The Ides of March 2024
Gardening — how wonderful to bring fresh green life into your own, to tend and observe and smell the freshness of it all. I always had a black thumb until I learned how to grow marijuana, of all things. But plants are all basically the same, and this idiot proves it. I have had success with just about anything (thanks Miracle Gro!) but then I moved… up.
Soon after I arrived one of my first projects was an herb garden. I live on the top floor with a 4×8′Â northeast-facing balcony subject to constant north winds, and I still got some good growth so I decided to see what more I can grow this year.
My rosemary is the only survivor over the winter, but she still smells great and is very healthy. Basil looks good and my Charlie Brown succulent is thriving.
Basil and Charlie
I started around mid-January with some dill and recovering my rosemary, then it was time to start the new garden: two types of tomatoes, strawberries, basil and lemon thyme, as well as mint and curly parsley, all doing well. I get two or three strawberries every other day and the tomatoes are grooving along. The way things are growing I should get four yields this year, Yippee!
Now we plant some new stuff. I’m maximizing the sun that I have, fortunately the climate is temperate so some shade still works for good growth.
New plants
Level that soil!
Fresh new herbs
Curly parsley
“I’m not in jail!”
Little ‘maters
Yum
My garden is only big enough for us, but I love it — fresh strawberry smoothies, rosemary chicken, and so forth. As much as I would love a large garden I have this one, and that’s fine.
‘Til next time–
Thatâs a nice balcony garden.
I plant herbs and peppers in pots every year. Makes it more fun to cook.
If you have the indoor space, try overwintering the peppers, they should last 2 years.
I had a thai pepper that lasted 3 years. The little bugs/flies finally killed it one winter.
I didn’t pull them in timely this year. I honestly was not expecting it to go from 70s to low teens in a matter of hours. So I murdered my big jalapeno bush while I sat at my desk and worked. I should know better. This is Texas.
Yay for plants!
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/QhjYElb2QeaTT_G_5LauNg.A0dpOusgC4DVVI71lswcHs
My indoor greenhouse on Tuesday. A couple of the bigger pepper plants and you can see my rosemary plant on the bottom left.
Gonna be a large crop this year (i hope!) I think there is 23 pepper plants sprouted.
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All I got is couple of crocuses blooming. Maybe next week or the week after my daffodils will start blooming.
I’ve started some pepper plants (including trying some seeds from peppers you sent me). I’ve got some sprouts, but it’s not even close to time to consider putting them outside yet. And after last year, they’re not going outside until they’re fruiting.
Go ahead deer and chipmunks, eat those peppers.
I’ve had good luck with germination from using seeds that I harvested.
That’s way too late. You should be hardening them off well before that.
Deer/Chipmunks ate everything I put out last year (or dug the plants out and tossed them aside). The peppers will at least provide some protection.
Yikes!
Like Yusef, I have the luxury of putting my plants out on the 2nd fl deck. Insects are mostly the only thing I have to watch for,
No telling what hellish creatures would emerge from the desert to destroy a vegetable garden here at the Casa Dean. Without serious fortification, the javalinas would level it in a matter of minutes, for starters.
I grow a mint plant, in a pot, behind brick walls, solely to have fresh mint for cocktails. Thatâs the extent of my gardening.
My garden is only big enough for us, but I love it â fresh strawberry smoothies, rosemary chicken, and so forth. As much as I would love a large garden I have this one, and thatâs fine.
I like it.
Jealous.
It is still snowing in Minnesoda.
But I have tomatoes, peppers, and several herbs under the lights in the grow tent.
Snow tonight into tomorrow in southern NH.
I just need the sunlight to keep up this afternoon
I need to pour some UV-curing resin
Would the UV light used for curing fingernail polish work? Jugsy bought one of those things years ago and it sits in a closet.
The biggest problem is that the pour surface is 9.5″x9.5″, so my artifical UV sources are a hassle for curing it.
Plus I have a deadline this needs to be done by.
Beautiful little garden.
It may not make financial sense once you account for everything, but you can’t beat the flavors from fresh grown. Even things that seem shelf stable, like potatoes, from the store are not as good as fresh. Gardening has always been part of my life, but growing more edible plants has really opened my eyes.
