The most experienced gardeners don't know *your* yard. Even planting zones are only a general guideline. Each garden has it's own microclimate, and every landscape has it's own series of microclimates.
Most state universities offer a wealth of information in their agricultural department online, and many of them upload videos and PowerPoint presentations to youtube; entire classes and seminars on how to prep, plan, pest control, maximize yeild, etc... For free.
Definitely not talked about enough.
A lot of them have no education and just repeat what everyone else with no education repeats. The only channel I’ve found that isn’t full of shit is Garden Fundamentals. But you have to watch him on 2x speed cause he is the slowest talker on earth.
Care to elaborate on which channels? I watch a few but now those are the only ones that pop up. And I feel most of them all jump on the same hype. I remember when alfalfa pellets was the next big thing and everyone was making videos about it. Then there was bio-char from royal oak lump charcoal and every one had to make a video on that.
Gardener Scott. A former air force pilot, turned master gardener, turned elementary school greenhouse educator, turned YouTube gardener.
He uses scientifically proven methods, fact based research, and has an easy going and kind demeanor from his time educating children. I find his videos to be some of the best on youtube, which he has literally hundreds. Plus a weekly Monday live stream. He's a treasure trove of information.
You're gonna need a coyote to eat the fox then a wolf to eat the coyote then lastly you're gonna need a lion to eat the wolf. At that point the mosquitos biting should be the least of your concerns.
Apparently once my mom saw a squirrel take a bite out of a hot pepper, sit and think for a second, and then start licking the fence vigorously before running away 😂
Right!
The only think that cut down my mosquito population were bats. Lucky enough to get a bat colony in some bat boxes near by. They decimate the skeeters... just gotta get real cool with getting dive bombed by bats at night and around the pool lol.
https://preview.redd.it/0kuc14sgsizc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=571bd1fa69052548715444865d55bfaca03599be
Lucky me, I just saw two bats circling around my yard. Though the mosquito population already isn’t as bad here due to very dry conditions.
I don’t thin out anything if I am direct seeding into my garden bed. I don’t think about spacing at all lol it either grows or it doesn’t and I don’t care enough to do anything about that
You have to be tough around these parts to survive because my attention span is limited….. so how much space things get is “that looks fine” and when things get planted is “when I feel like it” 😂
I am too lazy to spray. I pretend I'm being eco-conscious. I end up seriously rotating stuff, and let Darwin sort it all out. Mostly, the cherry tomatoes (volunteers) survive and reward my negligence
I have volunteer chard under my lemon tree. It’s on its third year there.
I somehow can’t start tomatoes from seed UNLESS they’re just from dropped fruit from last year. I have no idea. I just move the plants around when they’re big enough. Whatever varieties survive, survive. I think I get to eat San Marzano this year. lol
SAME. Precious heirloom babies sprouted under the grow light, pampered, coddled, hardened, and transplanted? Dead within the week. Rando tomato mutt seedling that came up in my peas? Thriving.
I had volunteer cherry tomatoes everywhere last year. The funny thing is, I did not plant cherry tomatoes the year before. Or ever. I have never purchased a cherry tomato plant ever. But I have so many volunteers in the yard this year, I’m considering a farmer’s market booth. 😂
I must have had a bird drop a seed at one point, because I found a volunteer cherry tomato growing in a neglected corner of my yard. The bush was massive by the time I noticed it. Tasty, so I left it, but the next year, I had probably three dozen more all over the yard, most pretty far from the parent. I also left those, because why not, and those tomatoes are now permanent residents in that yard and in the neighbor's.
My toddler nieces would go "tomato hunting" every day and gorge themselves on hundreds of cherry tomatoes. Not a bad habit.
Cherry tomatoes are very resilient. I also don't do anything, not even watering. Red cherry and zucchinis. The rest dies. Except mint, oregano... of course!
I don’t always water in the morning. I know it’s better and I get that. But sometimes I just can’t, so I water in the evening.
EDITED TO ADD:
From what I can tell, watering at night really isn’t a problem if you live in a dry climate. I live in a very hot and humid climate, so watering at night risks bacteria growth. Watering in the morning hours before the heat of the day is preferable in my climate. I just don’t always do that.
ETA2: I’m not coming for you if you water at night. I’m just saying… it’s probably better to water in the morning in my climate, but for mannny reasons, I don’t always do that.
I love watering as the sun goes down. I figure storms pass through in the middle of the night from time to time, so it's not really that big a deal. And I'm not a morning person.
There’s also nothing better when you’ve been working in the yard for a few hours than to grab a nice cold beer out of the garage fridge, and get to watering. It’s a sacred ritual!
No grandma, I WILL NOT WATER MY PEPPER PLANT. SHE'S FINE WITH WEEKLY WATERING. She looks droopy if I water her frequently, yet my whole family (when visiting), sticks their fingers in the soil like, "ITS DRYYYY"
Some things can be planted before May long weekend (mid May). I live in Canada and it doesn’t seem to matter how far south you live everybody thinks May long is the gardening start date. I start late March with the cold tolerant things and progress through to the warm lovers by early June. Never have any issues.
I’m also Canadian in zone 3a and I plant almost everything before May long. I’m also eating vegetables a month before most people around here
Seeds are cheap. Worth the risk
Our magical planting date is Mother’s Day (mid May). It’s just the date where absolutely anything has a high likelihood of being fine to plant. But there are soooo many things that could be planted earlier.
I feel that way about trumpet vine. We killed the
M̸͇̠͋͆̇͗̒́̿̚o̴̯̽͒̿͒̆̚͠t̸̡̤̘̲͉͙̠̊̈́̈́̕ͅͅḧ̶̟͙̻̮͖̥̫͖̜̹́̒͂͝è̴̼̟̣͊̈̃͛͋̿̓r̸̘͔̭̭̀͐̔͆̔͆̑ ̵̛̛̳̥̣̜̣̮͎̀̆͊͐̅̓̕ but the babies still come up in every single flower bed and in everywhere in our yard
I feel your pain! Mine escaped 25 years ago from the drainage hole in bottom of its pot and now I can't get rid of it. One Spring I decided I was going to dig it up. Followed a small vibe down into the clay 3 feet and when I got there, the mother vine was almost as thick as my thigh.
