Gardening is my new hobby and the one thing that gave me joy and distraction during the stay-at-home days of the pandemic. Going to try growing from seed this year, except for tomatoes. Also wanting to try planting flowers in the garden as our garden is made up of mostly drought-tolerant plants, many of which did not survive the last winter (possibly because I had turned off our sprinkler system for winter out of force of habit without considering how little it rained). What are you all doing for your garden this year? Have you started yet or is it still too early?
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Why not tomatoes? They are super easy to grow from seed and easy to start.
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Always happy to see this annual thread!
I’m in northern Ohio so too early for anything outside. I may plant some seeds this weekend and put my heating pad under them to get them started. I went to our local seed swap this past weekend so I have LOTS of seed. But admittedly, I do the seeds just for experiment and maybe get a few plants out of them. I sometimes prefer to just buy plants from the get go.
I’m also doing some spruce up of my indoor plants this weekend. Some repotting and replanting.
Hoping to see some of my returning herbs like garlic chives start to make their appearance especially with some warm weather coming this weekend!
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I have almost 50 seedlings in my AeroGarden. Tomatoes (4 types), peppers (3 types), eggplant and flowers. Still waiting to see if some of the peppers sprout. They won’t be planted in the garden until mid to late May so they should be a pretty good size by then.
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I have 10 Titan sunflower seedlings which have started to take off. Got the seeds from Baker Creek. They grow up to 12-13’ tall and the flower head can get up to 2’ across! I’m looking forward to seeing how they do.
My 2 chiltepin pepper plants survived the winter (we’re in AZ). This is a native pepper plant from Sonora, Mexico…it grows out in the wild in canyons, usually under the dappled shade of trees overhead. Produces tiny little chiles. Usually the chiles are dried and ground up to use in salsas.
The lemon grass I have also survived the winter. And I have some nasturtiums that have started to take off. Looking forward to hotter weather when I can grow some Armenian cucumbers.
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My Armenian cukes were fried in our 115 degree weather last year. We are in the greater Seattle area. Tomatoes were scorched, too, but eggplant did great. I need to start the veggies soon! Maybe plant some herbs and try radishes again. For some reason, they just don’t do well here. My garden is mostly in containers on our large deck, but it is amazing how much that small number of plants produces.
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This is my first year planting with seeds so I’m mostly going to try the ones I can sow directly in the garden. As I am a newbie at this, I would be happy with anything that sprouts from those seeds and won’t be too disappointed if they don’t. I am so super invested in my tomato plants though that I feel my luck will be better starting with one that is already started. I’ll probably wait until they show up in our local Costco as those are already pretty big.
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Our church giving garden (for local food pantry) was done all by seeds. I was out of town when they planted, but I can attest to the vigorous growth which was aided by drip irrigation … 1000+ pounds of radish, lettuce, onions, green beans, tomatoes, soooo much zucchini, squash, pumpkins.
Our city library has a “seed pantry” in the lobby, using old card catalog drawers. I need to drop by and see what they have. In my yard, everything needs to be rabbit-proof or set up in a high planter.
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It is definitely true (IMO) that seeds take a lot more dedication than a plant that is more established. Early watering, light, temperature, thinning of seeds, etc. all play into the success of whether a seed becomes a viable plant!
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I’m in California, I just throw my seeds down and they sprout, I’ve been growing almost everything from seeds. So far I have 6 tomatoes about 2-4 inches, 3 tomato seedlings, 2 cucumbers, 2-3 rows of onions. I’m just done harvesting a lot of escarole and arugula, all winter vegetables, now prepping my bed for summer crop.
Drought tolerant, peonies are the best drought tolerant plants for SoCal, in fact they don’t like to be wet.
This peony bloom was just opened yesterday.
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One of my fav flowers
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It was 67 degrees and sunny this afternoon, so I started a backyard garden project. It actually would have been better to do it last fall, but at that point I was still undecided. Now I have a very sunny area (albeit afternoon sun) where I can plant vegetable seeds and plants.
Background: We have an area outside the kitchen window that in 1995 had a spruce sprig planted, brought home by our kindergartener. By the time she was in high school, it was 2 stories high and then towered over the house. We liked the shade for the house, but it was too close to the patio and a fire risk with the gas grill. So we had it removed. I hired a kid desperate for money to lay down weed mat and wood chip mulch.
The past 2 summers I’ve cut the weed mat to plant zuc and yellow squash there. They thrived, partly because I am retired and have time to water. It turns out that various layers of mulch chips have somewhat decomposed. After raking off a thin top layer I had some soil-ish stuff to throw on top of the compressed dirt. After we get more snow and melting, I’ll try to mix it in.
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We run a very large garden that gives all the produce awayand this year we are trying tomatillos, so fingers crossed on that one. We have a large plot of red raspberries that got very sick last year so as the ground thaws here, we’ll pile compost on and hope for the best. I have no idea why they were stunted and then browned out
We have a bed to solarize, and a bed to turn a cover crop (tillage radish) into. I feel like our growing season is distinctly shorter ---- wetter spring, colder fall — but still optimistic for plenty to grow and give. Our most popular foods are snap peas, broccoli, and kale, of all things. We are gaining on getting people to accept pak choi and daikon, but never could get anyone to like turnips or swiss chard. Our elderly clients have distinct unpleasant memories of turnips as poverty food.
I encourage everyone to grow more than they need, and give it away. This year we are gonna try starting some plants to give away (one of our volunteers has a greenhouse, so they do all our seedlings)
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That’s wonderful @greenbutton. I belong to a community garden and we are required to donate at least 10% of our garden but most of us do more. Last year we donated over 3000 pounds of produce!!!
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What a great idea!! Especially in fractious times, food can be a real common experience. We try every year to grow something unfamiliar, and inevitably a person to whom that food is familiar appears to teach the rest of us.
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I like to garden, but unfortunately don’t have much sun. We usually try to grow a little on our deck, though. Planted some peas and mesclun and arugula outside in big pots in the past week or two. We do have two little pea sprouts, but the seeds were old so I’m not holding my breath for too many more. There are some possible arugula sprouts, but they are teeny so not sure. We have to cover the pots with metal hardware cloth screen because of the squirrels. They love to dig in fresh dirt, looking for acorns I guess.
I have just started some tomato and basil seeds indoors that I am hopeful for. They are fresh seeds bought this year so they should do something! They are from “Botanical Interests”. I always find they have good stuff. These are sun gold cherry tomatoes (my fave) and a mix of different basils. 
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Our town has a big “grow a row” push to add a bit to existing gardens, share extra with the food pantries. I love that idea.
I also feel like their is potential in the community to match eager gardeners with nearby elderly homeowners (who tend to have the older/larger yards in town). They could share knowledge and would love the extra young muscle power. Maybe I’ll mention the idea on one of our community facebook pages.
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I don’t think our local food pantry takes perishable food.
Some of ours do + the soup kitchen for the homeless.
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Most pantries do not take private donations of perishable foods that require refrigeration (not knowing long the food could have sat outside the fridge) but still make exception for certain fresh produce like fruit and potatoes. Never hurts to ask!
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