It all starts with seeds...

Made an error, sorry.

I noticed this with me and my mother when it comes to plants, not that I've had any luck since I've been in Singapore mind you. My mother's considered by all to be a brilliant gardener, someone who can grow stuff indoors and outdoors really well, veg, flowering plants, shrubs... no problem. When I went away to university she was left in charge of my indoor foliage plants (I can't keep flowering plants at all!) and she killed every single one of them before the end of the first year!

I think the answer is to accept your limitations and stick with whatever you know you're good at. Not only must you like tomates, but you're obviously good with them too. Maybe you should try other similar veg like capsicum and chili peppers too, if you like them of course! If the violet you're talking about is an African violet, with the fuzzy leaves, I know a lot of people who can kill those, so don't feel bad! Getting water on the leaves is always a bad plan and they are fussy about their soil. My mother makes it look easy but I could never get a single one to survive long enough flower.

Good luck with your garden though. I've been living in flats for nearly 10yrs now, after university accommodation before that, so I'm greatly looking forward to having the chance to really grow stuff (when we move back to the UK this summer) and have a garden to walk around in (not our own to start with because we'll be renting a while).

Kerri.

Hello! I know I'm still learning how to grow different plants, but the ones outside seem to do a whole lot better in general. I wouldn't have a violet indoors at all except that my mother-in-law bought it for me. At least it didn't die right away! I try to bring a few herbs inside for the winter so I can clip them and use them in the kitchen, but they don't usually make it all the way through. Usually they're in some out-of-the-way place and I just forget about them.

It's so nice to have some space to grow vegetables in! When we rented, we had a balcony and I grew tomatoes and herbs in pots on it. It wasn't the same as having a garden, but they did grow and produce. There wasn't a spigot out there, though, so it was inconvenient to water them. I hope you'll have somewhere you can grow something, even if you're renting! We just bought this house about a year and a half ago, and the first thing I did last spring was put in a vegetable garden. Peppers are a thought, but I don't think I use them enough. My husband doesn't like them very much. I do use cucumbers along with tomatoes in Greek salads all summer, though, so I think I'll try some of them again. Last year all 4 cucumber plants I had died by midsummer. I think it was a combination of insect damage and drought (I should've watered more). My cantalope plants died off, too, and I couldn't really pinpoint a cause for them. One of my neighbors suggested sandier soil--we've got hard red clay here, and even with the addition of topsoil it's not exactly sandy. I'm not sure what else I'll put in my garden this year. There are a lot of vegetables I've never tried growing--is it hard to grow onions or potatoes? Or maybe broccoli, that'd be good for us. I'll probably go down to the local garden shop in a month or so and see what they've got that looks good.

I need to work on the front flowerbeds this year, too--they've been taken over by crabgrass because I neglected them last year. Maybe this year I can reclaim them and plant some irises (my favorite!) I think whoever lived here before must have really enjoyed puttering in the garden. Personally, I'd rather have a low-maintenance garden if I can: put it in, water it, and come back for vegetables or pretty flowers!

is my advice. The cucumbers and cantalopes are water hogs and need to be watered A LOT. So if you don't like watering your veggie garden, I'd advise against the high water content ones like squashes and melons. Unless you have a river bank you can plant them next to.

For my garden this year I'm thinking along these lines: we like to make lots and lots of salsa so I want to plant tomatoes, of course, green, red, yellow, and orange bell peppers, onions, cilantro, and one hot pepper bush.

We also love vegetable salads in the summer made of tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers and onions with a garlic/black pepper/red wine vinegar dressing. So add to the list above: cucumbers.

I also want to start making my own kim chee and saurkraut, so add on: chinese cabbage and regular cabbage.

My daughter is crazy about peas, so I'd like to plant those too, but it's starting to get too late to plant them, I may have to do that next year.

I don't want to plant too much for me to handle. If I get a big bumper crop, the produce will start to spoil before I can eat or preserve them all. I lost a peck of green onions that way last year. So I'm trying not to be too ambitious.

Sounds like you're going to have fun! Good luck!
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"If you want yor children to be bright, read them fairytales-- if you want them to be brilliant, read them even more fairytales" Albert Einstein

although the gourd-like plants (melons, cucumbers, etc) will need lots of water they probably wouldn't like being waterlogged, and if you've got clay I imagine the water doesn't drain away that well - possibly some of your plants may have rotted from damp if you had a few days of rain at any point. If you can add some sand to improve drainage or find any other way of improving your soil it would probably help. Ask at a good garden centre because they usually have good suggestions.

one thing I remember about potatoes is that once you've planted them one year you'll ALWAYS have potatoes in that space, whether you want them or not. Even if you grass over you could still end up with potato plants growing through! So think carefully. There might be smaller varieties you could plant in huge pots though.