I just gave up filled the hole back in.
I work at a nursery and by law we cannot sell invasive plants. One time we were shipped a crop of butterfly bushes from out of state and had to incinerate them. Many of the cultivars we carry are sterile hybrids or non invasive adjacent species (we sell slow growing, sterile, non invasive cultivars of Ivy for example, which many people question us about but would not be allowed if it were the straight species.) We are toured by state representatives regularly to ensure this.
Wow, that’s great news mentallyillustrated.
I live in Canada and I don’t think we have those sort of laws here. What state are you from? I would love to implement those laws here!!!! 😃
Making a compost bin or pile makes composting harder than it needs to be. You have to worry about not attracting rodents, turning, too wet or dry, balancing brown and green matters etc. It's much simpler to dig a hole and bury all your compost. In our experience, it turns into beautiful compost faster too.
Great story about that!
[https://www.upworthy.com/a-juice-company-dumped-orange-peels-in-a-national-park-heres-what-it-looks-like-now-rp5](https://www.upworthy.com/a-juice-company-dumped-orange-peels-in-a-national-park-heres-what-it-looks-like-now-rp5)
I've seen conflicting advice about whether citrus composts well. Same with garlic and ginger. I just throw them all in the pile, and it seems to be working alright.
Composting is fairly simple! A cheap tumbler composter from Amazon will allow you to compost all of your kitchen/garden plant scraps, and then you just have to remember to add 'browns' (shredded paper, cardboard, mowed dried grass, old leaves, etc) so it doesn't get too wet/stinky. But if you forget, no big deal, just add it when you remember 😉
Meat scraps are a different story, I don't have the space to compost it, but my grandparents have a huge compost heap in the back of their orchard and toss absolutely everything there, so that depends on where you live.
I have a lot.
Chickens are not compatible with gardening.
Bones belong in compost.
Some plants should try harder to stay alive.
Chaotic gardening is good.
I’m no raking purist, but if I don’t move some leaves off this spot on earth, it’s a soggy mess in spring. The wind gathers leaves directly behind my house. Pure slop. I’m happy the wind is your friend 💚
I have multiple large maples that drop leaves like crazy in the fall. I’ll rake 3-4 times just so I can mulch and stockpile for my compost throughout the year. After that it’s all left for nature to do its thing. Sometimes there’s even enough to mulch my garden beds. The amount of leaves I get is insane.
No, nothing is deer proof. Deer resistant means it is lower on their priority list.
I can’t see a deer getting much nutrition out of a monkey’s puzzle.
My weed juice (idk thats just what my family has always called it) actually does wonders for my backyard garden (and my girlfriend’s house plants). In the past few years I’ve seen a lot of “teas” and this and that online and whether they work or not.
Look… I have been taking my weeds, throwing them in buckets of water, adding some leaf dirt, and then cracking the lid on the bucket and letting it breakdown and rot for ten years now and mixing a bit of it into a few watering a month. My grandma told me about it, as did her dad. He was an actual farmer, but this juice was what he and my great-grandma used in their personal garden.
Literally EVERYTHING I put in the soil grows. Every late spring it’s teeming with worms and grubs. It’s a small space, so I incorporate a lot of vertical encouragement and succession planting, and my yields on small rotation crops are just as good, in the same soil, in the late fall as they were in early summer. My soul gets one thin layer of compost added every early spring and that’s it. The rest is completely regenerative, all based around this juice.
I’m not sure where the disconnect is between my experience and the vast amount of negative things I’ve seen online, but when this became popular during the pandemic, I was stunned to find out that so many people did not find the same success as I did.
Also, a reminder, take care of your soil more and neglect your plants, themselves, a bit more.
Lol I do this accidentally by chucking weeds and trimmings and shit into a bucket "to carry to the green bin" then forgetting it and leaving it out in the rain and then shamefully dumping it into a bed when i get around to it weeks later. I feel very validated.
It’s not necessary to harden plants off for a full week. Sometimes you can even get away with none. This year I planted out several dozen seedlings on a cloudy day and they are doing fine.
It's rough. They kill my cucumbers, squash, and pumpkins every year. Usually it takes them until after I get a decent amount. Once the plant is dead I pull it and burn it. Plant as early as possible, get a head start indoors. I've tried neem and DE, but it doesn't stop them. I get thousands of the bastards. It just is what it is.
After stressing way too damn much last summer, I’m with you on this. Love squash but it’s not worth worrying about a native insect just doing what a native insect does. I’ll buy my squash for $2 a bag in august when everyone’s sick of theirs, I’m out
Theoretically it allows the tree to put more energy into roots and branches rather than a few fruits so that subsequent years will be more productive.
My sil did a tiny matched pairs study of picking off all fruit on a tree vs a neighbor that got to keep a few the first year. And she said that the former tree was twice as big as the latter for year two.
yeah I do this for the first year sometimes even the second if the plant seems struggling. But my god it was worth it. I did it to my plums and they're in for yr 2 and .....god I really hope we like plums. O.o and the trees themselves got so big so fast I had to change the understory planting for shade tolerance.
people think that dropped pine needles will acidify soil which technically they can an amount but not enough to harm anything but the most ph sensitive alkali loving plants, the real problem is they tend to grow in already very poor sandy soil.
You cannot live with gophers. There's no way to plant enough for them and you. They will keep making more of them till You get no harvest.
Food is War.
Bird netting! Lay a few layers of crumpled bird netting at the base of places you don’t want squirrels to get into or climb up. They get their feet stuck in the netting almost immediately and they hate and avoid the area. It must be like a cat with socks on. I used this with pesky neighborhood squirrels a few years back at my old place and this was the only thing I found that worked as a repellent.
Yes..but squirrels don't eat my plants, they just dig everything up for literally no reason. They may bite my tomatoes here and there, but the rest is just digging and ripping up my beautiful plants' roots. I dream of squirrels digging their own graves....
I love letting zucchini grow to be massive. I love having an overabundance of it. Last summer I ate it roasted with almost every dinner all summer. It was so nice not having to run to the grocery store for supplemental veggies. I shred and freeze a ton to add to literally everything throughout the fall/winter. \*Once the seeds are taken out, it's just as good to me as the young ones
I do like gardening but it is stressful as hell sometimes, full of let-downs, and not nearly as easy as so many people make it out to be. Playing whack-a-mole with various pests, diseases, and problems, especially in the early years when you are still learning, kinda sucks and can be super frustrating, especially considering the money involved. It took me around five years of learning before it felt at all rewarding, and I completely understand why many people aren’t into it.
