Pandemic Garden Club
Sep. 4th, 2021 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scrubjayspeaksWelcome to the September edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!
Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.
As for myself...
Oh, things are getting quiet out there. The rapid changes of the summer have started to wind down. Things are still steadily progressing toward ripeness, toward harvest, toward autumn. It's steady, incremental progress, though--no more the leaps and bounds of early development, where you could practically see gourds getting bigger if you stood and watched them for a minute.
The vegetable and fruit harvests continue. Behold, a lineup of peaches (and friends), attempting to finish ripening. There's also a slightly threatening amount of corn cobs in the fridge and a far more reasonable amount of cherry tomatoes.
The wildflower garden, mostly down to dry stubble, still has two champions blooming. Which might not be a good thing in one case???
This is birdsfoot trefoil, which was part of one of my seed mixes (the predatory insect habitat one). It's not native to California, but not everything I planted is, so I'm not docking it points for that alone. Depending on what I look at, though, it's possibly a highly invasive, toxic weed, a potentially invasive livestock fodder plant, or a fire-resistant groundcover. Uh. That's a wide spread of options. There's just one mat of it growing under the ash tree, and I had, prior to looking up what it might be, been enjoying the petite yellow flowers and its general enthusiasm for life. (Since the tree is young and getting regular waterings while it establishes itself, there are a few things vigorously growing around its base. I'd be enthusiastic under those conditions too.) Do I let it live? Do I rip it out with prejudice?
This is calendula, and it doesn't appear to be a threat to anything, praise be! It also loves hanging out around the young trees and getting spoiled with water. I'll allow it.
From the garden event I went to a couple weeks ago, I have this collection of "stuff that really ought to go in the ground as soon as it's not so hot." And it's definitely not toxic or invasive or wanted for bribery and tax evasion! Three manzanita plants of two different varieties, two ceanothus, and one Russian sage (which sadly isn't a sage/salvia at all).
Finally, in the category of totally uncomplicated pleasures, my boophone is finally blooming. I bought it a good five years ago, and I'm not even remotely sure it IS a boophone in fact. I had only been going to my succulent club for a couple months when they mentioned that someone was selling off most of his collection at his home over a weekend. (This is, sadly, not an uncommon occurrence. Succulents are a popular hobby among the retired set, and sometimes they get to an age and level of infirmity that prohibits them gardening.) So mum and I went and bought a bunch of plants neither of us had any damn idea about.
One of them was a big tub of bulbs with long, strappy leaves labeled as "possibly boophone, orange flowers." Going pretty cheap, because mystery plant, so of course the newby bought it. It has, for the past five years, been exactly that: an even bigger tub of bulbs with strappy leaves, prolifically creating little bulbils and doing not much else besides. It never wilts, it never gets diseases or infestations, and it never blooms.
It sent up a stalk about a week ago. I am incadescently excited to see the flowers open. Fuck, this is the best dumb hobby I've ever taken up. Five years--truly, because August 2016 was the first meeting I went to--I've been growing all these, my wretched bastard stabby children, and I regret nothing about any of it.
Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.
As for myself...
Oh, things are getting quiet out there. The rapid changes of the summer have started to wind down. Things are still steadily progressing toward ripeness, toward harvest, toward autumn. It's steady, incremental progress, though--no more the leaps and bounds of early development, where you could practically see gourds getting bigger if you stood and watched them for a minute.
The vegetable and fruit harvests continue. Behold, a lineup of peaches (and friends), attempting to finish ripening. There's also a slightly threatening amount of corn cobs in the fridge and a far more reasonable amount of cherry tomatoes.
The wildflower garden, mostly down to dry stubble, still has two champions blooming. Which might not be a good thing in one case???
This is birdsfoot trefoil, which was part of one of my seed mixes (the predatory insect habitat one). It's not native to California, but not everything I planted is, so I'm not docking it points for that alone. Depending on what I look at, though, it's possibly a highly invasive, toxic weed, a potentially invasive livestock fodder plant, or a fire-resistant groundcover. Uh. That's a wide spread of options. There's just one mat of it growing under the ash tree, and I had, prior to looking up what it might be, been enjoying the petite yellow flowers and its general enthusiasm for life. (Since the tree is young and getting regular waterings while it establishes itself, there are a few things vigorously growing around its base. I'd be enthusiastic under those conditions too.) Do I let it live? Do I rip it out with prejudice?
This is calendula, and it doesn't appear to be a threat to anything, praise be! It also loves hanging out around the young trees and getting spoiled with water. I'll allow it.
From the garden event I went to a couple weeks ago, I have this collection of "stuff that really ought to go in the ground as soon as it's not so hot." And it's definitely not toxic or invasive or wanted for bribery and tax evasion! Three manzanita plants of two different varieties, two ceanothus, and one Russian sage (which sadly isn't a sage/salvia at all).
Finally, in the category of totally uncomplicated pleasures, my boophone is finally blooming. I bought it a good five years ago, and I'm not even remotely sure it IS a boophone in fact. I had only been going to my succulent club for a couple months when they mentioned that someone was selling off most of his collection at his home over a weekend. (This is, sadly, not an uncommon occurrence. Succulents are a popular hobby among the retired set, and sometimes they get to an age and level of infirmity that prohibits them gardening.) So mum and I went and bought a bunch of plants neither of us had any damn idea about.
One of them was a big tub of bulbs with long, strappy leaves labeled as "possibly boophone, orange flowers." Going pretty cheap, because mystery plant, so of course the newby bought it. It has, for the past five years, been exactly that: an even bigger tub of bulbs with strappy leaves, prolifically creating little bulbils and doing not much else besides. It never wilts, it never gets diseases or infestations, and it never blooms.
It sent up a stalk about a week ago. I am incadescently excited to see the flowers open. Fuck, this is the best dumb hobby I've ever taken up. Five years--truly, because August 2016 was the first meeting I went to--I've been growing all these, my wretched bastard stabby children, and I regret nothing about any of it.
