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2023 Gardening Thread

13K views 266 replies 20 participants last post by  sham1406 
#1 ·
New Year, new thread...

Any plans started yet?
 
#134 · (Edited)
Hikr, I love the smell of fresh basil. :) They say it's going to get into the 80's later this week, so I guess it is time to get that planted.

And I just noticed one of my shishito peppers has finally come up!

Edit: our ~30 mins of yard work is done. Didn't take much to get us both out of breath. I'm focusing on cleaning up the east side of the house, it has the day lily bed, the giant lilac tree, and the honeysuckle invasion. The area's been ignored for a couple of years. Last year we put up trellis to give the back deck some privacy. Today I raked out about half the flower bed, including windblown trash. It made a big pile with the leaves that collected against the fence over the winter. An ongoing problem. DH has tried to grow grass there but too many leaves collect.

DH collected some of the leaves and moved them to the compost bin. I couldn't find the clippers to remove invasive vines and trees, so I switched to cleaning the driveway of accumulated debris along the edges, something else we haven't done in a few years. There's a 6" wide layer of dirt (with stuff growing in it) along each side. Between the maple trees, leaves, and a sloped yard it's anther ongoing problem.
 
#136 ·
Planted basil and chive seeds yesterday. If they don't do well I can pick some up at the community garden later.

Spent 50 mins in the yard and garden today. That was after cleaning up in the garage and looking for our bush clippers. Neither of us can find them indoors or out. I've decided they're well and truly lost or stolen and will buy new ones this week because I need to trim now, not in 6 weeks or next fall when they show up.

Planted chard, finally. Watered the lettuce and spinach. Lettuce looks really good, spinach looks a bit thin. Got the sprinkler set up and watering all 3 rows. DH helped pull out tomato cages. I found 3 old potatoes in the garage and he decided to plant them in pots. Small 6" pots. And then he got snippy when I told him he should use a big bucket, and put the roots down under the dirt and not sticking straight up. Like what do I know.
 
#137 ·
I moved my seedlings out to the back deck to start prepping them for eventually moving them to planters outside. It’s sunny and 52 so I’ll give them a couple of hours to enjoy the sun.

CH I’m anxious for my chives to be big enough to use. They are still small so I don’t want to clip any off yet. The small mortar and pestle I ordered arrived yesterday.
 
#138 ·
First deck contractor came today. I think we’ll be going with him. But we have at least one more outfit visiting next week.

This guy was young, but honest. Appears to know his deck stuff. Told Hubby we couldn’t dig down under the deck because it would expose the footings, which would allow frost to get in during the winter months, and the moisture would start wicking up our interior walls once it thawed. That would ruin our foundation as well, because the moisture in the wall would freeze and thaw repeatedly with our weather, cracking the foundation. Soooo….no digging down underneath the deck. Hubby is disappointed. So am I. Means we’re still bent over under the deck trying to access the hose bib to turn the water on and off.

The kid’s guess for a 200 square foot deck was about $8000 CAD for pressure treated wood. It would be about $12,000 for a composite deck. He’s going to do up a formal quote for pressure treated wood.

Hubby talked about a few other projects in the yard. The kid had some good ideas. I explained what was going on with our meadow back yard and the issues we had with the front yard. I asked if he had ever worked with a landscape architect. He had and it was a lady we had heard about before. She’s moved a couple hours up the highway. He’s going to talk to her to see if she’ll come down to talk to us. Ideally we’d like her to draw up a plan for hardscaping and general landscaping.

Anyways, we’ll see.
 
#139 ·
Keep in mind, if you hire someone whose shop is 2 hrs away, you pay for their travel time.

Get a quote using wood framing but composite decking and top rails. Horizontal components take the worst beating from the sun. Consider if you can DIY any part of the job. Labor is generally the biggest expense. Putting down decking is pretty easy.

Get a plumber to add a new hose bib in a more convenient location. Alternatively, hook up your hose in spring and put a nozzle on the opposite end and just leave it turned on till fall. Or DIY this and drain it every fall. Lots less headbanging. Pinterest has lots of ideas for hose extenders.

You could also add PVC or PEX attached to the underside of your new deck with the bib on the side or front of deck. Then you wouldn't have to mow around it or trip on it. Just be sure it's built so it can be completely detached from the house and drained every fall. Very easy and cheap DIY.
 
#140 ·
Here's a step by step tutorial for the hose extender post linked above. The PVC would have to be designed so it could be drained every fall.

