Gardening to divert depression

3jaysmom

hi ladies... sneh.. its quality , not quantity with this thread...hahahglad to have you join us, wren..

  the weather in so. fla has been cold,...for so. fla lol

  so, im back to watering, and then covering my plants.. alas, i've not been well, and Mur, although he loves the garden, will not water it in my absense, so ive lots of dead ones.. they came from cuttings, so when it warms up again, i'll be doing more...

  the garden was lovely for christmas.. i'll postr pics someday.. we did nothing with the gazebo on the p orch, though.. just too much, with the inside of the house.hahaha

   funny story, my next door neighbor again, the other day, commented that he never saw anyone cover their plants, less with designer sheets.. matching ones, at that!!!

   i told him, my MIL passes on all her bedding to us, and we don't like rop sheets.. so the plants get really nice striped, expensive sheets to cover them for the winter.. we laughed and laughed...

  being in my garden is the single reason i get out of bed, somedays... and it always makes me feel warm and fuzzy, ro see them...

  when it warms up here, i want to add more flowers. i usually like the greenery, and i admit,  alot of the hanging baskets have PLASTIC floerts sprouting out of the philedrendron these days!!!i even found fake orchids the same color as my real ones.. hope i can get them blooming agin soon.

  a big hello to all three of you.3jays

MiniMacsMom

So, I am new to the gardening thread and a relative newbie to gardening in general.  Last year was only my second real veggie garden and my first year sprouting seedlings.  I am just so excited because my 18mo helped me start some herb and cruciferous (sp) veggie seeds.  He is so great, he keeps checking on the "baby plants".  We ended up telling him they are sleeping right now. 

We don't do hydroponics, but we went to the Hydro store to get some trays and stuff and get got to look at some just germinated seeds.  I want to think he knows a little whats going on.  Regardless its great  to watch his enthusiasm.  I am going to be travelling for surgery and rads this summer so no summer garden, but I am growing the seeds anyway to give them away to neighbors and such. 

3jaysmom

minimacs mom: hi, welcome to our "little thread" .. my 4 yr old grandson is always so excited to help with my patio garden.. i live in so fla., so we're lucky, MOST of the year we have things growing here.. i only have a little space, so i don't do veggie gardens. i always did with my dad, though, on the cpe, in mass, growing uo. i think its wonderful to see their excitement.. he always has a "sweet potato in his room, at home, wants to know why the potatoes dont grow on it..hahaha3jays

Wren44

My 8 and 4yo grandsons help with their garden, which is a raised bed by their driveway. The oldest's favorite food is parsley and the younger's is chard. They love to help pick it just before cooking. The oldest has only agreed to eat a little meat in the past year.

Raj20

I am so exited to see tomatoes in my  garden. I have  planted only  6 tomatoes , it is really good  to see them  giving fruits. There  are only 3 or 4 bunches  of  tomatoes (local breed)  in one plant. I used to plug lettuce everyday  for my salad. I have also planted  few shrubs like celery, dil, corriender, small onion. Seeing  my garden in the tubs, I really feel  good and relaxed.

3jaysmom

so glad to "see" you, sneh.. am really glad you can garden at your new home.....3jays

Wren44

Tomatoes are the hardest crop to grow here. We tend to have rainy and cold Spring followed by rainy and cold summer until after July 4th. We put plastic water warmers around them, red plastic underneath to encourage fruiting, and baby them endlessly. Our reward is finally getting a home grown tomato sometime in Sept. And it's always worth every bit of effort. Nothing tastes as good.

Maya2

Sneh, it's so good to see you dropped by. Tomatoes already! Sigh. Can't even plant them yet, but I want to. Pansies are beautiful, but have suddenly been besieged by bugs. Want to use something that isn't toxic to people or pets.

Wren, I love Seattle. Whenever I visit I make a stop at the end of the day at the International Fountain. It's relaxing and so fun to watch the kids in the water. It's a great city.

3jays, have you found summer flowers for your garden yet? Can you grow tomatoes all year?

