The Victory Garden Thread - March, 2026

March 1, 2026 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Diana in Wisconsin]

The MONTHLY Gardening Thread is a gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.

If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located.

This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.

It is impossible to hijack the Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table Recipes, Preserving, Good Living - there is no telling where it will go - and that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us! Send a Private Message to Diana in Wisconsin if you'd like to be added to/removed from our New & Improved Ping List.

NOTE: This is a once a MONTH Ping List, but we DO post to the thread all throughout the month. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest to Gardeners are welcomed any time.

[FamiliarFace]

Nothing quite like having a butterfly land on you, especially one that you’ve watched over from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to emerging as a butterfly, then flying away. ;-) Kinda like having a kid and watching him/her grow up, only it happens much faster.

[FamiliarFace]

Very cool about the Social Services outreach with fresh veggies. That’s awesome!

*** We are replacing our gutters and finally getting a rain barrel.***

I love my rain barrel! Amazingly we were successful with overwintering a 2/3 full barrel. No leaks. I wrapped a foil Solar blanket around it and taped that on at the top and bottom. (The barrel is on the south side of the house, so got sunlight most of the day.) We used a pond warmer hanging inside as far down as we could without touching the sides or the bottom. It’s supposed to activate any time the temp reaches 35. Well, it did the trick!

Only the top 2” of the water froze when we were at sub zero temps for about 10 days, and we were sub-freezing temps for about a month or so. I wrapped the spigot with an insulated cover that I could remove any time I wanted rain water for my indoor plants. My indoor plants loved having rain water instead of hose water or indoor water this season. Almost all are flourishing! I consider this to be a great success, given the severity and duration of our winter this year.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Cadets create indoor farm inside shipping containers (The Citadel, South Carolina)

As seen in Mother Earth News

Inside three shipping containers on the campus of The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, cadets are learning how to grow lettuce crops in a controlled indoor “farm” setting, producing organic produce in an environment that can withstand unpredictable weather conditions and disease. The cadets’ hands-on education comes from The Citadel Sustainability Project, in which the first shipping container functions as a hydroponic cultivation system for lettuce crops, the second container is a testing ground for various growing systems, and the third container will be outfitted by cadets who design and build the growing equipment as part of a corresponding independent study.

The Citadel STEM Center of Excellence initiated the project in 2016 as an interdisciplinary collaboration. Of the 20 or so students who are members of the Sustainability Club, several are STEM Scholars. We also have electrical engineers who are completing a design project on hydroponics. We’ve had students from almost every campus department — engineering, biology, business — who have worked with the project.

Prior to their graduation, Alex Richardson, who studied engineering, and Cameron Brown, who studied business, managed the growing container with the help of other students motivated by a passion for the environment.

“Cadets are excited about The Citadel Sustainability Project because it incorporates biology, chemistry, computer science, business, engineering, and community outreach. It gives us the opportunity to collaborate with students outside of our own programs on a project focused on global population needs,” Richardson says. “And seeing people on campus eat and enjoy our crops is gratifying.”

A sustainable food source

We’re currently growing more than 4,400 plants in the shipping containers, including collards, lettuce, spinach, and herbs. The nutrients used to grow the crops are recycled within the system’s 100-gallon reservoir and are managed through a smartphone application. The app tracks the metallic minerals in the water and sends nutrients to the plants every 10 minutes. It also displays the water’s temperature and the container’s carbon dioxide and pH levels.

The transformation from seed to harvest inside the shipping container farm occurs in five weeks, compared with the 10 weeks the crops would need in an outdoor environment. Thanks to high-density crop production, the cadets harvest more than 800 heads of lettuce per week for the campus restaurant’s salad bar as well as events. Additionally, cadets get to eat the fresh lettuce in the student mess hall. If the growing container is running at full capacity, the 320-square-foot space can yield about 40,000 heads of lettuce per year.

Each container is valued at $115,000 after it’s outfitted. The cadets intend to make the project sustainable by putting profits from the crops toward the purchase of more containers.

“Our self-propagating irrigation system uses up to 98 percent less water than conventional industrial farming does,” says Brown, who wrote the project’s business plan. “We want to expand, grow more, and sustain this Earth-friendly initiative, making our healthy produce available to more members of our community.

In addition to providing a sustainable food source, the goal of the project is to help young entrepreneurs and members of other disciplines gain hands-on experience.

We also try to bring in high school students. Last spring, students from Burke High School, which is next door to our campus, incorporated the indoor farm into one of their projects. Then, a 10th grade economics class wrote business plans for the container with data we provided, and followed up with two field trips to the container.

