Posted on 04/03/2009 7:21:12 AM PDT by Gabz
How to tell you're a compulsive gardener
1. When stuck in traffic, you want to weed the median strip.
2. On a walk in the neighborhood, you look at the plants so much that you trip on the sidewalk.
3. You find yourself worrying about your neighbor's plants. Especially when your neighbor is doing something stupid.
4. You are tempted to adopt those straggly, mishandled plants at the garden center because you think you can give them a good home.
5. You want to collect seeds from half the vegetables you eat.
6. You find yourself pruning, pruning, pruning because it's just so much fun to be in control.
7. You wish you could prune your neighbor's plants.
8. Visits to the zoo are more about plants than animals.
9. You wish all plants, everywhere, had labels.
10. In winter, you ease garden withdrawal by reading seed catalogs like novels.
11. You pass idle time by imagining how to plant pots to get the right combinations, then replant them.
12. When passing houses, you rearrange the entrance planting for every doorway.
13. You wish you could "cultivate the weather," as Karel Capek put it, to make it behave: regulate the rain, decree the last frost, hush the wind...
14. You refuse to wear a watch in the garden, because gardening should always be the perfect opportunity to live in the moment.
Jo Ann Hofheimer is an avid gardener who lives in Virginia Beach
Give them time! We’re so close to the water, we warm up faster! We started about 500 in the greenhouse and most of them leafed out. A customer brought me one he calls a blue fig. I’m interested to see what they turn out to be. I had 2 other customers bring me cuttings. Had to evict all of them so I’d have more room for veggies. :)
Where I live, a real greenhouse is even _more_ expensive!
I have a friend who, in her youth, grew seedlings for sale. She started out with a wood-heated greenhouse. A few days ago, she told me that it was like having newborns: she never slept more than a couple of hours at a time in March and April. Eventually, she graduated to propane and the last year she had the greenhouses (2 of them), the bill for heat was shocking. I think that was 4 years ago. Today, it would be another 50% higher.
“It’s going to take over your whole garden.”
Rookie Gardener mistake! I LOVED the scent of Chocolate Mint, and bought a 4” pot at a Farm Market way back when and planted it at the edge of my garden.
Biggest gardening mistake I’ve made to date, LOL!
But...it’s soon to be surpassed by my planting of ‘Kiss Me Over The Garden Gate’ last season which is now taking over part of the garden. *SIGH*
As Grandpa used to say, ‘Too soon old, and too late smart!’
http://www.anniesannuals.com/signs/p%20-%20r/polygonum_orientale_kmotgg.htm
The weather sucks here in SE Iowa. Should be 70, it barely broke 50 today. Wet and another dip to the 20’s predicted in the next few days. Not even the greens I planted a couple of weeks ago are germinating very well.
Global warming my arse.
I adore choc mint! Took mine to the greenhouse because my guys kept mowing it over. Had it in a hanging basket. It escaped, and now it’s down the side of the greenhouse, inside and out, all over the yard around the greenhouse. I rip a few starts out now and then and put them in a pot. Sell right much of it. :) On the other hand, it keeps the fireants out of the greenhouse. Sounds stupid, but every time we clean up and weed it from around the pump in the greenhouse, within a day or two we have fireants inside.
Smells excellent when they mow and weedeat!
I’ve got over 25 posts to go back to, although I’ve read them all I haven’t yet responded to any.......I’m just plum tuckered out tonight.
I FINALLY have tomatoes coming up in the “greenhouse” but I’m really starting to worry about my peppers. I have all of 3 shoots out of over 150 cells/sections/whatever you want to call them, seeded. Slicing cukes are doing great, but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the pickling ones. Squash are also going gangbuster and I even found some watermelon today.
Basil is coming on strong, as is the catgrass. I finally have some thyme coming up and I think maybe the oregano is ready to explode.......but that is about it on the herbs so far.