The simplest, quickest, cheapest solution would be attaching the PVC or PEX to your deck so it's sloped and easy to drain, and connect it to the house bib with a short length of hose so it's easy to detach and let gravity drain it.
 
#146 ·
Your peas look great! Mine have just come up, and I hope the freeze tonight does not affect them. But they are cold weather plants, so I'm hoping they are ok. Mine grow 4-5ft high outdoors.

I haven't heard of apple mint. What makes it special?
 
#148 ·
love the garden cage! i am planning something similar for the chickens to keep them confined when i have the garden fence down for tilling nd hauling manure....but i am building with what i have so it will look all shabby.

i got rutabagas, bunching onions and daikon radishes planted yesterday. i am putting cardboard over planted areas this year to tru to keep the birds from pickongnout the seeds and maybe some frost protection. we'll see...

the lovage is doing well but super short this year. it might need to be moved.
 
#150 ·
I direct seeded peas, radish, lettuce, spinach, beets and kale in the garden Thursday. Nothing up yet, but it badly needs to be watered. Hubby had an all weekend conference online and I entertained company, so it hasn’t been done yet. Tomorrow.

Tomorrow we are expecting another contractor quote. And another one on Tuesday. Then we have to make a decision. The first quote came in at around $13,000 CAD.

I took the starts out on the deck this afternoon. It was quite warm. I only took out onions, leeks and parsley. I kept the rest indoors.

My tomatoes are about a foot tall now. They are in larger pots in front of the living room window. They look spindly and weak. I don’t think they’re going to do much. I think I need a different fertilizer.

The basil is outgrowing the grow lights too. I’m going to have to find a sunny spot for them.

The peppers are falling prey to leaf curl too now. I’m not happy.
 
#151 ·
Not doing my garden any more. Too much work and I ended up not doing anything with my plot. I will be still going to the herb plot, though.

On the other hand, I'm thinking of doing a CSA through a vendor at my local farmer's market. It seems that this CSA has a single person option ($300). I may stop by when the market opens in two weeks. The thing about this CSA is that I can pick it up at the market, rather than having to pick it up from the farm itself. That makes things easier for me.
 
#152 ·
Our groundhog has returned! He / she was around all summer and fall but of course we haven’t seen him of the winter. This morning I noticed Ginger very intently watching out the living room window. So I looks out and sure enough - “Woodrow” has returned! I know most people don’t like them and they can wreak havoc on gardens but this guy never once touched my garden last summer or the summer before. Then again, I keep the containers on the deck and the plant boxes are mounted to the deck rail so maybe he doesn’t like to climb stairs?

It’s supposed to cruddy weather this week so I won’t bring any plants out for hardening.

Have any of you ever grown apple mint herb.? I saw some at a farm stand and wondered how it was.
 
#153 ·
I've never heard of apple mint, but from what google says it's just another variety in the mint family.

Planted my bargain strawberries today. I got 6 to fill in holes in the raised bed (on right). Garlic and overflowing strawberries fill my brick pathway and spill into the garden on both sides of the decorative urn. There's onions in there, too. On the far left the raised bed has spinach(not doing well), peas (a few are up) and lettuce (which you can see). There's also a brown row in the straw which is swiss chard. We also have a bountiful crop of dandelion puffballs, since the yard hasn't been mowed, and you can see shade on the back half of the garden is already an issue.

Plant Natural landscape Land lot Wood Tree


DH and I stopped after dinner today and looked at plants. He spotted a clearance rack at the back of the nursery and I got several "distressed" annuals for my flower pots. The only thing wrong with them is the blooms have faded.
 
#154 ·
CH I’d never heard of apple mint either. I happened to see a farm stand post that mentioned they have it and I thought of getting it for dd for tea. I was surprised how many types of mint there are. Guess I never gave it any thought in the past. I want to call a couple of places that are closer than the farm stand and see if they have it. The farm stand is about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes away. I’m willing to go get it but if it’s local it’ll be better. Your garden looks great!
 
#155 ·
Never heard of apple mint either looks like reg mint too. Wonder if it has a apple smell to it like scented geraniums. Nothing has happened here cus the weather is still rain but suppose to be sunny this weekend. Decided the hydranga in the front isn't thriving too much sun so will move that and get 4 hedge roses to fill gaps to make a fence. Told ds that he is digging this weekend.
 
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