I am wondering how many of us here are in the warmer zones...
Depending on where I look, I am either in zone 10a, 10b, or 11... I live in San Diego, where there are several microclimates. I'll have to ask some locals about my specific community.
I am new to gardening and have a small space. I want to have some fun with digging in the dirt and growing things this year.
Me!! But I'm on the east coat, right on the 9b/10a border. I pretty much follow all the 10 guidelines as I think it's more accurate to my climate (9a tends to get the cooler temps, so since I'm on the south end of 9a, I just go with 10).
We're getting into some really hot weather and I'm hoping all my tomatoes fruit before it gets too hot. I'm already watering twice a day. Day before yesterday I forgot to water at all and the next morning my cucumbers were SHRIVELED. I was doubtful they'd come back, but they seem fine.
When I'm done with this harvest I'm going to wait until September to replant. That was plan all along, but I found a few sites that talk about gardening through the summer here in the sub tropics so I decided to give it a shot. I was too impatient to wait! All the advice was the same - water, water, WATER!
However, I'm thinking of breaking down and getting a soaker hose. That would make life so much easier.
We started with strawberries and thyme (two separate pots) in full sun. They are visible from the kitchen, so we won't forget about them. LOL I don't recall any watering instructions, though.
i'm in zone 9b/10 depending on where you look and i live coastside in the SF bay area. we're having 80 degree days all this week! perfect for tomatoes!! hooray.
I am a novice gardener, so we just started with strawberries and thyme in containers.
I have been working on our sandy/rocky soil for years and finally put some gladiola bulbs in back in February, which are growing!
We also planted some freesia and anemone bulbs, which are not growing, so I planted some purple Bacopa over them. All of the above call for full sun, which is what we mostly have in our tiny backyard. (In-ground items are in a very small planting bed.)
In our larger planting bed, I have grown clover just to turn over for "green" (or is it "brown"?) waste in the bigger soil-enriching picture. Then, we tossed out some random seeds since they failed to start anything indoors. On a second try with fresh seeds, we successfully grew some in peat pellets indoors and tossed the remaining out in the planting bed. When the inside ones had a few leaves, we planted them in the outside bed. They died. One sets of seeds thrown out in the bed, however, has taken off in the full shade areas. I have no idea what it is! LOL Meanwhile, we planted some lavender halo cooler vincas, bright pink vincas, and white impatiens on Mother's Day in the bed, ranging from the mostly sun to full shade length of it (in that order).
We'll see what happens next. We also do vermicomposting directly in the soil in both beds. That is DD's favorite part of gardening! Feeding and finding the worms makes her a very HAPPY gardener.
I'm in S. Florida, so I think it's zone 10/11. Anyway, it's been hot, today is 94 and dry. So I'm doing an asian veggies garden for summer, with things like yardlong beans, amaranth, asparagus bean, bitter melon. Next month I'm going to start various salady type plants. So far all are still in pots and containers, I'm redoing last years bed and adding another bed.
Plus okra, watermelon, cucumber, and some odd beets and tomato sprouts. I'm going to see if I can grow the tomatoes under partial shade(actually it's full sun for a couple of hours). And when full summer heat comes, it should also be the rainy season, so I hopefully won't have to water as much then.
I also have a couple of basil types, chinese chives, lemongrass and perilla.
Oh, and starfruit and a couple of avocado trees in containers. There's a bunch of other fruit trees in the ground, but I hardly have to do anything there.
I installed a drip watering system on a timer, because we're on watering restrictions, and it's just more efficient anyway. So it's watering early in the morning when I'm still asleep. I also have a rainbarrel, but I'm just about empty there. It hasn't rained this month hardly at all.
I was thinking about a rain barrel when I first started reading here and then I came to my senses. LOL We get about 10 inches of rain PER YEAR. A rain barrel would not exactly be a good use (or source) of resources for us.
You'd be surprised about how quickly you can fill the rain barrel, especially from runoff from a roof. We get lots of rain from june-november, then not so much, and pretty dry in feb-may. I've been watering my container plants from the barrel for the last 2 weeks. It saves on some water usage, and is not chlorinated .
I've added orchids to our garden. Or rather, I've decided to muck around with the ones we've had for over 10 years and have never touched. And I got a few that were half off(finished blooming/half dead) to add to the collection.
I'm in L.A...zone 10/11-- I only container garden because of lack of space.
So far, I have tomatoes,cukes , cilantro and chard growing on my deck-- I had basil and eggplant too, but the dog dug them up
. The chard is doing well even in the heat, I just give the plants a little shade during the hot afternoon.
For those of us in hot/dry climates, do any of you use greywater in your gardens? I know it can be useful in ornamental beds, but do any of you use it on edibles? I'm talking about using dishwater or shower water, provided you use natural/biodegradable soap, etc...
I don't use greywater because all I water are the edible items and I only have strawberries and thyme right now. It's easy to collect this little bit of water just in dinner prep.
I'm in coastal North County. I'm slowly taking out our landscaping to grow fruits and veggies. I planted a dwarf valencia orange tree in March. We also are growing strawberries, tomatoes, chard, bell peppers, Thai chilies, serrano peppers, summer squash, snap peas, cucumbers, and herbs (basil, oregano, dill, mint, and thyme).
If all goes well, we'll have more space for our fall/winter garden. I also want to take out some giant birds of paradise trees and put in more fruit trees.
Originally Posted by cloudswinger
You'd be surprised about how quickly you can fill the rain barrel, especially from runoff from a roof. We get lots of rain from june-november, then not so much, and pretty dry in feb-may. I've been watering my container plants from the barrel for the last 2 weeks. It saves on some water usage, and is not chlorinated .
We are installing rain barrels. But we won't have any rain until November!
Originally Posted by cloudswinger
I've added orchids to our garden. Or rather, I've decided to muck around with the ones we've had for over 10 years and have never touched. And I got a few that were half off(finished blooming/half dead) to add to the collection.
What are you doing to revive them? I have many past their "prime" in my house.
Originally Posted by marlyninla
What are you doing to revive them? I have many past their "prime" in my house.
I'm learning that orchids are a whole other ball game. There's a couple of forums that are just dedicated to orchids, and some that are dedicated to specific types. So basically it depends on what you have, what's wrong with them, whether they're suited for your conditions etc. Apparently many orchids are sold that are beautiful in the store, but are not really suited for your climate, so it won't rebloom for you without some work. They're essentially sold as cut flowers. But basically I've been repotting after trimming off rotted roots and watching how much water they get.
TheresaZofia: I'd probably be willing to use greywater on the fruit trees, but not so much the veggies and greens.
Progress: I planted a couple of cuke plants in a bed under a tree, and one plant wilted and died. Apparently it was in a spot were there was a hole in the canopy. Full noon sun in Florida at this time of year is obviously brutal! I haven't had good luck with those cukes(Lemon cucumbers), so far none have made it to fruiting, since I tried last year and had a batch of seedlings die earlier this year too. Still have some live ones though, so I have some hope. Beets have died, tomatoes are still growing, half my basil plants were eating by something. And the rainy season really hasn't come yet. My barrel is almost empty.
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