Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, March 29

From the famous Pat*:

I bought 40 crocus bulbs a few years back. Now I have about 80 flowers - a good return on investment!

I would say so! Lovely! Tells us your secrets.

Tulips, Crocuses, Hyacinths and More today! And we have extras for next week!

Don in Kansas:

Definitely Spring

More interesting flowers at the link, including one actually grown for fuzzy seed heads. Expand your horizons!

Years ago, I bought Mrs. BD a bouquet of tulips. The bulbs were still attached. Mrs. BD, having no luck ever with tulip bulbs, tossed all the bulbs out except for one. She took one of our granddaughters outside for some garden planting activity in our north Israel vacation home.

One year later, lo and behold, we’ve had tulips blossoming ever since then at around this time of the year.

Best Regards from northern Israel,

Biden’s Dog

Not every tulip will re-bloom in a warm-winter climate. Lovely.

Thanks for sending it in! Great story.

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

Question about growing tomatoes from NorCal Sierra Foothills Lurker:

I’m sitting here daydreaming about a vegetable garden and our #1 plant... tomatoes. It got me thinking though, and wondering about my problem with them and I wonder if it’s weird or common. Tomato plants make me itch to high heaven and my arms turn red after digging through them to pick. I am not allergic to tomatoes. The only way to get it to stop is first using gojo liberally and thoroughly win dry skin and hands, rinse off then wash well with soap. So... strange or common?

I do love the garden thread and appreciate your work. And I hope you are doing much better.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?

Any tips if you have noticed this?

Mid-afternoon here now. Just stepped outside into our back garden and noticed that the lemon tree is very pretty!

Biden’s Dog

Yes, it is very pretty. Bet it smells great.

KT - Hoping you are doing better.

What I think I like best about spring is that hope springs eternal, and our motivations to do better this year abound.

I had a terrible gardening year last year, tomato blight, other disasters, a real wet fall that stayed very warm until all of a sudden it wasn't. The strawberry bed failed, and fruit trees didn't fruit. A disaster. And I wasn't very motivated and almost didn't get the winter garlic in. The carburetor in my garden tiller was failing. Ugh! No salsa! Very few pickles! No peach or strawberry preserves! I felt like Richie in a Christmas Story when the neighbor's dogs get the Christmas turkey.

I did manage to get the garlic in right before an extremely hard freeze hit. Planting location was driven by where the garden was dry enough to get my failing tiller to create a planting bed. They say even if it isn't prime garlic planting time, some garlic is better than no garlic.

In January I was poring over seed catalogs as well as remedies to attack my blight problem, as well as some other soil improvements.

At the beginning of March I hauled 3 cu yds of compost, mixed in ammonium sulfate to try and do a bit of Ph repair (better in the fall I know), then covered it with 2 cu yds of fine mulch. I had to get it all done before the rain came, after work each night, right after we had come back from an Arizona vacation. And you know how work goes when you have been gone for a week.

I'll till it all into the soil in May before the tomatoes are ready to plant. That corner that is barren will get a cubic yard or so of a sand based compost to re-establish the strawberries - which I need to order today.

Then I needed to make sure the seedlings got started in time - I was a bit late last year (foreshadowing much, right?). I've been migrating to the bigger Jiffy peat pellets. All planted and coming up - I even went out and got some seed starting heating pads.

I've got professional black cloth mulch ready to go to put down in the tomato garden to help keep down weeds and hopefully combat the blight coming up from the ground.

I've got my lists for tomato cage replacements and new posts I need. The tiller got repaired this week. And here is what my garlic efforts have produced.

A garden coming out of winter with:

Little garlics! Almost like I've been rewarded for being a bit more diligent this winter.

Fruit trees have been pruned - the apple trees will be oil soap sprayed this week. Perhaps this year will be a better one. Spring is the time for redemption - I hope.

Black JEM

YAY Hope your garden turns out great this year.

Ah, Nature

Photo from DaughterH and a photo from Hrothgar his own self

Fits the Pet thread because she took this picture whilst walking her pups;
Fits the garden thread because this is a natural scene with (presumably) wild swans

Fits the landscaping thread because the Tulip Magnolia managed to make it to full bloom status before the errant winds of Spring blew ALL the blossoms as usually happens.

Love these. Don't you?

Gardens of The Horde

When I got my diagnosis in October, I decided to order lots of bulbs and flowers so that I would have something pretty to look at this Spring (I kind of overdid it in a BIG way...).

Anyway, when they came in I had our lawn service guys plant them all over our postage-stamp-sized gardens, and now they are starting to come up. The Hyacinths smell AMAZING!

Poor Mr. TiFW is going to have to figure out what to do with all of these bulbs when they come back next Spring if I'm not here . . .

Teresa in Fort Worth

They are beautiful! We all hope that you see all the bulbs return next year and that you send in more photos!

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, the address is:

Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.

2 Weeks in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Misanthropic Humanitarian posted the First Gardening Thread Of Spring 2025. With Forsythias!

The previous week, there were daffodils, plus fruit blossoms and veggie plants in Arizona! Ahead of most of The Horde, I would say. Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, March 15

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 01:00 PM

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