The flats are now prepared and the tobacco goes in tomorrow :)
Oh, and momma cat had 5 new kittens this week — I’m now up to 12 :(
Next time you pull some up, toss a bit (roots and all) into a ziplock and mail it to me!!!!
Your stuff sounds good! Peppers need really warm temps to germinate so don’t give up yet! We start ours about a week or 2 before we do our maters. Peppers are slower growing and will hold longer in flats.
Sorry about the kittens. They breed exponentially around here. :(
Oh, I know the peppers take longer than the maters, it’s just that I’ve been so antsy to have ANYTHING coming up!!!! I started the peppers the same time I started the maters, so it’s just a matter of time now -— I hope!
I’m not unhappy about the kittens, I just hope this batch survives, only one made it from last year’s litter. If I had know the ‘slut” was gonna get knocked up again so soon, I would not have agreed to taking the 2 I did Christmas week.
They all live outside and I don’t have to worry about snakes in and around the barn and I don’t have mice in the house -— so I don’t mind them :)
The Post office! I never thought of that!
I made the mistake of planting gooseneck loosestrife in my garden. Just a little, really! Just a few plants!
Now, that is all there is! It looks great for a few minutes, then once it is spent it looks awful.
I love kittens. Only prob is—they grow up to be cats!
BAby anythings are cute—you get sucked into taking care of them and then you’re stuck with them! LOL
I love watching the stuff come up in the greenhouse! Green therapy. Too bad we can’t patent it—we’d make a fortune! :)
I live in a small town, and pretty much everyone knows me, so they don’t pay much attention! I can’t help it! I do a lot of deadheading and pulling dead leaves off too! I always check the potted plants at the bank. The girls just shake their heads and grin.
Trade you some Florida betony for some loosestrife! :)
These are sooooooooooooo cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute! They’re only 4 days old and eyes haven’t opened yet.
The momma is one of the first ones we ever brought home, and the only one I ever got to name, so she’s kind of special to me. Her name is Gateway, but we just generally call her momma mahem -— the is about the most haughty, anti-social witch of a cat I have ever encountered. We al wonder how she keeps getting pregnant every year, because I swear all of our toms are gay -— they are such cuddly wusses :)
Haven’t had a cat in years and years. Two rat terrorists now. They’d LOVE to have a cat!
Re: Kittens. A well-placed .22 round at the Tom cats in the area will take care of that problem for ya, LOL!
Re: Peppers. They need HEAT and lots of it to germinate well. Move them to the hottest part of the greenhouse, or bring them back inside for a while.
I’m so glad that you’re growing tobacco! I’m sort of surprised that I haven’t had any requests for tobacco seed at work so far...but our Smoking Ban isn’t state-wide yet, though the Gov is slapping another $1.62 in taxes onto each pack this year. *Rolleyes - And Rollyourown*
You're a real pal!
Sounds like they’re about equally hateful! :)
We have purple loosestrife here. Gets in the ditches and waterways. Nasty stuff.
The only Tom cats I know of in the area are my own!!!!!
The peppers are in the hottest part of the greenhouse, which is ALWAYS warmer than my own house. They are sitting on the shelf in front of the south windows.
We’re trying 6 kinds of tobacco. 3 for cigarettes and 3 for cigars (one of those is for wrappers.) Making our own, which we’ve been doing for nearly 10 years is no longer as cost effective. The tax on the loose tobacco went from $1.10 to nearly $25.00 a pound and they’ve added some kind of tax to the tubes we use. While it still remains cheaper to do what we’ve been doing, there is a huge difference between $15 for a bag of tobacco and $35-40. 20 bucks used to yield me 3 cartons of cigarettes. It is now going to be closer to $20 PER carton. It’s till cheaper.....but.......
I’m ready! Its still too cold in Colorado to plant, and I do “collect seeds from the vegetables I’m eating.” LOL
Zoykes! I didn’t realize the ‘roll your own’ stuff was getting priced out of reason, too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.