Gardening to divert depression

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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



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.

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!

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.

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

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.