Gardening up to and including subsistance farming isn’t going to be the most efficient option. For most gardens it’s for the act of caring for the plant as much or more than the produce.
Right now I’ve got some different leaf lettuces going, keep trying to get basil to survive (they sprout, then disappear, could be predation?), I have some strawberry plants, rosemary, mint (mostly for drinks lol), a coffee bush and a ton of lemongrass.
My yard isn’t as big as I wanted, so I’m fairly limited once I put in what I wanted for aesthetics.
Does predation apply to something eating plants? đ¤ I honestly don’t know.
My next-older sister was the horticulturist in the family and grew, among other things, spearmint, planted beside the garage. If left to its own devices, I believe it would have taken over the yard. My mother liked a sprig in her iced tea. (My dad put milk in his iced tea. đ¤ˇđźââď¸)
And speaking of mints, beware of planting catnip outdoors near your home unless you’re prepared for the consequences. đ¸
I always wanted to replace the sugar water in the hummingbird feeder with cocaine water. Just to see if it would attract strippers to my porch.
It does, but only the skinny ones.
And maybe Hunter.
Yes, everything I mentioned is in a raised bed, so the mint is contained.
I already have tons of nuisance cats bothering me, they don’t need catnip as an excuse.
I got a mint plant last year and it grew great. Now it is looking dead. When should I see new growth (s.e. PA)?
I can just about guarantee itâs not dead. When I had to go to war with the one I planted in the ground (it was making unreasonable territorial demands), it took repeated campaigns of chemical warfare (RoundUp) to kill it.
Even here they turn brown in the cold weather, buried under lots of snow and ice, come warm weather the new growth generates and they are read to start spreading, I think Mrs F has about 3 varieties, tea and what ever. Don’t throw them away ’til after mid-June.
I learned the hard way about mint. Mine is in a pot on an elevated stand.
I wouldnât have 100% confidence that it couldnât escape a raised bed unless the bottom of the bed has a liner. Preferably, I dunno, steel.
Hop bines are the same (per reports). A long term project that I’ve got is to get some stands up to be able to grow my own hops. I wouldn’t mind too much if they took over the lawn.
It would be interesting to see if hops or English ivy is the more invasive plant.
I am jealous. I’ve never had a Create and Nurture project. I have grown basil and rosemary before, but only the little ‘pre-made’ ones. Just water and sun. That was quite nice, having the little guys the few times I did use them.
I’ve made things artistically, but never with Life. I foresee, and likely legit NEED (social primates be social), a lovely pup for me in the future. I’m also semi-terrified, but in a good and human way. Ya can forget about plants and flush fish, but not Scooter, Peabody, Buddy or James Brown. I’ve never done it myself, and far too bad of an idea to have human children.
Give me your address. Ill drive over and drop off a high-energy shepherd. Responds to Marta.
Good luck.
Speaking of subsistence:
“Tres Cool on March 22, 2024 at 10:29 am
Ben Shapiroâs only asset is that sister of his.”
Those Khazar Milkers…
I’m thinking of growing herbs on my patio in something like this.
Also going to plant some honeyberry and gooseberry along the outside of the patio area. On the shady side of the house where the original shrubs died, I will try some Huckleberries that supposedly love the shade.
depending on your climate and tastes, currants and even raspberries do well in shade.
Thinking of trying at least one of these – a gooseberry / black currant cross.
https://onegreenworld.com/?s=orus+8
For years I had a giant Aloe plant in my office named Robert.
Your Uncle was an Aloe?
Why was your office named Robert?
Did you rub it on your skin if you got a sunburn?
That would be an odd thing to do with a coworker.
Did you do it everyday, or did you get the hose?
If there’s a pun in there, it just bobbed right over my head.
Me II
I have a burning need to understand what he meant.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election and Biden’s promise to pack the court to bring social justice to the world, I spent a lot of time thinking about how much food we could grow on our 1 acre property. Also, the house is built on on a south facing slope with a walk-out basement. So, we have 2 1/2 stories of glass facing south. We could grow a lot of plants year round with that southern exposure.
