Gardening

In Florida, everything in the garden, even the stuff that should be heat tolerant is burning to a crisp with 100+ degree temps every freakin day.

As we in the northern hemisphere are entering peak seed-gathering season, you should know about seed libraries!

Seed libraries and seed exchanges are places where gardeners can donate, receive, and/or swap seeds they've gathered. You can often find them at community centers and public libraries. This year instead of cleaning up your bolting/flowering plants, why not let them go to seed? My local library was thrilled to receive donations of seeds I gathered from my garden; it sounds like their seed library is quite popular, but there are more people interested in receiving seeds than giving them.

There are tons of seed saving resources online, but here are some quick tips from my personal experience:

• You don't need a garden to seed save; some people gather wild plant seeds for use in home gardens to improve biodiversity in settled areas. A hike at the right time of year and a little knowledge of native plants can go a long way! As with all foraging, only take sustainable amounts of seeds.

• Most seed-saving resources focus on vegetables and other edible plants, but consider saving seeds from ornamental flowers too, especially native and pollinator-supporting species.

• Don't save seeds from hybrids; they won't turn out like the parent plant. If in doubt, "open pollinated" plants and wildflowers are the way to go.

• Many plants cross-pollinate in unwanted (occasionally dangerous, e.g. in the case of carrots) ways. Seed saving works best when only one variety of a species is blooming at a time, and when there's not opportunity for a neighbor's or wild plants to contaminate the fertilization process. Because of this there may only be a few plants in your garden that you can save seeds from, and that's okay!

• You don't need a large garden to seed save; you'd be shocked how many seeds even a single plant can produce (especially in the case of self-pollinating species).

• Letting plants go to flower and then to seed is great for wildlife. Tons of insects and birds come to my garden every year specifically because of the vegetable plants I allow to bolt, as well as for my flowering perennials like herbs. The visits continue through the winter, when critters scavenge for fallen seeds.

• While you can use ziploc baggies, pill containers, and other repurposed containers for seed saving, you can also buy dedicated seed bags, which I highly recommend if you're collecting seeds to exchange/give away later (compact size, durable, easy to label, relatively cheap, easily recognizable).

• When donating to a seed library, the more information you can provide about your seeds the better! It's a bit more work, but I always make sure to label my seed donation bags with the plant's common name, scientific name, variety name (if applicable), and a few short bullet points about the species (e.g. "native perennial, pink flowers, bee magnet.").

I love seed libraries because in addition to making gardening more accessible for everyone, they allow me to share with my community the plants that I've found grow especially well in my climate, as well as plants I've found are especially beloved by local wildlife. Seed saving for me is a labor of love, both for people and for animals!

birb nom sunflower

#birb #bird #birds #birdsOfMastodon #sunflower #beans #GrowYourOwn #gardening #biotope @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world @nature@fedigroups.social

Hello Lemmies

Can anyone ID this plant thing growing in-between my rhubarb? The rhubarb appears to get along with the "intruder" though

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50109406

Bumblebees and honeybees alike go gaga for artichoke flowers. They really have to dig in there to get to the nectar, but given how many other wildflowers are currently blooming in my yard right now that don't require spelunking that the bees could be feeding from instead, the artichokes must be producing some really premium nectar to be worth the extra trouble!

Side view:

I've got about a dozen tomato plants of different varieties in containers on my northeast-facing deck (mid-Atlantic region of the US), which receives about 6 hours of direct sun exposure per day. Some of them have developed these black splotches on their leaves. Based on these articles on Southern Living and Old Farmer's Almanac, it looks like this might be a sign of Septoria leaf spot. Is that what this looks like to you all as well?

EDIT: Clarified orientation and daily sun exposure.