I think onions are susceptible to rotting at the top if you do get waterlogged - probably a good idea to look into that. Get every book you can out of the library and find out what soils suit what veg. I seem to recall that having flowers around that are popular with bees is a good way of ensuring your various veg plants get pollinated. My mother always has sweetpeas and chives nearby. Oh, yes her zucchini grow incredibly well, but again that's a water guzzler - many veg plants seem to be. But fi you expect a huge crop make sure you have veg that can be frozen easily or that you know how to preserve. Zucchini freeze very easily, and so do the tomatoes of course. If you don't want to preserve then freezing will be your main method of dealing with excess crop, other than swapping!

This is getting me really itchy to start growing things, but I shall definitely spend part of the summer learning from my mother first to avoid expensive mistakes!

Kerri.

We make a variation on that tomato/cucumber/onion salad, too--one of the best things I brought back from studying in Greece was that recipe. I don't particularly like green peppers, so I leave them out. Definitely need to have tomatoes and cucumbers in my garden, though.

The clay does seem to be slow to drain, despite the topsoil I tilled in when I prepared the bed. I've got an iris patch I think I'm going to have to move because it's in an especially wet location. Looking up suitable vegetables sounds like a great idea--also the flowering plants. I wonder if herbs would do it? I usually try to plant some rosemary, mint, parsley, sage, oregano, and basil (lots of basil!) somewhere. Some of them I plant in pots so I can take them indoors for winter (poor things). I've been watching my sister-in-law's parsley grow huge, though, and I think maybe I should plant some herbs in the ground, too.

Good to know about potatoes and onions! I've never tried growing either. My parents used to grow lots of (huge) zucchini. I like them, but my husband really dislikes them. I'd never be able to use them up. I wonder how corn would do? I know it takes a lot of water, too. My parents said they grew some once and the raccoons stole all of it just before it was ripe. Green beans are also a thought--we don't seem to have the rabbits that were so pesky with those (they ate everything but one leaf, so the plant would grow back again!) and anyway, I've got a deer fence around my garden. It doesn't stop the bugs and voles, though.

Thanks again!

'We also love vegetable salads in the summer made of tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers and onions with a garlic/black pepper/red wine vinegar dressing'

Anhata, that sounds lovely. The combination of this thread and sunshine here yesterday made me go out and buy salad yesterday. All the components are lurking in my fridge or cupboard - how exactly should I put them together?

I sowed sweet pea seeds at the weekend, they are one of my favorites. Last summer I picked them every couple of days and had little vases of them in every room in the house. I also have seeds for mesembreanthemums and ten week stocks which I'll be sowing soon. I'm also planning tomatoes, but I'll be buying plants not seeds and it's a bit early here yet. Still danger of frost for a while yet, and I don't have a greenhouse. I'm hoping the dog won't eat the tomatoes straight off the plants!

My sister-in-law wanted to go to a big garden center to look at their roses (and other flowers), and I tagged along. It was kind of pricey, so I resisted the herbs for the moment (plus, I think it's a little early for me to start planting them), but I did bring home four pots of irises (yay!) I wanted to get some anyway. I bought an iris variegata (pale/dark striped green leaves and purple blooms), a Siberian iris that's supposed to be white and blue, and two Japanese irises, one white and one purple. I've had the variegata and the Japanese irises before, but not the Siberian kind. I'm not sure where I'm going to plant them, but I'm excited to have them!

I made Anhata's salad and it was great! I changed the dressing a little, though. I've had this bottle of red wine vinegar for a while but we've never tried it before. Well, I made the dressing and I disliked the smell of it so much I just knew I was going to hate the salad if I used it, so I threw it away and just used garlic, black pepper and a little olive oil instead. I'm not sure if it's just that bottle of red wine vinegar that wasn't nice, or if I just don't like it. It was very pungent Salad was lovely, though

Right on time, I have three sprouts from those tomato seeds! Two Mortgage Lifter and one Green Zebra. The instructions said 10-14 days, and it's been 11 now. Hopefully I'll have more tomorrow.

it occurs to me that your success with irises might be a good clue to what else your garden could grow... whatever soil it is that the irises particularly like is probably suited to other specific things.

I just had a quick check and it seems that irises aren't especially fussy, so that doesn't help much. Apparently though the rhizomes will rot in wet soil so it would appear that's not a big problem for you. It doesn't mention acidity of the soil so that's no help!

but one, a variegated called Alobo variegata with soft blue flowers and creamy streaks was described as reminding the writer of 'grape Fizzies'. So I'm guessing Anhata, that your mother's irises must be related to those somehow.

Kerri.

One of the Red Pear pots has a sprout in it today.

I'm starting to worry a little, though. That's only 3 pots out of 24 after 13 days. Is it possible to overwater seeds? My peat pots are starting to grow some mold.