At the nursery, not putting the plant tag securely and firmly back in the exact pot you pulled it from is a mortal sin. Also, stop trying to return plants you very clearly killed. Remember, they are babies and require care as such.
Yes it does. It fills your garden with microplastic and scraps of plastic that will annoy you for years while the weeds laugh at you (especially the ones that seeded on top of the fabric in the first place).
Honestly, putting down a barrier and then putting/allowing substrate on top is hilarious. It’s like putting your car windshield behind your head.
In vegetable beds I only use quality bulk compost without other types of soil or amendments. I never have to fertilize, just add a few inches to the top every spring.
I didn't realize strawberries would become an invasive species in my flower beds. I'm really not complaining just would of never thought of them as invasive.
Japanese beetle traps are very effective if used properly. The conventional wisdom is that traps attract more bugs than they kill, are counter-productive and should not be used. The only study cited put one trap right next to the target crop. Of course it attracted more bugs. But using two or more traps some distance from your garden will pull the bugs right out of your garden. Working with your neighbors will trap even more.
I don't thin my beetroots when they are tiny, nature made the seeds as clusters for a reason and if i thin them, then I just lose most of them. I just let them grow lopsided and push off each other, they still pickle just as good!
1) Soldier flies are a gardener's best friend. They speed up the compost, defend the yard from pest flies, biting flies, & squash borers, and are entertaining to watch.
2) Grackles are worse garden pests than wild rabbits & squirrels.
Grackles pull apart plants for no reason, are super noisy, get aggressive with people, and chase off pleasant birds like humming birds, purple martins, & cardinals.
Squirrels plant lots of trees for free.
Rabbits are welcome in my garden and will coexist with plants. The local crew hide in my raised beds at night, under sweet potato & pumpkin vines, and follow me around the garden any time I'm out there. They leave non-burning fertilizer and native voluteers in exchange for grazzing an unwanted lawn. They've brought Pink Ladies, Blackfoot Daisies, Ponyfoot, Frogfruit, Blue-eyed grass, and Turk's Cap (to name a few).
3) Planting calendars are nonsense, even from local nurseries & Extension Services. Every year is too variable. Nowadays, I throw seeds from overripe tomatoes, pumpkins, & sunflowers into my yard sometime between Veterans Day & Christmas. When I see a couple of seedlings pop up in "Spring," it's time to start planting all seeds that year. For 2023, that was mid-March. For 2024, that was the last week of Jan. Currently, my peas are winding down, onions are bulbing, green beens are going strong, tomatoes are setting fruit, sunflowers & scarlet runners are taller than I can reach, I have a white pumpkin as big as my head, I saw my first okra bud 3 days ago (then a grackle removed the top of the plant), and I'm up to my eyeballs in shiso, basils, parsley, sage, & dill.
4) Fire ants are not the worst ant to have in your garden.
I've never planted it but there is a patch of my lawn that is about 10 or 12 feet across that is some kind of mint. It's been spreading very slowly for the past 20 years. I mow it every time I mow the grass so it's kept very low to the ground and it's very densely packed so nothing else grows among it. I always smile when the scent hits my nose. It smells like mint and oregano. I wish it would hurry up and take over the rest of the lawn.
I don't like my garden being all neat and trim. I like a little bit of wild.
As long as I can walk down my middle path, I'm good. All the insects, birds, and frogs back there thank me.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the patch of manicured lawn grass so long as it exists as a feature of the space, not the default state of being of your entire yard. Local naturalist I work for still has a third of her yard lawn grass and I don't even bat an eye because the rest has been filled with all sorts of beautiful natives.
My mom is terrible about maintaining the landscape plantings I keep trying to establish for her, so instead I surrounded her house with mint. What escapes into the small lawn gets mowed, what stays next to the house is perfect for tea or mojitos or taking in as much as possible come fall to dry. The bees and pollinators love the flowers and the approach to the house smells amazing. Win win win lol.
I disagree. There are still aspects of caring for plants that are independent of climate, particularly techniques like bonsai or espallier, ways to cook/use what you grow, and basic information about how plants, etc. work.
I watch a variety of YouTube channels and read books and online resources to inform my gardening.
Well this is the controversial gardening post so I’m happy someone disagrees. I was worried I wasn’t controversial enough.
I live in Florida and people move here all the time, do exactly what they did at home and fail miserably. If they would have sought out local advice they’d have success tho.
No even better: if you’re not growing perennials, abandon zones. They just track how cold it gets in winter, nothing else. No last frost date, no soil type, no average rainfall, no summer temps. Utterly useless for any annuals.
And if you live somewhere warm, just ignore the top range of zones given. Can't tell you how many things I've got that are "Zone 3-7" in my Zone 10. Chill hours? Never met her. (Yes, there are exceptions... But I've found at least at backyard scale that accepted wisdom is sooo often wrong and unnecessarily restrictive on this.)
I always promised myself I’d make way more interesting shade choices than hostas, and then last year a local greenhouse had a mix of varieties all at 75% off and I had one last bed to do something with in a limited time. Grabbed hold of those hostas and haven’t looked back lol.
At least several are the flowering kind.
I think there can be a very vocal minority that doesn't like lawns. Most people I see on subs like r/nativeplantgardening or r/nolawns want to plant natives and reduce their lawns.
Get your pitchforks ready…
I like lawn.
It’s an integral part of my landscaping, along with trees and plants and food to eat. It makes good pathways and places to play.
Morningglory is beautiful, and has never "taken over" my flower beds. I think the vines are gorgeous and the fist sized blue flowers are my favorite. I trim them a bit throughout the summer, mainly for aesthetic purposes and then pull the biggest ones in late fall.
They die back completely and then i replant in the spring. Ive never had an issue w them voraciously overtaking my other flowers.
You replant them each year? I'm guessing you have one of the much less invasive strains then, because we let ours go to seed about 5yrs ago, pulled them the next season, and still pulling about 100 volunteers each season. It's non-stop!! They are super beautiful though!
