My parents weren't much into gardening, but my grandparents on my mother's side were very into gardening. They built a greenhouse onto their house and would start seeds inside, 100s if not 1000s of them. They would start marigolds for the garden that ran down the length of their driveway, and tomatoes and other veggies for the big garden in the backyard.
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| May 28, 2023 - Marigolds |
They were also into canning and preserving, even going to pick-your-own farms, gathering bushels of tomatoes, and spending days processing them into canned tomatoes to use throughout the year. My grandfather would make pickles and they both would can the tomatoes, and other veggies like beets. They also froze a lot of fruits and veggies.
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| June 26, 2023 - Watermelon radishes & tomatoes |
I doubt I will ever get into it that much, it's far cheaper now to go and buy canned tomatoes, pickles, beets... at the store. Seeds are cheap yes, but the canning supplies are not, and there is so much work involved. Also, I've never had much luck growing my own vegetables or flowers from seed. From rained out gardens to gardens plagued with pests, or gardens that just don't produce more than a few tomatoes or squash, that's been my luck.
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| July 20, 2023 - Still nothing ready for harvest |
This year I tried again though. I bought a kids' swimming pool and some bags of dirt -- we are blessed with gravelly loamy sand for our soil type, which isn't good for growing -- and planted a ring of marigolds for protection, and scattered some watermelon radish seeds. They took much longer than the packet said they would to come to maturity, and they were SO HOT. Also of the whole packet, I only got 5 actual radishes. I was also given some tomato seedlings from work (Ag in the Classroom started tomatoes this year) and bought a beefsteak too.
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| August 18, 2023 - The start of some lettuce... |
Only one beefsteak has deigned to grow, but have several Romas from the seedlings. And with most of the radishes gone, Jacqueline & I thought we'd try some leaf lettuce. So we've sprinkled a packet of those seeds across the empty space. They sprouted, but now seem to be disappearing. The tomatoes, though, are finally ripening! I hope they finish before the first frost!
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| August 20, 2023 - Ripening Romas! |
