What do you Grow?? The Garden Thread

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Indeed.

So far this year we’ve lost a courgette to mystery collapse, rocket seedlings uprooted by blackbirds after worms, and the tomatoes aren’t looking that promising (yellowing from the base).
Oh, and all but one of the cherries our tree set have shrivelled and gone brown.

Sorry to hear about the loss.Always a blow to see plants that were thriving croak.
I had disease problems with cucumbers, great long vines loaded blooms, then they wilt from the tip back and die.This year I will plant disease resistant plants.Heirlooms are wonderful for flavor,not practical at times with low disease resistance.
The late frost we had a few weeks back did all the fruit in.Maybe a few pie cherries, but no apples,peaches,plums or pears this year.Maybe just berries and muscadines this year.
It’s turned cold and wet( blackberry winter) so the tomatoes, eggplants and peppers are sulking in the garden.
The Phenomenal lavender is living up to its claims, no rot!!!I hope it’s hardy and overwinters.
My greens are looking good,red leaf mustard, oak leaf lettuce, collards and bok choy.Onions and garlic thriving.
I haven’t even planted corn, beans, okra or melons.They would rot.
Tea Camellia looking sick.

^ What symptoms is the tea camellia showing?
If it’s getting brown blotches on the leaves it could be it needs the soil it’s in to be given an acidity boost.

It has been an incredibly long winter this year. Way out of the ordinary. A few days ago, the temperature fell below freezing again. Well yesterday (May 12) we decided that it was time to plant the garden. We have a week of rain coming and it is "Now or Never" time. This "planting the garden" event would normally occur a month earlier. So our garden is now in.

I suspect the long winter is due to the fact that we are in the deepest solar minimum seen in the last hundred years. Days without sunspots.

Interesting: we haven’t had a long winter here in the UK, or at least not my little corner thereof, April temperatures were more akin to what I’d expect for June.

Commiserations on your various blights.

Verticillium is an airborne pathogen, the potatoes wilted after a day of heavy wind. Not sure if that was the cause, I feel it's probably more due to me growing potatoes in the same patch 2 years running. They don't look any worse than they did yesterday. If the foliage dies off completely I'll plant the beds with a few other greens which I have coming on in trays, wait a few weeks and hopefully dig up some small potatoes and eat the greens at the same time. I'm stocking up on brown rice before autumn.

Thankfully the other crops are doing really well.

Yes ,and it’s pallid looking.Thinking back,I had burned a brush pile there years before and it may have altered the ph.
So an acidity boost is in order.
That is some delicious looking spinach domineekee.So lush and healthy.
Is that the same potato blight that caused the famine in Ireland?
Here potato bugs aka Colorado potato beetle is the big killer.They can strip vines of leaves in no time.I control them organically by shaking the vine into a bucket.Has to be done daily,the hens like the beetles and you can use them as fish bait.

I wrote a long post responding to you all which somehow disappeared into the ether. Suffice it to say, I am terribly sorry about the gardening losses and for jimmy, the long winter. One set of inlaws live in your area and they bemoaned the loss of so many spring flowers.

I also posted a couple of pictures, I'll try again.

[url][url=https://imgur.com/OfQKG2b][/url][/url]

[url][url=https://imgur.com/uB7jtYq][/url][/url]

Absolutely gorgeous!

Err... Just read that the UK was battered by a late Frost... Missed that. I'll wait to see if the potatoes put up new shoots. The lollo rosso lettuce seems easy to grow, there are zillions of leeks and the kale is rampant, so I'll wait and adjust to whatever the weather

Domeekee, I think your potatoes may well have been done in by frost. I hope you see some new shoots soon.

My tomatillos are growing well and flowering like crazy, but not setting any fruit. A google search states it could be day length sensitive and that it sets fruit when day length begins to shorten. Anyone else have this happen?

My volunteer tomato produced a total of five good fruits before dying. I think it must be determinant. I covered it with much protection, but a sneaky possum grabbed two more, for a total of three to the possum and 2 to me.

As I said earlier, I perused the seed catalogs and purchased all herbs that are zoned for zone 10. I'm really in zone 9 according to the maps, but I am so far south in zone 9 that if "9" is the warmest a plant will grown, it probably won't grow at my location. Here is a totally new to me herb: Papalo.

[url=[url=https://imgur.com/tX6YSQ6][/url]]Papalo[/url]

My plants finally grew large enough that I felt I could harvest a few leaves to find out the flavor. WOW!
Papalo is a strong savory flavor, reminiscent of cilantro, but stronger and with other overtones. I can really see it as a great addition to salsas. I put some on a taco and it overwhelmed the taco, so it does need to be used in moderation. I love the flavor of cilantro, but it does not grow here. It just bolts. I've been growing culantro, but the flavor is not quite to my liking and it has those stiff points on the leaves. It looks like papalo may fill that need for me.

Here is a tiny orchid but the blooms are all perched at the top of the stem, making it quite attractive. It is very common and cheap to purchase. I think it is an epidendrum, but I have forgotten the exact name. I could look it up if someone is really interested.

[url=[url=https://imgur.com/crRqFBg][/url]]Epidendrum[/url]

I grew a tomatillo once and it got huge and never set one fruit.Someone said you need two but if you have more than one maybe it is the light.

We grew tomatillos at our old house about seven years ago and had quite a nice little crop off them.
The situation was south-facing full sun and low wind exposure, in a raised bed composed of heavy clay that had been enriched with compost digging in every year for at least a decade after an initial digging in of grit and sand for drainage.
They also had tomatoes growing alongside them and were generously watered every evening.

I got 1000 Sum Choi seeds to plant where the now dead runner beans were.

Ate a few radishes from the garden and boiled the tops, which I preferred... yum

Spinach has reached critical mass.

Planted radish pods just to see what happens.

Snipped all the dead foliage off potatoes and they are coming back OK.

Poked my head over neighbour's hedge, his runner beans are fine... Maybe I watered the garden before the frost.

While I wanted to spend my whole stimulus check on plants I didn’t.
Just a few annuals for bedding hat were reduced.
I did get a new battery lawn mower and I love it.Still waiting on the new weedeater and hedge trimmer to arrive.The batteries are interchangeable.The Black and Decker 40 volt max series.I already had the leaf blower and chain saw.Very excited about yard work now.
Also scored some sweet old concrete statuary.Two frogs, an Umbrella with a little chair under it and one of a man and woman dressed in period clothes kissing.
All vintage and beautifully aged.

^ I used to do all the gardening work by hand - hand saw, pulling things around in wheelbarrows, moving plants with a hand truck. Now that I am older I have started to get into power tools. We have a hedge trimmer, a weed wacker, a chain saw, etc. I was somewhat afraid of them at first, but I am getting used to it. And it is amazing how much more I can do with the power tools.

I have one rain lily blooming today.