#this is the most loofa i harvested at once so far

[muttley-do-something]

havin a normal one

[sauntervaguelydown]

So having made it most of the way through summer, I can now report back on some of the new stuff I tried growing.

TOMATILLOS. Grew really well for me, although it turns out I do not like the fruit taste. They're kind of a green-tasting sour berry. It's hard to tell when they're fully ripe because they never actually turn orange or anything. But they produce well in the heat as long as you keep them watered.

EGGPLANT: got a lot of seedlings going and none of them made it past August. Insects ate the seedlings, and I don't think they liked the record heat this year either.

SOYBEAN: yeah I know I said don't bother but look. I wanted to try. To my credit I got two very sickly little seedlings to grow long enough to produce two sad little pea pods. Not sure if it was the heat or the dirt situation or what.

PUMPKIN: so I planted a dozen pumpkin seeds from packet, and my result was one SINGLE pumpkin vine that lived more than a month. It's been flowering all summer, but only male flowers. So I have no actual pumpkins, even in September.

LOOFAH CUCUMBER: did you know that loofa sponges grow on vines? I've got some chunky boys the length of a comical gag gift dong ripening in my yard. Advice on loofah cucumber is as follows: MAXIMUM sun possible, as much trellising as you can manage, and have several all near each other because you need female flowers and male flowers going at the same time in order to get any fruit. Wasps love these things--don't chase the wasps away! They won't hurt you and the pollinate the flowers. I ended up using three or four tomato cages to trellis up all the vine I got, but it's not a great solution. They are LONG ass vines and they only want to go up. I'm out there on the daily convincing them to go horizontal to the next tomato cage.

SPACEMASTER CUCUMBER: this surprised me--in comparison to the loofah, the spacemaster I planted in my shade garden (expecting nothing, they were throwaway seeds) did really good and I even got two very pretty cucumbers off the vine before the goddamn pickleworms killed everything.

SANDWICH ISLAND MAMOTHS: inconclusive. they seem healthy despite the heat, but no sign of anything like a flower or fruit. Low maintenance so far, no pests.

AMARANTH: goddamn these things are PINK. They're growing well in a container with full sun and I water them every couple days. It's taken them longer to put on any height than I expected--the whole summer they've been very baby & small

PARSLEY: I think it's been a bit hot here for Parsley, but I planted a fuck ton of it all at once so the strongest babies have held on through the summer and the weakest have withered off. Seems to need more water than basil, despite being smaller. I have it in full sun, but honestly next year I'm gonna try half day sun.

MELON: managed to get one (1) muskmelon ripe enough to harvest seeds. The vines got overshadowed by my enormous French marigolds, but they actually didn't seem to mind that as much. I think keeping the ground cool served to the advantage. Not sure what I can do to keep them alive longer, but I have more seeds now to experiment with.

FRENCH MARIGOLDS: holy shit yall these things get BIG. they got so big they started splitting under their own weight. Easily knee height. Pollinators love them so they're a great way to attract those, but they pretty much took over any bed I put them in. Flourished in unrelenting full sun. Need a lot of water until they get big, and then they just keep on chugging regardless. Also they can put down roots? from their branches?? these things are insane.

COWPEAS: (actually a bean) I learned a lot on this one. These vines are wildly susceptible to aphids and if you do not plant them in full sun, with a lot of airflow, the aphids will vampire-suck the life out of the bean pods before you even see them. I was out there washing aphids off with soap just to get a couple beans ripe enough to start over again. Great news: in the sun, with airflow, they're very prolific. Baby bean pods can be eaten chopped up just like they are, and fully ripe pods produce black beans you can toss in soup or whatever. Did great in the heat.

I also tried my hand a pickling hot peppers, which only involved comparing endless different internet pickling recipes in order to find one that kept for more than 2 weeks in the fridge.

easy home gardening suggestions

Are you bad at eating the vegetables you buy? Do you feel like everything goes bad before you can eat it? KEEP IT FRESH ON THE VINE. Or at least, pickle it yourself.

You will need: pots (plastic is fine, terra cotta is drier, glazed ceramic retains moisture best). Dirt (surprisingly cheap but very heavy). Sunshine (free).

(I live in a humid part of the USA, these tips are not meant for deserts)

Container options: all your containers NEED drainage holes, but if you're a freak like me, you can take any sturdy plastic thing with sides & a bottom and nail/drill/MELT holes into it. Storage tubs may be a cheap alternative. Don’t hold the tub upside down and melt the excess plastic with matches directly onto your human hand. Burn bandages are expensive. Or just steal old ceramic pots from your aging grandmother.

