How Does Your Garden Grow?
André Tulips ~~ Strauss Roses ~~ Waltzing Vines
What's in YOUR garden?
André Rieu Tulip
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How does YOUR Garden Grow?
My garden is a tiny, tiny 5'x5' square area of dirt that only contains pole bean & tomato plants. One of the tomato plants now has 4 cherry tomatoes that will be ripe for the picking in another couple of days.
Mr Bill, no matter how big or how small, a garden is a garden is a garden.To grow just one pepper in a pot is a garden, one rose bush is a garden, one flower in a pot on the window sill is a garden. I'm glad I don't live close to you or I would be sneaking into your garden for the tomatoes!
3 March 2008 is the date of my grocery receipt when I last bought cherry tomatoes, which I love to add to soups & salads. I bought a lousey, tasteless,10 oz of Cherry tomatoes for $2.99; I was so infuriated at the outrageous price I ran to HomeDepot & bought a Cherry tomato plants & promptly transplanted it into a 5 gallon empty paint bucket. I think the 10 oz contained only 15 cherry tomatoes.
3 weeks later I bought 2 more cherry tomato plants & some pole bean seed which I also promptly transplanted.
2 weeks later I bought 1 more cherry tomato plant. I spread out the purchase of the plants so I don't get all the tomatoes at once. I put pole bean seads right next to support stakes for the tomatoe plants & they are growing right along with the tomato plants.
I've had to plant everything in 5 gallon buckets & load the buckets with potting soil because last year. All the plants grew, but none of them produced anyfruit or veggies. I found out from other in my apt complex they had the same problem. The problem is the soil was treated for termites which rendered the soil sterile.
Last year I planted 10 gladiola bulbs imported from Holland. The bulbs all grew, however, none of them produced any flowers. <grrrrrrr>
You may try to sneak over the fence to steal some cherry tomatoes, but I'm just liable to show up on your doorstep next time you ring the chuck wagon bell <g>
Bill in Arizona
Bill, I think you must have the very best Salad in your neighborhood. Fresh, Organic and Fantastic!
Even though I have a nursery here, I have limited space for a garden. My brother is the gardener, and he's a very good one. I'll let him to all the gardening.
The last time I planted tomatoes, it was a bad experience.
We lived in Las Vegas at the time and had a nice 1/2 acre property. I chose a place by the fence so that they would be somewhat protected from the hot sun and the winds we got in the desert.
The very spot, exact spot, that I planted the tomatoes, happened to be the electric line that ran from the main box on the pole, to the house. Of course I blew the electric out...so we had to call a licensed electrical contractor and have him replace the electric. Cost about $150, which is probably reasonable compared to what it could have been.
I moved the tomatoes to another location, but the sun was too hot and the ground wasn't great...I got tomatoes finally, however they would rot before they got ripe.
That was my last experience with planting tomatoes. I decided I wasn't the gardener that I would have liked to be.
My André Tulips, are doing great. I planted them in a three gallon container, added some nice fertilizer, watered them, talked to them A LOT... and now, I'm thinking tomorrow, I will have my first blossom! I think I have about 25 tulips about ready to bloom, some are ahead of others.
I can't wait! As soon as they bloom, I will take a picture so that you all can see them!
I don't have an actual "planned" garden, but I do love flowers. I love to dig in the dirt. Growing up, we always had a huge garden,in fact, during the war years it was, what they called, a "Victory Garden". We kids had to help hoe and weed the garden, which was not our favorite pastime. I guess I got my love of planting from my dad, who always had
a garden. He loved flowers, especially roses, and we grew all kinds of vegetables & some fruits. We had a long row of grapevines.
Today I only grow flowers, mostly those that are perenials, so I don't have to dig another hole the next year. But I do have several pots which get annuals of various kinds each year. I have red honeysuckle growing on my fence, lilacs, a redbud tree, several kinds of tulips, including my Andre's, and a lot of iris, and a couple of rose bushes, and some lilies. in the fall will be some mums. I think I might hurry up & plant a tomato & a pepper plant. Tried strawberries one year, but the birds got most of them. Tried lettuce, but the rabbits got into it, so I confine my gardening, mostly to flowers.I am never so happy as when I sit and look at the beauty of nature.
As a boy, I remember my "victory Garden" & my corn experiment. My dad bought a hybrid, Burpee Surcross corn. I planted 4 rows of corn, each row being 20' long.