Did your trees survive or did you have that serious cold spell that we seem to get every year? I think I’m OK, frost still in the ground and now a bunch of snow starting on Sunday.
Funeral tomorrow again and a phone call this morning, my friend Russ’s (with the blue ’49 Chevvie) wife passed away last night so another funeral in a few more days. Russ and I go back a long way, over 70 years . He’s a great friend but he’s in serious decline as well.
đ
I won’t know until mid April whether or not the trees will bud out and flower this year. The trees themselves will do just fine. But it could be another year without fruit which means wildly overgrown trees that need to be pruned constantly during the summer.
My condolences.
there were two light frosts over the apricot blooms and i have a sneaking suspicion it is the third year in a row with no apricots. fuck plants plants are asshole
Not the climate change you were promised?
https://www.reddit.com/r/zillowgonewild/comments/1bk7qh0/please_be_mindful_of_the_bedside_chandelier/
Terrorist attack in Moscow.
https://www.rt.com/russia/594700-shooting-moscow/
Gee, I wonder who was behind that?
The NRA?
That’s what Tucker was doing over there!
An autist recruited by the FSB?
A WSJ reporter?
For that space, that’s really impressive. Both the Mrs. and I like planting, she’s into flowers and I’m the vegetable guy. We get that from our dads. Especially her dad, his house looks like a greenhouse.
Good start, Yusef. You can share with your neighbors and they’ll reciprocate with their specialties.
I have a dozen baby apple trees started from seed, They’ll be given away to some neighbors in a few weeks. Put some sweet pepper seeds in the dirt last week, they haven’t sprouted yet. A little early for tomatoes and the brassicas, they grow very fast inside. I used to plant a bigger variety of vegetables, now I plant less exotic stuff and more of what we like. Easy to give away tomatoes and cukes.
I’m moving some apple trees from inside the fence to outside but need to put a deer fence around them anyway. Winter is coming back but fortunately the apple trees hadn’t started budding so I think we’ll be safe this year from a late frost.
Backyards are groaning with citrus right now. I wish neighbors would trade more.
We don’t even have leaves on trees here. Some daffodils have started to spring up though.
Rainy season is not over yet locally though.
Hoo boy.
If you wanted more evidence of a growing antisemitism (I mean antizionism, sorry) within the Ameircan left:
What drives unceasing U.S. support for Israel, especially in the shadow of Gaza?
Among the American electorate, after all, Israel is decreasingly popular. A recent Economist poll reveals that fully half of President Bidenâs 2020 voters now believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. U.S. support of Israel is often cast in Jewish terms â an outgrowth of American Jewsâ concern and lobbying, and sustained by those who sympathize with Jews. But Americaâs tiny proportion of Jews has never been the force behind Americaâs policy.
Israel is â and always was â an evangelical state as much as a Jewish one.
Everyone I don’t like is
HitlerMAGA.Half of Biden’s voters eh? Boy he really is on the off-ramp from the Presidency.
What’s more important to suburban virtue signalers, abortion or genocide?
I read on a totally reliable subreddit that the IDF is genociding Palestinian abortion clinics.
Exhibit No., fuck, I lost count, of the effectiveness of propaganda is the âJews are genociding Palestiniansâ narrative.
Key word “believe”. Very few of them know the slightest thing about what’s going on there.
Nice write up Yusef! In other plant news.
Thatâs a great looking patio garden you got there, Yusef.
Speaking of plants:
https://www.newyorkupstate.com/cannabis-insider/2024/03/financial-relief-in-sight-for-ny-cannabis-farmers-with-128-million-senate-plan.html
-Cannabis farmers grow cannabis to sell to newly legal dispensaries.
-Said legal dispensaries do not actually exist, no do the licenses to build exist.
-Cannabis farmers successfully beg for bailout for growing a crop with no legal market.
I have also heard that these guys are doomed because one the licenses actually started coming, established growers from other growers set up more efficient farms in NY.
Chinese invasion! They’re taking our boys (and girls) jobs.
At least they aren’t homeless.