Why I Oughta...

Earlier this month, I started trays of three different varieties of Zinnias:  State Fair, Cut-and-Come-Again and Envy.  I tucked a couple of seeds into each cell and hoped for the best.  I've kept these seedlings in the screened porch for their first few nights, then moved them outside to get full sun.  And...hopefully...to avoid becoming too leggy.  As Zinnias do, the seeds germinated.  And, germinated in big numbers.  Almost every cell has multiple seedlings that I'll need to thin out.  They're just putting on their first set of real leaves, so I'll wait a little bit longer before pulling out and thinning them. Here's how the trays look this week:  My plan is to fill up the Greenstalk tower with one Zinnia plant per pocket.  And, I'll tuck a few into the landscape, too.  Looks like I have seven full trays of eight plants each; giving me 56 Zinnias.  

Here's a top-down look at the top few tiers of our Greenstalk vertical garden showing off some of the Zinnias (Cut-and-Come Again and another variety that I grew from last season's seeds) popping off.  I direct sow'd both of these and they're doing fairly well as they *just* enter their blooming season.   Also, peeking through (on the left) is a Rosemary plant that is growing in between some of the cut flowers.   #2 on my 2024 to-do list was to 'push thru on flowers' - including cut flowers .  These Zinnias in the Greenstalk help check that box.  Of course, all the Dahlias lead the way on #2 as well.   See below for the current state of the top-tiers of our Greenstalk: Next year, one tweak I'll make is to think about starting some Zinnias indoors from seed instead of direct sowing them to get them starting blooming a bit earlier than mid/late August.  

I brought home a Giant Marconi Hybrid Sweet Pepper plant from the Morton Arboretum Plant Sale this Spring and - along with some other things - I stuck it into our Greenstalk tower.  It went into the bottom row in a deep pocket - and then I used the on-board tomato cage to sort-of train it up and give it some support.  The plant has thrown off one big pepper so far.  You can see it below.  Long, thin and (for now) green.  I'm going to see if it will redden-up on the plant. #19 on my 2024 to-do list is to keep going on vegetables .  I feel good about tomatoes in the raised bed and now add to things a nice-looking pepper and I feel like I've gotten back into the veggie game a little bit more this year.   The other thing that I'm remembering is that pepper plants don't produce A TON of fruit.  They take up space, but aren't productive.  That's ok, just something to remember.  

Yesterday, I posted a photo of our first broccoli crown that has emerged and talked about our vertical vegetable garden container called a Greenstalk.  I put six Lieutenant Broccoli plants in one of the deeper rows in the middle of the tower.  In this earlier post , I covered a few of the other things in the vertical garden including herbs and a bell pepper plant.  In a few of the rows/levels, I also planted some Zinnia seeds as cut flowers, but that left one deep row (third from the bottom) empty.   Because it is one of the deeper Greenstalk levels, I thought we'd try something new (to us) in container gardening:  carrots.  In our previous, raised-bed garden in Elmhurst, we grew plenty of carrots from seeds.  My problem was NEVER getting the seeds to germinate, my problem was always in thin-ing them out enough to grow good-sized carrots.  Here's a post about the time I used carrot tape (went very well) and here's a series of posts from 201...

Our kids eat broccoli all the time.  I'm a baby carrot eater.  Somehow, they've become a raw broccoli crown eater.  That's why we're trying to grow our own in the Greenstalk this year.  Last week, I posted an overview of what is in the Greenstalk tower - including six Lieutenant broccoli plants in one of the middle rows of the unit.   This variety is supposed to be suited for warm weather, so we're hoping that they will perform over the Summer.  And, early signs are positive - with an early crown emerging on one of the plants.  See below for a look at one of the broccoli crowns: In our previous garden, I grew some broccoli, so I *somewhat* know how to recognize when a broccoli crown is ready to harvest.  I also know that if it starts to flower and go yellow, it needs to be cut off immediately.   It seems like it might also be time to feed the tower with a food-grade fertilizer like Miracle-Gro.  

Day four of Zinnia-mania - but now we move from beyond IB2DWs to the new cut flower bed that I carved out on the side of our house.   For 2024 plantings with Zinnias, I first  posted the details of some common orange Zinnias that I planted as bedding plants .  A day earlier, I planted a larger, further-along  Uproar Rose Zinnia  from the nursery.   Then, yesterday I planted a Zowie Yellow Flame Zinnia in the conifer garden IB2DWs .  I pinched off all the blooms on these to try to get them to grow a bit more bushier.   But, I'm also going full-on Zinnia Chaos Gardener with the new bed on the southside of the house .  I bought a couple of packets of Cut-and-Come-Again Zinnias and decided to direct sow them in the bed.  Did I evenly space them?  No, just kind-of scattered them.  Here's the bed recently planted - you can see anything but loam/dirt/mulch/compost/biosolids of course: I also put some in the Greenstalk ...

Number four on my 2023 to-do list was to 'get (more) serious with vegetables'.   And, despite not really posting about it, I think we've (sort-of) done that - by planting up a Greenstalk vertical container garden.  This Spring, I filled it out with a mix of herbs and vegetables (fruits) and we're seeing some of them set fruit right now.  We harvested these strawberries from the Greenstalk .  Below are a few signs of the tomatoes that we planted in the bottom row of the Greenstalk - the Red Robin dwarf plant from the Morton Sale and both a Rutgers Heirloom and a Roma Paste from the orange big box store.  What was the reason for these three?  They're all DETERMINATE tomatoes.   Which means...they grow to a specific size and stop.  Other, vining tomatoes can just.keep,growing.  Since this is a container-situation, I figured determinate varieties were the right choice.   Also, these are tomatoes that are known to be slicers/...

If you buy strawberry plants once, you'll have strawberries for years, they say.  We started with container-grown bareroot strawberry plants in 2018 .  And, guess what?  They ESCAPED.  Now, we have Strawberry groundcover in one of our beds.   Back in 2019 - I called them 'volunteer' strawberries and thought it was cute.  But, they they spread.  And spread.  I ripped some out.  They came back.  I ripped out more.  They came back . But, we haven't eaten any of the strawberries in the years since they grew in 2019.  2020, 2021, 2022 were all strawberry-free years.  Why?  Well...we did *grow* strawberries.  But, they were gobbled up by the critters.  This year, however is different. In addition to leaving the strawberry groundcover in place, I also dug out eight plants and put them in our vertical Greenstalk tower.  After a period of transplant shock, they stabilized and began to throw off strawberries...