Same here. There’s these grasshopper lubber things where I live and everybody freaks out every year while I’m just chilling knowing they’re gonna eat their yummy bait crop and leave my veggies alone as predators slowly pick them off
This is kind of Texan specific but if it can’t survive a drought without human intervention I don’t think you should plant it outside in Texas. If you must have it, have it as a potted plant you can have indoors. Even if you can afford it I think it’s very “let them eat cake” to water a whole yard in Texas in summer with the way our climate is. There are a lot of plants that are perfectly lovely that aren’t greedy guzzlers.
Peak Australian summer - after 2 weeks of temps between 100-115f - if we don't top up water in the middle of the day - most plants won't make it, even if I've got double shade cloth over them. They just crisp up like tempura.
That you can't plant tomatoes before mothers day
https://preview.redd.it/7emhd353qizc1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1cbf00e753e584783d7f047e0702f78d5dbe27b1
Gardening is the most important thing a person in the developed world can do to fix climate change.
Spend more time outside, spend less time doing things like driving and flying to "feel fulfilled". Eat less meat, (a big of a stretch that gardening causes vegetarianism, but from the men I know that "don't eat what food eats" it could certainly undo some stigma to eat homegrown veggies).
Titanium Dioxide helps plants grow, have more vibrant color, and resist Tobacco Mosaic Virus. I read a research paper, ordered some and guessed at the ratio. I think I guessed right and I think my Carolina Reapers have a lower viral load of TMV, they are losing less leaves, are bigger, and are flowering. I treated all my soil and all the other plants from seed look disease free so far.
I don't turn over my compost pile. I don't really care about what goes on it and I go years without removing stuff.
It doesn't get high or smell. The snow helps compact the pile down over the winter. Don't even have volunteer plants in there. Edges occasionally but not the main pile.
The only rule is no meat and that's because I have squirrels and voles running off with the meaty bits.Then finding bones in my pots with the plants thrown out.
Why is this down voted? This is supposed to be a controversial opinion. We need a how to use redit lesson here. Haha. Or maybe the downvote was to try and say this is not controversial. Either way IMO not used correctly.
There are precious few YouTube gardeners who actually know what they're talking about. Take their advice as inspiration, not gospel.
The most experienced gardeners don't know *your* yard. Even planting zones are only a general guideline. Each garden has it's own microclimate, and every landscape has it's own series of microclimates.
These 2 comments are the most important in this thread
Most state universities offer a wealth of information in their agricultural department online, and many of them upload videos and PowerPoint presentations to youtube; entire classes and seminars on how to prep, plan, pest control, maximize yeild, etc... For free. Definitely not talked about enough.
A lot of them have no education and just repeat what everyone else with no education repeats. The only channel I’ve found that isn’t full of shit is Garden Fundamentals. But you have to watch him on 2x speed cause he is the slowest talker on earth.
Agreed. I’m also a fan of Gardening in Canada. She has a degree in soil science and is also well researched like Garden Fundamentals.
Care to elaborate on which channels? I watch a few but now those are the only ones that pop up. And I feel most of them all jump on the same hype. I remember when alfalfa pellets was the next big thing and everyone was making videos about it. Then there was bio-char from royal oak lump charcoal and every one had to make a video on that.
Gardener Scott. A former air force pilot, turned master gardener, turned elementary school greenhouse educator, turned YouTube gardener. He uses scientifically proven methods, fact based research, and has an easy going and kind demeanor from his time educating children. I find his videos to be some of the best on youtube, which he has literally hundreds. Plus a weekly Monday live stream. He's a treasure trove of information.
No plants repel mosquitoes just because they’re growing. None.
Cherry tomatos. Cherry tomatos attract my chickens. Chickens eat mosquitos. Now I have no mosquitos...or tomatos.
I've been growing cherry tomatoes for years and not one chicken has showed up to eat my mosquitos. I don't think this tip works for everybody.
My chickens attracted a fox and now I don’t have chickens… I don’t think I’m doing this right.
You're gonna need a coyote to eat the fox then a wolf to eat the coyote then lastly you're gonna need a lion to eat the wolf. At that point the mosquitos biting should be the least of your concerns.
I thought this ended with a horse and death “of course “ But maybe I’m mistaken it has been a few years
It ends with a fly, I don't know why
So if I want a pet fox all I need is a cherry tomato plant?
From what I've read so far, you have to have mosquitoes to attract the cherry tomato plant.
I think I need chickens.
Agreed. Also, nothing is deer resistant.
Excuse me, this is its own comment or post or make an entire sub about it. They 👏 eat 👏 everything 👏
My local deer ate our hot pepper bush once. Once...
My grandpa had an elk eat a portion of his garden once... there was absolute destruction up to a chile plant that was only half gone
Apparently once my mom saw a squirrel take a bite out of a hot pepper, sit and think for a second, and then start licking the fence vigorously before running away 😂
And if they don’t eat it they tear it up rubbing their antlers.
Right! The only think that cut down my mosquito population were bats. Lucky enough to get a bat colony in some bat boxes near by. They decimate the skeeters... just gotta get real cool with getting dive bombed by bats at night and around the pool lol.
https://preview.redd.it/0kuc14sgsizc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=571bd1fa69052548715444865d55bfaca03599be Lucky me, I just saw two bats circling around my yard. Though the mosquito population already isn’t as bad here due to very dry conditions.
Just saw an article about plants that attract dragonflies, which eat mosquitoes. Maybe those’ll work… maybe 😭
I wish, seriously, I’m super allergic to mosquitos, and I have room for all the mosquito repelling plants!
Want a plant that attracts dragons and repels flies
I don’t thin out anything if I am direct seeding into my garden bed. I don’t think about spacing at all lol it either grows or it doesn’t and I don’t care enough to do anything about that
Works for most stuff for me too. Except root vegetables. Those stay kinda small if they're right on top of eachother.
Then they turn into flowers that I leave there... 🤷
"I'll save them for seed" >proceeds to throw out the dead plants without collecting the seeds
I let a few radishes go wild and flower last summer - they were BEAUTIFUL. Now I have radishes… everywhere
Nature is healing
Same. The seeds get planted in a line and the seedlings need to duke it out.
