#nasturtium seedlings

[anipgarden]

Behold, my Zucchini Bins

Every year so far I’ve struggled to grow zucchini. I keep losing them to snails and slugs, and its so rainy in Florida during the growing season that diatomaceous earth is ineffective. One of my friends recommended growing them in bins, so I can control the snail population easier, so fingers crossed! I’ve got drainage holes in the bin and they’re lifted off the ground and all that jazz.

In order to spice things up, I’ve planted some nasturtium and borage seeds in each bin. I’m hoping to get a nice little community of flowers alongside the zucchinis to both encourage pollination and also make it look pretty. And if the zucchinis fail then hopefully I’ll at least have flowers.

[cottagebff]

i grew these from seed!

[jensownzoo]

First cucumber seedling up.

Now begins the vigilance.

[austinausten]

Garden updates

[nasturteayum]

Cauliflower and nasturtium are out!!

Cauliflower was sowed march 21st -> germinated march 27 = 6 days

Nasturtium sowed march 22nd -> germinated march 28 = 6 days

Just sowed basil indoors as well. 4 seeds in each small container.

[wholelottabotany]

Baby nasturtium leaves are too stinkin CUTE!!!

Nasturtiums are a beautiful, EDIBLE vining flower. They have bright orange flowers that look kinda like large pansies, with a bright peppery taste to match. They're a tasty garnish in salads, sandwiches, soups, etc!

If that's not enough, they're also great at repelling pests in the garden, so they're best planted as companions around your crops!

[ironedorchid]

It's in the interest of landscaping businesses and nurseries to convince people that plants don't live for more than a few years because that means repeat customers.

Imagine if baking bread was a skill any person living independently in their own house needed to have at least a passing familiarity with, so there were endless books, blogs and websites about how to bake bread, but none of them seemed to contain the most basic facts about how bread actually works.

You would go online and find questions like "Help, I put my bread in the oven, and it GOT BIGGER!" and instead of saying anything about bread naturally rises when you put yeast in it, the results would be advertising some kind of $970 device that punches the bread while it's baking so it doesn't rise.

Even the most reliable, factually grounded sources available would have only the barest scraps of information on the particularities of ingredients, such as how different types of flour differ and produce different results, or how yeast affects the flavor profile of bread. Rice flour, barley flour, potato flour and amaranth flour would be just as common as wheat flour, but finding sources that didn't treat them as functionally identical would be near impossible. At the same time, websites and books would list specific brands of flour in bread recipes, often without specifying anything else.

An unreasonable amount of people would be hellbent on doing something like baking a full-sized loaf of bread in under 3 minutes, and would regularly bake bread to charred cinders at 700 degrees in an attempt to accomplish this, but instead of gently telling people that their goal is not realistic, books claiming to be general resources would be framed entirely around the goal of baking bread as fast as possible, with entire chapters devoted to making the charred bread taste like it isn't charred.

Anyway, this is what landscaping is like.

[martha-anne]

Garden project day!

I had beetroot seedlings and nowhere to plant them, so this morning I decided to extend one of my garden beds to make a new planting area.

Step 1: Harvest compost; making sure to greet each worm individually

Step 2: Cut the grass under where the new bed will go (i did this with kitchen scissors) (very tedious)

Step 3: Lay down cardboard weed suppression layer (I hunter-gathered this cardboard out of a neighbour's recycling bin)

Step 4: Compost

Step 5: Plant

Step 6: Mulch with the grass cuttings from earlier to keep the soil moist

Good luck, beetroots!

For lunch I made a potato salad. I used various garden greens + kefir to prepare a green goddess style dressing - It was very delicious.

Ingredients: kefir, capers, mint, basil, oregano, sorrel, and of course the ubiquitous nasturtium leaves.

[thestudentfarmer]

Hello and Welcome to the garden!

Today I have a bit of a smallish and short post~

The pumpkin is developing pretty good, the one on the trellis is a little smaller than this one. I'm starting to see new flowers on the vine, but I think I'll be picking them to use for stir fry/fried rice varient, ommlettes, or salad.

The first planting of the velour beans is starting to get what I think might be the end of their cycle, a few more flowers arrived but the plants aren't really b taking off to much in growth or producing. If I recall right I got around 48 oz of beans. (Their being crowded out by the sunflowers now.)