Good idea with the irises, Kerri. It's true that they're not too picky, though--one of the reasons I like them is that they seem hard to kill.

It's been 15 days and I've got sprouts in 4 of 24 pots. This is not a very good ratio. I decided I should probably start another batch, just in case no more from the first one sprout. I think I made two mistakes with the first batch:

1. Some pots probably have no seeds in them. I say this because I found several tiny tomato plants when I opened the bag of potting soil I used the last time. Oops. When I filled some of the pots, I thought they were too full and scooped a little of the dirt back out. Guess I took some of the seeds along, too. This time, I made sure to add less and not remove any.

2. I may have overwatered. The instructions say 'mist' and I was dribbling instead. I'll have to find another watering bottle that can do mist.

I started 14 more pots, this time using some plastic containers. I think it'll be apparent which pots aren't going to sprout by the time the second batch would need the grow light. Hopefully I'll still get some tomatoes.

One of the Green Grape pots from the first batch has a sprout today.

Seems like one more from the first batch pops up each day.

I almost missed it, it's so little, but it's there! I hope I do end up with one or two of these--I'm curious to see "white" tomatoes.

I've got sprouts in 9 of 24 containers now, which I suppose is not too bad considering that 5-6 of the containers probably don't have any seeds in them! I wonder how long they'll keep popping up like this, one or two a day?

Checking on my tomatoes today I found another White Wonder sprout and a Cherokee Purple sprout. Then I looked at the second batch, though I didn't really expect anything from them for another 2 days. There were 5 sprouts! Watch me end up with more tomatoes than I know what to do with!

This morning 6 more pots in the second batch of seeds had sprouts in them! That's 11 of 14 pots already. One of them actually appeared between the time I got up and first looked at the plants and the time I came back to water them (about an hour). I could almost see it growing.

I'm guessing maybe the plastic yogurt containers I used the second time held more heat than the peat pots and kept the soil warmer. The peat pots I've taken out from under the grow lamp (with no sprouts) have all been quite wet and cool to the touch, and the instructions did say the soil should be at 70 degrees or better. I also put 2 seeds in each pot the second time around, giving me better odds, and didn't water quite so much. Seems to be working much better!

We've had nice weather the last few days, so I've been able to make some progress on my gardening. In the vegetable garden, I finished hanging the deer fence, raked in some compost and composted manure, and was finally able to plant the poor plants that've been languishing in the garage for a week or more. I found some Early Girl tomatoes (always good for tomatoes sooner), Sweet 100s (very prolific cherry tomatoes with great tomato taste--I always look for them), a Mr. Stripey tomato (red/yellow striped tomatoes, didn't grow well last year but I'm giving it another chance), and a Lemon Boy and a Golden Jubilee (because I love yellow tomatoes). And a Park's Whopper--I think that was the tomato plant that gave me such an amazing harvest last year. The peppermint I planted last year came back up, which gave me the idea of planting a few more perennial herbs around the border of the garden, just inside the fence. I planted spearmint, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme (yes, really!), Greek and Italian oregano, cilantro, basil, and catnip for my kitties. New for this year are yellow onions, spinach, eggplant, and red, yellow, and jalapeno peppers. And 4 cucumbers, of course. Maybe this year they'll survive. I think I'd still like to find a pumpkin vine and maybe some celery and cantalope, if I have room once I plant the seedling tomatoes.

I had a lot better luck with my second batch of tomato seeds than my first, but there are still 3 pots from the second batch sitting there with no sprouts. I think I've probably got enough of most of the varieties I was trying, though. I've got at least 2 Yellow Pears, Red Pears, Green Grapes, Green Zebras, and Mortgage Lifters. I have more Cherokee Purple sprouts than I know what to do with--I think almost all of them came up. I have 2 Black Krim sprouts in one pot from the second batch and that's it for that kind, and I have these 2 itty bitty White Wonder sprouts from the first batch that came up late and have barely grown. I'm not really sure those are going to make it. I wonder why they're so much smaller than the rest and came up so late? Providing they survive the move, there should be plenty of tomatoes for my garden. I need to read up on hardening off so I don't kill them all right off.

And finally, to round out my gardening madness, I need to get back to those poor overgrown front flowerbeds. I need to finish my weeding, add fertilizer, plant the new bulbs and flowers I've got, and mulch. I've got a few herbs I want to put in pots to try to bring in for the winter again next winter, and I bought some flowers to try to make a hanging basket for my front porch. I'm really looking forward to giving that a try, though I may kill off both that basket and the other one I bought if I forget to water. I'll have to work on that. We're trying to seed the bare spots in the front and back lawns where we either have poor soil or (in the front) where work was done on our well. Need to put down milky spore to try to kill the Japanese beetles, too, and spray the monster poison ivy vine in my backyard...someday. And plant two bushes. I think I'm going to be outside for months. At least the weather's nice right now!