WEBlue

Your wife has a green thumb for sure, Nutek! Those are some gorgeous blooms. I like your deck/patio too, it's all so nicely done.

This morning the radio said we can now plant summer crops (ground temp is 60F), so I'll start some tomatoes and clear my windowsills of herbs that were patiently waiting to go outside.

Bob

Looks lovely!

So where are the cars?

Nutek

They sort of hide out behind the fence on the right of this pic, down by the house. That's the bit of yard I can be trusted not to break.

robin1234

So far, looking like a good gardening year here, apart from the facts that the bugs are exceptionally bad (black fly, skeeters, deer fly) making it hard to be out in the garden sometimes.

My main tomatoes are six black cherry plants which I bought from a guy in the farmers market. I've also got a million volunteer toms coming up from last year, some of which I'll keep and encourage. Last year someone recommended this supplement for tomatoes - anyone else tried it? When planting the tomato out in the garden, sprinkle 2 or 3 tablespoons of Epsom Salts in the hole first. I tried this last year, and the plants grew exceptionally luxuriant and with a pretty good crop. I suspect it works in some soils but not others, and is to do with a magnesium deficiency in the soil. Anyway, I used the Epsom Salts again on Saturday when I planted out my tomatoes. (The Epsom Salts I bought last year at Agway was about a one hundred years supply...)

We've been eating arugula, lettuce, radishes and spring onions already. They were planted out late April... We had such a late, cold spring nothing went in earlier this year.

The arugula was from seed I bought in Tesco's when I was England over the winter. My (cheap and cheerful) gift to my wife was six seed packets, all things I knew would grow here but were different to American in some way (for instance, arugula was labelled rocket of course!!)

So here's an observation on seed packets in the UK vs. US. Here, seed is usually priced about $1.50 to $2.50. In Tesco's, 49p. And the quantity! I'm not exaggerating, the English seed packets had about ten times or more seeds than typical packets over here. OK, if you're buying eggplant seeds, I understand, they only give you ten or twenty seeds. But even things like lettuce and carrots, where you really need a liberal quantity in order to plant a decent row, I've noticed the quantity in the US packets seems to be less every year...

Bob

Kid planted a bean in a pot she got at a fair a couple weeks ago, in the last two days it has gone mental and is huge.

Of all the corn we planted, it's looking like one has done something...the rest may or may not have been weeded, thinking they were grass that has been growing all over the place.

A couple of peppers and water melon are doing things. Massive amount of unknown things are now looking like they're sunflowers, which is annoying. They are shielding the lettuce though, which has been lovely.

Still have a army of tomato plants growing and every time I think I'll cull some of the small ones, they all seem to grow loads.

Garden is the ugliest thing ever.

WEBlue

Our garden is producing lots of lettuce, but nothing else much. It's become very dry over the past weeks, and we've been doing too much travel for me to keep things watered properly. In spite of that, one tomato plant--the cheap one I got at Ocean State Job Lots, haha!--has a few little flowers.

Bob, none of my sunflowers have come up! So strange--this is the kind of weather (Mediterranean) they should love...

Nutek

Roses came up on the side of the house.

Pulaski

They would be the annual roses for which CT is famous, I presume.

Otherwise, that's a nice show of flowers that Mrs N has grown. Might I suggest that you minimize the risk to them by staying indoors as much as possible!

Nutek

They would be the roses that Mrs. N. manages to keep going each year, despite my best efforts to kill off all plant life within a 500yd radius of the house.

(actually, new this year, there used to be pine (yuck) trees growing there about 2 feet away from the side of the house.

Southy_SWFC

I saw watermelon seeds for sale the other day and wondered how they would do around here. Does much need to be done to them to grow well?

Pulaski

BE'ers shouldn't have a problem growing them, they thrive on bull $4!t. The cow variety also works.

Bob

None of the 4 I planted did anything.

These, about 10-15 of them, I didn't plant...on the other side of the garden

Bob

Neighbours tried growing some a couple years ago that didn't do anything, but I'm trying them where the squash/pumpkins were as they went mental last time....will see.

Folks up in Maine used to grow them and they did quite well though, so you've got the weather for it.

Pulaski

Don't try to grow watermelons near pumpkins, because the fertilized watermelons don't develop properly. I would never have beleived it, but the watermelons grow as large parchment-coloured eggs, about 5"-6" long. So far as they are like anything, they're closest to a squash, but they have a hint of watermelon flavour if you slice and cook them.

Bob

I'm not growing any pumpkins this year....just using that area as it seemed to do well last year.