I'm gonna leave them in and jsut see how long/well they do.

Starting at the far left, sunflowers+ velour beans and pumpkin

2nd in from left. Starting closest to us. The broccoli and nasturtium. I'm gonna pick some of the broccoli leaves this week for pan fried veggies. Broccoli leaf+rice (not sure if blanching, pan fry w/garlic+butter or a cheese/broc soup.)

3rd row from left starting closest. The eggplants, who have some flowers but I've not seen any eggplant yet. Cabbages (2), they've got little heads coming in. I have not yet sprayed down with the tea but I haven't seen much more pest issue. And last the cucumbers. One is pretty much done, the other has teeny lil cucumbers coming in, but I don't expect too much more growth from them. If they do I may just let it go to seed and see if it does better next year in a different spot.

Edit to add, I forgot the last row!

4th row from left, second planting of velour beans, with the surviving cabbages and carrots. I picked a few of the carrots this morning

Close up of the dying/dead and the hanging in there cucumbers.

Finally got down to the hardware store. We got wood, pipes for extending the garden fence, dirt and some time.

We got 2 boxes made up. So next step is to get the fence panels made up to extend the garden space and protect it from the stray/feral cats.

I got peppers, tomatoes seed started this week, though im hoping I didn't lose a tray of peppers due to a watering malfunction. (Always check your seedlings daily!) I also got some garlic in the ground and some ginger root too.

Thats it for my update for now :)

🌱🌻Happy Homesteading and gardening! 🌻🌱

12 18 2023

[anipgarden]

Got things and stuff happening in the Ani Garden

Rudbeckia germination experiment has…. Results. The first and third picture are of seeds that weren’t stratified, and the second and fourth are of seeds that were cold stratified for about a month. Growth rate seems about equal?

My raised bed is popping! German Queen tomatoes from Walmart, cucumber starts from Home Depot, just 3 of the 14 (14?!?!?!?!) roma tomato seedlings I got from a 6 cell pack at Home Depot, a bunch of peas and carrots I started from seed, all thriving! Also a spaghetti squash seedling and some nasturtium seedlings! I planted green onion seeds in there ages ago but have no idea if thats whats coming up or if its just grass/weeds.

The zucchini bins of eras past. Never have they successfully grown a zucchini but may this year be the first of many zucchini triumphs!!! I found out I can. Start zucchini seedlings WAY earlier than I had been in my zone so hopefully thats’s my breakthrough! Also planted nasturtiums and borage into the bins, fingers crossed they grow in! Some nasturtiums are already starting, but no signs of the borage to my knowledge. Borage is one of those plants I’ve wanted to grow for a long time but have never been successful with.

Also the first bin has 2 more of the 14 (14 YALL!!!!) roma tomato seedlings

[aniseandspearmint]

Look at the the babies!

Okay we've got nasturtiums

And marigolds

And portulaca aka moss rose (there's a few tiny mushrooms in this one. They're not harmful to the seedlings and moss rose aren't food so I'm leaving them alone mostly)

And FINALLY the Thai basil has popped up!

[creekfiend]

A bit blurry sorry, but here are the little nasturtium seedlings, growing very fast! They're also next to two bigger nasturtium plants of different kinds, like some kind of nasturtium mentorship program

aww to inspire them 🥲

[system-threat-detected]

Hello all! For the Horizon Day of Service I decided to help out my native pollinators and maybe even some monarch butterflies! The solitary bees that frequent my garden LOVED my basil flowers when they went to flower last year, so I allowed all my basil to go to flower a bit early this year to help them out!

[ID: Two stacked planters filled with plants. The first is a green planter with calendulas, peppers, dwarf stock flowers, lanceleaf coreopsis, johnny jump ups, sweet alyssum, and basil plants which have gone to flower. The second is a tan planter with more flowering basil, marigolds, chamomile, squash, and a small melon vine. /end ID]

Then I planted even MORE basil so that when my first wave of flowers dies off, the bees have some more!

[ID: three basil plants in a white pot. Each plant is about 5 inches tall. They have not flowered yet. /end ID]

I’ve been making a valiant struggle against the grass around where I planted the milkweed, but that darn stuff sure is tenacious! Hopefully they get a bit bigger soon, and return next year!

