How does your garden grow?

[Hosakawa Tito]

I just spent the last few hours preparing our vegetable garden for planting. It's not very big, maybe 10x20 feet, but after clearing last years' debris and roto-tilling in some fertilizer I'm bushed. Roto-tilling that compacted heavy clay excuse for soil we have really kicks my .
I am looking forward to the fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and green peppers though. We're going to hold off putting in the plants a few more days till the frost danger is past, supposed to get down near freezing tonight.

Anyone else plant a garden? What do you grow?

[Tristuskhan]

Potatoes, rhubarb and chili peppers for me. Everything is going neat, especially potatoes (Belle de Fontenay, small outcome, fragile, but so tasty). My garden is not big either (8x4 meters),and was not used for seven years. It's also compact clay so I had to prepare it with a hoe and my bare hands (one hour for one square meter, really), everyone in the village now admires me.

I was afraid of such heavy soil (and it lacks some depth in my opinion) since I grew up in a very sandy place before moving where I am, but it's incredibly rich and has a very good water reserve, it won't need fertiliser for one year or two, then I'll incorporate the thick layer of weed-roots I spent so much time destroying. Kicks my *** too!

[InsaneApache]

Got a couple of apple and pear trees. A strawberry patch and some rhubarb. I get the missus to do most of it. It saves on my back!

[Rhyfelwyr]

I had to cut the grass at my Gran's house on Satuday because she didn't like the last council job, that's the closest I've ever got to gardening.

[PBI]

We were recently given a small tomato plant, and kits for growing thyme, basil and chives (i.e. pots, seeds and compost). All are sprouting and coming up nicely.

It's not so much a garden as it is a windowsill, and my "gardening" efforts have so far mostly consisted of watering, but it's quite fun to watch something we planted actually grow.

[Ja'chyra]

Garlic, onions (red and white), carrots, parsnips, spring onion, green beans and lettuce in our two small patches. First time we've tried but everything looks good so far.

[Samurai Waki]

My wife has put the pressure on me to build a greenhouse. I've tried reasoning with her, that the foliage around our house is too thick to adequately grow a decent garden... unless we were to get into the Mushroom business... and I really, really don't want to try and till our soil, considering its all granite bedrock.

[miotas]

Tomatoes, lettuce, capsicum, zucchini, snow peas, beans, grapes, onions, carrots, and the best of all: Radishes. Don't believe me, try it, fresh grown radishes are to die for. My dad is quite an avid gardener, he has built 4 2x3 metre gardens, and one long one about 0.5 x 8 metres. I'm sure there are some veggies I've missed. Back home, except for about a month in the very middle of winter you can grow anything all year round. and even then you can grow some colder climate veggies.

[Hooahguy]

dang rabbits.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Mom's started growing tomatoes, beans and corn in the balcony.
.

[Lemur]

We've just gotten it planted. It's kinda huge, and a real pain to maintain, but it feeds us for a long time. We seal and freeze a lot of veggies so we can have home-grown deep into winter.

[Samurai Waki]

We've just gotten it planted. It's kinda huge, and a real pain to maintain, but it feeds us for a long time. We seal and freeze a lot of veggies so we can have home-grown deep into winter.

I can't say that this doesn't make me just a little bit jealous. Time to sell the home deep in the forest and move to suburbia!

[Lemur]

I can't say that this doesn't make me just a little bit jealous. Time to sell the home deep in the forest and move to suburbia!

Hey now, to be suburban you must have an urb to which you are subbed. This is small town America, son.

[Samurai Waki]

Hey now, to be suburban you must have an urb to which you are subbed. This is small town America, son.

Forgive my insolence! I'm so far out in the boondocks that a wide spot in the road is considered a small town.

[Rhyfelwyr]

dang rabbits.

I caught a rabbit in a bandinet once, I have a hunters instincts.

[HopAlongBunny]

The garden is looking good this year.

Carrots, tomatoes, sage, rosemary, parsley, garlic, onions and other stuff I'm sure I'vce missed.

Garden used to cover the back of our corner lot; ~75' wide, 10'-20' deep; much of that has now been taken over by trees (thank god!)

The heavy clay soil has been slowly transformed by compost, peat moss, and a lil bit of sand. One odd thing though_anywhere you plant a spade you find earthworms, except one small section where the best tomatoes grow; kind of worrying because the worms keep the soil healthy.

ps: don't start me on rabbits! or squirrels! Odd though, had a Parks worker renting next door for a few years...not a "critter" in sight while he lived there.

[drone]

Used to grow hot peppers, but the yard doesn't really get enough sun and it got to be too much work for my limited time schedule. I used to have cayennes, serranos, and habeneros galore (jalapenos didn't really grow well for some reason ).

[Hosakawa Tito]

That's a nice looking set up for a garden Lem. Makes weeding much easier and you're not stepping on stuff. Nice to have helpers too.

@ Wakizashi - Try raised beds if your soil is too rocky. You can start small and gradually add to it year by year till you get to a size that suits you.

@ miotas - I love radishes and eat them quite regularly for lunch at work. However, my compacted clay soil doesn't work well for growing them or carrots.

@ HAB & drone - When I was a kid we had a big garden ~ 75' x 30' at least, and we used to can & freeze a lot of what we grew. My Mother made several kinds of pickles and my Dad had to have his favorite hot cherry peppers, along with tomatoes, potatoes, butternut squash, rhubarb, etc... We had horseradish root too, and ground our own horseradish. That's way too much work for me now, but I do miss some of that stuff. I'm still working on my soil with amendments and hopefully it will improve and be easier to work.

