Your family's gardening plans (with pics)

We've had our own problems with ants on our property.

What we did was contact the entomology department at the closest university.

After sending them some sample ants through the mail, they knew exactly what to use to get rid of our troublesome ants.

I don't know what research you have done for your ant problem, but that was how we got to our solution.

Diatomaceous earth (DE).

It’s like broken glass to insects. They walk through it, it scratches their waxy coating, and they ooze out and dehydrate to death. That’ll learn ’em…

I feed a few outside cats here, right on the front stoop, and ants will find the food and make their way up and into it. Disgrossting. Dusting the edges of the stoop with DE, and sprinkling it in the “garden” next to the stoop, and they stop coming.

Looks like crap if you do it right, like a bakery exploded and dumped flour all over the place, but it works.

We plant about one acre garden every year. We have/had peppers, tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, okra, onions, squash, and melons this year. The weather has killed just about everything but the okra so far. First months of spring it just about flooded us, so far this summer it’s been dry and super hot. What didn’t drown has burnt up.

learn something new EVERY day.

I wish I’d just taken pictures at the garden I just returned from. A friend is out of town for awhile and asked us to go by periodically and pick fruit. Peaches, apples, plums, tomatoes, bell peppers, squash, cherrie tomatoes, basil, citrus, flowers, and other stuff I’m not sure what it is. Its a bonanza over there, probably a 1/4 acre of just herbs and edibles.

This time the fruits mostly gone, so just basil, tomatoes, peppers and apples. Just . . . . :smiley:

We are planning on updating our landscaping, would love to have ocotillo, not sure it its hot enough in SB for that though?

@Streamer:

I got a hold of my sister.

She will look up cut ants.

We have cottontail and jackrabbits here, and they eat some of our plants.

She thought they would leave cactus alone, but they do not.

Maybe ants would leave cactus alone, but I wouldn't bet on it.

The DE you’d buy in home’n’garden stores likely has additives (<1%) to make it more effective against bugs, but there’s actually food-grade DE which, yeah, people can (and do) eat.

It’s basically just shells of sea-critters (literally, diatoms) that sank to the bottom and fossilised over time. Gets scooped out with backhoes, purified, and sold.

According to this website...

https://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/57648

...Ocotillo will grow in Oakland.

I think that if it'll grow in Oakland, it'll grow in Santa Barbara.

Ocotillo is very pokey, though, so you have to be careful where you plant it.

EDIT:

I looked up Ocotillo in my Western Garden Book, and it says it will not grow in Santa Barbara.

Thanks for the feedback RC, I suspected it would not grow well here, just not hot enough. But Oakland ! ! !

Here’s a picture of today’s harvest

Hungry… hungry… hungry…

I built my wife a new garden this year. Slightly raised, filled it in with about 8 tons of new topsoil.

We usually tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, onions, carrots, radishes, sweet peas, gourds, etc. Also tried lettuce, cabbage, and strawberries this year. Also have raspberries, rhubarb, and apples.


Very nice! :+1:

Wow, great job :open_mouth:

Here’s my container garden area before 2017 hurricane Harvey. I’ve got it pretty much rebuilt since but no current pics.

We grow tomatoes, peppers, squash, herbs, cucumbers, radishes, and broccoli. Also have a mint garden .

I could swear this pic was crystal clear back then. Dunno what happened. Yes I do. The pic was shot in panorama view, but Imgur apparently doesn’t accommodate it.

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We live in the sub Tropics here.
Lots a water. Then none for up to 8 months.
Most don’t bother watering the front grass.
It just goes differing shades of brown till it reaches black.
3 days after first rain it’s all green shoots again.

Me.
I’m a green concrete person. Hose down once a month.

Landscaped gardens are fine. On someboddy elses block thank you.
Nice to walk past occasionally.

PS Wonder why I lived on my yacht for yrs.
Rented out the unit.

We used to grow some of our own food...

But now where we live we have coyotes, and they are attracted to people food.

We don't want coyotes in our yard because there's a good possibility they might kill my dog if given the chance.

I grow carrots, onions, leeks, white beetroot, turnips, raspberries, blackcurrants, Morello cherries, Medlars, sweet quinces, tomatoes, and chillis. Unfortunately the chillis were not even the species claimed on the packet, had no taste and no flavour. Some tomatoes grew wild, from tomatoes discarded on soil, and they’ve grown into huge plants with very tasty fruits, far better than bought ones. Carrots, onions and leeks are easy to grow. Unfortunately blackbirds kept getting under the netting and digging up the leek seedlings, so I had to buy in leek seedlings from a garden centre, and plant those. When I removed the netting yesterday, I found the skeletons of two young birds. I checked each day to let out any trapped birds, but these were hidden from view. The juveniles get in even when the netting is held down with pegs and stones.

England is dark and damp in winter, but our climate is not so bad, and near perfect for 8 months of the year. But crops such as squash and chillis are hit and miss as they need lots of warmth and sun.

I had a pair of red legged partridges visit regularly, then 11 chicks appeared, but soon disappeared. We reckon a fox ate them all. :frowning:

Yesterday, my sister picked up a False Ocotillo from Home Depot.

It was only $8.

We'll grow it in its pot in a shady area until summer is over.

Then it goes in the ground.

The False Ocotillo has been in the ground for a while now.

It's in an area where wild rabbits like to visit.

They've eaten a bunch of the small leaves.

My sister sprayed it with some stuff that usually repels rabbits, but it hasn't worked on this plant.

So she added some chicken wire around it.

It still has some leaves left, and I'm sure it will be fine.

I think it loses all of its leaves once it gets cold enough anyway, as it is deciduous.

I just ordered an Aloe Hercules from Etsy!

This is my first Etsy purchase, and I really wanted this plant.

I'm so excited.

With shipping and sales tax, it came to about $20

It is quite expensive for such a small plant, but it should grow quickly and become quite large in maybe in a decade or two.

Here's a pic from the Etsy listing.

In the photo, the plant is in a 3" pot.

The Aloe ships bare-root, which is fine with me.

Growing catnip in a pot. Got that catnip “oregano” that comes in a plastic jar, apparently some viable seeds inside got wind-blown into the front dirt garden and even cracks in the sidewalk, started sprouting. Plucked a few of them, roots and all, and grew them in a small flowerpot, and most of them “took”.

Of course, Joel The Cat got a whiff of them on the windowsill, and head-bumped the living crap out of the biggest sprout, so now the bruised stem is bent and it’s hanging down.

Might snip it and try to get it to sprout roots, and let the stump hopefully grow back. Will see…

I received a Lemon Bean Bush, also from Etsy.

So now I have all the plants that I wanted for this year.

Once the Lemon Bean Bush is large enough, I will take cuttings and propagate it to make a hedge.

If someone on Etsy or eBay sells cuttings on the cheap, I'll buy Lemon Bean Bush cuttings.

By the way, the Aloe Hercules looks good, but it hasn't grown very much so far.

I think the green leaves darkened a little, but at least it's still alive.

I put some Carpobrotus chilensis (ice plant) cuttings around the Hercules.

So far they don't look that impressive, but they are growing quickly.

Here's a pic of my favorite ice plant.