Garden Geeks thread

[jen]

Deer have snacked on the Hosta growing along my basement walls. What was about 15 ft of nice ground cover is now just stems. The over population of deer around here is unreal. Brown tails eating all the leaves off the oaks a few years back has dried up the acorns that deer eat. I’ve watched them eat leaves out of one of my brush piles. The state in there infinite wisdom won’t issue any deer permits for this area.

This is the first time in my adult life I've had to worry about deer eating my stuff. We don't have a ton of them, but I've seen them in the non-fenced area of my yard (where the raised bed is).

Something ate my only ripe blueberry. I got bag things to put over the fruit plants. Repels All doesn't seem to do the trick (or I don't refresh it enough).

My next project is this for the raised bed - https://hydrangeatreehouse.com/diy-garden-bed-cover/

 

[leswp1]

So sore. And have spent so much money.

ripped up ton of sod to make new gardens. Planted butterfly magnolia tree. A few new ornamental trees and shrubs.

removed all sod around and under crab tree. My first shade garden. Filling it with lungwort, lady’s mantle, forget me nots, Japanese forest grass and astilbe. Ripping up sod hurts , will hire someone next time.


have coneflowers and sedum for around new magnolia. Already have salvia and allium nearby.

turns out Gertens stocks their clearance section every Thursday and there are vultures who wait. Whatever was there in smaller perennials is gone now but was able to snag red twigged dogwood for $4 and red prince weigelia fir $10.

also random- but I’ve found two things that are cheaper at bachmanns- lungwort ($7 per plant cheaper!! And lamium ground cover).

Everything hurts. And it is hilarious to watch my millionaire next door neighbors hire la escapers to do in two days what has taken me weeks. Sigh.

on to mulching now

Sounds lovely!

Best source of plants is to put the word out to your friends. At least 3/4 of my Gardens are from plant swaps,, people splitting plants and splitting my own. Post on FB and plants come out of nowhere.

We are getting huge rains- even my plants for moist areas are rotting. Came back from vacation to find areas of the garden decimated from the rot and others so leggy they are smothering the front of the garden where they flopped over. From afar- looks great. Up close.... well, I was in the Gardens for 6 hours yesterday and barely put a dent in it.

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Dx, Gertens clearance is poppin again today

I got glow girl SpireA I’ve been eyeing for months- $8. Tons of arborvitae and spruce also back there fresh today

 

[dxmnkd316]

Dx, Gertens clearance is poppin again today

I got glow girl SpireA I’ve been eyeing for months- $8. Tons of arborvitae and spruce also back there fresh today

Ooooo! Better than the 800 Weigela they had when we last stopped by. But our three clearance weigelas are thriving. One even had several blooms! Going to look gorgeous. I definitely owe you one for that tip.

Would love to make a stop this weekend but not sure it's in the cards. :-/
Tomorrow is game day at TCF. Friday is the fair with my wife. Saturday is the fair with our friends who just moved home from Alaska after a decade and said "we want to make a day of it". We had already taken off from work for Friday so we're kinda going to spend more time at the fair than the damn 4H kids.

 

[leswp1]

This years veg garden was a bust. 2 cukes and the vined gave up. Some green beans and wax beans. Squashes produced but not in the usual numbers. Tomatoes- pfft. Nothing compared to last few yrs. First we had horrid humid heat then rain, clouds, rain, clouds with less heat. One of worst yields we've had in yrs.

 

[dxmnkd316]

This years veg garden was a bust. 2 cukes and the vined gave up. Some green beans and wax beans. Squashes produced but not in the usual numbers. Tomatoes- pfft. Nothing compared to last few yrs. First we had horrid humid heat then rain, clouds, rain, clouds with less heat. One of worst yields we've had in yrs.

Even with the drip irrigation, our peppers are pretty bad this year too.

 

[walrus]

This years veg garden was a bust. 2 cukes and the vined gave up. Some green beans and wax beans. Squashes produced but not in the usual numbers. Tomatoes- pfft. Nothing compared to last few yrs. First we had horrid humid heat then rain, clouds, rain, clouds with less heat. One of worst yields we've had in yrs.

All that work for nothing, that stinks. Never got into garden to plant until middle of June or later. While we have had similar weather, my hoop house has been warm enough for a good yield of tomatoes, some peppers are great but hot ones are just blossoming. Beans were good, squash, haven't had any yet but some set. 2 hills of zucchini and maybe a couple of them so far. Generally I'm feeding them to the chickens by now. With all the rain plenty of weeds. Hard to get into garden when its mud. I solved my deer issue with a plug in instead of solar electric fence. My Golden got into it and yelped all the way back to the deck, about 100 ft. He didn't back to garden for awhile. Deer got into the garden, but I had wire up and down the rows of beans, they knocked it down but got zapped and haven't been back. 2 days ago I had 8 deer under an Apple tree about 50 ft from garden.

