Anyone gardening this year? What are you planting? Do you get funky seeds from mail-order companies? Do you compost at home or get compost from a store? Did you start any seeds yet? What's your strategy? Why do you do it?

Gardening for Health

This is an interesting read.

Don't have my garden in yet, but working on taking out the weeds, getting a gifted rototiller back in shape, composting my wet stuff - coffee grounds/filters, egg shells, vegie cuttings, etc. Can't wait to see those rows waiting for seeds! Then I won't be able to see the little green sprouts. Then I won't be able to wait until I'm so full of produce I'll be giving it away!

I am definitely a biophile. Never knew it 'til now, but its all good!

Hi there. I've been gardening since I was a little girl - (not so little any more). to me, spring is gardening season and I'm always so excited about starting my "new" garden! I've done a bit of puttering over the last few days - mostly tidying up.
Veggies are my favourites, but I also dabble in ornamentals. However, my garden is pretty tiny - I live in a small townhouse. the entire yard (small as it is) is dedicated to gardening.
now, if only the weather will cooperate, I'll be able to get to planting.
Cyndi in Ann Arbor

My DH is a pastor and we live in a church parsonage. Our yard consists of a small strip between the church and the parsonage. Thankfully its situated East-West so I have two square foot gardens, plus three boxes for jush squash. I have a variety of lettuce planted already and my favorite, frisee (endive). Also have a square of spinach, which will probably be eaten as salad as soon as it's big enough. We also have a larger garden at my dad's which we refer to as our "canning" garden.

Also planted: sugar snap peas, shallots (bought sets this time) and a chef's selection of herbs.

Planting as soon as danger of frost is past: cherry and eating tomatoes (3 -4 plants), french filet beans, Eight Ball zucchini, a patty pan squash called Flying Saucer and a yellow squash called Papaya Pear (good eats and conversation veggies!). Since squash takes more growing room I created a 24" square box for each.

I'm big on container gardening and use my Mel's mix to grow anything that will grow in a small space. I love to grow the unusal. I try to alternate plantings so that I have a continuous harvest, which is one of the biggest benefits of square foot gardening. This is the first year I've tried shallots, but I got tired of paying ridiculous prices for this tasty onion.

Looking forward to the first pickings!

Mel Bartholomew's new methods make garedning possible for anyone:

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

Patti

We always have gotten a couple of tomato plants and some pepper plants each year. And I've got rosemary in a pot (winters indoors here in the mid-west) and a few other herbs in pots.

But this year I decided that since our 2nd floor flower box is getting cut off from being seen from the street it's time to plant more food items. We'll be putting in some loose leaf lettuces and more herbs. I think I'll keep the mint in it's old pot in back as that stuff roots and spreads like a weed!

I need to check out the square foot gardening website!

So I live in Vermont so I've mostly been starting things. Broccoli rabe, parsley, basil, delicata, summer squash, cucumbers, arugula, 2 varieties of kale, cilantro, spinach and some lettuces are starting to pop out of the egg cartons I started them in. We have two beds that gets full sun that we'll eventually plant tomatoes, eggplants and peppers in (our last frost date isn't until June 3! ) But we did put some lettuces, spinach, mustard greens and arugula in one of them, and some sugar snaps and radishes in another. The greens should be done by the time we need to plant the othe stuff, as shuld the radishes. The peas can chill out at the back of the other bed for some time.

We're building some other beds in our backyard that won't get as much light so I'm not sure how that's going to work. It gets light, but it definitely has some serious shade time due to some extrememly large trees and bushes that need to be trimmed. Topsoil is our problem there--we need to find some because it's all rocky out there.

Our frost free date is around Mother's Day each year. But we're having enough of a warm trend we'll be getting all the plants to put out this weekend.

I've never started from seed myself, we usually buy the plants already started.

I'm not really into gardening. I've tried over the years, but I guess my heart's not in it. This year I'm trying to grow herbs in a pot. I've not had much success growing them indoors, so they are outside now. I've got chives, curly parsley, basil and rosemary, things I use the most of. I've also got one plant pot with lavender. That is something that I love to bake with. One has to be careful as lavender can overpower your recipe. I also love the smell of the flowers. It's very relaxing.
We have red clay in our part of town. It's very hard to work and being in a townhouse, unless I pull the tillers through the house, it'll stay clay. I already freak on my husband every time he hauls the lawnmower through the house when he has to cut the front lawn.
I'm a foodie and a baker, so gardening will be left for others to do.

One of the cucumber plants I started is finally coming up! About time--I started them like a month ago. My squash are coming up too that I started. My beautiful bed of greens is nice--except I have something eating my arugula. Hopefully my boyfriend and housemate will get the last of the beds built in our backyard this weekend so we can plant some more stuff! We built one but used our own compost that wasn't quite "finished." We're going to just dig it up and put a better mix in there and replant it.

I did do seeds for the lettuce and it's ready to start pulling leaves off for salads. It has been a struggle for the lettuce because it has been so warm here in Cincinnati. We're about 8" behind in rain and the temps have been over 90 for most of June. We usually are in the mid-80's in June! The tomatoes, peppers and eggplant have been growing well and getting quite a few blossoms. We're just watering and waiting until harvesting starts.

I've been able to pull off a couple of sun gold tomatoes. I've harvested a LOT of chard and kale and lettuce. Our snap peas didn't produce many pods. I've been trimming beet greens off as they droop to the ground--I mix them with chard and kale in sautes. I've pulled a few beets up--they're getting bigger by the week. The first 4 cukes and summer squash were harvested this weekend as well. My garden is finally producing!

Our tomatos, peppers and eggplant have just started to get to the point of harvesting. Even our best spot in the yard does not get sun all day long so they are a week or so behind other folks around. Hubby is already using the tomatoes in his daily lunch salad. The eggplant is set for later this week in an evening meal. I'm waffling bewteen a couple of recipes for it.

I dry our Hungarian Hot Wax Peppers and then grind them for our hot pepper seasonings in recipes. The first bell pepper is just about ready to come off the plant.

The herbs I've been using practically since they were planted.

The lettuce was all harvested and I tried a second planting but some little worm or something got the second round of seedlings. He also ate most of one of my parsley plants.

We've had RIDICULOUS amounts of Japanese beetles and slugs this year. OUr beetle traps have worked wonders but they desperately need new phermones, which I need to go buy soon.

I need to figure out how to dry peppers. How do you do it Sharon? I also want to try my hand at canning tomatoes. These new reports about bisphenol-A being so bad (and me wanting to have kids one day) is making me want to stop using canned foods and anything in plastic.