A gardening thread

I've done the shovel only method in the past as well.  It is a good workout but the tiller can really break down the soil so that there are virtually no lumps in it which just makes it much easier to work with.

Clearing garden for planting over the weekend.

The creeping charlie and lemon balm were in the middle of a fierce battle for dominion over the garden.

I can´t complain about my tomatoes :hearteyes:


My violet peppers though... :sure:


And friend wanted "Bloodgood" maple

 Aw damn you!
They grow slower then baby stegosaurus!

My body is ready for Mach 5 then!

Are those tomatoes out in the open? I need a green house for that the spring has been so cold in here that everything is late. If the autumn starts early I'm worried that apples, cherries and pears wont ripen at all

Here is a little excerpt of my chili plantage. I can't plant them outside in the open, they require a very warm safe place and they need to be mobile so I can evacuate them into the garage when a heavy thunderstorm comes. They are very sensitive to wind. Greenhouse isn't an option either because of aphid infections, which is always devastating with paprika and chili type plants.


The left plant is a very rare specimen that grows in the Caribbean jungles, its leaves have a purple border. It produces round fruits with yellow tops and red bottoms that have an incredibly exotic taste. Level 10+ on the hotness scale.  

The plant on the right is a considerably milder but still hot Big Sun yellow Habanero. Level 9. 



This is a cute little guy, not very hot (level 5 or so) but produces a ton fruits very quickly despite its tiny stature. Its called ''Hot Heart'' because of the shape of the fruits.  



Chili blossoms. The blossom of hot chilis turning into a ripe fruit takes about 20-25 weeks of good warm summer weather. So I can expect to begin harvest in mid August. Its a tight schedule, a delay past September is dangerous because the temperatures start to decline very quickly in that time of year. These plants need warm weather and lots of sun. 



Tiny plant babies! 





My catwoman thinks onion patches make great cat toilets and excellent dust baths. 



Also giant poppy! 

Giant ambush beetle,

I have a bush of the giant poppy it is almost done blooming sadly. I did not know what it was (bought the house last fall) and left it to grow. The flowers are gigantic and love the bright red colour of the leaves.

Do you know if it will return or do I need to collect seeds from it?

Oh boy they definitely return -  The blossom in the picture comes from a small poppy plant I planted next to my raspberries and then forgot about. That was 5 years ago, every year it returns bigger and better with nearly no maintenance at all. Only when its extremal dry I will water it a couple of times. 

Thanks, my cat IS super cute, she loves to cuddle more than anything, even food. :dumb:


If you can keep the aphids at bay the greenhouse will surely make a great difference, but 4cm is very small for a paprika plant, there might not be enough time left for them to bear fruits, hard to say. But Finland is not exactly easy turf for those plants. I know in greenhouses in Iceland exotic plants (paprika, bananas) need two years to grow ripe fruits due to the lack of sunlight.

What I meant with sunlight is sun hours per day. Due to your location they might not gather enough sunlight per day to bear fruits due to their slow start. Paprika and Chili are EXTREMELY dependent on regular sunlight.  Even here in Austria we have just enough sunlight and sunlight intensity to grow them, any delay is problematic. 

Also, if you like poppy, here is a special one - Icelandic poppy. They're small and as the name suggests, they grow in Iceland, but also near glaciers. They might even grow in Finland, have you seen them growing in the wilds?    I grow mine in a special location in my garden that is always relatively cool compared to the rest  - it works!