Container Gardening

BELL PEPPERS: if you get half a day at least of direct sun, you can grow bell peppers. They do want warm weather so either you have to put them inside your house in a very sunny window or wait until it's 70degrees F or more. Remember that flowers do need to be pollinated by SOMETHING. Note that if you're planting them in containers, deeper is better; bell pepper tap roots can go 3 feet down if you let them. Minimum of 12 inches. If you have time but no money, scrape the seeds from dinner and plant them. If you have money but no time, try to buy one sprouted from the local plant nursery. Outdoors you will get caterpillars, but in my experience they are very polite and do not attack the fruit, so they're fine. You can grow three pepper plants per foot diameter of dirt surface.

OTHER PEPPERS: generally all peppers have the same needs, although my hot peppers seem a bit less thirsty than my bell peppers. I bought some already-growing hot peppers from the local plant nursery and they have been EXTREMELY productive; some "hot" peppers like mine (a Holy Mole pepper) actually make great mild salad greens if you scrape the spicy seeds out & pick while still green. Minimum of a foot deep containers, deeper is better if you can manage it. Full sun.

SCALLIONS: with green onions/scallions, you know the big thick ones they sell in the store with the roots still on? buy a couple and plant them in a pot of dirt in the sun and you'll have infinite green onion leaves. They can stand freezing weather if you cover them. It got down to 20 F here and I still didn't lose them. No flowers involved, just juicy crunchy leaves. They only have to be in containers 6 inches deep minimum. DO THIS.

SALAD GREENS: container gardening works well for lettuce and mustard/mizuna. Lettuce needs regular watering, it has shallow roots. You just gotta plant Mizuna when it's cold enough for the seeds to germinate (40 F ~ish). Mizuna is a hardy little guy, tolerates heat AND cold. You gotta buy the seeds, but they're cheap. Follow directions on the seed pack. This can be done (theoretically) in a sunny window indoors since they do not need pollinators. It's all LEAVES baby.

LIMA BEANS. These have deep roots and they have long tall vines; if you have the space for the roots, and any thing LIKE a trellis for the vines, and sun, you can get so many goddamn lima beans for 0 effort. Forget about these suckers you can't STOP them from fruiting.

More below the cut bc this is getting long

TOMATOES are kind of an investment; they're easy to grow from seed but they need a lot of sun & a deep pot. If you want full size beefsteak tomatoes, try a tall, lightweight plastic pot with a lot of fertilizer & consistent watering. Don’t forget the tomato cages! Those beefy boys will pull your plant over sideways. The lightweight pot will allow you to move the pot inside if you have a sudden deluge of rain that will waterlog & split the fruit. You can try planting seed from harvested dinner, but you may end up with some much smaller tomatoes than what you harvested from. It’s something to do with commercial hybrids.

TBH i recommend growing a cherry tomato, you get more fruit and you're less likely to lose it to bugs/sudden rain/general bad luck. Buy some ripe in the store and harvest the seeds. Do not try to grow indoors, you need pollinators & sun. Sensitive to cold. Giant green caterpillars will try to consume your entire tomato plant. You must catch them before they succeed.

SPINACH is nutritious, but honestly don't bother with growing spinach past spring if you live south of the Mason-Dixon line, it likes the cold. I'm having bad lucky with it--it's either too hot or too wet or BOTH around here. My friend who gardened in the desert said they had good luck? It works in container gardens tho. Critters love to eat it. Maybe ask about it at the plant nursery.

ARUGALA: bought some already growing and it's a real champ, doesn't need much water. 6 inch depth minimum. NOTE: Once it flowers, you will not get enough leaves for a sandwich.

I haven't tried to grow dandelions on purpose but they are edible and I hear good for salads. These bitches 'll grow anywhere.

Carrots are... more complicated. Unless you really like carrots or you really like gardening, idk if I'd recommend them for beginners. You start them from seed then thin them out so they're all at least 6 inches apart, and they hate it when it's more than 80 F outside but they also don't like it when it's freezing so... I'm having a hard time with them. Maybe there's a breed that grows really well in your area? Ask at the local plant nursery.

CELERY: basically the same, but less angry about the heat. Keep moist. Pick a bit & come back again for more.

BEETS: ditto, but less moist

ZUCCHINI: There's a lot of posts about how easy zucchini is to grow, but I think I'm in the wrong part of the country for it. Needs a lot of water, at least when it's hot outside. Definitely works for container gardening. Give it a 12 inch deep pot. TIP: put your old coffee ground in the dirt to increase the acidity. You will not get any fruit unless you have pollination, but pollinators also like to lay eggs on the leaves and eat them all to smithereens. Cucumbers are the same way--and if you're gonna try cucumbers, buy a burpless variety to keep beetles away.