Being a boy scout, I was told by the scout master to put an eye dropper full of minteral oil in the tassle as soon as it forms, to stop corn borrers.
Sadly, I foolishly treated only 2 rows of corn with the mineral oil treatmment instead of marking individual plants & not treating 10-12 corn stalks.
The rows of corn that had been treated, were perfect, the corn was delicious & completely free of any corn borrers.
The 2 rows of corn that were left untreated, were so infested with corn borrers that the corn was inedible, unless you wanted protein & fat along with an ocassionalal kernal of corn.
10 years ago I decided in the fall to prepare soil for tomato, pole beans, lettuce, carrots & celery.
I dug a 3 holes 3' down & mixed phosphorous, which tomatoes need for good root size, strength & structure.
Those tomato plants were the Burpee Big Boy hybrid. Those 3 plants grew up 6' high, which was as high as I built support structure & then then continued to grow back to the ground. Those plants produced more 1+ pound tomatoes than the entire neighborhood could consume. I took tomatoes to work for everyone & I still had a surplus that I simply gave away in paper bags to passing motorists that stopped at the red light. Those tomato plants loved all the phosphorous that I'd put deep in the ground
Gopher & I went to war.....the gophers destroyed everything else by eating the roots of my veggies.
You're right! I guess I do hold a grudge, especially against gophers!
One day I'd go outside & notice a pole bean plant was withering, Next day the pole bean plant next to it, began to wither & die.
I mistakenly left the hose on the ground one evening, the ground became so saturated with water that the gopher tunnels caved in....that is when I discovered they were burrowing under my garden........
I never did catch, drown, trap or poison a single gopher....lord knows I sure tried
When I first arrived in Arizona in 1989, I got my AZ state certification in Pest Control & got a job as an Pest control bug man.
I got an extra certification so I could kill gophers......I made a lot of money for my employer because I had the license to apply phosgene gas into the tunnels of gophers. The gas kills the gophers D_E_A_D! After I applied the gas, there was NO MORE gopher activity in that tunnel, no more mounds of fresh dirt near the entrances every morning. <g>
I guess you can say, "I carry a grudge", for gophers!
I am sad for the gophers. Dear sweet little things.
How does MY garden grow??? This year I have selected a unique very seldom seen but a very hearty "SEED" which will come through what ever "mother nature's"
weather calls for. Do your part for the planet. Do all the things you know you
"should" do. Our grandchildren's children will either have words of praise for our efforts and our foresight
or words that condemn us for forgetting that they must live here long, after we
are gone. Don't overlook the obvious: as
this is not a dress rehearsal. This is the real thing. Our presence has an impact, but our precautions do too; and
our environment means the world to all of us. Stoop down and touch the earth, and receive its influence; touch the "flowers" you planted and feel its life; face the wind, and have its meaning; let the sunlight fall on our open hands as if you could hold sunbeams. Something may be grasped from them all, invisible yet strong. It is the sense of a wider existence---"wider
and higher." Always cherish how beautiful the flowers are we have planted and the kindness which touches
each and every one of us, I share this
with all my Andre fans. Keep a "smile"
on your face and pass it on. xoxoxo
Hi Judith,what lovely words. I would hope your "seed" will produce an abundance of fruit.If we destroy our environment, we destroy ourselves.
We have had very severe water restrictions in Brisbane over the last 12 months so I am not doing much planting. No Andre tulips here I am afraid! However, I have orchids growing in pots in my back yard and these have just finished flowering. While the orchids are in bloom that corner of the yard is a sea of purple enhanced by a tibouchina tree which overhangs them and is also covered in purple flowers at the same time as the orchids are blooming. Lyn
Hi Lyn,here you are, with not enough water, and where I live we have an overabunance, just having received 5" of rain yesterday. I'm not familiar with the tree you speak of but it sounds beautiful, as well as your orchids.You may not have Andre tulips, but you have Andre himself in your corner of the world.
Shirley, your Andre Tulips are a very attractive color. And the bloom is so big. You have your own musical garden!
My garden is ugh this year. I have not been able to work in it, so I'm taking inspiration for next years blossoms.
Thank you for sharing. Anyone else have photos of their garden?
Don't you love the color? I thought they were very nice. I didn't put them in a formal setting, I just did a "naturalizing", threw the bulbs under my redbud tree & planted them where they landed.They are the same color as my redbud, which makes it very pretty. I'm hoping to see some more pictures by everyone else. Marlene, are yours blooming yet?