A series of photos of an oak I started from an acorn I found on a hike and eveuntually planted in a wooded where I live 😊

I thought it was appropriate for #TinyTrunkThursday

@allotments@fedigroups.social @outdoor@fedigroups.social @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world @nature@fedigroups.social

#Oak #Tree #Trees #TinyTrees
#GrowYourOwn #Seed #Seeds #Seedlings #Precultivation #Garden #Gardening #Bokashi #Compost

Are they still wild strawberries if I grew them in a pot? Or are they more like semi-feral strawberries? 😜😂

@allotments@fedigroups.social @gardening@fedigroups.social @gardening@lemmy.world

#GrowYourOwn #FreeFood #Free #Food #SelfSufficient #Urban #Garden #Gardening #Bokashi #Compost

I have no idea what kind of pepper plant it is, my neighbor gifted it to me after I helped her take out her recycling and she said she can't remember what kind it was lol

I'm very excited to have another shot at successful fruiting. Last year my cherry tomato got blown off the ledge taking with it the single fruiting blossom and never fully recovered, and my strawberries all got eaten by bugs and then after keeping it alive through winter I accidentally gave it transplant shock and then overwatered back to back (it rained for like 3 days so I couldn't get it to dry out 🥹)

I've had to be hypervigilant of the wind, Including getting soaked just now moving my plants off the ledge as a severe thunderstorm rolled through (our 8 billionth one the past week or two 😅). I'm on the third floor and close to an airport so we've got decent elevation and not much around to break the wind lol

Just yesterday these figs were about half as big and green. Every time they ripen like this on my tree it blows me away.

Now we’re just in a race for them to finish ripening so we can harvest them before the squirrels do…

(also, if anyone has a guess on the variety I’d love to hear it. I even bought and planted the trees and still managed to lose track of the variety 🫣)

I hear growing tea plants can be quite challenging. Looks like I have 6 attempts to figure it out…

I've started by mixing some coffee grounds and some conifer fertilizer into my potting mix in an attempt to lower the pH value. A short pH test says it's still at around 6.0, though, which might still be too high. I'm considering putting a few drops of vinegar into the watering can to lower it even further.

BTW, those are some surprisingly large seeds for that plant.

Update:
After putting them into a glass of water, I found that all six of them float to the top, which some Internet sites tell me means they're not good any more. I will keep on trying, though, because I'm stubborn, but I also did go ahead and order some new seeds from a different vendor.

I am slowly working on creating a. Permaculture garden/ food Forest sort of thing and got these large clay drainage pipe sections for free but I'm not sure what would go well planting in them if I'm using them as stationary planters / small raised gardens, looking for perennial edibles preferably, but honestly any and all recommendations are welcome.

I will basically just be filling them with dirt and planting stuff on top. Nothing detailed like filling them with different types of dirt or mulch or stone. Literally just dirt shoveled out of the ground.

Shovel for scale.

Fair warning, I made the app in the screenshots, so take the plug for what it is.

August is nearly here and I've got ten big tomato plants out back, all of them loaded with green ones. Three weeks from now they'll come in at once, same as every year.

The jars go down to the basement, the freezer fills up with green beans and sweet corn and shredded zucchini and pesto cubes, and by midwinter I've got no idea what's still down there or when any of it got put up. The stuff in front gets eaten and the stuff behind it just sits.

So I built an app. I know that's not everyone's cup of tea and a notebook on the shelf works fine for plenty of people, but I'm hyper organized and I like knowing what's where across all the different spots I keep things. A notebook was never going to tell me I've still got 14 pints of sauce from last August.

Stuff it does:

• everything gets a location, so the basement shelves and the chest freezer aren't one giant list
• canned date and expiration on each batch, and it nags me before something ages out
• barcode scanning, so the lids and pectin and salt get counted with everything else
• days of supply per category
• offline, no account, no analytics, CSV export if you want out

It's called BeaglePrep, Android only. Free tier is 75 items, not a trial that runs out. Pro's $4.99 once, no subscription.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beagle.inventory

Good luck with your own glut. I'll be in the comments if anyone's got questions.

Heya! In addition to terrestrial plants, I keep a pond. And you know what looks amazing? Lotus.
So I have myself some lotus seeds. They have quite hard shells that need to be exposed to water & light without hurting the delicate endosperm inside. To open the shell it seems most of the lotus growing guides have you:

1. Dremeling
2. Filing or Sanding
3. Sawing
4. Drilling
   And it looks like a LOT of work. With room for finger injury.

So anyway, there's this one guy online that's like "I just lightly hit them with a hammer" and I'm 100%, SOUNDS LIKE VERIFIED FOLK WISDOM.

