Gardening as therapy.

Nacy,

I love our Spanish moss too. Historically, it was used to stuff mattresses, pillows and furniture in Louisiana.

Omg I just loved the Spanish moss, it's so cool

Needs, the humidity is probably good for a lot of things.

The tour guy did say the garden center is called that because anything and everything grows there.

I heard you all get less wrinkles because of the humidity .

Nacy,

We do have long hot summers and high humidity but we also get a fair amount of rainfall here.

Some things must be hard to keep watered enough down their, with your humidity and sun?

Nacy,

I love the beautiful colors of zinnias.

It is fun watching something grow, very rewarding!

Needs, nice! About your peppers. it is fun to grow something, watching it grow, and then getting to enjoy what you did, feels so good. I don't do vegetables anymore. I got enough to keep me busy, between here and moms.

I like to grow zinnias, then I can cut them and put them on the table or give them to someone that needs a pick me up

Nacy.

Gardening is a lot of work! It is a nice hobby for those who enjoy it.

My grandfather never saw it as work because he loved it so much. Grandma would never have worked in the yard.

My dad loved to garden. Mom enjoyed it too.

I am seeing tiny peppers growing on my plants now! Yay! 😁

I remember when I was young, hearing that doctors consider gardening an exercise, thinking that was silly 😜.

Now day 3 of gardening, and my muscles are killing. Gardening is definitely an exercise! 🙂

I am feeling a little overwhelmed, thinking of all this spring work. We got rid of are pool, now turning the deck into a gazebo sitting area and filling it in and planning a flower garden in front.Got lots of flowers I seeded to plant.

And I just got my "tomato" plants in,

Not to mention moms! My flowers are going to look better than my mom's this year! 🙂

One step at a time, can't get it all done at once!

How about Dalilas, , I usually put them in the ground, but was thinking about big pots?

The cannas I do both, a few in the ground and a few in posts for the deck

My summer bulbs started growing in March so I shoved them out in my garden shed, just before a big deep freeze 😬
I've potted everything up but still no sign of life from the cannas.

Planted my canna Lily's this morning.

I love brussel sprouts. They taste like a combination of broccoli and cabbage to me.

I honestly have never heard of a mirliton. I just googled it, I've never even seen one.

I love vegetables, always willing to try new ones. I'm so suprised, I've never heard of them.

I even like brussel sprouts 😁

cw,

I love gazebos and trellises. They are so pretty!

Yes, seasoning and the way veggies are cooked makes a huge difference in taste. Who wants bland food? Yuck 🤮.

We can’t like everything. I still hate beets and butternut squash.

I was a picky eater too as a kid. I think it was when I first had Chinese food that I discovered a different way to make veggies and I've since grown to love almost all of them done in many ways. I still haven't found a way to make brussels sprouts palatable though, which is weird because I like all the other cole crops.

I spent the major part of the morning wrestling with the canopy for my gazebo, it's year 3 so I was afraid too much force might tear it to shreds. I think the people who design those things must be twisted sadists.

cw,

That’s true. We plant according to our environment.

Mirlitons thrive in our area. They are on everyone’s table for Thanksgiving dinners.

We eat a lot of vegetables I love to make soup and salads. I spend a fortune on vegetables at the grocery.

I like going to the farmers markets but they seem to be as expensive as the grocery.

We use a seasoning blend, referred to as the ‘holy trinity’ here. It consists of onion, celery and bell peppers. They even sell it fresh packaged in containers or frozen in our stores.

I think if kids are exposed to gardening when they are young they will appreciate it as adults.

I have to say that I was a picky eater when I was a kid. I drove my boyfriend’s mom crazy! She was a fabulous cook and invited me over to their home for dinner quite often.

I didn’t eat many vegetables then.
My boyfriend’s mother fixed that!

When I told her that I was excited to eat her chocolate cake, she told me that I couldn’t have any cake until I ate vegetables with my meal!

Hahaha 😆, it worked, because she made a killer chocolate cake, so I decided to start eating vegetables!

My mom didn’t force us to eat when we were kids. The nuns at my school were really strict about eating. I remember that well. That’s why I brought my lunch to school, because I didn’t like the school food.

As a kid, there were lots of vegetables that I wouldn’t eat. After trying them I loved them.

