Poll: Along the Food line... gardens.

[SkyrMommy]

I've been thinking about the food threads & other gardening/lawn questions lately and I was wondering what kind of 'green thumb' demographics we have here. But knowing all the tilling, weeding, planting, weeding, watering & more weeding that goes into any kind of garden I didn't know how common it was.

Our family has quite a 'growing' home with flowers, both perennial & annuals, a veggie garden with everything from spinach to peas to corn, fruit trees, raspberry patch, strawberry patch & an herb plot. I enjoy the colors of the flowers & boy is summer nice with all the fresh things from the garden.

I also read a great article in our local newspaper about several community gardens that allow 10x10' plots for families that may not have the yard to garden, but would like to grow their own produce. Please choose multiple options like herbs & vegetables if that applies... I figured the other might be containers on a deck, hanging tomatoes, or fruit trees!

[brittone2]

nak-
2 square ft garden beds, some herbs, flowers

eta: if you don't want to till, weed, etc. the sq foot gardening book is great.

[Melaine]

A very small container garden with 6-8 pots: a few veggies, several herbs and a small flowering pot just for fun. Actually, all of it is just for fun, but I have found the herbs to be the most useful and productive.

[Seitvonzu]

i just ticked of "herbs" -- we live in a townhome, so everything i've ever done is container gardening. i usually do some herbs and a couple years i did tomatos.

this year we're doing some "cutting flowers" started from seeds. we'll see-- it's very experimental but so far we have pretty successful germination :) we love watching our "sprouts"

[fivi2]

most of our stuff is just for fun, but the herbs are useful. I just kind of stick plants in various areas where we get sun (shady yard), so except for my herb garden most of it is not what I'd call a "garden". (4 tomato plants and some cukes in a spot by a fence, beans and sunflowers in another sunny patch, etc). But I now have a box to try to do some square foot gardening (except I need to hurry if I want to still plant anything!).

[o_mom]

I voted flowers and vegetables. Really, mostly vegetables now. The previous house was mostly flowers/landscape plants. We use lasagna-style gardening for the veggies, so no tilling, weeding, etc. Mulch in the landscape beds also cuts the weeding drastically. I water the veggies and annuals when dry, but expect the rest of the plants to be self-sufficient.

[secchick]

We have flower beds in the front and around the patio, but I did sneak some aloe in back in a container to use for skin irritations. When we built our house and did the landscaping, I intentionally put a bed in just for a vegetable garden. The first year, I put in rosemary (which has done awesome), a blueberry bush, a raspberry bush, and strawberry plants. I just picked my first strawberries this weekend. I dug up my rasperry bush and gave it to my sister this weekend, because it will become too invasive and in its place I put in cherry tomatoes. I am also trying a watermelon this year, but that will take up pretty much all the room. I put the bed the corner of the yard, so it's a quarter circle, and its about a 5-6 feet radius. We'll probably do carrots next year or snap peas or potatoes. I have the green thumb and DH detests working outside, so I wasn't able to do as much as I wanted with having a newborn/baby to take care of. I need to do more planning with respect to planting seeds, rather than just buying what's available at the garden place.

ETA: the yard and flowers otherwise tilts towards low-maintenance plants. Plants must be able to take the heat of the summer and a freeze or two in winter. This unusually cold winter did in my hibiscus, and most of the flowers are things like begonias that last multiple years here. Azaleas, knockout roses and dwarf gardenias complete the beds.

[smiles33]

I voted none, but to be fair, I apparently am good at growing weeds. :D I'm always yanking weeds out. When we have more discretionary funds, the plan is to take out the water-sucking lawn and put in hardscape (like an outdoor kitchen and a large patio) and low-maintenance native plants/grasses.

[almostamom]

We bought a raised bed garden (http://www.gardeners.com/Two-Tier-Raised-Bed/Landscaping_RaisedBeds,36-389,default,cp.html) last year. It worked well for tomatoes, zucchini, and herbs so that's what we stuck with this year. We did add one strawberry plant. I'm hoping that DH will build a much larger raised bed next year so that we can expand.

Linda

[newg]

we usually do herbs, tomatoes and flowers. But this year we are also doing a veggie garden and some strawberries too.

[Raidra]

Fruits, veggies, herbs, and (minimal) flowers.

[shawnandangel]

I have a flower garden in my front yard, along with blueberry bushes along the side of my house. In the back I grow a vegetable and herb garden.

[daisymommy]

I want so badly to have a vegetable and herb garden, but I kill even houseplants :( I'm afraid it wouldn't be worth my time, energy and money to even try. Sniff-sniff. Pout-pout.

[kijip]

We have 3 sf gardening beds that I am getting more than a late start on (ugh) and we have about 6 rose bushes.

[newg]

For those that have limited space or a hard time keeping plants alive you should try an Earth Box!!
http://www.earthbox.com/index.php

we got one for at our old house where we couldn't have a veggie garden (and didn't have sunlight in the right place anyways)

You don't have to worry about watering nearly as much......weeds.......or space!

We are putting two tomatoe plants in ours this year.

[SkyrMommy]

I want so badly to have a vegetable and herb garden, but I kill even houseplants :( I'm afraid it wouldn't be worth my time, energy and money to even try. Sniff-sniff. Pout-pout.

Don't let the 'indoor black thumb' as I call it stop you... I have terrible luck with indoor plants - luckily DH is good about watering and such. But outside... my green thumb comes out!

Maybe start small with a little 2x2' or 4x4' plot with a few 'test' plants. See how they do this year, what you like & then add on from there. :hug5:

[jse107]

Flowers in several beds in the yard and two veggie gardens--one raised bed along the back fo the deck and one 20x20ish one set off to the side. We grow tomatoes, peppers, zuchinni, winter squash, beets, peas, beans, and cucumbers.

[C99]

I am not a gardener. I like fresh produce, but I don't know what the heck I am doing! I manage to grow some tomatoes every year, and I've managed to keep some herbs alive year after year (actually,the chives are threatening to take over all the grass), but that is about where it ends. I keep saying that I need to hire a landscaper, but it's low on the money list these days as we are not going to sell our house anytime soon. I have good intentions, but I just don't enjoy this particular task. I realize that few people enjoy the hard work, but enjoy the outcome. But I'd rather paint furniture than attempt to grow stuff in my scrubby little yard.

[sail731]

We are in the middle of digging up our yard to start a vegetable garden. Have done the container growing the last 2 years and wanted something more. So now we are digging up sod and using retaining wall bricks to create a 5x10 garden for veggies. So far so good. I hope things grow well so that I can justify the time and money we have put into the project.

[hellokitty]

Planning to do some container gardening (veggies) this yr, I just need to get my act together. DH gets huge containers from work that would be perfect for the self watering containers.