So here we are, a week later, with lightly smacked lotus seeds, and by golly they are all sprouting.

Hey there,

How are your gardens doing? What’s gone well this year, and where are you having problems?

Things are looking good for me so far. Like every year, I had some trouble with black bean aphids on my fava beans, but that seems to have resolved itself (even though the affected plants aren’t yielding much).

I’m happy with my onions and potatoes… does anyone know why some of my onion sets are deciding to go to seed?

Wishing you all a great week!

We've just got our first house and with it came a lot of new challenges in the shape of gardening.

One issue I have not managed to solve is weeds in our lawn.

I have been ripping these things out of the lawn a lot (see pic in post) but I feel like I can't win. There are big patches where you can hardly see the grass.

I know not everyone want the perfect grassy lawn, and I don't need perfection. But these things are growing and spreading at an alarming rate. I need to do something about them.

Where we are at now, I feel like we are past the point of ripping them up one by one. We need some wider, more effective solution.

What are these and how do I fight them in scale?

Extra pic:

It's the time of year again when I find my citrus plants covered in wiggling bird poop. The caterpillar form of the swallowtail butterfly is extra fond of citrus plants and they make a point to have their first point of life in my garden. I have a rule that I make plain to the little critters: you can stay if you don't eat too many leaves. Eat too much and you get evicted. It does no good for them if the plant dies.

It got me thinking: where do others sit on the scale of "magazine perfect lawn piece" to "it's less garden and more forest area I found to live in"?

Do you have everything where the animals can't get to them or are you fighting the birds for the perfect ripeness of a fig?

During the pandemic when everything was locked down I tried rooting a pineapple top and now 6 years later I have little pineapple garden.

There's a small bed in the corner of my landscaping. It's separated from the landscaping coming down the side of the house by a stone drain for the downspout. Behind it is the back porch and it's edged by grass on two sides. I want something in the corner of the bed. Currently there are three English lavender along the curve of the two open sides with a red double knockout rose at the center of the curve. There's a catnip in the center of the bed and catmint filling in around it. The corner closest to the house has orange canna. I want something on the other corner that's out against the yard. I'd like it to be in the five to ten foot range with a spread of no more than three feet. A little taller would be better because I want it to provide some color above the lavender and rose as well as a little privacy for the porch. Along the back of the porch are orange rocket barberries so the plant would be a transition between the barberries and lavender. I'm not overly particular about the color but yellow or orange would stand out from all the purple or red would match the rose. A dwarf tree would be great there but I'm concerned about how close it would be to the concrete porch. My best idea right now is a to put a trellis there with a clematis, there's already a sturdy upright that I could connect it to. I would really like something with a longer bloom season though. It's full sun, zone 6b, with rocky clay soil.

Hello, /c/gardening! It has been a solid little while since I posted, or in fact grew anything.
Life dealt me a really harsh hand of cards at the end of last year and I'm finally getting going again.

What broke the seal for me was someone else needed plants, and I was like 'don't buy those, I'll grow you some'. And then of course, why not start some for me.....?

And here we are! I hope your gardens are thriving.

We grew corn when I was a kid, first time growing it myself. Impluse bought a few stalks to throw into the garden bed, and now this corn is bringing me a lot of joy. Grow corn, Grow!

Not the author. Was browsing https://theindex.fyi/ and found this blogpost with simple advice. Some snips I appreciated the reminder for:

Water deeply, not daily. A thorough soaking encourages roots to grow deeper, making plants more resilient. [...]

Skip pruning and fertilizing. Heat-stressed plants are already working hard. Wait until cooler weather returns.

Don’t panic over afternoon wilting. Many plants perk back up in the evening. If they’re still wilted the following morning, they likely need water. [...]

Save the tough jobs. Weeding, digging, hauling mulch, and pushing a wheelbarrow can wait until early morning, late evening, or even another day.

Love the way it looks.

Think I prefer the basic salad mix taste though. Think this would be better for adding some color to another green.