The shipping container farm is located in a back corner of campus near the marsh, with plenty of room for expansion. We’ve submitted a National Science Foundation grant application with The GEL Group, AmplifiedAg, and SuperGreen Solutions to design a system that would filter excess nutrients out of treated wastewater and incorporate sustainable energy so the system could be viable anywhere. Ultimately, we’d like to expand the project to be able to produce more fresh food for the South Carolina Corps of Cadets, which comprises the college’s undergraduate population.

Our advice for other schools thinking about starting a small, sustainable farm like ours: Have a faculty member who’s invested in the success of the project and understands that student interest will wax and wane depending on schedules. It’s also important to have a succession and mentoring plan for students. Seniors mentor juniors; juniors work with underclassmen. That will keep the farm going strong.

[AppyPappy]

Our plan is to empty it after the season and store it in the garage. We have too many sub 10F days.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I used to belong to a group that sent books and school supplies to the kids in Appalachia. Thanks for the reminder to get involved in that, again! :)

https://www.christianapp.org/

[FamiliarFace]

Looks like you could take a kayak out there!

[FamiliarFace]

That had been our plan, too, but we weren’t as prepared as we had hoped on very short notice in early November…after we had just returned from one trip and were heading out for another with a quick turnaround. Not enough time to get all the outdoor chores finished and short-handed. So I’m happy that our solution worked out well this time.

[FamiliarFace]

That’s pretty neat!

[AppyPappy]

I volunteer with a feeding program that sends backpacks with food for low-income families. We have been considering adding school supplies but the organizers are all in failing health. If something happens to them, I’m not sure it will survive.

[Pollard]

That pic is a creek I have to cross on the gravel road to go out the short way. It's a valley with hills rising 2-300 foot on either side.

This is what the terrain looks like around here. Lots of springs too so every valley pretty much has a creek and when rain runs down the hills, they flood.

Filled little over half of one 275 gal IBC tote and about 1/4 of the other IBC tote overnight. I didn't use a level so that second gutter might not be slanted enough. I'll address it when the weather's better.

AG station says we got 2.09 inches yesterday and 0.84 today(since midnight) What a crazy day. Rain was preventing me from making a water run so I decided get some gutter to catch the rain but most of the rain came while I was out getting gutter. If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have none at all.

1-1/2" in 1-1/2 hours. Too fast for the ground to absorb so all land had a sheet of water flowing across it at times, as did the roads. I did a little grading at the top of the tunnel to prevent water flowing in but it's not deep enough for what we got all at once so the soil in the tunnel is no longer dry as a bone. Still got one dry spot where a bed was raised/mounded.

Today's fun is a tech issue. My ethernet switch in the shed evidently quit working. The automation controllers can no longer communicate with each other. Stealing a unit from the house that's more of an all-in-one-thing that will read temp sensors, control grow lights, heat mats and read the rain gauge. Only thing it's been controlling up here is my coffee making light but I can do that manually. Will still be a button on a web page at least and my laptop's on 24/7. Walk by to take the morning pee and click the mouse. Gonna order a new ethernet switch, or two, tomorrow.

Mostly unrelated. I've been seeing a new WiFi signal here lately. STE-SmartTown. I had heard tptb want pretty much anyone to access anyone else's router and connect to the WiFi. It's a "Community Initiative". If you look up SmartTown, you'll see a bunch of local ISPs doing the same. That's what happens when small towns get FedGov grants. Those grants come with stipulations. I can, and plan to, opt out of it. It's something you have to sign up to use and it's only for cell phones. Would almost be handy around here where we don't get a cell signal due to the terrain. Just connect to other people's routers. Still don't like it.

[shaggy eel]

We’ll be here for you while we’re sweating in our gardens and swatting mosquitoes and watching fireflies on the porch in the evenings.

,,, wonderful!! No fireflies in New Zealand. Summer has been a disappointment here. I run a variety of purple grapes on my fences called Albany surprise - disease and frost resisitent. They're at their best right now and coming off the fences. Neighbours are doing crop swaps. We're down on rhubarb so we take what we want from others in the street. As grapes run out feijoas will come on stream and then pumpkins. Pumpkin, bacon and curry soup is tops for autumn and winter, in my opinion.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

That Pumpkin/Bacon/Curry Soup Sounds great! Maybe Liz can find us a recipe? It’s still cool enough for soup up here!