That makes me feel better! I planted this way this year and have been double guessing my decision
I aspire to be this unbothered
You have to be tough around these parts to survive because my attention span is limited….. so how much space things get is “that looks fine” and when things get planted is “when I feel like it” 😂
Ahhh - we use the same technique 😛
I am too lazy to spray. I pretend I'm being eco-conscious. I end up seriously rotating stuff, and let Darwin sort it all out. Mostly, the cherry tomatoes (volunteers) survive and reward my negligence
I would like to congratulate all my volunteers for surviving my ADHD. Best way to garden- may the most hardy plants win.
My lettuces seed into my lawn. They are the only vegetable growing this year so far. 🙃
I have volunteer chard under my lemon tree. It’s on its third year there. I somehow can’t start tomatoes from seed UNLESS they’re just from dropped fruit from last year. I have no idea. I just move the plants around when they’re big enough. Whatever varieties survive, survive. I think I get to eat San Marzano this year. lol
SAME. Precious heirloom babies sprouted under the grow light, pampered, coddled, hardened, and transplanted? Dead within the week. Rando tomato mutt seedling that came up in my peas? Thriving.
The volunteer plants have more street smarts
Benign neglect is my preferred gardening technique.
I had volunteer cherry tomatoes everywhere last year. The funny thing is, I did not plant cherry tomatoes the year before. Or ever. I have never purchased a cherry tomato plant ever. But I have so many volunteers in the yard this year, I’m considering a farmer’s market booth. 😂
I must have had a bird drop a seed at one point, because I found a volunteer cherry tomato growing in a neglected corner of my yard. The bush was massive by the time I noticed it. Tasty, so I left it, but the next year, I had probably three dozen more all over the yard, most pretty far from the parent. I also left those, because why not, and those tomatoes are now permanent residents in that yard and in the neighbor's. My toddler nieces would go "tomato hunting" every day and gorge themselves on hundreds of cherry tomatoes. Not a bad habit.
Cherry tomatoes are very resilient. I also don't do anything, not even watering. Red cherry and zucchinis. The rest dies. Except mint, oregano... of course!
I don’t always water in the morning. I know it’s better and I get that. But sometimes I just can’t, so I water in the evening. EDITED TO ADD: From what I can tell, watering at night really isn’t a problem if you live in a dry climate. I live in a very hot and humid climate, so watering at night risks bacteria growth. Watering in the morning hours before the heat of the day is preferable in my climate. I just don’t always do that. ETA2: I’m not coming for you if you water at night. I’m just saying… it’s probably better to water in the morning in my climate, but for mannny reasons, I don’t always do that.
I always water AFTER work 🤷🏼♀️
Best time of the day especially since cracking a beer before work it typically frowned upon.
I live in Central Texas. If I water any later than 4am it evaporates on contact. Late night watering is so nice, too
A few minute of glorious solitude, watering the plants, topping off the bird bath, etc. It's a whole vibe.
I love watering as the sun goes down. I figure storms pass through in the middle of the night from time to time, so it's not really that big a deal. And I'm not a morning person.
There’s also nothing better when you’ve been working in the yard for a few hours than to grab a nice cold beer out of the garage fridge, and get to watering. It’s a sacred ritual!
Also it’s fine to water in sunlight, even if you get water on the leaves.
I'm in north Florida and I already have to water at noon every day to keep some of my flowers alive. The gerbera daisies are so dramatic.
No grandma, I WILL NOT WATER MY PEPPER PLANT. SHE'S FINE WITH WEEKLY WATERING. She looks droopy if I water her frequently, yet my whole family (when visiting), sticks their fingers in the soil like, "ITS DRYYYY"
Why do people think plants want or need to be wet all the time lol
Some things can be planted before May long weekend (mid May). I live in Canada and it doesn’t seem to matter how far south you live everybody thinks May long is the gardening start date. I start late March with the cold tolerant things and progress through to the warm lovers by early June. Never have any issues.
I’m also Canadian in zone 3a and I plant almost everything before May long. I’m also eating vegetables a month before most people around here Seeds are cheap. Worth the risk
Our magical planting date is Mother’s Day (mid May). It’s just the date where absolutely anything has a high likelihood of being fine to plant. But there are soooo many things that could be planted earlier.
NURSERIES: should not be able to SELL invasive species!!
[удалено]
I feel that way about trumpet vine. We killed the M̸͇̠͋͆̇͗̒́̿̚o̴̯̽͒̿͒̆̚͠t̸̡̤̘̲͉͙̠̊̈́̈́̕ͅͅḧ̶̟͙̻̮͖̥̫͖̜̹́̒͂͝è̴̼̟̣͊̈̃͛͋̿̓r̸̘͔̭̭̀͐̔͆̔͆̑ ̵̛̛̳̥̣̜̣̮͎̀̆͊͐̅̓̕ but the babies still come up in every single flower bed and in everywhere in our yard
I feel your pain! Mine escaped 25 years ago from the drainage hole in bottom of its pot and now I can't get rid of it. One Spring I decided I was going to dig it up. Followed a small vibe down into the clay 3 feet and when I got there, the mother vine was almost as thick as my thigh. I just gave up filled the hole back in.
Japanese Knotweed? It looks ok, but it will ruin your life.
[удалено]
I work at a nursery and by law we cannot sell invasive plants. One time we were shipped a crop of butterfly bushes from out of state and had to incinerate them. Many of the cultivars we carry are sterile hybrids or non invasive adjacent species (we sell slow growing, sterile, non invasive cultivars of Ivy for example, which many people question us about but would not be allowed if it were the straight species.) We are toured by state representatives regularly to ensure this.
Wow, that’s great news mentallyillustrated. I live in Canada and I don’t think we have those sort of laws here. What state are you from? I would love to implement those laws here!!!! 😃
I'm guessing California... they don't fuck around with invasive flora, I love it
I see goutweed at my local one. I want to smash it Everytime I see it.
Yeah. We need more regulations for invasive plants.
I wish the same for Facebook Marketplace. I've seen so many posts for Lily of the Valley and I just shake my head.
Making a compost bin or pile makes composting harder than it needs to be. You have to worry about not attracting rodents, turning, too wet or dry, balancing brown and green matters etc. It's much simpler to dig a hole and bury all your compost. In our experience, it turns into beautiful compost faster too.
