasn't going to garden anymore. Turns out the younger one was sneaking out there to eat them before anyone else could. Wish we could drop by to lend a hand with the tomato surplus problem idontknowyet.

[idontknowyet]

 

Two years ago I thought I wasn't growing any cherry tomatoes and I threw a fit saying I wasn't going to garden anymore. Turns out the younger one was sneaking out there to eat them before anyone else could. Wish we could drop by to lend a hand with the tomato surplus problem idontknowyet.

come on down. the bushes are so full we dont even mind when the birds carry some off

[idontknowyet]

My potatoes have decided to get a second wind. The bed that was dying out and i planned to dig out sometime next week has new growth on all the stems. What's with that?

My cherry tomatoes have gone crazy. We have so many we're either going to have to eat them 3x a week or start giving them away. We're regularly taking a small basket full of squash out every day. The peppers are starting to produce cant wait until the go crazy. I wanna try making cowboy candy.

Do you know you can freeze tomatoes?  The bigger ones you slice and freeze in a layer and once frozen you can pack in a plastic bag. Not sure how you would freeze the cherry tomatoes.

I did. They are usually used for soups chillis or stews. Not sure these little guys would work for that. i might be able to dehydrate them and make sundried tomatoes not quite sundried

[notthatamanda]

You ever can? In jars?

[idontknowyet]

Yeah. i haven't had great success with canning sauce. We dont like it 1/2 as much as store bought.

[LilyBLily]

When I was a kid, my mother would drive out to the country and buy tomatoes by the bushel. Then she canned them in quart Mason jars. All the rest of the year, we kids would be sent to the basement now and again to get a jar for whatever dinner was happening. She made the greatest Welsh rarebit/rabbit (bland and nonalcoholic for us kids) using those tomatoes. A wonderful cold weather meal.

[Maggie Ann]

My grandmother used to make tomato puree every year, I think in September. My uncles would go to the market and buy bushels of plum tomatoes.

She had a gas stove in the basement and boiled the tomatoes in restaurant size pots. She had a machine like a meat grinder for processing the tomatoes that would separate the skins and the seeds from the pulp. My job was to put a leaf of basil into all the sterilized bottles before the puree was poured in. To this day, I love the smell of fresh basil and I always buy a plant or two just so I can crush the leaves between my fingers and sniff. She also had a bottle capper. I always wanted the job of capping the bottles, but I was too little.

The whole family worked at bottling the puree and we all got a few cases for our efforts. Unfortunately, one year Gransma didn't boil the bottled puree long enough to kill the bacteria and we all ended up with exploding puree. Even more unfortunate, my parents stored our share in our coat closet.

[notthatamanda]

Typically you do skin tomatoes before you can them and I can see with cherry tomatoes, that would be a bit of a pain.

[idontknowyet]

The skins dont scare me as much as the seeds. drop em in boiling water for a min then ice water and the skins fall off. its the seeds oh my to make even one jar it would be hundreds of tomatoes.

[notthatamanda]

Really wish we could help you eat them. :(

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

This is one of the cacti gardens we've been working on in the common property. Just hoping it doesn't get dug up during the new water pipe installation. You can rescue some plants, but a lot get buried when they chuck the soil beside the trench.  Can't be helped.

[Maggie Ann]

Love the little meerkat statue. Fascinated with Meerkat Manor.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Love the little meerkat statue. Fascinated with Meerkat Manor.

The meerkat was in my neighbour's garden and when she passed away the family gave it to me for the common garden. My new neighbour is a keen gardener and has brought loads of plants with her (hundreds of pots of all sizes) She has just spilt some of her succulents and given some to me for the cacti garden. 

[Maggie Ann]

Love the little meerkat statue. Fascinated with Meerkat Manor.

The meerkat was in my neighbour's garden and when she passed away the family gave it to me for the common garden. My new neighbour is a keen gardener and has brought loads of plants with her (hundreds of pots of all sizes) She has just spilt some of her succulents and given some to me for the cacti garden. 

My DD gave me a succulent dish garden for Easter. Beautiful, but I had to dismantle it because there were seven plants crammed in there. I gave them all their own homes and now they are thriving.

[LilyBLily]

You'd think succulents would do well here considering all the drought we experience. But they don't get enough sun, and time and again my hen and chickens have died out.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

This is one of the cacti gardens we've been working on in the common property. Just hoping it doesn't get dug up during the new water pipe installation. You can rescue some plants, but a lot get buried when they chuck the soil beside the trench.  Can't be helped.

The machine has just cut the line in the path for the trench next to the meerkat garden  Hoping they will chuck the soil on the side beneath my office window. Will be a problem trying to take up all the cacti and stones. My hedgehog garden will also be covered in soil, so will have to rescue those plants. 
The area you can see opposite the meerkat garden belongs to my neighbour and she has just finished planting and laying white stones. Now she will also have to take them all up. But can't be helped, unfortunately. 

[notthatamanda]

Ask them nicely if they can put the dirt where you want it. All they can say is no.