Going to attempt to scale it down this year!

[sheeshshe]

Let's see how well I do haha. This year I am going to try and focus on simplicity. Less varieties of things, and more of the same type of thing. However, I have all kinds of types of seeds! I wonder if I can really do it or not haha. I will be starting seeds this week, wish me luck!

[lakngulf]

Let's see how well I do haha. This year I am going to try and focus on simplicity. Less varieties of things, and more of the same type of thing. However, I have all kinds of types of seeds! I wonder if I can really do it or not haha. I will be starting seeds this week, wish me luck!

Have Dirt, Will Plant!

[jal_ut]

My wife gets a good chuckle at me ........ every year I say, "I am cutting it in half this year." Then it ends up even larger.

Well I have all this seed, one should plant it right???

[sheeshshe]

My wife gets a good chuckle at me ........ every year I say, "I am cutting it in half this year." Then it ends up even larger.

Well I have all this seed, one should plant it right???

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!! we are all the same really I guess. that's why we're here at this forum haha. moral support!

[lexusnexus]

Sheesh, have you had good success with some and not others? That could be a narrowing factor for choosing what to grow and what not try again.

[skiingjeff]

My husband and I say we're going to "scale it down" each year as well....lol

So this year we did decide not to do the root vegetables because our mostly clay soil is still not soft enough for carrots and the like to grow no matter how we try to fluff it up each year.

Of course, that left more room for "other" things which is where we end up with the same size garden each year. We enjoy the fresh broccoli, cauliflower, summer squash, green and yellow beans soooo much! So since we had more room what do we do besides increasing those crops? We say "Let's try snow peas!"

As we live in the Northeast of the US what do we pick but an early to plant crop - figures right?

Oh well, another happy gardening adventure

[gardeningwithe]

Yeah, that is what I said last year, I am not going to expand for a couple of years (I had added a few small areas)...hahaha then my son wanted to add a circle garden so there goes that! I was sort of glad though- see honey I have to plant more this year- E made this great garden plan... lol. Good luck scaling down- it is so hard. I imagine after I have gardened longer it will be harder as every year I hear about different varieties and such- and get more seeds. lol

[applestar]

Yeah, how's that going for you? Every day I think of more things to plant. And the tiny seedlings that seemed so ...well... LESS in the beginning are getting bigger and taking up more and more room INSIDE.... Dawning realization that I may not have allocated enough room in the existing garden beds out there... AGAIN

[skiingjeff]

Yeah and who can kill the little guys?????

Yesterday my husband and I were out in the yard just checking things out and deciding what we can do out there at this point and he noticed that his Hamlin ornamental grass has several "new" baby grasses around it. So I said to him (like he tells me about my seedlings): "Your just going to have to get rid of them because we are running out of space for them."

He gives me this type of look so I said to him - "now you know how it feels when you tell me to throw away the baby plants! that don't fit"

It was a perfect moment....

[hendi_alex]

I know that I sound like a broken record, but this thread is dead on target at to why my varieties have been grouped. Each year, new varieties of tomatoes had to be tried. Each year more and more varieties of cucumbers were bought. Also, more and more varieties of bell peppers. As it turned out, nearly 100% of the seeds made great tasting veggies, each with its own special trait. Well things just got unmanageable. After all, how could we plant 4-5 plants of 40-50 varieties of tomatoes, when we need 35 healthy vines at most.

So now, we have a pack that is labeled black tomatoes which contains perhaps eight varieties. Each year the catalog is scanned for new interesting varieties and perhaps 1-2 new ones are bought, but also 1-2 packs of long time favorites are bought. Want to make sure that the favorites have good representation in the pack! Now when it is time to plant, ten seeds are planted from the black seed packet. We get ten random black tomatoes. Of course it is pretty easy to identify the variety when fruit starts to set. But exactly what we get is pretty much random. We have similar packs for medium salad, cherry/plum, large hybrid, etc. That is the only way that I seem to be able to hold the number of plants down to a manageable number.

The story is the same with cucumbers. Who has room for 20 varieties of cucumber plants. We have the three packs: Asian, pickling, and sweet slice. Just yesterday I planted 2 containers for each class of cucumbers. Whatever we get will be great tasting, and will also be a bit of a surprise, depending upon what was pulled from the packet. There is no way that I could decide which two varieties of each type of cucumber to plant, so chance now does it for me.

Not only does this work to help me simplify the garden. It also simplifies storage. My perhaps 50 individual packs of tomato and cucumber seeds now take a dozen or less packs for storage.

Note: some years the new seeds keep their identity during the test year. If they flunk then left over seeds are discarded. But most often, the seeds just go into the community pack. After all, it has been so seldom that a variety disappoints.

[imafan26]

I haven't much room to expand. I have narrow paths of weeds between my potted plants. The grass left a long time ago.