I had to look up what mirlitons are! They said it takes 5 months to begin to produce so they would never work here.
When I was a kid we mostly grew very basic veg - carrots, green and yellow beans, peas, onions, potatoes, beets, tomatoes and lettuce. One year I was in a 4-H gardening club that included more "exotic" plants like cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, celariac.

cw,

True, I wouldn’t want a huge garden either. Then, it would be work instead of a hobby.

My grandparents had a fig tree. The neighbors had a pecan tree. Daddy had a kumquat and lemon tree.

Grandma made fig preserves.

Do you have mirlitons in your area?
They are very common in Louisiana. They grow on a vine. We also call them alligator pears.

Also known as
Chayote squash or cactus pear. Daddy had no many that they offered the neighbors to take as much as they wanted.

Grandpa grew eggplants. We stuff eggplant and mirlitons with a seafood dressing here in New Orleans.

I haven’t gone on Reddit. I will look at it.

My friend who also gardens agrees with me that it's a good thing our families aren't counting on the garden for food because we'd all starve 🤔.
On my parent's farm the land was fertile and growing things seemed effortless in comparison to where I am now, aside from the challenges of two black walnut trees I've been told my property was once a heavy equipment yard, that's why I grow most things in pails and planters. For me gardening is supposed to be a fun hobby, too big and it risks becoming a gruelling and expensive slog.

I enjoy participating in r/gardening over on Reddit, there are both old hands and clueless newbies there.

Nacy,

LOL 😝

cw,

I am appreciative of your help. Can I appoint you as my gardening guru? 😁

I would like to plant herbs, squash, zucchini and green onions. Maybe some radishes too.

As I said before, I enjoyed watching my father and grandfather grow vegetables.

My mom’s dad grew everything! I was very close to him and loved helping him in his flower garden when I was a child. He had a big vegetable garden in the backyard. My cousin who lived in the country had a corn field. I was amazed when I saw his garden.

I didn’t know my father’s dad. He died before I was born. He was a farmer and had well over a hundred acres of land that he received from the military.

I suppose that my father had a love for gardening due to growing up in a farm family in rural Florida.

My dad grew his favorite things that he stuck with, not nearly as much as my grandfathers. His dad farmed and grew lots of fruit and vegetables.

Dad wanted to teach me about growing vegetables when we moved into our home. I wasn’t interested at that time and now I wish I had let him. Here I am at age 68 trying my hand at it!

I notice when it rains all of my plants perk up. Do you collect rain water to water your plants? Is it better than water from the hose?

LOL. I've been offered a few "tomato" seeds to try but I don't really have the space for those plants, plus my neighbours already think I'm weird.

I stick to growing what is illegal to grow in some states, keeps me very busy , specially in the fall. But I love doing it.

I'm just going to call them "tomato plants." So if I talk about how my "tomatos "are doing you will know 😂

cw,

This is good to know. I have five plants in my large pot. Can I move a couple of them to a different pot or should I not disturb them at this point?

They have little white flowers on them. I see new growth coming in too.

You are an experienced gardener. I do want to learn more and be successful with what I plant.

I took classes with LSU agriculture department and a landscaping architect, but it was a while ago.

I remember them saying not to bother planting garlic unless we wanted to wait the same amount of time it takes to have a baby! He said that it would be nine months before harvest. 😝

It depends on how many plants and how big your container is... you could probably do 3 plants in a big whisky barrel size planter. If the plants are too crowded they compete with each other for water and nutrients so they produce less, instead of 4 or 5 big peppers per plant you'll get 2 or 3 little ones.

cw,?

Thanks, so are my peppers going to be overcrowded since I planted them together?

Yeah, it is hard to toss good plants.

I plant in 5 gallon pails and they say they do best with only one plant per container so I'll need to pull out one of them. Even though I have way more plants than I can grow it's hard to toss perfectly good plants.
Those tomato cages can be good for peppers too!

cw,

One of my plants is taller than the other. It’s tipping over a bit. I can’t remember if my father had stakes to stabilize his peppers that he grew or not. He had them in a pot.

I know he had stakes on his tomato plants.

Your peppers will catch up to speed eventually. What do you mean by ‘cull’ the weakest one?

I have a variety of sizes that came in the group of peppers that I planted. I placed all of them in a pot together. Is that okay?

Rookie here. Maybe I should have read up on growing veggies a bit more.