Planted my cool-weather crops: chard (Ruby Red and Giant Fordhook), beets (Touchstone Gold and Early Wonder), and carrots (Danvers 126). I tried to lay them all out like the square foot gardening book says, but the carrot seeds blew in the wind so they'll just come up wherever this year.
Also have some volunteer dill (a bit early; we'll see if it survives) and some carrots that sprouted mid-winter!
Cherry tomatoes and strawberries are usually the first thing to produce, and the last thing still producing, if you take care of them (other than leafy greens).
If I had more space for it, I could probably still be getting non-dwarf varieties.
Celebrating spooky season with spooky gardening. I've been trying my hand at my completely uneducated interpretation of the phrase "herbal topiary" and have been experimenting. Only killed one plant so far. Anyway, I used moss as mulch in this Thai basil by mixing up a clump with soil and spreading it evenly, and the results look good enough that I made my alfalfa into a little bonsai type thing with some of the haunted Cherry st. moss.
Did some #gardening before work…mostly one quick repotting and then some pruning…but I did finally get around to starting these lavender seeds. Still have to wait three weeks until ‘Mowvember’ (haha) but it feels good to plant something, especially this late in the year. #homegardening#containergardening
This handsome dude is back indoors. Thinking of dressing this up for the holidays instead of our usual Christmas tree. Perhaps in some Scandi-inspired decor...
The ginger is under the crumbled moss and coir mix. Outside the stones, I'm taking pinches of the clumps of moss I've gathered and spreading them a bit with my fingers to thin them out, for a patchwork of mosses. The coir is just a thin layer of mulch to cover the more unsightly soil. I'll scan parking lots after the rains tomorrow, mosses should be bright and clean. I gathered the stones in Long Island, where they gleamed against mossy lawns. #gardening#containerGardening
As promised, a better photo exploration of Celia. Let me show you why I occasionally give her a little kiss. She is an open pollinated hybrid, mostly veinless, though her smaller (older) pitchers are developing some veins as they deepen to the hues of autumn leaves. The mostly green leaves are ones that developed during periods of poor lighting, but the spring green has a nice golden tone that is still lovely. 1/2 #gardening#carnivorousPlants#containerGardening
I planted some #slips from grocery store #SweetPotatoes, and on only a few days they have turned into real plants.
I have never grown sweet potatoes. This is just a test. The frost will kill these vines long before they produce.
This isn't like growing potatoes. You don't bury any of the fleshy part, you break off a long slip, and then bury it diagonally, with only a little bit above the dirt.
Like tomatoes, any part of the slip can become roots.
I think I should make myself a "teeny tinies" salad out of mini cukes and cherry tomatoes. Or maybe a pearl bocconcini salad with the gorgeous Genovese basil. Hmm.
Also, it looks like the Liso Kolkata gourds are starting to fruit. Turns out that despite the name, Liso Kolkata, Cucumis anguria, is African, not Indian. 🤷🏾♀️ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucumis_anguria
And some bonus Scotch bonnets, just because.
And it's starting to rain without my having finished brush-pollinating what I must. Gah. Back to work!
Sometimes I think I spend as much time daily shredding cardboard as I do eating, if not sleeping... All for my compost piles, which are often where I plant potatoes. #compostodon#ContainerGardening