[rainbowgardener]

Yeah.... I'm still working on scaling UP. In the past couple years I put in the veggie bed in my front lawn, aquired a bed in community garden. Maybe this year I will look around see if maybe the community garden has another un-used bed I could have. Trying to do more with what I've got - ripping out stuff like raspberry that isn't real productive for me and replacing with stuff that will hopefully be more productive. Cut down a couple trees to let more sun in the garden. See if I can figure a space with enough sun,, where I could put a vertical garden, where it wouldn't shade out something else. Continue putting more herbs and veggies in the flower gardens....

And try to make sure I make use of everything my garden/ property produces - eat the weeds, make essential oils, teas and jellies and maybe wine and ice cream from all the flowers. ( I happen to know my birthday present will be ice cream maker attachment for my stand mixer! I'm looking forward to lavender ice cream and maybe lilac and chrysanthemum.) Collect the black walnuts. Plant more nut trees on my wooded hillside.

My very steep, wooded third of an acre can still actually produce a lot of food, if it is used intensively and without waste.

[rainbowgardener]

I looked up some of the ice cream recipes. I've been making jellies out of all kinds of stuff from my yard for a few years now. You can pretty much make jelly from anything edible just by pouring very hot water over it and letting it sit to make an infusion. After the water is infused, strain out the leaves/ petals and use the infusion for jelly making. Turns out ice cream works the same way except you make a milk infusion instead of a water infusion. Cool! I'm off and running. Once the ice cream maker arrives (I may ask the birthday fairy to bring it a little early, because my birthday is a bit after lilac flower season), I may end up with a freezer full of various ice creams. Harder to give away as presents, since you can't exactly just wrap it up in a gift basket and let it sit!

Found a recipe for lavender ice cream with dark chocolate chips that looks to die for...

[hendi_alex]

Eat too much of that stuff and it may very well be "to die for". I still enjoy ice cream from time to time, but very seldom and very small portions.

[applestar]

I'm sending rainbow a postage paid self addressed double-insulated package with dry ice. How much does two pints of ice cream weigh?

[sheeshshe]

Ok, I totally like that packet idea! put all the reds in one packet, yellows in another packet, purples in another, and SURPRISE!!!! love it!

Honestly, I need someone to grow my seedlings for me from now on. the last 3 years I've tried something new and failed miserably. I need to just go back to the old way I used to do seedlings. what a waste

[jal_ut]

Eat too much of that stuff and it may very well be "to die for".

Bah humbug. Scare tactics. What ever gave you that idea? Why would you say such a thing?

[rainbowgardener]

It was a bit of hyperbole. But I'm sure he was referring to the fact that all the home made ice cream recipes I have seen are very rich with lots of eggs and heavy cream. I am on cholesterol medication already. But it isn't like I am going to be making ice cream every day.

[sheeshshe]

we've been making coconut milk ice cream and it is SOOOOOOO good! we're dairy free and refined sugar free, so we've been getting the canned coconut milk from trader joes, it is only 99c per can, and using a little maple syrup and cocoa/carob powder or blend in mangoes or whatever other flavor we want to make it. it is so so so so good! mmmmmmmm.

[Cola82]

Yeah and who can kill the little guys?????

Yesterday my husband and I were out in the yard just checking things out and deciding what we can do out there at this point and he noticed that his Hamlin ornamental grass has several "new" baby grasses around it. So I said to him (like he tells me about my seedlings): "Your just going to have to get rid of them because we are running out of space for them."

He gives me this type of look so I said to him - "now you know how it feels when you tell me to throw away the baby plants! that don't fit"

It was a perfect moment....

Haha, I'm the same. I have to tell myself over and over, "You're a vegetarian--these aren't animals, you eat plants!" But still I keep rescuing seedlings and turning pruned trash into cuttings. -_-

Why is it so haaaaard?

[applestar]

Sheila, I am so going to try making that coconut milk ice cream!

Cola, I trimmed a significant portion of the trumpet honeysuckle which was shading my new tomato garden. Instead of tossing the vines in the woodpile or compost heap, I ended up making up cuttings and sticking them in several containers of potting mix, then pushing some more prunings (no significant prep) in the soil along the fence in several different locations, then the remainder armload went into a bucket of water so the hummingbirds can still have a go at the flowers while they are fresh.... Today, I put a feeder goldfish in the bucket since I can't leave an open bucket of water around without mosquito-proofing it.

[Cola82]

Cola, I trimmed a significant portion of the trumpet honeysuckle which was shading my new tomato garden. Instead of tossing the vines in the woodpile or compost heap, I ended up making up cuttings and sticking them in several containers of potting mix, then pushing some more prunings (no significant prep) in the soil along the fence in several different locations, then the remainder armload went into a bucket of water so the hummingbirds can still have a go at the flowers while they are fresh.... Today, I put a feeder goldfish in the bucket since I can't leave an open bucket of water around without mosquito-proofing it.

I just told my mom to tell her church friends I have tomato cuttings if they want them. I can't bear to keep throwing them out when I prune. We're degenerates.

Also that goldfish idea is adorable.