YAMS are pretty easy. They like the HEAT. They need 100% full sun. What you do is you buy a yam from the store, wait until it starts to put out growths, then (indoors) suspend it partly in some water until the green growths are at least 6 inches long. Then you can plant those growths in dirt. It's especially good if the growths have little white roots, but I've planted growths without any roots and they were fine. Healthy vines will put out runners. Suggestion: start in a deeper container but only fill it up with like 6 inches of dirt. When the yam vine gets nice and long, add another few inches of dirt and bury some of the vine. Keep doing this until you run out of space and/or dirt. You get more yams this way. Harvest when the cold starts to make the leaves all sad and crinkly. Using fluffy light dirt makes harvest easier.

STRAWBERRIES: I really don't recommend it except for fun. You'll get them one at a time, and they won't be very flavorful in most cases. They need pollinators, but squirrels steal them as soon as they're ripe. They're also VERY hard to grow from seed. Perfect container plants though.

BLUEBERRIES: fine for containers, although they need to be deep. Get at least two blueberry bushes so they can cross pollinate. Make sure that both varieties bloom at about the same time of year. Partial sun is fine. In winter it may go dormant but it comes back.

BLACKBERRIES and RASBERRIES are insanely low maintenance but bad for container gardening. They want a lot of space. You'd need a big container. Maybe a costco storage tub. Better off putting them in the ground, if you have a garden. But watch out, they spread.

A note about PUMPKINS: you can get a pumpkin seed to sprout basically spitting on it. I threw some dirt on a rotten halloween pumpkin and now I have a legion of leaves. However, getting them to fruit requires pollinators, and the vines take up space. I wouldn't try to grow them unless you have an actual garden with flowers (weeds are fine) or you just.... want a pretty vine to look at. Also they don't like the heat very much, even though they grow over the summer.

LEMONS: you can actually grow lemon seedlings from the seeds of regular ass grocery store lemons. They're supposed to be pretty easy to do but I haven't had much luck. Now that it's warmer out I'm gonna try again; basically just put them in some dirt and keep the dirt moist until a sprig comes up. you won't get fruit for like 5 years but the leaves smell nice. Tangerines are the same way.

I haven't tried growing onion, but it looks pretty easy. There's a wikihow article on it. Basically you cut the bottom off an onion from the store and then treat it like a yam.

Herbs

hard Rosemary is actually fucking difficult in most places bc it needs Mediterranean conditions ie. FULL sun, not a lot of water, warm weather. Rosemary can get up to the size of a full ass bush if you give it the space. Needs 12 inches of pot depth. If you haven't got full sun, don't bother. I don't recommend growing these from seed--if you have a plant nursery anywhere near your home, just buy one there that is already established with roots. Cold hardy when large enough.

medium Basil has about the same sun needs. Basil stays pretty small, comparatively. I'm growing it from seed and it's doing pretty good! Parsley is probably the same but I haven't tried it yet. Not cold hardy.

medium Ginger is a tropical shade plant, so you can grow it with no direct sunlight (it does need to get at least indirect sun). It needs really rich soil so you gotta go buy some bagged potting soil with compost, but literally you can get a healthy ginger from the store and sprinkle dirt on top and it ought to start growing. Especially if it already has little white or green fingers growing out of it. Give it a deep pot, 10 inches if possible. not cold hardy. If the soil freezes, it dies.

easy Mint: we all know it's insane. However I have managed to kill all my mint twice and I'm not sure how. I think maybe I didn't give it a large enough container to spread out in. Aim for something at least 10 inches deep and at least a foot diameter. I know, it's a big commitment for an herb. Partial shade is fine. do NOT put it directly in the ground or it will take over. Cold hardy perennial (survives at 0 F and lower). It may go dormant but it comes back.

easy Oregano. Good boy. Precious child. More sun is better, and not a lot of watering. Pot only has to be 6 inches deep, though more never hurts. I've heard that cilantro and tarragon and thyme have the same root depth, but I've never tried growing them so that's all I know. If you're planting from seed, make sure it's hot outside and do Not bury the seed. It goes right on the surface of the dirt in the sunshine. 3 months from sowing to adulthood. Cold tolerant perennial; it may go dormant but it comes back.

easy Garlic: you might not be up for growing garlic from seed, but if you want to harvest the green stalks that grow up from the bulbs in spring, they are kind of like a cross between chives and garlic in flavor, and very safe to eat. Good in soup. Just buy some regular garlic and then leave it in your kitchen until the individual bulbs start poking up green shoots inside that papery wrapping stuff. Then plant them in some dirt with the green shoot pointing up. These bulbs survive VERY cold winters and thrive. It may go dormant but it comes back. If you let it go through a cold winter, you will probably get harvestable additional bulbs.

Flowers You Can Eat:

Nasturtium, violet, viola, coneflower, chrysanthemum, citrus blossoms, daisies (who knew), marigold, clover flowers (clover is good because it nitrogenates the soil). When in doubt, eat the petals only. Except for Nasturtium, i know you can eat those leaves and stems and all. They're kind of peppery.