Kimberly1961

Wren, oddly enough, I can put tomatoes out in spring (from seed grown on a windowsill) and always mean to baby them but them something comes up.  Last year it was cancer, surgery,  Most of the vegetable garden went to waste, celery, peppers, you name it.  I was too sick to water, fertilize, weed.  They were left to fend for themselves.  I couldn't even harvest.  My neighbor/friend harvested the plants.  Abundanza for them.  No love the whole season.  Funny how different plants are easy or hard, depending where you live.  I can't grow celery and I hear it is rather easy to do in the northwest, very hard from seed.  Had transplants that did great last year, but let them go because I was so tired.  This year heard you could plant celery bottoms from store bought and get a new plant.  Wish you luck in adding organic to your menu.  I try but have limited space.  I have to appreciate those tomatoes more, knowing how hard it is the northwest.

dogeyed

I don't know why I didn't think of gardening to ease my troubles.  I've finished all cancer treatments, rounded the corner on when it all began a year ago, and yet I sometimes feel tired, emotional, irritated.  And I QUIT the hormone-blocking drugs, each person is individual, I don't recommend it for anyone, but I'm just saying this becuz it wasn't those drugs that are making me go up and down.

SO, with that said, I am inspired by this little thread.  I'm thinking perhaps I could do a little kitchen garden to start out, and then maybe we can get our lawn mower guy dig up a place out near the gazebo that we agreed would be good for a garden, but just never have gotten around to it.  I thought if I started small, it would get me back in the swing of things, we used to ALWAYS have a garden, and I ALWAYS have planted flowers since I was a girl.  Thank you everyone for this thread.  GG

bwitkin

Spring is just around the corner.  We are reminded about life's renewal in the glorious show nature provides us with each year without fail.

Gardening has always been an instant stress reliever for me. One of my favorite chores is to tend my moss garden. The moss came all on its own but preening the area by removing extraneous growth of seedlings from the tree canopy above keeps the moss velvety smooth and lovely. A real sense of accomplishment. Focusing on the activity leaves no room to "worry" about anything.

As a master gardener, certified pilates instructor and wellcoach I love being able to share with others who are facing life's challenges. I am looking forward to reading what other gentle souls are doing to live their best lives. xo

CurlyD

Just found this forum and it's good to find a group of pink ribbon sisters who share some of my interests. Reading through all the posts was a lot of fun and gave me some great ideas.

I also love to garden although I haven't been able to do much of it the last few years. I had a vegi garden the first two years I lived in Va but work overcame it and it's been a while since I had one. I've always had live plants and brought most of them with us when we moved to AL and since we moved here we've continue filling the house with live plants as my husband also loves them.  Although I do most of the care and feeding.

We also have a large back yard which other than a few trees is virgin and ready for our future "English Garden" as well as a vegetable garden. The vegi garden will probably have to wait as I'm still in the middle of my reconstruction after the bi-lateral mastectomy. I won't be able to lift anything heavy until nearer the end of May and since the ground needs a lot of prep --thus the lifting of heavy bags of topsoil-- I'll have to wait for next year to do the actual planting. I'll start the prep this year though and even want to start my own compost. Now that I'm now retired I plan on playing more in the back yard and it should be fun!! As I am still somewhat of a novice any suggestions or comments are always welcome!

CurlyD

Karen, we also love to decorate for Christmas and this past Dec we had over 14 theme trees in our new house, including an inverted tree which was really cool looking. The ornaments hang much better then on a regular tree and it's also a novel look. I was skeptical when my husband bought it last year, but it became one of my favorites.

Sherryc

Just found this thread and I love to garden.  It is very peaceful.  Nothing better than having a busy day at work and come home and go outside and water my plants.  In Texas we get to start our spring gardens early so last weekend we finished planting ours.  I wanted to get it done early because I will be having a BMX with TE's on March 26th and knew I could not be doing all that hard work after that.  I also do alot of canning with my tomotoes etc. I used to help my Dad in the garden when I was a little girl.  He always had a huge garden and I complained about helping him.  Now I love it, my mother just laughes at me.  DH and I just started out garden two years ago so this is out third spring and last fall was my first fall garden.  The more I do the more I love it.  I keep asking DH to build me more beds and make our yard smaller which is way to big anyway. 

3jaysmom

welcome to all the "new" ladies.. i haven't been doing any planting, this year, as yet.. still pretty much stuck in the house, but want to do some flowers, rather than"greenery" this year... sorry Maya 2 , i missed the "window" for pansies.. i gotta find some flowers that won't wlt in the summer, in so fla.. i don't like succluents that much, but theyre always an option.. no room or energy, for veggies.....3jays

Blessings2011

Last Tuesday, I got my last set of fills. They hurt. I laid around and whined for two solid days then got so bored I went out into the yard with DH yesterday and planted ranunculus, japanese charm anemone, and a HUGE peony!

