Me, I love my Lillie’s, especially these dark purple ones.
As indicated by my username, I’m super excited for my fireweed to bloom! It’s a perennial that dies back every autumn and regrows in the spring (this time of year it grows so quickly!). It spreads by wind-blown seed, but also by root so my fireweed patch grows bigger and thicker every year, which is such a fun development to watch. The flowers are so pretty and the native bees go gaga over it. Once established it’s basically a zero-maintenance plant (where I live it grows wild along highways). I highly recommend it for any pollinator-friendly gardener living in its wide native range that doesn’t mind a little weediness (they’re easy to remove if they pop up where they’re not welcome).
I started off 4 years ago with my garden super orderly and everything, but I’m starting to see the benefit of letting things go a little wild. I’m not exactly too keen on my flowers spreading indiscriminately though, so I do still deadhead them.
Last year a Lemmy user ( I think called Thrawn) mailed me some tomato seeds of their favorite varieties, plus some mammoth sunflowers. I sent them foxglove seeds. It made me feel connected. They have all sprouted and are growing vigorously. I’m excited to eat them! Brad’s Atomic Grape tomato and Sart Roloise.
Holy shit, I googled those tomatoes and they are beautiful looking.
Edit, the atomic.
I know right!!! I’m excited.
For the vegetable garden, our purple beans. They’re green beans with purple pods that turn green when cooked. My kid thinks they’re magic.
For our flowers, probably our anise hyssop. Or the frost aster that flowers when everything else is dying back for the winter.
I grabbed some purple beans on a whim. We have young kids and your post made me happy I got some. I personally find bean and pea flowers very pleasant to look at.
I like their flowers too. And the purple pods look really pretty along the green leaves
I wonder if that will swing the kids to my side of the fence. The one kid loves raw veggies, but cooked is a different story.
Fingers crossed! Mine’s very particular about her veggies too, although carrots and peas are the only ones she insists on being raw.
My dad used to grow purple beans all the time when I was a kid. I remember thinking it was neat that they changed colour.
Bit late for me since our flower season is almost over here.
But I’d say Brodiaea elegans is the star of late spring for me. Also looking forward to some jacarandas and trumpet trees if we are considering tree flowers too.
Hey that’s an OR native! nice!
Do you not have spring summer and fall flower options? I’ve got a range so there’s always something blooming.
We do but not nearly as many. So the peak season is over is all I mean. Very few unirrigated flowers from this point on in the year though. I usually don’t irrigate too much, mainly food plants.
But I guess my tomato flowers are starting to bloom so that’s something.
Oh man, I’m like another month before I think of planting anything outside.
Last frost isn’t for another 2 weeks minimum, and there’s usually one late snow dump to crush anything you were foolish to put out.
Haha we have opposite climates I guess. I’m out here sweating already. Not sure when our last frost was. Maybe January or February. Frost is only an intermittent thing here, and getting less common.
Yeah our frost lasts from mid sept through mid may. Gourds are all but impossible to grow.
Dahlias, this is my second year growing them, and I have expanded my collection this year with some beauties. I swear they are addictive!
We just did a half dozen mixed Dahlias along with a handful of other bulbs, and they are by far the most vigorous. They have leaves out and are reaching up more by the day.
I wasent expecting a bloom this year, but watching them go, we might get one.
They are stunning, and we’re the last thing to die last year. Once they get going, they are fantastic. Be sure to pinch the tops off the young plants to get even more growth as well
I love me some dahlias, but removing the tubers every year isn’t easy and risk them dieing easier as well. I’ve just been buying new bulbs every spring, I’ve still got some from last year to plant with them though.
It was surprisingly easy and pain-free for me, I didn’t do anything special other than dig them up and throw the clumps in a storage bin full of vermiculite in my basement. The only hard part is dividing them because I had no idea what I was doing this year. It would much less work of anyone who lived somewhere warmer, but I am in Alberta, and it’s too cold to overwinter them
In Calgary myself growmie, so totally hear you. I’m surprised my Lillie’s survive without pulling them to be honest.
Edit, but it does look like 2-3 may not have made it this time. They could just be late bloomers. I’ll see in a week or so I guess.
No deer? Our lilies rarely last more than a day before they become salad on the hoof.
I always look forward to the torpedo hydrangeas and the sheer variety of bees they bring.
Haven’t had an issue in the backyard, lots of rabbit poop though. Fence is decently tall, so good enough deterrent so far it seems.
I didn’t realize that some hydrangeas attract bees. We have a number of landscape hydrangeas and the bees largely ignore them. It’s not for lack of other bee friendly foods in our yard though. We overseed our lawn with clover that we let get to flower, have a bed of echinacia, another of milkweed, a large rose of sharon that the bees absolutely love, and some st. John’s wart (another favorite).
The only time I ever saw bees checking out the hydrangeas was in the fall when there were very few remaining options. It was kind of sad :(
I’m not sure what kind they are exactly, but here in New England they literally buzz from July to October. Rose of Sharon gets the humming birds to our yard.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a hummingbird in our rose of sharon, but I have seen some visiting our canna lilies. They were a very happy/welcome surprise.
Cascade and Mt. Hood hops!
Ohhh I love me some cascade hops. My buddy makes his own beer. He usually gets some cascade hops from his parents place.
