On a different note, I have taken in many nonfunctional (read: not edible) plants from my mother. They are selling the house with the big sun room and she was trying to find new forever homes for her plants.
George and I are now surrounded by green (and some purple!) Now, my urge to propogate cuttings and force them on friends is overwhelming. I may be turning into a plant hoarder ...
That's the whole point of growing tomatoes! Depending on the type of tomatoes you have, you can make either sauce or salsa and can it. Or you could freeze the sauce, if you don't want to deal with canning. Don't freeze salsa, though. That just gets gross.
Anybody try their hand pickling their veggies? My Dad has a recipe for pickling green beans. They're great.
We pickle all the things. The majority are boiling water canned vinegar pickles (green beans, cucumbers, cauliflower, onions, mushrooms, and so on), but I've also done some natural pickling via lacto fermentation (sauerkraut and pickled turnips).
Which reminds me, I need to pickle those goddamn beets still.
I now have a gaudy patch of dirt where my old tree used to stand.
We had to chop it down after it grew too big and broke a water pipe, and now we need something to replace it (we're thinking maybe herbs/spices or vegetables, but we're still debating).
I live in a rather hot area that doesn't get much rain. Does anyone have ideas for drought-tolerant plants?
I'd say an Agave. We live outside Houston so our rain is limited and completely ignored ours. Despite constantly getting mowed over it is thriving and pumping out tons of baby of Agaves.
Lavender is extremely drought tolerant. It actually prefers poor, dry soils and full sun.
Sage, rosemary, thyme, and winter savory are all good with droughts and heat and need very little maintenance!
As a plus, these herbs are all perennials (or evergreen if your climate is warm enough). I would buy everything except sage as plants, though. Sage is easy peasy to start from seed, but the rest are slow growers and/or have poor germination rates.
This semester I started working in the science greenhouse at my college. My job is to manage the desert room. Most of the plants in here originated from South Africa.
We have a rainwater catchment system just outside. One good rain is enough to keep everything watered for at least a couple of months.
We cultivate all sorts of moss to put in terrariums made of coffee pots and mason jars, then sell them on campus. We're saving up for a bunch of lady bugs to help with pests in the spring.
I can't figure out exactly what this guy is, but he looks like a cross between a pachyphytum and a sedum.
I can't remember what this one is at all. I do know that it has tiny little hairs on it that suspend water on its surface, probably as an evaporative cooling mechanism.
Parsley is entirely herbaceous. It depends on water pressure to keep its stem upright. If it has a good root system, that's usually not an issue. If it doesn't, then you'll run into issues.
So, it is time for me to start prepping and thinking about our garden this year. What are you doing different for your gardens this year? Were there any plants/vendors you loved and do again? Are there any you hated and will never buy from or plant again?
Loved/Would plant or buy again: Cherry tomato plant from HomeDepot, only thing that lived from all the tomatoes I planted from them and was very fruitful. It tried to put out more flowers last week. Enchanted Gardens (local nursery) had amazing plants and we're still harvesting the broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower, and some of their tomatoes. Even the pepper plant was putting out flowers until two weeks ago. We also got some great trees from them that we can hopefully harvest this year (meyer lemon, key lime, lila avocado, and tropic snow peach). Giant swallowtail caterpillars and leaf miners limited us on citrus this year.
Hated/Never again: Burpee tomato plants. They were lanky and maybe one of them gave us a tomato. Everything else from Home Depot. We specifically bought a heat tolerant variety of tomato and got all of one cherry sized tomato off of it instead of the beefsteak sized tomato it was supposed to be. Pineberries, aka the albino strawberry. I thought pineapple flavored strawberries would be awesome! I ordered from 2 places (Burpee and http://noursefarms.com/). Never got to eat any of the Burpee ones as the birds ate them all. The Nourse Farm berries were super tiny and tasted like strawberries. Very tasty strawberries, but the yield and size was horrible. The Sonata strawberries that come with the pineberries were also tasty but I would not buy the collection again. Catnip and anything from seed. I have no idea why I think any seed will make it to maturity when I have all these cats waiting to strike.
Trying this year: Wasabi, pineapple and bananas. The pineapple and bananas are already in the ground and will hopefully fruit this year (or next if they need more time). I also have some heirloom tomato seeds that I'm hoping the cats don't destroy this year.
The pineberries (white strawberries) HAVE to be netted (as you learned, the birds love them) but they are worth another try. We had one on a farm I worked on briefly and the ripe berries were awesome!!! But they were only ripe for about 5 minutes before the ants found them and devoured them. So it takes a vigilant eye to watch them grow. If they're in a spot you walk by several times a day, you're bound to snag a few.
