Playing God (Gardening and Plants and Stuff)

Nuri

Hey Northern hemisphere folks, who is excited about spring? Tell me about your plants (or aspirations of plants)!

My herb seedlings are finally getting to start spending some time outside, Pete has approved my landscaping plan, and I'm putting in "Viking" Aronia, Gooseberry (yes it's a real berry), Rhubarb, and Horseradish. There will be baskets and planters on the porch for herbs, strawberries, and tomatoes, too.

Yay green, growing things that I can eat parts of!

(Southern hemisphere people are, of course, welcome to talk about plants too, despite their lack of spring.)

MrRoboto

Central america holmes, we get vegetation and flowers year round.

Nuri

You also get All The Humidity. I would love to visit. For a short while.

Linkigi(Link-ee-jee)

Spring? Don't you know about Second Winter?

Apreche

The only negative of moving to NYC is the lack of tomato plant. Anyone want to help me afford a house with a tiny lawn or an accessible roof of my own?

Nuri

Fucking second winter is getting fucking CUT if it shows its face around here.

Scott: You don't have a balcony/porch? You could theoretically grow one in a sunny, south-facing window, but I dunno which way your window faces.

Apreche

Nuri said:

Fucking second winter is getting fucking CUT if it shows its face around here.

Scott: You don't have a balcony/porch? You could theoretically grow one in a sunny, south-facing window, but I dunno which way your window faces.

My Windows DO face pretty much Southish, as does my balcony. The problem is the balcony is not like a fire escape that sticks out of the building. It is inset into the building, so it doesn't get as much light as it would otherwise. My window sill is also larger than most, but not quite large enough for a huge tomato plant.

TheWhaleShark

I'm planting hops this year. My working plan is to plant them in a clearing in the woods out back and train them up some trees. Because fuck you, trees - I'm let something useful grow on you.

Nuri

Apreche said:

Nuri said:

Fucking second winter is getting fucking CUT if it shows its face around here.

Scott: You don't have a balcony/porch? You could theoretically grow one in a sunny, south-facing window, but I dunno which way your window faces.

My Windows DO face pretty much Southish, as does my balcony. The problem is the balcony is not like a fire escape that sticks out of the building. It is inset into the building, so it doesn't get as much light as it would otherwise. My window sill is also larger than most, but not quite large enough for a huge tomato plant.

Get a determinate (bush) one instead of a vine. Also a grow light.

Or just keep buying tomatoes, I guess.

Victor Frost

I don't have a "green thumb" so much as I have a "black hand of death". Even if I follow all the instructions, even if I put it in the most optimal location with the best lighting for it, plants under my charge die. I managed to kill bamboo. BAMBOO. If I want a plant to grow, I put it on the sill with my mom's plants and ask her to take care of it. So far, the makeshift dirt+seed+stocking thing I made is growing grass nicely. I might make a mini weed whacker to trim it.

Churba

My mother has a bonsai that is largely ignored, and yet it lives. Since 1972.

Wyatt

I'm redoing my backyard this Summer. I'm thinking about putting blackberry & raspberry along side the murder shead and back fence. Clearing out the flowers in back and doing a small garden. Then getting a stamped concert patio.

HMTKSteve

I have some herbs growing on my kitchen window above the sink (basil and chives) but I want to plant some onions (they keep growing before I eat them) as well as berries and corn.

My yard needs extensive work...

Dr. Zibbelcoot PhD

The only stuff I have going right now is grass for our rabbits, some orchids, a desert rose, plumerias, and a huge agave that doubles as our security system by the front door. It'll be exciting once the plumerias wake up and don't look dead anymore.

Hopefully our yard won't look so brown and sad by the end of the month. James is helping me get garden beds for vegetables, herbs, and blueberry bushes done by this weekend. My gardening job is to finish repotting the rest of my dormant plumerias and waiting on quotes to give our front yard HOA approved curb appeal and I'm kind of dreading it.

MATATAT

I really want to try growing some herbs this year since I hate buying a huge ass bushel and using like a quarter of it and then it goes bad. I'd rather just have some on hand whenever I can but I've never really grown anything besides grass.

Amp

I have an alovera plant called Nigel that started off as an off cut. He has survived much stress and hardship. Im thinking of getting a windowsill flower box next for nothing more than pretty stuff.

Apreche

I never understand how people fail at gardening. It is the easiest. You take a plant. You put it in some nice dirt and in the sun. You make sure to water it the right amount. Then you just wait and let biology do all the work.

MATATAT

There can be considerably more to it than that, especially growing plants outside of their natural climates.

Amp

Apreche said:

I never understand how people fail at gardening. It is the easiest. You take a plant. You put it in some nice dirt and in the sun. You make sure to water it the right amount. Then you just wait and let biology do all the work.

You have never studied biology have you? If it was that simple then there would be none of the problems that comes with growing anything. That said Nigel is the exception to the rule.

MATATAT

Biology, it just works.

Apreche

I never had a problem.

MATATAT

It must be that New York City air.

Amp

What have you tried to grow Scott?

Apreche

Amp said:

What have you tried to grow Scott?

Tomato.

Nuri

The most common way people kill their plants is overwatering. Failing to re-pot potted plants can also be problematic. Sticking to plants native to your growing area and putting them outside in the ground to get watered naturally can help with that.

Rochelle

I aspire to do this when we/if we move into a house/duplex. Sure, I can probably do this at my apartment, but cats. Cats are the reason we don't do Christmas trees, have open cups of liquid about, or the toilet paper on the dispenser.

Fuckers change your lives.

zehaeva

I'll second the cats bit! I have a palm tree that I must keep outside or really really high up so my cat does not eat the poor plant's leaves. He's done it twice to where the palm was just a stem. I'm surprised that I was able to coax it back to life! He still tries to eat the aloe I have growing about and completely ignores that cat grass I have for him!

ThatGent

Law of cats, they only use that which you want least.

Nuri

Rochelle said:

I aspire to do this when we/if we move into a house/duplex. Sure, I can probably do this at my apartment, but cats. Cats are the reason we don't do Christmas trees, have open cups of liquid about, or the toilet paper on the dispenser.

Fuckers change your lives.

I have heard stories about cats that eat plants. On the other hand, you could grow catnip (which is in the mint family and grows like whoa). That would be hilarious.

Dr. Zibbelcoot PhD

Catnip is a disaster. At our first apartment here in Houston I had a full tray of seedlings including mint, catnip, various flowers, parsley, cilantro, and some other herbs. One of us forgot to shut the bedroom door and I came home to a stoned cat that ate every single green growing item in our apartment. She even ate Waikiki, my tiny bonsai palm tree for the last time (it survived 3 previous attacks).

Dr. Zibbelcoot PhD

Woooooo! I just bought an avocado tree, two blueberry bushes, and a strawberry plant that are all fruiting. I'm going back to that nursery tomorrow to get some citrus trees, two more blueberry bushes ( I accidentally got a rabbiteye and lowbush instead of 2 of the same kind) and maybe a peach tree if I can find a dwarf.

Cats also ate all the rabbit grass only to puke it up. One of them also decimated my snapdragons.