[ID: two pictures of small milkweed plants, about 6 inches tall each. A hand is gently holding both plants, helping them to stand out against an army of grass trying to strangle them /end ID]

Finally, the bees really liked my nasturtiums in the late fall last year, so I’m starting some more sprouts to plant! Only one has sprouted so far, but I can see the others disturbing the soil! They should sprout soon.

[ID: a small nasturtium plant in a seedling tray, an inch tall. It has two leaves, and a white tag labeling it as “regular nasturtium” stuck into the soil near it. It is very cute. /end ID]

[audible-smiles]

last year I tried to transplant a young rhubarb plant, all green and leafy, into a big container in, like, late May or early June? anyway it of course burned to a crisp. today I planted a crown division with just a few small leaves coming up, at the very beginning of April. I'm hoping that will give it enough time to settle in before our hot weather starts in July. will definitely need to stay on top of watering, though. still gotta set up the hoses again after the winter. it's really spring!!!

also snagged three of the year's first basil plants from our local nursery! with the basil, chives, nasturtiums, sweet peas, mini sunflowers, daffodils, carrots, and mixed greens, I have already used up all of the space on our back porch that gets enough sunlight for container gardening. not sure what on earth I'll do when/if any more of the seeds I started actually successfully germinate. just start giving away seedlings, I imagine.

[cascadianights]

Disabled Gardening

-YOGA MAT: Get a yoga mat or something similar that you can throw down on that mud and sit on - I do almost all my gardening from my little mat and it also gives you 1 clear section to work on

-TIME: I started prepping my garden this year at the beginning of winter, one plot at a time. Sometimes it takes hours to weed a tiny spot, sometimes I get a couple of plots done - I cover up what I've cleared with cardboard and come back to it when I have energy. When Spring gets closer, give yourself a couple of seed types a week to get done instead of trying to do them all at once - there's good charts online on what to plant when per zone

-NO TILL: There's other advantages to no till methods (doesn't disturb weed seeds or risk losing topsoil) but being able to lay down cardboard over a section and just leave it to prep itself is great. The grass and weeds should die within 3-6 weeks (see: time) and if you have decent soil you can pull the cardboard, throw amendments in, and plant. If your soil is unworkable have someone help throw dirt and amendments on TOP of the cardboard and plant there

-FREE STUFF: Money is always tight, but watching Craigslist or FB marketplace or similar can net you a good amount of free or very cheap supplies and plants. Local gardening, buy-nothing, gleaning, or agricultural sharing groups will have plants, seeds, supplies, and sometimes food. Seed libraries also exist and can sometimes be found at your local library! If you don't have room to plant you may have a local community garden you can apply for a spot in. Compost, wood chips, and leaves should all be posted for free pretty often

-TOOLS: The right tools can make a big difference, especially with things that depend on grip strength (like loppers or shears). Having ones that aren't rusted or dull make a big difference, and there are construction or art resale stores that may have tool options. Failing that I've found some good stuff at Goodwill over time. Having a cart that can easily cross whatever terrain you're working in can be helpful, pushing a typical wheelbarrow with any amount of weight through mud gets difficult Fast. The best I've seen for this is a design like the (unfortunately pricey ~$100) Gorilla Carts - something with 4 wheels, an easy to turn front, and a dumping option - I hope to have one someday. Also very very useful is a timer for your hoses and a sprinkler so plants get watered even on bad days (or weeks)

-FRIENDS: Asking for help sucks it is the worst thing in the world but alas we should do it anyways. Lots of people like to garden but don't and will have fun coming out and helping prep beds or plant seedlings with you, and in my experience maintaining a garden once that's done is the easy part - things don't need perfect weeding or care to grow and it feels like everything is less heavy than dirt and compost. Also, plant companion flowers that act as insect traps (baits them away from the plants you want) or repellant - nasturtium, marigold, there's a lot and they save you from having to actually deal w the pests most of the time.

[ethereal-forest-furry]

Nasturtium seedlings!!! :D

i got a pack with three different varieties a few days ago and planted as many seeds as i could in the hopes of getting at least one of each. rlly happy to see them growing :3 these are gonna be so yummy and theyll help protect the other plants from aphids and stuff too

im gonna let them cross pollinate and plant my cool funky hybrid nasturtiums next year :P