It's become clear to me through posts and PMs that there are some gardeners here just waiting for the chance to discuss gardening!
So, I was thinking... how do you use gardening, or how does it affect you if you need a break, need some respite, need to relax, need inspiration....how do you use it as a therapy tool in caregiving?
What are your activities: Do you go out and pull weeds, read a magazine, design new beds? Look through garden catalogues? Go to garden stores?
And what interests have you added to your gardening? Visit estate or garden displays? Do you go to garden shows?
Does anyone design and plant Knot Gardens? Raised bed planters? Assistive gardens? Pollinator gardens (and have you thought of ways to help the bees and butterflies?)
Are your gardens primarily for pleasure or food, or a mix of both? Do you grow plants for medicinal purposes? Which ones, how do you harvest and process them? Any suggestions?
Do you grow plants that can be used in crafts, such as grapevines for wreaths and lavender for lavender wands? Do you make herbal products such as creams, lotions, chapstick?
What else can you share about gardening and the means in which it nurtures your soul?
We kept food inventories. I created a list of what Mom and Dad purchased regularly, added dates and number counts, plus amounts left. When they removed something, they checked it off on the list, taped to the freezer. That way we could easily see what was being used the most and in need of restocking.
That included food, cider, and of course the all important food, ice cream.
I'm wondering if anyone cans? If you garden, like CWillie does, you can store so much more with canning, although it is a hot process with all that water boiling on the stove during the sometimes hot late summer.
We also bought food dryers. Mom and Dad dried peppers; I dried apples. And we both experimented with other foods, like tomatoes. I wasn't that pleased with the end result; dried food just didn't have the taste or quality of fresh or frozen. But it was good for long term storage.
What I never got around to trying was drying grapes to make my own raisins.
Do you have an extra freezer? I don’t. I have a side by side fridge, older model with ice and water in the door. There really isn’t a lot of freezer room.
I do cook double batches a lot and freeze one for later but I don’t keep something in the freezer for more than a month or so. I never remember the shelf life on things. I need to print out a chart. I do write the date and name of the meal on the freezer bag.
My daddy grew them in a large container like you do. He always gave me some. The neighbor across the street wanted some too. He had plenty. I loved having them without having to buy them too.
Do mirlitons grow in your area? My dad had tons of them! They need a trellis to climb. My grandpa grew eggplant and we stuff it here with seafood too, crab and shrimp. Or simply breaded and fried. I like to roast eggplant and sometimes my husband throws it on the grill.
It’s a very popular dish here. They are stuffed with a shrimp dressing or sometimes ham. Very southern dish that is commonly served at Thanksgiving dinner.
My gardening yields are tiny, barely enough for me let alone extra to sell 🤣
Stuffed peppers! Fajitas, Stir fries. roasted red peppers! You have it all covered!
Do you sell at a farmers market? You should. I love buying from the farmers markets.
Louisiana has great strawberries. The strawberry farmers here sell everywhere! Local groceries, festivals and fairs, farmers markets and restaurants.
We have Louisiana yams that are similar to sweet potatoes. I think the vines are beautiful too.
Our rice crops are a staple here. Red beans and rice, shrimp creole, jambalaya and on and on and on. We cook tons of rice.
It’s interesting how different regions have different food. My daughter recently moved to Denver and she was telling me that there is a restaurant near her that sells New Orleans food. Normally natives from New Orleans would run from a place like that because it isn’t authentic New Orleans cuisine but she said that the chef is a transplant from New Orleans. So she’s happy about that!
She says she’s in a very walkable area and there are beautiful gardens everywhere. She will not miss our humidity. She’s getting adjusted to the higher elevation but the snow will be a huge change for her.
She seems to be settling in, most things are unpacked, only a couple of boxes left and she mentioned that she wants to get some easy houseplants for her apartment.
I haven’t had houseplants in awhile. I used to grow African violets. I love them.
A friend said she could not eat green peppers because they are 'less ripe' than yellow, orange, or red.
Online:
"Red peppers pack the most nutrition, because they've been on the vine longest. Green peppers are harvested earlier, before they have a chance to turn yellow, orange, and then red. Compared to green bell peppers, the red ones have almost 11 times more beta-carotene and 1.5 times more vitamin C."
Thanks for the plethora of information. Great response!
I have been googling and discovered that contrary to what I always believed california wonders are an open pollinated variety, so I'll be saving pepper seeds too.
NEEDHELP and PAMZ,
A dedicated gardener friend is stocking up on seeds now, in anticipation that the homegrown garden trend which apparently took hold this year will expand next year as CV 19 continues into 2021, seeds will be bought out quickly, and prices will rise.
I think she's got a good idea, so I will with difficulty tear myself away from the laziness I've developed and start stocking up on seeds for next year, especially the hard to get seeds.
Clarifications: As I was typing the previous message, the words began running together, a problem I've had periodically while typing. Something happens and the spacing fails to work properly.
If I wrote the same things twice, I apologize. I've read and reread these two posts so much I'm tired of them.
Botanical Interests is one of my favorite sources for motivation. The pictures aren't just image photos; they're artistic drawings, and just beautiful.
https://www.botanicalinterests.com/
SEND, do both! Plant seeds to create your own chocolate trees, and grind them up to reward yourself with the pleasure of chocolate.
I'm still working on finding a good recipe, as well as figuring out to process the mature seeds. I think we should find a good online course on how to harvest and process cocoa beans.
NEEDHELP, I do recall differences between home grown pumpkins and canned pumpkin. The former were a bit grainer, if I recall. I think the hardest part though was cleaning the pumpkin - of course I had to save all the seeds.
