What do you Grow?? The Garden Thread

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Last year I had my first real try at growing fruit/vegetables, and I found it so much fun! I grew peppers, chilli's, carrots, onions, cherry tomatoes, courgettes, salad leaves, radish and strawberries. They all seemed to have such an intense flavour too .
I can't wait for the weather to improve here so I can get growing this year. I need to plan what I'm going to try this year.

^ it is fun! Let us know how it comes out.

Miss Lizard reminded me of bitter oranges so I took a walk into the woods to see if there were any wild bitter oranges around. Came home with six. Plan to go back tomorrow with the fruit picker for the ones I couldn't reach today. The juice makes great marinades and also marmalades.

The walking irises are blooming. I stuck my nose into the bloom and discovered they do have a wonderful light scent. I hadn't realized that until someone posted it here.

I am also trying to grow herbs from seed this year. The orangelo thyme and lemon balm have come up. Itsy, bitsy, tiny little cotyledons. Specks of green.

Oooh! little seedlings are so cute & exciting
(Doing a finger-wriggle at the thought)
We’ll be sowing salad greens when the weather warms up, and I’m looking forward to the “little carpet with a micro-sunshade for each fibre” stage. Magical.

It’s always a miracle to see a seed sprout.I’m going to start more herbs and perennials from seed this year.Its just too expensive to buy plants of everything I want.The library has a good plant sale every spring but not sure about this year...
The trifoliate orange seeds germinate well, they make great security hedges.Supposedly there is a Japanese citrus,Yuzu that might be hardy here.I’d like to try it.

Over the years I've tried a number of gardening clubs, but have never found anyone else who feels the existential joy at seeing seeds sprout and little plants grow. I can't express how it moves me to meet two people who feel the same.

The sour oranges and tangerines and grapefruit growing wild in south Florida woods are thought to be the result of workers spitting out seeds from their lunches. Our woods here, and even the very wild Fakahatchee were logged decades ago.

Many familiar herbs don't grow here. Thyme is one example. This orangelo thyme is supposed to be good through zone 9. We'll see. The other reason to plant seeds is the wider variety of plants available. I went through the seed catalogues and picked out herb seeds for zones 10-11. Even if I don't know what they are, I can learn to cook with them.

Tiny seedlings provide so much entertainment. I "check" them several times a day. Each time brings a smile to my face.

I grow candy eating Sweet Peas called Om Noms. I made another one with air clay this evening. I'm going to sell them at Art's Alive this summer.

My wife feels that way too: every year I get called on to admire the first set of pre-differentiation leaves together!
I’ve also been slightly tardy pricking out the self-seeded alliums that are coming up amidst our irises... it’s necessary to avoid the garden being overwhelmed by them, but it feels so cruel to do it every year


Interesting, wonder if something similar is the origin of the Johnny Appleseed folklore?

Yeah: thyme in particular is a herb that often looks a bit sickly when I’ve seen it growing in this country, think it’s because it’s too damp for some Mediterranean plants: isn’t Florida quite damp/humid? Or am I mixing up/over generalising?
I’ve had success with the smaller “creeping thymes” as I call them that ramble across the ground rather than form little bushes: in raised beds about 6-8” high though.

I like to gently run the palm of my hand over them so it’s just making contact... like a tickle that’s too soft to actually tickle.

It’s nice to have gardening friends and swap advice.
Plants have been a special interest since I can remember.I was fortunate to be introduced to the joy of gardening at a young age and have loved it ever since.
It’s so exciting in winter when the first catalogs arrive.It helps to pass the winter hours.
The humidity here plays havoc with most of the Mediterranean herbs.I found that I can grow thyme in pots on a table and they don’t rot out.They don’t do good at all in the ground.Oregano and marjoram seem to take it in stride.Rosemary gets some rot but doesn’t seem to overwinter here regularly.
I converted my kitchen into a green room with some LED lights and filled the table with plants.It really helped with the winter blues.I have some tropical in there,Passion flower,pineapple,mini- orange,bird of paradise and my Christmas cacti,and other assorted plants.

I also struggle with rosemary. They tend to give up, not in the heat of the summer, but afterwards. It seems like they are totally worn out by September, which is still hot and humid here. Last year I bought a fairly large plant thinking that if it is established, it might do better. It rotted and rotted, but one section has survived and is reviving now. Meanwhile, I bought another large rosemary and a long-leaved rosemary - thinking maybe a different variety might do better.

