Low Carb Garden 2006!

[Heidi3]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

I love that idea Megs..one hint ..check with the cooperative extension about the wildflowers ..my neighbor was careful to use actual natives but one of them grows in a differant region of the state so it went completely wild here and is a constant battle!!!

[Heidi3]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

btw golden bamboo very very stupid thing to plant in western WA ..that is all I am saying ...

[MotherOfGizmo]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

OK, we got some of our garden in this weekend! It was 89 degrees yesterday! We planted 6 tomato plants,4 kinds of peppers and a zuccini. I still have some room left but I'm trying to decide what else I want this year.

I planted my herb seeds in pots this year to save precious garden space.

We got some drip irrigation hoses for the garden so we can get around the water restrictions--John almost immediatley proceeded to shove the tomato cage right thru the new hose! Not once, but twice! LOL, he did a little plumbing trick on the hose though and managed to make it work, so that's good!

[not2late]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

I was able to plant a heat resistant spinach and some of my greens, like Swiss chard and turnips.

Don't worry about the bamboo---won't plant that here unless I want to make donations to the pandas in the zoo.

[2big4mysize]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

I discovered rosemary blooms on the older stems LOL no wonder I never saw it bloom before. thanks for the info Hedie.

Megs we got wheat growing in the flower garden from the bird seed if you want to toss some of that in your meadow the stalks look nice and everybody asks is that wheat late yr when they walked by. Check with your local garden club ours has a wildflower plant sale in the spring and you can get great for your area plants with planting info for shade or sun, wet or dry conditions.

I have tomato plants coming up from the composted ones last yr in the tomato area so it will be interesting to see what plant did it. our heat resistant spinach the NEw Zealand one bolted in the 90s last yr and the yr before but did okay when we were just in the 80s to get an extra month out of it.

Our frost date is still 3 weeks away so I'm hardening off the plants on the deck but not sticking them in the ground. I learned my lesson last yr with the temp in the 20s late in April after it was in the 80s in March.

[Heidi3]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

My rosemary is a huge burst of bloom flowers they just must flower better here or the species I have are big flowerers?


LOTS of chives right now!!! I am chiving everything!!! and giving tons away ...parsley is thick and yummy

flowers are just bursting and I am eating rhubarb like crazy
I made a Persian beef and rhubarb dish that was to die for ...I will be making that one again for sure

I need to do some weeding for sure in the beds that are not full of plants yet

I also need to start going on my "pinching" walks so I can see what is out there growing on to the sidewalk for me to add to my garden

yes my pathology for snitching pinches on walks is still going on ..I have no ablitiy to stop myself

I actually took a piece of moss yesterday and to anyone in the Pacific Northwest the ultimate silliness is actually putting moss in your yard intentionally!!! but thiis is very cool moss

[not2late]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

My rosemary bloomed too. So did my neighbor's on the other street.

I'm so frustrated at the weather we are having...If it's sunny, it's cold (talking in the 60s!). If it's warm, it's raining. I can barely do anything in the garden, except plan where to put everything!

Follow-up to my "colonial garden" themed front yard....

I've been able to remove the sod and stake out where I want to plant certain things. But with the crazy weather, I haven't been able to plant anything. BUT I think I've spotted members of my neighborhood committee looking nervously at my yard and wondering what I'm planning to do to it. lol....

[Heidi3]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

OMG YOU HAVE A NEIGHBORHOOD COMITTEE? that would be very stressful to me that is for sure ....I have so many plants just stuck in in places to get them to grow so I can devide them that a committee would be horrified and I would be tossed out of the neighborhood ...

I am going to the Farmers Market today to buy some lilly bulbs and some peonies

[2big4mysize]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

I'm with you megs rain and hail or cold and wet I can't get the ground dry enough to break yet even if I wanted to plant early so I have a lovely container garden on the screen porch. The storm last friday really tore up the greens so I've been eatting lots of them and freezing them too.

