Think I’m gonna take several bits of inspiration from this and try and sprout some herb seeds I’ve had kicking around for a while
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I’m trying to cultivate the moss that falls off my roof but the dang wildlife keeps raking it up to get to the compost I put underneath (to drop the pH)
Awesome! In a lot of places, now is the time to do it I guess.
I got all excited again after spending so long yesterday organizing my plant photos. I dried some basil flowers last year and kept them in a closet, so I spent some time yesterday getting the seeds out of them. Gonna also plant some from the original basil seed packet tomorrow to see if the ones I harvested grow any differently.
I know that seed companies are required to sell seeds that have a certain % viability. I don’t know how they control for that so I assume that some of the ones I collected and planted today are no good.
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this thread has inspired me to start a garden on my patio once it warms up. i also have a book on green magic and a zine that talks about different herbs and wild plants. looking forward to trying this at some point!
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Over the last week I’ve done a few new plant things.
I suspended the stub of a celery bunch in a can of water. it’s started to grow a little clump of leaves and stem in the center–I hope to be able to put it in dirt later this week and get seeds from it in the same way I got seeds from the bok choy.
My mother in law also gave me a sprouted onion, and I’ve done the same thing there–but I put that one direct in dirt. I used one of those gigantic empty plastic Red Vines tubs you can get that come with an unhealthy amount of Red Vines in them… last year after I got vaccinated I went to a party and brought just a shit ton of Red Vines because I thought it was funny, then took the tubs and I’ve been saving them for months to use as planters. Now is my chance!! Hope it’s big enough for an onion.
Planted some “cinnamon basil” in addition to some basil seeds harvested from the plants I grew last year. Hoping to plant some thai basil too soon and get just unlimited smelly leaf plants. That’s what I want!! To eat tasty leaves!!
Finally, I ordered a 16" diameter potato grow bag in the mail and have started throwing the roots, stems, and rooty dirt from the plants i harvest in there, where I break them up with a shovel. Hoping to get a big pile of dirt and grow fingerlings or something in there later this spring. I gotta get some suitable potatoes at the grocery store and let them sprout! I think it would be very amusing to grow a whole harvest of potatoes on my balcony. It won’t be worth it moneywise but it WILL be very funny.
Additionally, I’ll be able to re-use the potato dirt and grow bag during next winter to grow lettuces, which I think might be a better use of containers and space than what I did this winter. I’ve got nine total lettuces going right now and have basically no room for anything else. Next year, with the grow bag, I’ll have more room for bok choy, which grows much faster around here and is much more productive.
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Got a lot of cute little pepper seedlings in individual pots now. Preparing to give a bunch away to my coworkers and neighbors… I joined a buy nothing group and I hope these will be popular there! Got shishito peppers (the big ones) and thai ornamental chilis. Amusingly the shishito pepper tray had mushrooms!! growing in it. I probably killed the mycelium when I repotted em all though
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Where Are They Now? Plant Edition…
Bok Choy
Where are these seeds now? Well, one of them is full-grown and is creating the second generation of seeds. It is multiple feet tall now and seems to grow several inches a day. It began getting tall the week of March 17th…
And now it looks like this:
Celery
On January 15th, I tried to copy my bok choy trick and regrow the stub of a grocery store celery in water…
Now it looks like this:
Shishito Peppers
Some of these peppers died. Others have entered a mysterious stunted stage, where they refuse to grow any larger. Two shishito peppers are doing well now out of the whole bunch! Very strange. It’s really a mystery to me why some of the peppers have gotten huge and others are basically unchanged from the ones I photographed here over a month ago. Anyway, here’s one of the winners:
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found this thread thru some late night browsing SB recently. skelephone’s post inspired me to start growing some herbs. So easy! Just do it! Look at these growing babies. Lemon verbena did not like being transplanted but we’ll see how it goes!
Got parsley, cilantro, and lettuces outside. Anise hyssop with the verbena and mint on the side.
Inside is Thai basil, Genovese basil, thyme, cat nip, and now destroyed cat grass.
I always kill my plants, but this time will be different!!
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Continuing the saga of my cactus that became elongated due to lack of light, its progeny now occupies two pots. The main part still seems to want to grow oddly, with some of the pads pointed downward. If I keep cutting them off and planting them separately, this is going to get out of hand.
For some reason, tomatoes have never really taken off for me, despite several attempts over the years. Probably because I forget to water them as often as I should when it hasn’t been raining much. But this year my tomatoes are doing very well and I’ve been eating them right off the plants every day.
I have cherry tomatoes and Roma tomatoes, the latter of which I’m happy to see succeed because they are my favorite to use when I make salsa. I also have several kinds of peppers that are starting to produce to some degree. Those I can use for salsa as well.
Speaking of peppers, I got this “ornamental” pepper plant a couple years ago because I liked the way it looked. Not edible as far as I know. There was a time some months ago when it looked almost totally dead, but it still had a few green parts. So I cut off everything but the green parts, thinking that might either kill it or save it, and it saved it.
I’ve recently been thinking of trying to grow mushrooms, just for fun. Either the kind you can eat or just some that look interesting. Maybe both.
Edit: I just looked it up and you can eat ornamental peppers. They are reportedly very spicy and not very flavorful.
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I got this little dq slime pot thats supposed to look like an herb bag from super potato earlier this year
The basil is growing slowly but seems to be doing well with what light it gets on this windowsill
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I was watering my milkweed plant today and noticed that there were monarch caterpillars all over it.
I’ve tried to grow artichokes and broccoli before and utterly failed, but they seem to be doing a lot better this time. Maybe because I’m using fertilizer for the first time. I guess that’s important?
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I planted cabbage last year and it got pretty huge. I harvested it just now (Cubivore toy included for scale).
In this thread’s initial post I mentioned the tamarillos that I tried and failed to grow. I am going to try those again this year.
Edit: I steamed one-fourth of the cabbage head.
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Wow what a beaut
How was it
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HOW IS IT ROASTED
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It was good. Maybe I will prepare each quarter a different way.
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Unbelievably perfect cabbage, oh my god. Kind of intimidating
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This tree was taller than my house. I cut it down to a 2.5’ trunk and figured it was going to rot. Now that the weather has been warmer, it’s exploding with life. I started shaping it into a little tree 
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I’ve tried once or twice before but always failed to grow artichokes (my favorite vegetable since I was very young). This time, it worked. My plant grew three of them. I ate two the other day and I’m leaving the biggest one on the plant so I can see what it looks like when it blooms.
I’ve been so focused on my artichokes that I hadn’t noticed that the adjacent cucumber plant was producing the largest cucumbers I’ve ever grown (board game piece added for size reference). One of them was my lunch today.
I also planted a squash plant (butternut, I think) that someone gave me a while back and it’s trying to take over my entire little garden area. I might end up having to cut it back at some point.
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That cuce looks delish
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artichokes have horrible yield/area ratio imo (they don’t taste that good) but the flowers are gorgeous
old mate dug up some jerusalem artichokes from the roof the other day and made a soup last night. it was delicious but i sure have been farting all day
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