I grow cuban oregano here, you could grow it as a summer herb. I use it like oregano in cooking and also just lay a leaf in a sandwich. It has big leaves compared to greek oregano. And you can propagate it from just a leaf. It grows to be a large plant, but the older parts start to die back, but there are always new tips growing. It's not a vine, but it isn't upright either. It has overwintered here. It dies to the ground and then comes up again in spring.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/herbs/cuban-oregano/growing-cuban-oregano.htm

What other herbs are you growing?

Your green room sounds awesome. I had a greenhouse, but Hurricane Irma destroyed it.

I drag my husband out to see my little successes and my new blooms. He is very tolerant and comes along and mutters appropriate comments. He is a real sweetheart.

We are very hot and humid. The worst months are August and September. It is difficult to keep anything alive during that time, except the natives and tropicals.

I have chocolate mint,peppermint
Yarrow,clary sage,thyme,oregano,chicory,
chives,garlic chives,tansy,and valerian.Then the usual annuals like basil,dill,and marjoram.
Sorry about the greenhouse,that’s awful.I have one of those cheap small ones.It works fine except I can’t keep mice out.I had a whole tray of leeks I started from seed and they ate them.Along with some small kale and collard plants I started off.They didn’t bother the woody plants,just the young tender juicy stuff.I have no idea how to keep them out.Its a shame because I could be using it to start my cool season plants.Rodents cause most of my garden problems.Rats attack the arborvitae, azalea ,camellia and some other plants. They prune the limbs off to make nests.

OK. I need to be thinking about something else and spending time in the garden is the best way for me to delight in life and growing things.

Good news first. I have my first, regular size, red tomato. In south Florida, generally we can only grow the cherry size tomatoes. This tomato plant is a volunteer. It popped up early in January. It is very healthy and growing with a very thick healthy stem and leaves. I have put protection around it because just before they are perfectly ripe, the possum or raccoon gets it. In this case, a catbird managed to get in and picked out some of the other side that you can't see. I like to focus on the good parts.

[url=[url=https://imgur.com/1inE54d][/url]]First Tomato[/url]

Here is a bunch of Angie mangoes. They are about 1/3 grown and looking pretty. It looks like I have pretty good fruit set on the mangoes, although I am not counting my chickens before they are hatched.



The bad news is that the deer are still winning. They have chomped down too many plants to itemize here, including the new rose plant.

I spent the morning removing the center plants of the pineapple patch and have moved some plants in pots into that area. Pineapple plants are 3 feet tall and 3 feet wide. The leaves have pointy tips and have nasty serrations on both sides of the leaves. I'll see if that works. Plus, my order of new bird netting just came in and I'll be putting that out, too.

Misslizard, you have a great assortment of herbs. Do you use any for medicinal reasons?

I put a row of carrots in today and have already planted one lot of potatoes, some peas, shallots and beetroot. Purple sprouting broccoli is on the windowsill sprouting. In trays I have 3 courgets, little gem lettuce seeds and tomato seeds. Last year I put cardboard and black plastic down in my mum's garden, otherwise I have to reclaim the same land from weeds and grass every other year, it really helps. I have mixed greens and real spinach on its way and the beds are ready.

We’ve got seedlings being looked after by my aunt (she has a two storey south facing veranda, with the top floor glazed so it’s like a long, narrow greenhouse).
If I remember rightly we’re expecting a variety of lettuces, rocket, spinach, dwarf peas, courgettes and tomatoes. Probably some other things I’ve forgotten since I was informed

That tomato looks delicious, and impressively big if I’m correct in guessing that the glass object to the right is a lemon juicer.

Sorry to hear about your rose and other plants
Hopefully there’s enough growing season left for recoveries to be made?

As much as I love the subtropics here, I am jealous of domineekee and Karamazov and your temperate vegetables. I do love hearing about it though.

Sharp eyes, Karamazov, that is a lemon juicer.

I will eat the tomato tonight.

The deer got about half of the rose bush, it had not really gotten going well yet. Right now, I am covering it at night until I can get a fence around it. I have lots of cylinders of woven wire fencing that I can put over plants if necessary and I guess I will get those out. The longevity spinach does not come back from deer browsing. but there are branches that were either low to the ground or trailing in the pineapple leaves that were untouched, so I will hope those will regenerate. The edible hibiscus doesn't look too good.

I have lots of pineapples plants all over the place. So I am planning great fences of pineapple plants.

We let the grass grow long at the bottom of the garden and a deer fawn was hanging out there, maybe it will be back to munch on the greens later on, let's see.