Clean,Non Religious-Reads discussion

I loved gardening, vegetable, fruits, nuts, flowers, shrubs and trees. Hubby and I grew everything. After he passed away, I moved to an apartment for less maintenance, so I no longer garden.

How many gardeners do we have here, and what is going on in your gardens this month?

I garden. Zone 7b so I can be growing something 10 months out of the year.... well this year we actually didn't get cold enough to kill the winter and fall veggies.

We have flowers, shrubs and the typical landscaping stuff but in those beds I have also mixed in edible greens, herbs and even some seasonal veggies. I love the way pole beans flower and a pepper plant toward the end of summer adds some great color once spring flowers have left.

We also have several raised (square foot gardening!) beds that we use for rotational planting based on the time of year. Right now I have tomatoes, peppers, beans, ............ planted.

Well, I didn't mean to post a book about this but I love gardening almost as much as I love reading. The smell of fresh soil on a warm afternoon is almost as intoxicating as the smell of a bookstore.

As to the apartment, have you looked at vertical or container gardening on a patio or balcony?

I loved your post Desiree! Zone 7b sounds wonderful!

Unfortunately the units in my apartment building don't have porches or balconies, it just has a main front and back porch ,looks like a huge brick colonial house with columns.

Do you do a lot of canning? I really enjoyed canning, but not the prepping of the food, lol!

I do can. I also help teach others how to can since it seems as though most people don't know how to do it. I will go to you pick it farms to get large batches of fruits and veggies to supplement my own garden. (mine never seem to ripen at the same time). I also can meat and beans too. Makes being a working mom so much easier!

Wow you are lucky that your garden stuff doesn't ripen at the same time! EVERY year me and hubby would go around and around because he refused to plant the beans 2 weeks apart so I wouldn't have them all coming on at once, lol!

Lilac time is over now[one of my favorite fragrant flowers] and now the roses are coming on.

What flowers or flowering shrubs are blooming in our gardeners yards, now?

I've got raised beds and this is the first year I've been able to have a garden since getting off the truck.

We had a mild winter, early spring and I've got peas coming out my ears, potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers of all heats and colors, three kinds of lettuce, carrots, strawberries (already harvesting!) kale, corn that is almost already knee high, and so much acorn and crookneck squash we'll be doing drive bys in the neighborhood. Pie pumpkins, too. Also have blueberries and raspberries. And a full herb garden, with parsley sage, rosemary and thyme :-) and oregano, mint and dill. A LOT going on, and I'm loving it.

We do some preserving, by canning and freezing. We'll be making a lot of salsa for sure.

Only one corner of the yard for decorative only plants like a hydrangea, some lithodora, phlox, and sunflowers and nasturteum, too.

In the front we have lots of shrubs, and nowhere do we have any grass to mow.

We're busy busy, but actually almost caught up. (We know we'll never be done...)

All those veggies sound so yummy, and the flowers sound lovely.

I miss all that, but I am so happy to have enjoyed gardening and preserving for many years. Now I enjoy it vicariously through reading and movies that feature gardening/gardens.

I live in Minnesota where the growing season is rather short, but I plant a vegetable garden with the things that can survive the climate. I have peas, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, kale, zucchini, peppers, and a few herbs. It's great fun waiting and watching for the plants to break through the ground and then hope the weather cooperates to make all of the work worthwhile. We also have lots of shrubs and some perennials, but still have a big yard to mow. Summer is short, we make the best of it!

Sounds like you still manage to grow some yummy goodies. I like all of those.

So was this a good growing year for veggie gardeners or a bad year, and please share your hardiness zone where you live.

I am zone 5 here, but no longer have my garden, I have heard it was a wet late spring, with the usual summer drought, but some got wise and planted for a fall crop of bush beans, and they are loaded.

I had a great start that turned into pretty dismal returns, mainly I think due to poor soil. Got plenty of tomatoes and hot peppers but the first round of corn never took off. I've got a second, very late crop in amended soil that looks to be better. The ground crops, potatoes, onions, beets, carrots and radishes never got big. I think the soil compacted around them too much. My vines, pumpkins, various squash, cukes, etc, never took off, either. I got 5 watermelons that barely got bigger than golf balls. Did get lots of early peas, though.

Overall it was a worse result than I'd hoped for, but better than nothing for my first season back at it. Going to plant some winter crops, and start my watermelons in the greenhouse in the spring and leave them inside all year. AFTER I fix the soil issue.

Oh, I think I'm in zone 5 also.

Hi Kristi, glad to hear that your tomatoes and peppers did so well, but sorry about the other stuff. Hope you have better success next year. :D

I'm in 8b, very near the transition to 9a. Our garden typically has dismal results, so we tried the raingutter garden approach this year. Still dismal. I focus more on fruit trees. Birds and bugs got most this year, but we harvested a few apricots, peaches, and apples. Almost zilch from 15+ varieties of figs, but the avocados are doing well. Persimmons are few and small this season.

My garden was a bit of a disappointment this year. We had A LOT of rain which meant A LOT of mosquitoes and those factors combined made getting in the garden to weed and harvest nearly impossible at times. My tomatoes, which have done so well in the past, we few and far between. The carrots did well, we got a few peppers, some beans, and lots of basil. But the rest was mostly a bust. I'm in zone 4a so the growing season is short. I'll hope for better results next year!

Wow Ken and Margaret, really tough growing season for you!

In the 20 years that my late husband and I had a garden, our yearly challenge was fighting the summer drought, so we always had to place the garden within reach of hoses.