A lot of our garden veggies didnt do so well in the heat and lack of rain here, despite daily watering. We did however learn things that we will make note of for next year:


-Tomato, eggplant, peppers, cucumber, & squash do best here when bought as a high quality plant from a nursery, not trying to start from seed.

-Onions do outstanding in the garden.

-Blackberries LOVE the soil and weather here.

-Grapes need netting to keep the birds away from them.

We buy all of our seedlings in the spring. I refuse to start from seeds. however, I had tomato plants in the garden this year that reseeded themselves from plants last year... they grew like weeds.

I have so many habaneros peppers and tomatos right now, I dont know what to do with them all. we've made salsa, canned it. made marinara sauce, canned it. I have thousands and thousands of orange cherry tomatos and red grape tomatos that need picked. I had a roma plant pop up that I did not plant, so I dont know where it came from, and that one single plant has produced dozens and dozens of fruit. I've given them away to neighbors and coworkers, and I STILL have too many.

Ashame we dont live close! I'd make a trip to help relieve you of some of your produce :)

I miss gardening, and I feel your pain jobellesis. The same thing happened to me. My precious roses that I could easily have dug up and given to friends were in a cloud of weeds at my old house. I restrained myself from knocking on the door to explain how to trim them back at the end of the year, how to mulch them correctly...

Now? I try to keep a palm tree alive on the balcony through the summer. I suppose next month I could put a plant or two out there. The heat is starting to break, but desert/urban gardening is just NOT the same as a Midwestern vegetable garden.

This year I'm trying a moongarden. It'll have plants that are fragrant at night, mostly white ones, and we're planting them right off the deck area. Actually, the deck was crushed by a tree last week (thank God I hadn't put the plants in yet) but the new deck is already in, so here we go today!

This is the first year that I've tried heliotrope.

We have a couple of those that we put in pots and allow to wrap around the deck railing. We love them!! My husband built an arbor a few weeks ago and we are putting some more in. I would recommend that you buy them from a nursery. They take a LONG time to get going from seed and they dont always transfer very well...at least not in our experience.

I never have anything to talk about garden-wise. But this year, we are getting the back of the land cleared out (it has underbrush and weeds) and I am going to attempt to grow pumpkins and sunflowers. I don't have a green thumb and am allergic to bees, so I have to be careful, but I have wanted a pumpkin patch for years. We're finally getting my holly bushes planted in the front this year, too. I never thought I'd be excited about landscaping or planting things, but I guess this is what a grown-up does!

I'm going to try to make my yard appealing to a potential buyer. Unfortunately, the borough won't let me use napalm on the back yard.

I have a small concrete postage stamp they shamefully call a "patio", and I think I'm going to get some containers and see what I can make grow.

I really want fingerling potatoes, the Ozette variety. They're super tasty. I think if I get a big enough pot, it will work.

I'm going to get a tomato plant or two, and a jalapeno plant. Also; basil. Because what doesn't taste good with fresh basil?

I figure I can get some cheap containers from somewhere, buy some dirt and have at it and maybe be out $40, and if it works, then woohoo!

I haven't decided what to do this year. We have a huge deer population around here, which poses major problems.

I still have my faithful chives that have come back year after year for, what, 12 years now?

A couple of days ago, I sprayed my flowering plants with deer repellent. This includes azaleas, rhododendrons, and hydrangea. My lady's mantle is also poking through. I want to put down some daffodils and lily-of-the-valley this fall.

For veggies and herbs, I'm restricted to container gardening because of the deer. I've grown tomatoes and cucumbers, and I get so many that they rot on the vine. :( So I'm thinking of being Queen of Herbs this year, with maybe a tomato plant or two and a cucumber plant or two.

Note to self: Visit nursery next weekend.

Yeah! The new wisteria that got clobbered by the falling tree ('Blue Moon', supposedly blooms 3 times a year) is going to make it! Other shrubs we've put in include 2 hydrangeas ('Invincibelle'), a beautyberry, and a rhododendron.

I bought purple heliotrope plants from a nursery, couldn't find white, and they're going on the deck rail. My husband has also put the Confederate Jasmine on a trellis over there.

I posted somewhere on GC about how happy I was that we'd planted some Encore azaleas (the kind that bloom in the spring and fall). I have discovered the downside. Ours bloom better in the spring than in the fall so we have all these gorgeous and lacy pink azaleas blooming next to our orange and black Halloween display. Not seasonal looking at all!

I just got some King Humbert canna lilies from one of my fiance's relatives - I am so excited to plant these next spring and see how they turn out.

Bump!

As the apartment we moved into in October has a huge deck and faces West, I am actually planting containers this year. I've never had a garden, sunlight, or good enough soil for a garden. Starting with gerbera daisies, tomatoes, dahlinova, gaillardias, and calibrachoa. Now if only I knew how I wanted to organize them. :rolleyes:

I want to try a raised garden this summer. With all the water woes we've had, it could mean a lot more vegetables for us. However, we always have an oversupply of tomatoes and hot peppers and I'll bite my husband in the leg if he brings in another plant of either of those.

The only hydrangeas that have thrived around here the past few summers have been the old varieties; the new ones can't take the heat.