I like the idea of sharing food with others. My ex-Amish neighbor loves my tomatoes. He says they’re as good as his Mom used to grow - so that is QUITE the compliment. He always gets a box or two during the growing season and his wife and sons complain that he doesn’t share, LOL!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Old Things Turned into Beautiful Farmhouse Garden Decor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TeT6M2M77s

Yes, it’s OBVIOUSLY CGI, but TONS of ‘recycling’ ideas to jazz up The Victory Garden. Relaxing music. Butterflies! A total Breath of Spring if you need one, today. :)

[Liz]

Curried Pumpkin and Bacon Soup
Picture shows pumpkin; butternut squash works well. They're essentially the same vegetable.

Ing 2.2 lb peeled/seeded pumpkin 9 oz bacon-diced 1 lge potato, peeled/diced 3 tomatoes, 1/4ed 1 lge minced onion, 2 heaped tsp powdered chicken stock black pepper 5 c hot water 2 tsp curry powder 1.5 c milk 0.5 c cream garnish

Method Add peeled/cut up pumpkin to slow cooker. Add diced bacon, potato, minced onion, quartered tomatoes, chicken stock, water and pepper. Cover/ cook on high for 4-5 hours. W/ stick blender, blend contents. Add curry powder, cream and milk. Stir well, sample, add more curry, s/p to taste. Cook on high to reheat to piping hot (do NOT boil). Garnish with spring onions, black pepper a swirl of cream. Serve with bread or toast or rolls with butter. Yum - and a couple of bowls is pretty much a meal in itself.

[shaggy eel]

,,, cherry tomatoes have done really well this year here. As for the soup, or any stew, it’s so much better on the second day. Time in the pot means something, I’m sure.

[FamiliarFace]

Loved it! I strive for gardens like this. Getting there!

I try to mix the themes of Victorian garden, cottage garden, and farmhouse garden in my yard. (Our house is a Victorian one, but we live with an acre of woods on the backside, hence the mix of themes.) It’s partly to appease the neighborhood folks who see the front yard, and partly to satisfy my own country/rural yearnings, which is the back. I guess it is a mix of all of these.

I see sprouts for daffodils, tulips, and French tarragon emerging! Daylight savings time change is Saturday/Sunday, and I’m very excited to have daylight in the evening again!

[Pollard]

High of 77 today, then again Friday. First week of March and it’s almost too warm for cool weather plants. Crazy Ozark weather. Bugs and Blooms but it may be a fake out. Supposed to rain tonight but not extreme. Got a bag of Sevin granules to spread this afternoon in my usual circle around the house, mostly gravel and soon to be a full circle wrap around driveway.

[MomwithHope]

Nice, more maybe later - 8 hours but beautiful.

[MomwithHope]

Outstanding Citadel!

[Qiviut]

Dense fog alert this morning. It will be a warm weekend (80 tomorrow!). The weather met is calling for one more shot of cold air later this month, but says it won’t be a big deal. I just hope it’s not during peach tree blooming season. Last year’s crop was 99% killed off by a late, hard freeze.

The baby goat is taking a bottle and doing well. My 7 yo great-niece is able to feed her without any help - she’s on ‘day shift’.

A new addition to their homestead: a Highland cow! My niece’s father-in-law wanted one, but does not have the room. My niece saw an ad for Highland cows & told him about it, as a joke. He called her back a short while later & told her “the cow is being delivered Tuesday”. Wut??? I don’t know if it’s full size or a miniature, a steer or cow. I do know it’s extremely tame and follows the 7 yo around like a dog - she takes it for walks! My niece says any vet bills are going to the FIL since she’s doing all the work of feeding, watering, etc.

Info on Highland cows - great meat & milk in addition to ‘good looks’!

https://hcows.com/highland-cows/

Yesterday, we went to Big Town. There is a Hobby Lobby there & all their flower stems, bunches, etc. are 40% off. Mom bought fake ferns for the porch hanging pots. I don’t like fake flowers/greenery, but these ferns do look pretty good - she got 4 bunches per pot so the pots will be full, not ‘skimpy’. Last year’s real ferns have survived in the garage, but are looking pretty ‘poor’ and I don’t think they’re going to come back in a way that would be porch ‘presentable’. With the fake ferns, no watering will be required - mom cannot get the ferns up/down so no watering will save us both a lot of work.

Next ‘must do’ project: learn to service my own mowers (no brother living next door to help me out!). I’m pretty ‘handy’ & with some video guidance, should be able to change oil, gas & air filters. The only problem will be sharpening the blades - my brother would crawl under the mower & get the blades off to sharpen - he had a spot at his garage that gave him room enough to get under the mower although it wasn’t easy. The grass/weeds are showing some slight greening & the wild onions are starting to grow so I’ll have to get the mowers going pretty soon.