I'd planted a whole bag of peony bulbs a year or two ago that I got from Costco. Not one came up! But yesterday, we looked, and there were the little red leaves popping up from the ground. WooHOO!

Still trying to decide if we're doing a raised veggie garden this year. Last year we built one, 4' x 4'. We divided it into fourths, and put in drip irrigation. I planted a beefsteak tomato plant, a yellow grape tomato plant, a yellow squash plant. My final choice was an Armenian cucumber plant, but the nursery had no plants, just a packet of seeds. What the heck, I thought....I just dumped ALL the seeds into that square foot of space.

Well, I think we got ONE beefsteak tomato, SIX yellow grape tomatoes, NO yellow squash, and the Armenian Cucumber plant from outer space! It took over everything! I started lining up junk from the  yard just so the vines would have a place to go.

This year, the Farmer's Markets are looking better and better.

Reached 77 degrees today, with maybe a chance of rain this weekend. I say it's gardening time!

dogeyed

Gosh, I had totally forgotten about Peonies!  Always wanted a whole raft of them, thought about planting our side yard with them.  Any garden I would do by the gazebo would have to be flowers, as I don't think I have it in me to slave over vegies with digging, atho I gotta say, ain't nothing like fresh vegies out of the garden, husband mixes a great salad with barbecue stuff in it, and he bakes bread.  Altho he also hasn't done any of that in a while.  But there IS one vegie plant I LOVE, but not for the food, rather for the atmosphere.

I'll tell a little story.  Years ago husband put together quite the garden, I hired someone to dig it, and off husband went, and he grew this one large part with bean plants.  Well, I went out there, tried to help, was no help, so I kind of got interested in what was going on underneath all those big bean plants.  Wound up laying in the dirt between rows and looking up under the shady cool plants, very complex undergrowth, and I SWEAR, it was a whole another universe of the very tiny.  A little "helicopter" went by, it looked EXACTLY like one, and other various crawlies, a butterfly sailed along, I was entranced by this vast, giant forest, it seemed. 

So, reckon that place by the gazebo will have to be partly my bean plant garden (which husband will HAVE to install it, I don't know how, I tend to grow underground stuff like potatoes and carrots, altho corn stalks are pretty amazing).  Right next to gazebo, husband tried to grow his roses, but the soil was no good, and we keep putting off going to Farmer's Market for mulch and more rose plants.  So, I shall remember the peonies and give them a shot, I'LL TRY GIRLS, don't know how much effort I can put into anything these days.  GG

Wren44

3jays - When we lived in Houston, we had a small flower spot in front of our house filled with verbena. There are 2 kinds; ours had the lacy leaves. It bloomed all summer long, came back every year, and was no maintenance beyond an occasional watering. You can buy them here, but they're annuals.

Kicks

I absolutely love to mow grass! During spring (if we get enough moisture) I usually mow my yard every other day to keep the from making the yard a sea of yellow. Yes I know I could kill them BUT if I did that there would be huge bare spots. Also this is a rental house and all the neighbors do nothing to control their abundant dandelions so it would be a never ending ight anyway - so I just mow often. I have (well had - they moved away) 3 yards in the neighborhood that I mow to help out 2 single moms and an older lady who lost her Hubby and isn't healthy enough to do hers. The first spring/summer after DX, I had problems with 2 local churches about me mowing. How they knew I'd been through TX I don't know but they would stop and tell me I should not be mowing because I had BC - they would do it for me (not a member of either church). At first I tried to be polite, and assure them that my Drs knew and thought it was great. Finally, one day I had to threaten calling the Police on them as while I was merrily mowing, Hubby was weed-eating and a couple of the men stopped and were calling him everything but a man because he was making me mow so I told them leave as I was calling Police - they left but then went to the houses I mow and tried to tell them that I shouldn't mow for them as I have BC. Stupid Peebles!



Unfortunately our dirt is more of a clay so have to grow flowers and veggies in containers. Also we live under the flight path for an Air Force base so things just don't do all that good here but I try (for some reason the Hollyhocks grow like crazy). My bougainvilles do great in containers (it's way too cold for them to live outside year round so they spend about 7 months inside and are looking 'sad' by the time it's finally warm enough to go outside full time. Also have a pineapple plant I grew from a pineapple Hubby brought home. I grow cactus from seeds (they are really interesting what they look like when sprouting and how they change as they grow).



