A3M0N Posted October 26, 2022 Share Posted October 26, 2022 (edited) I thought there was enough time for these tomatoes before the first frost, but I was wrong! I transplanted these two from the raised bed and brought them inside. I have two clamp on work lights with 1500 lumen, 5000k LED bulbs shining on them for 10 hours per day. They were used previously for photo/video lights. If you can see it, there is blue painter's tape to mark the plant height when I brought them in nine days ago! Now that I have proven to myself that the lights will grow tomatoes, I'll be using at least one on my 10 gallon aquarium. Maybe two if the light from one doesn't reach the entire floor. Edited October 26, 2022 by A3M0N 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanked Posted November 14, 2022 Share Posted November 14, 2022 On Friday night it was 65 degrees while I brought in what I thought was the last of 47 vegetables, annuals and tropical Bonsai plants. I'm going to have a lot of green tomato sauce this year. The vines are full, but I'm out of space. Early Saturday morning Winter arrived in SW Ohio and brought with him a 30+ degree temperature drop and between 1- 3" of "snow flurries". I think Winter is a Redtail hawk. The "flurries" have just begun 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineSong Posted December 17, 2022 Share Posted December 17, 2022 My gardening has moved indoors for winter. I can never have enough windows for all the plants and fish tanks I would like to keep, so when I was shopping for a house I tried hard to provide myself with as many large windows as I could. This one is on the morning sun side of the house ❤️ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shmaty Posted December 31, 2022 Share Posted December 31, 2022 (edited) So many wonderful pictures on this thread! @Minanora sent me via my journal. My wife and I have wanted to have a garden for years. 2 years ago we moved into a nice little corner and thus began the garden adventure. How it started Spring Summer Year 2 Looking forward to our third season! Two harvest pictures I experimented with flowers this year too. Never thought I would love them so much. But I think my favorite part of the garden is all the critters I see. I live next to a river and get all sorts of wildlife. I will spare you the deer photos, they annoy me more than anything. I swear they think this garden is their buffet. The bees are plentiful, though only the carpenter bees ever sit still long enough for me to snap photos of them. They love to sleep on these flowers They are so well behaved! And then there are my spider friends. They get fed all the pests, like hornworms! My wife is a huge spider fan! Then there are my more coldblooded crew.Box turtle! BABY!!! Mud turtle! By the end of the year I had even managed to get my first resident hummer. I love nature. It's really fun being it's host and allowing(minus the deer and racoons) to roam the property. Working to restore the wetlands behind my house as well. Fortunately it is not "protected" so I can actually do stuff, but I am working to restore natives and remove invasives. Thanks for letting me share with you guys! Keep the green thumbs coming! *Edit: Cant believe I forgot these guys! Edited December 31, 2022 by Shmaty 4 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick_G Posted December 31, 2022 Author Share Posted December 31, 2022 Great pics of a beautiful garden @Shmaty! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineSong Posted December 31, 2022 Share Posted December 31, 2022 @Shmaty, incredible photos and what a great show of the progression of your garden! I can hear the enjoyment you have for all those critters. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanked Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 On 12/31/2022 at 2:05 PM, Shmaty said: So many wonderful pictures on this thread! @Minanora sent me via my journal. My wife and I have wanted to have a garden for years. 2 years ago we moved into a nice little corner and thus began the garden adventure. How it started Spring Summer Year 2 Looking forward to our third season! Two harvest pictures I experimented with flowers this year too. Never thought I would love them so much. But I think my favorite part of the garden is all the critters I see. I live next to a river and get all sorts of wildlife. I will spare you the deer photos, they annoy me more than anything. I swear they think this garden is their buffet. The bees are plentiful, though only the carpenter bees ever sit still long enough for me to snap photos of them. They love to sleep on these flowers They are so well behaved! And then there are my spider friends. They get fed all the pests, like hornworms! My wife is a huge spider fan! Then there are my more coldblooded crew.Box turtle! BABY!!! Mud turtle! By the end of the year I had even managed to get my first resident hummer. I love nature. It's really fun being it's host and allowing(minus the deer and racoons) to roam the property. Working to restore the wetlands behind my house as well. Fortunately it is not "protected" so I can actually do stuff, but I am working to restore natives and remove invasives. Thanks for letting me share with you guys! Keep the green thumbs coming! *Edit: Cant believe I forgot these guys! My neighbor would say "You sure have a lot going on there!" I love the Fuschia, and the patience required to get those photos. I live in the city, so my yard resembles a busy airport all year long, but even in season I don't get that variety of critters. I hope you are cautious around the Black Widows! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shmaty Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 On 1/2/2023 at 3:15 PM, Tanked said: My neighbor would say "You sure have a lot going on there!" I love the Fuschia, and the patience required to get those photos. I live in the city, so my yard resembles a busy airport all year long, but even in season I don't get that variety of critters. I hope you are cautious around the Black Widows! My neighbor and I, have an unspoken garden rivalry. Haha Fushias are probably my favorite flower. Sadly they don't do well in my summer heat. Before this, we lived in the city. My "garden" was a crowded apartment balcony large enough for 2 lawn chairs. North facing even. The cars in the parking lot reflected an absurd amount of light onto the balcony. I wanted to see if it was enough for plants in spite of no direct sunlight. Sure enough, we still managed to grow herbs and a few tomatoes. Was mostly a proof of concept type thing. I wanted to see if it was possible and it was! The black widows here are pretty uncommon and i find they are usually hunted on. It's ironic that I managed to find one devouring a preying mantis, one of their top predators. The widows are pretty shy. They tend to be run away...but the brown recluse are a whole different story. I kill on sight. Not something I want to piss off. Wolf spiders, fishing spiders and grass spiders=cool | brown recluse=not cool 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineSong Posted March 5, 2023 Share Posted March 5, 2023 These brave flowers survived an entire day of high powered winds and tornado conditions. Hundreds of large trees down and my chimney cap blew off, but all my daffodils are just perfect! 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank223 Posted March 14, 2023 Share Posted March 14, 2023 (edited) @ShmatyOur garden still hasn't recovered from the winter, there's nothing to even show for it. Plus, it gets increasingly difficult to maintain it all every year. Sometimes I feel that it is easier to order flowers through specialized services like https://myglobalflowers.com/ Thank you so much for sharing. You have so many animals there and it's so beautiful, and incredibly cool! Edited April 3, 2023 by Frank223 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineSong Posted May 16, 2023 Share Posted May 16, 2023 Garden season is up and running here in US zone 6. Baptisia, peonies, and lily of the valley. And... of course, some fish! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanked Posted June 1, 2023 Share Posted June 1, 2023 The single COLD blast we had in December did a lot of damage. As I was getting ready to cut down the Mimosa, I noticed a few leaflets sprouting from farther down the trunk, Another speciman shrub is coming back from the roots so all is not lost. One of my favorites, a perennial which oogle identifies as Indigo, came back unharmed. I can never remember the name because the color is nothing close to indigo. Unfortunately it is a spring (MAY) bloomer and the flowers are very short lived. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineSong Posted June 19, 2023 Share Posted June 19, 2023 On 6/1/2023 at 10:00 AM, Tanked said: The single COLD blast we had in December did a lot of damage. As I was getting ready to cut down the Mimosa, I noticed a few leaflets sprouting from farther down the trunk, Another speciman shrub is coming back from the roots so all is not lost. One of my favorites, a perennial which oogle identifies as Indigo, came back unharmed. I can never remember the name because the color is nothing close to indigo. Unfortunately it is a spring (MAY) bloomer and the flowers are very short lived. Your plant looks like a yellow variety of baptisia, AKA false indigo, and it looks super healthy and happy there. Where I live (zone 6) the flowers are gone in a couple of weeks but the foliage looks good all summer, so it’s well worth having even so. I was so glad mine survived that cold snap! My Stoke’s aster (top) and hummelo mixing in with baptisia foliage. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanked Posted June 20, 2023 Share Posted June 20, 2023 On 6/19/2023 at 7:31 PM, PineSong said: Your plant looks like a yellow variety of baptisia, AKA false indigo, and it looks super healthy and happy there. Where I live (zone 6) the flowers are gone in a couple of weeks but the foliage looks good all summer, so it’s well worth having even so. I was so glad mine survived that cold snap! My Stoke’s aster (top) and hummelo mixing in with baptisia foliage. Your Baptista is what I think of when someone says Indigo. I like the green contrast with both. The USDA street map puts me officially in zone 6a. Somehow it was cold enough, long enough, to guarantee that my success rate for killing outdoor Bonsai trees remains intact.💀 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineSong Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 On 6/20/2023 at 8:35 AM, Tanked said: Your Baptista is what I think of when someone says Indigo. I like the green contrast with both. The USDA street map puts me officially in zone 6a. Somehow it was cold enough, long enough, to guarantee that my success rate for killing outdoor Bonsai trees remains intact.💀 I killed one of my two this winter. Unprecedented cold snap brings the grim reaper to potted plants! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin222 Posted August 31 Share Posted August 31 Sorry for reviving this thread. Wonder why it died. What did you all do this summer in your gardens? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yancylow Posted September 2 Share Posted September 2 (edited) Nothing much. Worth mentioning that I'm thinking of buying new furniture. Anyone with experience with rattan? I'm eyeing something like the furniture from Garden Centre Shopping. Looks high quality, and it's weatherproof. Edited September 4 by yancylow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xXInkedPhoenixX Posted September 2 Share Posted September 2 (edited) To answer your question @kevin222 this season we built structures in our yard. We're mostly container gardeners and some of them needed shade plus we wanted a hang out spot so up a pergola went: We put up sun sails and a plant bench along under the windows you see, but I don't have a pic of that yet. We also took antique French doors and built a gate in the backyard to separate the backyard tools/equipment from the rest of the backyard. I put my Pink Star Jasmine (left) and Purple Trumpet Vine (right) along the frame we built. Next summer hopefully we'll get to a planned waterfall/pond feature and another smaller pergola in another area of the yard. Anyone have a good Aphid deterent/cure? My poor Gerbera Daisy keeps getting attacked, the plant is over a decade old and I don't want to lose it. Edited September 2 by xXInkedPhoenixX 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineSong Posted September 4 Share Posted September 4 On 9/2/2024 at 11:36 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said: Anyone have a good Aphid deterent/cure? My poor Gerbera Daisy keeps getting attacked, the plant is over a decade old and I don't want to lose it. Phoenix, your pergola and gates are fantastic! I would love a shade sail one day. Gerbera daisies are annuals here so I'm amazed yours is such a granny! Ladybugs or other predators are one cure for aphids. If the plant in questions was a hardier plant in the ground, I would say leave it alone and wait for the predators to show up and take out the aphids. I don't usually use or recommend chemicals but since your Gerbera is special to you and not as sturdy as something like a rose, I would break out the insecticidal soap. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xXInkedPhoenixX Posted September 4 Share Posted September 4 (edited) On 9/4/2024 at 3:43 AM, PineSong said: Gerbera daisies are annuals Yes for whatever reason this one wants to stick with me, I've had others that have died. I got it in 2010, here's an old comparison photo of it: I don't like using chemicals either. I've been using something called Mighty Mint that seems to work for some things but not others. I water blasted the leaves after repotting it (the current picture that I posted earlier) this week. I had a master gardener once tell me to just keep water blasting plants to get rid of pests. It can be time consuming when a plant is big but the poor thing doesn't have many leaves right now -- BUT it has a CRAZY large root system. This is not the first time this plant has been attacked. I've also used Neem Oil. Edited September 4 by xXInkedPhoenixX 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanked Posted September 4 Share Posted September 4 The gardens are a train wreck this year. Absolutely everything got weird. The only good thing so far was a mixed blessing. I had a friend stop by to water the plants while I was away for a week; he missed a few. When I returned from my trip, I immediately noticed that the string algae and other pond scum were missing. When asked, my friend who happens to own a pool, denied any knowledge of the bottle of swimming pool algaecide that I had found behind a planter. I told him that was a shame because the water feature hasn't looked that clean in years. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shmaty Posted Thursday at 05:04 AM Share Posted Thursday at 05:04 AM Boy....two years have passed and it has been brutal! Let me tell you about my good friends, the deer... They sure loved my garden. They loved it more than I did. Shoot, they gorged on my tomatoes and peppers and left hardly a leaf to waste. I pretty much opened a free all you could eat buffet in my back yard... Some even decided it was a fitting place to make home! Yeah, so the garden doesn't exist. In the most literal of senses, I haven't grown a vegetable in 2 years. The closest I've gotten is some herbs and berries. I've had to completely change my approach and build my own little Fort Knox back here. It's an ongoing development. If I didn't have immediate neighbors, these deer would discover the icy embrace of a freezer, real fast... In '23 we tried a small garden but it was promptly destroyed. After several progressively worse years, due entirely to deer damage, we gave up. It sucks. It was hard seeing all our work get erased by the local herd. If it wasn't constantly raining, I'd snap some pics, but suffice to say we are making big changes. I more or less hit the nuclear option on fences. Cattle panel. 7' high 5' wide. There was a freak accident where a section got knocked over. I think a spooked deer ran into it one night. It got trapped inside and ate my Hostas. Scared it out and then fixed the wall. Realized it wasn't reinforced like the others. Was an easy fix. Aside from that one instance, I've seen zero signs of the deer since the wall went up. We started planting smelly plants, that deer dont prefer, all around our yard. Good smelling ones; to us anyway. This year we successfully had over a dozen blackberry plants, half a dozen strawberries, and various herbs. Even had a bunch of Hostas, Hibiscus, and Morning Glory. All three of those are deer magnets. Next year I am going to introduce 2-3 small vegetable beds and hopefully we'll continue to find success in our defense against the deer menace. I'll circle back around some time this weekend and throw pictures in here. On 9/2/2024 at 11:36 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said: this season we built structures in our yard These look amazing! A pergola is on my to-do list. I want to build a whole outside cooking area too. On 9/4/2024 at 7:09 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said: I don't like using chemicals either You could try a soap mixture. It's been awhile since I've made it but I recall the soap in question was Ivory Soap. I'm not entirely sure what else, if anything, was in it. It may have been just water and soap. It worked pretty good. I haven't needed it recently. The other thing I've used is Neem Oil. You can buy containers of the concentrated oil and then mix it that way. I think it had some dawn dish soap mixed in as well. Both of these are things you can easily make your own spray bottle of. Much cheaper this way(than buying them ready made) and a better alternative to nasty pesticides. If you find yourself ever having issues with the annoying Japanese Beetles, you can also make a bottle of these and just walk around collecting the beetles in the bottle. It's very effective. The only plant I have used any 'cide on, was my roses. They're so needy! They love to have fungal issues due to our coastal rains and humidity. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xXInkedPhoenixX Posted Thursday at 03:25 PM Share Posted Thursday at 03:25 PM Thanks @Shmaty! I have some neem but that hasn't seemed to help whatever it is that keeps attacking my Gerber! I've so far been able to fend off whatever it is by frequently (gently) water spraying the newer leaves and he's coming back again! This has happened so many times I've lost count in the decade plus the plant has been around. It clearly doesn't want to leave me. Here it is today: And thanks for sharing your recent garden adventure, oh my goodness!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanked Posted Thursday at 05:46 PM Share Posted Thursday at 05:46 PM On 9/19/2024 at 1:04 AM, Shmaty said: Let me tell you about my good friends, the deer... They sure loved my garden. They loved it more than I did. Shoot, they gorged on my tomatoes and peppers and left hardly a leaf to waste. I pretty much opened a free all you could eat buffet in my back yard... Some even decided it was a fitting place to make home! Yeah, so the garden doesn't exist. I don't have deer problems, but the tree rats (squirrels) and or raccoons are a different issue. The squirrels have been taking some of the small low hanging tomatoes, but they have never bothered the others. I've been waiting to pick a cluster of 3 large tomatoes high on the plant. Yesterday I found that my much awaited harvest had been reduced to a movie prop; three good looking tomatoes hung on the frontside with nothing left on the backside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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