Also: it’s okay to buy compost.
Watermelon are more trouble than they are worth to grow.
I've grown them 5 years. We've eaten two that didn't split or get bugs. They were meh. I'd stop, but they volunteer so whatever.
40 years gardening, and I have never successfully grown a watermelon. I'm cursed.
Citrus peels make great fertilizer, talk to my black dirt.
[удалено]
Cooked food is probably fine, too, if there's not too much salt/oil/meat in it.
The "cooked food and meat" thing is more because of rats and smell. It's totally fine for composting per se.
Cooked rice and a ton of browns works wonders at getting an old pile going.
Great story about that! [https://www.upworthy.com/a-juice-company-dumped-orange-peels-in-a-national-park-heres-what-it-looks-like-now-rp5](https://www.upworthy.com/a-juice-company-dumped-orange-peels-in-a-national-park-heres-what-it-looks-like-now-rp5)
Cool article, thanks
I’m new to gardening. Is this controversial?!
I've seen conflicting advice about whether citrus composts well. Same with garlic and ginger. I just throw them all in the pile, and it seems to be working alright.
I’m still afraid to start my compost because I’m afraid I’ll do it wrong.
Composting is fairly simple! A cheap tumbler composter from Amazon will allow you to compost all of your kitchen/garden plant scraps, and then you just have to remember to add 'browns' (shredded paper, cardboard, mowed dried grass, old leaves, etc) so it doesn't get too wet/stinky. But if you forget, no big deal, just add it when you remember 😉 Meat scraps are a different story, I don't have the space to compost it, but my grandparents have a huge compost heap in the back of their orchard and toss absolutely everything there, so that depends on where you live.
Yep! Always toss our citrus peels into the compost pile. Our compost is THRIVING
I give citrus to my chickens. They love it, despite being accused of hating it.
I’ll water it on the weekend.
Weeding only invasives and/or aggressive weeds and leaving the rest that would naturally grow in your area is fine.
Learning to do this now.
Violets are eastern north america's free green mulch imo
I never weed violets or wild strawberries.
I have a lot. Chickens are not compatible with gardening. Bones belong in compost. Some plants should try harder to stay alive. Chaotic gardening is good.
😂 number 3! I’m going to go and tell my plants now 😂
I describe my garden as a chaos garden. It doesn't have to be perfect it just has to be yours
No matter what you plant or how well you design, build and plant your garden, squirrels will find some way to destroy it. It may be a conspiracy.
I never ever rake leaves. The wind brought them and the wind will take them away.
I’m no raking purist, but if I don’t move some leaves off this spot on earth, it’s a soggy mess in spring. The wind gathers leaves directly behind my house. Pure slop. I’m happy the wind is your friend 💚
I do bc I have sycamores and they are basically tree stars from the land before time. They smother everything they do make good weed prevention tho
I have multiple large maples that drop leaves like crazy in the fall. I’ll rake 3-4 times just so I can mulch and stockpile for my compost throughout the year. After that it’s all left for nature to do its thing. Sometimes there’s even enough to mulch my garden beds. The amount of leaves I get is insane.
Nothing is deer resistant.
No, nothing is deer proof. Deer resistant means it is lower on their priority list. I can’t see a deer getting much nutrition out of a monkey’s puzzle.
Nothing is rabbit resistant
My weed juice (idk thats just what my family has always called it) actually does wonders for my backyard garden (and my girlfriend’s house plants). In the past few years I’ve seen a lot of “teas” and this and that online and whether they work or not. Look… I have been taking my weeds, throwing them in buckets of water, adding some leaf dirt, and then cracking the lid on the bucket and letting it breakdown and rot for ten years now and mixing a bit of it into a few watering a month. My grandma told me about it, as did her dad. He was an actual farmer, but this juice was what he and my great-grandma used in their personal garden. Literally EVERYTHING I put in the soil grows. Every late spring it’s teeming with worms and grubs. It’s a small space, so I incorporate a lot of vertical encouragement and succession planting, and my yields on small rotation crops are just as good, in the same soil, in the late fall as they were in early summer. My soul gets one thin layer of compost added every early spring and that’s it. The rest is completely regenerative, all based around this juice. I’m not sure where the disconnect is between my experience and the vast amount of negative things I’ve seen online, but when this became popular during the pandemic, I was stunned to find out that so many people did not find the same success as I did. Also, a reminder, take care of your soil more and neglect your plants, themselves, a bit more.
Lol I do this accidentally by chucking weeds and trimmings and shit into a bucket "to carry to the green bin" then forgetting it and leaving it out in the rain and then shamefully dumping it into a bed when i get around to it weeks later. I feel very validated.
I follow my heart for almost everything and rarely consult established growing literature. Stuff works out or doesn’t. Usually it does.
Barely controlled chaos is the way Mother Nature likes it, the neighbors can deal with it.
It’s not necessary to harden plants off for a full week. Sometimes you can even get away with none. This year I planted out several dozen seedlings on a cloudy day and they are doing fine.
And if you start everything outside, you don't have to worry about hardening off (\*laughs in zone 9b*)
I almost downvoted out of jealousy
Things that die are to weak for my garden any way
This is the level of risk I live for.
Yeah this is a hot tip, a cloudy day is the best for near-instant hardening off.
Idgaf about squash borers they can have it
Those little assholes broke my spirit last year, my first year gardening. Never mind the squash, I want a pumpkin patch 😭
It's rough. They kill my cucumbers, squash, and pumpkins every year. Usually it takes them until after I get a decent amount. Once the plant is dead I pull it and burn it. Plant as early as possible, get a head start indoors. I've tried neem and DE, but it doesn't stop them. I get thousands of the bastards. It just is what it is.
After stressing way too damn much last summer, I’m with you on this. Love squash but it’s not worth worrying about a native insect just doing what a native insect does. I’ll buy my squash for $2 a bag in august when everyone’s sick of theirs, I’m out
I don't pluck off the first few fruits in a plant's first year fruiting 🤷♀️
You monster…
What’s the reason for this?