I'm thinking of buying some of the decorative pumpkins, emptying them of the seeds to plant next year and drying the shells for decoration. A small ornamental pumpkin for the cost would probably produce more seeds than a commercial package of seeds , but I haven't really counted the seeds of the mini pumpkins, although I did find one on the kitchen counter that I apparently dried some years ago.
It's been so long that I don't recall any issues with cooking pumpkin, or how I prepared it for pies.
Once I grew and harvested my own sweet potatoes. I enjoyed it; they produce such a beautiful vine that I could consider growing them for that reason alone.
If you want to see some real beauties, check out the ornamentals. I'd love to get some and start a bed; they're expensive though.
https://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/plants/ornamentals/ornamental-sweet-potato.html#:~:text=The%20ornamental%20sweet%20potato%20is,quickly%20flow%20over%20the%20edges. and
https://www.google.com/search?q=ornamental+sweet+potatoes&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=OYNVSSYR-IyzVM%252Cmrj52d-FipM3dM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kSdTRtw_MIhHtp8mZL6RgUfdIAOiw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwihlfal7frrAhXDBc0KHZKkBWAQ_h16BAgFEAU#imgrc=OYNVSSYR-IyzVM
for more varieties.
My money plant seeds are all gone but I can send you seeds next year, if I'm still around.
As to butterfly gardening, some butterflies prefer certain plants, both flowers and herbs.
When I came home a few days ago I noticed some very busy little bees on the goldenrod that grows naturally, and moves around the yard at will. It's grown throughout the yard, in areas of its choice, over the years, and as I recall was always a good attraction for butterflies.
You can start here for butterfly gardens:
https://www.google.com/search?ei=ZfJoX4yHB8vRtQbA5Z3IBQ&q=Butterfly+gardening&oq=Butterfly+gardening&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAA6BAgAEEc6BAgAEA1Qo5cBWIGmAWCYqAFoAXABeACAAV2IAbABkgEBMpgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXrIAQjAAQE&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwjMzZ3l8frrAhXLaM0KHcByB1kQ4dUDCAw&uact=5#spf=1600713338670
Or read this article for a general overall plan of butterfly gardening:
https://nababutterfly.com/start-butterfly-garden/
This is a good site, identifying plants which specific butterflies like:
https://butterflywebsite.com/butterflygardening.cfm
Years ago I met some butterfly lovers who planted dill and parsley, raised caterpillars, and kept them until they morphed into butterflies for their gardens.
"The seeds are ground up into cacao powder, which is the basis for chocolate and many delicious things. Mature cacao pods are usually orange colored and take about five months to fully ripen on the tree. Whether or not you get cacao pods from your tree sort of depends on if you have a conservatory or not".
Chocolate tree seeds....Yes!
GA, when I get my seeds, should I plant the tree, or grind them up to make Cacao powder? Then, the candy bar recipe is......
I have only used the canned pumpkin for baking.
I always bake fresh sweet potatoes. I find they are much better than canned sweet potatoes. I’m a bit intimidated to cook fresh pumpkin. I think I have only carved a jack o lantern one time in my life.
I do love pumpkin seeds to eat! Sunflower seeds too.
I asked my husband which pie did he like better, pumpkin or sweet potato? He said they tasted the similar to him. I don’t think the flavor is the same, texture maybe, but not the flavor. I love both but here in the south we make incredible sweet potato pie. I have not personally made it but I enjoy eating it every now and then.
A gardening friend anticipates a price rise in seeds next season as more people turn to gardening to avoid going to grocery stores during the pandemic. I think she's right.
So I'm going to get my 2021 seeds this year. I'm also going to start saving seeds from store bought veggies I want to grow next year.
Next year some potatoes will end up as plants.
I'm already ahead on dahlias; I found some tubers I forgot to plant! Now I have to figure out how to overwinter them, as usually tubers stored in the basement get moldy b/c of high humidity (subsidence problem around 1/2 of the house).
If you celebrate Halloween, think of all the seeds you can save and plant next year!
and I have never found any taco seeds.
By something different, do you mean maybe a peach or lemon tree?
So, we will see. But it may take some time. 3 years? The birds used to land on the highest branch to hear the music coming from the kitchen windows. Maybe I can get a photo, when and if anything happens.
I feel so powerless over nature. My avatar is the same bouganvillia, same size, but still alive after all these years.
Our cloudless skies are obscured by a high, white, haze compliments of all those west coast fires, even way over here in SW Ontario. Today we are enjoying warm breezes typical of this time of year, but they are carrying some "fresh country air" to remind us all to thank a farmer 😉
This small decorative apple tree is wanted. It has always struggled because it had a damaged tap root when it came to live with us.
We had a knowledgeable Japanese gardener who would not help with it because he said it would never live. Looking forward to the new growth! And the possible flowers in a few years. I like it that it has dwarfed itself, never taller than 4 1/2 feet, but able to view from my kitchen window.
It did have some missing bark, maybe that is why it died. (but not really dead!). I will have a frame built around it now to protect it from bunnies and squirrels-or whatever else is after it. (gophers, possums, racoons?).
Sometimes not knowing brings an exciting expectation. But I also enjoy knowing how to save this small tree. If I need to neglect it a bit, I will have no guilt. My hubs waters it regularly.
If you want apple trees, dig up the shoots, replant them, and maybe in several years you'll have some apples. You could also try to dwarf them; that's something I've thought about for a while but never tried.
If you don't want them, there's a way to quietly kill the tree: bark strip it. That exposes the trunk to weather, hot and cold. It usually takes either one summer or one winter to kill a trunk, but it's critical to make sure there are no roots sending up baby trees.
Another way is to plant morning glories either in the ground or in pots around the trunk and let them grow over it and choke it to death. I learned by surprise that this was an easy way to kill an unwanted mulberry tree.
Your class sounds interesting. We didn’t go very far. Only to Baton Rouge. Sunshine here! Going back home after lunch.