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Growing Your Own: What did you grow / raise / harvest?


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It goes well with a crisp Chardonnay 😋😋

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23 minutes ago, Sleighcaptain said:

It goes well with a crisp Chardonnay 😋😋

or a Pinot Noir for the blackened leaves?

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2 hours ago, Tunhope said:

update: the blackened leaves were far too bitter and chewy to eat raw. They were ok torn into bits and added to a stir fry though.

You were very brave to try them, @Tunhope  Blackened veg of any type would be beyond me. :P

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I only tried a little bit @Mizzletoe and I usually only eat the very young leaves raw @Muledeer. Like you, I usually steam it. It's such a pretty plant with its coloured stems that I almost just want to let it grow.

 

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Chard is my favorite vegetable to grow.  Its very nutritious, easy to grow, and a pretty plant that lasts the entire growing season.  The plants are frost and pest resistant, and chard can be prepared many different ways or eaten raw.  My dog loves the leftovers!  In fact, I always cook extra chard to share with the dog. 

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Tonight, I cooked a harvest chili.  It was made from tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, garlic, and beef, all of which I grew!   It also had  canned beans and packaged seasoning, which I didn't grow.  It was delicious.

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  • 4 weeks later...

My tea plant is growing really well.  I might be able to harvest enough for a cuppa!  I have a hippeastrum bulb growing strongly, will post a pic when the flowers are out.  Their bold, brash colours brighten our murky Januaries here.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update.  Today is the day!  There are enough new leaves to harvest and make a cup of tea from my tea plant. 

 

I was sent a picnic basket with fruit and other goodies that included kumquats.  I have a nice kumquat pip ready to sow today.  Love sowing seeds - I have herb seeds left from last year, but will wait until February to sow them.  Especially at the moment, seeds springing into new life will be so positive.

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Drank my green tea.  Only enough for one cup but it was lovely - much nicer than any I have drunk from packaged green tea.

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4 minutes ago, Muledeer said:

@Mysterry did you dry the tea leaves or use them fresh?

The instructions were to leave the harvested leaves in a sunny window for fifteen minutes, heat them gently in a wok for six minutes, roll them in your palms into a ball, and leave for a further 24 hours.  They were semi-dried after all that.  I gave them a generous amount of steeping time.  If the plant grows well in a larger container I might get fresh leaves for a few cups a season.  I won't be doing the tea merchants out of business in a hurry though. :P  It was a fun novelty to try and will hopefully carry on for future pickings.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@Mysterry, that is an impressive flower 😁

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Still growing in my greenhouse but now I got my own minihydroponics system

 

And in unrelated news, i'll be "growing" an antenna "farm".

 

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  • 1 month later...

The spring growing season has arrived here.  I have potting compost, seeds, plug plants and a clematis to grow up an arch down the garden.

 

I decided on clematis sieboldii and hope it will be a good choice. 

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I bought a packet of marigold seeds and a packet of "wildflower" seeds at the supermarket this morning. My plan is to plant them in some of the random pots in my yard, on my deck and front porch.

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Hope everyone's new plantings grow happily. I need to buy compost for some pots and tomatoes but I dont understand the Lockdown rules. The garden centres are open but as far as I know, travel to them isn't allowed. Confused!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Busy sowing seeds today.  I sow them in pots and keep them on the kitchen windowsill - covered with little plastic foodbags which I reuse.   The list is nasturtium, schizanthus, basil, chives, parsley, sweet pea and salpiglossis.  The salpiglossis (var.black trumpet)  is that sort of fine seed where one sneeze could lose you the whole packet content.  

 

Some sweet peas I sowed a little while ago have germinated and are growing well.

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We have put some chilli seeds to germinate. Waiting for them to start

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Damnitsam1989

Hello!! 

I'm quite excited to have found the gardening thread, as this will be my second season with a garden patch. I moved back into my childhood home at the beginning of the pandemic. The previous tenants did NOTHING for the yard, all the crabgrass I removed came back under the fence, and the husband's version of caring for things was to cut them down (my poor rose bushes have come back in such an odd scraggly way. also super not the way to remove sprouting acorns, I have so much to dig out). Plus there's ivy now (!!?!???) and it killed one of the trees. I've been trying to nurture everything that's still here. I've got an orange tree and a Meyer lemon tree, a mangled wisteria that had been growing into the roof, and a few types of flower all of which have been on the property longer than I've been alive (I'm 32).

 

Last year I had various types of tomato, jalapenos, dahlias (my favourite), morning glories, and burgundy sunflowers. I also put in a rosemary bush, a lavender bush, oregano, thyme, lemon verbena, and citrus mint. With the strange weather that we've been having (world wide, but I'm specifically talking about central coast CA), I had yellow cherry tomatoes and jalapenos producing all winter. They never died, that is not usual... it's downright unusual.

 

Right now I have some grape hyacinth and bleeding hearts blooming, and the calalillies are coming back in. I'm starting to think the daffodils are gone through. The morning glories are starting to come back, and I planted some nasturtium that sprouted super quickly.