Wren44 - we lived on Whidbey Island for 12 years and tomatoes did great for me there. I did grow them in 5 gallon pickle buckets to warm the roots. Only place I've grown as good or better 'maters was in SW FL.

CurlyD

Kicks, are you and/or your DH in the AF yourself?

Kicks

CurlyD



No, we're not. Hubby is retired Navy and I was Army. Both of our Dads were retired Air Force though. Well, actually Daddy started out Army and when the Air Force was formed he switched.

Blessings2011

Kicks - we have awful hardpan soil (hard clay, almost like a rock)  here.....what we do to loosen things up is to add a few cups of gypsum  - it's very cheap, and the main ingredient in drywall. You can buy it by the bag in powdered form.

We even sprinkle it on our lawns....and the water from the sprinklers carries it down to below the root line, and softens up all the dirt underneath.

TwoHobbies

Hello, everyone.  I saw this thread once before but since it was the dead of winter, I didn't have much to talk about.  I can't wait till spring and to start to plant.  I have two big flower beds and a vegetable garden in my back yard and then of course have some flower beds in the front too.  I find it is good therapy, for sure. 

 For the ladies that don't have much energy, I had my surgery last April so I couldn't do much to get stuff in the ground last spring.  I discovered you can do quite a lot in containers.  We had tomatoes and herbs and even strawberries in containers and that way there is no digging, wedding, or bending over too far.  . 

Blessings I laughed about your cucumbers.  At our last house, we planted a garden in the sunniest spot but it ended up still being too shady.  It was the most pitiful garden ever, only a few runt tomatoes and nothing else - except for some mutant yellow squash.  It grew, it grew more, it took over everything.  That was our first and last garden attempt at that house.  I was so glad when we moved to a sunny yard!

CurlyD

Kicks, being a mil-brat's a good thing also!

The only odd gardening story I had was when I planted Big Boy tomatoes right next to Romas and couldn't figure out why the Romas were so BIG!  Then I realized that the two plants had cross plinated, so I call my tomatoes Big Roma Boys.  They were some of the best tomatoes I'd ever had so I think I'll do that again here!

Kicks

Big Roma Boys - reminds me of Musturn Greens. Many years ago in NE FL I let my mustard greens and turnips go to seed. Well, they cross pollinated and in the spring the seeds sprouted. Let some go ahead and grow thinking they'd be a bit different tastewise possibly but should be ediable. WRONG - they were about the worst tasteing greens I've ever tried to eat. Actually I never thought that they would cross pollinate but definately did.

Wren44

Knew someone whose regular and hot peppers crossed. They didn't discover it until they made vats of spaghetti sauce that was too hot to eat. Then they had to make another hugh amount so they could can them half and half.

3jaysmom

thanks!!monday, gonna go look for verbena.. mostly, i plan for butterflies, but i want more flowers this year.. i keep them under a gazebo, and cover it when it gets cold in the winter.. cold, for us, anyway...

  Orchids seem to grow themselves to gigNTIC  heights, but no flowers.. gotta feed them next week/3jays

Kicks

Just thought of something I loved growing on Whidbey Island (northern Puget Sound, WA) that won't grow here - fuschias. Every spring my favorite nursery has them for sale and every year I buy a couple but can't keep them alive no matter what I do here. The northern prairie/plains are a lot hotter and drier - but I have to try because I love them.

Sherryc

the last couple of days we have had a nice slow rain which will be great for my garden since I got it planted last Saturday.  I don't have any funny garden stories.  Just trials that did not work.

Kimberly1961

Kicks, I wish you were my neighbor to take care of my grass (there's not much).  I always go for the groundcovers, flowers, vegetables, and mulch, but there is always that dog's run worth of grass and mud. 

I start my normal seeds in the windowsill, but also save seeds. A gardening friend neighbor and I are both trying to regrow some of her most beautiful lettuce.  It was ruby, garnet, beet, blood color, depending how you want to describe it.  She picked it from the bottom up and it lasted all season for her.  She shared a lot of her seeds from it.  (good garden neighbor). 

I am so happy to see interest in gardening.  Every spring I feel renewed with the new things growing.  In my neighbor's yard today we found a very short yellow iris coming up about the same time as crocus would.  Probably freeloaded in as a seed in dirt from something she bought at yard sale.  It was so pretty. So early to see a flower in Wisconsin.  To a gardener, it was an amazement.