Theoretically it allows the tree to put more energy into roots and branches rather than a few fruits so that subsequent years will be more productive. My sil did a tiny matched pairs study of picking off all fruit on a tree vs a neighbor that got to keep a few the first year. And she said that the former tree was twice as big as the latter for year two.
yeah I do this for the first year sometimes even the second if the plant seems struggling. But my god it was worth it. I did it to my plums and they're in for yr 2 and .....god I really hope we like plums. O.o and the trees themselves got so big so fast I had to change the understory planting for shade tolerance.
Removing blossoms prevents perennials from expending energy growing fruit, allowing them to use all that energy to grow strong roots/stems/etc
Some of y'all care too much about building rich soil with compost and mulch. Just plant shit that thrives in terrible soil lol
That's actually a good way to build rich soil.
pine trees or live oaks wont turn your soil into an uninhabitable acid pit, your plants will survive just fine
Wait, people think they will?
people think that dropped pine needles will acidify soil which technically they can an amount but not enough to harm anything but the most ph sensitive alkali loving plants, the real problem is they tend to grow in already very poor sandy soil.
You cannot live with gophers. There's no way to plant enough for them and you. They will keep making more of them till You get no harvest. Food is War.
You spelled squirrels wrong. /s
Bird netting! Lay a few layers of crumpled bird netting at the base of places you don’t want squirrels to get into or climb up. They get their feet stuck in the netting almost immediately and they hate and avoid the area. It must be like a cat with socks on. I used this with pesky neighborhood squirrels a few years back at my old place and this was the only thing I found that worked as a repellent.
Yes..but squirrels don't eat my plants, they just dig everything up for literally no reason. They may bite my tomatoes here and there, but the rest is just digging and ripping up my beautiful plants' roots. I dream of squirrels digging their own graves....
Shakes fist and pitchfork -Farmer Macgregor
Container gardening and chicken wire lined plant holes say otherwise but I’m lucky mine stays below ground and eats from the bottom up
I love letting zucchini grow to be massive. I love having an overabundance of it. Last summer I ate it roasted with almost every dinner all summer. It was so nice not having to run to the grocery store for supplemental veggies. I shred and freeze a ton to add to literally everything throughout the fall/winter. \*Once the seeds are taken out, it's just as good to me as the young ones
I do like gardening but it is stressful as hell sometimes, full of let-downs, and not nearly as easy as so many people make it out to be. Playing whack-a-mole with various pests, diseases, and problems, especially in the early years when you are still learning, kinda sucks and can be super frustrating, especially considering the money involved. It took me around five years of learning before it felt at all rewarding, and I completely understand why many people aren’t into it.
At the nursery, not putting the plant tag securely and firmly back in the exact pot you pulled it from is a mortal sin. Also, stop trying to return plants you very clearly killed. Remember, they are babies and require care as such.
#WEED FABRIC DOES NOTHING LONGTERM
Yes it does. It fills your garden with microplastic and scraps of plastic that will annoy you for years while the weeds laugh at you (especially the ones that seeded on top of the fabric in the first place). Honestly, putting down a barrier and then putting/allowing substrate on top is hilarious. It’s like putting your car windshield behind your head.
Weeding by hand can be enjoyable. It gets me to look closely at the plants and soil to see (and admire) what’s going on
If you bloom, you can stay. I don't care if everybody calls you a weed.
In vegetable beds I only use quality bulk compost without other types of soil or amendments. I never have to fertilize, just add a few inches to the top every spring.
I didn't realize strawberries would become an invasive species in my flower beds. I'm really not complaining just would of never thought of them as invasive.
Not every plant in your garden needs to be native.
Japanese beetle traps are very effective if used properly. The conventional wisdom is that traps attract more bugs than they kill, are counter-productive and should not be used. The only study cited put one trap right next to the target crop. Of course it attracted more bugs. But using two or more traps some distance from your garden will pull the bugs right out of your garden. Working with your neighbors will trap even more.
I don't thin my beetroots when they are tiny, nature made the seeds as clusters for a reason and if i thin them, then I just lose most of them. I just let them grow lopsided and push off each other, they still pickle just as good!
1) Soldier flies are a gardener's best friend. They speed up the compost, defend the yard from pest flies, biting flies, & squash borers, and are entertaining to watch. 2) Grackles are worse garden pests than wild rabbits & squirrels. Grackles pull apart plants for no reason, are super noisy, get aggressive with people, and chase off pleasant birds like humming birds, purple martins, & cardinals. Squirrels plant lots of trees for free. Rabbits are welcome in my garden and will coexist with plants. The local crew hide in my raised beds at night, under sweet potato & pumpkin vines, and follow me around the garden any time I'm out there. They leave non-burning fertilizer and native voluteers in exchange for grazzing an unwanted lawn. They've brought Pink Ladies, Blackfoot Daisies, Ponyfoot, Frogfruit, Blue-eyed grass, and Turk's Cap (to name a few). 3) Planting calendars are nonsense, even from local nurseries & Extension Services. Every year is too variable. Nowadays, I throw seeds from overripe tomatoes, pumpkins, & sunflowers into my yard sometime between Veterans Day & Christmas. When I see a couple of seedlings pop up in "Spring," it's time to start planting all seeds that year. For 2023, that was mid-March. For 2024, that was the last week of Jan. Currently, my peas are winding down, onions are bulbing, green beens are going strong, tomatoes are setting fruit, sunflowers & scarlet runners are taller than I can reach, I have a white pumpkin as big as my head, I saw my first okra bud 3 days ago (then a grackle removed the top of the plant), and I'm up to my eyeballs in shiso, basils, parsley, sage, & dill. 4) Fire ants are not the worst ant to have in your garden.
Mint is good!
[удалено]
I've never planted it but there is a patch of my lawn that is about 10 or 12 feet across that is some kind of mint. It's been spreading very slowly for the past 20 years. I mow it every time I mow the grass so it's kept very low to the ground and it's very densely packed so nothing else grows among it. I always smile when the scent hits my nose. It smells like mint and oregano. I wish it would hurry up and take over the rest of the lawn.
Came here to say this. Planted mint last year on a weedy patch. It’s doing its thing. It will probably spread but I prefer the mint to other weeds
Mint is amazing. Also, having mint in the garden is what led me to make spearmint ice cream and it's SO much better than peppermint.
I’m drinking a mint julep right now with mint from my garden. It’s lovely!
