Do you have a garden?

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Hi Jawbrodt,

I have been gardening for just a few years. Some things I have done well with, others not so good. If I had questions I usually went to books or online to get answers.

Last year I had good results with tomatoes, green grapes, and blackberries. Last October I made a short video to show some friends what had grown on the side of the house:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWF8is5MiUM[/youtube]


As you can see in the video, I didn't have a lot, but but what I did have came out ok. I learned through some trial and error that the section of yard I used was good to grow in since it got afternoon shade. The temperature here can see 100+ all through July and August. That put a lot of stress on other plants I had and until I figured that out, I had poor yields.

Now I am doing much better. This year I built a raised bed using bricks for the walls. I hope to have less weeding to do and better soil drainage from it. So far, so good. The cucumbers are coming up nicely.

Oh, one thing that I have tried that helped keep the pest away was spraying the plants with soap suds (dish washing liquid) and water from a hand held sprayer. It won't hurt the plants, but the dish washing soap irritates the bugs and they leave the plants alone. To me that is much safer to use than a pesticide.

The person you want to talk to on here is Zonder. Now, he can grow a garden!

Hope you have a great garden Jawbrodt.

Oh, right here, sorry. I was out digging in the garden...

Yes, thank you for starting this thread. I just found it, and now I probably won't leave.
Plants are my obsession, and I love gardening more than just about anything else.

I currently live in a small suburban house, with a decent sized yard. When I moved in, it was a blank slate except for one large oak tree in the front yard. I've been working on this property for about 5 years. In that time, I've planted over two dozen trees, an herb garden, fruiting vines and bushes, and lots of random flowery things. In particular, I like plants that have uses beyond ornamental. I enjoy my fruits and other edibles, and the herbs which are both culinary and medicinal. If I can help it, the plants in my garden must have some curious aspect... unique flower structure or scent, interesting leaves or bark, or some other trait that sets them apart.

I take utmost pride in my garden, and I worry about it like I would a family member. Probably not good for my anxiety, but I can't seem to help it. The garden talks to me and responds to the work I do in amazing and subtle ways. It is the place where I can work out the mazes of botanical taxonomy that I seem to think about most of the time. Some of the garden is organized in patterns according to Genus, or Family. For example, there are loosely-grouped collections of plants from the Myrtaceae (Myrtle), Solanaceae (Nightshade), and Lamiaceae (Mint). Like a botanical garden. I guess that's really what it is. I do not grow a pretty garden. I collect unusual, useful, beautiful plants.

I'll find some pictures and post them when I get the opportunity.

tohlagos. Cool video.

One thing I could suggest is wood ash I think is supposed to be good for tomatoes and potatoes. You could try that, also had some lme to get a good ph level.

Maybe you could do some prunnng.

I'm growing jalapenos in pots. I kept them inside during the winter, hoping I could gets peppers through even the cold weather. Since no pollenators are in my house, I didn't have much luck. It seems the only things I 've been able to grow inside were aphids. Because of that, I had to prune off all of the leaves when it came time to bring the plants back outside. Some new leaves are sprouting as are flowers so, hopefully, I'll get some produce in a little while.

Last year I had prolific roma tomatoes and jalapenos in pots. I also grew romas in the ground, but they didn't do as well.

I decided not to bother growing romas this year because, they had a lot more seeds than what I was hoping for. I wanted a tomato with a low amount of seeds inside. They also had a nasty interior stem-like structure which added difficulty in preperation. When I'm eating salsa or other sauces, I really hate finding pieces in it which have stems. I only bother with growing stuff that I want to eat.

My parents grew those one year.