The critter that causes me the most grief, the varmintcong

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Samurai Waki]

@ Wakizashi - Try raised beds if your soil is too rocky. You can start small and gradually add to it year by year till you get to a size that suits you.

I had looked into that, actually. But it seems that we might sell the good ol' Estate by the end of Summer and physically move into town. And they Don't Call Missoula the Garden City for Nuffin'!

[Rhyfelwyr]

I can't stop laughing at that dancing squirrel thing and I have no idea why, lulz.

[drone]

I can't stop laughing at that dancing squirrel thing and I have no idea why, lulz.

[bad scottish accent]I want you to kill all the golfers on the course.[/bad scottish accent]

[HopAlongBunny]

Might be me...I can never think of rhubarb as a garden vegetable. There are 2 patches in the yard, that simply have always existed. The only care they require is restraint! Love it though...snack, pies and preserves :)

Hosakawa Tito, your mention of canning reminded of the most important item planted in the garden; beets. Sliced beets, beet relish, pickled beets is there anything more regal and useful!?

[Lemur]

Beets. Beets. BEETS! The one root vegetable with which I cannot co-exist peacefully. BEETS! (Imagine William Shatner shouting "KHAN!" and you'll get the idea.)

[miotas]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

We've just gotten it planted. It's kinda huge, and a real pain to maintain, but it feeds us for a long time. We seal and freeze a lot of veggies so we can have home-grown deep into winter.

You're garden looks remarkably similar to my dad's. Except his has a fence around it, the dogs kept eating everything, so last time I was home I spent a weekend helping him put the fence up.

[Lemur]

My mother-in-law designed it, so all layout credit goes to her. Then wifey dear demanded it, and your friendly neighborhood lemur got to dig it out, frame it, haul a hundred-odd loads of dirt and build the thing. It's all good though, the amount of food it generates is staggering.

[HopAlongBunny]

Beets. Beets. BEETS! The one root vegetable with which I cannot co-exist peacefully. BEETS! (Imagine William Shatner shouting "KHAN!" and you'll get the idea.)

*makes soup*

*hides*

[Yoyoma1910]

Beets. Beets. BEETS! The one root vegetable with which I cannot co-exist peacefully. BEETS! (Imagine William Shatner shouting "KHAN!" and you'll get the idea.)

Your wife's a chef, maybe you should see if she'll develop a way to prepare them which you'd enjoy.

I say this as a former fellow beet despiser. You see, I have countless memories growing up having to eat canned beets, which are "blech." But, my father always insisted of including a copious amount of this horrid creation in our hurricane supplies. So every year in the late summer or autumnal months, at some point, either because of a Hurricane, or the lack there of that season (leaving a giant pile of unused canned goods in the pantry), I knew the beets were coming out. "Blech." I couldn't stand these things... the texture... the flavor... what hell born plot of land did such a horrid beast come from?

However, I have to say, we used them at the last restaurant I worked at, and I have found the key to a good beet is how you roast it. You can wrap it with your favorite spices, and it takes on a brilliant flavor. As a life long student of the cajun sciences, I will tell you: you can eat it (this pretty much goes for anything) if you just change the flavor and texture until it is a delicious and religious experience.

And, if you eat a lot of them, it changes the color of your pee! Which should be great fun for you in the snow covered wintertime.

So come on Lemur, cher, don't fear the beet.

[Lemur]

Oh, trust me, the wifely chef has tried many preparations, unwilling to believe that I just. Don't. Like. Beets. She even snuck them into a salad without telling me, which caused me, according to her, "To eat it like a meerkat gulping down a acid beetle."

After that episode she stopped trying to slip me the beets.

Strange thing is, the green leafs of a beet are tasty as heck sauteed. Love 'em. It's just the root itself that I can't work with.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Gosta eat your vegetables to set a good example for the kids, Daddio.

The first time I had fresh beets, not the canned ones, a friend prepared them on the grill. Just like baking a potato, wrapped in foil with a pat of butter, salt & pepper. I loved them. The next time I tried to prepare them myself at the in-laws in Washington DC. Being a novice & idiot I tried peeling them first like a potato and ended up with beet juice stained hands for about a week. I ate so many of them that when I took a pee the next day I freaked myself out because my urine came out red like blood. Took me a moment in my hung-over state of mind to realize I wasn't bleeding to death.
On our way home from the in-laws I stopped to pay the toll. The "southern belle" taking the toll money took one look at my beet stained paw and exclaimed, "Why I do declare you must be a Yankee, you done peeled your beets." We just laughed and as I pulled away she shook her head and I swear she muttered "stupid Yankee".

I'll take all the beets you don't want.

@ HAB - Would that be borscht you're making? Yummy!

[miotas]

My mother-in-law designed it, so all layout credit goes to her. Then wifey dear demanded it, and your friendly neighborhood lemur got to dig it out, frame it, haul a hundred-odd loads of dirt and build the thing. It's all good though, the amount of food it generates is staggering.

I know what you mean. My dad planed it and put the frame together and then left miotas the mule to do all the shoveling.

And I agree with your sentiments on beetroot whole heartedly, I think I must be one of the only aussie's who do but I just can't stand the stuff. Nothing that colour should be consumed, I swear the stuff even tastes purple