 

I'm also currently sprouting: pumpkins, zucchini, yellow hook neck squash, more varieties of tomato, cucumbers, and strawberries. Once I'm done preparing the ground over got carrots, romaine lettuce, and peas to put in as well as some phlox, pansies, foxglove, and hollyhock.

 

I've also got a variety of unknown succulents some of which I collected some of which have always been here. I rescue mystery plants from the yard (I think the wife might have thrown things she thought we're dead into the garden patch).

Oh yeah, I've also had some luck sprouting cactus from seed.

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13 hours ago, Damnitsam1989 said:

I'm quite excited to have found the gardening thread, as this will be my second season with a garden patch. I moved back into my childhood home at the beginning of the pandemic.

Welcome to this thread!  I, too, will be moving back into the home where I grew up in Salt Lake City beginning April 1.  I also have a place in the Uinta mountains where I live during the summer season, which is where I grow most of my vegetables in a greenhouse.  Looking forward to hearing about all of the exotic fruits and veggies you can grow in a warm climate.  I assume you received no frost all winter long, considering you still have tomatoes on the vine.  I didn't know they would grow and make tomatoes during the winter season!

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Excited to see this morning that the schizanthus seeds have germinated already.  I love growing these flowers as pot plants.

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Damnitsam1989
7 hours ago, Muledeer said:

 I assume you received no frost all winter long, considering you still have tomatoes on the vine.  I didn't know they would grow and make tomatoes during the winter season!

Nope! We never got a hard frost this year, just the light coating on the roof kind. I was blown away by the fact they continued to thrive, plus they are shooting out a bunch of new growth at the bottom. The lack of a cold snap worries me a bit for the AG industry around here, some of the winter crops need it.

 

Also, I hope you enjoy moving back into your home! 

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52 minutes ago, Damnitsam1989 said:

We never got a hard frost this year, just the light coating on the roof kind. I was blown away by the fact they continued to thrive, plus they are shooting out a bunch of new growth at the bottom. The lack of a cold snap worries me a bit for the AG industry around here, some of the winter crops need it.

I thought that tomatoes were strictly annual plants.  I will be very interested to hear if last year's plants thrive and produce fruit throughout the summer.

3 hours ago, Mysterry said:

Excited to see this morning that the schizanthus seeds have germinated already.  I love growing these flowers as pot plants.

I had to google shizanthus, and my spell checker doesn't like that word.  They are beautiful flowers, but I am completely unfamiliar with them.  They are also called butterfly flowers, which I have heard of.  The term "pot plants" in the USA means only one kind of plant: canibus (I can't spell that one either) or marijuana.  They also have beautiful flowers, which are highly useful (pun intended).   

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Damnitsam1989
On 3/17/2021 at 6:53 AM, Muledeer said:

I thought that tomatoes were strictly annual plants.  I will be very interested to hear if last year's plants thrive and produce fruit throughout the summer.

I really did too until this last year, and they've always behaved as such. So this is particularly strange. But it is pretty neat-o that they are now about a year old (I've started to become attached to the plants). I do hope they keep producing, though I will say, I have more jalapenos than i will ever eat. The tomatoes are easier to get through!

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There  are more seeds germinating now, more sweet peas, basil and there is a minute green speck in the pot of salpiglossis.  The seeds for the salpiglossis were minute, so I am hoping the little green speck is one that has germinated.  The basil seed is from a packet I opened last year so I am pleased it was still viable.

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On 3/17/2021 at 1:53 PM, Muledeer said:

I thought that tomatoes were strictly annual plants.  I will be very interested to hear if last year's plants thrive and produce fruit throughout the summer.

I had to google shizanthus, and my spell checker doesn't like that word.  They are beautiful flowers, but I am completely unfamiliar with them.  They are also called butterfly flowers, which I have heard of.  The term "pot plants" in the USA means only one kind of plant: canibus (I can't spell that one either) or marijuana.  They also have beautiful flowers, which are highly useful (pun intended).   

Yet another one of those trans-Atlantic differences. 'Pot plants' is marijuana here, too (though normally just as 'pot'), but 'pot plants' are also any plants that can be grown in a pot as opposed to being grown in soil outside. So, we'll talk about 'flowering pot plants' which might be the kind of things you would buy to give as  presents.

Your choice of things to grow is amazing @Damnitsam1989 It's much more limited here, but because I'm on chalk in a sunny (???) part of the UK I am able to grow a lot of herbs like rosemary and lavender and I've oregano all over the place. It just self-seeds as (less welcome) does the lemon balm. 

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Here we'd probably contrast potted plants vs pot plants (which could also be in a pot). :P 

 

(not to be confused with potted meat; as if it could be)

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14 hours ago, daveb said:

Here we'd probably contrast potted plants vs pot plants (which could also be in a pot). :P 

 

(not to be confused with potted meat; as if it could be)

Spoilered sexy joke 

 

Spoiler

Or using your meat for potting😋😋

 

As @Tunhopesays, it's commonplace in Britain to refer to things like fuchsias as pot plants, because we often have them on patios, but keep them in greenhouses or conservatories over winter. 

 

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