Heidi I cut leaves from the collards and have a base that is 3 yrs old cause i didn't pul;l it out when the plants bolted one summer. It grows very big collard leaves very early in the season while the others look like baby spinach leaves still. I love to let the chives bloom and use the purple heads in dishes. i have discovered the older the flower the more hot peppery taste they have. I've got a silver sage plant in Mothers flower bed for color that i can sneak some stems off. I gues we eat too much rosemary as our bush stays under 3 feet tall and looks pretty scragglely by fall. I love shishkabobbing with the stems

I was walking in Mothers woods and say lots of plants that looked like leaf lettuce. I took one to one of her gardenclub experts and found out they are not edible and are a wild flower called shooting star.

[not2late]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

Neighborhood Committee: it's an ad hoc neighborhood committee. In other words, it's a group of people who appointed themselves the "Neighborhood Committee". I never heard of them until I got a flyer from them 2 months ago. They're organized too---monthly newsletter, monthly meetings. Each street has a "group captain". Last week, I saw a flyer advertizing their community yard sale.

2 of my neighbors have lived here since the community was built in the 1960s. They said the neighborhood has cycles of this stuff every 6-9 years. In fact, they told me that there was one period during the 1980s when the "neighborhood committee" found some obscure county regulation which required grass on lawns to be no more than 2 inches high. The committee used to go around in the evening and measure the grass on lawns. And if your grass was over the 2 inch limit, they'd inform the county and you would be warned, then fined.

I guess this new committee is less overtly militant because they are trying to clean up the neighborhood with a "Best Front Yard of the Month" competition during the summer. Since they have no rules or criteria for what is a "best front yard", I figure my colonial garden theme---corn, beans, squash, tobacco (if I can find some), maybe a row of cabbage or lettuce, and some assorted herbs should qualify.

[2big4mysize]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

Megs skip the tobacco. you can get nicatin poisoniong from just being around the plants after it rains as it is absorbed through the skin and clothes.

[not2late]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

Megs skip the tobacco. you can get nicatin poisoniong from just being around the plants after it rains as it is absorbed through the skin and clothes.

Really?

Anyhow, I doubt I'll be able to find any tobacco here, due to the tobacco buy-out to discourage tobacco growing. The only farmers growing the stuff now are the Amish and Mennonites. Everyone else is either growing soybeans or have sold the family farm to developers.

[Heidi3]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

I was thinking about growing it too in a pot but you know what I quit smoking forever ago and what if I started again because I was touching the plants LOLOL

I make bug spray when my friends come over and smoke outside I have a jar they toss the butts in and when it is gross enough I spray it where I have problems ..seems to work and I still am not smoking

Today after I put my trim up in my office I am going to enjoy our warm weather and devide and move some plants...I have weights on all my 5 way fruit tress so they will cascade and they made it with out breaking through our crazy winter this year....

my plum is blooming on two of the grafts and budding on others...grape are starting to bud....figs ..budding ....actually everything has buds...

I left all my dahlias in the ground and am afraid I lost them sooooo sad .....

I hope you will post pics of this garden Megs I a so excited...

my dream for this house ..since it is a rambler kind of style on the top of a hill ..with a tiered garden in the front ..is to some day have it look like a California wine country mini hacienda...considering I have no money ..I am having to pace myself ....so eventually maybe this will all come true you think?

[Heidi3]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

ps I believe you can find tobacco seeds on Ebay actually

[not2late]

Re: Low Carb Garden 2006!

Well, if this garden turns out the way I like I'll post pics. (If I actually win the Neighborhood Beautification "Yard of the Month" Prize, I'll post after I regain consciousness! lol)

Make that dream of yours come true, Heidi. This morning on one of the local morning news programs, they featured container gardeners who grow their own greens, tomatoes, peppers, herbs and edible flowers in small urban sun-decks and those tiny city "back yards". So to the people lurking on this thread----there's no excuse for you not to get a container, fill it with potting soil, and plant a packet of lettuce or spinach! The whole thing will probably cost you about $20.00 (container, potting soil, and seed packet) and you'll reap the reward of the freshest produce you'll ever eat and the satisfaction of growing it!