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Ooooo! Better than the 800 Weigela they had when we last stopped by. But our three clearance weigelas are thriving. One even had several blooms! Going to look gorgeous. I definitely owe you one for that tip.

Would love to make a stop this weekend but not sure it's in the cards. :-/
Tomorrow is game day at TCF. Friday is the fair with my wife. Saturday is the fair with our friends who just moved home from Alaska after a decade and said "we want to make a day of it". We had already taken off from work for Friday so we're kinda going to spend more time at the fair than the damn 4H kids.

Hey I love Weigela!

they also had some boxwoods back there. $40 instread of like $140.

this time of year can have incredible deals as some is just simply overstock they have to get rid of

 

[dxmnkd316]

Oh we do too! We bought three. ;-)

It was just all they had last time we stopped by.

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

I wish I wanted boxwoods. They look amazing in many yards but in Edina they remind me of the boring professionally landscaped yards.

Not the look of mine and I love it

 

[dxmnkd316]

I had to google boxwood.

I deserve to be in GDO

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

I had to google boxwood.

I deserve to be in GDO

LOL

the ones you see at Gertens are about 25 years old- that’s why they are expensive. I don’t want high maintenance. Plus I want everything to be either drought tolerant or a pollinator.

I wanted the glow girl Spirea as it looks nice behind all the Russian sage I just planted

 

[MichVandal]

So now that we've retired and travel a lot- my annual gardens have kind of fallen back a lot. But my fruit has stayed strong- so I encourage everyone to have some perennial fruit plants.

Our best are brambles- we have raspberries and black raspberries that get harvested in late June/early July- those are amazing. With one or two plants to start with, careful management can result in a good sized plot of those. But you really have to manage them and keep them pruned.

I'm still trying to find a good place for strawberries in my yard. I'm close.

Grapes grow so well that I never get to harvest them.... But when I'm able to, they are great.

And just this week, I picked some fresh peaches from a tree- good lord those are good.

Figure out what fruit will grow in your yard, and grow them. So much better than any you can get in the store.

 

[jen]

This years veg garden was a bust. 2 cukes and the vined gave up. Some green beans and wax beans. Squashes produced but not in the usual numbers. Tomatoes- pfft. Nothing compared to last few yrs. First we had horrid humid heat then rain, clouds, rain, clouds with less heat. One of worst yields we've had in yrs.

My cucumbers were a disappointment. My tomatoes are going nuts, especially the cherry ones. Just harvested my first 2 watermelon last week, have a bunch more of those going (and a couple cantaloupe). I'm getting blackberries and raspberries just now (and I got one strawberry last week). We got hardly any rain this summer, so I had to water a LOT.

 

[leswp1]

My cucumbers were a disappointment. My tomatoes are going nuts, especially the cherry ones. Just harvested my first 2 watermelon last week, have a bunch more of those going (and a couple cantaloupe). I'm getting blackberries and raspberries just now (and I got one strawberry last week). We got hardly any rain this summer, so I had to water a LOT.

We've had drought the last few yrs. This summer is awful. Found something that explained that tomatoes need temps below 80F to ripen. >80 and it suspends ripening. We are just now starting to get tomatoes.

 

[dxmnkd316]

I want to start gardening. What do I need?

Software

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Due to warming temps, twin cities are now considered zone 5a instead of 4b

 

[dxmnkd316]

No wonder our snapdragons came back

 

[walrus]

Due to warming temps, twin cities are now considered zone 5a instead of 4b

Coastal Maine is now 6b but frosts will still happen in late May and early Sept so I wouldn't spend a ton of time and money planting stuff that won't take that. We used to get a few days in -10 area buts its been a few years since we have seen that. This November has been one of the coldest in many years though. Maybe it will be an old fashioned winter?

 

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Coastal Maine is now 6b but frosts will still happen in late May and early Sept so I wouldn't spend a ton of time and money planting stuff that won't take that. We used to get a few days in -10 area buts it’s been a few years since we have seen that. This November has been one of the coldest in many years though. Maybe it will be an old fashioned winter?

Yeah I don’t plan on actually changing anything I plant . I think it’s interesting we’re changing though- I think twin cities was named 4b back in 2012 so curious to see how fast it could change again.