What is the 2nd most rewarding plant?

[foxd]

Tomatoes

So far the tomatoes have not been terribly rewarding.

The heat has been making some of them split and the nice ones have been attacked by some critter, I suspect that bird that was going "Ooooloooooooooo" a few mornings ago. I drapped netting over the plants, maybe now I will get tomatoes.

First deer, then woodchucks, now some stupid bird.

[Alan_L]

I was going to say the same thing -- this has been a bad year for my tomatoes. Well, really everything in my veggie garden. Maybe I'm not paying enough attention to them.

The critter in my case was raccoons I think. They were not making an "Ooooloooooooooo" sound.

[Alex]

Out here we have had a very cool spring and summer. If we're lucky we will get one red tomato this year. In October.

[benboo]

mine are grrrrrrrrrrreat!

[stevelau1911]

Mine is around 5ft high and likely to grow another 2ft for so and it is loaded with hundreds of tomatoes.

[dudley]

if they wont get red fry em up green. yum.

[stevelau1911]

I just got all my blueberry plants planted that were started from seed over the winter planted today since they've filled up their seed racks and look big enough to handle the ground. They are only 3-7 inches tall now, but they should really fill in the gaps after a season of growth.

As shown, there are a lot of plants. Hopefully the same things that work on bamboo work on blueberries too.

[stevelau1911]

Since planting the seedling blueberries, I have purchased 13 large blueberry plants at a discount price of $2.25 a piece and put those in with the smaller plants. As they fill in, the smaller ones will be transplanted to other areas, and I'm hoping for the big ones to start producing some fruit by next year. I started another rack of seedlings back in October just to watch and see if I can grow them any better. I'll probably give these new seedlings a mini-dormancy cycle by placing them in the greenhouse by around March.

Here's one of the big ones after its leaf shed.


The little ones appear to be holding onto their leaves.


Another picture showing some growth that occured in early November.

[Iowaboo]

So how did you start them from seed? Did they have to be stratifed, were they cleaned of the fruit pulp?

[stevelau1911]

I purchased the seeds off ebay as a northern highbush mix which were stratified and close to half of them germinated. They do take about 4 weeks to start germinating to as long as 3 months, but overall they have much better germination rates than bamboo.

[stevelau1911]

Winter is finally over and just an update on blueberries, they can sit in their 1 gallon pots and be frozen solid unprotected at -9F over winter and sprout back the following year so they are extremely cold hardy. I have nuetral soil which has been tested, and blueberries will have discoloration when the PH is too high so all I had to do was lay down pine bark, and apply soil acidifier a couple times a year to fix the problem. Anyways here's some non- bamboo pics.

Blueberries: They look like stars when they open up like this and should bloom in the next couple days. Hopefully I'll get a good yield even on the 1st year.


The musa basjoos are really starting to show their growth after being uncovered for 3 days.


I've had one sempervivum (hens and chicks) species for the longest time, but I'm now starting to collect more. I'm finding that these guys are so easy to propagate, grow in almost any conditions, and don't mind brutal winters. The new ones I got went from quarter size at best up to nearly 2 inches with the largest ones. If they are just like what I already have, they will make their own chicks when they break the 3 inch mark, and when they're 3-5 inches, they are prone to flowering. Here's my favorite one so far.


Venus fly trap is much hardier than I once though as it went dormant, and came back alive after a winter in the same tarp I keep the rest of my potted bamboos. It should get bigger than it was last year in 2-3 weeks, and maybe even flower this year.


Bhut Jolokia hot pepper: This is supposed to be the hottest pepper there is with over 1 million scottsville heat units. I have other species as well. This particular species looks like it has the biggest leaves.


Actinada arguta issai kiwi plant: I don't know much about this plant yet other than it is cold hardy, and is supposed to be easy to propagate.

[stevelau1911]

After seeing mature stands of tree peonies of various kinds, I think I will have to say TPs are my second favorite plant. Last year I only planted a few seeds so I have a handful of seedlings however I do know of a neighbor with lots of these, and I harvested a few hundred seeds from her plants which I'll be planting fresh in the ground(I harvested them all ). I already have a bunch from before, as well as some bought online that were planted already so I'm hoping for them to come up everywhere. I think I have at least 5 or more varieties that should be coming up, in mass production next year as I succeeded in growing them this year.

I also lost half my seedlings which was painful because I thought it was OK to transplant them apart once their leaf looked fully grown by July or so, but I later learned that tree peonies should never be transplanted until they go dormant in late fall ie october or later, and summer is definitely not a good time to transplant them regardless if they have a woody stem already because I learned the hard way. I still have some seedlings along with grafted plants of various species so there will still be flowers coming on top of the sprouts that are on the way. I know there will be sprouts because some of the shallower seeds are already germinating now.

Here's all of the ones that sprouted in spring of this year. Can't wait to see how many I get in 2012.

[ocimum_nate]

I just gathered some tree peony seeds yesterday will plant them soon. Any tips Steve?

[stevelau1911]

All over the web, you will probably find people saying that it is best to germinate them in a plastic bag that is slightly wet with vermiculate, then put them in the fridge once the roots are a couple cm long, and plant them out in the spring, but I find that to much work.

If they are fresh seeds and you plant them straight out in a garden bed, maybe around 5cm deep and at least 7cm apart, many of them will likely germinate with the remaining warmth this fall, and some should sprout next spring, if not the summer, but some may take until the following spring. Overall TP seeds usually have a high germination rate 60% +.

The big catch is that they should not be transplanted until fall, maybe september or later because they often wilt and die if they are transplanted before they are fully dormant even if they already look like they have a woody stem over the summer. I have no experience with overwintering TP seedlings, but I would guess that a tarp or a layer of straw would work. I have read that young TPs are exceptionally prone to fungal diseases so they like to be kept relatively dry. This might be the best blog that can probably fill you in a lot better than someone with only a season of exp. http://crickethillgarden.wordpress.com/

[stevelau1911]

At this time of the year, I think garlic is probably the most rewarding. I really don't know when the ideal time to plant them is so I've been planting a bed of them every couple weeks, and just added another bed today which should only be a couple inches tall before winter.

Here's the blog with the pictures on them.