Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Jan. 31

When Iris Eyes are Smilin'

First week this season I've seen them selling them here.

Regards from Jerusalem,

Biden's Dog

So cheerful!

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

By-Tor has been doing some pickling and fermenting lately, including for possible fair submissions.

Anybody else doing any fermentation or vinegar pickles? We could do a feature!

From 40 Miles North:

The rosemary gets more bees every day:

The sage looks healthy:

Not sure what kind of sage that is.

The only really new addition are the Blood Oranges:

Most of them are very tart, but I am hoping that will change. Lots of weeding this year. Take care . . .

You too. Hope your blood oranges sweeten up. They look fun.

Gardening News and Views

Martha Stewart on Growing Tropical Fruit Trees Indoors

Have you ever wondered if you could?

Farmers’ Almanac Saved Under New Ownership, 208-Year Tradition Continues https://t.co/LOEl35OBiT pic.twitter.com/Wh7QpHtJJu

— The Farmers' Almanac (@FarmersAlmanac) January 28, 2026

Have you ever consulted the Farmer's Almanac?

Adventure

From Neal in Israel:

In October, we visited Lodz, Poland. Not the best known tourist site, but my father's father was born there, and I've been wanting to visit for a long time. We missed the city's open air botanical garden because of rain, but did make it to the palm house a couple of days later. Under the palms there were some interesting flowering plants, and there was a special collection of hot peppers. The pepper pictured is called Dragon's Breath, and it is rated 2 500 000 units on the Scoville scale. Attached to the palm house, there's also a cactus hothouse and a small, but pleasant, outdoor formal garden.

That's it for the meantime. Hope your winter is going as it should. Here we've had an unseasonably hot fall, and real rains began only a couple of weeks ago, instead of in October. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Best regards,

Neal

Great photos! Thanks for thinking of us during your interesting trip, even though you had to contend with rain. Good luck with getting some rain back home.

Gardens of The Horde

From 40 Miles North:

Hi KT, I hope you are doing well. I saw one commenter talking about 'the activity of his Amaryllis.' Does activity means total garden domination? A large part of my garden looks like this:

Would those be true Amaryllis? The pink ones?

The Irises and amaryllis don't typically have leaves at the same time, but this year they do, and the amaryllis are out of control. The grape vine is almost invisible. The fig trees don't even have leaves yet. On the other side of the grapevine, it also looks like this:

On the other side of the yard, the Gaillardia think it's late summer. I guess because it's 75 degrees during the day and 40 degrees at night:

I like it!

Anybody else got growth in their garden?

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

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

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Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Jan. 24

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on that 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 01:26 PM

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