There's actually a LOT of edible flowers I haven't begun to list. If you're curious, look into it.

Things you simply cannot grow at home: Vanilla. Soy beans. Apples. Do not try. If you live along the Gulf Coast of the USA, you can probably grow cinnamon, although I have never attempted.

straight up, if you're gonna grow any of these, just google "how often water [x]" and then do that forever. Set a recurring calendar alarm. If they look wilty, increase how often you do it. Personally I water everything when the dirt looks dry, but that's because I'm an obsessive.

Anything sold in the store uncooked/undried that is either 1. a seed itself or 2. contains a seed (or 3. has roots attached) can PROBABLY be pirated. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Google is your friend.

Other Notes:

you CAN pollinate a lot of things by hand, if you're willing to put the effort in

"well draining" soil usually has compost material content mixed in. Sand is also well draining, but maybe a little TOO well draining. Basically, avoid clay if it needs to drain.

Most things do not need fertilizer all the time if you buy potting soil (it's pre-fertilized). However, growth costs nutrients. Keep that in mind.

You can steal dirt out of the ground for your pots but remember that it may be contaminated depending on where you get it (roadside? BAD idea). Also it's heavy as fuck. Plan accordingly.

Coffee & tea grounds are acidic and nutritious. (for plants) (don't eat them)

it's not actually a great idea to bury a moldy piece of fruit in a pot. You will get flies. I know it seems like a composting hack but don't do it.

You can put old wood cuttings & logs at the bottom of a container for plants that need a lot of nitrogen, like ginger. Make sure there's still an appropriate amount of soil between the wood and the surface.

potting SOIL contains dirt (sand/silt/clay), potting MIX is just organic matter (peat usually). Mix is fluffy, soil is denser. You can combine to get the advantages of both. Potting mix is usually a good bet for fruiting plants, but I've tried using plain ground soil for almost everything and the main problem is it just dries out faster. If you're putting things directly in the ground, just get some "gardening soil" to fill in around the roots a little bit.

pots are weirdly expensive. Scavenge and recycle what you can. I've used costco cranberry juice jugs for things, but the ridges in the plastic do retain water. Make SURE your pots are deep enough. And make sure they have a fair bit of surface diameter.

go outside. pull off a handful of oregano leaves. Break off a leaf of scallion. Grab some of that garlic green. Maybe a sprig of rosemary if you got it. throw it in a pan with some olive oil and a chunk of defrosted chicken. Boom. delicious fucking chicken, no grocery trip. Add ginger if you're ambitious. Maybe basil.

depression meal: boil one package of maruchan ramen, as many lima beans as your little hands can grab, chunk of scallion (chop if you have the energy, shred it with your fingers if not). celery? if you've got it. pour flavoring packet. add lemon juice. survive another day without scurvy.

A note on TREES

Citrus trees are easier to manage than some other kinds, but they do still need management. Citrus is very cold sensitive so if you can bring them inside as soon as it hits freezing at night, that is best. The trouble is they also need deep enough pots for their tap roots, which makes them hard to MOVE. Even with frost covering, I lost a lemon tree to a hard winter this year RIP. The good news is that after they've been in the ground about 5 years, you do not have to cover them as carefully anymore. I've got a 30 year old tangerine tree that went dormant this winter and then came back kicking, and I didn't cover it a single inch.

Peach trees are also fairly cold sensitive, but they need a minimum number of cold nights (40 F or lower) to produce fruit. So uh. Either cover them with a frost cloth as soon as it gets freezing out, or bring them inside in a big pot but leave them outside as long as you can. I wouldn't try to grow one from seed personally, but I've bought a couple saplings. Look for a variety that does well in your climate. Your local university might have made a hybrid.

You can grow and make your own tea leaves; the tree is a specific variety of Camellia. Grows well in the southern USA.

"pawpaw" trees are a fruit tree native to north-east america, cultivated by american indians. They're pretty cool. They grow well on the sides of hills. You can buy dormant saplings in the winter/late spring online. You need at least one male and one female. Deep tap roots.

You can GROW a banana tree, but you can't make it fruit unless you're in a tropical climate. I wouldn't bother. Even subtropical doesn't cut it.

Figs are cool but keep in mind that lots of people are allergic to their leaves.

In the case of most trees, long term, a pot is not a good idea, but for the first few years it's fine. Remember that every year the roots get bigger.

If you have a commercially sold tree seedling, the chances are it's been grafted at some point. If there's a knot or a notable bend in the lower part of the trunk, that's the graft point. Stuff that grows below that knot is going to be Not Delicious. Pick off growths below the graft point.