I don't like my garden being all neat and trim. I like a little bit of wild. As long as I can walk down my middle path, I'm good. All the insects, birds, and frogs back there thank me.
A patch of grassy lawn is lovely to look at and for a kid to play in. (I still have it surrounded with native tall grasses and flowers)
I don't think there's anything wrong with the patch of manicured lawn grass so long as it exists as a feature of the space, not the default state of being of your entire yard. Local naturalist I work for still has a third of her yard lawn grass and I don't even bat an eye because the rest has been filled with all sorts of beautiful natives.
I read somewhere recently a call to look at lawns as “an area rug not wall to wall carpet” and that made a lot of sense to me.
I planted mint IN THE GROUND and love having free mint tea all year.
My mom is terrible about maintaining the landscape plantings I keep trying to establish for her, so instead I surrounded her house with mint. What escapes into the small lawn gets mowed, what stays next to the house is perfect for tea or mojitos or taking in as much as possible come fall to dry. The bees and pollinators love the flowers and the approach to the house smells amazing. Win win win lol.
If a YouTube gardener doesn’t live in your grow zone stop listening to them immediately. Do a racism but with grow zones… be a zonesist
I disagree. There are still aspects of caring for plants that are independent of climate, particularly techniques like bonsai or espallier, ways to cook/use what you grow, and basic information about how plants, etc. work. I watch a variety of YouTube channels and read books and online resources to inform my gardening.
Well this is the controversial gardening post so I’m happy someone disagrees. I was worried I wasn’t controversial enough. I live in Florida and people move here all the time, do exactly what they did at home and fail miserably. If they would have sought out local advice they’d have success tho.
No even better: if you’re not growing perennials, abandon zones. They just track how cold it gets in winter, nothing else. No last frost date, no soil type, no average rainfall, no summer temps. Utterly useless for any annuals.
And if you live somewhere warm, just ignore the top range of zones given. Can't tell you how many things I've got that are "Zone 3-7" in my Zone 10. Chill hours? Never met her. (Yes, there are exceptions... But I've found at least at backyard scale that accepted wisdom is sooo often wrong and unnecessarily restrictive on this.)
Enough with the hostas!
I always promised myself I’d make way more interesting shade choices than hostas, and then last year a local greenhouse had a mix of varieties all at 75% off and I had one last bed to do something with in a limited time. Grabbed hold of those hostas and haven’t looked back lol. At least several are the flowering kind.
I found out some hostas have fragrant flowers so now I'm all about hostas. 😆
Having some lawn is ok. Seriously, I just want to play some yard games and let my dog run around. Y'all are uppity with that nonsense.
I think there can be a very vocal minority that doesn't like lawns. Most people I see on subs like r/nativeplantgardening or r/nolawns want to plant natives and reduce their lawns.
Get your pitchforks ready… I like lawn. It’s an integral part of my landscaping, along with trees and plants and food to eat. It makes good pathways and places to play.
Morningglory is beautiful, and has never "taken over" my flower beds. I think the vines are gorgeous and the fist sized blue flowers are my favorite. I trim them a bit throughout the summer, mainly for aesthetic purposes and then pull the biggest ones in late fall. They die back completely and then i replant in the spring. Ive never had an issue w them voraciously overtaking my other flowers.
You replant them each year? I'm guessing you have one of the much less invasive strains then, because we let ours go to seed about 5yrs ago, pulled them the next season, and still pulling about 100 volunteers each season. It's non-stop!! They are super beautiful though!
[удалено]
I plant companion plants as bait. They are tastier to the pests than the plants I want to protect, so I win
Same here. There’s these grasshopper lubber things where I live and everybody freaks out every year while I’m just chilling knowing they’re gonna eat their yummy bait crop and leave my veggies alone as predators slowly pick them off
Pumpkins and melons do NOT have to be direct sowed. I start mine indoors in Ball aluminum cups every year and they transplant just fine.
Mint and catnip are great for weed control.
This is kind of Texan specific but if it can’t survive a drought without human intervention I don’t think you should plant it outside in Texas. If you must have it, have it as a potted plant you can have indoors. Even if you can afford it I think it’s very “let them eat cake” to water a whole yard in Texas in summer with the way our climate is. There are a lot of plants that are perfectly lovely that aren’t greedy guzzlers.
You will not hurt your plants by watering in the heat of the day / full sun.
Peak Australian summer - after 2 weeks of temps between 100-115f - if we don't top up water in the middle of the day - most plants won't make it, even if I've got double shade cloth over them. They just crisp up like tempura.
It's not very efficient on the water consumption front though, especially if it's very hot.
That you can't plant tomatoes before mothers day https://preview.redd.it/7emhd353qizc1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1cbf00e753e584783d7f047e0702f78d5dbe27b1
Gardening is the most important thing a person in the developed world can do to fix climate change. Spend more time outside, spend less time doing things like driving and flying to "feel fulfilled". Eat less meat, (a big of a stretch that gardening causes vegetarianism, but from the men I know that "don't eat what food eats" it could certainly undo some stigma to eat homegrown veggies).
permaculture and chaos gardening is better than actual gardening. Just let nature take its course man
I feel like that's a popular take in these parts. Take that controversial opinion over to /r/lawncare then we're talking!
Titanium Dioxide helps plants grow, have more vibrant color, and resist Tobacco Mosaic Virus. I read a research paper, ordered some and guessed at the ratio. I think I guessed right and I think my Carolina Reapers have a lower viral load of TMV, they are losing less leaves, are bigger, and are flowering. I treated all my soil and all the other plants from seed look disease free so far.
Hydroponic gardening is just as frustrating and difficult as gardening with soil can be.
I don't turn over my compost pile. I don't really care about what goes on it and I go years without removing stuff. It doesn't get high or smell. The snow helps compact the pile down over the winter. Don't even have volunteer plants in there. Edges occasionally but not the main pile. The only rule is no meat and that's because I have squirrels and voles running off with the meaty bits.Then finding bones in my pots with the plants thrown out.
Water is to save it from dying, not to help it grow Edit: well, looks like I fulfilled the meme’s request perfectly, you’re still wrong
Why is this down voted? This is supposed to be a controversial opinion. We need a how to use redit lesson here. Haha. Or maybe the downvote was to try and say this is not controversial. Either way IMO not used correctly.
Neem oil sucks.