Garden Head!!!!

[Opsa]

I've heard of that method. Not sure if I'm coordinated enough to pull it off!

I got some clearanced Canna at Wally-world this weekend. I had Canna a few years back, the typical red-blossoming ones, but these are 'Wyoming'- with the bronze leaves and golden flowers. I had to pick through the bin to find the only two packs that looked like they had life in them, but I'm hopeful!

[Sibling Chatty]

Those are pretty. I love the leaf color, and they're generally a semi-dwarf variety, at least the ones grown here. Canna love it so much here that the standard varieties get over 7 feet tall at times.

Wyomings, and the bicolors tend to not get as tall. We have canna that naturalized years ago, behind the barn. Some of them get above the roofline at the back, and it's a shock to see red flowers peeping over the barn roof. Almost as strange as the poinsettias at my grandma's in Aransas Pass. They were in the vacant lot behind the carriage house (OK, it wasn't a carriage house anymore, but--it had been for years) where the horses used to graze. They got over 10 feet tall, and during the late 50's and early 60's airline pilots flying into Corpus Christi would fly their passenegers over and point them out when the bracts were full red. Mom said that was a full acre of poins, at that time. (I was a little kid. I just remember tree-like things with stalks bigger than my legs or arms.)

Some bulb flowers seem to do well here. The drainage ditches and lots of side yards  are filled with "naked ladies". http://mrkurtzsneighborhood.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/amaryllisweb2_copy.jpg
And in February, there are always huge mounds of paperwhite narcissus everywhere. I've not tried tulips or daffodils yet, but then i'm not able to garden much.

I want to grow all kinds of allium.
http://www.youcanlearnseries.com/Landscape/Images/Allium-50Pct.jpg
And especially the edible kind. (I just refused to pay $1.39 a pound for onions at the store. I'll buy 12 ounces of frozen pre-chopped before I will pay that for onions that are half bad like the last ones I bought.)

Good thing about growing onions is that when you plant, then have to thin, the 'thinnings' are good green onions!

[Black Bart]

YYYYAAAARRRRR...I be fed up o me crew dyin from Scurvy and Fishe Heade Stewe overdose so I've come ere fer some advice from ye experts.

I be leavin off growin coconuts and breadfruit til next year but what be the best way to get yer seeds to germinate. 

I think I got a bad batch, I am having trouble with me Courgettes and Squash.  As for Onions and carrots and I can't get em to grow at all.  Any ideas? I put some seeds in the compost bin and that seemed to work...nice and warm in there.

[Opsa]

Are you keeping them nice and moist? Germinating seeds don't like to dry out.

Also, pay close attention to the seed depth when you plant. Some seeds like to be a half-inch below the surface, and some like to be ON the surface.

Another thing is temperature. Some seeds, like carrots like to be sown when it's still chilly outside. the compost heap may be too warm for them.

Here are some places to peek at:

http://www.ehow.com/how_1998_grow-carrots.html

http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/alt-ag/onions.htm

http://www.garden-centre.org/Marrow.htm

If it's warm there, you may have more luck with summer squash.

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-24-a.html

Auntie Chatty- I think the Wyoming Cannas are supposed to be four feet high. Love the naked ladies. Sure wish I could have seen that poinsettia patch! Sounds fabulous!

[Black Bart]

Thanks for that.  Do you need to keep seeds in an airtight container after you've opened the packet?
Some of my seeds have been lying around in the opened packets since last year.

[Opsa]

I usually keep mine in paper bags on the back porch, so they go through the regular changes in temperature that they might in nature..

here's more info:
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/Garden/07221.html

[Black Bart]

YYYAAARRR...If I did that the squirrels would eat em!!  I might try it though, thanks again.  I'm going all out to grow vedge this year cos I'm sick of the stuff from the supermarkets.

[Aggie]

I've had bean and pea seeds remain viable over a couple of years in the (hot) apartment; not sure if the lack of humidity here has helped or not (maybe being in the rum cupboard did, though).

Especially being that it's May already, you may look at picking up some starter plants from a nursery.   Not necessary for the onions and carrots, but plants like tomatoes and peppers usually benefit from the jump start.  Radishes and peas are worth a try for easy-to-grow, quick-to-harvest crops. 

I've started some tropical seeds in a bag of soil on top of the modem, but shouldn't be necessary for veg.

[Opsa]

Mine is a cottage garden of flowers and herbs, but I have been seriously considering veg as well, since things have become so horribly expensive at the grocery.

Last night on the news I heard that one reason for the rise in food costs is that corn is now being used as fuel and is therefore at a premium, and we use corn and corn syrup and corn starch in almost all of our food processing. Another reason is the cost of trucking things around with the fuel rates up. We can't seem to win!

I may do a small salad garden and move on to the winter veg as I get used to the care and temperament of vegetables. Aggie's right that around here it's too late to start most of them by seed, but I could get started plants. Hmm...

[Black Bart]

Who's your gardening hero? Mine's Alan Titchmarsh - great name and he's always there (on TV) when you need him.

[Opsa]

Oh, I love Alan T.!

Mine are Cassandra Danz (who wrote "Mrs. Greenthumbs"- the book that made me get out and garden) and Henry Mitchell, who wrote a terrific gardening column in the Washington Post called "Earthman", which was later compiled into a wonderful book called "The Essential Earthman" (I think). Both of these writers are dead now.  But their inspiring words ring on!

[Black Bart]

We've got the proper English weather back now, after a period when the climate looked more like the South of France.  This means the war with the Slugs and Snails has commenced.  So far it's Slugs and Snails 5, me 2 (I'm coring at number of plants eaten v number of pots of varmints caught).

[Opsa]

What do you do for (or rather- against) the slugs? A friend of mine used to put out jar-tops full of beer. The slugs would drink themselves to death. I don't know whether that's a humanitarian way of doing them in or not.

But they can't have any of my "Black Toad"!

[Black Bart]

I think you have eloquently pointed out the flaw in this method.  One gets near the end of the bottle of beer and one thinks: Stuff the plants, I'm finishing this off!

Slugs and Snails just need to be re-trained to eat Weeds instead of valuable plants and veg.  I am surprised nobody has attempted this yet. 

[Opsa]

Do you think we could fool them into thinking the weeds are beer?

Maybe we could paste little beer labels on the weeds or something. Sounds a bit labor-intensive, but after a few beers it could become rather fascinating.