Milkweed and butterflies
Obligatory disclaimer: it’s best to plant milkweed native to your region, and never plant tropical milkweed unless it’s native to your region (here’s why)
Too bad I don’t see a blue milkweed, the wife is looking for new options to expand the flower beds. Would need to check hardiness though too.
Less specific plants and more anticipating results for some new infrastructure.
On the left I’m trying potatoes in vertical towers. There’s about 8 inches of compost and soil in the bottom of each and as they grow, I’ll add more straw. I put some irrigation in the top of each, so we’ll see if it can penetrate down as it gets bigger.
On the right I’m scaling up an experiment from last season. I has some success with growing peas in pots next to trellising. Their roots make them perfectly happy in a pot, freeing up real estate in my other beds and allowing me to move the peas as I expand. My main issue last year was my trellis wasn’t pea-friendly, so we’re giving them more space and smaller spacing between trellis rungs (as they grow out, I’ll add some wire to the trellis to help them climb)
I’ve also got a squash arch, but that’s less exciting because I’ve seen them work
We tried some balcony potatoes in a thing from HD, didn’t go terribly was just a lot of extra work compared to the other veggies. Need soil to top up the crown.
You just gave me an idea for peas. I’m kinda saying eff my arm right I gotta get my garden ready. I do have a steroid shot, it’s just 2 months out unless a cancellation happens (obvs others are on list first too) so I’m expanding with 6x 4x2 metal beds. Doing it out of lumber was damn near the same price in the end WTF. I have two feet between them and dead space against the fence. I can maybe put a trellis on the fence with pea pots on the ground!
I did potatoes in tubs last year. Few inches of rich soil and instead of mounding dirt, just building up in straw. I found they needed to be watered a bit more often, but I got a nice bunch of potatoes from the ones that didn’t rot (had some drainage issues). I’m hoping I might be able to address that rot and create more vertical space with these guys. Maybe also get some more leaves out and feeding the plant from the sides. We’ll see. I’m still a tater tot.
Sucks for the arm, but I feel you. I do agricultural contracting and I’m already feeling it on days I just wanna get some stuff done. Every old injury I got usually has something to say during the week.
And man, prices are nuts for materials still. Instead of building more beds this year I also went with some prefab solutions. Only paid about $20 more than what I would have paid for the materials and both went together in under an hour. I’m getting more next year, hopefully.
That’s a pretty good idea, too. Peas don’t weigh as much as other vines, so you could probably just hook something over the fence rather than having to drill into it. Take it off with all the vines on in the summer and clean it up for the fall grow
Do you think this would make good pea lattice? I’ve got some length and I was gonna toss them.
Hell yeah. Maybe brace it with some plywood on the ends or something, but that’s about perfect
Yeah I would space it from the fence with some 2x, my worry was is the slates were too wide or not.
Egyptian Walking Onions & sunchokes
I’ve been meaning to try some garlic and onions myself. Maybe I should just bite the bullet.
The cool thing about Egyptian Walking Onions is instead of flowers they have air-bulbs that you can plant for next year’s plants or eat them as pearl onions.
So excited for my dwarf tomatoes again this year! They were fantastic producers last year and I’m hoping for even better this year with better placement in the sunniest spots in my yard.
For flowers, I have a bunch of natives that I think are going to actually take off this year after several years of struggling with rabbits. Nodding onions, heart-leaved aster, and goldenrod to name a few.
Honestly I’m just excited for SOMETHING to grow. Winter is so long here 😭
I hear you growmie, the city is 3a-4b myself. So my buddy has 1 foot tall plants and I’m barely able to turn my soil yet.
I bought some of those GMO Purple tomatoes and I am super psyched to try them out. Right now I have three plants in pots indoors, one cutting in water (extra seedling from one of the pots) and some in my seed starting tray (which I over watered so they’re not doing so hot). I’m planning to start hardening them off next month.
Those things look intense. If you’re interested, heirloom tomatoes come in a ton of different colors. In my experience, they also tend to have a lot more flavor than hybrids.
Happy growing! If this is your first go round with tomatoes be sure to have a tall cage. Every “short” verity I’ve ever grown always eventually reaches 6+ feet tall…
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has a whole bunch of open-pollinated/heirloom vegetables/fruits of unusual colors (their website front page at the moment just so happens to be showcasing many examples of their purple produce!)
I try to mostly grow open-pollinated/non-hybrid/non-GMO plants because it means that I have the option to save seeds and know the offspring will be the same variety with the same traits. I also don’t have to worry if I want to sell produce at my local farmer’s market that I’m going to get sued by some asshole at Big Ag for selling a “patented” plant (which as preposterous as it sounds can actually happen).
I had an infant staghorn fern and then took a job in Japan and left it with my mother to look after. After 5 years I’m moving back next week and looking forward to picking it up and putting it at my new place. It took a few years and a lot of banana peels but it really took off the last 18 months or so.
That’s quite the interesting foliage on that one!
I’m planning to grow some cantaloupes this year. I started them in jiffy pots about a month ago. They’ve started sprouting and now my son keeps asking if we can move them to the garden yet.
Nice! I’ve got some watermelons snd cantaloupes started about 2 weeks ago to plant outside end of May.
Waiting for my Hostas to come in tbh.
Hosta pasta :( stupid deer… They do look nice if you don’t have a deer problem and the plants are very easy to care for.
Ooohhh I had some hostas, but they didnt last the year. I can’t recall what the issue was, a few came back, but they were haggard, I think it just got too hot and sunny for the ones we had. I did like them though.
