What do you Grow?? The Garden Thread

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I've only grown it once before and it was easy but it takes months till it puts the edible shoots out.

beetroot, perpetual spinach, runner beans, rocket are all easy to grow.

Turnips and courgettes are also pretty easy to get success with.
Chard is a good beginner veg, plus if you get a pack of rainbow chard the stems will be all different shades of red & orange: pretty as well as tasty!

I do have some medical herbs, yarrow,clary sage,mountain mint,lemon balm,tulsi,pineapple sage,cat mint,chicory,valerian and echinacea.I use them in teas or tinctures.I also wild harvest goldenseal and my son digs ginseng.Also lots of trees with medical roots and bark like sassafras and hawthorn.
That tomato looked tasty,perfect on toast with Dukes mayo and black pepper.Mine haven’t even germinated yet.
If you get some seeds from the trifoliate oranges,they germinate easy,now that’s a thorny fence out of a fairy tale.I don’t think anything could get thru.Its also a good idea to plant thorny stuff under the windows as a burglar deterrent and it keeps the teenagers from climbing in and out.

^ I agree about using the trifoliate oranges under the windows, but my husband is against it because it would make it more difficult for him to work on the house. But this idea as been floated around and not totally discarded. We are like Quakers in the way we make decisions. If we don't agree, the idea just sits there and we think about it more and usually come up with a solution that is better than either of us wanted to do.

I am growing some lemon balm this year. Is there any particular ailment you find this useful for? I don't mean outrageous things like curing cancer. Most like is it soothing for a sore throat? calming a tummy ache? I know I can look this up, but I was wondering what a real person uses it for.

Traven, bountiful common names are a problem, especially when we are all spread over a large geographic area with different languages. I was mostly wondering what the blue flowers were. A casual glance, I thought it was borage, but the leaves are nothing like borage. Also, the third plant down...I have something like that growing wild all over.

My curry leaf tree just burst into bloom. The blooms are umbels and not all that noticeable but they attract dozens of swallowtail butterflies, large butterflies with yellow, black and blue wings. Fantastic visuals.

My battered old herb book* says lemon balm was used by the Ancient Greek’s as a ‘home’ marker for bees: so they’d stay in their hive and not swarm.
The book says it can help reduce spasms and calm the nervous system. Also help take the edge off headaches and migraines.
Recommended added to Black China Tea.
Culinarily it can apparently be used to provide a lemon flavour but without the harsh sourness of real lemons.

*Herb Gardening by Claire Loewenfeld published 1964: the author set up a business called “Chiltern Herb Farms”.
Wikipedia Article She has formerly worked at Great Ormond Street Hospital after emigrating from Germany.

^ Thanks!

I have been gradually trying to grow more perennials. This year I bought lots of seeds for perennial herbs even if I didn't really know what they might be good for. Just like the vegetables, I can't grow easily many of the temperate herbs, so I will grow what might work well here and then look for uses.

My lemon balm seedings are about an inch tall with two sets of true leaves. I am so excited.

Plain or variegated variety?

They form big clumps about 3’ tall in Britain: I predict you’ll be digging up turves of it to trade with the neighbours in five years or so!

British common names for pulmonaria are “Lungwort” (usually) and “Moses-in-the-Basket” (only known folks from the welsh borders use that one): we’ve got a different variety that has plain leaves without the white spots and deep blue flowers with black sepals.

Plain. I didn't know there was a variegated variety. I will grow several bushes of it and watch the bees swarm over it. Does it have blue flowers? I love blue flowers.

I am bringing in some of my deer prone plants into the screen front porch, but had to order plant saucers to keep them from rotting the floor. Rot grows here anywhere there is moisture.

We (ie my husband) is building a roof and screen for the back porch and after that...he will build me a shade house. I should be able to keep critters out of that. Or at least have a dry place for my garden tools.

If I remember rightly the flowers are quite small and a pale, dusky pink (although there may be more purple varieties as well)
My mum had a big stand of the variegated type when I was little: it looks identical to the plain leaf save for yellow splashes on the leaf rims.
Lovely sharp lemony-minty scent when you brush past it.

A garden room! Sounds delightful, you can have your own little protected jungle to relax in

I hope so. It is difficult for me to envision things not yet there. I did have a nice time sitting in my greenhouse and luxuriating in the humidity, plants smells, earth smells....

I use lemon balm in tea for flavor but it’s suppose to have anti viral properties so drink up! I think lemon verbena smells better.Lemon balm kind of smells like Murphy’s oil soap.One you have it you always will, it likes to spread and seed out.The deer don’t seem to like it and the strong smelling herbs like mints.Basil they love.
Beautiful pictures everyone, beautiful lush and green.
I transplanted some mums,and did tons of pruning.My lilacs, snowball bush and other large shrubs had tons of old dead wood and suckers to remove.
Late daffodils going on now,my favorites are Thalia and BellSong.The latest to bloom is Sundisc.Oh,and the Peasant Eye is amazing big clumps.
Both fragrant and delicate looking.
Scored a rhubarb plant in town,variety Victoria.

My tray of lettuce seeds just sits there doing bugger all. I don't remember it being difficult to grow lettuce.

New packet or old one?

New packet of Little gem kos lettuce in fancy John Innes compost. The brocs had exactly the same treatment and are all around an inch high. I put 3 squash seeds in with the lettuce and the are germinating. I'm thinking that the soil may be too dry. I've watered and should get around to putting some cling film over the tray. Nothing has come up in the garden so far either.

In the past I bought a kind of tape made from biodegradable fibre with pre spaced seeds, stuck it in the ground and they came up no bother. Maybe that was in May though.

^ that’s a point, might be it’s just too cold for lettuce to germinate.
If the squashes are up and growing I doubt it’s a water issue.

I watered them and I can see a few of them have started.