One plant I had fun with last year were long beans. They grew super fast and shot out these enormously long and skinny dark red beans. The taste wasn't anything remarkably different than the average green bean, but they vined with enthusiasm and looked beautiful. They will draw attention if you cook them whole for a pot luck or something. The flowers were a lovely pale pink. I'd recommend this plant to anyone without much experience with growing food, they took minal effort and grew splendidly even in the containers I put them in.
I thought the pineberries had a delicious strawberry flavor (the ones from Nourse anyway), but they didn't taste like pineapples at all. The size of the berry was also an issue for me. We have all the plants wintering in our garage right now so I'm willing to let them have patio space this coming summer but I wouldn't spend more money to put any in our raised beds this year. I'd just rather have more fruitful plants with larger berries in our garden beds this year.
Do you have a different variety of pineberry to recommend that is more pineapple-y?
They were already growing when I arrived at the farm, so I have no idea who sold the seeds to Jeni. I can see if she has an idea, but it was an old plant even then. You are right, the berries are small and they don't produce a ton. So I'd usually find about 2 or 3 berries a week for a treat, they weren't a food source, just a little treat. The white strawberries we had were fragrant and delicate when they ripened. They had a pineapple/banana flavor and soft flesh. If yours were like these, they started a bit yellowish and as they filled out and matured they would lighten in color. So maybe you picked the ones your ate too soon. I normally had to flick the first ant off just to get my strawberry :-)
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George and I are now surrounded by green (and some purple!) Now, my urge to propogate cuttings and force them on friends is overwhelming. I may be turning into a plant hoarder ...
Right?
Right.
Not to mention bananas, grapes, & mini cadbury eggs.
Which reminds me, I need to pickle those goddamn beets still.
We had to chop it down after it grew too big and broke a water pipe, and now we need something to replace it (we're thinking maybe herbs/spices or vegetables, but we're still debating).
I live in a rather hot area that doesn't get much rain. Does anyone have ideas for drought-tolerant plants?
Our landscaper used many of the plants from this site in her plans (http://austinnativelandscaping.com/xeriscape-texas-native-plants-for-drought-toleran-landscaping-in-austin-texas/). I can't comment of how hardy they are since it isn't done yet.
Sage, rosemary, thyme, and winter savory are all good with droughts and heat and need very little maintenance!
As a plus, these herbs are all perennials (or evergreen if your climate is warm enough). I would buy everything except sage as plants, though. Sage is easy peasy to start from seed, but the rest are slow growers and/or have poor germination rates.
We have a rainwater catchment system just outside. One good rain is enough to keep everything watered for at least a couple of months.
We cultivate all sorts of moss to put in terrariums made of coffee pots and mason jars, then sell them on campus. We're saving up for a bunch of lady bugs to help with pests in the spring.
I can't figure out exactly what this guy is, but he looks like a cross between a pachyphytum and a sedum.
I can't remember what this one is at all. I do know that it has tiny little hairs on it that suspend water on its surface, probably as an evaporative cooling mechanism.
Loved/Would plant or buy again:
Cherry tomato plant from HomeDepot, only thing that lived from all the tomatoes I planted from them and was very fruitful. It tried to put out more flowers last week.
Enchanted Gardens (local nursery) had amazing plants and we're still harvesting the broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower, and some of their tomatoes. Even the pepper plant was putting out flowers until two weeks ago. We also got some great trees from them that we can hopefully harvest this year (meyer lemon, key lime, lila avocado, and tropic snow peach). Giant swallowtail caterpillars and leaf miners limited us on citrus this year.
Hated/Never again:
Burpee tomato plants. They were lanky and maybe one of them gave us a tomato.
Everything else from Home Depot. We specifically bought a heat tolerant variety of tomato and got all of one cherry sized tomato off of it instead of the beefsteak sized tomato it was supposed to be.
Pineberries, aka the albino strawberry. I thought pineapple flavored strawberries would be awesome! I ordered from 2 places (Burpee and http://noursefarms.com/). Never got to eat any of the Burpee ones as the birds ate them all. The Nourse Farm berries were super tiny and tasted like strawberries. Very tasty strawberries, but the yield and size was horrible. The Sonata strawberries that come with the pineberries were also tasty but I would not buy the collection again.
Catnip and anything from seed. I have no idea why I think any seed will make it to maturity when I have all these cats waiting to strike.
Trying this year:
Wasabi, pineapple and bananas. The pineapple and bananas are already in the ground and will hopefully fruit this year (or next if they need more time). I also have some heirloom tomato seeds that I'm hoping the cats don't destroy this year.
The flowers were a lovely pale pink. I'd recommend this plant to anyone without much experience with growing food, they took minal effort and grew splendidly even in the containers I put them in.
Do you have a different variety of pineberry to recommend that is more pineapple-y?
If yours were like these, they started a bit yellowish and as they filled out and matured they would lighten in color. So maybe you picked the ones your ate too soon. I normally had to flick the first ant off just to get my strawberry :-)